616 réponses à ce sujet

[Beerfish]

It is much less incumbent in the Da series to have 'a happy ending' than it was in ME because of the fact that we have a different hero each game in DA. They 100% for sure should have presented a happily ever after ending for ME3 to go along with less happy endings.

[unbentbuzzkill]

the main lesson of ME3 is this, colored endings when the PC dies bad.

[David7204]

The main lesson of ME 3 is to make heroism meaningful.

[Mikoto8472]

Il Divo wrote...

Not necessarily. Happy 'puppy and rainbow' scenarios tend to deprive games of the ability to present morally grey options. You know, the kind of stuff you find in thought experiments.

To offer an example: take Virmire. You're given a choice between Kaidan and Ashley. For some players, this is really difficult. The situation becomes much less interesting if Bioware had offered a third way out to save both squad-mates, maybe with a shoot out. Suddenly, it's no longer about playing Shepards with different preferences, but it's now about playing competent vs. incompetent Shepards, like what the suicide mission does.

I like seeing thought experiments done well in video games, so when I see stuff like the Redcliffe scenario, where the player has the ability to save Connor, save Isolde, etc, without any sort of consequence, I find it really boring.

To you it's less interesting, not to me. To take the Connor/Isolde choice, yeah there's no consequence but what you do is a reflection of your Warden's nature. It would be unnecessarily dark and restricting to be forced to sacrifice Isolde to Jowan's blood magic or kill Connor outright for example. Instead you get the "Paragon/Good" option.

Anyway I'm just saying it's probably better to offer players choices-both good and bad, happy or sad-when you can. Higher chance of players who are satisfied with their choice then.

[Goneaviking]

Mikoto8472 wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Not necessarily. Happy 'puppy and rainbow' scenarios tend to deprive games of the ability to present morally grey options. You know, the kind of stuff you find in thought experiments.

To offer an example: take Virmire. You're given a choice between Kaidan and Ashley. For some players, this is really difficult. The situation becomes much less interesting if Bioware had offered a third way out to save both squad-mates, maybe with a shoot out. Suddenly, it's no longer about playing Shepards with different preferences, but it's now about playing competent vs. incompetent Shepards, like what the suicide mission does.

I like seeing thought experiments done well in video games, so when I see stuff like the Redcliffe scenario, where the player has the ability to save Connor, save Isolde, etc, without any sort of consequence, I find it really boring.

To you it's less interesting, not to me. To take the Connor/Isolde choice, yeah there's no consequence but what you do is a reflection of your Warden's nature. It would be unnecessarily dark and restricting to be forced to sacrifice Isolde to Jowan's blood magic or kill Connor outright for example. Instead you get the "Paragon/Good" option.

Anyway I'm just saying it's probably better to offer players choices-both good and bad, happy or sad-when you can. Higher chance of players who are satisfied with their choice then.

The problem with the Redcliff scenario is that you're leaving a possessed boy, who's demon has been responsible for probably dozens of deaths already, alone for days with his almost victims and there's no consequence for the action. This may be the "paragon" option but it's not a plausible scenario for the demon to just hide in the back of the boys psyche and wait for someone to come and kill it, particularly given that it's already demonstrated an ability to mentally dominate people.

In that scenario the happy, the win-win scenario effectively eradicates the drama as soon as a player is aware of it. The first time I through I was torn but I played the virtuous option expecting their to be a stack of fresh corpses when I got back, after that I knew there would always be an escape clause to guarantee me a happy ending.

Turns out I was right, and the game suffers in my estimation because of it.

The inverse was often true for the mass effect games, and that's a big part of why they're among my favourites.

In ME1 you're presented with a no-win scenario and you have to deal with that; in ME2 the Collectors raid your ship and abduct your crew and you're given the choice to give them up for dead while you keep preparing your squad for the mission or to (paragon) go early to save them knowing there's a greater likelihood you'll lose squadmates; in ME3 you've got the Genophage where doing the moral thing costs you important allies and the traumatising ending sequence that guarantees that even if you win it's in a morally compromised way that really tries to bring home just how desparate Shepard's struggle was.

No right answer situations may not make everyone happy, but they are an effective way of getting the player to take their situation seriously.

[Goneaviking]

Lord Issa wrote...

The issue with your Virmire comparison is that it's the life of a single character. Just to play the devil's advocate, wouldn't a lot of people argue that a gray choice concerning which of two companions to save is a little different to an ending where the only way to save your character is to commit genocide.

If the objective is to win the war then it's only a difference of scale.

If the objective is to save your character then the difference is fundamental.

[Dubozz]

Yes. What OP said please. ME3 ending destroyed my favourite series for me. Please do not do this with Dragon Age. Please.

also this.

Lord Issa wrote...

I support this, but I feel that a true happy ending should be something earned. I especially liked ME2's ending because of this.

