591 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

EntropicAngel wrote...

iakus wrote...

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.

That's true. The ME options were more about shaping the world--about your decisions having an outcome--than DA:O, where it was just about whether you would live or not.

I see your point, I hope you see mine.

I do.  I just don't see why we can't have both.

[WhiteThunder]

The issue isn't that ME3's ending was bittersweet. Bittersweet endings are great, just look at Not Fade Away. My Shepard didn't need to survive for me to be happy with the ending. The issue was that the ending was terribly written. A god LITERALLY came out of a machine. After that happens, no extension of an ending can redeem it. It is fundamentally broken.

[robertthebard]

iakus wrote...

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.

As can Shepard, even though two of those endings are unappealing to me, they do shape who survives, and how they do so.  All four choices do, actually.  It's just that, in one, it's not so hot.  Are they appealing to the fanbase?  Not so much.  However, that doesn't mean they didn't.

However, the point is, the narrative must be driven.  The Warden must stop the Archdemon, one way or another, there is no option to go to Kirkwall, as you said.  There is no character agency about this, no player agency either, you must do it.  You can't wait until the entirety of Denerim is in ruins, so much so that it cannot be rebuilt.  You cannot wait until all the human armies are laid waste, no matter how you might feel about humans in general.  You must end the blight, just as you must become a Warden.  It is impossible to tell a story in a game without driving the narrative forward., which is what I expect the game to do.  It doesn't necessarily have to drive it to where I want it to go, but it does have to drive it to the end.  If not, it becomes another game I don't finish.

[WhiteThunder]

EntropicAngel wrote...

WhiteThunder wrote...

The issue isn't that ME3's ending was bittersweet. Bittersweet endings are great, just look at Not Fade Away. My Shepard didn't need to survive for me to be happy with the ending. The issue was that the ending was terribly written. A god LITERALLY came out of a machine. After that happens, no extension of an ending can redeem it. It is fundamentally broken.

That's debatable, and ultimately unrelated to DA discussion.

It was however, related to the discussion set forth by the OP as to the importance of "bittersweetness."  I was disagreeing with his assertion that the issue with ME3's ending was that it attempted to be bittersweet.  I assumed it was implied that this meant I would not object to DA3's ending being bittersweet, but I guess I needed to clarify that for people who think it's debatable that a literal Deus ex Machina is bad writing.

Good thing you were here, Mr. Self-Appointed Moderator.

[WhiteThunder]

Sorry, that was a little rude of me.

[BomimoDK]

David Gaider wrote...
Insofar as the storytelling itself, I do not and will never believe that every story must have a happy ending in order to be considered a good game. I would edge towards a preference that the player must feel like they've accomplished something, even if they had to pay a heavy price for it, but that's not required for a good story. Whether or not that's required for a good game is slightly different, if not entirely divorced from the story which is told in the context of that game.

This seems to be reflected across bioware in general. ME2 had it all the way, Origins had a bit of it and DA2 was just SOAKED in it (just without the accomplishing things part... in my perspective (which is important to note is just my perspective.)).

[Nurot]

I like bittersweet stories. I like stories that live on in my mind even when I am not playing/reading/watching and bittersweet stories have a greater tendency to do that, I find. But I want to emphasise that the sweet part is as important as the bitter part to me. Without the highs it is hard to endure the lows. A story that is mostly bitter can be great, but I feel so bad about it that I keep feeling depressed all day afterwards. Luckliy, the DA games have the perfect mix, just like the Song of Ice and Fire books.

Edit: There doesn't have to be equal parts sweet and bitter, just enough sweet to make you endure through those bitter parts. An example of this would be the new swedish TV-series about two gay lovers at the time when aids hit Sweden (if this series is ever translated into English, watch it!). I cried through the entire 3 hours, but the happy scenes were so great that I also felt that I watched something really beautiful as well as something really sad.

Modifié par Nurot, 28 octobre 2012 - 12:51 .

[Palipride47]

EntropicAngel wrote...

WhiteThunder wrote...

