287 réponses à ce sujet

[Dave of Canada]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I don't think there's any argument over what is the best ending for ME2

You've not seen the lengths I've gone to justify keeping the base, Mr Schumacher!

[Dominus]

I'm indifferent over whether the ending(s) qualify as happy or sad. I've seen enough endings on both sides of the spectrum, that I'd rather put more concern on whether an ending is meaningful or resonates with said player. 'Happy' or 'Sad' does not necessarily determine whether an ending is of High-Quality.

[Allan Schumacher]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I don't think there's any argument over what is the best ending for ME2

You've not seen the lengths I've gone to justify keeping the base, Mr Schumacher!

I did forget about the base, that's true.  I was more just thinking in terms of the squad survival.

[Vandicus]

Dave of Canada wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I don't think there's any argument over what is the best ending for ME2

You've not seen the lengths I've gone to justify keeping the base, Mr Schumacher!

Think he was talking about all squadmates surviving+Shepard surviving vs the game over can't continue into ME3 ending, especially in light of the base's near irrelevance in ME3(unexpectedly it does change the war asset requirements for the various endings for ME3).


Also, the Collector Base is too dangerous to let fall into Cerberus hands! Death to Cerberus and their space ninjas. 

*EDIT

Apparently ninja'd. Perhaps a relation of Kai Leng? 

Modifié par Vandicus, 07 octobre 2012 - 04:11 .

[Direwolf0294]

Something else I was to add in addition to what I said above, a lot of the time these non optimal, bittersweet endings feel more like screw over the good guy endings. They're endings that reward jerkish/evil behaviour while the good guy gets nothing because they're the good guy and as the good guy they're expected to be happy with nothing.

Using ME3 as an example, there's a good ending (synthesis), a neutral ending(destroy) and an evil ending(control). If you've played through the series as a renegade/jerk/evil Shepard, the ending's awesome. Either you'll go for the control ending, as you have no moral qualms about enslaving an entire race, and get rewarded with what basically amounts to godhood, or you choose the destroy ending, as by this point you've probably already genocided half the universe and killed a bunch of your friends so what's two more species and another friend, and get rewarded by living. On the otherhand, if you're a paragon/good Shepard the choice become much harder and either way you lose. You either have to sacrifice your morals and choose control, in which case you're no longer paragon/good, choose destroy and live the consequences of genociding two species and killing a good friend, which is something that will be a lot harder to do for a paragon Shepard than a renegade Shepard, or you choose synthesis, save the universe and end up dead.

Being evil rewards you, being good punishes you.

It's similar in DA:O. Be good = die, take a darker path = live. I'm sick of the good guys always getting screwed over in RPGs and I'd like it to stop. Why can't the good guy get something for once?

[devSin]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

I don't think there's any argument over what is the best ending for ME2, but DAO there is discussion about it due to some inherent uncertainty.

In what context? Everybody dying vs. nobody dying, or saving the base or destroying it?

Because I very much disagree that there isn't any argument over the latter (which turns out to be absolutely meaningless, of course), and I'd say that is what constitutes the ME2 ending (the suicide nonsense is just the gameplay mechanic of the final mission).

And I'm not aware of any "inherent uncertainty" in Origins. Somebody has to die, or you take Morrigan at her word. Where's the uncertainty? Or do you think that the ritual is a narrative trick and will later turn out to be the inarguable right or wrong ending based upon the result, and so any opinion over which ending is best hinges not on stuff that's actually part of the game but on some future revelation (and how would that be any different than players determining which decisions were correct at the end of ME and ME2 based on the arbitrary war asset assignments in ME3)?

[Vandicus]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Direwolf0294 wrote...

Something else I was to add in addition to what I said above, a lot of the time these non optimal, bittersweet endings feel more like screw over the good guy endings. They're endings that reward jerkish/evil behaviour while the good guy gets nothing because they're the good guy and as the good guy they're expected to be happy with nothing.

Using ME3 as an example, there's a good ending (synthesis), a neutral ending(destroy) and an evil ending(control). If you've played through the series as a renegade/jerk/evil Shepard, the ending's awesome. Either you'll go for the control ending, as you have no moral qualms about enslaving an entire race, and get rewarded with what basically amounts to godhood, or you choose the destroy ending, as by this point you've probably already genocided half the universe and killed a bunch of your friends so what's two more species and another friend, and get rewarded by living. On the otherhand, if you're a paragon/good Shepard the choice become much harder and either way you lose. You either have to sacrifice your morals and choose control, in which case you're no longer paragon/good, choose destroy and live the consequences of genociding two species and killing a good friend, which is something that will be a lot harder to do for a paragon Shepard than a renegade Shepard, or you choose synthesis, save the universe and end up dead.

Being evil rewards you, being good punishes you.

