591 réponses à ce sujet

[Mello]

See the thing that upsets me with ME3 is that it's a game that you make choices.
And since it was supposed to be a game where your choices matter I was expecting multiple endings, which they TRIED to do. I was expecting a tragic ending, a bittersweet ending, and an happy ending depending on what choices we made through-out the game.

[Dave of Canada]

Don't mean to target you, Wynne--just the most recent post which I can really respond to without dragging something from a few pages back.

Wynne wrote...

Why everyone loved Shepard is that she always fought no matter what the circumstances.

If you're Paragon.

So the third game essentially took away the message of "you can always keep fighting everything that's wrong with the world, and something good will probably come of it" and turned it into "except you actually can't! Because the universe is much bigger than you and it knows better. You can't save what you love, just choose how it burns." Thematic whiplash much? You could call it a narrative betrayal.

Not really, it's how the Renegade was played throughout the entire series. No victories at heavy cost all the damn time and the overarching feeling of "what's the point"--least the endings didn't give you a truly superior alternative.

Games should have a believable level of happiness, they shouldn't be utterly depressing! That is not compatible with fun or escapism.

What's considered a "believable level of happiness"? Why must all games follow said level? Why can a video game not be considered extremely depressing and bleak while other media is exempted from the same conditions? Why do BioWare games recieve a lot of flak if a game doesn't cater to the player's whims while others like The Walking Dead are praised for crushing them?

Show a little love for your audience. Give them at least a fighting chance at a victory that isn't hollow. Because all it takes is one bad day for someone to decide it's really not worth it anymore. 

When many people don't consider defeating the Reapers a victory unless they live and reunite with their love-interest, I question whether or not many posters are interested in the overarching themes and conflicts or simply their (likely) self-inserted character and their love life.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 27 octobre 2012 - 02:27 .

[frostajulie]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

David7204 wrote...

What stories are there that aren't about those things?

A story is quite literally simply a sequnce of events, which may or may not be fictional.  For example:


My friend had his birthday today.  He invited me out, and I joined his family for dinner.  It was a fun time, and afterward we went back to his place where he, his sister, and I watched an anime called Black Lagoon.  I just got home from this about 30 minutes ago.


I just told you a story.  It's a non-fictional one.

Aaaand I would never play this video game. To me thats Davids point and it is a good and valid one.  It is why ME3 fails completely and why many fans myself included worry that DA3 will suck balls just as bad. which is a shame because DAO was amazing best game I ever played and replayed.  ME1 and 2 were mind blowing experiences of entertainment, good times and shared conversations with my stupid alcoholic brother.  ME3 quite literally made me sick at the end I was incredulous that I could invest so much time in a franchise only to end feeling so horrible and as pointed out in the OP devs think this kind of ending is a good thing.

Every GOOD story is about the hero who succeeds god David I could stand up and applaud you fo that post because it was spot on.

[Solmanian]

Pzykozis wrote...

TS2Aggie wrote...

If I may interject:

In my opinion, Dragon Age: Origins handled the bittersweet ending just perfectly. If you wanted a tragic hero, you got one. If you wanted your hero to live, they could, but not without a cost that is yet to be determined. Everyone was happy, and no one was forced into accepting one outcome for their Warden. The epilogue slides forebode of the potential consequences of our actions in a 'realistic' manner. In short: it was done properly and with respect to player agency.

I have wondered if it is just me who sees the final choice as a non-choice... for me its got nothing to do with heroism or whatever it just boils down to; "do I want my warden to randomly commit suicide?" (or do I suddenly wish Alistair / Loghain to die) or "do I just not want to die?".

Anyway there's nothing depressing about fighting something you know you can't win and losing, infact that's far better to me than standard power fantasy which is depressing to me mostly just because to me it really kinda makes a mockery of writing in general, even Beowulf died against the dragon. Someone just punching Cthulu to death would be the most depressing thing I could ever read.

