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[eyezonlyii]

AlanC9 wrote...

eyezonlyii wrote...

There, no Reapers present, Shepard is alive, broken infrastructure and there's still the option of potentially using the Reapers as a force again down the road.

You think Bio didn't want the Reapers dead for good? Or controlled for good?

Actually, all of that sounds like throwing out the design intent. 

Not if they added refuse, they obviously didn't want them dead for good (at least not within ME3 timefame). 

[AlanC9]

Shepard could die in ME2. That didn't mean Bio let him be dead in ME3

[durasteel]

AlanC9 wrote...
So you want Bio to have spent more money, but you're not sure on what? .

What if had they spent it on, say, an expanded Refuse? Watch the heroic deaths of each and every squadmate, and finish with the destruction of the Normandy!

Wait, you think that unless I can offer a script for a good ending, they shouldn't lift a finger?

I am totally sure about what I would have wanted, Alan. What I would have wanted was a good ending for Shepard. Based on who Shepard ws and what Shepard did, that would mean fighting and winning. Those two components right there are key.

Shepard fights--that's what these games are about. Sometimes Shepard shoots people, other times he argues. There are plenty of ways for Shepard to fight, but one way or another it always comes down to a fight. The last encounter--the resolution of the entire trilogy--should not come down to listening to some nonsensical exposition and then staggering off to accept Shepard's fate, like livestock to the slaughter.

Shepard wins--what Shepard is trying to achieve is always possible. It might take a lot of effort to achieve a complete victory, but it is at least possible. In the case of a paragon, Shepard is fighting to protect Earth, humanity, his crew, and the sentient races of this 50k year cycle. The paragon Shepard has always shown a willingness to die to achieve this, so even if he makes the ultimate sacrifice it is still a "win" as long as he protects the ones he's fighting for. Renegade Shepard obviously has different goals. It should be possible, if you have a high enough EMS and you make the right choices, to have a complete victory as either a paragon or renegade. To use paragon again as an example, destroy fails because Shepard cannot protect EDI or the Geth. Control fails because a paragon has explicitly ruled out controling the reapers as an acceptable path. Synthesis fails because your indoctrinating/husking every living thing in the galaxy while tampering with the code of every computer (and also because it is incredibly stupid.) It is a no-win situation, which is not a satisfactory end to Shepard's story. Shepard has to win in the end.

If Shepard dies, it should be a choice and it should have some meaning. A good example is the Ultimate Sacrifice ending to Dragon Age: Origins. Before the last set of encounters, the player is informed about the rules of killing an archdemon and made aware that it wipes out a Grey Warden's soul to permanently kill the thing. You're also given a way out, in the dark ritual. The Warden can perform the ritual, can make the ultimate sacrifice, or can let someone else ("Hey, Logain...") do it.  The player is given control, in the form of the information needed to make the choice and the power to choose what the player wishes. The choice is much more personal, since any choice you make effect primarily the Warden. The blight is ended and Ferelden saved regrdless. Still, it feels like that choice is more significant and more empowering that the RBG ending in ME3.

Shepard dies in ME3 for no reason other that "because I said so." Space magic could just as easily scanned his brain for blue, read whatever the hell the green lazer used, or triggered a red boom without requiring Shepard's death--there is no exposition describing why any of these functions requires disintegrating Shepard (or blowing him up.) Similarly, in high EMS Shepard lives for no reason whatsoever. It's just... there. You didn't do anything to make it happen, you don't have a sense of earning Shepard's survival. Mordin had an awesome death in a paragon game--he died for something he believed in, and in the end, with his death, he won. Shepard just died, because reasons. Lots of speculation, etc.

Yeah, Alan. I'm 100% sure of what I would have wanted in a director's cut. I would have wanted an end to the trilogy that didn't suck.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Well there's a possibility of a parallel quantum dimension where Bioware wrote an ending that didn't suck. There is also a possibility of a parallel quantum dimension where Bioware wrote an ending that didn't suck and the fans raged because they wanted an ending that sucked.

[AlanC9]

durasteel wrote...

Wait, you think that unless I can offer a script for a good ending, they shouldn't lift a finger?

I am totally sure about what I would have wanted, Alan. What I would have wanted was a good ending for Shepard. Based on who Shepard ws and what Shepard did, that would mean fighting and winning. Those two components right there are key.

Much better. Thanks.

