876 réponses à ce sujet

[Hazegurl]

It seems to me as though the devs wanted to maintain their own theme of self sacrifice so they threw in one breath scene trying to make both type of fans happy including themselves. If they want they can say he took a final breath and died thus maintaining the theme while those who want him to live can say it shows him as being alive. idk. I personally say that he is alive and will be with his LI someday. Overall I prefer the MEHEM +Citadel ending. I can't see Joker or anyone on the Normandy condoning leaving Shepard behind to die and my Shepard is not the self sacrificing type. lol!

[dreamgazer]

So, like, dark energy and stuff ...

[Deathsaurer]

Don't really think there is anything left to discuss on that front dreamgazer. It would need serious revision to be workable.

[Hazegurl]

StreetMagic wrote...

"Sacrifice" is such a lame way to put it. It's suicide. It's not noble.

lol I agree. Walking into an exploding tube was just plain stupid.

[dreamgazer]

Hazegurl wrote...

StreetMagic wrote...

"Sacrifice" is such a lame way to put it. It's suicide. It's not noble.

lol I agree. Walking into an exploding tube was just plain stupid.

I see it as an example of Not Afraid To Die (no, not Death Seeker), since shooting from a corner or approaching the tube would've netted the same result, given the fact that Shepard appears to have no radio contact. 

[Iakus]

dreamgazer wrote...

So, like, dark energy and stuff ...

There's no way to tell if it would have been better.  The idea itself seems only half-formed, and we don't know how it would have been ultimately presented.  Maybe it would have been better.  MAybe not.

I suspect many people latch onto it because they figure anything would have been better than the dreck we got.  I do sympathize with that outlook, even if I don't entirely agree.

[dreamgazer]

iakus wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

So, like, dark energy and stuff ...

There's no way to tell if it would have been better.  The idea itself seems only half-formed, and we don't know how it would have been ultimately presented.  Maybe it would have been better.  MAybe not.

I suspect many people latch onto it because they figure anything would have been better than the dreck we got.  I do sympathize with that outlook, even if I don't entirely agree.

I certainly don't. It's one of several worse scenarios than what was presented in the endgame, gauging by what we know. Worse "dreck", if you must.

Modifié par dreamgazer, 07 décembre 2013 - 12:59 .

[ImaginaryMatter]

As people here and Drew have said before, the Dark Energy ending was vaporware. Could it have been better than the endings we got? Ya. Could it have been worse? Ya. How it would have been implemented is an unknown and it could have changed significantly over several drafts, like the current end did. I think many people judge it not so much by its own merits but based on Drew himself.

[Massa FX]

I'm not basing my opinion on Drew, but I think I'll take the dark energy koolaid over RGB koolaid as long as it didn't involve Shepard making stupid decisions and committing suicide. She had so much to live for.

But, bring on the next protagonist! <thinking positive here>

[crimzontearz]

^^ Drew said such stories should end on a high note....


But no, Mac wanted ART.....

[LinksOcarina]

StreetMagic wrote...

"Sacrifice" is such a lame way to put it. It's suicide. It's not noble.

For one ending, maybe.

Considering that statement discredits two of the others, it should depend on perception, not factual objectivity. 

[LinksOcarina]

iakus wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...

Says who? 

Says Iakus.  Try to keep up here

The clarity and closure aspect did just that, considering it showed off what the heck happened and gave the entire story closure outside of pure ambiguity. The EC made things less ambiguous for everyone, you keep focusing on one aspect intentionally left ambiguos by design. 

And thus EC failed to provide clarity or closure for an aspect that is obviously important to a large section of the fanbase.

Maybe not to you.  But just because you're happy doesn't mean everyone has to be.

That was never going to be changed, nor should it be either at this point because it diminishes what was changed.

Says who?  You?

If anything, the breath scene should have been removed if it caused so much trouble, but too late for that now.

And replaced with a rescue, or somethng that clearly showed Shepard surviving?  Agree 100%

One, your opinion is wholly irrelevent to anyone but you. Two, the reason it was never going to be changed was due to BioWare sticking to what they felt the ending should be. To think they would change it would be foolish enough to think you had a say in making them do anything, really, and since we already established your opinion doesn't matter, we know the answer to this.