The issue isn't that ME3's ending was bittersweet. Bittersweet endings are great, just look at Not Fade Away. My Shepard didn't need to survive for me to be happy with the ending. The issue was that the ending was terribly written. A god LITERALLY came out of a machine. After that happens, no extension of an ending can redeem it. It is fundamentally broken.

That's debatable, and ultimately unrelated to DA discussion.

Just like this entire thread, along with the OP's original examples (he hasn't even played any of the DA games, but admittingly came over here so he could yell at writers who don't write for the ME series anyway)

Modifié par Palipride47, 28 octobre 2012 - 01:44 .

[Foolsfolly]

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?

Both?

I guess if I had to pick one than the driving the narrative one would win. But I don't see how you could seperate the two.

You know if I decide to do a Hawke that is destroyed by Kirkwall (loses all family, doesn't get Charade to reconcile with Gamlen, kills their boyfriend Anders, and wanders out of Kirkwall likely to go die somewhere in a deep depression) then the choices I made that had different outcomes in fact led to me driving the narrative of Hawke being destroyed by the City of Chains.

You know?

[Allan Schumacher]

Both?

I guess if I had to pick one than the driving the narrative one would win. But I don't see how you could seperate the two.

Having choices doesn't mean that the choice that someone would prefer to make is valid.

I see the idea of "well choose the bad ending if you enjoyed it" type of commentary a lot, but the thing is I didn't consider myself to be choosing "the bad ending" but rather "the best ending available."

I'll state the unpopular opinion by stating that I don't think Shepard should be able to survive the Mass Effect trilogy. I never expected him to be able to to be perfectly honest. I'm perfectly okay with the player being put into the position of not being able to pick the ultimate optimal outcome. Virmire is another great example.


The Dark Ritual is a bit more interesting, because it lends itself a degree of uncertainty. I don't consider it necessarily an easy way out, especially if your character was at odds with Morrigan (and I think it's well executed if Morrigan loves you too).


So to that end, you make the choices based on the circumstances provided to you (and ideally, they do alter the narrative in some way), but I was referring to those that look at the outcomes and think "You know, I think this other option should be able to work too" simply because it plays out the way that they wanted.

Like the idea of refusing the Catalyst, where people often didn't just want the ability to refuse the Catalyst, but rather they wanted the ability to refuse the Catalyst and still win. In this sense, they wanted the narrative to go specifically how they wanted, which I don't feel must be necessary.

[silentassassin264]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Like the idea of refusing the Catalyst, where people often didn't just want the ability to refuse the Catalyst, but rather they wanted the ability to refuse the Catalyst and still win. In this sense, they wanted the narrative to go specifically how they wanted, which I don't feel must be necessary.

You have no idea how much that annoys me.  I can't even post on the ME3 boards in anything about the endings because I am likely to go berserk.  The refuse ending just made it quite clear that the problem they had with the endings was not the endings themselves or even this idea that their choices would mean something, they just wanted to story to go exactly how the wanted and if it didn't it was bad or poorly done.  

[Sanunes]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Both?

I guess if I had to pick one than the driving the narrative one would win. But I don't see how you could seperate the two.

Having choices doesn't mean that the choice that someone would prefer to make is valid.

I see the idea of "well choose the bad ending if you enjoyed it" type of commentary a lot, but the thing is I didn't consider myself to be choosing "the bad ending" but rather "the best ending available."

I'll state the unpopular opinion by stating that I don't think Shepard should be able to survive the Mass Effect trilogy. I never expected him to be able to to be perfectly honest. I'm perfectly okay with the player being put into the position of not being able to pick the ultimate optimal outcome. Virmire is another great example.


The Dark Ritual is a bit more interesting, because it lends itself a degree of uncertainty. I don't consider it necessarily an easy way out, especially if your character was at odds with Morrigan (and I think it's well executed if Morrigan loves you too).