Shepard fights--that's what these games are about. Sometimes Shepard shoots people, other times he argues. There are plenty of ways for Shepard to fight, but one way or another it always comes down to a fight. The last encounter--the resolution of the entire trilogy--should not come down to listening to some nonsensical exposition and then staggering off to accept Shepard's fate, like livestock to the slaughter.

Hmm... so it's not enough for Shepard to accomplish a goal. Someone or something else has to lose. That's what "fight" means here, right? Triumph over an opponent or opponents? And the Catalyst doesn't count  for this because the fight has already happened? Once Shepard's in the room the Catalyst is at Shepard's mercy and can be destroyed or overwritten at will. (Plus not be destroyed at all if Synth's how you roll, but we can just leave that aside since nobody's ever forced to pick that option. Refuse, same thing). Or is the problem really that the Catalyst doesn't act beaten,  or some such?

Anyway, I don't see why you think more resources would have helped here. You've got a conceptual problem with the way Bio approached the endings. (Incidentally, I think you've stumbled onto something that attracts people to IT. If you believe in IT then the Catalyst conversation really is a "fight.")

Shepard wins--what Shepard is trying to achieve is always possible.

I don't remember being able to acquire the Prothean VI on Thessia, or save both squadmates on Virmire, etc.. But I'll certainly grant that Bio games generally do let you off the hook -- most of the time they present a dilemma it's a  fake. I consider this a problem with their house style, but mileages vary.

To use paragon again as an example, destroy fails because Shepard cannot protect EDI or the Geth. Control fails because a paragon has explicitly ruled out controling the reapers as an acceptable path. Synthesis fails because your indoctrinating/husking every living thing in the galaxy while tampering with the code of every computer (and also because it is incredibly stupid.) It is a no-win situation, which is not a satisfactory end to Shepard's story. Shepard has to win in the end.

So the game is cruel to Paragons at the very end? Sure. I thought it was about time that the Renegades were right about a choice, myself -- just about every other time in the games a Renegade option is framed as Shepard thinking the action is necessary, RenShep is simply wrong to think that. (Jerkass RenSheps do just fine, of course; letting the Destiny Ascension get blown up because the council are fools isn't a mistake) This is really a problem with the silly Paragon concept itself rather than the endings. Or rather, having the universe take the Paragon idea seriously.

Similarly, in high EMS Shepard lives for no reason whatsoever. It's just... there. You didn't do anything to make it happen, you don't have a sense of earning Shepard's survival.

Shepard doesn't earn his own survival, true, thought the player certainly does. Shepard's survival is, and rightly ought to be, a side effect. He's got more important things to worry about than his own life. (Any Shepard who's particularly bothered by dying in the moment of final victory should have picked a different profession.)

It's interesting to think about a different presentation of Destroy where Sehaprd knew that Destroy means his own survival, but any Shepard who would make his decision on that basis doesn't deserve to live.

Yeah, Alan. I'm 100% sure of what I would have wanted in a director's cut. I would have wanted an end to the trilogy that didn't suck.

There's no ending Bio's known to have considered that was any better if these are the aspects you're concerned with. The Dark Energy ending was substantially worse. Why do you think a "director's cut" would have improved these things?

Modifié par AlanC9, 13 décembre 2013 - 08:25 .

[AlanC9]

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

Well there's a possibility of a parallel quantum dimension where Bioware wrote an ending that didn't suck. There is also a possibility of a parallel quantum dimension where Bioware wrote an ending that didn't suck and the fans raged because they wanted an ending that sucked.

Sometimes I wonder if we're living in the latter.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

AlanC9 wrote...

There's no ending Bio's known to have considered that was any better if these are the aspects you're concerned with. The Dark Energy ending was substantially worse. Why do you think a "director's cut" would have improved these things?

Can't say I agree with this.

Provided Bioware were to scrap the Catalyst, all its idiot logic along with this idea of Shepard just being a passive observer, the dark energy (at least to a small extent) builds on some ideas which were laid out in Mass Effect 2. Prior to ME3, I remember people speculating at what role dark energy would play in the ending.

I think that works much better than "The Catalyst is a rogue AI unable to realize its error, but it's going to offer you three choices to stop it anyway when it could merely choose to stop the genocide".

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 13 décembre 2013 - 10:16 .

[Redbelle]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

There's no ending Bio's known to have considered that was any better if these are the aspects you're concerned with. The Dark Energy ending was substantially worse. Why do you think a "director's cut" would have improved these things?

Can't say I agree with this.