Well if you want live and not sacrifice the other warden, you have to sacrifice your unborn child. For a soldier to sacrifice a baby to save his skin... The word cowardice doesn't even begin to describe it. Using a baby as a meatshield? how low can you go?

[Dave of Canada]

frostajulie wrote...

Every GOOD story is about the hero who succeeds god David I could stand up and applaud you fo that post because it was spot on.

I'd like to introduce you to most critically acclaimed literary work, film and games--you seem to have missed out on them.

Modifié par Dave of Canada, 27 octobre 2012 - 02:29 .

[Il Divo]

Upsettingshorts wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Call it what what you want. End of the day, it's the 'good' option and the 'smart' option being the same thing. Which is outstanding writing. If you want contrived 'tough calls' that force you to be helpless and make a lose-lose, there's plenty of games out there that do it.

This is nonsense, as "the good guys win and everything is always all right" is probably the cheapest, least-fulfilling stuff one could possibly imagine.

Your assumption that all such calls need be contrived, and that good is always smart, fly in the face of reality and dramatic examples in all media beyond counting.  

I agree his point is terrible.

It worked in KotOR because pretty much every dark side decision is oriented around your character wanting to cause pain and suffering, sadistic as it might be. There was no "good" and "smart"  only good and evil, which worked. But broadly-speaking, the Renegade Philosophy, as Bioware tried to portray it, wasn't supposed to be about being evil, but about cost-effectiveness. Is it worth it to pay a price now to avoid a higher cost down the line? Renegades might say yes, Paragons might say no.

Dumbing it down so that Renegade is always incompetent while Paragon is smart, as per the OP's suggestion, is a trash idea.  

Modifié par Il Divo, 27 octobre 2012 - 02:36 .

[Icesong]

Palipride47 wrote...

Nashimura wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Things don't happen to characters because they're in stories. They're in stories because things happen to them.

Heroes are at risk of failing. For every character like Shepard, there's ten million that come close and fail. But the story isn't about them. It's because [/i]they failed that the story isn't about them. It's about the [i]one who succeeded.

David, What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this forum is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.

That's why I screamed "troll" and gave up trying to have a meaningful convo. 
Arguing for the sake of arguing, using strange convoluted logic to keep arguing a point everyone has diasgreed with him on, on an irrelevant thread about a problem still being solved with constant free DLC since March 2012. 

There's constant free DLC solving the ME3 ending "problem"?

[Il Divo]

Dave of Canada wrote...

frostajulie wrote...

Every GOOD story is about the hero who succeeds god David I could stand up and applaud you fo that post because it was spot on.

I'd like to introduce you to most critically acclaimed literary work, film and games--you seem to have missed out on them.

Yeah, can't say I agree with that either. Watchmen especially was a phenomenal deconstruction of heroes. Great ending too.

[Lennard Testarossa]

Il Divo wrote...
 Is it worth it to pay a price now to avoid a higher cost down the line? Renegades might say yes, Paragons might say no.

Sadly, in ME, if the price wasn't paid, there never was a higher cost, which is why the series' Paragon/Renegade system sucked.

Modifié par Lennard Testarossa, 27 octobre 2012 - 02:38 .

[Il Divo]

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

Wynne wrote...

What should a good story leave the audience feeling? What do you, as a writer, want the audience to take away from your story? A feeling that life is meaningless and no one should bother trying because it will always turn out the same mostly-horrible way? Or that when your instinct is to give up you should fight that, because when you fight, you at least sometimes get through, and regardless probably made some kind of positive impact even if life seldom turns out the way you fully expected and hoped?

There is no default feeling an audience has to be left with in order for a story to be good.

I, for one, do not play rpgs to escape real life. I do not want stories to be motivating and positive, I just want them to be interesting and well-written.

Besides, what one feels when confronted with a certain kind of ending differs from person to person. Uninteresting and unbelievable good endings filled with simplistic notions of heroism depress me, while an interesting bad ending makes a thoughful and - in a sense - happy.

