1814 réponses à ce sujet

[CrutchCricket]

Invisible Man wrote...

if we want to avoid this discussion, I think our only option is to go into cyro-sleep for 50,000 years or so.

Indoctrinated agents are sabotaging your stasis pods as we speak:P

[Invisible Man]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

if we want to avoid this discussion, I think our only option is to go into cyro-sleep for 50,000 years or so.

Indoctrinated agents are sabotaging your stasis pods as we speak:P

*sigh* I just can't win can I?

[Iakus]

Invisible Man wrote...

honestly I think this will only end when bioware starts locking threads that incessantly chat about the endings, but I don't see that happening any time soon. seeing as this is likely what bioware wants. also honestly I like a good discussion, even if we've already hashed out the content, even many, many times over.

They wanted controversial endings that would inspire discussion...

[CrutchCricket]

Invisible Man wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

if we want to avoid this discussion, I think our only option is to go into cyro-sleep for 50,000 years or so.

Indoctrinated agents are sabotaging your stasis pods as we speak:P

*sigh* I just can't win can I?

Nope. But pick a color!

[Red]

[Blue]

[Green]

Modifié par CrutchCricket, 31 décembre 2013 - 05:18 .

[Invisible Man]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

if we want to avoid this discussion, I think our only option is to go into cyro-sleep for 50,000 years or so.

Indoctrinated agents are sabotaging your stasis pods as we speak:P

*sigh* I just can't win can I?

Nope. But pick a color!

[Red] [Blue] [Green]

think i'll go with shoot starbrat in the braincase. or I might have better luck playing space chess with sam.

[CrutchCricket]

Invisible Man wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

if we want to avoid this discussion, I think our only option is to go into cyro-sleep for 50,000 years or so.

Indoctrinated agents are sabotaging your stasis pods as we speak:P

*sigh* I just can't win can I?

Nope. But pick a color!

[Red] [Blue] [Green]

think i'll go with shoot starbrat in the braincase. or I might have better luck playing space chess with sam.

So be it!!!

*your computer crashes.

[Invisible Man]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

CrutchCricket wrote...

Invisible Man wrote...

if we want to avoid this discussion, I think our only option is to go into cyro-sleep for 50,000 years or so.

Indoctrinated agents are sabotaging your stasis pods as we speak:P

*sigh* I just can't win can I?

Nope. But pick a color!

[Red] [Blue] [Green]

think i'll go with shoot starbrat in the braincase. or I might have better luck playing space chess with sam.

So be it!!!

*your computer crashes.

as long as I can reboot it I can live with that.

[CrutchCricket]

Only with additional DLC...

[Invisible Man]

CrutchCricket wrote...

Only with additional DLC...

should have seen that coming. *shrugs*

[Armass81]

Invisible Man wrote...

honestly I think this will only end when bioware starts locking threads that incessantly chat about the endings, but I don't see that happening any time soon. seeing as this is likely what bioware wants. also honestly I like a good discussion, even if we've already hashed out the content, even many, many times over.

THE CYCLE CONTINUES... *sad music*

Modifié par Armass81, 31 décembre 2013 - 05:30 .

[ruggly]

dreamgazer wrote...

spirosz wrote...

J. Reezy wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

spirosz wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Armass81 wrote...

Its been almost 2 years, how many times have we had this conversation about the endings? How many times have we trodden the same paths?

Will it ever end?

I hope not!

[durasteel]

AlanC9 wrote...
Why must one assume that? And "refined" how, exactly? Either the Reapers have a beneficial purpose, or they do not.

One must assume that because Drew specifically threw out the concept as a rought initial idea and specified that it had not been developed or worked on at all. To assume that those initial thoughts would translate 100% into the finished product is asinine.

Also, your "either, or" is just plain wrong. Even in the steaming turd ending we got, the Reapers thought they had a beneficial purpose, while the rest of the galaxy disagreed. 

I don't know how it might have been refined, I'm not a writer. Even I, however, have thrown out a number of ideas in other threads for how the initial concept could be worked into something that made a bit more sense. For example, instead of trying to prevent the dark energy galactic meltdown, the Reapers could have been focussed on a way to survive it, and could be encoding species into giant metal crustaceans because they have concluded that that form offered their best chance at preservation, similar to the twisted motivation of Brainiac in some incarnations.

The point is that the ME team of writers was perfectly capable of turning the dark energy plot into something that would have been at least palatable. For that matter, they were likely capable of turning the haywire AI reaper god concept into something at least palatable, as well. The "lesson" they need to have learned from ME3 is about why that process didn't take place, and I suspect that the longer development time frames for their current projects reflects better than anything that the lesson was learned. Whatever comments about it that Mac or anyone else make in interviews are just noise, because they cannot come out and say "EA screwed us on the release date and we weren't ready, so we threw the ending together at the last minute and it sucked. Sorry."