Provided Bioware were to scrap the Catalyst, all its idiot logic along with this idea of Shepard just being a passive observer, the dark energy (at least to a small extent) builds on some ideas which were laid out in Mass Effect 2. Prior to ME3, I remember people speculating at what role dark energy would play in the ending.

I think that works much better than "The Catalyst is a rogue AI unable to realize its error, but it's going to offer you three choices to stop it anyway when it could merely choose to stop the genocide".

Tali's..... The sun's dying, would have gained more weight if people were told why suns were dying and thought.... oh yeah! I remember something about that in ME2!

[Oni Changas]

Again, we're judging a plot that was at best brainstormed and outlined without even knowing what it'd ultimately contain. It's like trashing Star Wars 7 as if it had been released already.

[durasteel]

AlanC9 wrote...
I don't remember being able to acquire the Prothean VI on Thessia, or save both squadmates on Virmire, etc.. But I'll certainly grant that Bio games generally do let you off the hook -- most of the time they present a dilemma it's a  fake. I consider this a problem with their house style, but mileages vary.
...
...
Why do you think a "director's cut" would have improved these things?

But Shepard can, ultimately, acquire the Prothean VI. If Shepard has to have it, then Shepard can track it down to the secret lair and get it. 

The Virmire casualty is a significant example. It is failure and a loss that haunts Shepard thoughout the rest of the trilogy, adding depth and texture to the narrative. Having an exception to the rule is great if you make a big deal about it and it is treated like the major plot point that it should be. It is by no means a note that you should end the damn trilogy on.

Personally, I like the whole paragon thing. I do think that they should try for the most part to make paragon and renegade choices equally valid, but in my case video games are heroic escapism, and while I do sometimes go the renegade route in a given scenario, I really enjoy the fact that on some level I know that it is possible to do the decent, honest, generous, kind, or merciful thing without being punished for it. I'm 43 years old, and I've had more than enough punishment for "good deeds" along the way. I don't need any vestige of realism in that department in my excapist fantasies, thanks. If I wanted to be reminded that life often presents you with no-win situations where the best you can do is mitigate the damage, well.. I could just shut off the game and get some work done.

I do think a director's cut would have improved the ending of the game in these areas, because generally speaking when BioWare writers have enough time to write, revise, polish, and execute a game narrative they consistently deliver in these areas. I mean, that's why I buy and play BioWare games. When you get right down to it I thnk that a director's cut ending would simply be more like the rest of the game.

[CronoDragoon]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...
Can't say I agree with this.

Provided Bioware were to scrap the Catalyst, all its idiot logic along with this idea of Shepard just being a passive observer, the dark energy (at least to a small extent) builds on some ideas which were laid out in Mass Effect 2. Prior to ME3, I remember people speculating at what role dark energy would play in the ending.

Whatever support a dark energy ending would have had, an organic/synthetic-themed ending has more. The writers themselves believed organic/synthetic conflict and relationships to be the central theme of ME1, after all, and while ME2 turned this from "organics vs. synthetics" to "the relationship between organics and synthetics" the language used and ideas behind such things are still centered around the synthetic question.

Now, as for me, I probably would have preferred such a theme to be subtly inferred from the ending rather than smashed in my face. But I can't get behind the idea that dark energy is a viable ending because of a few lines of dialogue in ME2. Organic/synthetic theme simply has more importance to the story.

I think that works much better than "The Catalyst is a rogue AI unable to realize its error, but it's going to offer you three choices to stop it anyway when it could merely choose to stop the genocide".

Could it merely choose to stop the genocide? I actually consider questions like this a good example of why the ideas behind the current ending are far more fascinating than they would have been for dark energy.

[Redbelle]

OniTYME wrote...

Again, we're judging a plot that was at best brainstormed and outlined without even knowing what it'd ultimately contain. It's like trashing Star Wars 7 as if it had been released already.

I"d say it's more like Bashing SW ep1 on account that it has been released, viewed and judged on it's merits...

Now prejudging ME4 would be like trashing SW7 as both, in dertails and narratives are largely unknown

[Wayning_Star]

quick question for this thread: Is the harvest actually genocide? What does it mean for the harvested within their reaper ship prisons?

[durasteel]

Wayning_Star wrote...

quick question for this thread: Is the harvest actually genocide? What does it mean for the harvested within their reaper ship prisons?