Modifié par Dubozz, 14 mars 2013 - 12:29 .

[BomimoDK]

The main lesson from ME3 isn't a goddamn happy ending. It's an ending that is consistent with the fiction AND the build-up to it. Before release, not even being a big fan, i had this image that the climax would be you participating in a huge battle that would decide the outcome. Not that you'd be shepherded into a narrow corridor to arbitrarily CHOSE your ending independendent from any prior actions.

I expected the battle and i expected the Genophage, Rachni and so on to have a direct influence on that result, and then your own performance in the battle count as well. Screw happy endings Unhappy "everyone dies" ending is fine. Just don't have them die from a mushroom infection or whatever.

Bioware games these days rely too much on smoke and mirrors. Characters deaths were marketed as mattering to the plot, but someone else just jumps in and handles their part of the plot. That's lame and i hope/know Dragon Age won't do this. They'll retcon, and that's cool. But they won't be doing a character-swap at the level of what happened with Wrex in ME2. No way. Not unless said replacement was already headed the same direction.

[Fast Jimmy]

There's a thread in the Off-Topic section discussing an article written about the new DLC Citadel. I think the article brings up the good point that while Citadel is incredibly hokey and pure happy fan service, it still is not good writing, nor good story telling.

I think an ending that would have made more narrative sense would not have needed such blatant ooey-gooey happiness, silliness and ridiculousness (Wrex dancing and getting drunk at a party while his species is on the cusp of both war and curing the genocide, not to mention the Reaper threat? Sure... keep telling yourself that...) and the fact that fans are eating it up could be incredibly damaging to story-telling in video games across the board.

While I haven't played the Citadel DLC and don't share in 100% percent of his criticisms, there is some truth there that I think echoes into this thread. Making DA3 incredibly happy to the point of being forced will only hamper the story. Don't be afraid of being sad or less-than-optimal... but don't do it in a way that violates nearly every sense of consistency in the story you've developed.

ME3's endings were dark just to be dark. Somber just to be somber. "Deep" just to appear deep. Citadel, on the other hand, was goofy just to be goofy. Fan service just to be fan service. Pointless fun just to be pointless fun. While one is more likely to appeal to more people, it still doesn't make it good.

I'd prefer that DA3 (and all RPGs, honestly) look at telling a cohesive, seamless story that delivers a feeling of narrative consistency. If a large chunk of your fanbase thinks that after watching your endings, they were just watching an alien-induced bad dream, then you've broken their sense of narrative consistency. And that's the result of poor writing.

[Reznore57]

Well ME3 had a big plot problem , Citadel has a big plot problem too.(but well it's not meant to be taken seriously)

I was disappointed by the dlc , there's a lot of content , which is good.But a lot of the content is just about being passive and listening to jokes.
There's some good idea like having a whole crew for one mission ,having a party is also nice (I wish we had a night with the whole crew at the hanged man) but not enough interaction to make it interesting in the long run.

But hey , the dlc was pure fan service and not trying to hide from it ...I wish they had done a more interesting job about the EC , or at least stop with the "autodialog " all the time .
But whatever people seems to enjoy the DLC , i guess that's what matters.

[Get Magna Carter]

I thought that the biggest problem with the ME3 ending is that it only seems to work if you agree with Bioware that
1) organics and A.I.s cannot peacefully coexist
and 2) organics and A.I.s can peacefully exist

[Vajraja]

There were some people that wanted just a straight happy ending (the blue babies w/ Liara crowd) but I think more folks like myself just wanted an ending that seemed to fit the series. I was appeased to an extent by the Extended cut just because it provided more clarity on the ending.

I think Dragon Age Origins had a good mix where you could still have sacrificed your life which is sad but you still managed to save the day for everyone. As long as this doesn't go against whatever core narrative that the designers have planned - you can have happy or not so happy ending that makes sense with the story and the world.

[HolyAvenger]

Happy ending = do not want.

I'm not playing a freaking romcom.

[Foolsfolly]

Get Magna Carter wrote...

I thought that the biggest problem with the ME3 ending is that it only seems to work if you agree with Bioware that
1) organics and A.I.s cannot peacefully coexist
and 2) organics and A.I.s can peacefully exist

Or the fact that in-game you have to agree with the Reaper either in theory or in practice. Nice ending, that.

[RandomSyhn]

Please please do not give the game a happy ending just because people demand it. Give it a happy ending because its consistant with the story, because in makes sense with the plot. Or don't give it a happy ending for those same reasons. I personally would love an ambiguous ending, one that maybe makes you feel like "Was it really worth it?" a damned if you do, damned if you don't sort of scenario.
But in all honesty I don't care what kind of ending you give me as long as it's a good story. (and makes sense)

Modifié par RandomSyhn, 17 mars 2013 - 08:01 .

[Redcrosse Knight]

BomimoDK wrote...

