EntropicAngel wrote...
In one of the final scenes, your LI or one of your crew is standing in front of the Normandy's list of casualties, holding your plaque...and the game very deliberately does not show them putting it up. That seems obvious to me that Shepard is not confirmed dead. It may just be me.
Actually, Shepherd was confirmed dead via Twitter, if memory serves me correct. That the breath scene was, in fact, the last breath of Shepherd.
You're not being fair. You're saying that the slides need to tell us EVERYTHING, when in reality if there's only one in-the-future slide it's a projection, even if it's only Shepard taking a gasp of air (which, for any doubters still out there who read this, is called shepard_lives.bik or some such).
The fact that the epilogue slides in DA:O didn't tell me the end state of my dissolution of the Circle, what affect it had on other countries, or whether my choice to put Alistair alone on the throne resulted in Orleisan influence, doesn't mean that it doesn't have lesser-reaching consequences shown.
There's a difference between telling us everything and tell us nothing outside of what our character knew before the ending even started.
For ME3 to tell us "you cured the genophage and the Krogan were happy about it" tells us nothing that we didn't already see. We don't know if there are factions who support galactic domination after the endings, if your choice of leader helped mitigate those obstacles or if the other races of the galaxy spurned or welcomed them.
You are, literally, told nothing you didn't already know. The Krogan are happy about the cure. Wrex, Eve and Grunt help lead them (if they are alive, otherwise it is other people). They don't discuss how your choice of who leads them or under what circumstances their struggle continues plays out at all.
DA:O didn't tell us every facet or possible question that could be addressed, but it did say that if you married Allistair and Anora, they were loved by the populace. If you hardened Allistair, he proved to be a more capable/engaged king/leader because of it. If you killed Loghain and named Anora queen, she visits her father's memorial if he was the one who did the Ultimate Sacrifice.
You are given information that you would have no way of knowing outside of the ending. This information gives structure and form to the world after the player's actions are over, instead of leaving everything up to headcanon. Which is foolish. Especially when Bioware comes out and formally endorses some headcanon (like if the Krogan had friction with the galatic powers that be or if everything was rainbows and unicorns) while formally denouncing others (that Shepherd lived and found their LI and had 2.3 kids on a beach house or the dreaded Indocrtiniation Theory).
I've always felt that as well, that ambiguous intent was the problem.
The choices don't need to mean a thing in relation to our choices during the trilogy. They need to mean something in relation to the story.
Me choosing to spare Loghain or save him had no particular relevance to whether I saved the Mages or killed them. It has no relevance to whether I saved the werewolves or elves, or both. What it DOES have relevance to is the overarching plot(s) of DA:O: The Darkspawn and the Archdemon, the Grey Wardens who fight the Darkspawn, the health of Ferelden for the purpose of fighting the Darkspawn. Your choices need story relevance, not choice relevance.
But I'm not asking for finding out if curing the Genophage affected the Geth & Quarian peace. I'm asking for "okay, so what happened after Shepherd made his final decision?" DID the Krogan seek vengeance against the galaxy if you tricked them into fighting the Reapers and not curing them? This isn't decades or centuries down the road... it would be pretty apparent pretty quickly. But we aren't given anything about the outcomes.
And the problem HERE was that people didn't feel "organics vs. synthetics" was a significant part of the story. It's debatable, I'd say it was, but I suppose that's immaterial. The point is, a choice needs to have STORY, or possibly SETTING relevance.
IMO
While I agree, that's not my problem with the Epilogue Slides of ME3. My problem is that they didn't provide any of the answers or consequences people wanted to know. Does Control work? Is Hall Monitor Shepherd an effective deterent to galactic conflict? Does he go crazy and murder everyone? It is hinted that he does not (given that things are rebuilt), but I could headcanon it easily.
And that's the problem - if you can headcanon huge, drastic and galactic-shaping outcomes to even the most basic of questions, then there isnt' enough details given. You can have character/story reasons to make your decisions, but if they are going to give us Epilogue Slides that, in a ominscient, third person manner, give us information about the events after the end of the game, then they need to do so with some attention to our impact.
