325 réponses à ce sujet

[Bob Garbage]

Uhh, EA did not release COD, ever.

[Ihatebadgames]

Bob Garbage wrote...

Uhh, EA did not release COD, ever.

OK,I'll start in on the hate in the a.m.But in my defense the COD did have question marks.Don't remember what the shooter was but it was released in the last 2-3 weeks.(I think)
But when game companys say that all games will have a multiplayer componet,on line and other things that normaly are not RPG material but are normaly used with shooters and the only things I really dislike other than Ammo being a power and thermal clips.I know my opinion don't matter.

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...
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.

Well, yeah. Bio listened to the third group..... and said "no."

As for the first group in Allan's taxonomy.....

- 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.)

... note that this group is a catchall for people who found the ending a downer for different reasons. Some folks' concerns were deliberately rejected; if you think the ending is a downer because of the moral ambiguity of the final choices, you never had any chance of getting something you like better since the moral ambiguity is the fundamental design intent. Some had their concerns addressed -- people who thought there was going to be a galactic dark age, for instance, don't have one anymore.

And some concerns, I think, were just.... missed. Pre-EC, most of the chatter about the "breath" scene wasn't about how it was an insufficient amount of content for a surviving Shepard. It was outrage about having to play MP to get the scene, plus anger over having to sacrifice EDI and the geth to get the scene. The EMS level was fixed, and the concern about the cost of the decision was rejected. It was only after the EC shipped that concerns like yours cut through the noise.

I phrased that as "insufficient amount of content" rather than whether or not Shep lived because I imagine Bio felt about the EC the way I felt about it -- it's perfectly obvious that a high-EMS Destroy Shep does survive, but they left just enough ambiguity so a player who wants him to die can imagine that too. Which leaves you SOL, unfortunately, but that's what you get for having a perverse interpretation.

[Redbelle]

The thing about Shepard and his mission to stop the Reapers that comes about at the end of ME1, is that his mission is informed by who he is.

Shepard is a soldier and his role is to enact military solutions againt an enemy until that enemy no longer has an effective military to continue the campaign, or the other side seeks a cease fire. His role is therefore, by it's nature, one of aggresive resistance.

The Reapers are not your usual enemy. They give no indication that they could stop. Though without more information this simply could be an extremely egotistical view, backed up by cycles of conquering and domineering of other races. Turning other races they think are 'worthy' into paste and turning into a perpetuation of the cycles, in the form of another Reaper. While exterminating and attempting to wipe all trace of their existence from the galaxy.

Hat's off to BW,. They created one of the greatest villain's in video game history. It was unexpected and effective. You don't normally defy expecatation like that and receive a standing ovation. What expectation? Well most of the bad guy's in games are simply people. Reapers are not. Yet, for giant cuttleish space ships, they deliver menace convincingly.

Back to this relatinoship between Shep and Reapers then. The Reapers are self confessed genocidal bio-organic machnies made fro the liquidified remains of previous galatic inhabitants. Shepard is a soldier who resist's through the application of violence. Yet somehow, he is given options that defy his nature. thus far the only two options I see that fit the character through his role are destroy and reject. He can choose to destroy the Reapers after they essentially grab Edi and Geth and use them as human shield's to try and ward off that option. (which seems pretty Renegade). Or he can refuse, in which he does not take a decision he is unelected to promote. Being simply an alliance soldier he has limit's to what actions he can and cannot take.

Maybe if he had been promoted throughout the game as a Spectre where we are permitted to do whatever it takes I'd feel differently. Or, have the Geth and Edi tell Shepard to throw the destroy switch no matter the cost to them. Doing so would create a simple case of understanding what the consequences of an action would be and thus, Edi and the Geth would be making as much a sacrifice as Shepard who would then have their permission to carry out this option.

But The idea of taking control or synthesis, where in one, Shepard becomes the galactic policeman, and synthesis, where everything's ok as long as you can accept that eithout a galactic mandate, Shepard has just violated the right for sentiant being's to control their own bodies, is a serious talking point that I've heard discussed on Radio 4's moral analysis program, at some length.

Modifié par Redbelle, 26 novembre 2012 - 07:40 .