It's similar in DA:O. Be good = die, take a darker path = live. I'm sick of the good guys always getting screwed over in RPGs and I'd like it to stop. Why can't the good guy get something for once?

I completely disagree with this analysis.

Likewise.

Since when is killing an entire species(two if you count the Reapers but the Reapers are Always Lawful Evil, so not really evil imo) and a friend in order to stay alive(which is a metagame decision actually) neutral?

I say this as a guy who always picks destroy(yes even with paragons).

*EDIT

Actually Destroy is presented a pretty clearly the evil/wrong choice, assuming Shepard is not RP'd as thinking he is being indoctrinated.

A. Told synthetics(including Geth and EDI) will not survive
B. Told that Shepard himself won't survive("Even you are part synthetic") while at the same time it is implied that other people who rely heavily on "synthetic" equipment will die
C. Upside? The cycle of synthetics killing organics will continue anyways. Wait, no that's not an upside. Control at least offers the possibility of Reaper/Shepard stopping the cycle, and synthesis tells you the cycle will stop. Destroy says it'll actually start all over again

Modifié par Vandicus, 07 octobre 2012 - 04:24 .

[Plaintiff]

I don't think there should be "Happy" endings or "Sad" endings. People should be able to decide for themselves which ending is the most positive one. There should be room for individual interpretation.

[Allan Schumacher]

And I'm not aware of any "inherent uncertainty" in Origins. Somebody has to die, or you take Morrigan at her word. Where's the uncertainty?

The uncertainty is the Dark Ritual. No one can be certain of what it means to perform it.


EDIT:  Without discussing ME3 much further (lets try to keep this spoiler free too), I'll also add that it's clear that someone things one of the endings is clearly evil, whereas I do not think that that ending is evil in the slightest.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 07 octobre 2012 - 04:35 .

[Shinobu]

*SPOILERS FOR DA2 AND ME3*


Part of the reason I haven't replayed either DA2 or ME3 (or bought DLC for either) is that I felt railroaded into a "bad" ending my PC wouldn't have chosen if given other options. My Hawke wanted to side with the moderates and end the mage war. Well, too bad. My Shep wanted to convince the Reapers to leave without enslaving, fundamentally altering or wiping out anyone. Well, too bad. In DAO the endings weren't perfect, but at least they were palatable. Plus, I had a range of possibilities in DAO that were lacking in the other two games. The Warden could die, or run off to Orlais with Ailstair to eat cake. Hawke never got the option to free Anders, except in the most final sense. Shepard never got the chance to have a house, Turian mate, 2.3 Krogan babies and Urz without betraying her friends.

Modifié par Shinobu, 07 octobre 2012 - 04:49 .

[devSin]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The uncertainty is the Dark Ritual. No one can be certain of what it means to perform it.

The uncertainty is the future.

What it means to perform it is to have sex with Morrigan and father an abomination. (Or to get poor Alistair to do it.)

But even ME2 has this "uncertainty". What will happen if the base is saved or destroyed? Which decision is "best"?

(To point, I get what you were saying, but I don't think ME2 can be viewed as just whether or not you screw up the suicide mission.)

Modifié par devSin, 07 octobre 2012 - 05:22 .

[brushyourteeth]

I don't know if I even believe in "happy" or "sad" endings in the DA universe, but I did definitely feel like DA:O had a deeper sense of resolution to it. Not every outcome was awesome, and as Wynne says in "Awakening", even though their mission succeeded and the Archdemon was killed, Denerim was a nightmare and a tragedy. But the game ended in triumph. In celebration. In remembrance. You did what you came to do. You could take a deep breath and smile about it, even if your smile went along with some tears.

I didn't get that from DAII (which was likely the way the developers wanted it, as a sort of segue into the next game), and I didn't enjoy its ending as much. I didn't feel "happy" (read: "satisfied") about it. I felt unsettled. I felt like I hadn't really finished the job. I felt like I'd let Thedas down. It wasn't even really a sad ending, but it still felt like a tragic one since everyone seemed to lose and nobody seemed to know what to do next.

So would I like to have that feeling of accomplishment back again? Definitely. But if the developers choose not to take us there again so soon, I understand why -- killing an evil dragon is sometimes easier than taming the evil inside the human/elven/dwarven/kossith heart, and that seems to be a bigger part of our problem in the next thing.

Modifié par brushyourteeth, 07 octobre 2012 - 05:00 .

[Direwolf0294]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

And I'm not aware of any "inherent uncertainty" in Origins. Somebody has to die, or you take Morrigan at her word. Where's the uncertainty?

The uncertainty is the Dark Ritual. No one can be certain of what it means to perform it.


EDIT:  Without discussing ME3 much further (lets try to keep this spoiler free too), I'll also add that it's clear that someone things one of the endings is clearly evil, whereas I do not think that that ending is evil in the slightest.

