279 réponses à ce sujet

[AndyAK79]

 I loved the ending to Mass Effect 3, but it's clear that a lot of people didn't. In spite of my own feelings  I have to admit that some of their issues hold some weight (some of the arguments about believability are reasonably strong).

Many of the arguments, however, are entirely ridiculous (The word 'invalid' has been horribly misused many, many times), and no argument is quite as ridiculous as claims that players were somehow entitled to a happy ending. In fact, a happy ending would have completely ruined the game. Here are the four main reasons:

1. It wouldn't fit with the tone of the game

Arguments that the tone of the game itself is at fault hold no weight here. The arrival of the Reapers has to be devastating, or they would have been a severe let down after two games spent building them up as the ultimate threat. If the third game didn't feature the Reaper arrival then it would have been a real let down altogether. Therefore the tone of the game had to be desperate and bleak. An ending were Shepard walked off into the sunset and everyone somehow sprang back to life would betray the tone of the game entirely.

2. It would not properly end Shepard's story.

Contrary to many arguments, Shepard does not necessarilly die at the end of the story; in two possible endings he either lives on as a reaper consciousness or is shown to be (barely) alive in the final scene. But the downbeat endings bring Shepard's story to a powerful close. No ending in which Shepard gets up and dusts himself off is going to have anything near the same emotional impact, nor is the story going to feel properly 'over'.

3. It would eliminate the element of choice.

A lot of people seem to get hung up on about the element of choice in Mass Effect games, and I have seen many, many posts claiming that after all their hard work over three games they had the right to choose a happy ending. But this is ridiculous because you don't truly choose a happy ending.

Consider the following scenario; You discover a stick of dynamite in the street. You have only two choices.

A) Leave it alone.
Light it and stick it in your eye.

Not much of a choice is it? An obvious choice isn 't really a choice at all, because you are always going to go for the choice with the best outcome. In the case of Mass Effect 3, nobody who has put in all that time and effort is going to look at the happy option and say, "No, you're okay Bioware, I'm going to kill off my Shepard and wipe out the Geth." If the happy ending was available everyone would choose it, and that isn't really a choice at all.

4. The ending would lack drama.

The other option is, of course, to have a set of happy endings to choose from. But really, how dramatic is this ever going to be? Do you really want to end a series of games this involving with a meaningless set of choices between, say, Shepard becoming an admiral OR Shepard retiring to a beach?

As it stands Shepard is left with a hopeless choice between sacrificing his identity and sacrificing his life. It's a choice few men could make, and therefore it's a choice worthy of a hero and an epic story.

(cue inspiring music...) I say let's come to terms with our grief, delete MEHEM (please, please erase this travesty from history) and celebrate the way our Shepards lived, not mourn the way they died.

Modifié par AndyAK79, 25 septembre 2013 - 12:56 .

[shodiswe]

What would have been great is a real ending(endgame), that gives/makes the buildup justice.

Right now I find it extremely lacking in drama...

There is barely any choice or anything from the start of priority earth, you just railroad through the place shooting tech zombies left and right with all choices premade for you.

Then, you get to the end and the enemy "gives" you your chocies.

War assets are poorly represented.

Some people disliked the endigns because they wern't happy enough, others jsut found the endings lacking.

The pre-EC endings did look like the end of the galaxy and all galactic civilization. But what bothered me the most was the dialogue with the catalyst which made little sense.
With the EC it was improved. It's still bad imo, but it's not as horrible as it was with it butched dialogue.

EDIT: I don't think Shepards death or survival really matters when it commes to wether it was a good or bad ending. But the story matters and it was lacking or nearly non-existant or at the very least unimaginative. Sure, synthesis itself might have been imaginative as a choice, being different and not exactly what people were expecting, especialy the way it woudl work. But that's such a tiny minor thing that mostly annoy people because a lot of people see it as too crazy and call it space magic. When it commes to the way Synthesis was achived I simply shrug, don't really care.

But, no, I don't think it was well made, it coudl have been worse, but it wasn't good, it was bad, and before the EC I would say it was terrible. Just asking, "Why should I trust you." made a world of difference with the dialogue.