[Iakus]

[quote]AlanC9 wrote...

[quote]iakus wrote...
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.
[/quote]

Well, yeah. Bio listened to the third group..... and said "no."[/quote]

More like "Frak you.  Rocks fall.  Everyone dies"  Amounts to the same thing though.

[quote]
As for the first group in Allan's taxonomy.....
[quote]
- 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.)[/quote]

... note that this group is a catchall for people who found the ending a downer for different reasons. Some folks' concerns were deliberately rejected; if you think the ending is a downer because of the moral ambiguity of the final choices, you never had any chance of getting something you like better since the moral ambiguity is the fundamental design intent. Some had their concerns addressed -- people who thought there was going to be a galactic dark age, for instance, don't have one anymore. [/quote] [/quote]

Four flavors of evil is not what I'd call "morally ambiguous" In fact, it treads very close to a Shoot the Shaggy Dog story

[quote]
And some concerns, I think, were just.... missed. Pre-EC, most of the chatter about the "breath" scene wasn't about how it was an insufficient amount of content for a surviving Shepard. It was outrage about having to play MP to get the scene, plus anger over having to sacrifice EDI and the geth to get the scene. The EMS level was fixed, and the concern about the cost of the decision was rejected. It was only after the EC shipped that concerns like yours cut through the noise.[/quote]

Leaves me to wonder how many people actually knew the details about the scene, given that A) not everybody has a good enough Internet connection to do MP   not everyone who does wants to do MP and C) Not everyone has the proper account to do MP anyway.

Then there's the people like me who (stupidly) assumed a scene so vague would be clarified in a DLC promoted to clarify things

[quote]
I phrased that as "insufficient amount of content" rather than whether or not Shep lived because I imagine Bio felt about the EC the way I felt about it -- it's perfectly obvious that a high-EMS Destroy Shep does survive, but they left just enough ambiguity so a player who wants him to die can imagine that too. Which leaves you SOL, unfortunately, but that's what you get for having a perverse interpretation.
[/quote]

Gee, that's totally not dismissive of other players' concerns.  You sure you're not a dev? 

Modifié par iakus, 26 novembre 2012 - 08:04 .

[N7 Legend Titi]

Blue Liara wrote...

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.

Your the reason why the 2 guys from Bioware left. ya dick. Even if they don't care about our ideas/opinions i'm sure it will be a good game.

[RedTail F22]

I know that its way past the point of "would'ves and could'ves"  but I just felt like bringing this up (even if its a little off topic, sorry).

It would've been pretty awesome if at the end we had to chose between an ending where Shepard can survive but only at the cost of some of his squad mates lives (not an entire race). It would've been very reminiscent of the Virmire mission and would've completely messed with my Paragon Shepard's mind (messing with me right now). He always wanted to have a family after the war but could he sacrifice Vega for example (bad example but I couldn't even imagine possibly sacrificing anyone else). Oh, and it would be a real ending of course where you see Shepard with his/her LI. No "head cannon".

Fantasy over. Something someone said made me think that. We can go back to the topic. Just wanted to say that.

Modifié par RedTail F22, 26 novembre 2012 - 08:56 .

[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.

[yukon fire]

“Fans want to make sure that they see things resolved, they want to get some closure, a great ending. I think they’re going to get that.”

“You'll get answers to everything. That was one of the key things. Regardless of how we did everything, we had to say, yes, we're going to provide some answers to these people.”

“Because a lot of these plot threads are concluding and because it's being brought to a finale, since you were a part of architecting how they got to how they were, you will definitely sense how they close was because of the decisions you made and because of the decisions you didn't make”

No, they don't really care, they've made that quite clear.

Oh, and for the road:

"Of course you don't have to play multiplayer, you can choose to play all the side-quests in single-player and do all that stuff you'll still get all the same endings and same information, it's just a totally different way of playing" 

Bioware: Kwality products Art.

Modifié par yukon fire, 26 novembre 2012 - 10:28 .

[CommanderVyse]

Why is it that only Dragon Age Developers are willing to comment on a Mass Effect forum?

[Applepie_Svk]

Bob Garbage wrote...

Uhh, EA did not release COD, ever.

