616 réponses à ce sujet

[t1striker]

I see no need for a happy ending, to tell you the truth I'd like too see less happy endings in games. The problem with Mass Effect 3's ending is that it's not a very well written, or smart ending. Plain and simply the ending sucked.

Modifié par t1striker, 06 mars 2013 - 03:08 .

[Redcrosse Knight]

Flamingdropbear wrote...

The lack of a happy ending was not the main issue of the ME3 ending, but in the interest of constructive feedback lets look and how to do it right for DAI
Make it Epic- the end of the game should be... well epic. It's the end of a 20 to 60 hour game and you want to leave the gamer with a sense of awe, buzzing about the game, not with a meh feeling. Give us stuff we haven't seen before, like the Reaper Larvae or the Statues in the Gallows.
Make it reflect the entire game- make it use everything we've learnt and reflect the choices we've made. ME2's suicide mission did it perfectly, choices of whether to do the loyalty missions, have we resources gathering for the Normandy upgrades, who we picked for each role in the mission. DAO's choices as to which side to take in each place giving different troops for the final battle.
Make it consistent with the game- no magic in a scifi game or third act villain change, or major shifts in tone.
Keep it moving- ME2 used keeping up with the tech specialist or biotic kept the suicide mission moving at a good pace which helped keep it exciting
Answer more questions than you pose
Give us time to say goodbye- after the boss give us a chance to see what we have acompished, chat to people and see how our actions have affected the world. DAO's party or funeral were good examples.

Choices need to matter.  I actually prefer the ability to get a worst case ending, rather than choose a best case ending regardless of previous choices.

[Da HALOSHOCK]

Welsh Inferno wrote...

Not this again.... ME3's ending isn't hated because it isn't "happy".

This!

[AlanC9]

Bryy_Miller wrote...
Happy endings can be written horribly, too.

I think we should all agree to settle for a good ending.

OK. Now all we have do do is define "good."

[TEKEO ANDO]

I believe some people on this forum are missing the point on ME3 having a bad ending. The ending for ME3 wasnt bad because it wasn't a happy ending, it was bad because your decisions didn't matter at all at the end because you still get the same endings, not because shep dies in 75% of the endings. DA:I could have a tragic ending and still be a good game or even possibly have a sucky happy ending with bioware pulling random **** out their asses. DA:O had an ending where you could die from the sacrifice and it was still a good ending. We'll just have to wait and see what BioWare does...

[Slashice]

ME3 ending is hated because it has almost no connection to the previos games lore.

Just a few:

- The Catalyst: If the Citadel is really part of him (ME3 ending lore), and so the keepers controlled by the Citadel (ME1 lore), then why the Catalyst didn't notice the prothean sabotage against the keepers (ME1 lore), who even place a small mass relay on the Citadel and used it (ME1 lore)?
- If the Catalyst embodies the collective intelligence of all Reapers (ME3 ending lore) then why the Catalyst couldn't warn Sovereign about the sabotage? Instead Sovereign had to start an investigation about why the keepers didn't answer for his signal (ME1 lore) and that led him to Saren.
- Also if the Catalyst can controll certain parts of the Citadel (for example opening the arms, lifting up Shepard's body) why was Saren really necessery (ME1 lore) to gain access over Citadel master control?

I could list all the major flaws about the lore of the ending and couldn't finish at by night but instead I've highlighted the most disturbing parts about it.

Personally I don't care about the lack of happy ending but what bugs me the most that the endings goes against everything that has told us before, screws up everything big time. As long as DA3 will be true to the lore of the previous games I don't give a damn if we won't have a happy ending. Btw, DA:O's ending was perfect! ME3 should've had something similar (kill the main Reaper and destroy their base in dark space via using the Citadel relay, and then the remaining forces retreat back to uncharted parts of the Galaxy).

[The Harmonizer]

The ending doesn't have to be happy to be "good". It needs to be believable and it needs to be true to the lore of the game. Also it needs to fit the build up and pacing of the game.

Mass Effect 3 did neither of these and hence it failed.

[PPF65]

I would say that the problem with the endings of ME3 was that NONE of the end choices really felt like a "win." I wanted to win. Shepard dying would have been acceptable if the ending felt like a win, but there was no winning. It was basically a giant middle finger for the fans of the series who didn't want to eat a fist full of depressing swill.

Anyway, as long as Bioware make it possible (even if it is VERY difficult) to win in the end of DA:I, I'll be happy.

[Foolsfolly]

XM-417 wrote...

Origins was still doing it better with its endings as they are inclusive.You have got pretty much something for everyone at the end of the game.

True enough. For pure story based reasons I love the holy hell out of the ending where the Warden dies. Especially if that Warden was some hated minority (casteless, elven, mage, elven mage).

In fact, I believe DA:O had a superior ending to many other games for a variety of reasons, some I've written about before. And the fact that the team that wrote Origins' ending are doing this game makes me hopeful.

I mean, sure they also wrote DA2's ending and the endings to Awakening and Mark of the Assassin... but those were DLC and in DA2's case clearly rushed out the door before anything was ready. Other than most of Act 2.

[Plaintiff]

Slashice wrote...

ME3 ending is hated because it has almost no connection to the previos games lore.

Just a few:

- The Catalyst: If the Citadel is really part of him (ME3 ending lore), and so the keepers controlled by the Citadel (ME1 lore), then why the Catalyst didn't notice the prothean sabotage against the keepers (ME1 lore), who even place a small mass relay on the Citadel and used it (ME1 lore)?
- If the Catalyst embodies the collective intelligence of all Reapers (ME3 ending lore) then why the Catalyst couldn't warn Sovereign about the sabotage? Instead Sovereign had to start an investigation about why the keepers didn't answer for his signal (ME1 lore) and that led him to Saren.
- Also if the Catalyst can controll certain parts of the Citadel (for example opening the arms, lifting up Shepard's body) why was Saren really necessery (ME1 lore) to gain access over Citadel master control?

"Clearly organics are more resourceful than we realised".

The Catalyst is powerful, but not omnipotent. It is the collective knowledge and memories of the Reapers. It only knows what the Reapers know, in addition to the knowldege the Leviathans programmed into it when it was built.

The Keepers were required to maintain the Citadel and trigger the signal that would summon the Reapers. When the Protheans sabotaged the Keepers, that meant communication between the Citadel and the Reapers was severed. There was no way for the Citadel or the Catalyst to contact them. Saren and Sovereign were required to manually trigger the signal, because the process was no longer automated via the Keepers. If the Citadel had been able to contact to Sovereign, then Sovereign's presence in ME1 would've never have been required in the first place.