Modifié par durasteel, 31 décembre 2013 - 07:55 .

[Invisible Man]

@ durasteel
think I made a post or two that went along the lines of:
i'll wait till we see what the production cycle looks like, before I make any guesses about the stories quality, or the quality of the game in general. though I guess you actually said what I was trying to imply.

Modifié par Invisible Man, 31 décembre 2013 - 08:59 .

[AlanC9]

durasteel wrote...
The point is that the ME team of writers was perfectly capable of turning the dark energy plot into something that would have been at least palatable. For that matter, they were likely capable of turning the haywire AI reaper god concept into something at least palatable, as well. The "lesson" they need to have learned from ME3 is about why that process didn't take place, and I suspect that the longer development time frames for their current projects reflects better than anything that the lesson was learned. Whatever comments about it that Mac or anyone else make in interviews are just noise, because they cannot come out and say "EA screwed us on the release date and we weren't ready, so we threw the ending together at the last minute and it sucked. Sorry."

This would make a bit more sense if you could attach a working definition of "palatable" and explain why short development time can lead to nonpalatability. Right now all I see is wishful thinking.

Modifié par AlanC9, 31 décembre 2013 - 08:29 .

[Invisible Man]

AlanC9 wrote...

durasteel wrote...
The point is that the ME team of writers was perfectly capable of turning the dark energy plot into something that would have been at least palatable. For that matter, they were likely capable of turning the haywire AI reaper god concept into something at least palatable, as well. The "lesson" they need to have learned from ME3 is about why that process didn't take place, and I suspect that the longer development time frames for their current projects reflects better than anything that the lesson was learned. Whatever comments about it that Mac or anyone else make in interviews are just noise, because they cannot come out and say "EA screwed us on the release date and we weren't ready, so we threw the ending together at the last minute and it sucked. Sorry."

This would make a bit more sense if you could attach a working definition of "palatable" and explain why short development time can lead to nonpalatability. Right now all I see is wishful thinking.

it's not so much a long production time makes a better game, or short development time makes a game worse; it's more like a quality game with a complex plot & engaging story is less likely to have a short development cycle, and more likely to have a longer one.

[durasteel]

pal·at·a·ble
adj.
1. Acceptable to the taste; sufficiently agreeable in flavor to be eaten.
2. Acceptable or agreeable to the mind or sensibilities: a palatable solution to the problem.

In this case, a palatable ending would have been one where there was not a critical mass of players expressing dissatisfaction with it such that the company felt pressured to attempt to fix it in some way.

Short development time can lead to unpalatability like we saw in DA2, which is not exactly what I'm talking about here. For ME3, the release windows for it and SWTOR were switched, so 4 or more months of development time were chopped off of ME3 which led, ultimately, to the ending being written at the last minute. "The Final Hours" app. as you well know, talks about the ending dialog being written with the voice actors already in the booth.

If your normal development process is for main story elements to be discussed and brainstormed by the writing team, but a truncated schedule leads to one guy hammering out script without peer review or team participation, it shouldn't surprise anyone when the result is unpalatable, and it is certainly not wishful thinking to surmise that a little more time for the regular process to be realised would have made a big difference in the outcome.

[AlanC9]

My fault for not being more specific than asking for a "working definition."  Stupid questions deserve stupid answers.

Would the DE ending have been palatable? If not, why not?. Why wasn't the existing ending palatable? Could it have been made so? If not, why not? At what point should the unpalatability have been recognized? How would you recognize it?

There's a simple answer I've seen proposed to these questions: all people ever really wanted is for Shepard to ride off into the sunset with his/her LI, and the supposed ambiguity of the breath clip didn't provide this. I'm told that simple answer is the wrong one. What's the right one?

Modifié par AlanC9, 31 décembre 2013 - 10:33 .

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...
There's a simple answer I've seen proposed to these questions: all people ever really wanted is for Shepard to ride off into the sunset with his/her LI, and the supposed ambiguity of the breath clip didn't provide this. I'm told that simple answer is the wrong one. What's the right one?

Assuming that Shepard living is all people want, the simple answer is:

Provide endng outcomes where Shepard clearly lives.  Not just a breath scene tacked onto an ending that's identical in every way to Shepard dying.

Again, look to Dragon Age: Origins.  Very different end scenes if the Warden lives or dies.  Compare to 3099 EMS and 3100 EMS in ME3 where everything plays out exactly the same right up to the last ten seconds. It's a Shepard dies ending with an easter egg attatched.

