391 réponses à ce sujet

[thepimpto]

In comedy if you set up a great premise for a joke and then botch the punchline it doesn't mean people "didn't get" your joke, or that the joke isn't funny, it just means you did a poor job at expressing the material to the audience.

ME3's ending was a punchline that didn't quite work, and the EC dlc was that awkward explaining of the joke after its been told. The controversy of the ending lies within a poor delivery of the material and/or the audience's ability relate the material; not whether it is art or a commercial product.

[dorktainian]

thepimpto wrote...

ME3's ending was a punchline that didn't quite work, and the EC dlc was that awkward explaining of the joke after its been told. The controversy of the ending lies within a poor delivery of the material and/or the audience's ability relate the material; not whether it is art or a commercial product.

   

it isnt an ending.  thats the thing.  a 'singular' ending would have been shepard blowing the reapers to hell.

that is hardly what we got.  what we got was mish mash nonsense trying to be 'high brow' utter garbage pap.

It insults it's audience.  it is completely and utterly out of place, and should have been binned before ever seeing the light of day.  What it does prove is that actually they didnt have a clue how to end shepards story.

[thepimpto]

dorktainian wrote...

thepimpto wrote...

ME3's ending was a punchline that didn't quite work, and the EC dlc was that awkward explaining of the joke after its been told. The controversy of the ending lies within a poor delivery of the material and/or the audience's ability relate the material; not whether it is art or a commercial product.

   

it isnt an ending.  thats the thing.  a 'singular' ending would have been shepard blowing the reapers to hell.

that is hardly what we got.  what we got was mish mash nonsense trying to be 'high brow' utter garbage pap.

It insults it's audience.  it is completely and utterly out of place, and should have been binned before ever seeing the light of day.  What it does prove is that actually they didnt have a clue how to end shepards story.

I'm not a fan of the ending(s) original or extended cut myself. I was just responding to the OP that the controversy doesn't lie in whether ME3 is art or not, but with how the development team chose to express their material to its audience. Which I find to be: poorly.

[MetioricTest]

MrDavid wrote...

MetioricTest wrote...

MrDavid : "Fanbase, is the MEHEM ready?

Fanbase: "Yes!  Uploaded for download in 2 minutes... But retakers...dead."

MrDavid : "What happened?!"

Fanbase: "Stress levels too intense, too much drama.  Wanted it not to stop, they refused. Their decision."

MrDavid : "A lot of headcanons died today, nothing we can do."

Fanbase: "Retakers were stabilizing force, would have helped us rally more fans in support. Disgranted fans on the Bioware Social Network, must set MEHEM up. "

MrDavid : "You're going on there?"

Fanbase: "Yes, opinion polls online suggest temper explosions. Could effect opinion viability. Need to adjust ending manually."

MrDavid : "It's too dangerous! We need to stay off of there!"

Fanbase: "No, temper  variance could destroy the franchise, need to go on."

MrDavid : ".....You're not going online."

Fanbase: "Not concerned for my safety. Discover something? Criticism? But whose?...... Ah. Why David? That desperate for artistic vision? Or that afraid of fan 'entitlement'?"

MrDavid : "Every time we've talked about Mass Effect 3 before, you've defended it! Hell you destroyed the Indoctrination Theory! How can you change your mind now!?"

Fanbase: "I MADE A MISTAKE! ..... I made .. a mistake... Focused on the journey, journey made of little choices. Too many variables. Can't hide behind excuses, can't ignore fan reaction,  our responsibility! Need to go! Running out of time!"

MrDavid : "...... Walk away..."

Fanbase: "...Can't do that David...

MrDavid : " I don't have a choice here. Walk away or I will blog."

Fanbase: "Not your decision, not your work, not your ending! Had to be us. Someone else might have gotten it wrong! No time to argue, MEHEM upload imminent, must counter-act Hudson. Stop me if you must."

I seriously can't argue with anything this awesome. I owe you a cookie.

Dextro-Cookie would be nice. Tali never gets treats

[DullahansXMark]

I'm not quite done reading yet, but from what I've read I completely agree with what you've said. This line speaks to me in particular:

According to these people, all that matters is that any message the game delivers has to cater to the lowest common denominator. This means that anything that doesn't make immediate sense is rejected and this is what happened to Mass Effect 3's ending.

