293 réponses à ce sujet

[Linkenski]

You know, I might be in the minority but I've actually never had much of an issue with Starbrat and I've not been keen on calling him all those names because I'm okay with the Catalyst being represented as that kid. It's not that I love it, but I don't hate it either.

Ever since the extended cut I've still been under the impression that the ending as a whole is still bad, but at least the Catalyst makes sense to me now.

And I also did not take any issue with either Saren being a video-gamey boss and neither did I dislike the Human Reaper. They're not good boss-fights but they do serve for giving a sense of gameplay climax and satisfaction and the finality-feeling of ME3's ending always felt right to me.

Sometimes I go back and forth about what I think about the ending vs. Drew's drafts about Dark Matter, but in the end I think Saren and his "pinnacle of evolution!" talk just made the ME3-kind-of ending inevitable. He foreshadowed Synthesis so I'm glad that theme was reopened in ME3 and even at the ending. The problem is all about the execution. They could've done it in a different way or they could've presented the posibility but portraying it as a "bad" solution instead because it is and I think everyone who actually cares about MEU agrees.

And about this Geth/Quarian choice. I love it because it has all the choices the player "wants" but there are also some relatively tough requirements with your save-import and to me that's just so important. ME2's dialogue-wheel system was built on the principle that the player should always get the choices they could predict and the ones they "wanted". It's a design they titled "the agreement" IIRC, but unfortunately the Lead Cinematic Director who was in charge of that left after ME2, and I think that's one of the reasons so many obvious choices were ignored. ME3 was too much about "the writers will" and unfortunately they didn't really see the problem in that until the game shipped.

Note that Patrick Weekes said they are considering the "autodialogue concerns from ME3" when they're making DA:I, so there will be "more player power". He said this in a panel eariler this year.

But back to the Geth/Quarian choice. It's a nice choice, but in context to the ending I have huge issues with it, being 1) It is COMPLETELY ignored at the ending, where it's just the most obvious thing ever. It shouldn't matter who you saved or if both races survived. It should just be reflected upon and if you saved both it should have severely affected the final choices/outcomes, and 2) If they had removed the choice to save both races at Rannoch, the ending would've been more poignant. I think one of the reasons as to why many reviewers said the ending was "fitting" was because a lot of them were specifically asked (though I might be wrong here) to play through it starting a "new game" instead of importing, hence, they could save only one of the races and the ending seems more reflective of what happens in ME3.

How they managed to completely neglect this choice regarding the conversation with the Catalyst in the EC is just completely beyond me. I remember tweeting about it to Mac, Casey, Gamble and Patrick and maybe more, and I remember seeing them respond to players asking them about the point. It's like an admission that it would counter their ending, that they didn't put it in and that's just awful. Ever since I beat the game the first time it has been my TOP 1 reason for disliking the ending so much. It just outright disproves the already dumb logic of the Catalyst.

[ImaginaryMatter]

I don't think Saren's 'pinnacle of evolution' declaration had anything to do with the ending. As Saren stated he was growing hesitant so Sovereign implanted him to make him absolutely loyal to the cause, not to 'uplift' him. I always thought his talk about fusion was the result of the Indoctrination, warping his mind to justify such an extreme measure and foolish action.

[KaiserShep]

StreetMagic wrote...

Picking Destroy and also wanting the Geth live makes for some massive head canon'ing, to justify it. Which is what I do, but it still sucks. The best I can hope for is that future AI (if they so happen to pop up) will read history and realize I was trying to straddle a middle ground, that I was open to relations with AI (proving that by trying to befriend the Geth), but would only kill them because of the Reaper's ultimatum (that's assuming history knows what the hell even went on in the Decision Chamber. Which they probably won't, unless my Shepard lives to tell the story). These AI will either care or not. Take EDI, for example. She says she'd be willing to die to stop the Reapers. That they were a threat to her way of life too. One can only hope other synthetics can develop a similar attitude.

Additionally, they'll know I was unwilling to merge organic and synthetic life, and refusing to control them as well. That I wanted everyone to exist on their own terms. Basically what Legion promoted in ME2. If that can't happen, I'll risk destroying everything.

I always headcanon that no one ever finds out about the choices, the true functions of the Crucible, the catalyst AI or anything else. On top of that, with the galaxy still somewhat disconnected and left limping to rebuild, it's not like people will really care to look at the end of synthetics as anything more than an unintended side effect of the mysterio device. The galaxy doesn't need to know everything, so I simply see Shepard keeping it to him/herself. Anything future AI have to go on would be incomplete information about the end of the war, but they will see that the geth did try to help their creators. Everything else would be Shepard's little secret. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 21 novembre 2013 - 01:55 .