The Conduit was not connected to the Mass Relay network because it was an independant construct, built by the Protheans. The Reapers never learned about it so there was no way the Catalyst could be aware of it. Even if the Catalyst was aware of it, there was no way it could inform the Reapers because, again, communication had been sabotaged by the Protheans.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 07 mars 2013 - 01:02 .

[Slashice]

Plaintiff wrote...

Slashice wrote...

ME3 ending is hated because it has almost no connection to the previos games lore.

Just a few:

- The Catalyst: If the Citadel is really part of him (ME3 ending lore), and so the keepers controlled by the Citadel (ME1 lore), then why the Catalyst didn't notice the prothean sabotage against the keepers (ME1 lore), who even place a small mass relay on the Citadel and used it (ME1 lore)?
- If the Catalyst embodies the collective intelligence of all Reapers (ME3 ending lore) then why the Catalyst couldn't warn Sovereign about the sabotage? Instead Sovereign had to start an investigation about why the keepers didn't answer for his signal (ME1 lore) and that led him to Saren.
- Also if the Catalyst can controll certain parts of the Citadel (for example opening the arms, lifting up Shepard's body) why was Saren really necessery (ME1 lore) to gain access over Citadel master control?

"Clearly organics are more resourceful than we realised".

The Catalyst is powerful, but not omnipotent. It is the collective knowledge and memories of the Reapers. It only knows what the Reapers know, in addition to the knowldege the Leviathans programmed into it when it was built.

The Keepers were required to maintain the Citadel and trigger the signal that would summon the Reapers. When the Protheans sabotaged the Keepers, that meant communication between the Citadel and the Reapers was severed. There was no way for the Citadel or the Catalyst to contact them. Saren and Sovereign were required to manually trigger the signal, because the process was no longer automated via the Keepers. If the Citadel had been able to contact to Sovereign, then Sovereign's presence in ME1 would've never have been required in the first place.

The Conduit was not connected to the Mass Relay network because it was an independant construct, built by the Protheans. The Reapers never learned about it so there was no way the Catalyst could be aware of it. Even if the Catalyst was aware of it, there was no way it could inform the Reapers because, again, communication had been sabotaged by the Protheans.

Fair enough but it's a shame that or something similar doesn't explained in a game where the director and lead writer promised us proper closure.

Tho why didn't the Reapers tried to seize control over the Citadel when they arrived and shut down the relay network? Also, when they took the Citadel and escorted it to Earth why didn't they shut down the relay network? They did this in all previous cycles, that was the doom of the Prothean empire aswell (they had to fight from planet to planet, system by system and the communication crippled accross the Empire)?

It would be cool if the Reapers were attacked the Citadel then seize control over it and turn the whole relay network into "omega mode", means that all relays turn into red and work as same as the Omega relay, allowing only Reapers or ships with Reaper IFF (aka Normandy) to travel.

Also it's a shamed that the hintings (human genetic diversity, dark energy) made in ME2 were completely abadonded including the main antagonist (Harbinger - he even lost his unique lookin model from ME2: he got the same model as all the other Sovereign class reapers, except he doesn't have a middle leg and has eyes. No more extra plating on the back and completely different textures - so lame).

So for DA3 dev team: do not contradict everything retcon is fine as long as it is properly explained.

[Lieber]

Give us an option at least. ME3 were all sad, dark endings. Is it so bad we want a bit of joy once in a while? That's why people like the Citadel DLC.

[Fast Jimmy]

Plaintiff wrote...

Slashice wrote...

ME3 ending is hated because it has almost no connection to the previos games lore.

Just a few:

- The Catalyst: If the Citadel is really part of him (ME3 ending lore), and so the keepers controlled by the Citadel (ME1 lore), then why the Catalyst didn't notice the prothean sabotage against the keepers (ME1 lore), who even place a small mass relay on the Citadel and used it (ME1 lore)?
- If the Catalyst embodies the collective intelligence of all Reapers (ME3 ending lore) then why the Catalyst couldn't warn Sovereign about the sabotage? Instead Sovereign had to start an investigation about why the keepers didn't answer for his signal (ME1 lore) and that led him to Saren.
- Also if the Catalyst can controll certain parts of the Citadel (for example opening the arms, lifting up Shepard's body) why was Saren really necessery (ME1 lore) to gain access over Citadel master control?

"Clearly organics are more resourceful than we realised".

The Catalyst is powerful, but not omnipotent. It is the collective knowledge and memories of the Reapers. It only knows what the Reapers know, in addition to the knowldege the Leviathans programmed into it when it was built.

The Keepers were required to maintain the Citadel and trigger the signal that would summon the Reapers. When the Protheans sabotaged the Keepers, that meant communication between the Citadel and the Reapers was severed. There was no way for the Citadel or the Catalyst to contact them. Saren and Sovereign were required to manually trigger the signal, because the process was no longer automated via the Keepers. If the Citadel had been able to contact to Sovereign, then Sovereign's presence in ME1 would've never have been required in the first place.

The Conduit was not connected to the Mass Relay network because it was an independant construct, built by the Protheans. The Reapers never learned about it so there was no way the Catalyst could be aware of it. Even if the Catalyst was aware of it, there was no way it could inform the Reapers because, again, communication had been sabotaged by the Protheans.

Yes, yes, yes... the Catalyst, who can't open up the arms of the Citadel on its own or do any basic research about a huge project that dozens if not hundreds of Alliance ships have been working on and sending communications in regards to, including the location of the project to one of its Reaper-controlled Rachni queens, also managed to destroy the entire galactic civilization run by the Leviathans, including their thralls, without a single Reaper force of its own yet (Harbinger was the first Reaper, Harbinger was the Reaper of millions of liquefied Leviathans). 

Seems legit. Solid, well-thought out writing there.


The DA series is not the ME series, mind you, but a bad ending can teach lessons to anyone, regardless of what game they are making. The number one diffrence between good and bad endings isn't happiness, it is DETAIL. Leaving things open and ambiguous, something we saw with both ME3 as well as DA2, is a terrible way to end a video game. 

Video games aren't movies. Or novels. They represent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of work and involvement. Having tons of unresolved plot threads just left dangling in a game with no clear explanation of what happened or why is a guaranteed way to have a large volume of people say your endings suck. This is true in television series (The Sopranos took a lot of flak for doing exactly this), which represents a similar investment of time/hours. But video games are even more critical to do this for, since TV is a passive media while video games are much more engaging and involve player input and choice.

Reducing all of a trilogy's choices to a number that only slightly affects maybe 2-3 seconds of video (the way the original, pre-EC endings were) is complete stupidity. Utterly and completely. The very fact that Bioware did nearly the same thing in DA2 (same exact ending, except for one or two lines of dialogue differences) is mind boggling. The fact that they made the same mistake not only twice AND back to back, but thought there wouldn't be a whiplash to it when it wasn't just the ending to one game (DA2), but an entire trilogy focused around the journey of one character that the fans had become extremely attached to is... well, I said mind boggling already, but there really isn't a better word for it. 

