164 réponses à ce sujet

[Faust1979]

matt-bassist wrote...

Bro, screw the Geth. Sorry about EDI and all, but I want to DESTROY the Reapers, thats the whole god damn point! Also, I want to SURVIVE! and see my LI again, have a drink with my bro Garrus, and make fun of Javik.

get the required 3100 ems then Shepard will survive and do all that stuff

[HomerIsLegend]

EC should of been more a less a love letter to not only just the fanbase but the series itself. The original endings should have been from day one a wrapping up of the entire trilogy. Instead it more or less felt like it just concluded ME3 (albeit even that was poorly executed) and henceforth became a major disappointment to many. The EC was a chance to make up for that glaring mishap and instead they just glossed over it with slides and the nameplate scene.

[GreyLycanTrope]

Robosexual wrote...

Hope?

What hope was their for the Rachni when you drowned them in acid?

What hope was there for the Krogans when Eve died and you sabotaged the cure?

Which would be a good retort if this happened in every playthrough and there in fact wasn't any room for hope.
Excpet that's not the case.
The article never states that the way the author played was the only way it could be played, it just shows how a certain play style is utterly undermined in the last ten mintues.
This was the case for the author and myself as well.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 14 janvier 2013 - 01:39 .

[VLX11387]

I cried...

not really, but damn this guy is full of WIN!

[Rosstoration]

The EC was basically a, "Don't like our pseudo-intellectual endings? F*** You". With some deviantart slideshow. Pathetic.
That author of that article was fantastic.

[katamuro]

I know what he meant and i know what you people are saying. Unfortunately I dont think the top people in bioware or EA care at all. They dont seem to care about anything but their own pockets. Would have been nice if that wasnt the case. But we live in real world where every corporation and their top people only care about the amount of money they make for themselves and not about people who make up their companies.

[VLX11387]

katamuro wrote...

I know what he meant and i know what you people are saying. Unfortunately I dont think the top people in bioware or EA care at all. They dont seem to care about anything but their own pockets. Would have been nice if that wasnt the case. But we live in real world where every corporation and their top people only care about the amount of money they make for themselves and not about people who make up their companies.

Which is the only reason why I'm holding out on my wallet for every DLC and Mass Effect game. If I feel safe, I'll give them one last shot at this universe. If not, then it's high time for me to leave this universe. It was a fun ride while it lasted. 

[Clayless]

Greylycantrope wrote...

Robosexual wrote...

Hope?

What hope was their for the Rachni when you drowned them in acid?

What hope was there for the Krogans when Eve died and you sabotaged the cure?

Which would be a good retort if this happened in every playthrough and there in fact wasn't any room for hope.
Excpet that's not the case.
The article never states that the way the author played was the only way it could be played, it just shows how a certain play style is utterly undermined in the last ten mintues.
This was the case for the author and myself as well.

No the author states that was the main thrust behind Mass Effect.

If it was, then where's the hope in those situations?

[Leonardo the Magnificent]

The endings were great when I played Commander Genocide Shepard. It all fit nicely: "What's one more sacrifice?"

[CronoDragoon]

Greylycantrope wrote...
Which would be a good retort if this happened in every playthrough and there in fact wasn't any room for hope.
Excpet that's not the case.
The article never states that the way the author played was the only way it could be played, it just shows how a certain play style is utterly undermined in the last ten mintues.
This was the case for the author and myself as well.

I never heard drayfish qualify his statements about the ME endings in this way. Seems to me the article wants to claim the endings betray the themes of the series for everyone.

[chemiclord]

Friends, Internet Dwellers, Trolls, lend me your ears.

I come not to defend the endings of Mass Effect 3, but to defend a method of storytelling under attack.

These are not the words of a “pro-ender”; in truth, even with the Extended Cut, they are a logical nightmare, with each attempted plug of a hole often creating an entirely different one. There is no defending the execution that requires a half ton of self-rationalization that should have been explained in game no matter how obvious the writers may have thought it was.

There is no excuse that makes the poorly written logic of the Catalyst any less poor, even if the intent becomes clear with some educated guessing, or that the barest shards of its foreshadowing was not nearly enough to remove the Deus Ex Machina feel it had upon its appearance (even if it does not fit the technical definition of the term).

I do want to thank Drayfish for his/her very well composed piece reflecting his/her disappointment. There is validity to them, especially for a player expecting and anticipating a certain environment and a certain outcome that had been supported through two other games. This rebuttal is not meant as a dismissal of those feelings specifically. However...

Simply put... stories are under no requirement whatsoever to be happy or hopeful or particularly pleasant. Literature is just as valid reflecting reality as it is escaping from it. Whichever one you prefer is a matter of opinion, of course, but a preference for one does not excuse a dismissal of the other.