Looking at the Krogan, I would say their potential leaders kind of dictate how the Krogan would end up. Wrex, they have a mild expanionist policy, but they absolutely do not become war-mongerers: we are shown quite plainly in ME2 (and in ME1, through his story) that Wrex only really uses violence when he perceives a wrong, and he doesn't automatically "perceive" a wrong. Wreav, on the other hand, is shown to be very "old school," with a dislike for aliens and a fairly strong expansionist policy.
I'd argue that from the characteristics of either leader, you can chart the path of the Krogan for another thousand years with strong certainty.
Not neccessariy. Harrowmont was a traditionalist, but was widely lauded as a good man. Yet this good man can and will send the golems to march on Dust Town, wiping out every casteless there. Similarly, the cutthroat, ruthless Bhelen winds up giving more rights and privileges to these people than they had ever seen.
What if the Krogan will, with the cure, quickly outgrow Tuchanka and need more resources and this leads to huge infighting? And Wrex is too soft to take the hardline, resulting in lots of clans breaking off and invading Council races? And what if Wreav is able to hold these groups in check, not to protect the Council races, but to cement his own power?
People can be right for the wrong reasons and right for the wrong ones. To say Wrex and Eve = automatic peace and happiness is something the endings allow you to headcanon, but my suggestion that they are woefully ineffective is just as likely. Some would say that is a value to the ME3 endings, but I'd say it is a huge deficit. You can imagine any choice you make being as good, bad or indifferent as you'd like... because the game gives you no context as to the consequence of them. Refuse could result in conventional victory, for all we are shown. In fact, given that the Buzz Aldrin scene, showing a (roughly) human form at the end means that possibly the same species survives regardless if you chose one of the more conventional chocies or if you chose Refuse, then that means Refuse means a win outside the Catalyst. We don't know. Because the endings are so ambiguous that anything is possible... which means nothing is important. A crappy way to end a trilogy
Haven't played FO, myself.
They are good games. FO1 is great, FO2 is a pinacle in RPG gaming (in my opinion), FO3 was a great game with an ending that made the entire game feel hollow and FO:NV was an instant classic. You can, arguably, pick up FO:NV without playing any of the other games and get a good vibe for the feel of the series.
But in Origins, as I pointed out...the epilogues are just as short-term as ME3's are, they just state it plainly in words than leave it in a picture. The end state of Ferelden is very much up in the air, for example.
I'd say it wasn't? You knew how lives for the dwarves were affected by who you chose as king and if they controlled the Anvil or not. You knew that the Dalish were ruled well under their new Keeper, or that the Werewolves slowly went insane if they didn't get have their curse removed. You knew that life in the Circle grew again or if it was given up as a haunted tomb. You even knew small details, like how Dagna went on to become a magical scholar or note, or how the boy in Redcliffe who let you use the Green Sword wound up beign an adventurer of their own years down the road.
Sure, the efforts of rebuilding, the possibility of an attack from Orlais and reclaiming the lands that were twisted with the Blight weren't outlined in detail, nor was the exact nature and threat of the darkspawn who didn't go back underground (who wound up being the focus in the Awakening Expansion), but this falls under "telling us everything." They don't need to do that. But they did give us plenty of details to see how the choices we made had large consequences, either in the lives of the people we dealt with or with the world we traveled through.
That's my measuring stick of the quality of an ending for a game/game series that champions itself on player choice.
Fast Jimmy wrote... One doesn't need to have an omniscient narrator to give us this kind of background. In the link I provided earlier on when I first talked about Epilogue Slides, there were a number of texts from "history books," speeches, memoirs and emails/letters. These didn't have to go into too much detail to paint a very clear picture of what could be going on, both with our companions and with the galaxy at large.
Again... I'd contest the ME3 Epilogue Slides aren't Epilogue Slides or, if they are, they are very badly done ones.
They aren't NOT epilogue slides, and they aren't ONLY epilogue slides. They're both epilogue slides and...ending slides, I guess. They trandscend the disctinction.
Okay, fine. Then they are uber-slides. That doesn't make them not poorly done uber-slides. Because they were.
Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 06 juin 2013 - 07:06 .
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