Last two MoHs... heh pretty much mediocre attempts..

wwinters99 wrote...

Why is it that only Dragon Age Developers are willing to comment on a Mass Effect forum?

cuz Hudson and Walters don´t know how to sign in...

Modifié par Applepie_Svk, 26 novembre 2012 - 10:48 .

[A Bethesda Fan]

wwinters99 wrote...

Why is it that only Dragon Age Developers are willing to comment on a Mass Effect forum?

Mass effect 3 developers are probably too ashamed to come here because of their disaster of a game.

[Dean_the_Young]

Reth Shepherd wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Are these labor abuses as serious as killing people, driving them out of their homes, or physically injuring them?

Our adventures with Electronic Arts began less than a year ago. The small game studio that my partner worked for collapsed as a result of foul play on the part of a big publisher -- another common story. Electronic Arts offered a job, the salary was right and the benefits were good, so my SO took it. I remember that they asked him in one of the interviews: "how do you feel about working long hours?" It's just a part of the game industry -- few studios can avoid a crunch as deadlines loom, so we thought nothing of it. When asked for specifics about what "working long hours" meant, the interviewers coughed and glossed on to the next question; now we know why.

Within weeks production had accelerated into a 'mild' crunch: eight hours six days a week. Not bad. Months remained until any real crunch would start, and the team was told that this "pre-crunch" was to prevent a big crunch toward the end; at this point any other need for a crunch seemed unlikely, as the project was dead on schedule. I don't know how many of the developers bought EA's explanation for the extended hours; we were new and naive so we did. The producers even set a deadline; they gave a specific date for the end of the crunch, which was still months away from the title's shipping date, so it seemed safe. That date came and went. And went, and went. When the next news came it was not about a reprieve; it was another acceleration: twelve hours six days a week, 9am to 10pm.

Weeks passed. Again the producers had given a termination date on this crunch that again they failed. Throughout this period the project remained on schedule. The long hours started to take its toll on the team; people grew irritable and some started to get ill. People dropped out in droves for a couple of days at a time, but then the team seemed to reach equilibrium again and they plowed ahead. The managers stopped even talking about a day when the hours would go back to normal.

Now, it seems, is the "real" crunch, the one that the producers of this title so wisely prepared their team for by running them into the ground ahead of time. The current mandatory hours are 9am to 10pm -- seven days a week -- with the occasional Saturday evening off for good behavior (at 6:30pm). This averages out to an eighty-five hour work week. Complaints that these once more extended hours combined with the team's existing fatigue would result in a greater number of mistakes made and an even greater amount of wasted energy were ignored.

The stress is taking its toll. After a certain number of hours spent working the eyes start to lose focus; after a certain number of weeks with only one day off fatigue starts to accrue and accumulate exponentially. There is a reason why there are two days in a weekend -- bad things happen to one's physical, emotional, and mental health if these days are cut short. The team is rapidly beginning to introduce as many flaws as they are removing.

And the kicker: for the honor of this treatment EA salaried employees receive a) no overtime; no compensation time! ('comp' time is the equalization of time off for overtime -- any hours spent during a crunch accrue into days off after the product has shipped); c) no additional sick or vacation leave. The time just goes away. Additionally, EA recently announced that, although in the past they have offered essentially a type of comp time in the form of a few weeks off at the end of a project, they no longer wish to do this, and employees shouldn't expect it. Further, since the production of various games is scattered, there was a concern on the part of the employees that developers would leave one crunch only to join another. EA's response was that they would attempt to minimize this, but would make no guarantees. This is unthinkable; they are pushing the team to individual physical health limits, and literally giving them nothing for it. Comp time is a staple in this industry, but EA as a corporation wishes to "minimize" this reprieve. One would think that the proper way to minimize comp time is to avoid crunch, but this brutal crunch has been on for months, and nary a whisper about any compensation leave, nor indeed of any end of this treatment.

This crunch also differs from crunch time in a smaller studio in that it was not an emergency effort to save a project from failure. Every step of the way, the project remained on schedule. Crunching neither accelerated this nor slowed it down; its effect on the actual product was not measurable. The extended hours were deliberate and planned; the management knew what they were doing as they did it. The love of my life comes home late at night complaining of a headache that will not go away and a chronically upset stomach, and my happy supportive smile is running out.