The main lesson from ME3 isn't a goddamn happy ending. It's an ending that is consistent with the fiction AND the build-up to it. Before release, not even being a big fan, i had this image that the climax would be you participating in a huge battle that would decide the outcome. Not that you'd be shepherded into a narrow corridor to arbitrarily CHOSE your ending independendent from any prior actions.

I expected the battle and i expected the Genophage, Rachni and so on to have a direct influence on that result, and then your own performance in the battle count as well. Screw happy endings Unhappy "everyone dies" ending is fine. Just don't have them die from a mushroom infection or whatever.

Bioware games these days rely too much on smoke and mirrors. Characters deaths were marketed as mattering to the plot, but someone else just jumps in and handles their part of the plot. That's lame and i hope/know Dragon Age won't do this. They'll retcon, and that's cool. But they won't be doing a character-swap at the level of what happened with Wrex in ME2. No way. Not unless said replacement was already headed the same direction.

this

[Xilizhra]

The problem with the Redcliff scenario is that you're leaving a possessed boy, who's demon has been responsible for probably dozens of deaths already, alone for days with his almost victims and there's no consequence for the action. This may be the "paragon" option but it's not a plausible scenario for the demon to just hide in the back of the boys psyche and wait for someone to come and kill it, particularly given that it's already demonstrated an ability to mentally dominate people.

Less so when you consider that the abomination itself actually fears personal violence, and that its entire corpse army seems to have been destroyed (at least if you saved Redcliffe; if you didn't, then it no longer matters anyway). Andrastians burn their dead; there are no graveyards for it to raid, so the abomination must have killed unarmed castle staff, raised them, then eventually built up sufficient numbers to launch light raids on the village, then ultimately heavy ones. Now it's back at square one, with the castle full of heavily armed and armored knights. As, if you fight it, it's not that tough in personal combat, we can infer that the town is probably safe by the time you go off to the Circle.
Mental domination is the only other thing it could do, and we've only seen it used on those who were unprepared for it; resisting desire demons is still possible.

[dragondreamer]

I think it's a fine line between bittersweet and so bleak it's depressing. I don't think most players want to end up feeling like everything they did was pointless. At the same time, I think simply having different endgame scenarios makes it possible to have outcomes from "happy ending" to "blackest tragedy".

In DA2 I found it was the small differences that could completely change the tone of the ending.

At the end of my "canon" run of DA2, my Hawke's life seems pretty hopeless. His family is mostly dead or estranged; he was forced to kill a Dalish clan; one of his closest friends loses it and blows up a building. And he's the last sane mage in Kirkwall. Xp He plays a catalyst for a war he never wanted. If Fenris hadn't stayed by his side at the end, it would have been incredibly bleak from my pov. I felt that even with the rest of world falling around him, at least Hawke could have happiness in his personal life after this was over.

I didn't realize how big a difference it made until my second Hawke, who also romanced Fenris, but was forced to kill him at the end. I left that playthrough just thinking that Hawke's life really sucked. It wasn't a good feeling to end the game with.

This is also a big contrast with my "canon" playthrough of DA:O, where my Warden wasn't able to successfully romance anyone, but I felt good because it felt like he accomplished something, even if there were some things that didn't work out for him on a personal level or left him feeling tarnished as a person.

[Goneaviking]

Xilizhra wrote...

The problem with the Redcliff scenario is that you're leaving a possessed boy, who's demon has been responsible for probably dozens of deaths already, alone for days with his almost victims and there's no consequence for the action. This may be the "paragon" option but it's not a plausible scenario for the demon to just hide in the back of the boys psyche and wait for someone to come and kill it, particularly given that it's already demonstrated an ability to mentally dominate people.

Less so when you consider that the abomination itself actually fears personal violence, and that its entire corpse army seems to have been destroyed (at least if you saved Redcliffe; if you didn't, then it no longer matters anyway). Andrastians burn their dead; there are no graveyards for it to raid, so the abomination must have killed unarmed castle staff, raised them, then eventually built up sufficient numbers to launch light raids on the village, then ultimately heavy ones. Now it's back at square one, with the castle full of heavily armed and armored knights. As, if you fight it, it's not that tough in personal combat, we can infer that the town is probably safe by the time you go off to the Circle.
Mental domination is the only other thing it could do, and we've only seen it used on those who were unprepared for it; resisting desire demons is still possible.

The demon is inhabiting the body of a mage, and knows bloodmagic which is used to mentally dominate others. Connordemon was able to mentally subjugate Teagan and a handful of guards simultaneously so it's no slouch at that sort of thing.

All it would take is dominating the cook, or any other member of the serving staff, to put rat poison in the guard's stew and then the whole thing starts again.

