394 réponses à ce sujet

[CronoDragoon]

I'm mostly over it, and the EC definitely helped. There were 3 main problems I had with the original endings:

1. What happened to the Normandy?
2. The geth dying in Destroy for no real reason.
3. The relays getting destroyed.

1 was answered, 3 was retconned, and 2 was left alone. I'm still sort of off-put about the geth, but otherwise the ending does feel mostly bitter-sweet to me, which was BioWare's stated intent.

[AlanC9]

I was never all that upset in the first place, and after the EC I think it's OK. I've played worse, far worse.

[SimonTheFrog]

I was pained before.... grasping for an explanation how this could have happened.

Now I got numb and moved on.
No interest in any of the DLC's. I played another run at some point but stopped after rannoch.

I'm still surprised how the ending ruined the whole trilogy for me.

But there you go.

[1337b0r0m1r]

iakus wrote...

(...)

Up until now, they'd been doing a pretty good balancing act.

it's only in the closing moments that Shepard got taken away from us and burned while we were forced to watch.

You see, that's where people disagree. 

[AlienSpaceBats]

Still mentally scarred.
Recently thought I'd give the trilogy another playthrough, loved every second of #1, started feeling despondent in #2, stopped playing #3 after Tuchunka.

[zombieord]

Ending still leaves a lot to be desired. I'm just more disappointed now than angry. Just because you've grown used to something doesn't make it any better. The EC solved very little for me. It fixed a few plot holes and gave closure to some of the series. I still hate the premise of the ending and the betrayal of the series main themes (diversity, unison, overcoming all odds) in favor of the Catalyst and his stupid 'solution'.

[Iakus]

1337b0r0m1r wrote...

iakus wrote...

(...)

Up until now, they'd been doing a pretty good balancing act.

it's only in the closing moments that Shepard got taken away from us and burned while we were forced to watch.

You see, that's where people disagree. 

Well it was far from perfect, of course.  I only said "pretty good"

But the endings removed any pretense that these were "our Shepards" Lee Everette felt more my character than Commander Shepard by the end.

[3DandBeyond]

Indy_S wrote...

It's still a narrative, thematic and logical mess. The emotion I feel is still confusion, so that hasn't changed. I still desire a discussion with the developers over the ending and the game at large.

This and so much more.  The emotion and pace at the end should be frenetic, exciting, and offer fulfillment.  You should feel like you not only just completed playing an awesome game-one you got to actually play at the end, but also satisfied that what you thought you would do, you could accomplish.  I feel disgusted that a company that could feature such a poignant dying scene for Thane (although poorly placed and achieved-those ME2 characters were treated like feces), could think this ending was even satisfactory.

They could have ended it well by even ending it in mediocrity or by ending it in a predictable way.  Instead they chose this boatload of incomprehensible mess that you don't even get to play.  You push a button to ask another inane question and have no real ability to ask questions you would want answered.  BW has the kid answer the questions in the way they want them answered, so that Shepard can't really investigate any answer.  And the "logic" that is used is pure garbage.  Leviathan makes it worse. 

No person that ever started ME1 wanted the game to end up being a choice-I doubt the devs did themselves.  It should have been goal-directed (to remain true to the emotion and the build up) and incorporated several varieties of your success at achieving the goal.  Instead, it is the inclusion of a brand new character that we have no emotional connection to-that makes the story stop then and there.  If all along we had had this impending feeling that all of this would happen in some way, we would have been carried along by the emotion.  It's like a snowball building up steam going downhill.  It starts off small, but as it goes along it picks up more snow, goes faster, and then explodes once it hits something in its tracks.  We should have felt that at the end-hints that build up so that we know something like this kid awaits.  The only hints as to his presence (or something more controlling the reapers) are so vague as to easily be overlooked, and most real hints occur in ME3 itself, but again they're obscure.

Anyone that does not know the direction ME4 (or whatever the heck it is) will take needs to look at Dead Space 3.  A great series ruined with microtransactions, all but forced coop (some areas of the game are not revealed if you don't play coop), and combat heavy instead of story heavy. 

