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[Iakus]

EntropicAngel wrote...

frostajulie wrote...

That is your opinion. a legitimate one and you are entitled to it.  I completely disagree.  My opinion is also not wrong.

it is wrong, because the purpose of Mass Effect, what always was, was to resolve the Reaper conflict. Literally everything main-quest was about defeating the Reapers.

Shepard defeated (or co-opted) the Reapers. Shepard won. There are no opinions. I'm not trying to be mean, but people refuse to see the truth. Anyway, we're digressing.

And the archdemon was defeated by the Warden in DAO...

[upsettingshorts]

iakus wrote...

That's just it though.

It doesn't matter to you  what happens to your character.   And that's fine.   It does matter to other people though.  And they might prefer to pay a different price.

And like every other thread on the BSN, we arrive at the conclusion you can't please everyone all the time.

Given that, I'm willing to let the writers do whatever they think is compelling.  They're the ones that have to put in the countless hours of work to actually make it happen.  Sometimes that means we'll like the story, sometimes it means we won't.  That's just how it goes.

"But shorts!  They should know what we like and don't!"

Sure, but let's not get ahead of ourselves with these threads.

Modifié par Upsettingshorts, 27 octobre 2012 - 08:10 .

[aries1001]

Storywise, in the west a story has a beginning, a middle and an ending. This is how that ancient Greek, Aristotle, defined a story. And that's why other ways of telling a story (also known as the narrative structure) seem unfamiliar to us, e.g. how movies from Bollywwod, India, are told. Or how the Japanese or Chinese or African tribes tell stories.

In both DA:O, DA2 as well as all three Mass Effect games, we had a beginning, a middle as well as an ending. We might not like how the story was presented, was told, or some characters were in the games, but the game still ended. We might not like the endings, but we'll still get one, an ending, I mean.

As for having a happy ending, some games need to have those, not all games need to have a happy ending. (or movies). I like movies, games or books with open endings where we as an audience need to think a little and maybe in our minds continue the story. I like a happy character as much as the next one, but where is the development possibilities there. (warning: small spoiler for Downtown Abby, and yes it is relevant here).

In the new season three of Downtown Abbey, there's a wedding which takes place; another wedding doesn't take place. The youngest sister do not get married. And why do I mention this?
Because this shapes her destiny, her future, and her deciseness in the months and years to come. The same can be said for Fenris, for Isabella, for Morrigan, and yes for Hawke herself.
To have experienced hope, love, betrayal, and to have overcome this is a sure sign of maturity, in life - as well as it is for characters in a video game.

I can understand why people need to relax and just nok think a lot when playing videogames. Migt I advice you then not to play Bioware's games? Today, there are a number of games out there, which lets you play, no, not without thinking, but will help you to relax after a hard day's work, e.g. Fate, Torchlight, and such games. I'm nearly 50 now, and if there's one thing I learned during my long life it is this: Everything in life needs to change, if it doesn't it'll either be doomed or consumed.

[Iakus]

EntropicAngel wrote...

iakus wrote...

And the archdemon was defeated by the Warden in DAO...

your point? Both of them succeeded.

Point is, The Warden could choose the sacrifice needed to kill the archdemon.  Shepard could not.

[toots1221]

In my opinion the ME3 ending isn't a
good example of bittersweet, it's just plain bad. I have never had a
video game leave me feeling that terrible. And now since the extended
cut I can't even shoot starbrat in the face anymore.
I've read books and played games with bittersweet endings that I
loved, ME3 wasn't one of them. The ending in DAO if you choose not to
do the ritual with Morrigan is a good example of a well done
bittersweet ending.

I personally hope that DA3 has at least a
semi happy ending. I prefer happy endings and I'm just a little tired
of depressing endings. I also hope that DA3 has a decent amount of
closure for the protagonist because I do care what happens to the
person I've been playing as. For instance ME3's ending wouldn't have
felt so hopeless to me if Bioware hadn't left Shepard lying broken
and bleeding in a pile of rubble in the only ending she could survive
in. Even a quick scene with a rescue crew finding her would have made
things a ton better.

[The King of Amateurs]

The problem for ME3's ending as far as I'm concerned wasn't that there was a bittersweet ending, but that it was the only ending. Nothing before that moment even matter, any choices you made through out the trilogy are just thrown to side, and your given the choice between Blue, Red, and Green. The EC only fleshed the poor ending out more, didn't fix the problem, becasue the problem was that Bioware decided to throw in a stupid Deus Ex Machina, instead of allowing our choices to actually affect the ending.

I won't mind a bittersweet ending as long as its not the only kind of ending, they're should be a range of endings from happy (the hardest to get) to completely horrific. Let my choices matter.