"Happy" is not the requirement. Making the endings feel like your choices were taken into consdieration at all, instead of feeling like the writers had some vague, bigger-picture meaning behind the ending that they wanted everyone to see, regardless of if the player had any intention or desire to be  part of those outcomes.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 07 mars 2013 - 02:42 .

[Urazz]

Lieber wrote...

Give us an option at least. ME3 were all sad, dark endings. Is it so bad we want a bit of joy once in a while? That's why people like the Citadel DLC.

ME3 endings were bittersweet.  There were some happy parts in the ending and some sad parts.  That's pretty much as realistic as you can get in my opinion because rarely does anyone ever get a full out happy ending.

If you are talking about the closest you can get to a happy ending with your Shepard, that would be the higher level Destroy ending where Shepard survives.  Sure you don't see what happens afterwards but you at least know that Shepard is free from the threat of the Reapers and is able to do what he/she wants now.

[Plaintiff]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Yes, yes, yes... the Catalyst, who can't open up the arms of the Citadel on its own or do any basic research about a huge project that dozens if not hundreds of Alliance ships have been working on and sending communications in regards to, including the location of the project to one of its Reaper-controlled Rachni queens, also managed to destroy the entire galactic civilization run by the Leviathans, including their thralls, without a single Reaper force of its own yet (Harbinger was the first Reaper, Harbinger was the Reaper of millions of liquefied Leviathans). 

Seems legit. Solid, well-thought out writing there.

Well the Reapers are the Catalyst's data-collecting machines, and it has lost its connection to them. I don't know if it is even aware of the Alliance's activities during the events of the whole trilogy, let alone ME3. I don't recall it saying anything to that effect. The impression I got was that it had been in a dormant state until it was disturbed by Shepard and the Crucible. Like when you leave your computer alone for too long.

How it managed to destroy the Leviathans is a separate issue, and a question I can't answer. I didn't say ME3 was devoid of such questions. I was addressing different plot concerns.

The DA series is not the ME series, mind you, but a bad ending can teach lessons to anyone, regardless of what game they are making. The number one diffrence between good and bad endings isn't happiness, it is DETAIL. Leaving things open and ambiguos, something we saw with both ME3 as well as DA2, is a terrible way to end a video game.

Disagree. Ambiguity is not a problem for me.

Video games aren't movies. Or novels. They represent dozens, if not hundreds, of hours of work and involvement.

Novels and movies don't just get knocked out overnight, you know.

Having tons of unresolved plot threads just left dangling in a game with no clear explanation of what happened or why is a guaranteed way to have a large volume of people say your endings suck. This is true in television series (The Sopranos took a lot of flak for doing exactly this), which represents a similar investment of time/hours. But video games are even more critical to do this for, since TV is a passive media while video games are much more engaging and involve player input and choice.

But plenty of games have ambiguous endings. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Assassin's Creed 3 to name recent examples. I don't have any problem with them either. In fact, there are fictional works across an array of media that I think would've been improved if they'd ended with a great deal more ambiguity.

Reducing all of a trilogy's choices to a number that only slightly affects maybe 2-3 seconds of video (the way the original, pre-EC endings were) is complete stupidity. Utterly and completely. The very fact that Bioware the exact same thing in DA2 (same exact ending, except for one or two lines of dialogue differences) is mind boggling. The fact that they made the same mistake not only twice AND back to back, but thought there wouldn't be a whiplash to it when it wasn't just the ending to one game (DA2), but an entire trilogy focused around the journey of one character that the fans had become extremely attached to is... well, I said mind boggling already, but there really isn't a better word for it.

Well that's just like... your opinion, man.

Devoted fans are rarely ever satisfied by the ending to a series, and trying to make them so is a fruitless exercise. Because the truth of the matter is they didn't want it to end at all.

"Happy" is not the requirement. Making the endings feel like your choices were taken into consdieration at all, instead of feeling like the writers had some vague, bigger-picture meanign behind the ending that they wanted everyone to see, regardless of if the player had any intention or desire to be  part of those outcomes.

I felt like my choices were taken into consideration just fine throughout the story. I don't need every side quest and minor action Shepard undertakes to be Chekov's Gun, coming back to shoot me in the ass in the final five minutes. My decisions mattered because they changed the journey, and to a significant enough degree that I feel I could play the games again and get a different experience, regardless of the ending. If I save a minor character, and they stop by later to say hello, then that's good enough. I don't need them to become a legendary space hero, or have their death result in an improbable chain of events leading to universal anarchy.

I also don't need an epilogue telling me what every single insignificant character in the universe is up to. In fact, on the whole, I'd rather they left that stuff out completely, because it's twee and trite and it serves only to hamstring the possibility of writing future stories in that setting. If the choices didn't matter at the time that I was making them, then they don't matter, period.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 07 mars 2013 - 03:04 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Plaintiff wrote...

Well the Reapers are the Catalyst's data-collecting machines, and it has lost its connection to them. I don't know if it is even aware of the Alliance's activities during the events of the whole trilogy, let alone ME3. I don't recall it saying anything to that effect. The impression I got was that it had been in a dormant state until it was disturbed by Shepard and the Crucible. Like when you leave your computer alone for too long.

How it managed to destroy the Leviathans is a separate issue, and a question I can't answer. I didn't say ME3 was devoid of such questions. I was addressing different plot concerns.

If one plot element introduces that many unanswerable plot issues, then it is poorly written. 

Disagree. Ambiguity is not a problem for me.

For you, maybe. For the majority of people who have sunk hundreds of total hours into a series, it obviously is. I realize that some people really dug the ending to the Sopranos, with no questions answered and nothing resolved. But, as a piece of entertainment, the series was lambasted, parodied and mocked for it. Enterainment cannot be designed to attract the largest possible audience for 99% of its existence, then try and appeal to some metaphyscial, deeper meaning ending that not only seems shoe-horned, but also creates serious narrative inconsistencies. 

Going from "pew! pew! pew! Shoot up those husks with a giant, unlimited bullets turret gun!" in the section of Priority Earth to some artificial attempt at cerebral writing with the Catalyst in under fifteen minutes is amatuerish.

Novels and movies don't just get knocked out overnight, you know.

 

I'd also wager your average Twilight book would not take as long as my 85 hour playthrough of DA:O. So to each their own.

But plenty of games have ambiguous endings. Deus Ex: Human Revolution and Assassin's Creed 3 to name recent examples. I don't have any problem with them either. In fact, there are fictional works across an array of media that I think would've been improved if they'd ended with a great deal more ambiguity.

