143 réponses à ce sujet

[Burnouts3s3]

 

Recently, I've felt that the recent Bioware games (mainly Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3) have put an emphasis, if not an over-empahsis, on cinematic endings that seem to look great but leave a lot of open questions. While I understand the mystery of certain aspects can be entertaining from a writer's perspective, many of readers and audience would appreciate definitive answers to all of their choices and interactions with the companions. 

To which, i suggestion another solution: why not simply have text endings, based on choices, akin to Jade Empire and Dragon Age: Origins? It's easy to produce, much more simplier than recording dialogue, and will give satisfaction to fans of each character/aspect the player chooses to focus on. Even, if say, you wish to continue the series with sequels where you answer a character's fate in that game, why not simply tell us what became of that character by the end with a simple hint of text. For example, Morrigan would have her resolution in Witch Hunt but at the end of Origins, the game 'hinted' at the character's fate without giving too much away.

That, in my opinion, seems the best way to answer any linguering questions while still playing with upcoming mysteries.

[KENNY4753]

I don't know why BW wasted the time taking those random pictures but couldn't even throw in a paragraph explaining it and giving detail.

The Text ending for DA:O and Awakening were great. I enjoyed reading them. That way we got some closure.

[TsaiMeLemoni]

While the text endings are fine, I can see the move to cinematic endings as a way to lend more weight to what happens, and in some ways it can give the feeling that you as a player are still apart of the ending; with the text endings, for me anyway, there is a very abundant sense that things are over and you're no longer a part of the story.

[Kileyan]

I would guess that Bioware hates being nailed down to an ending. They like the ambiguous nature of a single breath scene or a green eyed scene, or a glowy explosion scene. They leave room for re-imagining them later if finances, fan pressure or whatever demand it.

Text is usually very succinct, if they had a scrolling line of text detailing what happened, then they could never change it, or say we didn't understand it.

[Johnny20]

Absolutely nothing. But Bioware is far to hip for that kinda thing now, yo.

[Tommyspa]

The text ending felt a little tacked on and a bit cheap to me. The way the Extended Cut for ME3 was used via slides and voice over was a lot better than text boxes.

[FlamingBoy]

there ok, but cinematic would be more appreciated

[ziloe]

Honestly, the last great ending I enjoyed that had cinematics, was Final Fantasy 9. If they did it like that, I'd be happy.

[MillKill]

I'm glad they didn't have them in DA2 or ME3.

They treat people like children that need to be told what happened instead of being able to infer it.

It makes choices much easier by ruining ambiguity.

It's a big violation of show, don't tell.

It brings up characters we'd forgotten all about and don't care about. Did we really need an ending slide for Bella the barmaid?

Most importantly: It handcuffs writers for future games. If they decide to ignore a slide for the sake of a better story, which they always should do if the story will be made stronger by it, it serves no purpose but to anger people with retcons.

Modifié par MillKill, 21 octobre 2012 - 04:47 .

[jackofalltrades456]

Yeah, because a purely cinematic ending worked soooo well in Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3...

I think for a game like Dragon Age, text epilogues work better. Especially if they're going to work with the import feature. This would be a great way of clearing up any unanswered questions and give us more closure to characters like the Warden and Hawke with them appearing physically in the game.

Modifié par jackofalltrades456, 21 octobre 2012 - 04:55 .

[MillKill]

Tommyspa wrote...

The text ending felt a little tacked on and a bit cheap to me. The way the Extended Cut for ME3 was used via slides and voice over was a lot better than text boxes.

This x 1000

Some textless slides, a VO that didn't spell out everything, and a good score. The EC was pretty much the perfect way to end the series.

[SpEcIaLRyAn]

They cold do something similar to Fallout where they have someone do a voice over of the consequences of your choices but instead show a short clip along with it maybe not directly showing the choice but for example the fate of a character after the game they just show him interacting with people or talking.

[Plaintiff]

They suck because:

1) They leave no room for interpretation, meaning writers then have to retcon, meaning players then baw about it.

2) If it's actually important, then it should be shown directly in the game itself, or in a sequel, not some ****ty sentence-long post-script.

3) If it's not important, then telling me about it at all is just a waste of my time.

[Dave of Canada]

Video Games are a visual medium, throwing in some text at the end to make you feel warm and fuzzy is lame.

[Battlebloodmage]

I prefer animated ending because it's more hand-on. I don't want to read what happen, I want to see what happen with my own eyes. Text ending is just a cheap way of reducing cost. The ending should be big. It would also work if it's a slide with voiceover explaining what happens, but text ending is just lazy.

[Vandicus]

Plaintiff wrote...



2) If it's actually important, then it should be shown directly in the game itself, or in a sequel, not some ****ty sentence-long post-script.