And if you were looking for clarity or closure with what amounts to an easter egg scene, than man you are just a fool then. I have never heard of anyone expect so much from something so little, that at best we can say maybe 5% of the people playing actually saw before it hit youtube, and expect it to be expanded upon because it is what they want to see more of. Truth be told, I don't get it, maybe I never will. 

Three, Let Shepard die. Removing the breath scene and keeping it as is would have been the way to go. BioWare tried to have their cake and eat it, and it backfired because people see it as a slight on them because video games...I don't know.

We all have an attachment to a character like Shepard, but where does it say they have to live? They have to make it unscathed? Good stories can have heroes live or die as they please, our attachment to them should be the indicator if the story was worth it or not. Considering the passion of people around here, we already have the answer. 

[wolfhowwl]

crimzontearz wrote...

^^ Drew said such stories should end on a high note....


But no, Mac wanted ART.....

Well Drew is is wrong about that. There isn't any requirement that Mass Effect not end darkly, just that it be well written.

Surely we would want a well written but dark ending over a poorly written but happily ever after ending, right?

Modifié par wolfhowwl, 08 décembre 2013 - 12:38 .

[dreamgazer]

crimzontearz wrote...

^^ Drew said such stories should end on a high note....


But no, Mac wanted ART.....

Sounded like Drew wanted "art", too, if you must persist with that.

After all, he's responsible for the Virmire sacrifice and the Citadel humans-or-aliens decision.

[crimzontearz]

Well Drew is is wrong about that. There isn't any requirement that Mass Effect not end darkly, just that it be well written.

Surely we would want a well written but dark ending over a poorly written but happily ever after ending, right?

No thanks, having to choose, as I said before, between quality and happiness in the ending as mutually exclusive I will DEFINITELY pick happiness tyvm

Sounded like Drew wanted "art", too, if you must persist with that.

After all, he's responsible for the Virmire sacrifice and the Citadel humans-or-aliens decision.

Works for me, in both cases I could pick what suited me most -like save my lover over someone else or sacrifice some human lives to save the council- and go on with my story

[trenq]

Depends on how bad the happy ending is.
If it's very badly written i'll go with the dark ending.

[KaiserShep]

I don't mind dark endings, but they need to be satisfying on a few levels or they're just a waste of time.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 08 décembre 2013 - 03:52 .

[Iakus]

LinksOcarina wrote...

One, your opinion is wholly irrelevent to anyone but you.

And the same goes to you as well.

Two, the reason it was never going to be changed was due to BioWare sticking to what they felt the ending should be.

And the backlash demonstrates how horribly wrong they were.

And if you were looking for clarity or closure with what amounts to an easter egg scene, than man you are just a fool then. I have never heard of anyone expect so much from something so little, that at best we can say maybe 5% of the people playing actually saw before it hit youtube, and expect it to be expanded upon because it is what they want to see more of. Truth be told, I don't get it, maybe I never will.

Except they claimed it wasn't an easter egg.  They also claimed EC would add "clarity and closure".  One would think such would include this breath scene But hey, since it didn't, maybe you're right and it is just an easter egg.

Three, Let Shepard die.

No

Removing the breath scene and keeping it as is would have been the way to go. BioWare tried to have their cake and eat it, and it backfired because people see it as a slight on them because video games...I don't know.

It backfired ecause they kept claiming that these are our characters.  That we as players had agency in what happened.  That we were architects of Shepard's story.  And in the end, Shepard fries, no matter how you played the entire trilogy.  It's worse than trying to have your cake and eat it too.  It's borderline bait-and-switch.

We all have an attachment to a character like Shepard, but where does it say they have to live? They have to make it unscathed? Good stories can have heroes live or die as they please, our attachment to them should be the indicator if the story was worth it or not. Considering the passion of people around here, we already have the answer.

Shepard doesn't have to live.  But it should be an option.  Why?  Because the players want the option.  Because Shepard is our Shepard.  If you want him or her to die, that's fine.  But others don't want that to happen.  At least not every time.  This is not Assassin's Creed, where we passively watch the story and stab who we're told to stab.  This is Mass Effect, a narrative-based rpg.  This isn't just one story.  The protagonist shouldn't have just one fate, but numerous possibilities based on how the game unfolded.