I'd say both of those games are terrible video game endings. The Assassin's Creed games have been pretty notorious about this, but they can get away with it because most people don't give a crap about Desmond or what's going on in the "real world" in those games. 

DE:HR's endings WERE the ME3 EC endings in format, (Destroy technology, Control technology, Blend technology and morality, Refuse to take a stance). And they are similarly shallow. Reducing an entire game's narrative down to one choice made in the last ten minutes is terrible video game logic. It begs the player to save their game and just reload it to get the different endings. 

Why should the player care about the first 99% of your game if the developers don't, after all? That's the message an arbitrary ending provides -  a disconnect that results in the entire preceeding section of your game (or, in the case of ME3, your trilogy) to simply not matter. Instead, just go check out the different colored endings on YouTube. 

Contrast that with a game like DA:O, which is heralded as having great endings because it takes into account gamer psychology. There are many big "in-game" choices you make towards the end. Do you do the DR or not? If so, do you do it, or do you convince the other Warden to? In the final push, who do you take with you? Do you take a friend or LI, or leave them in relative safety? Do you make the killing blow and sacrifice yourself, or let the other Warden? Etc. Then you get a scene which celebrates your hero and (if you live), gives you a chance to talk with your companions and NPCs about the future. Then you are treated to a cathartic epilogue slide session that touches on nearly every decision you made throughout the game.

It is not inherently happy (the U.S. ending is VERY bittersweet), but it is still remarkably good. And it acknowledges all the choices and efforts you made in your journey. 

THAT is a good ending.

Well that's just like... your opinion, man.

Devoted fans are rarely ever satisfied by the ending to a series, and trying to make them so is a fruitless exercise. Because the truth of the matter is they didn't want it to end at all.

I disagree. I was very happy with the endings to Lost. You know why? They answered big questions, they let us know what happened after the end and it gave us time to decompress before the credits started rolling. I could have done without the whole "pulling the stopper out of the magic bath tub" thing, but substance-wise, it did what it was supposed to do.

Series can end well. The problem often is that the most obvious endings are what the writers/creators don't want to do, they want to make it edgy and "outside the box." When, in reality, people just want good writing. The most predictable ending can have a small twist and be original. If you try and make such a huge twist that no one has ever thought of, chances are it will violate some of the many rules you have set up for your world along the way. After all, there is a REASON no one had suggested your artistic ending... its because its completely bonkers. 

In Lost, Jack saved the day (no surprise). Everyone else gets off the Island (no surprise). It turns out the bizarro world where no one knows each other is actually a bizarro world that everyone is meeting up again so they can move into the afterlife (Purgatory was predicted as an ending to Lost from Season 1). Trying to make an ending so crazy that it will blow people's minds often results in endings that make people want to blow their brains out.

I felt like my choices were taken into consideration just fine throughout the story. I don't need every side quest and minor action Shepard undertakes to be Chekov's Gun, coming back to shoot me in the ass in the final five minutes. My decisions mattered because they changed the journey, and to a significant enough degree that I feel I could play the games again and get a different experience, regardless of the ending. If I save a minor character, and they stop by later to say hello, then that's good enough. I don't need them to become a legendary space hero, or have their death result in an improbable chain of events leading to universal anarchy.

I also don't need an epilogue telling me what every single insignificant character in the universe is up to. In fact, on the whole, I'd rather they left that stuff out completely, because it's twee and trite and it serves only to hamstring the possibility of writing future stories in that setting. If the choices didn't matter at the time that I was making them, then they don't matter, period.

You don't need it. That's fine. 

Basic human psychology says most people do. Well, they don't NEED it. But it is the most effective way of doing it. You face a challenging last section of the game. You have an emotional, climactic, cinematic scene. You give control back to the player to take a victory lap with their closest friends (this can either be with the PC or with someone else if the PC sacrificed themselves). You then do a complete unwind, where you can reflect and see the outcomes of the actions you took.

Putting an email in game from someone saying "Man, Shepherd, you are the greatest. I just wanted to say thanks for being the most awesome person in all the galaxy." is NOWHERE near as effective as something at the ending show or stating that the person Shepherd helped always remembered him and did X, Y, Z based on the actions that Shepherd took. Or some derivative of both.

People like seeing variability in game, but they NEED to see it at the end. Having certain things on Tuchanka play out different if Wrex is alive or not is cool. Having an epilogue slide showing the Krogan race having babies is NEEDED. That is even too little, since people really wanted to see if by curing the genophage, the Krogan had a chance to prove themselves or if they settled into their destructive ways again, causing further problems with the galaxy. And since ME4 is, according to Chris Priestly, not going to be set before, during or after the events of the ME trilogy, I think that means we won't ever know. Which is not satisfying. 

People NEED to know if the decisions they made were right or wrong. You don't play Trivial Pursuit without finding out your answers to the questions the game gave you were wrong or not. No answers means there is no point in even asking the question to many people. Why care about the Collector's? Why care about Saren? Why care about saving the Geth, or destroying the Rachni? It all winds up the same. Same, empty unanswerables.

Not to mention I don't see you as a valid person to critique the ME trilogy. No offense, but you didn't play it until way after ME3 came out. You had been told how terrible things were and then discovered they weren't so bad. I wish I could have had those expectations going into the series. Many of us were expecting (and, to some degree promises were hinted at) great wrap ups to our choices, our friends and the series as a whole. Many (MANY) people do not feel they received this. To digest it all after the fact makes your experience a little skewed from what the average player was feeling/thinking when ending the trilogy for the first time.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 07 mars 2013 - 03:46 .

[Plaintiff]

[quote]Fast Jimmy wrote...

If one plot element introduces that many unanswerable plot issues, then it is poorly written.[/quote]
That was one "unanswerable" plot issue. Exactly how many do you think there are?

[quote]For you, maybe. For the majority of people who have sunk hundreds of total hours into a series, it obviously is. I realize that some people really dug the ending to the Sopranos, with no questions answered and nothing resolved. But, as a piece of entertainment, the series was lambasted, parodied and mocked for it. Enterainment cannot be designed to attract the largest possible audience for 99% of its existence, then try and appeal to some metaphyscial, deeper meaning ending that not only seems shoe-horned, but also creates serious narrative inconsistencies. 

Going from "pew! pew! pew! Shoot up those husks with a giant, unlimited bullets turret gun!" in the section of Priority Earth to some artificial attempt at cerebral writing with the Catalyst in under fifteen minutes is amatuerish.'[/quote]
I don't think that's what the ending was, but whatever.

