325 réponses à ce sujet

[archangel1996]

Catroi wrote...

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.

You are my hero

Modifié par archangel1996, 26 novembre 2012 - 03:03 .

[archangel1996]

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.

Let's say that the ending is pure logic(), did you play the run to the conduit? Did you see Harbinger letting pass Shepard? Why didn't it/he/whatever attack the Shepard while he was evacuating his/her squadmates? A ****nig Reaper blast can destroy an Alliance ship but the boss of them seems to have problems with 3 humans <_<
And those are the intelligent parts The ending(EC included) is or a really smart idea or monkey crap, short and breve

Modifié par archangel1996, 26 novembre 2012 - 03:04 .

[Ithurael]

Catroi wrote...

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.

Is that what Weekes wrote?

Still that is pretty spot on. Well Played sir!

[UJN]

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.

I'm very happy you didn't add anything. One thing I really liked about the ending before EC was that it was very much open to interpretation. Most of that was destroyed by the EC (but it's fine the way it is now also, it's impossible to have it both ways and the added scenes makes the ending way more epic) but at least it's up to me to "decide" if the scene at the end was Shepard waking up or his/her last breath.

Allan Schumacher wrote...

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!!"

I completely understand that not everyone can get exactly what they want since a lot of people want different things. As I said, I really liked that the original ending was very much open to interpretation. However, a lot of people really wanted to know what happened after the reapers were defeated and the EC gave them (at least some of) what they wanted.

At the same time, there were actually a lot of people, me included, that just wanted some clarification. Weren't the squadmates that followed me to the beam dead? How did they end up on the Normandy? Why was the Normandy far away from the battle when the relays exploded? etc. We got (mostly) what we asked for.

To me, it is obvious that Bioware really listens to fans (and a lot more than most other developers). The EC is the best example since they gave most people what they asked for (it's not exactly surprising that those who basically said 'the ending sux, make a new one!' didn't get what they wanted), but also how they, for example, asked fans about the design of the default femshep (that was created because fans asked for it).

[David7204]

Is that long post by Weeks or whoever from the forums?

[crimzontearz]

If you paid attention to the external polls you would see that no, bioware did not give the majority of people what they wanted...but nice try UJN

[Xellith]

David7204 wrote...

Is that long post by Weeks or whoever from the forums?

Weekes (supposedly)

[crimzontearz]

Oh and...if adding context = changing the ending then someone might want to point that out to the genius who wrote the press release about the EC since it says there that Bioware does not want to change the endings but to add context"

Just throwing it there

IB4 semantics talk

[Velocithon]

It doesn't matter anymore. Bioware screwed up to much for me too ever even consider buying another of their games.

They essentially had you buy three games with the illusion that what you do throughout these games will affect how the game ends. And it simply didn't. That kind of disappointment just cannot be healed and is permanent. As a consumer, I will never subject myself to the possibility of that happening again, so I will not buy into any pre-release quotes (read lies) from Bioware nor buy a game from them.

Modifié par Velocithon, 26 novembre 2012 - 05:09 .

[NM_Che56]

No amount of reassurance, explanation, placation, etc, from Bioware will provide enough balm for the butthurt some feel over the endings, even post-EC...

I think those who are still pissed about the ending have deluded themselves into thinking that the majority of ME fans feel the same way they do. I'm pretty sure they are just the vocal minority.

I liked the endings post EC. It wasn't ALL that I hoped for, but I've come to accept that in life you don't always get EXACTLY what you want.

The only thing that bothers me is how had it not been for the "Hold the Line" folks that the endings would have been left as-is. My 1st experience with the ending was inferior to what I got a month later and you can never see something for the 1st time again.Coupled with the fact that I didn't fully understand how to pick my ending and I picked something other than what I wanted initially (...or maybe I was just too dense to understand the "dream sequence" with each option)...

Once people have moved on and NDAs have expired, I would LOVE to hear how things really went down in the development of the ending and the fallout afterwards.

[Kia Purity]

Bioware listens? Since when? I don't feel like Bioware has actually taken my feedback in account with EC and other game issues that still strongly persist like the broken quest journal (why isn't this fixed?)

So, yeah, I'm going to have to say that I strongly don't believe that they really listen at all. Or if they are, they're only hearing what they want to hear. Not good if you want to improve on feedback.

(And I question the people they have for PR because they seem to be more interested in insulting the fans than doing good PR. o_O Bioware, what are you doing? This is NOT HOW PR WORKS)

[NM_Che56]

oldag07 wrote...

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

If Bioware cured cancer and AIDS on the same day you'd still get pissing and moaning from some people here.

