692 réponses à ce sujet

[NeonFlux117]

In a nutshell this is what Mass Effect is about and the ending of ME3 and thus the trilogy and Shepard's journey.

Mass Effect is about a Super powerful, Herculean, juggernaught ultra cool Space Marine-Shepard. This journey is a fantasy powertrip to the utmost degree. Shepard shoots bad guys and aliens of all shapes and sizes in the face, while saving entire species and being the Ultimate Hero. Shepard is so cool- and the Rule of Cool (ROC) supersedes everything. Shepard is so powerful and talented that Shepard can even talk to the Machine Gods-Reapers. In fact in the ending of Shepard's journey, Shepard can choose the fate of Everything and Everybody (Hence fantasy powertrip)... Including the Machine Gods(Herculean tale of Gods vs. Man). Because Shepard is so cool (ROC supersedes all remember).

Shepard, because he's Shepard and the Hero and Herculean warrior can choose the following during the ending of his Journey and main conflict with the Machine Gods:

Become a God- Control ending path

Join the Gods- Synthesis ending path

Destroy the Gods- Obvious. Destroy ending path.

Defy the Gods- Refuse ending path.

Mass Effect is a power trip fantasy in which the audience assumes the role of Herculean Hero who defeats the Evil Machine Gods and saves and liberates the Galaxy.


Mass Effect is a space opera. And that's all folks.

It also fits Space Opera and a Herculean tale because it required the discovery of a miracle-(The Crucicle) and a final conversation with the God King (The Catalyst) to execute said ending choices. 

It's a fairy tale, Herculean adventure, Space Opera. 

Modifié par NeonFlux117, 13 janvier 2014 - 08:55 .

[Almostfaceman]

c091n87 wrote...

Regarding the ending, no matter how many times this or this, people keep pushing them for more. Technically, Mass Effect 3 reached its End Of Life as of March 5 2013. Essentially it has gone the way Windows XP will go in April 2014. No more support, no more updates, they are finished with the game.

Nobody's pushing them for more at this point. That's why there's a modding community taking up the job on its own. You're not telling us anything we don't already know. 

[Iakus]

c091n87 wrote...

I never personally said those words.

A lot of the stuff during the last 20 minutes of the game does require a bit of work on your part, as well as being able to connect the dots with the subtle clues that were provided.

You were more verbose tham most, but yeah that's what you said.

Unless you're trying to insinuate IT?

Bottom line, trying to make an ending which makes everyone happy is pretty much impossible. Like anything in business, you can't satisfy everyone, and if that means that a lot of you here will be upset. So be it. They said it back in 2006 or so that their fans are some of the hardest customers of theirs to please. While some people were perfectly okay with the Extended Cut. They didn't let the last 10 minutes of a game ruin an otherwise great 98% of it.

Indeed.  One single ending won't satisfy everyone.  Especially not over a trilogy.

So make lots of endings, lots and lots of cariations.  Not one, or three, or ten, but dozens.  Lots of potential sacrifices, lots of variations of "victory"  Don't railroad the sacrifice.  Let the player decide what's worth giving up.

Regarding the ending, no matter how many times this or this, people keep pushing them for more. Technically, Mass Effect 3 reached its End Of Life as of March 5 2013. Essentially it has gone the way Windows XP will go in April 2014. No more support, no more updates, they are finished with the game.

And I'm really curious how the marketing team is going to say or do to coax people back for the next ME game.

"Your chocies matter!  We mean it this time!"

[Almostfaceman]

c091n87 wrote...

My advice to you is to either move on or play something else.

Thanks for that. I'm here mainly for the Fan Creations threads and I pop into here to guage the interest in this game and who's still saying what. So, I guess I'm not moving on right now.

Say, you can move on as well if you want. 

Or, we can all visit whenever we want and talk about stuff. You know, like it's a free country or something. 

[Almostfaceman]

c091n87 wrote...

I don't really know what you want, and I don't think Bioware does either. You keep talking about how the ending doesn't make sense, or breaks the lore, but everyone sees everything differently. Some thought the ending made sense. Some thought the ending fits perfectly within the lore. I just think people have different opinions on what the lore means to them. There is no right or wrong answer.

Well, a lot has been said on this subject, especially when the game first came out. If you don't know by now and you missed all of that, I'm sure you can dig around if you're really interested and find the answers you seek. 

Bioware knew what we wanted, because they marketed the game accurately. They just didn't live up to their marketing. That really cheesed off a lot of folks. 