[quote]I'd also wager your average Twilight book would not take as long as my 85 hour playthrough of DA:O. So to each their own.[/quote]
Not every book is Twilight either. In fact, the vast majority of books are not Twilight. And regardless of how long they take for you to consume, the amount of work that has gone into them is not insignificant.

[quote]I'd say both of those games are terrible video game endings. The Assassin's Creed games have been pretty notorious about this, but they can get away with it because most people don't give a crap about Desmond or what's going on in the "real world" in those games.[/quote]
I suppose those same people also start frothing at the mouth at the end of every episode of Game of Thrones, because OMFG, every plot thread has to be tied together to make a neat, conclusive episode package AND IT HAS TO BE DONE RIGHT NOW OR ELSE!

[quote]DE:HR's endings WERE the ME3 EC endings in format, (Destroy technology, Control technology, Blend technology and morality, Refuse to take a stance). And they are similarly shallow. Reducing an entire game's narrative down to one choice made in the last ten minutes is terrible video game logic. It begs the player to save their game and just reload it to get the different endings.[/quote]
Except the format of the ending does not reduce the narrative in anyway, and anyone who thinks it did doesn't understand what a story actually is.

[quote]Why should the player care about the first 99% of your game if the developers don't, after all? That's the message an arbitrary ending provides -  a disconnect that results in the entire preceeding section of your game (or, in the case of ME3, your trilogy) to simply not matter. Instead, just go check out the different colored endings on YouTube.[/quote]
All endings in all media are arbitrary. In fact, all stories as a whole are arbitrary. There is no reason that any given story has to end one way and not another way. The developers obviously do care about everything prior to the ending, or they wouldn't waste all that time crafting the preceding sections. If the ending was the only important part, they could just give you that. Anyone who thinks the developers don't care is just a dried-up cynic with no genuine understanding of anything, least of all other people.

If you base your enjoyment of a narrative solely on the last ten minutes, then the probem is with you, not the narrative.

[quote]Contrast that with a game like DA:O, which is heralded as having great endings because it takes into account gamer psychology. There are many big "in-game" choices you make towards the end. Do you do the DR or not? If so, do you do it, or do you convince the other Warden to? In the final push, who do you take with you? Do you take a friend or LI, or leave them in relative safety? Do you make the killing blow and sacrifice yourself, or let the other Warden? Etc. Then you get a scene which celebrates your hero and (if you live), gives you a chance to talk with your companions and NPCs about the future. Then you are treated to a cathartic epilogue slide session that touches on nearly every decision you made throughout the game.

It is not inherently happy (the U.S. ending is VERY bittersweet), but it is still remarkably good. And it acknowledges all the choices and efforts you made in your journey. 

THAT is a good ending.[/quote]
Why? Because you liked it? Because a lot of people did? I think the epilogue slideshow sucks ass. I think it's a lazy way to convey information that, for the most part, I didn't need or want to know.

[quote]I disagree. I was very happy with the endings to Lost. You know why? They aswered the big questions, they let us know what happened after the end and it gave us time to decompress before the credits started rolling. I could have done without the whole "pulling the stopper out of the magic bath tub" thing, but substance-wise, it did what it was supposed to do.[/quote]
I don't know anything about Lost, except that a lot of people thought it was awful and stupid.

[quote]Series can end well. The problem often is that the most obvious endings are what the writers/creators don't want to do, they want to make it edgy and "outside the box." When, in reality, people just want good writing.[/quote]
"Good writing" here meaning "the same predictable dreck that most narratives end with".

[quote]The most predictable ending can have a small twist and be original. If you try and make such a huge twist that no one has ever thought of, chances are it will violate some of the many rules you have set up for your world along the way. After all, there is a REASON no one had suggested your artistic ending... its because its completely bonkers.[/quote]
The big twists aren't original either. In fact, Mass Effect 3's ending was done many times before videogames were a thing.

[quote]In Lost, Jack saved the day (no surprise). Everyone else gets off the Island (no surprise). It turns out the bizarro world where no one knows each other is actually a bizarro world that everyone is meeting up again so they can move into the afterlife (Purgatory was predicted as an ending to Lost from Season 1). Trying to make an ending so crazy that it will blow people's minds often results in endings that make people want to blow their brains out.[/quote]
See, all that tells me is that viewers are good at predicting awful endings. "Everybody goes to the afterlife" is pretty much the worst ending. It was awful when Hans Christian Anderson did it, and it's awful now.

[quote]You don't need it. That's fine. 

Basic human psychology says most people do. Well, they don't NEED it. But it is the most effective way of doing it. You face a challenging last section of the game. You have an emotional, climactic, cinematic scene. You give control back to the player to take a victory lap with their closest friends (this can either be with the PC or with someone else if the PC sacrificed themselves). You then do a complete unwind, where you can reflect and see the outcomes of the actions you took.[/quote]
Why must catharsis only be acheived through victory?

[quote]Putting an email in game from someone saying "Man, Shepherd, you are the greatest. I just wanted to say thanks for being the most awesome person in all the galaxy." is NOWHERE near as effective as something at the ending show or stating that the person Shepherd helped always remembered him and did X, Y, Z based on the actions that Shepherd took. Or some derivative of both.[/quote]
But on the pro side, it's less eye-rollingly nauseating.

[quote]People like seeing variability in game, but they NEED to see it at the end. Having certain things on Tuchanka play out different if Wrex is alive or not is cool. Having an epilogue slide showing the Krogan race having babies is NEEDED. That is even too little, since people really wanted to see if by curing the genophage, the Krogan had a chance to prove themselves or if they settled into their destructive ways again, causing further problems with the galaxy. And since ME4 is, according to Chris Priestly, not going to be set before, during or after the events of the ME trilogy, I think that means we won't ever know. Which is not satisfying. 

People NEED to know if the decisions they made were right or wrong. You don't play Trivial Pursuit without finding out your answers to the questions the game gave you were wrong or not. No answers means there is no point in even asking the question to many people. Why care about the Collector's? Why care about Saren? Why care about saving the Geth, or destroying the Rachni? It all winds up the same. Same, empty unanswerables.[/quote]
I care because I care. The decisions are important fo their own sake. "Right" and "wrong" are apparent immediatly, or should be. The morality of the decision is not retroactively altered by long-term outcomes that were outside my control.

Giving the Geth sentience and making peace with the Quarians, just as an example, is the right thing to do, and always will be. How the Geth will choose to use their sentience further down the road is irrelevent. They are responsible for their own choices. Their future acheivements or crimes are their own, and Shepard should not be praised or condemened for either, because it has nothing to do with him.