Don't kid yourself about him only being able to dominate people who aren't expecting it, the only people with the training and experience to resist blood magic are templars. Teagan and friends should have been a festering pile of corpses when we returned, the boy having snuck out in the night to make his own way in Thedas never to be heard from again aside from a brief mention in an ending slide.

[Rawgrim]

Goneaviking wrote...

Xilizhra wrote...

The problem with the Redcliff scenario is that you're leaving a possessed boy, who's demon has been responsible for probably dozens of deaths already, alone for days with his almost victims and there's no consequence for the action. This may be the "paragon" option but it's not a plausible scenario for the demon to just hide in the back of the boys psyche and wait for someone to come and kill it, particularly given that it's already demonstrated an ability to mentally dominate people.

Less so when you consider that the abomination itself actually fears personal violence, and that its entire corpse army seems to have been destroyed (at least if you saved Redcliffe; if you didn't, then it no longer matters anyway). Andrastians burn their dead; there are no graveyards for it to raid, so the abomination must have killed unarmed castle staff, raised them, then eventually built up sufficient numbers to launch light raids on the village, then ultimately heavy ones. Now it's back at square one, with the castle full of heavily armed and armored knights. As, if you fight it, it's not that tough in personal combat, we can infer that the town is probably safe by the time you go off to the Circle.
Mental domination is the only other thing it could do, and we've only seen it used on those who were unprepared for it; resisting desire demons is still possible.

The demon is inhabiting the body of a mage, and knows bloodmagic which is used to mentally dominate others. Connordemon was able to mentally subjugate Teagan and a handful of guards simultaneously so it's no slouch at that sort of thing.

All it would take is dominating the cook, or any other member of the serving staff, to put rat poison in the guard's stew and then the whole thing starts again.

Don't kid yourself about him only being able to dominate people who aren't expecting it, the only people with the training and experience to resist blood magic are templars. Teagan and friends should have been a festering pile of corpses when we returned, the boy having snuck out in the night to make his own way in Thedas never to be heard from again aside from a brief mention in an ending slide.

Spot on.

[Angrywolves]

You can have multiple endings in a game. Which ending you get depends on your action in the game. Heavy Rain would be a good example, from a happy ending if you did certain things to a terrible one if you did others with endings with mixed consequences between the two extremes.

[Bizantura]

Depending on your choises made in the game there should be multiple endings coinciding with the narrative. If you want gloomy you should get gloomy, vice versa too and something in between.

A new villain in the last minutes and flashy colours aint it.

[Iakus]

Bizantura wrote...

Depending on your choises made in the game there should be multiple endings coinciding with the narrative. If you want gloomy you should get gloomy, vice versa too and something in between.

A new villain in the last minutes and flashy colours aint it.

Pretty sure offering multiple fates for the protagonist based on game choices is considered heresy to certain people 

Anyhthing more than "choice of death" is considered too "rainbows and butterflies" 

[Mr.House]

Not so much a happy ending as an ending that makes sense and fits the universe. Like DAO ending

[Allan Schumacher]

I think an ending that would have made more narrative sense would not have needed such blatant ooey-gooey happiness, silliness and ridiculousness (Wrex dancing and getting drunk at a party while his species is on the cusp of both war and curing the genocide, not to mention the Reaper threat? Sure... keep telling yourself that...) and the fact that fans are eating it up could be incredibly damaging to story-telling in video games across the board.

If it was in the initial game I'd agree with you.

It's not, and as the Forbes writer mentions, it only works as DLC that comes out much after the fact.

As much as we all thump our chests and go "our in game character is different than ourselves and it should be that way" the point is that Citadel's DLC was a send off for the player, not Shepard. I have no qualms with this and think it works fine.

Narratively it can only exist prior to the destruction of the reapers, but that's only an issue if you adamantly stick to the narrative as it's contextually presented in the game. When I was playing through the DLC, it was going "Hey Allan lets have some fun one last time."

Now you can argue that that is bad writing and shouldn't be done, but it all exists within the context of a DLC that, to me, has a very specific purpose. It's not "thanks for the last several years Shepard" it's "thanks for the last several years players." And that's why I enjoyed it so much.

This works because, as players, 99% of the people are going to experience this DLC much, much after experiencing the ending. And no matter how much we may want to believe each character we play is unique and that we are being Shepard facing what Shepard sees and experiences, we're still the game player that isn't actually Shepard, that will always know more about what's going on than what Shepard does because we can't actively forget the things we already know. We can just choose to not let that affect our decision making (a proposition I feel isn't truly possible, but that's a whole different philosophical discussion).

Citadel was created to give the players more face time with the characters they grew to love so much. Because even though my time on the ME3 boards showed me that there was no consensus as to what people hated about the ending, it did show to me a reasonably strong consensus that people were emotionally invested in the game and setting and a large part of what solicited that emotional investment was the crew of the Normandy.

Just my two cents.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 18 mars 2013 - 07:38 .