ME3's ending only made more apparent how much the game failed in other areas.  I sincerely believe any new game will go the way of Dead Space.

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 11 février 2013 - 05:35 .

[CronoDragoon]

3DandBeyond wrote...

No person that ever started ME1 wanted the game to end up being a choice-I doubt the devs did themselves.

Wasn't that the tagline for ME1? Many choices lie ahead, none of them easy?

[3DandBeyond]

CronoDragoon wrote...

I'm mostly over it, and the EC definitely helped. There were 3 main problems I had with the original endings:

1. What happened to the Normandy?
2. The geth dying in Destroy for no real reason.
3. The relays getting destroyed.

1 was answered, 3 was retconned, and 2 was left alone. I'm still sort of off-put about the geth, but otherwise the ending does feel mostly bitter-sweet to me, which was BioWare's stated intent.

The problem with that is, that was never their pre-release sentiment nor was it what the series as a whole showed us.  The end of ME1 was not bittersweet, except in that one teammated sacrificed him/herself.  It never did feel bittersweet.  It made sense.  The end of ME2 was not bittersweet-it could be if you just left it as someone dying in the suicide mission, but you had the opportunity to save all.  In fact, in ME2 I felt like I'd done a lot of good things so there was no bitter at all.  I cured a plague and redeemed humanity's reputation somewhat in the process.  I saved workers from dying in a fire and helped Zaeed somewhat overcome his immediate need for revenge.  I helped Garrus to grow a bit and determine just what the price of revenge is.  I helped Jack feel like a person who was cared about for maybe the first time in her life-same with Miranda.  I helped Jacob put away some old wounded feelings.  I helped Tali get out from under her father's shadow.  And so on-on the way I stopped colonies from being gobbled up and then I got to tell off TIM.

However, ME3's ending for a whole lot of us feels just bitter and not bittersweet.  But if it is just bittersweet then no there was no variety in the endings-there was one pigeon-holed ending that we all got.

The comments about bittersweet often surrounded the fact that BW thought people were just upset when they saw the end because Shepard's story arc was over.  That indicated they understood nothing.  It would have been bittersweet to be seeing the arc end and be able to bid a decent farewell to Shepard.  Instead, we get to say goodbye to a crappy torso left in rubble that they want us to head canon to be dead or alive.  That's garbage.  It's not bittersweet.  I don't feel like I saved the galaxy.  I feel like I've been given the keys to a shed full of manure.  Yeah, it looks great from the outside, but inside it stinks and no amount of perfume will make it smell better.

[3DandBeyond]

CronoDragoon wrote...

3DandBeyond wrote...

No person that ever started ME1 wanted the game to end up being a choice-I doubt the devs did themselves.

Wasn't that the tagline for ME1? Many choices lie ahead, none of them easy?

Yeah, but the tagline wasn't-at the end of the trilogy no matter what you do, or how you play the game, you'll still get the exact same endings (with some cool different slides) as everyone else.

And your choices were supposed to matter, especially at the end.  They don't.  As you said, you thought they accomplished bittersweet.  Well, if so then at best everyone got bittersweet.  That doesn't speak of choices that mattered.  It speaks of extreme linearity in a game that was supposed to at least provide superficial non-linearity.  It featured choices.  That means that along with bittersweet, there should have been extremely bitter (which is what the endings feel like to me) and sweet or sort of happy.

I imagine that ME4 (whatever it's called) will have to even further reinforce this if it's a sequel.  It will start off with your choices from ME3 not mattering at all-the end choice merely being one choice among many that will not matter.  So, the new tagline will be "Mass Effect 4.  Many choices have been made, none of them matter."

Modifié par 3DandBeyond, 11 février 2013 - 05:52 .