That's a good question. It would have been interesting if a Reaper, for example the destroyer on Rannoch as it lay dying, could have expressed to Shepard that its collective consciousness was being compelled to act against its will. Something like that could at least have provided the barest thread of support for the proposition that it might be possible to coexist with the Reapers in something other than all-out war.

Among the biggest problems I have with the stupid-as-all-hell green ending is that even if you homogenize all life and AI in the galaxy, you still have such dramatic power differences that the Reapers would simply subjugate everything else like their Leviathan progenitors did eons ago. Establishing that the Reapers each retained the morality and consciouness of thier source civilizations might suggest that there were good and bad reapers just as there are good and bad Asari, or Humans, or Turians. 

Either way, it is still genocide. Even a religious person who believes that the souls of the departed go on to a better place in the afterlife knows that it is genocide to wipe a populatin out in the first place. I suppose that if a civilization were to be persuaded that being reaped was a good idea, it would be mass suicide instead, but if it is a forced harvest then yeah... totally genocide.

[Wayning_Star]

durasteel wrote...

Wayning_Star wrote...

quick question for this thread: Is the harvest actually genocide? What does it mean for the harvested within their reaper ship prisons?

That's a good question. It would have been interesting if a Reaper, for example the destroyer on Rannoch as it lay dying, could have expressed to Shepard that its collective consciousness was being compelled to act against its will. Something like that could at least have provided the barest thread of support for the proposition that it might be possible to coexist with the Reapers in something other than all-out war.

Among the biggest problems I have with the stupid-as-all-hell green ending is that even if you homogenize all life and AI in the galaxy, you still have such dramatic power differences that the Reapers would simply subjugate everything else like their Leviathan progenitors did eons ago. Establishing that the Reapers each retained the morality and consciouness of thier source civilizations might suggest that there were good and bad reapers just as there are good and bad Asari, or Humans, or Turians. 

Either way, it is still genocide. Even a religious person who believes that the souls of the departed go on to a better place in the afterlife knows that it is genocide to wipe a populatin out in the first place. I suppose that if a civilization were to be persuaded that being reaped was a good idea, it would be mass suicide instead, but if it is a forced harvest then yeah... totally genocide.

maybe the catalyst is key in that regard, at least in the story, it's power comes from the necessity of it's invention. That is it's prime motivation, to stop the 'cycle' of destruction between synthetic "life" and organic "life".. or so it would seem..

[Wayning_Star]

how do you stop "the fighting"?

[durasteel]

Wayning_Star wrote...

how do you stop "the fighting"?

Depends on what fighting you're talking about. 

In general, you stop fighting when one of two circumstances occurs. Either (1) someone wins, resulting tin the other side capitulating or being destroyed; or (2) whatever the combatants are fighting over ceases to motivate them to fight.

If you're talking about the reapers, it might be both. If the Catalyst is destroyed, the surviving reapers would no longer be compelled to fight the galaxy's sentients. Especially if the allied galactic forces seemed like they might ultimately win the fight, the remaining reapers might collectively capitulate and agree to terms that include permanent withdrawal from alliance homeworld systems and self-policing, where reapers themselves would enforce the truce upon other beligerant reapers.

[LinksOcarina]

durasteel wrote...

Wayning_Star wrote...

how do you stop "the fighting"?

Depends on what fighting you're talking about. 

In general, you stop fighting when one of two circumstances occurs. Either (1) someone wins, resulting tin the other side capitulating or being destroyed; or (2) whatever the combatants are fighting over ceases to motivate them to fight.

If you're talking about the reapers, it might be both. If the Catalyst is destroyed, the surviving reapers would no longer be compelled to fight the galaxy's sentients. Especially if the allied galactic forces seemed like they might ultimately win the fight, the remaining reapers might collectively capitulate and agree to terms that include permanent withdrawal from alliance homeworld systems and self-policing, where reapers themselves would enforce the truce upon other beligerant reapers.

That is presuming quite a lot though, considering the sort of god complex the reapers already have. I would suspect that without the catalyst, the fight would continue without direction, a malfunctioning machine that wantonly destroys, versus collects, if that makes sense. 

[Wayning_Star]

fighting is evolution at it's best or worse?

[LinksOcarina]

durasteel wrote...

LinksOcarina wrote...
the objective lore inconsistencies from the Mass Effect 3 ending. I have heard people say this before but no one has ever given me actual proof. And after playing the game several times the endings only show subjective lore problems. 