The first time I played through Metal Gear Rising, for example, there were a few things that appeared to just absolutely come out of left field. Later I decided to a second playthrough, and along the way I listened to some of the optional codec calls. When I did that, I still had to think a little bit, but I gradually began to make sense of it, and it was actually really well-done.

Now, you could say that structuring it like this was a flaw, but it was intentional: most Metal Gear games tend to have cutscenes averaging 30 minutes (slight hyperbole). Which is okay, because they're slow games in general, what with being stealth action. But Metal Gear Rising is a hack n' slash. They needed to find a compromise as to not break the pacing. So it boiled down to this: if you just wanna play a fun action game, you can do that. If you want a quality narrative, you can also get that. It's freely interchangeable. And I actually like it that way. It's cool.

[Ircasha]

 The problem is that, by allowing players to make decisions that effected the outcome of the game series (perhaps one of the main reasons i loved the series until ME3), BioWare made their fan base feel that the story, to a certain extent, belonged to the player.  It's an illusion, but a very powerful one.  By using that illusion, BioWare lost any ability to stand behind the concept of "this is our story and we'll screw it up in any way we like".

That idea of player as story teller was one of the main selling points of the game.  Taking that away in the last 15 minutes of the game was a kick in the nuts to the players. 

[MetioricTest]

DullahansXMark wrote...

I'm not quite done reading yet, but from what I've read I completely agree with what you've said. This line speaks to me in particular:

According to these people, all that matters is that any message the game delivers has to cater to the lowest common denominator. This means that anything that doesn't make immediate sense is rejected and this is what happened to Mass Effect 3's ending.

The first time I played through Metal Gear Rising, for example, there were a few things that appeared to just absolutely come out of left field. Later I decided to a second playthrough, and along the way I listened to some of the optional codec calls. When I did that, I still had to think a little bit, but I gradually began to make sense of it, and it was actually really well-done.

Now, you could say that structuring it like this was a flaw, but it was intentional: most Metal Gear games tend to have cutscenes averaging 30 minutes (slight hyperbole). Which is okay, because they're slow games in general, what with being stealth action. But Metal Gear Rising is a hack n' slash. They needed to find a compromise as to not break the pacing. So it boiled down to this: if you just wanna play a fun action game, you can do that. If you want a quality narrative, you can also get that. It's freely interchangeable. And I actually like it that way. It's cool.

You're making a gigantic mistake by putting "Being creative" and "not making any sense" in the same boat.

Claiming ME3's ending is good but just beyond the fan's understanding and they just want it dumbed down is both insulting and stupid

[bloodmoon0011]

I'm so tired of this "artistic integrity" argument...

Look, this wasn't utter garbage because we can't understand their "art", it's garbage because it's garbage.  The WHOLE CONCEPT for the ending feels rushed.  The writers at BioWare are, in my opinion, geniuses, since no lame writer could get me to care enough about characters and a universe this much.  That said, the star brat is, quite literally, the deus ex machina.  This game has always been about choice and consequences, and don't get me wrong:  I don't want them to REDO the ending.  If you personally want to end the saga this way, go ahead, doesn't effect me.  The bottom line is that this whole thing felt ridiculously limited compared to EVERY other part of the trilogy.  Where was the option to even send out a comm warning to Hackett and the rest of the fleet, telling them to evac all synthetic life to the dark zone for a while, safely out of the blast radius?  Where was my back up once they realized I was in?  There were TONS of ground forces around that thing even after Harbinger blasted them, and once Hackett learned I was in there he could have sent back up.  How is it exactly that the synthetic life ceases to function, but VIs and ship computers seem to still work enough for navigation?  How on earth is synthesis even actually possible?  You can't randomly give inorganic things DNA and organic things circuitry, not in one single blast of magical green space energy.  Why is MY Shepard stuck with the brat not accepting the peace I busted my ass to get between the Geth and the Quarians?  Why can't they just include a simple 2-minute "Hey, we found him!" cut scene if you do... Something?

There wasn't enough choice because there wasn't enough TIME.  I guarantee you the ending they'd already prepped before the leak had WAY more choices, simply because they had the TIME to think of them. 

tl;dr?

The ending sucked because it was rushed and COMPLETELY failed to fit with the rest of the series' key concepts, like choice and consequences, not because I "disagree with their 'artistic' message".