[quote]Not to mention I don't see you as a valid person to critique the ME trilogy. No offense, but you didn't play it until way after ME3 came out. You had been told how terrible things were and then discovered they weren't so bad. I wish I could have had those expectations going into the series. Many of us were expecting (and, to some degree promises were hinted at) great wrap ups to our choices, our friends and the series as a whole. Many (MANY) people do not feel they received this. To digest it all after the fact makes your experience a little skewed from what the average player was feeling/thinking when ending the trilogy for the first time.[/quote]
You could've said this at the beginning of your dissertation on The Ending of ME3 and How Much it Sucks Ass, and saved me a whole lot of time. I wouldn't have bothered replying to you if I knew you hadn't entered the debate in good faith, and had already decided not to respect my opinion.

I could've spent this time doing something a lot more productive, like masturbating, or spitting in the ocean.

Modifié par Plaintiff, 07 mars 2013 - 04:30 .

[Vicious]

Oh look another 'ME3's ending sucks' thread, a year after the game was released and we all beat it.

Anyway, Red Dead Redemption.

A game can kill off the main character and end on a tragic note, and still be good.

[MassPredator]

And this turn into a ME ending post.....

[Fast Jimmy]

[quote]Plaintiff wrote...

[quote]Fast Jimmy wrote...

If one plot element introduces that many unanswerable plot issues, then it is poorly written.[/quote]
That was one "unanswerable" plot issue. Exactly how many do you think there are?[/quote]

Numerous. 

If the Catalyst is a part of the Citadel, why did he not stop (or even notice) the over-writing of the Keepers by the Protheans?

What about Shepherd reaching the Catalyst has anything to do with the efficacy of the cycles? Surely the millions of people on the Citadel that were butchered after the Reapers took it were close enough to get to the Catalyst. It looks like it's just picking favorites now.

If the Catalyst had a better solution (Synthesis), then why did it take absolutely zero steps to implement that solution in the tens of thousands of years inbetween harvest cycles? The Crucible may have been the culmination of the work of countless cycles before, but it is still just a power source that was built in a few months by the Alliance. The Catalyst couldn't have leveraged its technology, capable of such Space Magic feats as converting organic to synthetic and vice versa with only green energy blasts, to make a power source over the millions of years it has been harvesting species?

The Reapers make no moves to take the Citadel, instead focusing on EVERY OTHER HUB of galactic civilization... despite the fact that the Reapers know it would cripple the resistance, drastically reduce their losses and is part of the same plan they have enacted for millions of years. Instead, they head straight to Earth, presumably to make a Human Reaper... but to which they make nearly no steps to do. Then, when Shepherd finally realizes that the Citadel is the Catalyst, the Reapers swoop in and take it, with no problems at all, showing they could have done so and ended the resistance the entire time...?

I could keep going, but you said other stuff I wanted to respond to, so I'll just leave it there for now.

[quote]
[quote]Going from "pew! pew! pew! Shoot up those husks with a giant, unlimited bullets turret gun!" in the section of Priority Earth to some artificial attempt at cerebral writing with the Catalyst in under fifteen minutes is amatuerish.'[/quote]

I don't think that's what the ending was, but whatever.[/quote]

The ending wasn't an attempt to be intellectual? To say that synthetics and organics can never exist peacefully? It certainly isn't Prime Time comedy hour on Thursday night television.
[quote]
[quote]I'd also wager your average Twilight book would not take as long as my 85 hour playthrough of DA:O. So to each their own.[/quote]
Not every book is Twilight either. In fact, the vast majority of books are not Twilight. And regardless of how long they take for you to consume, the amount of work that has gone into them is not insignificant.[/quote]

I'd say the average video game takes longer to complete than to read the average book. Besides, length isn't the most important thing - its interactivity. A book is passive. A video game is not.

[quote]
[quote]I'd say both of those games are terrible video game endings. The Assassin's Creed games have been pretty notorious about this, but they can get away with it because most people don't give a crap about Desmond or what's going on in the "real world" in those games.[/quote]
I suppose those same people also start frothing at the mouth at the end of every episode of Game of Thrones, because OMFG, every plot thread has to be tied together to make a neat, conclusive episode package AND IT HAS TO BE DONE RIGHT NOW OR ELSE![/quote] 

I really don't see what that has to do with anything I've said.

[quote]
[quote]DE:HR's endings WERE the ME3 EC endings in format, (Destroy technology, Control technology, Blend technology and morality, Refuse to take a stance). And they are similarly shallow. Reducing an entire game's narrative down to one choice made in the last ten minutes is terrible video game logic. It begs the player to save their game and just reload it to get the different endings.[/quote]
Except the format of the ending does not reduce the narrative in anyway, and anyone who thinks it did doesn't understand what a story actually is.[/quote]

"Anyone who doesn't think like I do doesn't understand what a story is." 

I'm sure a three year old can tell you what a story is. That same three year old might not get or even dislike the ME endings. "What happened to Shepherd, mamma?" "He went to a better place... well, technically, his conscious was digitized and incorporated into a galactic wide network which allowed his perception and cognitive thinking to ascend to a higher plane of existence than was possible for his flesh-based body otherwise." "...what?"

[quote]
[quote]Why should the player care about the first 99% of your game if the developers don't, after all? That's the message an arbitrary ending provides -  a disconnect that results in the entire preceeding section of your game (or, in the case of ME3, your trilogy) to simply not matter. Instead, just go check out the different colored endings on YouTube.[/quote]
All endings in all media are arbitrary. In fact, all stories as a whole are arbitrary. There is no reason that any given story has to end one way and not another way. The developers obviously do care about everything prior to the ending, or they wouldn't waste all that time crafting the preceding sections. If the ending was the only important part, they could just give you that. Anyone who thinks the developers don't care is just a dried-up cynic with no genuine understanding of anything, least of all other people.

If you base your enjoyment of a narrative solely on the last ten minutes, then the probem is with you, not the narrative. [/quote]

An ending without the middle makes no sense and otfers nothing. So they can't just "give us the ending." If you saw the RBG explosions of ME3 as the opening credits for ME3 and then a "THE END" message, you'd be scratching your head even more than you would otherwise.

I never said the developers DIDN'T care. I said it makes it APPEAR that they don't. 

I have messy handwriting. Probably one of the worst you've ever read. People would mistake that for me not caring about what I am writing or that I don't care about what other people think enough to make it neater. It is not true at all - I care a great deal for how my words are perceived. But people still perceive it that way.

[quote][quote]Contrast that with a game like DA:O, which is heralded as having great endings because it takes into account gamer psychology. There are many big "in-game" choices you make towards the end. Do you do the DR or not? If so, do you do it, or do you convince the other Warden to? In the final push, who do you take with you? Do you take a friend or LI, or leave them in relative safety? Do you make the killing blow and sacrifice yourself, or let the other Warden? Etc. Then you get a scene which celebrates your hero and (if you live), gives you a chance to talk with your companions and NPCs about the future. Then you are treated to a cathartic epilogue slide session that touches on nearly every decision you made throughout the game.

