370 réponses à ce sujet

[Volc19]

I started with Control, and my second choice would be Destroy.

It would be with a heavy heart, and my Shep would likely kill himself out of guilt due to him exterminating a friend and two races (the Geth and the Virtual Aliens), but if I Refuse rocks fall and everybody dies anyways, and Synthesis is literally the worst thing I could think to inflict upon the whole of existence. So this is really process of elimination.

[CaIIisto]

Optimystic_X wrote...

The fact that Bioware considered it a sound business decision to keep making more? If Leviathan had tanked, would they have bothered with Citadel, which clearly cost a lot of money with all the VAs they had to bring on board?

You're joking right? This is your rationale? Seriously?

With BW still in damage control mode they had little choice but to produce the Citadel DLC. The alternative is to leave people who weren't happy with the lack of character closure frustrated at a time when you're starting to talk about the next game. 

This is side-stepping the whole issue of "if it doesn't tank then it must mean that the majority of fans like it". The DLC needed to be commercially viable. That doesn't necessitate that the majority of fans buy the DLC. It necessitates that enough buy it to make more viable. That's an important distinction given that without it we likely wouldn't have had any DLC past BDtS or Pinnacle Station. 

Has Leviathan tanked? It's sold less than all but one of the ME2 paid DLCs. It's also sold less than Pinnacle Station. Equally it's not a good sign that it's outperformed by a bunch of DLC for Burnout Revenge when BR sold less than half a million copies of the base game. Outperformed by a game that sold over 5 times less on the platform. Not to worry though, the 360 only makes up 60% of ME3 sales, I'm sure it performed much better on the PS3 and PC.....

And again, just one youtube video has a far larger sample than any poll on this board. And the ratio of approval to disapproval over there is pretty telling.

Let's take a look at the videos that have the most views for each ending.

Synthesis ending with the most views (620k): 3237 like, 333 dislike - 90.6% favorable.

Control ending with the most views (510k): 2,271 like, 235 dislike - 90.6% favorable.

Destroy ending with the most views (576k): 2583 like, 318 dislike - 89.0% favorable

And lastly:

Refusal ending with the most views (715k): 1615 like, 1201 dislike - 57.3% favorable.

This is a far different story than any BSN poll will tell. Youtube has lower barriers to participation - far more people have a YT account than a BSN account. Youtube also is much easier for international fans to access than the English-language polls found on BSN.

If your point of view is correct, the numbers should point to the opposite - Synthesis should be the least popular, or at the very least it shouldn't be nearly so high. Destroy and Refusal should be the most popular, and Refusal, being BSN's ultimate expression of rage, shouldn't be coming in so clearly last.

Care to explain?

It's very easy to explain. You Tube isn't a vote, a survey is. Unsuprisingly, c90% of people attracted to each ending like that ending. Well colour me shocked. The Refusal ending equally isn't surprising, seeing as many people still see that as BW's showing the complaining fans the middle finger. 

You're heading into choppy water if you're seriously trying to use Youtube likes/dislikes as being representative of the actual endings. Case in point, the top destroy-related video isn't 576k, it's 1.2m. The like/dislike distribution for that video is c53%. Is that based on the actual ending? No, it's based on the fact it's someone who recorded the video on what looks to be a mobile phone, hence the quality is less than perfect, and it's based on the fact that it was posted just after the game had come out, and given that it shows high EMS destroy, which was rare at that point, people believed the video to have been faked. 

Youtube is a vastly inferior means of trying to guage popularity. You could try and use view counts, but that's flawed. You could try and use a like/dislike distribution, but frankly, that's laughable. If those are the lengths that you need to go to in order to try and justify the Synthesis option as being anything other than less popular than Destroy then you have my sympathies. 

This is why elections and such are decided by x vs y polls, and not like/dislike distributions. 

The last major survey on this issue was conducted after the EC and eventually published in September. The sample for that survey was just under 10,000, cutting across BSN, Facebook, Twitter and any number of games and fan sites, with respondents from all corners of the globe. Coincidentally, the findings to the pointed question around chosen ending was exactly the same as it always is. Destroy is more popular than Control and Synthesis combined. Although I'll grant you in that survey, Synthesis was actually more popular than Control. 