[Almostfaceman]

iakus wrote...

And I'm really curious how the marketing team is going to say or do to coax people back for the next ME game.

"Your chocies matter!  We mean it this time!"

They're going to say "Try our game for free! If you like it, you buy it!"

Wait, that's in that perfect world I keep daydreaming about, nevermind. 

[Almostfaceman]

iakus wrote...

Indeed.  One single ending won't satisfy everyone.  Especially not over a trilogy.

So make lots of endings, lots and lots of cariations.  Not one, or three, or ten, but dozens.  Lots of potential sacrifices, lots of variations of "victory"  Don't railroad the sacrifice.  Let the player decide what's worth giving up.

I don't know, that's dangerously close to how they advertised the game. Can't have that. 

[Roux72]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Roux72 wrote...

"Negative side affects." That's a very diplomatic and mild way of putting it sure... Does this not mean that the next Mass Effect game essentially has to be a prequel, like rachni conquests, krogan rebellions, first contact war or something? I just don't see how glactic civilization carries on after any of these "endings" and hence where a sequel would work and be an interesting game to play.

What does the fact that the endings are divergent have to do with any of that?

I'll agree that it makes things defficult for a sequel. However, that was never the subject of this thread.

I didn't say it was that they were "divergent," merely that they way they played out for the most part would make a sequel pretty hard. Which is why I am both curious and hesitant with the new Mass Effect game. Knowing so little about it at this point I'm interested to see what happens in regards to things like space travel, and what effect that will have on the direction of the series.

[dreamgazer]

Almostfaceman wrote...

iakus wrote...

Indeed.  One single ending won't satisfy everyone.  Especially not over a trilogy.

So make lots of endings, lots and lots of cariations.  Not one, or three, or ten, but dozens.  Lots of potential sacrifices, lots of variations of "victory"  Don't railroad the sacrifice.  Let the player decide what's worth giving up.

I don't know, that's dangerously close to how they advertised the game. Can't have that. 

Eh, they let decisions shape the way the entirety of ME3 looks, feels, and impacts the ending's context, then stuck with their regular formula of how choices affected the ending of the previous two games: very, very little, outside of one big choice to make.

Modifié par dreamgazer, 14 janvier 2014 - 03:18 .

[Iakus]

dreamgazer wrote...

Eh, they let decisions shape the way the entirety of ME3 looks, feels, and impacts the ending's context, then stuck with their regular formula of how choices affected the ending of the previous two games: very, very little, outside of one big choice to make.

Well, except the end choice in the previous two games screwed over a few thousand people tops, instead of the entire galaxy.

[dreamgazer]

iakus wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Eh, they let decisions shape the way the entirety of ME3 looks, feels, and impacts the ending's context, then stuck with their regular formula of how choices affected the ending of the previous two games: very, very little, outside of one big choice to make.

Well, except the end choice in the previous two games screwed over a few thousand people tops, instead of the entire galaxy.

Yup. It's a bigger choice to end the series.  

And I dunno about you pre-MEHEM, but I didn't screw my galaxy over.

[Iakus]

dreamgazer wrote...

Yup. It's a bigger choice to end the series.  

And I dunno about you pre-MEHEM, but I didn't screw my galaxy over.

pre-MEHEM, the galaxy is screwed no matter whast I chose.  All my decision provides is how it get screwed.

With MEHEM, Shepard doesn't screw the galaxy in defeating the reapers.  My choicies throughout the trilogy might or might not screw individual groups though.

[dreamgazer]

iakus wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Yup. It's a bigger choice to end the series.  

And I dunno about you pre-MEHEM, but I didn't screw my galaxy over.

pre-MEHEM, the galaxy is screwed no matter whast I chose.  All my decision provides is how it get screwed.

With MEHEM, Shepard doesn't screw the galaxy in defeating the reapers.  My choicies throughout the trilogy might or might not screw individual groups though.

Yeah, it's a shame you feel that way.  Ah well, at least you have a mod to ease your burden now. 

[Iakus]

dreamgazer wrote...

Yeah, it's a shame you feel that way.  Ah well, at least you have a mod to ease your burden now. 

Until the next game comes out, at least.

[CronoDragoon]

This is ultimately going to end in iakus providing his own arbitrary definition of "screwed" that makes discussion a bit pointless. Not belittling, just seen this play out too many times.

[Iakus]

CronoDragoon wrote...