It is not inherently happy (the U.S. ending is VERY bittersweet), but it is still remarkably good. And it acknowledges all the choices and efforts you made in your journey. 

THAT is a good ending.[/quote]
Why? Because you liked it? Because a lot of people did? I think the epilogue slideshow sucks ass. I think it's a lazy way to convey information that, for the most part, I didn't need or want to know.[/quote]

You don't like epilogue slides. That's fine. Not everyone does. If the developer had made it into a cinematic video showing all of this instead of a slide show, it probably would have been more appealing to you, perhaps.

Its not the method in which the information is presented, it is the fact that it IS presented. Closure. Reflection on choices. Impact. These things are all needed to some degree for a game built on choice. Developers do the "lazy crappy slide show" because it allows them to share the most information, deal with the most consequences and touch on the most choices. 

[quote]
[quote]I disagree. I was very happy with the endings to Lost. You know why? They aswered the big questions, they let us know what happened after the end and it gave us time to decompress before the credits started rolling. I could have done without the whole "pulling the stopper out of the magic bath tub" thing, but substance-wise, it did what it was supposed to do.[/quote]
I don't know anything about Lost, except that a lot of people thought it was awful and stupid.[/quote]

Glad for that feedback. I know an equal amount of unnamed people who thought it was amazing, deep and touching. 

[quote]
[quote]Series can end well. The problem often is that the most obvious endings are what the writers/creators don't want to do, they want to make it edgy and "outside the box." When, in reality, people just want good writing.[/quote]
"Good writing" here meaning "the same predictable dreck that most narratives end with".[/quote]

Yes, and the concept of "the hero just disappeared" that we saw in DA2, or "the curtain was pulled back and the bad guy was actually doing the bad things for a very good reason" has NEVER been touched on before.

"The Simpsons did it" episode of South Park is a good example of story-telling. Humanity is a species of story-tellers. It is a large part of how we learn and experience the world. It is one of the earliest and basic forms of communication. So every story idea has been told, it is just different permutations. The key is to have a story fit together. 

You can't tell a story about a boy walking his dog, visitng different places in his neighborhood and then have it turn out that the boy is a plant and have it be considered anything but a schtick and a shallow attempt at reader shock. Similarly, you can't tell a story with an ending so detached and out of the norm of logic for what you've presented and not have it be rejected as totally contrived. Which is how many, MANY people reacted to ME3's endings.

[quote]
[quote]The most predictable ending can have a small twist and be original. If you try and make such a huge twist that no one has ever thought of, chances are it will violate some of the many rules you have set up for your world along the way. After all, there is a REASON no one had suggested your artistic ending... its because its completely bonkers.[/quote]
The big twists aren't original either. In fact, Mass Effect 3's ending was done many times before videogames were a thing.[/quote] 

Agreed. The difference here is A) presentation and execution. 

The endings are presented not as a gradual point that the narrative is heading towards, but an abrupt concrete wall that the player smacks into, completely unexpectedly. And all that aside, even if the Star Child and the choices remained, the wrap up was terrible. Different colored explosions, crash-landing on a jungle planet, unknown outcomes all around.

A literalist would see death and destruction everywhere, since the Relays were destroyed, which we know causes a super nova that wipes out all life in its respective system. We see these blasts that destroy the relays go out and cause explosions in every system in the relay network, essentially wiping out all know life. The devs came back and later said that this was a special case where destroying the relays wouldn't cause this (not explained in-game at all and band-aided in the EC). Forgetting their own lore again, they left all the aliens in the Sol system, and the crew of the Normandy on a random jungle planet... which means either the carbon-based species would die of hunger, or the dextro-based species would. Etc.,etc.

Then, all technicalities aside, we still don't get to know what happens. Does Synthesis work? Is everyone random zombies now? Did Control destroy Shepherd? Or did a piece of his soul live on? Did Destroy finish the job? Nothing about the original endings explained this. Couple that with the choices made in game - did saving the Rachni matter? Did saving the Krogan? The Geth? What happened to our companions? Did they live the lives they wanted to in the aftermath? Did anything matter, in the end?

The original endings answered none of these things. The EC gave tiny nods to them, but didn't give any more detail or information, either. Which is why many people dislike it still.

[quote]
[quote]In Lost, Jack saved the day (no surprise). Everyone else gets off the Island (no surprise). It turns out the bizarro world where no one knows each other is actually a bizarro world that everyone is meeting up again so they can move into the afterlife (Purgatory was predicted as an ending to Lost from Season 1). Trying to make an ending so crazy that it will blow people's minds often results in endings that make people want to blow their brains out.[/quote]
See, all that tells me is that viewers are good at predicting awful endings. "Everybody goes to the afterlife" is pretty much the worst ending. It was awful when Hans Christian Anderson did it, and it's awful now.[/quote]

I don't think you truly understand what it is I am talking about, since you haven't watched Lost. 

[quote] [quote]You don't need it. That's fine. 

Basic human psychology says most people do. Well, they don't NEED it. But it is the most effective way of doing it. You face a challenging last section of the game. You have an emotional, climactic, cinematic scene. You give control back to the player to take a victory lap with their closest friends (this can either be with the PC or with someone else if the PC sacrificed themselves). You then do a complete unwind, where you can reflect and see the outcomes of the actions you took.[/quote]
Why must catharsis only be acheived through victory?[/quote]

Victory is a relavtive term. DA2 could have done this easily and I'd say Hawke was not handed victory. 

If he sided with the Mages and had to flee Kirkwall, a scene around a campfire with your surviving companions/NPCs would have been welcome. If he sided with the Templars and became Viscount, a scene in the throne room doing something similar would have been cool as well. 

I don't know of a game where the player outright fails in each and every ending. And while other media like novels or movies don't have to follow this format, a video game engages the consumer in a different way and has a whole different line of psychology and inherent expectations built into them. Not from any steps in the industry, but simply from how human brains are wired and how most gamers approach their experience.

[quote][quote]Putting an email in game from someone saying "Man, Shepherd, you are the greatest. I just wanted to say thanks for being the most awesome person in all the galaxy." is NOWHERE near as effective as something at the ending show or stating that the person Shepherd helped always remembered him and did X, Y, Z based on the actions that Shepherd took. Or some derivative of both.[/quote]

But on the pro side, it's less eye-rollingly nauseating.[/quote]

To you, maybe. 