No one works in the game industry unless they love what they do. No one on that team is interested in producing an inferior product. My heart bleeds for this team precisely BECAUSE they are brilliant, talented individuals out to create something great. They are and were more than willing to work hard for the success of the title. But that good will has only been met with abuse. Amazingly, Electronic Arts was listed #91 on Fortune magazine's "100 Best Companies to Work For" in 2003.

EA's attitude toward this -- which is actually a part of company policy, it now appears -- has been (in an anonymous quotation that I've heard repeated by multiple managers), "If they don't like it, they can work someplace else." Put up or shut up and leave: this is the core of EA's Human Resources policy. The concept of ethics or compassion or even intelligence with regard to getting the most out of one's workforce never enters the equation: if they don't want to sacrifice their lives and their health and their talent so that a multibillion dollar corporation can continue its Godzilla-stomp through the game industry, they can work someplace else.

This article, and others like it, lead to changes in game industry labor practices. So to answer your question, very nearly.

This article is a 'no', not a 'very nearly.'

[Dean_the_Young]

[quote]Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

This is getting irritating Dean. Stop filibustering every post. You need to be able to convey your points in fewer words.
[/quote]Ok.
[quote]
[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...

Sure, but now you've established an impossible standard because you've invalidated anything anyone from the company might say on the basis of guilt by association. Nothing that anyone with a buisness relationship to Bioware says is valid if it disagrees with you. Meanwhile you treated as credible an alleged whistleblower who claimed he was a professional troll while releasing a list virtually tailor-made to agree with an anti-EA agenda, as accounted for in a blog post so biased that it equated an entire corporation's marketting budget for all its products with paying for online trolling.

Can you not see how fallicious this is?[/quote]

An employee on the clock or not represents his or her employer at all times. That's why even off work related activies can get you fired. I'm shocked that you don't know this. Do you work in the lifetime job realm of academia or something?[/quote]This seems to be a 'no.' How pitiful.


[quote]
[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...

You honestly think it's a serious poll.[/quote]

So what's a serious poll? The Spike VGAs? The Oscars? They're all polls. You just don't happen to like the results here. [/quote]This seems to be a yes.

Not all polls are created equal, which is why there is an entire field of of science dedicated to making polls that accurately reflect views as opposed to confirming biases.


[quote]
[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...Duh, no ****. If it wasn't a desirable asset, EA wouldn't have bought it.

That in no way indicates or supports that EA spends all its resources on this one desirable asset, especially when it continues to have others. (EA sports, actually.)[/quote]

So all that effort to buy Bioware but there is no favoritism? Hard to believe. [/quote]EA has bought a number of companies. By your logic, they should all be subject to 'favoritism.'


[quote]

1. It's not my job to hold your hand. [/quote]It is your job not to lie.
[quote]
2. I never once said they spent all their money on ME3. You pulled that out of your ass. What I said was they spend a lot. [/quote]I specifically said you didn't actually say it.
[quote]
3. It's not my job to argue your position.
[/quote]It is your job to argue your own. Even right now you are not.

[quote]
Bioware is now owned by EA. EA sets the standards. They also hoped to dethrone WoW in the MMO market which failed.

[/quote]The first assumes EA had no concept of product history when they look into their forecasts, and the second assumes SWTOR had extreme ambitions rather than the ambition to be a successful niche market.

Neither assumption, as always, has been supported.

[Dean_the_Young]

Archonsg wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Archonsg wrote...

spirosz wrote...

J. Reezy wrote...

spirosz wrote...

JamesFaith wrote...

[The presence of the Rachni] has huge consequences in Mass Effect 3.

- if part in brackets was part of original text, it is really nice work with words. There is presence, not saving queen has huge consequences. And result of this presence was one whole mission with Arralakh company.

What's the huge consequence of not saving the queen? 

Assets points I think.

Oh those. 

And made irrelevant with multi-player
I have about 20,000 N7 asset points from MP that more or less says "You don't have to do any side missions for the *best ending options *."

Congratulations, then: your choices have had an impact on the story.