Agreed.

[Lennard Testarossa]

About the whole "the hero should succeed"-thingy:

It'd be nice not to distinguish between good and evil, but rather between selfless and selfish. A hero's most imporant attribute is his selflessness. Thus, if we're talking about what ending one should receive based on one's choices, playing a hero (or paragon) might result in a better outcome for everyone and a high personal price to be paid (i.e. death), while selfish and "evil" actions might result in half the world burning but also in the MC receiving wealth and power and keeping his life.

[Shaun2406]

Il Divo wrote...

Lennard Testarossa wrote...

Wynne wrote...

What should a good story leave the audience feeling? What do you, as a writer, want the audience to take away from your story? A feeling that life is meaningless and no one should bother trying because it will always turn out the same mostly-horrible way? Or that when your instinct is to give up you should fight that, because when you fight, you at least sometimes get through, and regardless probably made some kind of positive impact even if life seldom turns out the way you fully expected and hoped?

There is no default feeling an audience has to be left with in order for a story to be good.

I, for one, do not play rpgs to escape real life. I do not want stories to be motivating and positive, I just want them to be interesting and well-written.

Besides, what one feels when confronted with a certain kind of ending differs from person to person. Uninteresting and unbelievable good endings filled with simplistic notions of heroism depress me, while an interesting bad ending makes a thoughful and - in a sense - happy.

Agreed.

Yup, I'm going to sign here as well .

Though I can sort of understand some of the frustration with Mass Effect 3. The problem was that the first two games let you have victories at no (well almost no) significant cost, and very happy uplifting endings. You could (more so in ME2 but sort of in ME1 if you focused the fleet on Sovereign) have a less than happy ending if you wanted, but you could also have a near perfect ending. And Mass Effect 3 took that away.

As an analogy, if Alan Moore wrote a sequel to Watchmen (which he'd never do, but anyway  ) that had an extremely uplifting happy ending where the heroes saved the world and everyone loved them, it would REALLY annoy a huge number of people, especially because, like ME3, it wouldn't be clear before hand that this was tone the ending would take (cause you dont' spoil your own ending), and the assumption would be the ending would be (tonally) like the previous book.

Similarly though, I like the bittersweetness in Dragon Age, and would not want that changed as its been a part of the series so far (and an element I'm quite fond of, even if its pretty mild for the most part), and changing Dragon Age 3 to be an extremely uplifting victory at minimal cost style ending would be... Inconsistent. And probably, for the reasons above, not a huge amount more popular than the Mass Effect 3 ending.

[Pzykozis]

Solmanian wrote...

Pzykozis wrote...

TS2Aggie wrote...

If I may interject:

In my opinion, Dragon Age: Origins handled the bittersweet ending just perfectly. If you wanted a tragic hero, you got one. If you wanted your hero to live, they could, but not without a cost that is yet to be determined. Everyone was happy, and no one was forced into accepting one outcome for their Warden. The epilogue slides forebode of the potential consequences of our actions in a 'realistic' manner. In short: it was done properly and with respect to player agency.

I have wondered if it is just me who sees the final choice as a non-choice... for me its got nothing to do with heroism or whatever it just boils down to; "do I want my warden to randomly commit suicide?" (or do I suddenly wish Alistair / Loghain to die) or "do I just not want to die?".

Anyway there's nothing depressing about fighting something you know you can't win and losing, infact that's far better to me than standard power fantasy which is depressing to me mostly just because to me it really kinda makes a mockery of writing in general, even Beowulf died against the dragon. Someone just punching Cthulu to death would be the most depressing thing I could ever read.

Well if you want live and not sacrifice the other warden, you have to sacrifice your unborn child. For a soldier to sacrifice a baby to save his skin... The word cowardice doesn't even begin to describe it. Using a baby as a meatshield? how low can you go?

that would have made the choice harder except for;

A) Morrigan assures you it'll be fine and since shes the one that knows about the thing/ritual/whatever and shes the one giving birth to the baby i'll take her word over anything else
That "Baby" could barely be considered more than a puddle of water at that point. Coupled with A it's not really even anything like sacrificing a baby.