Also, the concept, that you helped someone and that they thought you were the greatest, ever, IS eye-rolling nauseating. Many epilogue slides dealt with choices in a much better way. Most emails/letters in DA/ME did NOT. They were all either love letters or hate letters to the PC based on the choice they made. Epilogue slides discussing Harrowmont and Bhelen, for instance, were very detailed and not a form of hero-worship at all. I have not seen any level of engagement, discussion or involvement with the letter system as I have people's reactions to various epilogue slides.

[quote] [quote]People like seeing variability in game, but they NEED to see it at the end. Having certain things on Tuchanka play out different if Wrex is alive or not is cool. Having an epilogue slide showing the Krogan race having babies is NEEDED. That is even too little, since people really wanted to see if by curing the genophage, the Krogan had a chance to prove themselves or if they settled into their destructive ways again, causing further problems with the galaxy. And since ME4 is, according to Chris Priestly, not going to be set before, during or after the events of the ME trilogy, I think that means we won't ever know. Which is not satisfying. 

People NEED to know if the decisions they made were right or wrong. You don't play Trivial Pursuit without finding out your answers to the questions the game gave you were wrong or not. No answers means there is no point in even asking the question to many people. Why care about the Collector's? Why care about Saren? Why care about saving the Geth, or destroying the Rachni? It all winds up the same. Same, empty unanswerables.[/quote]

I care because I care. The decisions are important fo their own sake. "Right" and "wrong" are apparent immediatly, or should be. The morality of the decision is not retroactively altered by long-term outcomes that were outside my control.

Giving the Geth sentience and making peace with the Quarians, just as an example, is the right thing to do, and always will be. How the Geth will choose to use their sentience further down the road is irrelevent. They are responsible for their own choices. Their future acheivements or crimes are their own, and Shepard should not be praised or condemened for either, because it has nothing to do with him.[/quote]

Giving Geth sentience is the wrong thing to do, according to the Catalyst. It will lead to guaranteed war and death. You are putting in motion events that will result in the death and destruction of millions, billions, TRILLIONS more down the line. 

If you agree with the logic and the mindset of the Catalyst, that is. If you don't, then you can't trust either Control or Synthesis. And if you choose Destroy, you will wipe out the Geth. 

That's what's flawed with the ME3 endings. The being laying out these choices for you is obviously wrong. So how can you hop off a cliff or grab a hold of some electro-sticks on their word alone?

[quote]
[quote]Not to mention I don't see you as a valid person to critique the ME trilogy. No offense, but you didn't play it until way after ME3 came out. You had been told how terrible things were and then discovered they weren't so bad. I wish I could have had those expectations going into the series. Many of us were expecting (and, to some degree promises were hinted at) great wrap ups to our choices, our friends and the series as a whole. Many (MANY) people do not feel they received this. To digest it all after the fact makes your experience a little skewed from what the average player was feeling/thinking when ending the trilogy for the first time.[/quote]
You could've said this at the beginning of your dissertation on The Ending of ME3 and How Much it Sucks Ass, and saved me a whole lot of time. I wouldn't have bothered replying to you if I knew you hadn't entered the debate in good faith, and had already decided not to respect my opinion.

I could've spent this time doing something a lot more productive, like masturbating, or spitting in the ocean.
[/quote]

Or doing both? At the same time? That's kind of kinky.

Regardless, I don't mind discussing it. And I am not inherently disregarding everything you say, simply because this is not just a discussion about the ME3 endings, but endings in general, with a focus on video game endings with ME3 as the focal point.

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 07 mars 2013 - 06:37 .

[AlanC9]

Fast Jimmy wrote..

Yes, yes, yes... the Catalyst, who can't open up the arms of the Citadel on its own or do any basic research about a huge project that dozens if not hundreds of Alliance ships have been working on and sending communications in regards to, including the location of the project to one of its Reaper-controlled Rachni queens, also managed to destroy the entire galactic civilization run by the Leviathans, including their thralls, without a single Reaper force of its own yet (Harbinger was the first Reaper, Harbinger was the Reaper of millions of liquefied Leviathans).

Who says the Reaper Queen knew where the project was? Does she have a built-in galactic GPS? There's no reason to make bad stuff up since you've got enough to work with.

And from the Catalyst's line about Harbinger being the first "true" Reaper, it's pretty easy to figure out that he had some quasi-Reapers at the beginning; presumably purely mechanical.

This is true in television series (The Sopranos took a lot of flak for doing exactly this), which represents a similar investment of time/hours.

I'm not sure The Sopranos is a great example of your point; the creative staff there was fine with how that turned out, last I heard.  Of course, flak doesn't disturb the HBO business model; I'm a little surprised they don't embrace hatewatching as a deliberate strategy.

Reducing all of a trilogy's choices to a number that only slightly affects maybe 2-3 seconds of video (the way the original, pre-EC endings were) is complete stupidity. Utterly and completely. The very fact that Bioware did nearly the same thing in DA2 (same exact ending, except for one or two lines of dialogue differences) is mind boggling.

You should probably go into exactly what the stupidity is there. Those seconds of video obviously indicate very different states for the game-world. One of the amusing phenomena on the ME boards is seeing someone maintain that "synthesis is an abomination" (etc.) and that "the endings are all the same."

Modifié par AlanC9, 07 mars 2013 - 07:14 .

[AlanC9]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
A literalist would see death and destruction everywhere, since the Relays were destroyed, which we know causes a super nova that wipes out all life in its respective system. We see these blasts that destroy the relays go out and cause explosions in every system in the relay network, essentially wiping out all know life.

That theory never made any sense in the first place, or Earth would have been destroyed by the Citadel Relay. Not to mention the jungle planet, unless you figure they were going there via standard FTL.
 

If you agree with the logic and the mindset of the Catalyst, that is. If you don't, then you can't trust either Control or Synthesis. And if you choose Destroy, you will wipe out the Geth. 

If you can't trust that Control will actually Control, you can't trust that Destroy will actually Destroy either. You've got exactly the same about of evidence for both actions.

[AlanC9]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
It turns out the bizarro world where no one knows each other is actually a bizarro world that everyone is meeting up again so they can move into the afterlife (Purgatory was predicted as an ending to Lost from Season 1). 

Wait a minute. Back during season 1 the common prediction was that the whole damn show was Purgatory. Not an ending section that we wouldn't see for several years.

[Loaderini]

The problem of Mass Effect 3 was not the lack of happy ending. The problems were: 3 minutes duration for every ending video / very VERY similar (visually) ending videos / an extremely important character that appeared at the very end of the game / the fact that it was an open ending for a story that was covered in an entire trilogy.

Modifié par Loaderini, 07 mars 2013 - 07:31 .

[Henioo]

I am perfectly fine with a sad ending.

As long as it's not forced because it's artistic. I want to have a sad ending because of my choices. And a happy one because of my choices, too.