[Hazegurl]

StreetMagic wrote...

Rasofe wrote...

Hah. EDI said she'd be willing to risk nonfunctionality (death) to stop the Reapers. That doesn't mean she'd want to die just so that Shepard doesn't have to abandon his mortal form.

It's far more important than just Shepard living. I care about life evolving free of gigantic robots dictating how everyone evolves. Free of Reapers, free of the Catalyst, free of a Shep God Emperor, free of "ideal" evolution that goes down one straight line like Synthesis. That's the only thing that's important. It's been that way ever since I was arguing with Saren. The struggle to have our own sense of agency.

I agree. This is why I almost always pick Destroy even after recruiting the aid of the Geth. I'm sure they would all opt for Synthesis. But this isn't about what they want. It's about what my Shepard believes needs to be done.  I won't subjugate the galaxy to the Reapers (no matter how fun it sounds) and I won't merge everyone and altar their path of evolution.

But then again I always use MEHEM now and the Geth and EDI are all right in that headcanon. Who knows how Bioware will do the next game, but I just hope it's in the far far future or alternate world.

[KaiserShep]

I'm pretty content with how things turned out overall. I see the Crucible scenario as being stuck with nothing but a blunt instrument, so I just club things to death with it.

[KaiserShep]

Well, for the most part, the giant red wave doesn't seem to even touch organics in high EMS. The Citadel overloads and ruptures but obviously not enough to kill Shepard and presumably other people throughout the station. In the slide, you can see lots of buildings are still lit, possibly well contained. Beyond that, maybe the geth programs in the Quarian suits survive, but I don't really give that much thought.

[Hazegurl]

I personally choose not to even believe that starkid. For all we know EDI could have "died" during the crash trying to save the Normandy. The kid also alludes to Shepard dying and we know that with a high EMS that doesn't happen. Unless having reaper tech installed is the reason they died.

[Ryzaki]

I just assume EDI died because she based off Sovereign was she not? And it's her hardware too.

But meh I either use MEHEM cause **** that "lol synthetics must die too." nonsense or pick Control because my Shep is a power hungry egomanic.

Modifié par Ryzaki, 21 novembre 2013 - 02:50 .

[KaiserShep]

Hazegurl wrote...

I personally choose not to even believe that starkid. For all we know EDI could have "died" during the crash trying to save the Normandy. The kid also alludes to Shepard dying and we know that with a high EMS that doesn't happen. Unless having reaper tech installed is the reason they died.

Yeah, in Shepard's position, when the catalyst tells me that it won't discriminate and blah blah blah chaos return, I'd just say "bullsh*t" and would destroy it before it had a chance to give me other options, because I don't particularly care what it has to say, I only need to know that the reapers will die. 

StreetMagic wrote...

Man, I hate writing the story for Bioware. Speculating is not my idea of fun. Maybe because I suck at it. Did they ever consider that? I may have the right to make choices. I don't have the right to say how everything works.

There's lots of arguments about this regarding our interpretations of the ending. Some people seem to like the ambiguity (and prefer the original ending). Personally, I feel that ambiguity needs to be treated gingerly, otherwise it becomes vague to the point of coming off as lazy and confounding, and can severely damage the fiction. 

Modifié par KaiserShep, 21 novembre 2013 - 02:50 .

[Rasofe]

Well, I for one am content with a Paragon Control and a Paragade Destroy scenario. Also rejection is a nice choice if I purposefully want my bad Shepard to fail. I don't actually know the Mehem endings, isn't that just the original but with a straightforward destroy without the Catalyst and none of the unreasonable repercussions?

I'm not gonna say that my main Shepard is not a power hungry maniac, because he is. Most of his decisions in ME1 and ME2 come down to compromising the other species just enough to leave them intact (hence curing the Genophage) but powerless once the war with the Reapers is done, to ensure humanity is the king of the hill at the end. But when it comes down to it, he's also uncompromising. He won't give up his humanity just to ensure the rest of his species becomes OP (and invalidates all the prepwork he did for the first two games) and to save a bunch of robots he's only slightly sympathetic toward. I think the correct term is "Anti-villiain".

[CronoDragoon]

Deathsaurer wrote...
That would have worked fine if Han'Gerrel wasn't all keep shooting no matter what.

Han'Gerrel wouldn't have had anything to shoot at if the geth had just left Rannoch (I'm talking before the Dyson Sphere). It makes zero sense for the geth to stay. They don't want to keep it for themselves and holding it as some sort of hostage doesn't make sense either (which is more likely to get you punched in the face, stealing someone's yogurt and then giving it back, or stealing it and waving it above your head out of their reach?)