I'm not entirely sure why you seem to think that there's a BSN conspiracy against Synthesis. Granted, there are more destroyers here than synthesizers (and controllers), but there would be if it's the more popular option. I visit any number of gaming forums and message boards, and it's no different in those places than it is here. I'm surprised that this seems to be a shock to you, although less so when I realize that you're basing your view on fundamentally flawed Youtube distributions. 

[CaIIisto]

Optimystic_X wrote...
if it is so widely hated people wouldn't even do that. They would dislike it based on content.

Who would dislike it? Who are these people that hate Synthesis so much that they feel the need to go out of their way to find it on YT? Equally, who are the people that do the same for Destroy and Control? 

It's not a massive coincidence that the like/dislike distribution for Destroy, Control, Synthesis and even MEHEM are all c90%. People viewing those videos are predisposed to like them because that's why they clicked on the video to begin with. This is why it's moronic to try and utilize Youtube for telling you anything other than x number of people watched x video on x day. 

[Argolas]

Bester76 wrote...

Optimystic_X wrote...
if it is so widely hated people wouldn't even do that. They would dislike it based on content.

Who would dislike it? Who are these people that hate Synthesis so much that they feel the need to go out of their way to find it on YT? Equally, who are the people that do the same for Destroy and Control? 

It's not a massive coincidence that the like/dislike distribution for Destroy, Control, Synthesis and even MEHEM are all c90%. People viewing those videos are predisposed to like them because that's why they clicked on the video to begin with. This is why it's moronic to try and utilize Youtube for telling you anything other than x number of people watched x video on x day. 

I watched Control or Synthesis videos on youtube a lot more often than Destroy videos- because I was checking my references for BSN discussions. Destroy provides a pretty clear picture of what happened, Control and especially Synthesis not so much, sometimes they even seem cryptic. Also, I liked all videos I watched for references not because I like those endings but to show my appreciation of the uploader's effort.

[Asharad Hett]

I have watched all the endings on youtube.  I never click the "like" or "dislike" buttons.   This argument is goofy.

Modifié par Asharad Hett, 20 avril 2013 - 03:25 .

[Papa John0]

I'm not sure popularity has anything to do with merit. It seems the discussion has gotten side-tracked.

I cannot choose Synthesis because it is a betrayal of a key theme in the series: Free Will vs. Determinism (as expressed through Benezia and Saren's indoctrination, the Geth Reaper code, and the Collectors' attempt to assimilate humanity and create a Reaper).

Likewise, I can no longer choose Destroy because it would be making a moral decision that is above Shepard. No one man can decide to end an entire race (assuming the Geth are still alive--if not, it's a different game).

Modifié par Papa John0, 20 avril 2013 - 03:28 .

[AlanC9]

Chashan wrote...
Said 'weird' would have needed actual build-up. It's preposterous and incredulous that going into the finale its exact function was not determined already, given that entire armies of technicians and scientists were at it. Providing that only at the last possible moment precisely is the problem.

I thought we were discussing what we expected the Crucible to do. Saying that we should have known what the device did ahead of time is a different issue. We didn't know what it did, and we knew that we didn't know what it did.

At the risk of sounding cruel, did you really expect the Crucible to just kill the Reapers?

And the conventional 'destructive' potential actually_was_disclosed, by characters well-known at that point well ahead of Chronos. The friendly-fire situation only ever gets introduced by the thing at eleventh hour, and naught else.

Actually, Hackett mentions the friendly-fire issue first.

[Papa John0]

Exactly. I thought the Crucible would end up frying Earth no matter what. It was my expectation that we'd end up being like the Quarians and that the decision to fire it and wipe out Earth--the ultimate sacrifice--would be Shepard's final moral dilemma.

[Argolas]

Papa John0 wrote...

Exactly. I thought the Crucible would end up frying Earth no matter what. It was my expectation that we'd end up being like the Quarians and that the decision to fire it and wipe out Earth--the ultimate sacrifice--would be Shepard's final moral dilemma.