Essentially a choice of whether I want to kill myself or live.

[Xilizhra]

When many people don't consider defeating the Reapers a victory unless they live and reunite with their love-interest, I question whether or not many posters are interested in the overarching themes and conflicts or simply their (likely) self-inserted character and their love life.

Probably because Mass Effect is a character-focused series with a non-character-focused epilogue. Most Bioware games are character-focused, really, and the theme of choice encourages people to want to take the best options and make everything turn out well.

It'd be nice not to distinguish between good and evil, but rather between selfless and selfish. A hero's most imporant attribute is his selflessness. Thus, if we're talking about what ending one should receive based on one's choices, playing a hero (or paragon) might result in a better outcome for everyone and a high personal price to be paid (i.e. death), while selfish and "evil" actions might result in half the world burning but also in the MC receiving wealth and power and keeping his life.

We should note that the majority of players are going to be playing the game for selfish reasons, i.e. to have fun, and won't necessarily enjoy selfless death when it doesn't help anything IRL. That particular dichotomy is one that'll likely annoy many people who want the best ending. For me personally, ME3 did something kind of like that and I adapted, but not perfectly.

[Pedrak]

So bittersweet endings are a clichè and endings where the hero triumphs without any sacrifice are not?

People need to stop making the equation
- ME3 ending sucked
- ME3 ending was bittersweet
- All bittersweet endings suck


Bad syllogism, guys. Somewhere, Aristotle is crying. And frankly, I find it depressing that of all the issues ME3's last act had - lack of logic, plot holes, crappy final mission, rushed conclusion - what seems to make some people angry is that they didn't get the chance to ride into the sunset with their LI toward a life of quirky happiness and little blue babies.

There are well done bittersweet or even sad endings, and well done more classical happy endings. There are mediocre grimdark cliched sad endings, and mediocre trite Disney endings.

And then there are rushed endings, which are always bad and the biggest problem Bio has with endings right now.

Modifié par Pedrak, 27 octobre 2012 - 03:52 .

[GloriousDame]

I want to have a happy ending in DA3; I think it's just a challenging to make a happy ending that makes sense as a tragic one that makes sense. While ME3 ended on a sour note that didn't quite make sense, DAO and DA2 both had great endings (happy enough in my book).

That being said, why are you judging a series you haven't played yet? Why are you even here? If you are still bitter about the ME series' ending, then post in that forum. It's lucky that the DA series has had a different lead writer than ME, but there you have it. Different lead writer, different game.

Modifié par ArinTheirinCousland, 27 octobre 2012 - 03:47 .

[Welsh Inferno]

Pedrak wrote...

So bittersweet endings are a clichè and endings where the hero triumphs without any sacrifice are not?

People need to stop making the equation
- ME3 ending sucked
- ME3 ending was bittersweet
- All bittersweet endings suck


Bad syllogism, guys. Somewhere, Aristotle is crying. And frankly, I find it depressing that of all the issues ME3's last act had - lack of logic, plot holes, crappy final mission, rushed conclusion - what seems to make some people angry is that they didn't get the chance to ride into the sunset with their LI toward a life of quirky happiness and little blue babies.

There are well done bittersweet or even sad endings, and well done more classical happy endings. There are mediocre grimdark cliched sad endings, and mediocre trite Disney endings.

And then there are rushed endings, which are always bad and the biggest problem Bio has with endings right now.

Bittersweet endings seem the most difficult to write from what I'v seen. But for me they're easily the best endings there are when done well. 

@thebolded There was definately a lot of that going on. Really annoying when the real problems of that ending were getting ignored by masses of people who just wanted to ride into the sunset...