[Robhuzz]

Catroi wrote...

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.

Thanks for the reply but I feel the need to reply to this part.

This is the problem that I have with Bioware's response after the ending. Of course the ending had to be peer reviewed, there's no question about that but ignoring that... If this was what Casey Hudson was going for, why didn't he come out and say it? Why did he and everyone else at bioware hide behind their 'artistic integrity' argument? Why did Casey go full reverse and completely ignore his past statements. Why would he intentionally create an ending that ignores every past choice you ever made? The very thing that made Mass Effect... well Mass Effect.

And talking about an 'unemotional, intellectual ending'... If that was his intention why didn't he come out and explain it? Part of being a professional is being able to deal with criticism. If he was envisioning an intellectual ending, why didn't he try to explain it when a huge part of the fanbase rose up and wanted an explanation?? When I re watch the ending on youtube, I do not see intellect, I see piles and piles of utter nonsense spewed by a character whose very existence undermines the entire trilogy. Analyzing the dialogue word by word, sentence by sentence... whatever the catalyst says.. it doesn't mean anything, it's simply complete and utter nonsense.

[Binary_Helix 1]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

This seems to be a 'no.' How pitiful.

Where you see bias I don't.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

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.

For the purposes of an ONLINE discussion an ONLINE poll is ok. Forums are not term papers requiring scientific citation.

Dean_the_Young wrote...]EA has bought a number of companies. By your logic, they should all be subject to 'favoritism.'

The bizarre nature of EA's acquisition of Bioware raises many questions.

Dean_the_Young wrote...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.

EA had unrealistic expectations. Happens all the time in the real world. Hell Iraq was invaded entirely on a false premise.

Even the LA Times did a piece on The Old Republic. When a game gets the attention of a major paper that's something.

herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-the-story-behind-a-galactic-gamble/#/0

Modifié par Binary_Helix 1, 26 novembre 2012 - 05:41 .

[Bob Garbage]

I hope Mr. Hudson has learned lots from this experience.

[Binary_Helix 1]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Well, this is pretty disgusting of you.

Sorry to burst your bubble but most fraud requires trust so family and friends are in the best spot to defraud seniors.

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

When you suggested EA didn't deserve it's dubious distinction. The case against EA goes well beyond irate fans venting.

Modifié par Binary_Helix 1, 26 novembre 2012 - 06:04 .

[LinksOcarina]

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.

Source of the article please? I would like to know when it was posted, where, and by who before I even trust it. 

[Necrotron]

My main beef with the ending and the crucible was always that the catalyst suddenly decides to help Shepard (move him up to the crucible spot) and basically defeats the Reapers himself, for no good reason. Billions of years and suddenly he wants to change everything, while wearing the face of a murdered child and simultaneously killing millions outside with his Reapers.  That, and the use of logical fallacies in all of his dialogue.

And the choices came out of nowhere and none of them were appealing. They all made Shepard have to resort to war crimes to achieve a victory, murdering millions of innocents or making everyone, eww, half-synthetic. How did any of those ending results relate in any way to anything of the story that came before? I get the symbolism and all that, but it really didn't seem like a fitting conclusion for Mass Effect, where the themes before it seems to contradict the results of the end choices, which are the antithesis of the story before.

But I think things will work well enough for me with the Mass Effect ending mod, so it'll be okay.

Modifié par Bathaius, 26 novembre 2012 - 09:40 .

[Ithurael]

LinksOcarina wrote...

Source of the article please? I would like to know when it was posted, where, and by who before I even trust it. 

I think this was the ea_spouse (erica hoffman) whistle blower article

clickity

Modifié par Ithurael, 26 novembre 2012 - 09:44 .

[ThomasN7]

Ofcourse they care but wether they actually do what people suggest is another. I think they will gather all the feedback from players and see what they can come up with.

[Dean_the_Young]

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Well, this is pretty disgusting of you.

Sorry to burst your bubble but most fraud requires trust so family and friends are in the best spot to defraud seniors.

Unsurprisingly, you miss the point of contention.

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

When you suggested EA didn't deserve it's dubious distinction. The case against EA goes well beyond irate fans venting.

Likewise unsurprising, you don't understand your fallacy of extremes. Not being the worst company in America doesn't mean that conduct was harmless.

[AlanC9]

Allan Schumacher wrote...
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."

As I recall the pre-EC threads that discussed refusing the Crucible options, this was the majority position.... or at least the plurality position. 