[Tootles FTW]

ME1 completed playthroughs: ~8
ME2 completed playthroughs: ~10
ME3 completed playthroughs: 1

[Benchpress610]

iakus wrote...
Well it was far from perfect, of course.  I only said "pretty good"

But the endings removed any pretense that these were "our Shepards" Lee Everette felt more my character than Commander Shepard by the end.

Adam Jensen

[JMJ_91]

Auld Wulf wrote...

@OP

I think the point of Synthesis was to present us with the technological Singularity, if you're familiar with that term. It's not about understanding everything, as we don't right now, it's about the rationale that if we continue evolving technology and the sciences, eventually we'll be able to leave nature and mortality behind. Nature and mortality tend to result in a lot of suffering, a lot of death, and some people embrace that death as they're unable to think outside of their small world perceptions, they're stuck in a very small box. Synthesis is for those that want to dream bigger.

For those, like myself, it's a conclusion wchich fits our ideals. It presents a future mostly sans suffering, it changes the human condition. We no longer have to be beasts reliant on instinct. Similar to the reapers, we will no longer be slaves to our own biologically programming. If you've been following scientific research at all, a lot of it is pretty much to overturn nature's own code. Curing diabetes recently had an interesting milestone, as did a potential future cure for cognitive decline (the lack of new neurons being created in old age).

Much of what we do is meant to augment our natural selves, to go past our own shortcomings. That shiny iPhone or Android phone you might have is a side-effect of that desire. A hundred years ago, you wouldn't be able to immediately and directly call a hospital or the police out on the street like you can now. This is all augmentation of the human condition, it's about overcoming our shortcomings and rebuilding ourselves into better creatures. Bionic eyes recently went on sale as a product to cure blindness (no, really). Every day we take another step towards the Singularity.

The Singularity is the event where we pretty much step aside from nature, because we have no more use for it, and we've taken evolution into our own hands. Essentially, we're free of nature's biological coding. And if you think about it, that's much of what Mass Effect 3 represents - everyone is a slave to their code. The synthetics are, the organics are, the reapers are. And yet we all want something better, and we strive for better things. Legion striving to provide code to allow his people to become truly sapient is reminiscent of our own struggle.

So, for a mind like mine, Synthesis isn't at all difficult to accept. It's the natural culmination of everything. It's what we're all heading towards, anyway. Every intelligent mind strives to escape the boundaries of nature. Every intelligent mind wants to undo damages brought about by us being natural creatures. If it wasn't for that drive, we wouldn't have people working on cures for the big bads, like cancer and STDs. The point of the Singularity is that at that point, those concerns stop being concerns, we're no longer slaves to the fear of them.

Synthesis represents that turning point. A point where we can all connect to a galactic consensus to share thoughts and emotions, where we could back up our very minds to it, where we could upgrade our bodies to the point where they are so different that we're barely a part of the human condition any more, where we could instead just leave our bodies behind and just become a part of a living spaceship. Those are very far-fetched notions right now, but it's, frankly, awesome ideas like those that we strive for. Those are the long term goals for us.

The ultimate purpose of humanity is to defeat the human condition and recreate it as something entirely our own.

Synthesis provides the chance to do just that, to finally be free of all concerns and take personal evolution into your own hands. It's pretty much the ultimate future, the point where we transcend from the human condition into something else. Yes, i'm a transhumanist, but for obvious reasons. Of course, the opposite end of this is being a luddite, where you absolutely hate any and all forms of advancement (only perhaps barely tolerating those you were born into). I always feel sad for luddites, because they're going to end up as those old people who long for 'the days when.' (And they might become those old people as early as the age of 30 depending on how much they hate modern technology.)

Whereas I'm quite a bit along that road myself, past middle age and still going strong. I'll be as ready for new technology when I'm 80 as I am today, and I will continue to feel sorry for those that aren't.

But yes, that's what Synthesis represents: The inevitable tomorrow.

I don't see why that's a bad thing, one step too far, or hard to understand.