But as a Series Mass effect was really good, woudl say incredible but it had it's rough spots, but then again, most games has at least a few of those. The ending gameplay was bad though and I'm not just talking about the choices here, but the road there from the start of priority earth to the way the options were given and everything in between.
It was far to simplistic for a Mass Effect game.
If it had been Halo then I might have just shrugged and thought, "I guess that was that". Because that's what i would expect from a linear game that makes minimal sense besides the going from A to B killing everything along the way with fancy shooting. While waiting for the story to played out before me.

Modifié par shodiswe, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:04 .

[KaiserShep]

I wholeheartedly disagree. You can have a happy ending, while still dealing with loss in the story's conclusion. A happy ending does not preclude the drama that lead up to that point in a work of fiction. Other stories have done this successfully in the past, and there is no reason why the same cannot be true of Mass Effect.

The irony here is that the final moments of the story lack dramatic tension anyway. It basically has the same effect as The Matrix Revolutions when Neo is talking to the Deus Ex Machina.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 25 septembre 2013 - 12:55 .

[Rusty Sandusky]

It would be good if they had both happy and sad endings, a recent example is GTA V. Instead of all the endings being sunshine and rainbows or morbidly depressing.

[wright1978]

I haven't seen anyone suggesting a 'happy ending' where the billions who have died in the war are somehow erased from the equation. I'd personally like a set of endings that aren't the trainwreck of epic proportions that ME3 atrociously tried to deliver at the last second using a poorly conceived plot device character.

[cooldonkeyfish]

There wasn't enough diversity with the endings. I expected it to be like ME2 where things could go from "that was awesome!" to total sheet.

[rashie]

Why can't there be both sad and happy endings? Just wondering where this thought that you can't do both is coming from.

[AndyAK79]

KaiserShep wrote...

The irony here is that the final moments of the story lack dramatic tension anyway. It basically has the same effect as The Matrix Revolutions when Neo is talking to the Deus Ex Machina.

On this, I just flat out disagree with you. Sorry fella, but I don't think I've ever been as affected by the ending of a video game (It's worth pointing out that I've been known to burst in to tears at the end of Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life so my emotional resilience to fiction probably isn't world class but, you know, comparitavely speaking...). 

Modifié par AndyAK79, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:06 .

[KaiserShep]

rashie wrote...

Why can't there be both sad and happy endings? Just wondering where this thought that you can't do both is coming from.

I keep coming back to the suicide mission dynamic, and while it's a much smaller scale, and more simplified concept, it's a fair example of how to vary your ending. You can have teammates die, or get everyone out alive. You can determine which outcome is the most satisfactory to you. Heck, if you really like the grim fail ending, you can get that too.

[KaiserShep]

AndyAK79 wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

The irony here is that the final moments of the story lack dramatic tension anyway. It basically has the same effect as The Matrix Revolutions when Neo is talking to the Deus Ex Machina.

On this, I just flat out disagree with you. Sorry fella, but I don't think I've ever been as affected by the ending of a video game (It's worth pointing out that I've been known to burst in to tears at the end of Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life so my emotional resilience to fiction probably isn't world class but, you know, comparitavely speaking...). 

I don't see why it matters if this is a video game. Being more interactive than a movie or TV show does not necessarily stop it from hitting a chord with some of its audience emotionally. The Walking Dead, for example, is a game that I would say actually does have a moving conclusion.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:08 .

[shodiswe]

AndyAK79 wrote...

KaiserShep wrote...

The irony here is that the final moments of the story lack dramatic tension anyway. It basically has the same effect as The Matrix Revolutions when Neo is talking to the Deus Ex Machina.

On this, I just flat out disagree with you. Sorry fella, but I don't think I've ever been as affected by the ending of a video game (It's worth pointing out that I've been known to burst in to tears at the end of Casablanca or It's A Wonderful Life so my emotional resilience to fiction probably isn't world class but, you know, comparitavely speaking...). 

If you enjoyed the ride then that's good for you. As a whole the series has been good for me and I'm looking forward to their next creation even if I thought the endgame was lazy.

[AndyAK79]

wright1978 wrote...