So to that end, you make the choices based on the circumstances provided to you (and ideally, they do alter the narrative in some way), but I was referring to those that look at the outcomes and think "You know, I think this other option should be able to work too" simply because it plays out the way that they wanted.

Like the idea of refusing the Catalyst, where people often didn't just want the ability to refuse the Catalyst, but rather they wanted the ability to refuse the Catalyst and still win. In this sense, they wanted the narrative to go specifically how they wanted, which I don't feel must be necessary.

I tend to agree, I never really expected Shepard to live at the end of Mass Effect 3, I think that is why it annoyed me when he died at the beginning of Mass Effect 2.  I have not always agreed with the choices made, but at least when I play a BioWare game it feels different then previous games.  An example I like to use is Assassin's Creed, I enjoy the gameplay and its fun to play for I borrow a friends copy, but the four games have all felt so close to the same story and gameplay that I got bored while playing the last one.

[mauro2222]

Want my opinion? The world is going to ****, why add more **** to the mountain of sad ****. Let's make it happy, or at least warm feelings.

[Reptillius]

I personally will say that I don't mind the endings of ME 3. Partly because it gave us what was promised. Probably not what was actually wanted in most peoples eyes but what was promised. An End to Shepards Story.

I am one of the few rpg players around it seems that actually would have been pissed if it was all happy ending for Shepard. Love interest and a house and all that stuff. Because in part if they do more ME. I don't want to hear how everybody tries railroading it into "ME 4. Shepards Story somehow continues."

That's not what I played ME for. i expected a story going into it. to be playing a guy that somehow pulls off these things that others either want to ignore or in some respects thinks can't be done and find myself at the end if I did the right thing and know I paid a price to do it. Staring at those last three choices. That's exactly how I felt. Then I picked the one that felt right to me and the character I was playing. A Sacrifice one to save everybody else style ending is actually what many would consider the highest mark for a Heroic Story. And we're talking about a guy/girl that already several times has beat the odds and walked away from it only a little worse for wear. There are a myriad of moments of that nature in the mass effect games. Everything from the Endings of the first two to the Noveria situation with the bomb and the queen, the virmire survivor situation, the personal stories behind different companions in ME 2 such as the Archangel story and that of the plant in Zaeed's story. Last thing I want to see is Shepard being the Master Chief.

Heroic Stories aren't necessarily happy endings and i think a lot of people forget that along the way. People love Dragon Age Origions. 3 of your possible endings are all Heroic stories that are less than Happy. They are stories of Heroic Sacrifice. The biggest one to mention is that of your character, The next biggest one in line is that of Alistair because he's there for pretty much the whole story. And thirdly that of Loghain. Not so much because of our own personal invested interest (in fact a lot of people hate Loghain) But more for Thedas itself in that Loghain is Thedas greatest hero in living memory and ultimately sacrifices himself to Save Thedas like he was trying to do from the point he rather coldheartedly betrayed the King and the Wardens.

edit:I just want to note that I play the DA games going into them with a simular thought. Playing a protagonist that gets it done and not without cost and paying a price.  In DAO it is certainly to be said that your Warden pays a heavy cost even if we don't see it. But even in the stuff they do tell us and I like that the hero disappears into legend before some of those costs are paid. 

We do know the Warden in DA:O eventually will end up in the deep roads for that long last battle.

We also know that Hawke did not survive his years in Kirkwall unscathed either.  i just wish the city itself hadn't felt so dead and kind of unfinished without all the people and the neat little things to find like life was going on and you had walked through it like we often find here in real life with people's stuff spread on their coffee table or something tipped over on the floor and they hadn't yet gotten to clean it up when you walked in or whatever else.  That's the one thing that makes DAII hard on me to play through repeatedly and makes the game take a while for me to get through.

Modifié par Reptillius, 28 octobre 2012 - 06:34 .

[WhiteThunder]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Both?

I guess if I had to pick one than the driving the narrative one would win. But I don't see how you could seperate the two.

Having choices doesn't mean that the choice that someone would prefer to make is valid.