Nor is their any requirement in the slightest that one installment of a story maintain the same feel as its predecessors, nor does any further sequel need to continue to follow the dark road those previous had taken.

In fact, some of the most heralded of science-fiction tales took such thematic shifts. Star Wars saw “A New Hope” become “The Empire Strikes Back.” Star Trek saw Captain Kirk's boast of never believing in a no-win scenario get mauled and spit back at him with the good of the many outweighing the good of the few.

In this case, Mass Effect decides to take its environmental shift at the end of the trilogy; a reasonably unprecedented move for such a major title. While perhaps ill-advised for the emotions of their players, that in and of itself would not have been the death knell had it been executed properly.

Sometimes, there IS no “perfect” solution. Sometimes tough choices have to be made, and there is no way to come through clean. That is reality. In perhaps that (only) instance, Mass Effect 3 executes a realist story well. No option you have is a particularly “happy” one. It's a value exercise; intended for the player to think and engage their own values as what is most important to them. When pressed, what choice would you make and why?  It's meant for the player to get a look at themselves as much as the world they are in.

A “golden ending” would inherently defeat the moral question. There'd be no logical reason to take any other solution. To do otherwise would be doing it “wrong.”

The Extended Cut adds a refuse option, which while obviously the equivalent of a rude gesture from the writers to the fans, is also a remarkably well done Realist perspective. You can certainly choose not to betray your ideals, and you can certainly stand for what you believe in... but those that do so in the face of the reality of the situation inevitably lose. It's one thing to have hope and faith; it's entirely another to expect those alone to carry you. Fortune favors the bold, and survival favors the fittest.

Video Games are seeing a push to become a widely accepted form of story-telling. That requires that they push beyond the obviously emotionally satisfying conclusion. Books, movies, plays... they all accept and embrace reality as often and as readily as they escape in flights of fancy. Both have their place.

Mass Effect 3 is a truly disastrous conclusion, but not because of it's attempt. One of the marks that separates a good writer from a great writer is that a good writer gives the reader what he/she wants; while a great writer gives the reader what the writer wants and convinces the reader that it's what he/she wanted as well.

Mass Effect 3 abjectly does not succeed at doing this. It is a narrative mess that is as much a travesty to Realists as it is to Romantics. It violates many basic axioms of good writing for seemingly little reason, and leaves so many things open to interpretation that no sound interpretation is possible. The potential value discussion is lost because there's next to nothing provided by the endings to formulate a logical defense for or against any path taken.

And that is where the game fails... not in its attempt, but in its composition.

Modifié par chemiclord, 14 janvier 2013 - 03:07 .

[CosmicGnosis]

Chemiclord, I agree with your post. I like the fact that the choices are gut-wrenching. It makes Shepard's choice the equivalent of other controversial historical events, such as the creation of the Genophage, the rebellion of the geth, the uplifting of the krogan, etc. The people who made those decisions believed them to be the best solutions to their problems.

People look back and debate the ethics of those events. Now people will also judge Shepard's actions. Shepard's final choice will be discussed and debated for millennia to come. I think it's rather fitting.

Modifié par CosmicGnosis, 14 janvier 2013 - 03:20 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

Robosexual wrote...
No the author states that was the main thrust behind Mass Effect.
If it was, then where's the hope in those situations?

CronoDragoon wrote...
I never heard drayfish qualify his statements about the ME endings in this way. Seems to me the article wants to claim the endings betray the themes of the series for everyone.

I'll refer you both to the first page of the article:

First paragraph:
"Depending on who you ask, last week Bioware, the creators of Mass Effect 3, either ‘caved to fan pressure’, ‘corrected their ham-fisted, hurried storytelling’, or ‘wanted to provide closure for those who appreciated  their vision’ by releasing an Extended Cut of the concluding game of  their trilogy."

Second paragraph:
"Many have found these revised and expanded endings to be satisfactory (if not outright brilliant) additions to the Mass Effect lore, which is no doubt a good thing.  I however will have to admit right out of the gates – before the
tenor of my response drifts into inevitable sorrow – that I was not one of those people.  So if you are (quite understandably) sick of hearing people whine about these endings, it might be a good idea to pass on by
right now… "

Third paragraph
"Many (myself included), had criticised the game’s original ending for its thematic, character and logical inconsistencies, and although a great deal of effort was exerted to justify these problems in the new
cut, it is odd to note that so many narrative absurdities still litter the work – this time arguably even more pronounced as they work overtime to clear up the jarring details left hanging the first time around."

He acknowledges that the opinion expressed in the article is not the only one at the very begining. He also states that this is from the perspective of someone who was dissatisfied in the second paragraph. That's his qualification he's speaking on behalf a certain perspective and how the fixes provided by the EC don't account for it.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 14 janvier 2013 - 03:22 .

