369 réponses à ce sujet

[CronoDragoon]

drayfish wrote...
You are attempting to claim deep philosophical resonance, while applauding the game for giving you a lollypop.

I take it you think the original endings are fine, then?

[drayfish]

Robosexual wrote...

drayfish wrote...

Again: that is a disengenuous (and actually rather childish) oversimplification of the position of anyone who disagrees with the ending of Mass Effect. 

You keep clumslly attempting to paint anyone not wowed by the conclusion as a coward who is unwilling to make the 'touch choices'.  What I am (and have been) telling you is that there are no 'touch choices' at the end of Mass Effect 3.  The game strips all of the consequence and ambiguity away in pursuit of a witlessly idealised happy ending.  That's what's so disgusting, and so hilariously juvenile.  It doesn;t matter to the story, to the universe, to anything, what you chose.  The slaughter of a race?  Become an uber-god?  Mutate everyone without their permission?  None of it matters, because you 'won'.

Yay.

My issue is precisely that there should be more moral ambiguity: more consequence to the very disturbing choices that this ending evokes, and then cowardly ignores.

My problem is not the depiction of genocide, eugenics and totalitarianism (these elements have been a fundamental part of this game series' narrative for the past several years); my issue is that the ending takes these concepts and whitewashes them into a the most superficial of syrupy Disney spectacles.

You are attempting to claim deep philosophical resonance, while applauding the game for giving you a lollypop.

So to be clear your entire point, your entire criticism of the hard choices that you spread out over six paragraphs of pure nonsense, is:

They should have concentrated on some of the more grey and black aspects of it.

That's it? You talk about Bioware sending a message despite the fact it has nothing to do with your point? You dislike the hard choices at the end of the game purely by what it decides to concentrate on after said choice is made, and the "message" this sends out is entirely irrelevant to this? It's literally just a pointless observation created to fill space in your post?

Since you seem to be having trouble understanding me (and are getting pretty worked up over 'six paragraphs of pure nonsense'), I can summarise it with less syllables:

They are not hard choices.

That's the problem.

Bioware turned genocide, eugenics and totalitarianism into cheery win-states where no one feels anything but joy.

How you find being pandered to in such a way 'deep' or 'difficult' (or why you find anyone who doesn't want to have war-crimes unreservedly celebrated in fiction hard to comprehend) is a little mystifying.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Mass Effect 3 has hard choices?

Nah.

Catalyst: Hey bro you can totally kill us Reapers.
Shepard: Sweet!---
Catalyst: Muahahaha! but doing so will cost you your synthetic allies!
Shepard: Awesome those guys suck!
Catalyst: YOU WILL FEEL BAD FOR THE DEAD ROBROS!
Shepard: Nope *destroy beam*

Or

Catalyst: You can totally become a robo-god.
Shepard: F*** yeah!
Catalyst: But you'll die!
Shepard: UNLIMATED POWAAAAAAAAH!!!!
Catalyst: Cut it out!
Shepard: Hey Harby? Guess who's Assuming Direct Control now mother******!!! *Control beam*

Modifié par Grand Admiral Cheesecake, 27 juin 2013 - 05:43 .

[AlanC9]

drayfish wrote...


They are not hard choices.

That's the problem.

Bioware turned genocide, eugenics and totalitarianism into cheery win-states where no one feels anything but joy.

How you find being pandered to in such a way 'deep' or 'difficult' (or why you find anyone who doesn't want to have war-crimes unreservedly celebrated in fiction hard to comprehend) is a little mystifying.

I'm not sure everyone in the thread is using "hard choices" to mean the same thing.

I'd call the Virmire choice a hard choice too since you've got to lose something either way, but whatever you choose at Virmire you still come out of there with a win. Or is it just that ME3 doesn't try to make me feel bad and ME1 kinda does?

Also, iakus, drayfish... are your positions reconcilable? Beyond you both hating the endings? What I get from iakus is that the endings are all horrible, and what I get from drayfish is that they're all too good.

[GreyLycanTrope]

AlanC9 wrote...
Also, iakus, drayfish... are your positions reconcilable? Beyond you both hating the endings? What I get from iakus is that the endings are all horrible, and what I get from drayfish is that they're all too good.