Hah, ok pal. If you have taken even a brief spin through the threads here about the endings and/or watched one or two of the youtube videos that break it down (a few of which go on for an hour or so) and you still feel there are no inconsistencies, well... nothing I could tell you would change your mind, I'm sure.

Besides, I feel the lore inconsistencies are a secondary issue. The biggest problem with the end is that it sucks. I'm used to lore inconsistencies in fantasy and sci-fi media, but after many hours of engaging storytelling across these three games, I was completely unprepared for the altogether half-assed slap-in-the-face that was the ending to ME3.

If you liked it, well... good on yer. It does call your judgement into question, but then we're all having a debate on the internet, so good judgment is already dubious.

Like your judgement? Usually when someone has no compelling argument they do go to the ad-homenin attacks of course. 

I have seen some of those videos on all of that. Outside of the fact that people have too much time on their hands, most of the videos devolve into a bash-fest against BioWare for "****ing up" their game, as a general feel to it at least, which already irk's me some.

I have also read posts regarding it. My issue though is moreso the fact that A) a lot of it has been resolved through the Extended Cut, and what is left that people define as an inconsistance is subjective by nature, not objectively wrong.

Hell, considering people love or hate the endings, the entire thing is subjective through technicality. That is kind of why people debate such things on here.

To say my judgement is into question because you see the endings as sucking is just being a douche though. You don't even know my position, do you? 

[durasteel]

LinksOcarina wrote...
That is presuming quite a lot though, considering the sort of god complex the reapers already have. I would suspect that without the catalyst, the fight would continue without direction, a malfunctioning machine that wantonly destroys, versus collects, if that makes sense. 

I'm not presuming that it would be likely, much less certain. I'm just throwing out a far-fetched way in which it might be possible, riffing (as it were) on specualtion about what it might be like to be a reaper's collective consciousness.

[essarr71]

Blending a few million out of billions is hardly preservation. Further: whats the point of a zoo if no one visits/learns from it?

All those voices are ignored. Maybe the Reapers listen to them as entertainment between cycles, but it doesn't seem like the Reapers are growing from new perspectives - except in number of ships available for the next blending.

[durasteel]

LinksOcarina wrote...
...
To say my judgement is into question because you see the endings as sucking is just being a douche though. You don't even know my position, do you? 

Well, aren't we fiesty.

I don't know your position, which is why I daid "If you like..." and not "Since you like..." 

Let me be clear: if you find the "logic" of the Catalyst scene to be consistent both internally and in the broader context of the game and trilogy, then I do, in point of fact, call your judgment into question. I know quite well that you are perfectly intelligent, so my conclusion is that, in that circumstance, you must possess an insurmountable bias that clouds your judgment. If that makes me a douche, so be it... I've been called much worse by people who know me much better.

I, too, had a strong bias towards liking the game. I was--and largely still am--a huge fan of BioWare and Mass Effect. That bias was not, it turned out, insurmountable, because the end of Mass Effect 3 not only surmounted it, but then squatted and took a dump at the summit.

[Redbelle]

Wayning_Star wrote...

quick question for this thread: Is the harvest actually genocide? What does it mean for the harvested within their reaper ship prisons?

Ask yourself this..... In ME2, if you don't get through the Omega relay soon enough and Kelly get's gooed...... does she die?

Because Kelly looks like she was melted. And then her raw material slush-e-rised into other likewise gooed people.

How is that alive enough to be made part of a concious collective?

It's more likely that over time the gooed genetic material is allowed to rebuild itself, but not as people but as neurological tissue in a networked hub that has core commands acting to shackle what emerge's from the Goo.

Seriously..... Those that are turned into the soft gooey centre of the Reapers are dead. What their raw material is molded into is far removed from what a human is.

Modifié par Redbelle, 13 décembre 2013 - 05:30 .

[CronoDragoon]

durasteel wrote...

If you're talking about the reapers, it might be both. If the Catalyst is destroyed, the surviving reapers would no longer be compelled to fight the galaxy's sentients. Especially if the allied galactic forces seemed like they might ultimately win the fight, the remaining reapers might collectively capitulate and agree to terms that include permanent withdrawal from alliance homeworld systems and self-policing, where reapers themselves would enforce the truce upon other beligerant reapers.

Of the Reapers we've met one has displayed outright genocidal hostility towards organics, and both regard Reapers as the perfection of organics. Isn't it possible more Reapers feel this way than not? We simply don't know.  If so, it's gonna be a real problem using diplomacy on them.