[CronoDragoon]

chemiclord wrote...
Mass Effect 3 abjectly does not succeed at doing this. It is a narrative mess that is as much a travesty to Realists as it is to Romantics. It violates many basic axioms of good writing for seemingly little reason, and leaves so many things open to interpretation that no sound interpretation is possible. The potential value discussion is lost because there's next to nothing provided by the endings to formulate a logical defense for or against any path taken.

And that is where the game fails... not in its attempt, but in its composition.

Yeah, one thing I've noticed is that neither realists nor idealists are by and large satisfied. For every contrivance to make the ending feel more sad (the geth/EDI dying in Destroy) there is a contrivance to make it happier (the Normandy evac scene). In general, a lot of what happens feels forced, unnatural, inorganic, and somewhat illogical.

One thing I will point out though is that using Star Wars as an example of trilogies changing tone can backfire, since RotJ is arguably the most light-hearted of the trilogy. In fact, it's a popular trilogy model to have the middle one be especially dark, such that the third movie can have enough tension to resolve.

I'm not really sure it is ever a good idea to change tone significantly within a trilogy, unless you are planning on bringing the audience back with you to the tone from which you started.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 14 janvier 2013 - 03:31 .

[CronoDragoon]

Greylycantrope wrote...

He acknowledges that the opinion expressed in the article is not the only one at the very begining. He also states that this is from the perspective of someone who was dissatisfied in the second paragraph. That's his qualification he's speaking on behalf a certain perspective and how the fixes provided by the EC don't account for it.

He's acknowledging that people feel differently about the endings, which is completely different than acknowledging that the problems he's talking about only exist for specific types of playthroughs.

[Isz Niv]

Chemiclord, all I can say is wow. I don't care what people say , these forums are filled with very intelligent people who know bad writing whenever it is sugar coated.

[GreyLycanTrope]

CronoDragoon wrote...
He's acknowledging that people feel differently about the endings, which is completely different than acknowledging that the problems he's talking about only exist for specific types of playthroughs.

It's implied in the text, if note explicidly stated

Page2:
"Once again players are not offered the opportunity to point out that they may well have already solved the synthetic versus organic conflict that has him worked up in such a tizzy;"

May, as in not necessarily the only outcome or narrative construct.

Want another hint? He explicidly says "I saw" "I felt" etc. using I so many times denotes a certain subjectivity and perspective(I dare say play style). I could count the number of times he used the word "I" but frankly I'd just rather not.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 14 janvier 2013 - 03:40 .

[fiendishchicken]

Here's the reason I disagree with Chemiclord. I've spent the last trilogy building up, making alliances, making friends, getting everything ready for the fight in the specific hope of the payoff being a happy ending.

I worked for a happy ending, I earned one. I still want one.

[Iakus]

fiendishchicken wrote...

Here's the reason I disagree with Chemiclord. I've spent the last trilogy building up, making alliances, making friends, getting everything ready for the fight in the specific hope of the payoff being a happy ending.

I worked for a happy ending, I earned one. I still want one.

And this is what separates a role-playing game from a novel or film.

Player input

[The RPGenius]

Quite good. A shame Bioware still doesn't care.

[CosmicGnosis]

Well, I wanted something more thoughtful than a straightforward happy ending. Instead, I got an ending that should have been thoughtful, but was loaded with bad writing.

[CronoDragoon]

Greylycantrope wrote...
It's implied in the text, if note explicidly stated

Page2:
"Once again players are not offered the opportunity to point out that they may well have already solved the synthetic versus organic conflict that has him worked up in such a tizzy;"

May, as in not necessarily the only outcome or narrative construct.

Want another hint? He explicidly says "I saw" "I felt" etc. using I so many times denotes a certain subjectivity and perspective(I dare say play style). I could count the number of times he used the word "I" but frankly I'd just rather not.

I'm reading into those things differently than you, but perhaps my perception is colored by drayfish's previous posts on this board.

[AlanC9]

As usual, chemiclord's left me a bit embarrassed that most of what I contribute these days is snark.

[GreyLycanTrope]

CronoDragoon wrote...

I'm reading into those things differently than you, but perhaps my perception is colored by drayfish's previous posts on this board.

Suppose we could just ask him to clarify next time he's around

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 14 janvier 2013 - 04:01 .

[N7 Lisbeth]

Thumbs up, OP!

Those articles are as relevant now as they were then -- because *nothing has changed* since then.

I'll quote Boromir here (someone that betrayed his morals and his allies), as I feel it's appropos: "It is long since we had hope."

Lisbeth Shepard refuses such an ending. I also intend to boycott any further Mass Effect games that do not involve Shepard.

Modifié par N7 Lisbeth, 14 janvier 2013 - 04:16 .