Don't see the correlation between my playing MP to shoot random stuff and SP's story line decision making, but, nice try at making a joke.

SP works by expanding the number of endings to reflect your current investment in finding more war assets, either within the SP campaign or from the MP campaign. By choosing to play multiplayer and promote characters rather than just use point-reset cards, you are participating in the process of your own volition.

[Dean_the_Young]

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Er, yes. If you want to identify the worst corporation in America, Senior Citizens who not only have a good deal of experience with corporations but also are victims to some of the most flagrant and harmful corporate abuses would be an excellent population pool for a poll.

Limiting it to a small group of aware, interested, and often young people on the internet of a particular niche community is exactly why the poll is laughable, even before you get into how voting for the 'worst' company is an appeal to a majority argument, not an objective evaluation.

Senior citizens are victims of corporate abuses? More like victims of their own greedy and malevolent family and friends.

Well, this is pretty disgusting of you.

Moreover your dislike of the poll doesn't change anything as you have no idea of the demographics of the participants.

By the small size and niche community, however, and the polling techniques, you can discern it's not particularly representative.

Isn't this an appeal to the majority argument you've bemoaned so much?

Not really. Culture is a reflection of consensus, but it doesn't proclaim that it's 'right' on the basis of relative numbers per position.

The people who've had to sue EA for bad working conditions and unpaid overtime wages would disagree with your contention that their employer's conduct was harmless.

Where did I contend that EA's conduct was harmless?

[A Bethesda Fan]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

Is the goal completely undermined or is it slightly problematic.
I can see the benefits of buying reviews scores to sell the game to casuals which is what Mass effect 3 was aiming for, a game for casuals to latch onto.

Modifié par A Bethesda Fan, 26 novembre 2012 - 11:35 .

[drayfish]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

crimzontearz wrote...

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:


In my experience - on an extremely lengthy, comprehensive and articulate thread populated by hundreds of thoughtful and passionate fans - these three 'sample' complaints do not represent the fundamental concerns that a lot of players had with the ending at all.

Many (not all, certainly, but many) were okay with Shepard dying in principle, were even resolved to the hackneyed appearance of the Catalyst and the Crucible's function, and did not demand resolution to every story thread of the game. What many (and again, not all, but many) of them were repelled (and rather alarmed) by was the need for Shepard to arbitrarily visit a horror upon his allies in order to 'win'.

Forcing Shepard, previously a bastion of tenacity and will, to become a war criminal, and embrace the Reaper's code of ethics in order to succeed, seemed to score higher on the list of concerns than 'But why didn't I get to suck face with my love interest again?'

Indeed, I have still never heard Bioware address the rather disturbing connotations of those final actions in the narrative... Why was it necessary to force Shepard to commit either an act of genocide, galactic involuntary eugenics, or to become a totalitarian overlord? Why was that the final decision tree in this journey that had previously endorsed inclusivity, diversity and wonder?

Such a nihilistic, defeatest betrayal of this faith in the fundamental freedoms of other people seems a ghastly message to send in a text that for three games proposed to narratively reflect the player's moral choices (whether good or bad).  You have only to look at some of the threads that have popped up on the BSN in past few months by some very confused fans, that gleefully advocate genetic superiority in certain races, the benefits of omnipresent dictatorships, and the 'need' in real-world wars to commit atrocity to innocents for the 'greater good'. 

I find it hard to believe that this was the kind of reductive, apathetic discourse the creators of Mass Effect would have wanted or intended their text to inspire.  Nonetheless, that is what it currently endorses.

So, I guess my ultimate question is: Why were only the intolerant zealot Shepards rewarded in the end?

Modifié par drayfish, 26 novembre 2012 - 12:07 .

[oldag07]

I for one, appreciate Bioware's concern for our opinions.

[clarkusdarkus]

I personally think it's a smoke/mirrors kinda thing...they mention ME4 8 months after the apparant end of a trilogy( whilst selling dlc still for it )....they know part/some/most of the fanbase arent happy with the current trend of there recent games and are trying to mask it by mentioning theres another game coming and by giving the illusion they want your feedback on whether it's prequel/sequel......it's a way of gaining some fans back by pretending they have a voice and are connected with the developer in some way.......some will fall for it aswell.