Right, I see your point, that's why Snythesis is supposed to be the "Good"-ending. I've just got trouble seeing how it would work inside the Mass Effect universe (kinda weird arguing about what's unrealtistic in a sci-fi game )

[AlanC9]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Wasn't that the tagline for ME1? Many choices lie ahead, none of them easy?

There were several taglines. "Annihilation is one decision away"..... maybe they had Refuse in mind?

The line you're thinking of is from  this spot. A shame this choice didn't actually appear in ME1.

Modifié par AlanC9, 11 février 2013 - 06:14 .

[IIEquillibriumII]

I didnt really understand the ending the first time, since i hadn't played Me 1 - 2 at that point, so i bought them and played threw them all, and to be honest, i was really really dissapointed with the ending, then EC came out, still dissapointed, not angry about it, im still playing the games, couse i like the gameplay of em, and the story, but the ending will always be a dissapointment for me .

[humes spork]

After I cooled off, realized minutiae and details don't matter, and put serious thought into the endings and the statement that was being conveyed by them, I'm actually pretty cool with the original ending...to the point I see the EC as fundamentally undermining that statement for the sake of clarity.

[AlanC9]

3DandBeyond wrote...


I imagine that ME4 (whatever it's called) will have to even further reinforce this if it's a sequel.  It will start off with your choices from ME3 not mattering at all-the end choice merely being one choice among many that will not matter.  So, the new tagline will be "Mass Effect 4.  Many choices have been made, none of them matter."

Or the choices matter, but only one set of choices leads to the universe the sequel is set in. This is fairly common in RPG sequels that actually have significant choices. It's better than grinding everything into indistinguishable mush the way, say, KotOR 2 did.

[CronoDragoon]

3DandBeyond wrote...

Yeah, but the tagline wasn't-at the end of the trilogy no matter what you do, or how you play the game, you'll still get the exact same endings (with some cool different slides) as everyone else.

Well, okay, but now we're going into specifics as opposed to what the general tone of the game was advertised as. Arguably it's a failing of ME1 that the game failed to deliver on its promise of many tough decisions; it just so happened to fail in a way that many people liked.

As for pre-release statements, BW did state they wanted the tone bittersweet. They obviously misjudged what a significant portion of their fanbase thought would be bittersweet, but they never advertised a happy ending.

[wright1978]

Maybe one day when someone mentions the starbrat or Shep's breath scene my 1st reaction won't be to try and stem the geyser of anger and disappointment at the shoddiness of the trainwreck that is ME3's ending, and the pall it cast over the entire series. That day isn't here yet though unfortunately.

[xAmilli0n]

I came to terms with it pre-EC. Now I'm pretty happy with things.

Modifié par xAmilli0n, 11 février 2013 - 06:27 .

[CronoDragoon]

humes spork wrote...

After I cooled off, realized minutiae and details don't matter, and put serious thought into the endings and the statement that was being conveyed by them, I'm actually pretty cool with the original ending...to the point I see the EC as fundamentally undermining that statement for the sake of clarity.

Are you talking about the relays here? If so, then I suppose it depends what you see as freedom for the galaxy. If you define autonomy for the galaxy as "developing along any path except the relay path" then fine, so long as we realize that this is not really autonomy after all.

Alternatively, if you think the EC undermined the statement because it precludes the ability for the player to decide for himself whether or not the galaxy uses the relays, then I think that is a very good point.

[AlanC9]

CronoDragoon wrote...

Well, okay, but now we're going into specifics as opposed to what the general tone of the game was advertised as. Arguably it's a failing of ME1 that the game failed to deliver on its promise of many tough decisions; it just so happened to fail in a way that many people liked.

Yep. I'd played enough Bio games to expect ME1 to not deliver in that area. But if I'd gone in expecting a lot of tough choices with serious consequences I would have been quite disappointed.

Someone here -- chemiclord, maybe? -- said that Bio fans say they want this stuff, but they really don't. I'm not sure there's any such a thing as a "Bio fan," myself 

Modifié par AlanC9, 11 février 2013 - 06:30 .