I see the idea of "well choose the bad ending if you enjoyed it" type of commentary a lot, but the thing is I didn't consider myself to be choosing "the bad ending" but rather "the best ending available."

I'll state the unpopular opinion by stating that I don't think Shepard should be able to survive the Mass Effect trilogy. I never expected him to be able to to be perfectly honest. I'm perfectly okay with the player being put into the position of not being able to pick the ultimate optimal outcome. Virmire is another great example.


The Dark Ritual is a bit more interesting, because it lends itself a degree of uncertainty. I don't consider it necessarily an easy way out, especially if your character was at odds with Morrigan (and I think it's well executed if Morrigan loves you too).


So to that end, you make the choices based on the circumstances provided to you (and ideally, they do alter the narrative in some way), but I was referring to those that look at the outcomes and think "You know, I think this other option should be able to work too" simply because it plays out the way that they wanted.

Like the idea of refusing the Catalyst, where people often didn't just want the ability to refuse the Catalyst, but rather they wanted the ability to refuse the Catalyst and still win. In this sense, they wanted the narrative to go specifically how they wanted, which I don't feel must be necessary.

My issue isn't that Shepard died.  I expected Shep to have to die in order to save the universe.  My issue was that the ending involved a god coming out of a machine.  Literally.  That is simply bad writing.  The terrible writing that ensued didn't help either.   It's ironic that the Indoctrination Theory, which was complete fanwank, was the only way in which the ending sequence had any relation to the themes or tone of the preceding 2.99 games.  I'm still genuinely impressed that the writers of ME3 managed retroactively ruin the entire Mass Effect series to the point where I not only didn't finish my Renegade, I didn't even start the FemShep I had been planning because I never wanted to play Mass Effect again.

Again, Shepard needed to die for the story to have finality, but the endings were genuinely bad writing and the writers should be embarrassed to have their names on the game if the best they could come up with was a literal interpretation of the Deus ex Machina cliche.

[Reptillius]

it wasn't a god. it was an ai kind of proving itself as a point to say it was right. And being rather human about it. We knew all along that the citadel had unknown capabilities far and beyound the capabilities of any other race and actually using that as a plot point is somehow bad writing? What were they supposed to do with the untapped and unknown potential of the citadel? Turn it in the universes largest icee machine when it's finally figured out?

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Both?

I guess if I had to pick one than the driving the narrative one would win. But I don't see how you could seperate the two.

Having choices doesn't mean that the choice that someone would prefer to make is valid.

I see the idea of "well choose the bad ending if you enjoyed it" type of commentary a lot, but the thing is I didn't consider myself to be choosing "the bad ending" but rather "the best ending available."

I'll state the unpopular opinion by stating that I don't think Shepard should be able to survive the Mass Effect trilogy. I never expected him to be able to to be perfectly honest. I'm perfectly okay with the player being put into the position of not being able to pick the ultimate optimal outcome. Virmire is another great example.


The Dark Ritual is a bit more interesting, because it lends itself a degree of uncertainty. I don't consider it necessarily an easy way out, especially if your character was at odds with Morrigan (and I think it's well executed if Morrigan loves you too).


So to that end, you make the choices based on the circumstances provided to you (and ideally, they do alter the narrative in some way), but I was referring to those that look at the outcomes and think "You know, I think this other option should be able to work too" simply because it plays out the way that they wanted.

Like the idea of refusing the Catalyst, where people often didn't just want the ability to refuse the Catalyst, but rather they wanted the ability to refuse the Catalyst and still win. In this sense, they wanted the narrative to go specifically how they wanted, which I don't feel must be necessary.

It's not a matter of "choose the bad ending.  It's a matter of "choose your ending" the one that works based on how you have been playing out your character..

I strenuously disagree with the notion that Shepard shouldn't survive, just as I would strenuously object to Ultimate Sacrifice being the only option for the Warden.  Because that simply doesn't work for a large segment of the players.  Different Shepards played different ways should lead to different fates.  As such, some should live and some should die.  Based on the players' choices.