[crimzontearz]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

and that is a hideous cop out AND the reason I feel insulted and hope it comes back to bite Bioware in the butt at some point especially since at this point I and a lot of others do not feel it is "safe" to afford Bioware the emotional investment they always asked to give them for Mass Effect since the end result is a kick in the balls.


 
Oh and pleaseing virtually everyone was very possible without compromising Bioware's vision (and I am saying that loosely) infact they managed to make the people who usually pick Control and synthesis pretty happy but not those who picked destroy who are left with no closure and speculations and headcanon..

And bioware CHOSE to do that and to keep upsetting them. Good call

[Redbelle]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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.

The Refuse ending is, imho, one of the best options in that it allow's me to continue being the Shepard I want to be, as opposed to being the Shepard who comprimises.............

That said, I'm sorry to say I still feel a bit left out of the action. Once I refuse and the crucible shuts off I can't help but feel that a playable section of repelling hordes of husks till your overwhelmed would be appropriate. Something out of Devil May Cry's end game, or Halo Reaches epic final of Noble 6.

As much as I like the dialogue wheel. It does not carry the game by itself. Mass Effect has alway's been at it's best when narration and action are seamlessly blended. Shepard's hunched over, armour burnt, bloody faced visage in the end is, I think, meant to be symbolic. But what it also symbolise's is that we, the player, have lost our Shepard.

As heroic as I think he is meant to look, struggling on in the face of overwhelming odds, losing our abilities had the same effect as losing the Mako/Hammerhead driving sections, and the door/terminal hacking sections. The game offered less at this critical juncture and offered nothing to replace it. Save a gun with infinite ammo.

Removing gameplay mechanics need not mean a less furfulling gameplay experience however. MGS creator Hideo Kojima often strip's his Snake's of equipment after Snake is captured, wherein rather than rely on all the gear that has been accumulated you have to fall back on the fundamental principal of the hide and seek mechanics. Or his ZOE 2nd Runner game where you lose all your addon's in a metatron blast that gives you the power to use dash continously and Jehuty's sword.

When Harbinger blasted at Shepard near the beam and we hit a dreamscape type awakening scene, I leaned forward and thought to myself, 'We're going to see BW rise above themselves here. I've seen this sort of thing done before and it's usually good'. Instead of adding a new aspect of gameplay however, it proceded with what it was before, minus.

I hope this put's into perspective what I was expecting. When Harby disappeared and Shep got up, I was expecting something more. Maybe all those dreams and that child, planted throughout the story would now come and bear fruit. Maybe the gameplay mechanics would change in a way I need to be on my toes to adapt too.

[Catroi]

of course not, here is why:



I have nothing to do with the ending beyond a) having argued
successfully a long time ago that we needed a chance to say goodbye to
our squad, having argued successfully that Cortez shouldn't
automatically die in that shuttle crash, and c) having written Tali's
goodbye bit, as well as a couple of the holo-goodbyes for people I wrote
(Mordin, Kasumi, Jack, etc).

No other writer did, either,
except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey
himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.

And honestly, it kind of shows.


Every other mission in the game had to be held up to the rest of the
writing team, and the writing team then picked it apart and made
suggestions and pointed out the parts that made no sense. This mission?
Casey and our lead deciding that they didn't need to be peer-reviewe.d

And again, it shows.

If you'd asked me the themes of Mass Effect 3, I'd break them down as:

Galactic Alliances

Friends

Organics versus Synthetics


In my personal opinion, the first two got a perfunctory nod. We did
get a goodbye to our friends, but it was in a scene that was divorced
from the gameplay -- a deliberate "nothing happens here" area with one
turret thrown in for no reason I really understand, except possibly to
obfuscate the "nothing happens here"-ness. The best missions in our game
are the ones in which the gameplay and the narrative reinforce each
other. The end of the Genophage campaign exemplifies that for me --
every line of dialog is showing you both sides of the krogan, be they
horrible brutes or proud warriors; the art shows both their bombed-out
wasteland and the beautiful world they once had and could have again;
the combat shows the terror of the Reapers as well as a blatant reminder
of the rachni, which threatened the galaxy and had to be stopped by the
krogan last time. Every line of code in that mission is on target with
the overall message.