Forcing one outcome on Shepard isnt' just bad storytelling, it's a disservice to the players and the franchise in general.  My Shepard is not Walter White.

Modifié par iakus, 08 décembre 2013 - 05:12 .

[Linkenski]

crimzontearz wrote...

^^ Drew said such stories should end on a high note....


But no, Mac wanted ART.....

Even trilogies don't have to end on high-notes. If the thematic consistency had been there but the ending was still on a low-note it would've been more acceptable. But the ending makes for such a poor punchline to the ride of ME1 through to ME3 that it doesn't really matter if it's happy or sad. It's just bad.

But I guess I agree. It seems like Casey wanted to "have an issue without making a statement", or whatever that was all about but he forgot that he put it in the last 10 minutes of a 70 hour experience, and what's worse is he gave his idea to the worst, most banally thinking writer they had.

"Synthetics will ALWAYS destroy ALL organics. The peace WON'T last if you destroy the Reapers, because soon your children WILL create synthetics... cuz' like I know, because I'm the Starchild, I'm god."

Oh wait scratch that. He was actually just a psychotic **** AI and the Reapers are not ominous but one big massive joke. Oh, and Shepard had to die (and reshape the galaxy) to solve a problem that happened because of idiocy. It's all Starchild and synthetics rivaling organics. Nope, ME Trilogy wasn't about the different species and cultures settling their differences to fight the bigger enemy. And the point of Cerberus was no longer to show them as the interlopers who didn't realize that unity was the only way to stop the reapers and thus they failed. Nope, It's all about whether Synthetics should be controlled, merged with organics or be destroyed all together, because synthetics are the reason there's conflict in the universe... ALWAYS. 

Now I'm all in for having an artistic statement at the end of a story. I don't care if it's directly shown or if it's something mentioned more explicitly. The problem in ME3 is just that this statement feels tacked on and isn't coherent enough with the rest. Period.

Now imagine this ending we got in its concept stages and compare it to Karpyshyn's idea. People defending the one we got are seriously delusional.

Modifié par Linkenski, 08 décembre 2013 - 09:50 .

[LinksOcarina]

iakus wrote...

 This is Mass Effect, a narrative-based rpg.  This isn't just one story.  The protagonist shouldn't have just one fate, but numerous possibilities based on how the game unfolded.

So...when did Shepard have a different fate throughout the entire series? Outside of the off chance you royaly mess up the suicide mission in two, it is impossible to claim it so.

The problem is you are confusing narrative for plot. What is really dictating Shepard's death is necessity, not choice. The plot said he had to die in this (making him Walter White minus the drugs or depressing pathos) or else the thematic elements of the plot overall make no sense for the character. 

And to be clear, there is only one story that spans the three games. If there wasn't, then we would be playing Skyrim at this point.  That is the point of the plot itself; Shepard and the Reapers and how he came to that moment is what the plot builds up on. You only control the Narrative portion of things; who you kill or don't kill, how you deal with The Illusive man, what your final choice is. That shapes the narrative of the plot, but you can't change the plot of the game at all.  It's like The Walking Dead by Telltale, you can't change anything that happens, you just shape the events before, and during, their happening. No matter what Lee is going to die, as is Doug, Carley, and everyone else you think you can save, always at the same time and usually the same way.

You have agency in what the characters do, yes, but  you don't fully own them though. You never did either, and once again, outside of power fantasy RPG's like Skyrim, you never will. That is the only way to ensure a story-based game tells an actual story, its a hybrid of a game that BioWare has been doing since Baldur's Gate, and most of the great RPG's have done for years, like Planescape Torment and Betrayal at Krondor. 

I should also point out, I can only name one game where you have numerous fates unfold on you done by BioWare, and it's Dragon Age Origins with a whopping three. Three different ways, with multiple variants, as to what happens to your Warden. Either you make a sacrifie, you don't, or you perform the ritual. No other BioWare game has ever deviated from the ploy to the point where it actually changes based on it. Characters dying? narrative decision. Light/Dark morality? Narrative flavor. Choices and consequences, always an illusion.

I guess people were too caught up in the illusion to notice these things. And to be clear, this is not really opinion either, there is a fundamental difference between narrative and plot, and it needs to be distinctive from each other when talking about a game like this, because this is the base where most confusion comes in. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 08 décembre 2013 - 09:59 .