3) If it's not important, then telling me about it at all is just a waste of my time.

These 2. Especially the bolded one. I do not care to have the results of my actions handed to me in simple text. The results don't matter if they don't affect the gaming experience directly in some way. I really don't care if my Warden made a kajillion dollars and went flying around in a spaceship, if I never get to see any of this stuff.

Modifié par Vandicus, 21 octobre 2012 - 05:03 .

[upsettingshorts]

 It restricts the writers' freedom to tell the stories they want to in future installments.  This is a problem inherent in the combination of two of BioWare's core promises:

• Your choices will matter.
• You will be able to import your saves into the next game.

Anyone with a couple brain cells to rub together will see the problems with this.  In order to accomplish both at the same time, at least one of the following steps must be taken in each sequel.

• Go somewhere or to some time where those choices are no-longer relevant.
• Fully support all choices that could have been made at an exponentially rising cost in resources.

Or, in cases where those goals conflict with either each other or the story they want to tell:

• Retcon, handwave, or ignore choices.
• Don't import saves or choices at all.

Epilogue cards are an even bigger burden for the writers because they dispose of ambiguity.  Let's take Anders in Awakenings.  In a particular scenario, he can die in an epilogue card.  The only way in which he can explicitly die, I believe, is if you are not actually present to witness it.  So he dies off camera.  If there was no epilogue card, you as a player might assume he died, but are never actually told that he does.  That ambiguity would have allowed the writers to bring him back just as they did, by having him say he faked his own death.  Epilogue cards remove ambiguity and create expectations.

Let's take a look at Dragon Age 2.  You could make some decisions in DA2 that might have big consequences.  What did you do with Feynriel?  Did you send him to Tevinter?  How about the Dalish?  Or did you Tranquil him?  In DAO, you'd have gotten an epilogue card for each decision telling you what happened.  That'd back the writers into a corner, essentially forcing them to either pick a canon or disregard Feynriel entirely.  Now?  They can do whatever they want with him, more or less.

That's what's wrong with text endings.  If the game is standalone, like Jade Empire, then it's really no problem.  But the second you add in a sequel with narrative continuity you start running into issues.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 21 octobre 2012 - 08:17 .

[Arcadian Legend]

ziloe wrote...

Honestly, the last great ending I enjoyed that had cinematics, was Final Fantasy 9. If they did it like that, I'd be happy.

I agree, FFIX had an amazing ending, right from the final boss defeat to the end of the credits. (Or the optional card game;))

[esper]

If nothing else have been in text it feels like an weird shift of genre.

[Maria Caliban]

The lack of text endings in DA 2 and ME 3 have nothing to do with a move to cinematic endings. If you didn't notice, DA:O had a cinematic ending.

DA 2 didn't have a ending because they planned for there to be an 'Exalted March' expansion. The whole point of the framed narrative in DA 2 was that Cassandra *didn't know* where the Champion was because he or she had disappeared. It was a mystery that will likely be answered in DA: I.

ME 3 didn't have that type of closure because the developers specifically didn't want closure. They wanted speculation.

[Abraham_uk]

Mass Effect 3 extended cut ended in a similiar fashion.

[upsettingshorts]

Abraham_uk wrote...

Mass Effect 3 extended cut ended in a similiar fashion.

Yeah, and you could almost picture the Mass Effect team throwing up their hands and saying, "Let's just give them epilogue cards then."

[Blackrising]

I loved the text endings in DA:O and DA:A, to be honest.
They gave me closure, but left enough out in the open to allow my headcanons to flourish. And some of them had a much bigger emotional effect on me than any cinematic scene could ever have.
For example: My first Warden sacrificed herself and one of the epilouge sliders detailed how Oghren settled down eventually and named his first daughter after my Warden.
I cried. like. a. little. girl.
It truly felt like a bittersweet end. For one, they couldn't have shown all the epilouge sliders if they went with cinematics. And it could never have affected me that much.

So I vote they bring back the text endings.

[philippe willaume]

Personally it is not the media it is the content that matters.
if cinematic tells as much of a story and brings as much closure as the text i don't care how it is done.

I partially agree with Upsettingshorts that having the decisions that matters and game imports.
has consequences on the writing.

where i disagree is that it drastically limits the writers, it is like saying that horse riding limit people potential to be a great jouster.
it is really the opposite you must be a good rider if you want to joust. so if you are a writer you should be able to take what is there and make a good story non the less.
it seems to work with ME

Anders could just have been replaced by bob the mage, people who will care about anders are the one that liked him or the one that killed him.
if it was the plan like it seems to have been with anders in Awakening to use him later. "but his body was never found in the his death epilogue would be fine.

in any case, "retcon" as in this char coming back from the dead is very current in literature or movies. As long as it is consistent with the lore it is fine.
phil