 I actually find the idea that protagonist survival to be the "ultimate optimal outcome" to be mildly insulting, given all the...excrement...they typically have to go through just to reach the ending. To reach the end and be able to walk away afterwards, is that super-happy, or just a relief?  To go back to the Virmire example, how happy are Ash/Kaidan after being rescued at the expense of the other?  

Ultimately, I think what people want in any game is for their character to be able to live or die on the player's terms, or in a reasonable facimile of that.  ME3 basically railroaded Shepard into the grave (or as I like to put it "Shepard was beaten to death with the plot hammer).while the Warden was able to go out on his/her own terms, if the player deemed that an acceptable ending for the story.

Modifié par iakus, 28 octobre 2012 - 08:08 .

[Sable Rhapsody]

I don't mind bittersweet or even depressing endings, just as long as they make sense and provide a degree of resolution and closure. For less happy endings, a kind of catharsis. That's usually (though not always) the place tragedy has in fiction.

I just don't like endings that come out of the blue with no foreshadowing and about ten minutes worth of explanation after 60+ hours of game. Here's looking at you, ME3.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

Both?

I guess if I had to pick one than the driving the narrative one would win. But I don't see how you could seperate the two.

Having choices doesn't mean that the choice that someone would prefer to make is valid.

I see the idea of "well choose the bad ending if you enjoyed it" type of commentary a lot, but the thing is I didn't consider myself to be choosing "the bad ending" but rather "the best ending available."

I'll state the unpopular opinion by stating that I don't think Shepard should be able to survive the Mass Effect trilogy. I never expected him to be able to to be perfectly honest. I'm perfectly okay with the player being put into the position of not being able to pick the ultimate optimal outcome. Virmire is another great example.

Like the idea of refusing the Catalyst, where people often didn't just
want the ability to refuse the Catalyst, but rather they wanted the
ability to refuse the Catalyst and still win. In this sense, they
wanted the narrative to go specifically how they wanted, which I don't
feel must be necessary.

I agree with you here Allan.
You are not alone

[Xerxes Black]

The bittersweetness in ME3 sucks because it was lazy and poorly done. What's it called? "Deus ex machine"? It was like they couldn't think of a better way to beat these monsters they created so they invented a space station that was basically a god coming in and saying "yeah your f***ed so I'll give you a hand but I got to make this feel important so you need to die".

The crap endings where a symptom of... something (still trying to nail down what... maybe because... I dunno still working on that hehe). By all rights ME3 should have sucked but it did not, It was brilliant up to the end.

Da 3 scares me because DA2 sucked in areas it really shouldn't have. I understand we where following a literal nobody that they wanted us to know how he/she became somebody... but at random moments the writing and story just kinda plerped at us (ander's big moment, the first enchanters final decision).

I dunno... just my thoughts. Please don't hit

[Gileadan]

Sable Rhapsody wrote...
I just don't like endings that come out of the blue with no foreshadowing and about ten minutes worth of explanation after 60+ hours of game. Here's looking at you, ME3.

Exactly this.

Mass Effect's story never gave me the feeling that Shepard was even close to dying. Until Thessia in ME3, Shepard generally goes in and gets things sorted out, and I wasn't expecting that to change. Then came the horribly ham-fisted forced failure on Thessia and Shepard's emo auto-dialogues while I was raging that no amount of headshots from a Paladin pistol could kill Kai Leng. When I got his neener-neener email, I felt like the devs were trolling me.

Anyway.

With the exception of Thessia, the general mood of Mass Effect's story seemed to me something like "no matter the odds, Shepard will find a way".  Then, in the last minutes of "Priority: Earth", my companions suddenly acted as if Shepard were about to die during those last conversations. As if they knew something I didn't. It felt like a very sudden switch in the story's overall mood to me.

In contrast, the much-scolded Game of Thrones RPG pulled off the bitter-sweet endings so much better. The story is overall gloomy, and you see it coming that it can't possibly end too well.

Modifié par Gileadan, 28 octobre 2012 - 10:05 .