[Linkenski]

No but in ME3 we're at the end of the road. Bioware's intent was for that game to close the trilogy. What they promised and what they made a lot of us expect was an ending that happened in entirely different scenarios based on our choices.

If you've played The Witcher 2 it would be like in its second chapter that has a scenario completely shaped but a two-folded choice you make at the end of chapter one.

Because Bioware technically shouldn't be careful with how to plan ME3's ending when it didn't need a sequel they could've made several different scenarios each with their own unique conclusion.

E.g. You'd have one renegade road that led to sacrificing Earth to save the Reapers and the remaining humans had to colonize across different worlds.

Another one could be, Smack the Reapers using the Crucible and every planet is saved.

Aside from that I think people had hoped to get some epilogues that showed, with dialogue, the crew commenting on Shepard's death or maybe his future, and for the love of god, an ending where Shepard and his LI rode off into the sunset.

I obviously should never be a writer and I respect what Bioware did (for the record I only ever whined but I did not sign any dumb petitions) but I think that's what iakus was talking about. Having endings different enough to change the fate of Shepard in wildly different conclusions, which, frankly, SHOULD be possible now that it was the end of the trilogy and Bioware wouldn't have to import any more choices for their next game.

[In Exile]

Wulfram wrote...

I'm increasingly convinced that the technological singularity was a much better choice for the why or reapers.

Just needed to be handled in a not so stupid way.

The singularity doesn't work as a plot when the focus of the game is "what measure is a human?" using AIs. That theme invariably goes toward the direction of "flesh isn't special", and the idea of a singularity is reducible to whether or not you think people lose something by fundamentally changing themselves. 

There's just no coherent way to mix that in with what amounts to intergalactic genocide. 

[In Exile]

AlanC9 wrote...

SDW wrote...

But the Catalyst created Reapers for the sole purpose of wiping out organics. How is that not an act of war?.

Are humans at war with corn?

We're not harvesting corn to save the corn from being wiped out by apples or something. 

[durasteel]

LinksOcarina wrote...
...
We all have an attachment to a character like Shepard, but where does it say they have to live? They have to make it unscathed? Good stories can have heroes live or die as they please, our attachment to them should be the indicator if the story was worth it or not. Considering the passion of people around here, we already have the answer. 

I see that you have Dragon Age: Origins. That's convenient, because it suggests you'll be familiar with an example of how a main character may be killed properly.

It wasn't necessary for Shepard to live, but it should have been possible (and not with that BS breath scene.) If Shepard was to die, it should have been meaningful and triumphant. If your character sacrifices himself for victory, it needs to be real and unequivocal victory, like defeating the Archdemon and ending the blight. We didn't get that.

If Origins had ended the way ME 3 had, when the Archdemon hopped over to its little platform you wouldn't have been able to shoot it. Instead, Corypheus would have come out and told you that the darkspawn were created to protect mortals from the taint, and he would have given your three choices:

Red: Kill all darkspawn everywhere by igniting all of the lyrium in Thedas. Also, the elves will all die. The Warden might die, you don't know. You achieve this by hitting a chunk of lyrium with a sword.

Blue: You become the archdemon, under the assumption that you can totally handle the taint and you'll call off the darkspwn to end the blight. You do this by letting the Archdemon eat you. Why can't we all be freinds now?

Green: You spread the taint to every living thing in Thedas, so now the darkspawn don't know who they should try to eat. At the same time, you give every darkspawn a soul and free will. You do this by lighting yourself on fire and jumping off the roof. Now can we all be friends?

The problem isn't that Shepard dies, any more that it was a problem for the Warden to die. I have plays-through where he made the ultimate sacrifice, others where he did the dark ritual, and others where he let Logain take one for the team as an ultimate act of redemption. The problem with Shepard's end is that it was stupid. The Catalyst was stupid, all three choices were stupid, and so Shepard dies for a stupid reason any way you slice it.

Good stories can have the hero die, but if an otherwise good story has a steaming turd of an ending and the hero dies, it only serves to eliminate the possibility of coming back later to end the character's story in a more appropriate way. 

Modifié par durasteel, 09 décembre 2013 - 02:19 .