They're horrifying but presented as good.
Part of what left people displeased with the orginal cut was just how grim the implictions of your actions were. "I just handed the galaxy over the Reapers, I just focibly altered everyone in the galaxy" etc. Much of the EC was toned to counter act the ideas, as now whatever choice you make takes great effort to show that good things came out of your decision, this is something they wanted to be inspiring and uplifiting after all, as they largely failed to invoke that feeling in the original inception. As a result the only potential negatives shown were the choices you made outside final one (Jack's students dying, the Krogan being dooomed) hence now the tone of the epilogue practically farts happiness at you, with the exlusiono of Refuse and the lowest EMS destroy variant, which I would argue is the only time the bittersweet tone they were going for is found in the final decision.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 27 juin 2013 - 12:32 .

[Iakus]

Greylycantrope wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Also, iakus, drayfish... are your positions reconcilable? Beyond you both hating the endings? What I get from iakus is that the endings are all horrible, and what I get from drayfish is that they're all too good.

They're horrifying but presented as good.
Part of what left people displeased with the orginal cut was just how grim the implictions of your actions were. "I just handed the galaxy over the Reapers, I just focibly altered everyone in the galaxy" etc. Much of the EC was toned to counter act the ideas, as now whatever choice you make takes great effort to show that good things came out of your decision, this is something they wanted to be inspiring and uplifiting after all, as they largely failed to invoke that feeling in the original inception. As a result the only potential negatives shown were the choices you made outside final one (Jack's students dying, the Krogan being dooomed) hence now the tone of the epilogue practically farts happiness at you, with the exlusiono of Refuse and the lowest EMS destroy variant, which I would argue is the only time the bittersweet tone they were going for is found in the final decision.

Exactly.

In the original endings, the choices were just plain horrifying.  In the EC, you're committing the exact same horrifying acts, but now they're presented as having esentially no consequences.  You're being rewarded for committing these horrible acts.  It's a complete whitewash.

It's like Bioware completely ignored the complaints at how repugnant these acts are and said "Don't worry, there's no negative repercussions, so that makes it okay" Putting aside how ridiculous it is that everyone blithely accepts forced Syntheisis, Reaper overlords, or the sudden demise of every single AI in the galaxy, this ignores that just because Bioware says  you "get away with it" doesn't make the act any less horrific.


I don't want my thirty pieces of silver, I want my soul back!

Modifié par iakus, 27 juin 2013 - 01:34 .

[Galbrant]

Oh I remember that day... watching the new evacuation scene especially with EDI was priceless.

[TheRealJayDee]

Grand Admiral Cheesecake wrote...

Mass Effect 3 has hard choices?

Nah.

Catalyst: Hey bro you can totally kill us Reapers.
Shepard: Sweet!---
Catalyst: Muahahaha! but doing so will cost you your synthetic allies!
Shepard: Awesome those guys suck!
Catalyst: YOU WILL FEEL BAD FOR THE DEAD ROBROS!
Shepard: Nope *destroy beam*

Or

Catalyst: You can totally become a robo-god.
Shepard: F*** yeah!
Catalyst: But you'll die!
Shepard: UNLIMATED POWAAAAAAAAH!!!!
Catalyst: Cut it out!
Shepard: Hey Harby? Guess who's Assuming Direct Control now mother******!!! *Control beam*

Yup. My racist power-hungry Shep looooves the "tough" choices he's given at the end. Either he destroys the Reapers at no cost and probably lives to be celebrated as the savior of the galaxy or he gets to exist forever, provided with more power than even he dared to dream about.

Greylycantrope wrote...

They're horrifying but presented as good.

Exactly. Despite the unpleasant implications of each ending they're more or less presented as being exactly the "happy bunny sunshine unicorn" ending the ending critics were often accused to desperately want. 

Adorable avatar, btw!  
At least I hope so and it's not taken from some horrible context. Can't fully trust the Japanese on these things...

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...
In the original endings, the choices were just plain horrifying.  In the EC, you're committing the exact same horrifying acts, but now they're presented as having esentially no consequences.  You're being rewarded for committing these horrible acts.  It's a complete whitewash.

It's like Bioware completely ignored the complaints at how repugnant these acts are and said "Don't worry, there's no negative repercussions, so that makes it okay" Putting aside how ridiculous it is that everyone blithely accepts forced Syntheisis, Reaper overlords, or the sudden demise of every single AI in the galaxy, this ignores that just because Bioware says  you "get away with it" doesn't make the act any less horrific.

What's being whitewashed in the EC, exactly? Certain things were ruled out, sure, but Bio hadn't intended those interpretations in the first place. The only substantive change I see is that the Relays are a bit more intact, and that's because nova theory needed to be conclusively ruled out. (Refuse is just an expansion of the pre-EC stand-there-and-do-nothing choice.)

You're being rewarded, yes, but you always were.

[CronoDragoon]

AlanC9 wrote...