Modifié par Welsh Inferno, 27 octobre 2012 - 03:58 .

[Adanu]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

David7204 wrote...

It should explain a lot.

That's what a story is. By nature, a story is about the exceptional, the unique, the uncanny, the unexpected, the unlikely.

This is simply incorrect.

He's phrasing it wrong; he means to say that video game stories, by nature, are about exceptional or somewhat unique individuals. Otherwise they're boring as entertainment. There are plenty of stories... but ones we'd be interested in buying in video games? The story has to appeal.

[Medhia Nox]

I do not think they should be concerned with an overlying "tone" of the story - so much as being consistent with the tone the story ends up in - and having natural alterations to that tone as demanded by the story.

 Write the story - not the genre.

Modifié par Medhia Nox, 27 octobre 2012 - 04:38 .

[JamieCOTC]

Plaintiff wrote...

Oh lord, here we go again. As usual, I'm going to open with this:

In synthesis Shepard is sacrificed so the galaxy can have Utopia (even before the EC).  Shepard gets to be heroic and the galaxy feasts on space ice cream and cake.  I think the ending was supposed to be bittersweet, but that's not what we got.  What we got was an anticlimactic ambiguous mess. I’ll take bittersweet over “speculation from everyone” any day of the week. 

Modifié par JamieCOTC, 27 octobre 2012 - 04:46 .

[L. Han]

Halo Reach and Halo 3's ending was bittersweet but it was fitting and quite awesome.

[silentassassin264]

David7204 wrote...

Heroism needs to matter.

You have said this in almost every post I have seen you make.  I believed it was wrong the other dozen times and I believe it is wrong now.  Ethics, morality, and "heroism" a subjective and mean nothing.  A biblical example (if you are an atheist just use it as a story), is King Hezekiah who was sick and dying and asked God to give him 15 more years.  He did live longer and decided to be all nice and kind as a way to give back so to speak.  His enemies took advantage of his kindness and sacked the place, betraying him.  Doing the right thing, having "morality" and being a hero is nice is it makes you sleep better at night but it is still stupid.

In WWI, Germany played by the rules for the most part (didn't do anything worse than Britain or France were doing) and for all intents and purposes were the "good" side.  A terrorist killed the leader of their ally Austria and they demanded that the terrorist was turned over to face justice.  The allies supported the terrorism and were quite literally prepared to go to war over it (and did).  The straw that broke the good guy, Germany's, back was when they sank the Lusitania.  The Lusitania was an American cruise ship which on first glance might have seen like it was dirty and cheap.  On second glance, the US was flagrantly breaking neutrality laws by sending military provisions on a civilian ship to give to Britain and then crying foul (even though Germany had all of the civvies taken off the ship before it was sank so there were no casualties).  The "good" guys in the war ended up losing and being forced to pay for all the damage and debt caused by the war.  That is like the Taliban killing Queen Elizabeth, England going to war with them, and somehow losing and being forced to rebuilt (or after all this, just build) all of the Taliban's stuff.  

Having blanket immunity for heroism and morality creates a very stupid, unrealistic, and boring story.  In real life, it doesn't matter if you always do the right thing or you are heroic, you can still be beaten down and have to pay from cruel retribution.  The Dragon Age series has all been rating M and targetted towards adults.  If this was for children and you were making a sanitized fairy tale ala Disney, then by all means, lie and tell them all things work out for good and the heroes always win, etc etc.  We are adults.  We should get a real story.  Sometimes the "heroes" fall and sometimes "villains" get away with murder.  That should be apart of this game.  If you want something were good always prevails in the end, watch Disney.