I haven't seen anyone suggesting a 'happy ending' where the billions who have died in the war are somehow erased from the equation. I'd personally like a set of endings that aren't the trainwreck of epic proportions that ME3 atrociously tried to deliver at the last second using a poorly conceived plot device character.

I have seen posts suggesting exactly this, but I'm glad to see that even people who strongly disagree with me think that this, at least, is insane.

[Chashan]

 

1. It wouldn't fit with the tone of the game

Arguments that the tone of the game itself is at fault hold no weight here. The arrival of the Reapers has to be devastating, or they would have been a severe let down after two games spent building them up as the ultimate threat. If the third game didn't feature the Reaper arrival then it would have been a real let down altogether. Therefore the tone of the game had to be desperate and bleak. An ending were Shepard walked off into the sunset and everyone somehow sprang back to life would betray the tone of the game entirely.

Which is carried through the game, and the losses of the war itself are quite at the core of the monologue of Red's epilogue - which doesn't require the 'Catalyst' and all it entails whatsoever.

And where does this 'ressurection of the dead' take place, other than Synthesis perhaps if one swings that way? Do point it out, because the mod you seem to abhorr so much despite not being obliged to even install it has none of that.

I say let's come to terms with our grief, delete MEHEM (please, please erase this travesty from history) and celebrate the way our Shepards lived, not mourn the way they died.

You are not obliged to so much as bother with it, but if you are going to drop such fine words, I'll just have to say this:

If people draw content from optional content like MEHEM is and prefer that rather than what they view as a 'travesty' in the base-game, why would that be any of your business?

Modifié par Chashan, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:26 .

[KaiserShep]

Again, a happy ending does not preclude dealing with the losses suffered. Let's use the Lord of the Rings as an example. Lots of innocent people die during the battle for Middle Earth, yet the ending is happy. The people who died did not come back, yet the ending was happy anyway. A happy ending does not deal with suddenly glossing over the fact that lives were lost, but rather emphasises upon the defeat of those who were taking those lives to begin with.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:26 .

[AndyAK79]

Chashan wrote...

 

1. It wouldn't fit with the tone of the game

Arguments that the tone of the game itself is at fault hold no weight here. The arrival of the Reapers has to be devastating, or they would have been a severe let down after two games spent building them up as the ultimate threat. If the third game didn't feature the Reaper arrival then it would have been a real let down altogether. Therefore the tone of the game had to be desperate and bleak. An ending were Shepard walked off into the sunset and everyone somehow sprang back to life would betray the tone of the game entirely.

Which is carried through the game, and the losses of the war itself are quite at the core of the monologue of Red's epilogue - which doesn't require the 'Catalyst' and all it entails whatsoever.

And where does this 'ressurection of the dead' take place, other than Synthesis perhaps if one swings that way? Do point it out, because the mod you seem to abhorr so much despite not being obliged to even install it has none of that.

I say let's come to terms with our grief, delete MEHEM (please, please erase this travesty from history) and celebrate the way our Shepards lived, not mourn the way they died.

You are not obliged to so much as bother with it, but if you are going to drop such fine words, I'll just have to say this:

If people draw content from optional content like MEHEM is and prefer that rather than what they view as a 'travesty' in the base-game, why would that be any of your business?

MEHEM isn't optional content, it's a mod. If it was optional content it would be called MEHEOC.

To clarify, my post doesn't say the resurrection of the dead takes place, rather that some other forum users wish it did.

I accept some of the arguments about the catalyst. I don't agree with them, but I ackowledge their validity.

[AndyAK79]

Sorry, this post was a duplicate caused by my ancient, slowly dying laptop.Is there any way to delete these things?

Modifié par AndyAK79, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:40 .

[Dieb]

wright1978 wrote...
I'd personally like a set of endings that aren't the trainwreck of epic proportions that ME3 atrociously tried to deliver at the last second using a poorly conceived plot device character.

Two serious questions:

Am I really the only person, who, during the first time playing ME3, thought that the entire war effort is just there to keep the "common" Reapers busy, so that Shepard can work his way through to some godlike entity that must be there controlling/having built/leading the Reapers? It seems odd, since I'm usually the one to figure out whodunnit last.