[bloodmoon0011]

Forgot to add one little thing: I know they added dialogue with the brat for the EC DLC, but it's virtually the same for any way you could have played the game. This should be a HUGE DAMN red flag for any fan of the series that this ending just didn't fit the game.

[Aravius]

thepimpto wrote...

dorktainian wrote...

thepimpto wrote...

ME3's ending was a punchline that didn't quite work, and the EC dlc was that awkward explaining of the joke after its been told. The controversy of the ending lies within a poor delivery of the material and/or the audience's ability relate the material; not whether it is art or a commercial product.

   

it isnt an ending.  thats the thing.  a 'singular' ending would have been shepard blowing the reapers to hell.

that is hardly what we got.  what we got was mish mash nonsense trying to be 'high brow' utter garbage pap.

It insults it's audience.  it is completely and utterly out of place, and should have been binned before ever seeing the light of day.  What it does prove is that actually they didnt have a clue how to end shepards story.

I'm not a fan of the ending(s) original or extended cut myself. I was just responding to the OP that the controversy doesn't lie in whether ME3 is art or not, but with how the development team chose to express their material to its audience. Which I find to be: poorly.

Art? I thought the execution felt awkward and disjointed. Why did it effect SO MANY people in a negative way? Bioware created a masterpiece IMHO for the first 99.5% of the game. Then, not a bad ending, but an ending that had very little to do with anything we had choosing to do for the previous 120 hours. It went against the very character I had created and the choices that I made.

[bloodmoon0011]

I've been catching up on this forum and I have to say, about 85-90% of the poster here are saying exactly the same thing: The ending felt awkward and completely incongruous with the ideas of choice and consequences, and felt limited only by the writers, not your own hand, something I'd never felt in the series before. I don't want them to REDO the ending, just add more, which honestly, at this point, a year later, I'd lay down my pride and freakin' BUY. Not happily, I might add, but I feel... Broken. :/

[bloodmoon0011]

I mean, this ending BROKE the series for me. I wanted to play through the game a few times with male shep AND fem shep, renegade and paragon, but now... What's the point? There'll be NO difference with what happens anyway, so why bother? And honestly, this hurts ME4 too. If it takes place after, they shoot the idea of how the war ends in the foot, because programming a game to take how YOU ended it as the proper ending would me four entirely different games, one for rejection, control, destruction and synthesis, but choosing any one would mean that your choices really didn't matter.

If it took place before, then again, why the hell bother? It's going to end the same way anyway: With nothing you do mattering in the end.

Honestly, I truly believe adding additional endings to the series that focused more on how you played and, to an extent, what YOU believe the end should be like would only help the series and the whole ME universe, not waste their money...

[Aravius]

bloodmoon0011 wrote...

I've been catching up on this forum and I have to say, about 85-90% of the poster here are saying exactly the same thing: The ending felt awkward and completely incongruous with the ideas of choice and consequences, and felt limited only by the writers, not your own hand, something I'd never felt in the series before. I don't want them to REDO the ending, just add more, which honestly, at this point, a year later, I'd lay down my pride and freakin' BUY. Not happily, I might add, but I feel... Broken. :/

I'm another one of those kind of players. I'd buy 1200 BIOWARE points just to fix this trilogy I love.

[bloodmoon0011]

Aravius wrote...

bloodmoon0011 wrote...

I've been catching up on this forum and I have to say, about 85-90% of the poster here are saying exactly the same thing: The ending felt awkward and completely incongruous with the ideas of choice and consequences, and felt limited only by the writers, not your own hand, something I'd never felt in the series before. I don't want them to REDO the ending, just add more, which honestly, at this point, a year later, I'd lay down my pride and freakin' BUY. Not happily, I might add, but I feel... Broken. :/

I'm another one of those kind of players. I'd buy 1200 BIOWARE points just to fix this trilogy I love.

;_;  I'd damn well pay for a whole new game, lol.  I love this series, and they pissed in my mouth and called it rain.

[txgoldrush]

MetioricTest wrote...

DullahansXMark wrote...

I'm not quite done reading yet, but from what I've read I completely agree with what you've said. This line speaks to me in particular:

According to these people, all that matters is that any message the game delivers has to cater to the lowest common denominator. This means that anything that doesn't make immediate sense is rejected and this is what happened to Mass Effect 3's ending.

