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[TJBartlemus]

 Being the most celebrated pieces of Downloadable Content for Mass Effect 3, Citadel has become what many say the best BioWare has done for the series so far. And in part...I agree to an extent. There were many parts where BioWare did an excellent job. Things like the lighting, details and overall animations were astounding. However I feel many of the fans that have played the DLC have lost sight on what the DLC actually is...

Quote from Gamefront: "Citadel isn’t about good storytelling, it’s about feel-good storytelling."

 On a personal level, I absolutely loved the DLC. There were several moments that were priceless in my book. For example, the final scene before boarding the Normandy. It almost brought a tear to my eye. However when you take a step back and look at the bigger picture, the DLC becomes more concerning. In an overall sense, the Citadel DLC feels way out of place from the rest of the story. You could say it lacks context. For all intents and purposes, the DLC shouldn't even exist pre-ending.

 The main plot of ME3 was about how the Reapers are invading and now there is a galactic war going on. And the DLC's up until Citadel reflected that. A dark, gloomy sense of impending doom throughout the game. Then we get to the Citadel DLC and it is a radical change. Citadel has a much happier and light hearted feel to it. The DLC felt much more like it should be taking place AFTER the ending. 

UPDATED - Added this to provide clearification / elaboration and add to some of my points above.

Also taken from the Gamefront Article:

"Here’s the thing, though. You can enjoy your crazy fever dream farewell catharsis (colleague and friend Phil Owen, who loves Citadel, considers it a hallucination Shepard is having on the ground next to the beam to the Citadel during Mass Effect 3′s end game), but if you enjoy it and you say so and you spend money on it, you might be confirming BioWare’s stated suspicions: that you just needed a happy ending.

 One of the worst and most devastating arguments surrounding the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy was that it was the ending’s bleak tone and bleaker conclusion that triggered such animosity from fans, but that’s not true at all — it was the ending’s total abandonment of established themes and characterization that made it bad. It didn’t feel like Mass Effect and it didn’t stay true to the journey heretofore experienced by players.Citadel is the exact same departure from character and tone, which makes it a weak addition to the story; furthermore, whether it means to be or not, it’s a manipulative one.

 Most people I’ve spoken with consider Citadel just the Mass Effect team’s final hurrah, a chance to make something light and fun that the developers felt like creating because they like their own universe. It may well be that, but for the sake of the hypothetical, let’s entertain another notion: that Citadel is targeted at fans who remain frustrated and annoyed with BioWare’s treatment of Mass Effect’s ending and its staunch refusal to even acknowledge the valid criticism thereof. If we look at it in that light, Citadel starts to worry me.

 Consider this: While it’s hard to get a really accurate picture of the Mass Effect fan base,anecdotal evidence suggests to me more often than not that many fans (we’ll avoid the term “most” for argument’s sake) are still really, really angry about Mass Effect 3. Many of those people (again, not “most”) have been soured enough that while they might have been huge BioWare fans in the past, they’re more dubious about future titles, possibly even swearing off them altogether. And of course, BioWare wants those people back.

 If you were trying to get those fans back and make them happy with you again, how would you do it? Not to put too fine a point on it, but — Citadel is how.

 Citadel is unblinking, unyielding fan service from start to finish. Not just in its jokey demeanor, but moment after moment is crammed in a way that gives off that fanfiction aroma. I can’t stress this enough — it ends with Shepard throwing a party for all his crew friends. All the characters stand around and get drunk. It references such elements as the repetitive “I should go” line, and is meant to play on the emotions of fans who really are this wrapped up in the Mass Effect universe.

 For my part, I can’t help but wonder if the reason Citadel is so feel-goody is that it’s trying to achieve a specific goal. It abandons all aspects that make Mass Effect 3 what it is, or make Mass Effect as a series what it is, in favor of playing to your every character call-back whim. It wants you to leave feeling satisfied, and it’s willing to mortgage or sell off every aspect of Mass Effect’s soul to achieve that goal. It’s too hard to ignore those elements in light of the greater context of the Mass Effect 3 ending controversy.

 What bothers me most, though, is that Citadel represents all the worst possible lessons from the ending debacle. If Citadel achieves the goal of bringing fans back into the fold, it doesn’t bode well for future game stories from the studio, in my mind. Imagine it: You’re working on the hard-hitting ending for Dragon Age 4 that includes every character dying. It’s sad, but that’s the story the game needs to tell, and furthermore, it fits the tone and characters you’ve created in the game up to that point. But then a suit wanders up and tells you the ending has to be happy, because the suit learned from the success of Citadel that people like happy endings.

 Citadel isn’t about good storytelling, it’s about feel-good storytelling. And it’s not that there’s no place for that in either games or in Mass Effect — indeed, break Citadel up into 20 or so pieces and it would have worked great sprinkled throughout Mass Effect 3. But the DLC represents a departure from what Mass Effect is, and it sets a precedent in which pandering to fans supersedes telling great stories well. And that’s no better than the situation we were left with at the end of Mass Effect 3 a year ago.