Can anyone explain to me what it is exactly about the Catalyst that people depict as "poor"? Except the fact that it is it what stands between Shepard and an ending sequence many aren't satisfied with? I feel like every major character in the ME universe is some sort of narrative device, and furthermore 75% of them also only appear to serve their purpose and disappear. Which I don't think is a bad thing.

[KaiserShep]

AndyAK79 wrote...
MEHEM isn't optional content, it's a mod. If it was optional content it would be called MEHEOC.

To clarify, my post doesn't say the resurrection of the dead takes place, rather that some other forum users wish it did.

Potato-potahto I guess, since it's basically an amalgam of pieces taken from all three games.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:40 .

[wright1978]

KaiserShep wrote...

Again, a happy ending does not preclude dealing with the losses suffered. Let's use the Lord of the Rings as an example. Lots of innocent people die during the battle for Middle Earth, yet the ending is happy. The people who died did not come back, yet the ending was happy anyway. A happy ending does not deal with suddenly glossing over the fact that lives were lost, but rather emphasises upon the defeat of those who were taking those lives to begin with.

QFT

[MassivelyEffective0730]

You can have a happy, upbeat, and hopeful ending without making it sunshine and bunnies. And you can do it with Shepard surviving. One of the greatest flaws (among many) of the ending is that there really is no option for a happy ending that pays off for player investment in the character. Despite what you roleplay, the absolute best you can do for Shepard is a barely alive breath scene in a pile of rubble. You don't get any payout for Shepard, and how his story ends, and how his story played out as it was defined by the player. Shepard's story is not universally the same for each player. They are able to determine the tone of his story.

Modifié par MassivelyEffective0730, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:51 .

[AndyAK79]

KaiserShep wrote...

AndyAK79 wrote...
MEHEM isn't optional content, it's a mod. If it was optional content it would be called MEHEOC.

To clarify, my post doesn't say the resurrection of the dead takes place, rather that some other forum users wish it did.

Potato-potahto I guess, since it's basically an amalgam of pieces taken from all three games.

Optional content to me suggests something canonical, such as DLC. Pasting together a happy ending because you didn't like the one you got is just... strange.

Seriously, does anybody do this with any other form of fiction? Has any body photocopied bits of Lord of the Rings and then glued it in the back to make it look like Frodo stays in Bag End?

[AndyAK79]

BLASTED LAPTOP AGAIN!!! GRRRRRR ANDYAK79 SMASH!!!!

Modifié par AndyAK79, 25 septembre 2013 - 01:51 .

[Ieldra]

@OP:
I agree with you insofar that any ending option should have a cost that is felt by the player, in order to make no option a foregone conclusion and let none of them acquire the status of "obvious best ending".

However, I ask you to consider how DAO's ending differed from ME3's. There, the final sacrifice was a sure way to save your honor, if that was important to you. You didn't compromise by doing the Ritual, you didn't send a companion to their death, and the price was....your life. So be it. You were dead but saved, so to speak. I'm not particularly attracted to that mindset, but that it was available gave the other options a part of their meaning. The price you paid for the Ritual is the uncertainty about what you might have unleashed, or you may perceive it as the violation of something sacred. The price you pay for letting another kill the Archdemon is that you must live with the knowledge that another died for you.

In ME3, it is impossible to save your honor, even by death, except by failing the mission which is a taint all of its own. Whatever you do, if honor is important to you, you inevitably come out of it feeling tainted. I actually feel that myself even though the concept is not particularly important to me, so how much more must it sting if it is important to you?  
A happy ending would indeed have been out of place. But an option to come out of it without feeling tainted, that would've been nice. Maybe - just maybe - it was one of the messages of the ending that this is sometimes not possible. I am not against that message, but it has always been possible in every decision in the whole trilogy before, so we could reasonably expect things to be not drastically different in the end. I suspect, however, that this was completely unintended.

Modifié par Ieldra2, 25 septembre 2013 - 02:04 .

[KaiserShep]

AndyAK79 wrote...

Optional content to me suggests something canonical, such as DLC. Pasting together a happy ending because you didn't like the one you got is just... strange.

True, it's not official, but "optional content" and mod are more or less interchangeable in that it's an [unsanctioned] extra that you can choose to install.