The first time I played through Metal Gear Rising, for example, there were a few things that appeared to just absolutely come out of left field. Later I decided to a second playthrough, and along the way I listened to some of the optional codec calls. When I did that, I still had to think a little bit, but I gradually began to make sense of it, and it was actually really well-done.

Now, you could say that structuring it like this was a flaw, but it was intentional: most Metal Gear games tend to have cutscenes averaging 30 minutes (slight hyperbole). Which is okay, because they're slow games in general, what with being stealth action. But Metal Gear Rising is a hack n' slash. They needed to find a compromise as to not break the pacing. So it boiled down to this: if you just wanna play a fun action game, you can do that. If you want a quality narrative, you can also get that. It's freely interchangeable. And I actually like it that way. It's cool.

You're making a gigantic mistake by putting "Being creative" and "not making any sense" in the same boat.

Claiming ME3's ending is good but just beyond the fan's understanding and they just want it dumbed down is both insulting and stupid

But I am going to make this exact claim.....

The typical BSN fan who whines about the ending, especially the extended cut (the original ending DID have problems), simply didn't get it.

It DID thematically fit with the entire trilogy...hell, the ending wrestled with multiple themes that were on display ALL SERIES LONG. To say otherwise, you simply didn't get it.

And the sad thing is, the ending was not convoluted or complex, it was straightforward.

And the main theme once again for Mass Effect 3 is about sacrifice. The ending fit the story....deal with it.

Modifié par txgoldrush, 30 avril 2013 - 06:38 .

[txgoldrush]

dorktainian wrote...

thepimpto wrote...

ME3's ending was a punchline that didn't quite work, and the EC dlc was that awkward explaining of the joke after its been told. The controversy of the ending lies within a poor delivery of the material and/or the audience's ability relate the material; not whether it is art or a commercial product.

   

it isnt an ending.  thats the thing.  a 'singular' ending would have been shepard blowing the reapers to hell.

that is hardly what we got.  what we got was mish mash nonsense trying to be 'high brow' utter garbage pap.

It insults it's audience.  it is completely and utterly out of place, and should have been binned before ever seeing the light of day.  What it does prove is that actually they didnt have a clue how to end shepards story.

Wrong, the ending dealt with themes put on display not only through ME3, but all series long.

[txgoldrush]

AlanC9 wrote...

Getorex wrote...

It's quite simple really. If playing (or designing) a game, the player should be able to actually WIN the game (and the designer should make it possible). No one wants to play a game that cannot be won and YOUR character (Shepard IS an extension of the player, not some mythical real person...YOU the player) getting killed off no matter how you play, no matter how well you play, is not winning. .

So Planescape: Torment is an unwinnable game? I'll name more if you like.

Anyway, Shep obviously lives in high-EMS Destroy.

Planescape Torment...instead of the three colored ending, you get three different ending music ending....

But yet, I consider it one of the greatest endings in video game history.

[txgoldrush]

AlanC9 wrote...

Troxa wrote...


www.youtube.com/watch

Use geth/quarian peace & other things to argue

And you figure that would work? Why should it?

The Catalyst would simply say that the AIs of the current cycle aren't advanced enough yet to exterminate organics. And he won't let them become more advanced to see if they actually do it.

Believing that his premises are wrong and demonstrating that those premises are wrong are two different things.

Its funny.....fans simply miss what the conflict with the Catalyst truly was...it was never about organics and synthetics, thats the context, NOT the conflict.

The conflict is the Catalyst's need to sacrifice organic beings to accomplish his goal. Thats where Shepard and Catalyst are at odds. Not to debate his motives.

Dealing with ME3's main theme of sacrifice again.

[Aravius]

txgoldrush wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Troxa wrote...


www.youtube.com/watch

Use geth/quarian peace & other things to argue

And you figure that would work? Why should it?

The Catalyst would simply say that the AIs of the current cycle aren't advanced enough yet to exterminate organics. And he won't let them become more advanced to see if they actually do it.

Believing that his premises are wrong and demonstrating that those premises are wrong are two different things.

Its funny.....fans simply miss what the conflict with the Catalyst truly was...it was never about organics and synthetics, thats the context, NOT the conflict.