Humans wouldn't end up like the quarians. Humans can easily colonize other planets, it might even work to send all earth survivors to existing colonies. Quarians can only live on Rannoch.

[PsyrenY]

Bester76 wrote...

Has Leviathan tanked? It's sold less than all but one of the ME2 paid DLCs.

Source?

Bester76 wrote...
It's very easy to explain. You Tube isn't a vote, a survey is.

You're wrong. "Do you like this, yes or no" posed to thousands of people is a survey, whether you want it to be or not. And YT may not be perfectly representative of the total fanbase, but it actually comes closer to doing so than a forum specifically designed for bellyachers to come and air their grievances. At the very least, more people have voted on the videos than have voted in every poll held here.

Bester76 wrote...
Unsuprisingly, 90% of people attracted to each ending like that ending. Well colour me shocked.

You're still missing the point. That 90% is still 3000+ people attracted to Synthesis, far more than have shown up any BSN poll. When are you going to simply admit that those people aren't on the Bioware forums, and that therefore any poll that comes out of BSN is missing key respondents?

Bester76 wrote...

Case in point, the top destroy-related video isn't 576k, it's 1.2m.The like/dislike distribution for that video is c53%. Is that based on the actual ending? No, it's based on the fact it's someone who recorded the video on what looks to be a mobile phone, hence the quality is less than perfect, and it's based on the fact that it was posted just after the game had come out, and given that it shows high EMS destroy, which was rare at that point, people believed the video to have been faked.

So you specifically pick a poor-quality video and correctly point out that it has more dislikes due to that fact, then use it to prove...what exactly?

None of that applies to the videos I selected, so it's irrelevant.

Bester76 wrote...

Youtube is a vastly inferior means of trying to guage popularity.

And BSN polls aren't?

The point of my exercise was not to show that "Synthesis is clearly the most popular ending and you guys are dumb if you disagree." The point was to show that "BSN polls are unreliable, so stop claiming "all the fans" or "the majority of fans" are in favor of or opposed to any one of the endings based on a poll from this site." 

Besides which, I disagree. YT likes and dislikes are valuable because you are the ones claiming that Destroy is the most popular ending and that "everyone" hates Synthesis. Clearly you are off by over 3000 - if BSN is a representative sample, where are those people? Care to explain?

Bester76 wrote...

This is why elections and such are decided by x vs y polls, and not like/dislike distributions.

By representative polls.

If you poll the RNC and ask who should be president, and you get the Republican candidate in a landslide, that is meaningless information.

Bester76 wrote...
The last major survey on this issue was conducted after the EC and eventually published in September. The sample for that survey was just under 10,000, cutting across BSN, Facebook, Twitter and any number of games and fan sites, with respondents from all corners of the globe. Coincidentally, the findings to the pointed question around chosen ending was exactly the same as it always is. Destroy is more popular than Control and Synthesis combined. Although I'll grant you in that survey, Synthesis was actually more popular than Control.

Interesting - link? Who conducted this survey and where were the results published?

Bester76 wrote...
I'm not entirely sure why you seem to think that there's a BSN conspiracy against Synthesis.

Did you read MCB's thread by any chance? Or this one?

[Chashan]

AlanC9 wrote...

Chashan wrote...
Said 'weird' would have needed actual build-up. It's preposterous and incredulous that going into the finale its exact function was not determined already, given that entire armies of technicians and scientists were at it. Providing that only at the last possible moment precisely is the problem.

I thought we were discussing what we expected the Crucible to do. Saying that we should have known what the device did ahead of time is a different issue. We didn't know what it did, and we knew that we didn't know what it did.

At the risk of sounding cruel, did you really expect the Crucible to just kill the Reapers?

This goes in hand with the other issue:

And the conventional 'destructive' potential actually_was_disclosed, by characters well-known at that point well ahead of Chronos. The friendly-fire situation only ever gets introduced by the thing at eleventh hour, and naught else.

Actually, Hackett mentions the friendly-fire issue first.

By 'friendly fire' I meant the - originally rather explicit - downside introduced by the thing that the WMD would affect 'even the geth'. Did I expect collateral damage? Absolutely, and that should have been downside enough to it. Variations as to just how severe those would end up being would have made for enough variables to work with.