You're being rewarded, yes, but you always were.

Since iakus and drayfish see these acts as immoral war crimes, they expect the galaxy's attitude towards Shepard and/or general tone of the endings to reflect this.

[AlanC9]

I suppose they could have replaced Hackett's VO in Destroy with Joker mourning EDI, but that would have been a fairly strange emphasis for the epilogue.

Actually, I would have preferred the Synthesis ending from his perspective, though I suppose that would have been even more "whitewash" since we'd learn that Joker was OK with it.

[Clayless]

drayfish wrote...

Robosexual wrote...

So to be clear your entire point, your entire criticism of the hard choices that you spread out over six paragraphs of pure nonsense, is:

They should have concentrated on some of the more grey and black aspects of it.

That's it? You talk about Bioware sending a message despite the fact it has nothing to do with your point? You dislike the hard choices at the end of the game purely by what it decides to concentrate on after said choice is made, and the "message" this sends out is entirely irrelevant to this? It's literally just a pointless observation created to fill space in your post?

Since you seem to be having trouble understanding me (and are getting pretty worked up over 'six paragraphs of pure nonsense'), I can summarise it with less syllables:

They are not hard choices.

That's the problem.

Bioware turned genocide, eugenics and totalitarianism into cheery win-states where no one feels anything but joy.

How you find being pandered to in such a way 'deep' or 'difficult' (or why you find anyone who doesn't want to have war-crimes unreservedly celebrated in fiction hard to comprehend) is a little mystifying.

I never called it deep.

So then, what hard choices would you create? And, what's your point about "war-crimes" in fiction? You keep on making that observation without actually making a point. Is it that fiction should conform to your morals? Fiction shouldn't present morally grey choices? 

Because saying the choices aren't hard, not presenting an alternative, and making an observation, isn't a point. It's just paragraphs of pure nonsense. Pointless sentences that go nowhere and say nothing.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...


What's being whitewashed in the EC, exactly? Certain things were ruled out, sure, but Bio hadn't intended those interpretations in the first place. The only substantive change I see is that the Relays are a bit more intact, and that's because nova theory needed to be conclusively ruled out. (Refuse is just an expansion of the pre-EC stand-there-and-do-nothing choice.)

You're being rewarded, yes, but you always were.

Everyone is happy with Synthesis being forced on them.  Even Javik

Everone is okay with thier new Reaper overlords.

Geth?  Who are they?  EDI?  Never heard of her.  Given people still debate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dresden, adn Coventry to this very day, betraying allied forces in teh heat of battle should be a lot more problematic

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

I suppose they could have replaced Hackett's VO in Destroy with Joker mourning EDI, but that would have been a fairly strange emphasis for the epilogue.

Or give EDI an actual goodbye scene like Thane and Mordin.  Final words with Joker and/or Shepard how she understands what's needed (Heck even on Virmire, the one you can't save gets a final "I understand" message over the commlink).  Actually, when I first learned Tricia Helfer was coming back for EC, I expected there would be a scene like that. Alas, at the time I thought they were really listening and player opinions actually mattered.

Or let the geth/EDI have a more heroic death.  Dying to defend the Crucible, or covering the retreat of Alliance forces. 

Or, you know, at 3200 EMS, give EDI a "breath scene" of her own.

Modifié par iakus, 27 juin 2013 - 04:13 .

[CronoDragoon]

iakus wrote...
Everyone is happy with Synthesis being forced on them.  Even Javik

How do we know this? I haven't seen Synthesis.

Everone is okay with thier new Reaper overlords.

Are they? The slides do not say this.

Geth?  Who are they?  EDI?  Never heard of her.  Given people still debate Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Dresden, adn Coventry to this very day, betraying allied forces in teh heat of battle should be a lot more problematic

This assumes it's a betrayal, which is purely subjective. I also don't see the galaxy really caring, so it would have to be shown as problematic for Shepard, which isn't possible given at the time of the slides you're supposed to believe he's dead. Also, showing the quarians still in their suits is itself bittersweet, knowing with the geth they'd be walking around Rannoch without them by now.

[Iakus]

CronoDragoon wrote...
How do we know this? I haven't seen Synthesis.

The slides.  Every single person (plus plant life) has the glowing green effect. Everyone is seen happy.  EDI is all bright and optimistic, not mentioning any troubles about it.  ANd in teh memorial scene, Javik is standing there with everyone else.  WIth glowing green eyes.

Are they? The slides do not say this.

Everyone's going about their business in the slides. They're either okay with it, or cowed into submission.  Is either okay? 