The endgame doesn't have that. I wanted
to see banshees attacking you, and then have asari gunships zoom in and
blow them away. I wanted to see a wave of rachni ravagers come around a
corner only to be met by a wall of krogan roaring a battle cry. Here's
the horror the Reapers inflicted upon each race, and here's the army
that you, Commander Shepard, made out of every race in the galaxy to
fight them.

I personally thought that the Illusive Man
conversation was about twice as long as it needed to be -- something
that I've been told in my peer reviews of my missions and made edits on,
but again, this is a conversation no writer but the lead ever saw until
it was already recorded. I did love Anderson's goodbye.

For
me, Anderson's goodbye is where it ended. The stuff with the Catalyst
just... You have to understand. Casey is really smart and really
analytical. And the problem is that when he's not checked, he will
assume that other people are like him, and will really appreciate an
almost completely unemotional intellectual ending. I didn't hate it, but
I didn't love it.

And then, just to be a dick... what was
SUPPOSED to happen was that, say you picked "Destroy the Reapers". When
you did that, the system was SUPPOSED to look at your score, and then
you'd show a cutscene of Earth that was either:

a) Very high score: Earth obviously damaged, but woo victory


Medium score: Earth takes a bunch of damage from the Crucible
activation. Like dropping a bomb on an already war-ravaged city. Uh,
well, maybe not LIKE that as much as, uh, THAT.

c) Low score: Earth is a cinderblock, all life on it completely wiped out


I have NO IDEA why these different cutscenes aren't in there. As far
as I know, they were never cut. Maybe they were cut for budget reasons
at the last minute. I don't know. But holy crap, yeah, I can see how
incredibly disappointing it'd be to hear of all the different ending
possibilities and have it break down to "which color is stuff glowing?"
Or maybe they ARE in, but they're too subtle to really see obvious
differences, and again, that's... yeah.

Okay, that's a lot to have written for something that's gonna go away in an hour.


I still teared up at the ending myself, but really, I was tearing up
for the quick flashbacks to old friends and the death of Anderson. I
wasn't tearing up over making a choice that, as it turned out, didn't
have enough cutscene differentiation on it.

And to be clear,
I don't even really wish Shepard had gotten a ride-off-into-sunset
ending. I was honestly okay with Shepard sacrificing himself. I just
expected it to be for something with more obvious differentiation, and a
stronger tie to the core themes -- all three of them.

[Iakus]

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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."

 

And I'm on the record as saying that if inserting an ending where letting the Reapers win is not only a viable but to some people even preferred choice in comparison to the others, then perhaps there is something wrong with the chocies at hand.

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.

I am not saying that a Refuge ending should have been the "win" ending.  I'm illustrating it as an example of the team's own "Refusal" choice to make the endings more palatable.  That's a big chunk of why the Catalyst is held in such contempt: he's the symptom of what people find wrong with the ending.

The choices pre EC were genocide, tyranny, or eugenics.  EC the chocies were genocide, tyranny, eugenics, or death.  There was no "strength through diversity"  There was no "stand strong and independant"  there was only the shortcut and the Catalyst's "solution"  Everything Shepard fought for proved to be a lie.  that is why the Catalyst was so hated.  That's why people wanted to Refuse (or so it seems to me)  And that's why Shepard dies for no good reason, and why Refuse (and heck pretty much all the endings to a lesser extent) was a "Rocks fall" ending which the EC did little to address.

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.

And after all that death and moral compromise that Shepard has to go through to get to that scene, did it not occur to anyone that players might not find being teased that way appropriate? 

[Jadebaby]

Ihatebadgames wrote...

I don't hate EA as much as I use to.On another forum one of the guys said they bought the new shooter that Ea put out that came out in the last week or two(COD??).That his brother had worked on it and had borrowed a pick of this guys friend that was killed in Afghanistan.Well this guy is playing and who did he run into?yep his friend.Said he bawled for an hour and will probably never finish the game now but it's neat that if he wants to see his friend he is in the game,alive and well.

That's a terrible story!