And the matter of the 'unknowable device' is not excusable simply for being there as is. BW managed to set up their final stage in-game proper in the past, as I pointed out. In ME3, they did not even really try.

Modifié par Chashan, 20 avril 2013 - 03:58 .

[Asharad Hett]

Unsuprisingly, 90% of people attracted to each ending like that ending. Well colour me shocked.

When 600,000 people view a video and only 2,000 hit the like or dislike button, you cannot scientifically determine the opinion of the other 598,000 who watched it.  

Modifié par Asharad Hett, 20 avril 2013 - 03:53 .

[Asharad Hett]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Why are people using YouTube video popularities as arguments for anything?

It is known that 90% of people on YouTube are idiots.

Almost as bad as BSN, eh? 

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Asharad Hett wrote...

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Why are people using YouTube video popularities as arguments for anything?

It is known that 90% of people on YouTube are idiots.

Almost as bad as BSN, eh? 

Almost.

[Hadeedak]

Not entirely. Especially not me. I can't go a full sentence without making some form of obscure pop culture link.

[Papa John0]

Argolas wrote...

Papa John0 wrote...

Exactly. I thought the Crucible would end up frying Earth no matter what. It was my expectation that we'd end up being like the Quarians and that the decision to fire it and wipe out Earth--the ultimate sacrifice--would be Shepard's final moral dilemma.

Humans wouldn't end up like the quarians. Humans can easily colonize other planets, it might even work to send all earth survivors to existing colonies. Quarians can only live on Rannoch.

Well, not exactly like the Quarians--just a homeworld-less species. You get my idea.

I predicted, before the ending, that the Repears had moved the Citadel to Earth because they knew that we had built the Crucible and they had predicted (here is where the Catalyst comes in) that we would be succesful in docking it and that Shepard would make it to the controls. It became inevitable over the course of the three games that the Reapers would be undone by Shepard, so the Catalyst had the Crucible moved to Earth as a final ploy. The final ploy was going to be a decision that the Catalyst estimated Shepard would be unwilling to make: stop the Reapers but destroy Earth and all of the fleet surrounding it. Then, depending on the EMS, Shepard would have more sway in the argument (ex: low EMS=either accept the destruction of Earth or refuse and lose the war; high EMS= move the Citadel after defeating the Reaper fleet at Earth).

In this way, the ending much more reflects Shepard's origin story: Ruthless vs War Hero and the end of Mass Effect 1--sacrifice human lives for the greater good or not.

Modifié par Papa John0, 20 avril 2013 - 04:39 .

[dreamgazer]

Yeah, measuring an ending's popularity on YouTube thumbs of approval is pretty pointless.

How many people upvoted any of the ending videos (especially synthesis) so they didn't have to see it in-game? How many people upvoted it merely because the quality was decent? Plenty of factors.

[dreamgazer]

Anyway, Control would be a distant second to Destroy for me.

Tap into the Reapers' knowledge, rebuilt society, then find a shady (or underwater) spot for them to be out of sight and hope for the best---namely hoping that ReaperShep doesn't pull a David Archer or get creative with their power.

[The Night Mammoth]

There's also the factor of how screwed the sample base is thanks to the fact that people who don't like the endings aren't going to watch them on YouTube.

[dreamgazer]

The Night Mammoth wrote...

There's also the factor of how screwed the sample base is thanks to the fact that people who don't like the endings aren't going to watch them on YouTube.

I'd think it would be the opposite. Morbid curiosity and all, as well as reference.

[The Night Mammoth]

The opposite as in the viewer base is composed of people who don't like the endings and people watching them for information?

[dreamgazer]

The Night Mammoth wrote...

The opposite as in the viewer base is composed of people who don't like the endings and people watching them for information?

A portion of it, yeah. People upvote things for many reasons, and with many "motives".

[The Night Mammoth]

That only contributes to the unreliability of it all, to me.

Surely, if the results of some sort of survey are going to be even half reliable, it has to be made certain that all the people involved have actually played and finished the game.