 BioWare’s success was born of its ability to tell deep stories with relatable characters, often with a willingness to attack dark themes and ideas. Mass Effect covers genocide, racism, politics, as well as friendship, acceptance and unity, and touching on those elements and treating them in a smart, believable way is what drew so many of us to the series.

 I worry that a post-Citadel future will see a departure from tough subjects in favor of more singalongs, dance sessions, drunken parties and giant apartments with hot tubs. That’s not why I like BioWare, and it’s not why I like Mass Effect."

TL:DR - The DLC itself was great. 10/10 in my book. However in context to the story, the DLC falls short. 2/10. 

(Some articles that share similar points / elaborate.)

http://www.gamefront...for-the-future/

http://www.koobismo....del-dlc-review/

Modifié par TJBartlemus, 18 mars 2013 - 02:03 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I wouldn't read too much into it as being "you just wanted a happy ending" (note, I have only read the OP)

In my opinion there wasn't really a "consensus" on what specifically made people upset with the ending (IIRC there were about 3 different themes that came up a lot, and I felt many people fit on it on a continuum in some way, like a place on a triangle with each point being the particular destination). One thing that I did feel was pretty consistent, however, is that in large part players had a strong emotional investment into the game, most specifically the characters (there were other aspects as well, but I don't remember them being as common).

Contextually within the story, Citadel's story doesn't really make much sense. But I found, while playing it myself, that there's a sort of meta aspect to it. Most (I dare say the vast majority) of the players that play it will have already experienced the ending.  So as players when they play this, even though narratively it's "before" the ending, for the player it's still "after they've experienced all the other content in the game."  It's literally the last piece of content they will experience within the ME trilogy.

I found Citadel wasn't so much design to go on an adventure with Shepard. It was more to go on an adventure with the person playing the game. I think that's why it goes with breaking the 4th wall as much as it does. It invites the player along on a trip where they poke fun at the various memes that exist in the franchise, and delves more into spending time with the characters within the game as much as a player, rather than exclusively Shepard.


So rather than "lets go on an adventure with Shepard" it more said to me "Lets go on an adventure together with Allan."


I think that that's why it works so well. Had it been released with the game, it wouldn't have made a lick of sense. As the Forbes writer said, it only works as post-release content. As such, it came across as the game sort of saying "Thanks for all the memories." Which may sound sappy, but I really enjoyed the Citadel DLC and this I feel is why.


Cheers.

Allan

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 19 mars 2013 - 07:40 .

[Allan Schumacher]

fainmaca wrote...

Then this is probably one of the roots of the problem between BW and people like me. When I play the game, Shepard is meant to be me, my avatar in the game's world. The game shouldn't have to break the 4th wall to interact with me, as when I'm in the mindset to play Shepard, I'm already in there, alongside my allies and enemies.

I was speaking as a game player.  I have spent 0 minutes of my life working on Mass Effect.

I stated why it worked for me.  Unfortunately it doesn't work for you.

Also, I replay the games. I was replaying ME1+ME2 right up until ME3
came out (and a little after). I like to explore the setting in various
ways. The DLCs are most definitely not the last piece of content I
experience, therefore they need to still work with what must come after.

As do I.  I suppose I should have been clearer:  It's the last piece of new content most players will experience in the Mass Effect Trilogy.

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 20 mars 2013 - 03:20 .

[Allan Schumacher]

I'm asking this in an honest way in regards to deciding the consensus of fans' complaints:

What about the near universal hatred for the Catalyst? Sure THAT, if anything would have been above and beyond THE complaint about the ending. Even many who liked EC or the originals weren't too fond of the hologram. That'd have gone pretty far in patching the story up.

I actually felt there was a lot of "I don't even care about the Catalyst, what upset me was <something else>" types of responses as well. Though I wasn't really scientific about it.

[Allan Schumacher]

rating the best content of ME3 low cause- "it is out of place". What a whiner.

Lets not get adversarial because someone likes different things than other people!

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 20 mars 2013 - 03:59 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Allan,

I have to disagree with you on saying it doesn't have any context within the story. Admiral Anderson, the guy leading the resistance on Earth, tells Shepard basically, "hey I have this place on the Citadel and I'm obviously not using it right now so it's yours". The Normandy obviously needed repairs just as a real warship does in real wars so it made sense for Shep and company to stay at Anderson's empty apartment while that was going on. Shep's clone and Brooks were probably waiting for the Normandy crew to take their eventual shore leave on the Citadel from constantly fighting in stressful and bloody combat and launched their plot to kill him. Citadel DLC doesn't directly involve the war against the Reapers but in my opinion it does have some context. It couldn't have any less context within the story than Omega DLC.

Well then, it seems as though our opinions in this regard aren't the same hehe

If you can make it work for you that's great. For myself, what I appreciated the most of it was more outside of the narrative context that it exists.

Cheers!

Modifié par Allan Schumacher, 20 mars 2013 - 04:25 .