[Xilizhra]

In WWI, Germany played by the rules for the most part (didn't do anything worse than Britain or France were doing) and for all intents and purposes were the "good" side. A terrorist killed the leader of their ally Austria and they demanded that the terrorist was turned over to face justice. The allies supported the terrorism and were quite literally prepared to go to war over it (and did). The straw that broke the good guy, Germany's, back was when they sank the Lusitania. The Lusitania was an American cruise ship which on first glance might have seen like it was dirty and cheap. On second glance, the US was flagrantly breaking neutrality laws by sending military provisions on a civilian ship to give to Britain and then crying foul (even though Germany had all of the civvies taken off the ship before it was sank so there were no casualties). The "good" guys in the war ended up losing and being forced to pay for all the damage and debt caused by the war. That is like the Taliban killing Queen Elizabeth, England going to war with them, and somehow losing and being forced to rebuilt (or after all this, just build) all of the Taliban's stuff.

So... what was the excuse for Belgium? And wasn't Austria-Hungary a fairly tyrannical occupying power? The point of WW1 was that it didn't really have a "good" side.

[Iakus]

[quote]Dave of Canada wrote...


What's considered a "believable level of happiness"? Why must all games follow said level? Why can a video game not be considered extremely depressing and bleak while other media is exempted from the same conditions? Why do BioWare games recieve a lot of flak if a game doesn't cater to the player's whims while others like The Walking Dead are praised for crushing them?[/quote]

Games can be sad and depressing.  But a game that claims to allow player choice to shape events should offer alternatives to it.  Or else what's the point of offering us chocies at all?  We might as well be playing Alan Wake with dialogue options that case.

Even Walking Dead, awesome game that it is, doens't offer choice as such.  The game "tailors" itself.  We can make Lee say certain tings, react certain ways, and the other characters react to our reactions.  But Lee cannot alter events to any significant degree.  

[quote]Show a little love for your audience. Give them at least a fighting chance at a victory that isn't hollow. Because all it takes is one bad day for someone to decide it's really not worth it anymore. 
[/quote]

When many people don't consider defeating the Reapers a victory unless they live and reunite with their love-interest, I question whether or not many posters are interested in the overarching themes and conflicts or simply their (likely) self-inserted character and their love life.
[/quote]

And I say, so what if they do?  It's their character to love.  Be it Shepard, Hawke, the Warden, or even the Bhaalspawn.  The players make them, shape them, give them personalities and have them make choices.  If Bioware then chooses to take them away and burn them without any input from the player, those players have every right to be p*ssed off.

[Iakus]

Welsh Inferno wrote...

Pedrak wrote...

So bittersweet endings are a clichè and endings where the hero triumphs without any sacrifice are not?

People need to stop making the equation
- ME3 ending sucked
- ME3 ending was bittersweet
- All bittersweet endings suck


Bad syllogism, guys. Somewhere, Aristotle is crying. And frankly, I find it depressing that of all the issues ME3's last act had - lack of logic, plot holes, crappy final mission, rushed conclusion - what seems to make some people angry is that they didn't get the chance to ride into the sunset with their LI toward a life of quirky happiness and little blue babies.

There are well done bittersweet or even sad endings, and well done more classical happy endings. There are mediocre grimdark cliched sad endings, and mediocre trite Disney endings.

And then there are rushed endings, which are always bad and the biggest problem Bio has with endings right now.

Bittersweet endings seem the most difficult to write from what I'v seen. But for me they're easily the best endings there are when done well. 

@thebolded There was definately a lot of that going on. Really annoying when the real problems of that ending were getting ignored by masses of people who just wanted to ride into the sunset...

I've seen exactly one unavoidable bittersweet ending done well in an rpg (note I said 'unavoidable") and that was Planescape: Torment.  

The only game to really pull it off was possibly the single best cRPG ever made. "Difficult" is putting it mildly 

Which is why "chance" is so important.  Players should have a "chance" to create a better ending.  Options can allow for sliding scales of "bittersweet"  DAO proved it was possible.  But players generally shouldn't be forced to accept just one definition of "bittersweet" in any game that claims to offer choices that matter.
 
At any rate, I think the equation people are following is

ME3 ending sucked
Bioware thinks it was awesome
OMG what if they try it again!?