Is that someone me? 

To rephrase what I've been saying, for me, all of the endings presented in DA:O and ME3 felt negative and unrewarding, and as such I would enjoy it if DA3 had a possible ending that did feel positive and rewarding to me and that for me personally a happy ending would be one where the good guy protagonist doesn't get screwed over, as I felt they had been in DA:O and ME3, as well as several non BioWare RPGs (Fable 2 and Fallout 3 spring to mind). If the good guy must get screwed over, I would request that it's not because of an ultimate sacrifice. If a game includes an ultimate sacrifice option, because of the way I RP good guys, I/they are obligated to take it.

Using ME3 again as an example, and trying not to spoil anything, I would have prefered if the only option had of been destroy and control and that synthesis had not been included at all. Looking at DA:O, I would have prefered the only options were Dark Ritual or let a companion die, rather than let the Warden die.

[devSin]

Direwolf0294 wrote...

Is that someone me?

I thought it was me.

I don't know what's going on anymore.

Direwolf0294 wrote...

Looking at DA:O, I would have prefered the only options were Dark Ritual or let a companion die, rather than let the Warden die.

As long as it could be Morrigan who gets sacrificed.

Two birds with one stone!

In any event, I found ultimate sacrifice to be moving and inspiring. I had a phenomenal time, and I think the denouement and epilogue were splendid.

Undoubtedly, one of my all-time favorite video game endings (I can't say it's my favorite, because I haven't seen it enough times—that game's too long!). I would be thrilled to have something similar in DA3, although I know David and the team can do even better.

[Allan Schumacher]

devSin wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...

The uncertainty is the Dark Ritual. No one can be certain of what it means to perform it.

The uncertainty is the future.

What it means to perform it is to have sex with Morrigan and father an abomination. (Or to get poor Alistair to do it.)

But even ME2 has this "uncertainty". What will happen if the base is saved or destroyed? Which decision is "best"?

(To point, I get what you were saying, but I don't think ME2 can be viewed as just whether or not you screw up the suicide mission.)

I did state that I forgot about the choice at the end.

Though is it really a parallel?  The advantage the Dark Ritual has is that it's done and you do see some in game consequences (your characters don't die) for the choice.  It affects what happens immediately after it in the same game, which makes it stronger IMO.

[KawaiiKatie]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Rather I think, having the option of letting our characters bend the narrative. (which is, I think, a minor but significant difference)

The reason I phrased it the way that I did is because a lot of times it came up in the ME3 forums when people that liked the ending didn't want a DLC that added a more definitively happy ending. The common response was often "well you don't need to choose that ending if you like the current one."

The thing is, whether it be my character or even Allan the game player, ostensibly choosing a suboptimal outcome knowing that a superior outcome is the likely consequence of a different choice is not really much of a choice at all. It wouldn't make any sense for Allan or Shepard to have made a different choice!

Reading this thread, I keep coming back to this quote here, the idea that knowing that an "optimal" choice exists isn't really a choice at all. And... I really have to disagree!

Even if the choice for a "happy" ending exists, the choice for a "dramatic" ending is not diminished. What makes one ending "optimal" and another ending "suboptimal" is entirely subjective, even in ME2--while one person might argue that the "No One Left Behind" ending is the "optimal" ending because everyone survived, another might just as strongly argue that their ending where Shepard's love interest died is the "optimal" ending because it really underscored the sacrifices Shepard is willing to make to stop the Reapers. It really comes down to player perference. "Happy" endings should not be removed or avoided simply so that people who enjoy "dramatic" endings don't feel like they are making the "wrong" choice, because the truth is, when both option exists, everyone can get exactly what they want.

The way I see it, if someone tries to tell you that the choice you made in your game is "lesser" than the choice they made in their game, they really aren't the sort of person worth listening to.

[Chaos Lord Malek]

There should be no happy ending, just a shades of gray and black.

[Sarcastic]

This is the best part of how the import feature in the DA series functions. Because each game covers a different protagonist the import from the previous game is just effect. I liked how my Hawke ran into Allistar in my play though as he was on some quest. I also like how that might not have happened if I had him "save the world" in DA:O. I like how Isabella recognized Leliana, so on and so forth. These features are what makes the save import a much more engrossing play experience then I would normally have while gaming.

For the most part when I play a game or watch a movie I try to see the game/story the way the director/creator intended. With this in mind I can only hope that they will tell a story one day that explains where all my characters ran off to.

[guntar74]

I just want an ending were I can feel like I accomplished alot and be proud of it.

[eroeru]

We need unexpected consequences and efforts regarding real risks and problems, unlike, for example, the suicide mission.

[Maria Caliban]

Sorry. No happy ending.