Of all quarians, precisely ONE of them expresses an interest in the geth separate from taking back Rannoch (Xen). Once the quarians have Rannoch 95% of their "attack the geth!" gusto evaporates and we no longer have a tense conflict.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 21 novembre 2013 - 03:02 .

[KaiserShep]

Rasofe wrote...
I don't actually know the Mehem endings, isn't that just the original but with a straightforward destroy without the Catalyst and none of the unreasonable repercussions?

Without the catalyst and none of the repercussions, it's really nothing like the original ending at all.

[Linkenski]

ImaginaryMatter wrote...

I don't think Saren's 'pinnacle of evolution' declaration had anything to do with the ending. As Saren stated he was growing hesitant so Sovereign implanted him to make him absolutely loyal to the cause, not to 'uplift' him. I always thought his talk about fusion was the result of the Indoctrination, warping his mind to justify such an extreme measure and foolish action.

You're actually right about that :/
Another ending strawman logic. Everything in the ending just reeks of those logical fallacies. Taking one reocurring theme after another and completely missing the point about it... the worst thing is that Bioware still think the vocal minority is irrellevant and they misunderstand the people who objectively pointed out faults in the ending and understood the problem as "our choices didn't matter/shepard had to die" being the issue.

EVERYONE were ready for Shepard to sacrifice him, even if we didn't want it, it was just so obvious. That's not the issue in the ending, but now I have seen both Casey, Mac and even Patrick Weekes directly address the ending in retrospect at live-panels where they present the issue as being about that "people didn't respond well to Shepard dying at the end after 90 hours". I'll say, it's half true. I did not want Shepard to die, but my issue isn't' as simple as "oh no, my character had to die", and closure is secondary as well. The problem that Bioware NEVER addressed is the problem people have with the logical fallacies of the ending, and they're in plain sight.

I wonder if the writers even played the game themselves in a save where both the Geth and Quarians survived. Even when you do that, the Reaper on Rannoch outright says afterwards "This struggle disproves there can be peace between organics and synthetics" and that's just the opposite of what was just proven.

I don't care, the ending is what it is, the damage has been done, but what bothers me is that it seems like Bioware does not understand what is actually so fundamentally wrong in their ending. I really hope that jus someday they'll admit they failed to recognize the key themes of the franchise or that they misinterpreted what they had written themselves... Or at least, give us an elaborate explanation of what the heck you were thinking as you came up endings. I still don't understand how a TEAM of writers could make such a big mistake and then go on afterwards and defending it as if they're proud of it. <_<

/end rant.

Modifié par Linkenski, 21 novembre 2013 - 05:30 .

[ImaginaryMatter]

Hazegurl wrote...

I personally choose not to even believe that starkid. For all we know EDI could have "died" during the crash trying to save the Normandy. The kid also alludes to Shepard dying and we know that with a high EMS that doesn't happen. Unless having reaper tech installed is the reason they died.

It certainly is suspicious. He's giving you a choice between shooting what appears to be a fuel line, touching two dangerous looking electric knobs, or jumping into a beam of energy which looks like it can power the universe.

[Linkenski]

I always saw it as if the Crucible was locked and loaded and the link between the Citadel+Crucible was severed if you shot the Destroy canister, which would make the Crucible fire off without the ingredient of whatever is in that Synthesis beam or those Control electric knobs.

Also, Fun fact: The Destroy option was called the "bomb" option on Mac's notesheet for some reason. I wonder what he'd initially thought out.

Modifié par Linkenski, 21 novembre 2013 - 06:18 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Linkenski wrote...

I always saw it as if the Crucible was locked and loaded and the link between the Citadel+Crucible was severed if you shot the Destroy canister, which would make the Crucible fire off without the ingredient of whatever is in that Synthesis beam or those Control electric knobs.

Also, Fun fact: The Destroy option was called the "bomb" option on Mac's notesheet for some reason. I wonder what he'd initially thought out.

You want to know what Mac originally thought out? It was the blow up the galaxy option, but the writers felt it was too bleak so if you did everything and worked real hard they gave you a gasp of air as a glimmer of hope.

I saw the Rannoch situation as "Walter's Box" to put you into that moral dilemma for end. At first I started going back and manipulating ME2 saves so that certain criteria were met (i.e. Shepard screwed up on purpose) so that there could be no peace and thus have to pick one. Then I stopped caring at all and would just nuke the geth at Rannoch anyway even if peace was available so I wouldn't have to face the moral dilemma at the end. Get it out of the way. Now with the Citadel DLC? Party while the galaxy burns. The ending still sucks, so why bother playing it. I'm done playing the SP game. I hope we never see another ending like this again. I've picked all three endings. I don't give a crap. The best part of ME3 was the multi-player which I sunk hours into. It was the only reason I didn't trade in the game after my first play through.