Seriously, does anybody do this with any other form of fiction? Has any body photocopied bits of Lord of the Rings and then glued it in the back to make it look like Frodo stays in Bag End?

I think that this is a combination of two things: the ending of the Mass Effect trilogy was a huge miscalculation on the part of its writers, and being software, it grants users who know their way around this sort of thing to do what they will to change parts of it as they see fit and pass it on to others who would prefer something else. Look at other less substantial mods, like things that permit Shepard to sport designs on the armor that are not real options in the game.

As for Lord of the Rings, I'm willing to bet that the ending of this story was largely accepted as a good way to end the story. It wasn't abrupt, or somehow grossly incongruous to the rest of the tale.

There's also the fact that when a movie trilogy fails, it tends to fail in such a way that no amount of modification from any fan, no matter how good they are at altering the media, can rectify. Look at the Star Wars prequel trilogy. This ghastly set of films couldn't be salvaged by even the most brilliant director if all they had to work with was the content within those movies. The gods of cinema themselves couldn't save Spiderman 3.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 25 septembre 2013 - 02:15 .

[The Night Mammoth]

AndyAK79 wrote...

1. It wouldn't fit with the tone of the game

Arguments that the tone of the game itself is at fault hold no weight here. The arrival of the Reapers has to be devastating, or they would have been a severe let down after two games spent building them up as the ultimate threat. If the third game didn't feature the Reaper arrival then it would have been a real let down altogether. Therefore the tone of the game had to be desperate and bleak. An ending were Shepard walked off into the sunset and everyone somehow sprang back to life would betray the tone of the game entirely.

I already have a happy ending and there's no walking off into the sunset. Happiness is subjective. 

2. It would not properly end Shepard's story.

Contrary to many arguments, Shepard does not necessarilly die at the end of the story; in two possible endings he either lives on as a reaper consciousness or is shown to be (barely) alive in the final scene. But the downbeat endings bring Shepard's story to a powerful close. No ending in which Shepard gets up and dusts himself off is going to have anything near the same emotional impact, nor is the story going to feel properly 'over'.

Why? 

And again, it's subjective. It might not have the same emotional impact for you.

3. It would eliminate the element of choice.

A lot of people seem to get hung up on about the element of choice in Mass Effect games, and I have seen many, many posts claiming that after all their hard work over three games they had the right to choose a happy ending. But this is ridiculous because you don't truly choose a happy ending.

Consider the following scenario; You discover a stick of dynamite in the street. You have only two choices.

A) Leave it alone.
Light it and stick it in your eye.

Not much of a choice is it? An obvious choice isn 't really a choice at all, because you are always going to go for the choice with the best outcome. In the case of Mass Effect 3, nobody who has put in all that time and effort is going to look at the happy option and say, "No, you're okay Bioware, I'm going to kill off my Shepard and wipe out the Geth." If the happy ending was available everyone would choose it, and that isn't really a choice at all.

I'm fairly certain that when people say they want a happy ending, they don't just want a fifth option on top the four currently available. Whenever I've seen people make the argument for a happy ending, they assume the ending is completely different anyway, and they don't ask for it as a choice. It seems you're exaggerating or even fabricating the issue.

Also, why is the element of choice important? 

4. The ending would lack drama.

The other option is, of course, to have a set of happy endings to choose from. But really, how dramatic is this ever going to be? Do you really want to end a series of games this involving with a meaningless set of choices between, say, Shepard becoming an admiral OR Shepard retiring to a beach?

As it stands Shepard is left with a hopeless choice between sacrificing his identity and sacrificing his life. It's a choice few men could make, and therefore it's a choice worthy of a hero and an epic story.

That depends entirely on the context and build-up to the choice. I see no reason why a happy ending would prevent it from being dramatic if the build-up and conclusion is well constructed. 

(cue inspiring music...) I say let's come to terms with our grief, delete MEHEM (please, please erase this travesty from history) and celebrate the way our Shepards lived, not mourn the way they died.

I say we should all come to terms with the fact that each of us had a different experience with Mass Effect and had different wants and expectations. You go first. 

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 25 septembre 2013 - 02:29 .