Usually those threads degenerated into a lot of shouting about why a conventional victory would or wouldn't be possible. So nothing's changed much; we've had at least three CV threads in the past week. I'm not quite clear how so many fans convinced themselves that Refuse, as implemented, was a "middle finger" to them.

Modifié par AlanC9, 26 novembre 2012 - 10:39 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Binary_Helix 1 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

This seems to be a 'no.' How pitiful.

Where you see bias I don't.

That's why it's pitiful.

Dean_the_Young wrote...

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.

For the purposes of an ONLINE discussion an ONLINE poll is ok. Forums are not term papers requiring scientific citation.

They do, however, require intellectual rigor to be credible. Considering you are currently and repeatedly arguing that it is unreasonable to expect you to make an informed argument or support your own claims, you're not particularly credible right now.

Dean_the_Young wrote...]EA has bought a number of companies. By your logic, they should all be subject to 'favoritism.'

The bizarre nature of EA's acquisition of Bioware raises many questions.

The same can be said of the other profitable companies they have gained.

EA had unrealistic expectations. Happens all the time in the real world. Hell Iraq was invaded entirely on a false premise.

You have yet to support your claim on what EA's expectations actually were.

Even the LA Times did a piece on The Old Republic. When a game gets the attention of a major paper that's something.

herocomplex.latimes.com/2012/01/20/star-wars-the-old-republic-the-story-behind-a-galactic-gamble/#/0

Not really. Articles on video games are pretty standard for pop-culture sections. The LA very article you link has an entire sub-category called 'games' with articles on video games of interest.

Moreover, the article doesn't support your claim of unrealistic expectations. It calls it 'ambitious' and 'a gamble', even 'a great risk', but none of these are the same as unrealistic expectations (the accepted tradeoff of any risk is that it might fail), nor do they posit that they intend to overthrow WoW.

[Redbelle]

AlanC9 wrote...

Allan Schumacher wrote...
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."

As I recall the pre-EC threads that discussed refusing the Crucible options, this was the majority position.... or at least the plurality position. 

Usually those threads degenerated into a lot of shouting about why a conventional victory would or wouldn't be possible. So nothing's changed much; we've had at least three CV threads in the past week. I'm not quite clear how so many fans convinced themselves that Refuse, as implemented, was a "middle finger" to them.

Probably because you can no longer shoot the Catalyst till the cows come home. Those that tried it, suddenly found themselves locked into a choice that had not intended to make.

But, most probably the reason why? Shepard goes into Shep's speech of freedom and rejection.......... and then nothing, The game just hit's it's abrupt end. I know it's got slides now. But that ending feels to final to fast. We just got to the citadel, had an argument with TIM, sat next to Anderson dying and had a conversation with Sparky.

Where's the integrated action/narrative scenario? Where is the end game boss? How can the Star War's of our time end................ with a chat........... and a sacrifice/suicide?

I can't say what BW saw when they went through all that data the fans sent their way that caused them to add refuse. But if they looked back at the data and examined the context of why the players were rejecting the 3 options, they may have found that, rather than the 3 choices not being palatable, it was in fact the change in tone of the game from action packed, to a slow crawl that threw players.

I think they wanted their gameplay back. Shepard with his powers and guns and ability to run and cover and all that. Because when the ending came, the players weren't ready for it.

My first reaction to the ending was, 'That's it? What did I do wrong?'

It's was only after that I saw the ending was in fact designed that way, with no branching off to explore other routes towards defeating the Reapers through different options throughout the game, that I came to understand that this was it.

ME1 had 1 ending.

ME2 effectively had 2 endings, success or failure. With a sliding scale of how good or bad you do depending on how many of your ppl made it back.

ME3........ Had 3, now 4 endings. And nothing we can do alter's them, bar deciding how badly Earth get's blown up. And frankly...................... I'm just too deflated to care after the Catalyst's fouled logic. Story pacing and realisation that this is as good as it'll get.

BW played a blinder with ME2's suicide mission. Yet somehow I can't help but feel that this final end game went by to fast. And that's saying something when you consider that the end game was supposedly started once the assualt on TIM's base finished. I can't think of a stand out moment of action that we hadn't seen before. The missle's and Reaper vie for contention, but the surviving the horde phase overpowered that boss fight with minion's. And we kill minion's all the time.

The Cain vies for contention too. But it's the same problem. We fight minion's to shoot the Reaper. And when we do, it's less of a battle and more of a spectacle.

Maybe the problem all along is that no one at BW could figure out how you could fight a Reaper as a player in full control of Shepard. Therefore we had to make do with the huskies.

Modifié par Redbelle, 26 novembre 2012 - 11:20 .