The conflict is the Catalyst's need to sacrifice organic beings to accomplish his goal. Thats where Shepard and Catalyst are at odds. Not to debate his motives.

Dealing with ME3's main theme of sacrifice again.

You're trying to tell me that I missed something after 10 play throughs. The end is disjointed and a thumb at everyone that played it. I understand your argument. But I'm not buying it in the least.

[Twisted Path]

In the original blog post the poster acts like the extended cut is a new and unprecedented thing, and I don't really think that's true. Bad or unpopular decisions in stories get retconed away all the time. The big example people pointed to when Mass Effect 3 first came out was the Broken Steel DLC for Fallout 3, where Bethesda retconed their bad ending away.

Broader then that there's stuff like how Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes then brought him back after his fans demanded it. And of course comic books are full of that stuff. Comic writers constantly reinterpret or change existing characters and settings to keep things fresh. If it works they run with it, if it doesn't they faze the change out. It leads to really convoluted settings and I'm not saying it's a good thing necessarily, but retconing an ending to make it more palatable after outrage from fans isn't something Bioware pioneered.

[txgoldrush]

Aravius wrote...

txgoldrush wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Troxa wrote...


www.youtube.com/watch

Use geth/quarian peace & other things to argue

And you figure that would work? Why should it?

The Catalyst would simply say that the AIs of the current cycle aren't advanced enough yet to exterminate organics. And he won't let them become more advanced to see if they actually do it.

Believing that his premises are wrong and demonstrating that those premises are wrong are two different things.

Its funny.....fans simply miss what the conflict with the Catalyst truly was...it was never about organics and synthetics, thats the context, NOT the conflict.

The conflict is the Catalyst's need to sacrifice organic beings to accomplish his goal. Thats where Shepard and Catalyst are at odds. Not to debate his motives.

Dealing with ME3's main theme of sacrifice again.

You're trying to tell me that I missed something after 10 play throughs. The end is disjointed and a thumb at everyone that played it. I understand your argument. But I'm not buying it in the least.

Well I guessed you missed it 10 times then.

Because ever since Mass effect 2 Arrival, the main theme has been about sacrifice.

Just so you don't miss it for the 11th time.....what was Shepards point of argument against the catalyst? It sure wasn't organics and synthetics.

[Kel Riever]

I don't know, it was hard for me to follow the dialogue once the Glowjob starts speaking. Mainly because it makes no sense unless you pretend it does.

[StoneSwords]

Kel Riever wrote...

I don't know, it was hard for me to follow the dialogue once the Glowjob starts speaking. Mainly because it makes no sense unless you pretend it does.

It's because the starkid pretty much comes out of left field, and railroads you into making one of four morally ambiguous choices.  There's no way anyone who's been with the series since 2007 when ME first dropped saw this coming before they got hit with Harby's beam

[txgoldrush]

Kel Riever wrote...

I don't know, it was hard for me to follow the dialogue once the Glowjob starts speaking. Mainly because it makes no sense unless you pretend it does.

Because you didn't get it.....

Its quite simple really.

He is an AI that sees organic life as a concept instead of what makes it meaningful. He is an irony, true to the Well Intentioned Extremist trope, he states that synthetics seek perfection through understanding, yet he fails to understand organics....hence this is why he talks around Shepards arguments and hence why he underestimated organics regarding the crucible.

You and him are at an impass, you can't possibly defeat his Reapers and he cannot enact his ideal solution without you.

[txgoldrush]

Twisted Path wrote...

In the original blog post the poster acts like the extended cut is a new and unprecedented thing, and I don't really think that's true. Bad or unpopular decisions in stories get retconed away all the time. The big example people pointed to when Mass Effect 3 first came out was the Broken Steel DLC for Fallout 3, where Bethesda retconed their bad ending away.

Broader then that there's stuff like how Arthur Conan Doyle killed off Sherlock Holmes then brought him back after his fans demanded it. And of course comic books are full of that stuff. Comic writers constantly reinterpret or change existing characters and settings to keep things fresh. If it works they run with it, if it doesn't they faze the change out. It leads to really convoluted settings and I'm not saying it's a good thing necessarily, but retconing an ending to make it more palatable after outrage from fans isn't something Bioware pioneered.

The Witcher 2 also fixed its underdeveloped ending.