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[Blue Liara]

Does anyone really believe that Bioware really cares about what fans think for ME4?  

After the debacle that was the ending to ME3 and how Bioware and EA handled the whole thing. I find it a tough time really believing that Bioware and Casey Hudson are doing anything other than paying lips service and covering themselves. 

For example, the latest is that Hudson is asking fans if they would prefer a sequel or a prequel. Now I hope this is a genuine question being asked and not just lip service. For if Hudson and the Bioware team have already started making a ME prequel and it turns out that more people wanted a sequel. How are we going to really know. Its not really giving us a choice. 

However, it does give Bioware the ability to say look we listened to fans the whole way through we care. Then do whatever they want. 

Maybe I'm being too synical. I hope I am. I really hope Casey Hudson actually listens to fans and does not make some awful Deus Ex series again but if I'm honnest I just don't believe it. 

The dissapointment of the original ending, then the awful extra ending. How Bioware handled it. Ugh havent thought about it in so long and now as I write this I get more and more annoyed and I just don't believe that Bioware or Hudson care about the fans feedback.

Again. I hope I am wrong. But I doubt it.

[Allan Schumacher]

However. Even these, (I'll use the term loosely) artists, get it wrong from time to time. It's at this point when they need to fall back on their experience of how to get the job done.

Also. Art is not made in a vacuum. I do not accept is that BW's argument that the ending is artistic and therefore above critiscism. I can judge art and I judge the ending to be lousy for a number of evident reasons.

The critiques regarding the artistic integrity is something that grates my teeth.

Ray didn't go and say "hey everyone, we're artistes... deal with /trollface." Although it seems like when he used the term "artistic integrity" people all seemed to think that BioWare was trying to save face by going "oh look, it's like a work of art and stuff." Criticizing the ending is fine. Where the "artistic integrity" comes in is purely to the requests/demands to change what is there.

If I make something, it's fine for people to go "Allan, I think that's crap." But asking me to change it when I don't want to change it is something else entirely.

So they blamed poor initial reviews from professional critics for the failure of of DA2. Their solution was to control the initial reviews of ME3 by bringing the gaming media into line. Remember the prominent use of the "75 Perfect Scores" tagline? It was planned since the failure of DA2.

This is so absolutely wrong. As Mike states in his post, we aim for a metacritic of 90. That is, we get a decent idea on whether or not we delivered a type of product we want to deliver based on this average. This goal is completely undermined if we just go out and buy review scores like fans seem to think we do.


That DA2 didn't get a 90 makes us go "Where did we go wrong, and what can we do to remedy this?"  At no point during the discussion does anyone go "We could always give reviewers some fat cheques and gifts and stuff!"  If we just bought reviews, we'd have different types of goals.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 25 novembre 2012 - 11:27 .

[Allan Schumacher]

crimzontearz wrote...

sure, now please explain to me exactly why after being asked numerous times to at least expand on Living Shepards fate post the breath scene all we got was "headcanon it people, using your imagination" or worse "for all you know that is his last breath :trollface:"

no really, because NO ONE ASKED TO CHANGE THAT....only to confirm something

Adding additional context is a change.

Absolutely i do.  EC only reinforced it.It gave me the impression that
our suggestions were paid attention to like the husband in a sitcom
listens to his wife:  absently nodding his head while watching the game
on tv, then ending up with only a vague idea of what was actually
discussed.

To be clear, there was no unified voice for why people disliked the endings.  So if you're using the terms like "we" and "our" in response to the EC, you've completely ignored the people that were, in fact, satisfied with the extended cut.

As someone that was following up on the feedback on my own purely out of curiosity, there were 3 different camps that I saw.  People often overlapped somewhat into other camps as well, or even all 3, but they were essentially:

- Those that wanted a happy ending (they disliked how the ending was a downer.  THey didn't feel like they won, wanted to end up with their Love Interest, etc.)
- Those that wanted some level of closure (They were curious what happens in the aftermath?  Is the galaxy destroyed?  what happens to the ships still at Sol?  I have a lot of questions about the end!)
- Those that found the Catalyst to be absurd.  (Why should I believe him?  It seems like we have to give in to him?  Why is there no other way but to utilize the catalyst?  Etc.)

This is a bit simplified but I had written about it quite a bit shortly after I had played the game.  In my experience, the level of closure was easily the most frequently occurring issue.  Followed somewhat closely by the lack of happy ending.  This involves reading feedback on the BSN, as well as a variety of other sites, comments made on various articles about the ending, and mountains of posts on twitter.


On these very forums, you'd see a post in response to the EC that was "THANK YOU SO MUCH!" right beside a "WTF were you even listening to us?  This isn't what we wanted at all!!"


This idea that consensus existed was incorrect.  It happens with more than just ME3's ending too.  Project Eternity, for example, had everyone believing there was consensus over what people liked about the old IE games.  Until they went to the Obsidian message boards and the various things people didn't like about the older games started conflicting en masse with what many other people felt.

[Allan Schumacher]

agreed. and they've also already started production on ME4..."you *really* don't have prequel vs. sequel decided on and you're already in production? really?"

The upcoming Mass Effect is not in production. It is in preproduction. Many of the staff are just now getting introduced to the engine, and there's going to be prototyping of all sorts of game ideas and the types of things Frostbite can and cannot do, what tools they'll need and so forth.

[Allan Schumacher]

So what if it draws the internet based? Should we have polls asking senior citizens their opinion on EA now? LOL, no.

You've actually just admitted that the poll suffers from random sample bias and is not actually reflective of anything.

[Allan Schumacher]

Allan be fair, they added a hell of a lot of context for green space magic, the beam run, and a bit extra for control (split ending based on personality). All of which would fall under a change as per the above. The fact that it wasn't done for one of Destroy's most requested clarifications felt out of place.

They did add a lot (and yes, it's all changes). The entire EC was a change that was highly requested by a lot of people. Shepard's scene may feel out of place, but I'm not privy to the motivations for why they decided to not change that particular event. Maybe they just liked it that way? I don't know.

[Allan Schumacher]

Jade8aby88 wrote...

So why was closure for Shepard in destroy ignored in EC?

I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt that you aren't ostensibly just trying to troll to aggravate me, since the post immediately preceding yours states:

Shepard's scene may feel out of place, but I'm not privy to the
motivations for why they decided to not change that particular event.
Maybe they just liked it that way? I don't know.

[Allan Schumacher]

But the "followed somewhat closely" happy ending crowd gets tuck with the exact same faceless torso scene. And those who hate the Catalyst got "closure" via a "Rocks fall, everyone dies" ending. The fact that there are those who still choose it should say something about the endings even in EC.

I'm on the record from months ago stating that I wholeheartedly agreed with people that felt there should be an option to refuse the catalyst, and openly stated that I'd only do it if it resulted in this cycle losing. It's a much more interesting choice to me. If it's "yay we still win anyways" then we basically say "you could choose something else... but I'm not sure why."

As much as I like the idea of choices in games, I am not a fan of "let the player get whatever conclusion that they want."


It's not "rocks fall and everyone dies." That situation is called in when you are killed for no good reason. It doesn't exactly come out of no where that the Crucible is going to be required to defeat the Reapers. Refusing to use it and having the cycle fail to defeat the Reapers is an entirely predictable outcome.


The intent appear to have always been one where Shepard's fate is teased. Given that the scene shows up and the memorial wall on the Normandy plays out differently make it seem pretty obvious that Shepard survives in that ending.