This assumes it's a betrayal, which is purely subjective. I also don't see the galaxy really caring, so it would have to be shown as problematic for Shepard, which isn't possible given at the time of the slides you're supposed to believe he's dead. Also, showing the quarians still in their suits is itself bittersweet, knowing with the geth they'd be walking around Rannoch without them by now.

Millions of your own forces died not at the hands of the Reapers, but due to your own friendly fire.  Including one of your own squadmates.  I've said before, this should have drawn special recognition.  At least a few sentances honoring their sacrifice.  If not in the slides, then in the actual Destroy choice.

[jtav]

Except the entire galaxy that isn't you, Koris, and Tali hate the geth. They won't be mourned at all.

Modifié par jtav, 27 juin 2013 - 04:25 .

[AlanC9]

jtav wrote...

Except the entire galaxy that isn't you, Koris, and Tali hate the geth. They won't be mourned at all.

Pretty much. Maybe in the future there'd be a little regret, but right after the war they'd be mourned about as much as Americans mourned the residents of Dresden and Nagasaki in 1945.

I once read a memoir from a U.S. infantry officer. After VE day his unit was preparing to ship out for the invasion of Japan. "Then a miracle happened, and we didn't have to go."

Though as KaiserShep says below, hate's a bit strong. Indifference would be more likely.

Modifié par AlanC9, 27 juin 2013 - 04:37 .

[KaiserShep]

jtav wrote...

Except the entire galaxy that isn't you, Koris, and Tali hate the geth. They won't be mourned at all.

We don't get a whole lot of insight on this, but I don't think it's so much a matter of hate, but how brief their alliance is until the end. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 27 juin 2013 - 04:35 .

[MegaIllusiveMan]

I'm late for the party... Is it over yet?

[Iakus]

jtav wrote...

Except the entire galaxy that isn't you, Koris, and Tali hate the geth. They won't be mourned at all.

The geth were integrated into the Crucible project and the military forces for a number of wekks/months. Which means they have been in contact with the leadership of the various races and working alongside the soldiers and scientists. during that time.

It's entirely possible they have been working with the quarians during theis time, helping them colonize Rannoch and doing the "jump-start the immune system" thing during that time as well.  Putting them in contact with quarian leadership and their civilians.

Shepard can even do an interview with Allers supporting bringing the geth into the fold (even get a few bonus War Assets for it)

So while the geth may not be universally beloved, they are a part of the galactic community, and thus their loss should be noted.  Especialy if they die not to the enemies we convinced them to fight, but by our own hands.

[AlanC9]

Noted, yeah. But not of any huge significance; a few more billions on top of the billions already lost.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

jtav wrote...

Except the entire galaxy that isn't you, Koris, and Tali hate the geth. They won't be mourned at all.

Pretty much. Maybe in the future there'd be a little regret, but right after the war they'd be mourned about as much as Americans mourned the residents of Dresden and Nagasaki in 1945.

I once read a memoir from a U.S. infantry officer. After VE day his unit was preparing to ship out for the invasion of Japan. "Then a miracle happened, and we didn't have to go."

Though as KaiserShep says below, hate's a bit strong. Indifference would be more likely.

Better comparisson might be if the Phillipines were nuked (and by nuked I mean completely destroyed, scoured of all life) without warning to end the war, and nobody mourned or even commented on it.

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...

Or give EDI an actual goodbye scene like Thane and Mordin.  Final words with Joker and/or Shepard how she understands what's needed (Heck even on Virmire, the one you can't save gets a final "I understand" message over the commlink).  Actually, when I first learned Tricia Helfer was coming back for EC, I expected there would be a scene like that. Alas, at the time I thought they were really listening and player opinions actually mattered.
.

After all the posts I've read about how EDI and the geth don't die in Destroy, I strongly support this.

[KaiserShep]

iakus wrote...
So while the geth may not be universally beloved, they are a part of the galactic community, and thus their loss should be noted.  Especialy if they die not to the enemies we convinced them to fight, but by our own hands.

I imagine there would be mass confusion over this. No one would know what the hell just happened, and would ultimately conclude that the Crucible was simply designed to eradicate synthetics in total, but unless we know the minds of everyone who worked on it, it's not likely that anyone was aware it would indiscriminately dissolve every artificial being. 

I agree about a proper death scene for EDI, as well as the geth. Destroy (at least high EMS) is the only option that has a very immediate consequence that doesn't involve Shepard directly, but it's never shown at all. It feels kind of cheap for them to be eradicated so unceremoniously, after being such huge parts of the entire series. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 27 juin 2013 - 04:45 .