Modifié par The King of Amateurs, 27 octobre 2012 - 08:16 .

[Iakus]

EntropicAngel wrote...

iakus wrote...

That's just it though.

It doesn't matter to you  what happens to your character.   And that's fine.   It does matter to other people though.  And they might prefer to pay a different price.

Actually, it DID matter to me. I usually skip over iot, because it's not really the argument, but I DID care about my Shepard, and I felt the ending (Destroy, high EMS but below 4000) was fitting, perfectly fitting.

But being a hero isn't about you. That's...that's pretty much the definition of a hero. A hero is laying down their wants and desires for a common good. If you want to be a hero, you have to be selfless, and one's state of life or death after accomplishing the mission isn't particularly selfless. I might rather be alive, but if I die in the service of the galaxy, there's absolutely no way I can say that's not okay.

Being a hero isn't about you, true.  But playing an rpg is.  Or at least, it's about your character and your choices.  This is not a combat simulator.  The fates of Earth and Thedas are not intertwined.  This is a medium for entertainment.  Some find playing a self-sacrificing hero entertaining.  Othersthnk a live hero is better than a dead martyr.    There should be room for a wider swath of people to enjoy the game than we got in ME3.

[Nerevar-as]

iakus wrote...

EntropicAngel wrote...

iakus wrote...

And the archdemon was defeated by the Warden in DAO...

your point? Both of them succeeded.

Point is, The Warden could choose the sacrifice needed to kill the archdemon.  Shepard could not.

Well, he could... it was just too contrived. The AD sacrifice was something that kind of made sense and had been hinted at, however the conditions of Shepard´s sacrifice were out of nowhere and seemed put there because Walters and Hudson wanted a bad ending: we have a machine that can perform a miracle, but needs to fry you to make a copy of your mind, turn your body into "organic energy" (??????????????), or walk towards an exploding tube when shooting from a distance made much sense. It´s the difference between a well made bittersweet ending and a Diabolus ex Machina that didn´t fit at all with the tone and thematic of the previous 100+ hours of story. It´s even worse than the ending of Mostly Harmless.

[Allan Schumacher]

iakus wrote...

Being a hero isn't about you, true.  But playing an rpg is.  Or at least, it's about your character and your choices.  This is not a combat simulator.  The fates of Earth and Thedas are not intertwined.  This is a medium for entertainment.  Some find playing a self-sacrificing hero entertaining.  Othersthnk a live hero is better than a dead martyr.    There should be room for a wider swath of people to enjoy the game than we got in ME3.

Is choice about having the ability to simply choose different outcomes to particular events, or about driving the narrative specifically in the way that one wants?

[Iakus]

[quote]EntropicAngel wrote...

[quote]iakus wrote...

your point? Both of them succeeded.

[/quote]Point is, The Warden could choose the sacrifice needed to kill the archdemon.  Shepard could not.
[/quote]

I don't understand how that's relevant to what I said. I was saying that Shepard succeeded--and he did. There's no arguing that (unless one picked Refuse, which I hear has an appropriately unsatisfactory conclusion).

[/quote]

I'm not arguing that they both succeeded.  I'm saying that in DAO, the Warden can succeed more on the player's terms.  To an extent, the player could choose the "bitterness" that they'd be willing to swallow.  While in ME3, everyone had to drink from the same bottle, so to speak.

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

iakus wrote...

Being a hero isn't about you, true.  But playing an rpg is.  Or at least, it's about your character and your choices.  This is not a combat simulator.  The fates of Earth and Thedas are not intertwined.  This is a medium for entertainment.  Some find playing a self-sacrificing hero entertaining.  Othersthnk a live hero is better than a dead martyr.    There should be room for a wider swath of people to enjoy the game than we got in ME3.

Is choice about having the ability to simply choose different outcomes to particular events, or about driving the narrative specifically in the way that one wants?

Driving the narrative is ultimately unrealistic.  The archdemon has to be killed.  the Warden can't flee to Kirkwall and hang out with Hawke instead.   But I think choice should be about being able to shape outcomes, yes.  To try to steer things more to our liking.  Or, failing that, to mitigate unpleasant events.  The archdemon has to be killed, but the Warden can shape who pays the price for it.

[Wulfram]

I think the chief problem with DA2's ending was that it was too focused on setting things up for the future. So the ending was kind of drowned in the sequel hook, and Templar supporting Hawke's never really got a chance to enjoy being Viscount before Varric takes it away again.

Though also we could have done with actually seeing some of the mages that Varric tells us survive, in the mage-supporting ending.

[Il Divo]

iakus wrote...

But it's not about choosing tragedy or a "superior" course.  It's about choosing different outcomes.  What one person finds tragic, andother might be indifferent over.  And what one might find happy another wouldn't.  