[durasteel]

AlanC9 wrote...
...
There's a simple answer I've seen proposed to these questions: all people ever really wanted is for Shepard to ride off into the sunset with his/her LI, and the supposed ambiguity of the breath clip didn't provide this. I'm told that simple answer is the wrong one. What's the right one?

There is not one right answer.

The "ride off into the sunset" solution is not the best answer, necessarily, but it's much easier to be forgiving of weak writing that lacks permanence. The beginning of ME3 was pretty seriously bad, but before you knew it you had moved on and were looking forward, not back. When the end is both bad and final, you're left with that sour note forever.

Would the DE plot have resulted in a palatable ending? It depends. If those ideas had gone into a room of writers who could challenege parts, add others, and knead it into a developed plot, then it probably would have. Since dark energy is a thing (it theoretically speeds up the expansion of the universe) it is preferable to random colorful space magic as an explanation for stuff, even if it is festooned with silly parts.

You know exactly why the current ending is unpalatable to me, since we've been over that in other threads already. Its unpalatability should have been recognised when the basic premises and structure of the ending were discussed among the writing staff. As I understand it, that's the typical way this studio operates, but it didn't happen this time. Had the writing staff at large had an opportunity to provide feedback, I suspect the ending would have turned out differently.

I notice that despite how active you are on this forum, Alan, you rarely offer much in the way of your own opinions. Was the ending of ME3 palatable to you? Why, or why not? Did the EC make a difference? Would an ending based off of the DE framework have been unpalatable to you? Why, or why not? If Shepard had ridden off into the sunset with a LI to live happily ever after raising war orphans of every spacefaring species in a huge commune of space hippies, would that have offended you?

Modifié par durasteel, 31 décembre 2013 - 11:12 .

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...
Assuming that Shepard living is all people want, the simple answer is:

Provide endng outcomes where Shepard clearly lives.  Not just a breath scene tacked onto an ending that's identical in every way to Shepard dying.

Again, look to Dragon Age: Origins.  Very different end scenes if the Warden lives or dies.  Compare to 3099 EMS and 3100 EMS in ME3 where everything plays out exactly the same right up to the last ten seconds. It's a Shepard dies ending with an easter egg attatched.

Sure. This would mean there's a presentation failure rather than a conceptual problem. I wonder what Bio's beta reports showed. It's easy to see how this sort of thing slips by internally; if you know Shepard lives, then when you look at the clip you see Shepard living, right?

If you think this is really the problem, of course.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

Sure. This would mean there's a presentation failure rather than a conceptual problem. I wonder what Bio's beta reports showed. It's easy to see how this sort of thing slips by internally; if you know Shepard lives, then when you look at the clip you see Shepard living, right?

If you think this is really the problem, of course.

Perhaps if you know Shepard lives.  But as I said that clip is the only alteration to the standard Shepard Dies ending 

I would also add more scenerios where Shepard could live.  ideally, in all three "choices" just to keepp things fair.

And of course, this is, of course, if you think Shepard's survival is the main problem.  As I've said for me it's a major secondary concern.

[crimzontearz]

Why is it so hard to understand to some that this is a suspension of disbelief issue induced by poor presentation?

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...


And of course, this is, of course, if you think Shepard's survival is the main problem.  As I've said for me it's a major secondary concern.

Right. I don't know how common your perspective is.

[AlanC9]

durasteel wrote...
You know exactly why the current ending is unpalatable to me, since we've been over that in other threads already. 

 You still should state  the substance of your position, if only for the benefit of the lurkers

I notice that despite how active you are on this forum, Alan, you rarely offer much in the way of your own opinions. Was the ending of ME3 palatable to you? Why, or why not? Did the EC make a difference? Would an ending based off of the DE framework have been unpalatable to you? Why, or why not? If Shepard had ridden off into the sunset with a LI to live happily ever after raising war orphans of every spacefaring species in a huge commune of space hippies, would that have offended you?

 Fair questions. I don't talk very much about my own opinions because they're often not on point for whatever we're talking about. In order: the original ending was a bit abrupt for me, but I didn't have any substantive problems with it. I liked the moral compromise embedded in it, and it's about as good a solution for the irrational Reaper cycles as I could have hoped for. The EC confirmed my impressions of what the initial endings had meant, but I never doubted those impressions anyway. It also lowered EMS requirements, so I'm grateful for that on behalf of my Destroy Sheps. Since I liked the morally conflicted aspect of the endings, DE would have worked fine too. And riding off into the sunset would hardly have offended me, since from what I can see it's implicit in the breath clip.

[FlamingBoy]

crimzontearz wrote...

Why is it so hard to understand to some that this is a suspension of disbelief issue induced by poor presentation?

because biowares honor must be protected!!
quickly crimzon, man the wall, load the cannon, this day we stand against criticism.

*looks to the horizon*

god help us all