That's exactly what it's about. Superior courses make the notion of grim dark futile. Hence the point about how there cannot be a superior form of action. For the same reason, I don't like that a simple EMS rating helps determine how screwed the galaxy is or the design of the suicide mission. That's why I emphasize the Virmire situation so much: pick your poison.

This is why DAO is held up as a model for that, and ME3 is ridiculed for failing at it.  In one, you choose what you must sacrifice while in the other, the sacrifice is always the same.

In the Dark Ritual, the player sacrifices nothing for a guaranteed outcome: everyone survives and is the better for it. People try to emphasize how the Dark Ritual may come back to haunt us later, but I don't see it happening, due to Bioware's current track record with the import function and they didn't really portray the Dark Ritual as all that dark to begin with. DA:O is not a model I want Bioware to be copying if they can't follow up on the consequences. Personally, I agree with the threads wanting to remove the import function. 

Expecting the players to headcanon consequences of the DR is about as fair as headcanoning Shepard's survival.

Modifié par Il Divo, 27 octobre 2012 - 08:49 .

[Mark of the Dragon]

I prefer bittersweet endings if it suits the story. I love ideas of scrificing yourself for the greater good or suffering in some other way. Hero's should not always be able to save the day and walk away unscathed.

In games like DA and ME, which focus on choice, I do think there is room for both happy and sad endings based on the choices you make. Look at DAO the ability to determine the fate of the Warden is cool but it could have been done better then having that final choice change everything. In case of the ME endings I am one of the people that liked the fact Shepard could sacrifice himself but I do believe the option to survive in one ending should have been there.

In the end I think in Bioware games there are definitly room for happier endings (especially where the protagonists fate in involved) and more bittersweet endings (hero dies, etc.). The ability to make choices should dictate what happens to our hero. I for one would like to see a game where the bittersweet ending forces the protagonist to leave his LI and others behind never to return, because for some reason it is for the better good.

[Iakus]

EntropicAngel wrote...

iakus wrote...

I'm not arguing that they both succeeded.  I'm saying that in DAO, the Warden can succeed more on the player's terms.  To an extent, the player could choose the "bitterness" that they'd be willing to swallow.  While in ME3, everyone had to drink from the same bottle, so to speak.

That's a fair point, though it wasn't particularly related.

The problem with that is, how do you do that? In DA you're presented with a moral choice that allows victory without survival, and a questionable choice that allows victory with survival. What's your questionable choice for victory with survival?

I'm not sure I understand the question.  All the options led to victory, with the Dark Ritual being the  only "questionable" one.  None of the outcomes were perfect, but it lets the players decide which one was "good enough"

[Iakus]

[quote]Il Divo wrote...

That's exactly what it's about. Superior courses make the notion of grim dark futile. Hence the point about how there cannot be a superior form of action. For the same reason, I don't like that a simple EMS rating helps determine how screwed the galaxy is or the design of the suicide mission. That's why I emphasize the Virmire situation so much: pick your poison. [/quote]

"Pick your poison" is exactly what I mean.  If you can't have perfect, what are you willing to settle for?  That's fine.  What's not okay is forcing a single definition of "bittersweet" on the entire audience.  Which is what ME3 did.

[quote]
This is why DAO is held up as a model for that, and ME3 is ridiculed for failing at it.  In one, you choose what you must sacrifice while in the other, the sacrifice is always the same.
[/quote]

In the Dark Ritual, the player sacrifices nothing for a guaranteed outcome: everyone survives and is the better for it. People try to emphasize how the Dark Ritual may come back to haunt us later, but I don't see it happening, due to Bioware's current track record with the import function and they didn't really portray the Dark Ritual as all that dark to begin with. DA:O is not a model I want Bioware to be copying if they can't follow up on the consequences. Personally, I agree with the threads wanting to remove the import function. 

Expecting the players to headcanon consequences of the DR is about as fair as headcanoning Shepard's survival.
[/quote]

Well, me personal favorite is "Redeemer" though I do have a Dark Ritual Warden ready in case there is a continuation of that choice 

But the chocie between the Warden, Logain, or Alistair (and the DR if there was consequences) make for a far better option than "pick a color and DIE!"

[Iakus]

EntropicAngel wrote...

iakus wrote...


I'm not sure I understand the question.  All the options led to victory, with the Dark Ritual being the  only "questionable" one.  None of the outcomes were perfect, but it lets the players decide which one was "good enough"

You mean just like how all three options in ME3 (just like only 3 in DA:O) are different ways to acheive victory?

All three options in ME3 were essentially three variations of Ultimate Sacrifice.  Great if that's what you're into.  No option to pick another way, pay a differnt price.