This is ultimately going to end in iakus providing his own arbitrary definition of "screwed" that makes discussion a bit pointless. Not belittling, just seen this play out too many times.

I wouldn't give an "arbitrary definition" unless asked for one.  

But I daresay I put more thought into my own reasons than Bioware put into the endings themselves.

[CronoDragoon]

iakus wrote...
I wouldn't give an "arbitrary definition" unless asked for one.

Right, which would be the next step if someone asked why you felt the galaxy is screwed. 

But I daresay I put more thought into my own reasons than Bioware put into the endings themselves.

Oh absolutely.

[Almostfaceman]

dreamgazer wrote...

Eh, they let decisions shape the way the entirety of ME3 looks, feels, and impacts the ending's context, then stuck with their regular formula of how choices affected the ending of the previous two games: very, very little, outside of one big choice to make.

That may be true, but I was speaking to how they advertised the game, which was the ending would - wrap everything up, be better than previous games and be determined by previous choices, thus more diverse. Yeah, that didn't happen, and it should have.

Modifié par Almostfaceman, 14 janvier 2014 - 04:42 .

[CronoDragoon]

Almostfaceman wrote...
That may be true, but I was speaking to how they advertised the game, which was the ending would - wrap everything up, be better than previous games and be determined by previous choices, thus more diverse. Yeah, that didn't happen, and it should have.

We talkin' OEs or EC? EC did all the things you mentioned: the ME3 endings are absolutely more diverse than ME1 or ME2.

[ImaginaryMatter]

c091n87 wrote...

ImaginaryMatter wrote...
I'm probably going to regret this... but what subtle clues? An in-depth breakdown of the ending sequence only highlights how shoehorned it was into the story.

Shoehorned? As in it doesn't fit with the rest of the game. Like that link I posted states, this thing was planned. People might think it comes out of nowhere, or it wasn't planned, but it was.

If you want an explanation to the ending, go replay Leviathan DLC. To make it short, the beginning when you arrive at Bryson's office and the very end of it when you talk to Leviathan are where you'll find the answers.

It's been stated in various interviews with the orginal writing team that although the series was planned out to be a trilogy, it wasn't written out in advance, and that shows up waaay before ME3's ending (like in ME2). Additionly, Drew Karpyshyn is very well known to have explained that the ending was not fleshed out back when he was on the team during the development of ME2 and what was planned had to deal with Dark Energy, or Shepard being an alien, or (and this is the closest thing to ME3's ending) the concept that Shepard was a Synthetic/Organic being. Thirdly, the article posted, allegedly by Patrick Weakes, states that he was equally surprised by the ending of ME3 just as everyone else.

And the Levithan DLC is... DLC it is additional paid content, it's bearing on the ending has to be taken with a grain of salt, given that it is supposed to be supplementary and not everyone has it. I do; however, own the Levithan DLC and despite how much I like the DLC as a whole it's explanation for the Reapers origins almost makes the problem worse: Why did the Leviathans create a synthetic to solve the problem of Organics creating Synthetics? Why then did they not shackle such an obvious threat or in any way create some system of oversight or limitations? Why couldn't the Leviathans with their super-advance tech and mind control powers not solve the problems themselves? How did said gods of the galaxy(if the narrative is to be believed) lose to the Catalyst? Why is the Leviathan that was met so adamant to defend that the Catalyst was just doing its job when the purpose of the Catalyst was to insure that the tribute gravy train kept rolling?

To make these questions work the Leviathans had to have been super-duper selectively arrogant for the sake of the plot or several thousands of years of inbreeding dumbed them down to levels where they collectively thought the whole Catalyst thing was a good idea.

And then we get to the actual ending, there's a lot wrong here without even gettting into the existance of the Crucible:

How did the Citadel safetly get to Earth in the course of three hours? If the Reapers had control of the station why not shut down the Relay network (as established in ME1)? Why not do this earlier if it was so easy, such an action would have greatly aided the Reaper war effort? If the Citadel was the home of the Catalyst how come it went with the whole Keeper/Vangard-of-Destruction plan? How did it not realize what the Protheans were up to? How come it didn't help Sovereign out? Why didn't the Reapers focus fire on the Crucible? Why didn't any Reaper turn off the beam? Why did they Catalyst bring Shepard up to the decision chamber, instead of just leaving him at the bottom or venting the decision chamber?

How come Shepard can't question the validity of the Catalyst's premise or bring up the conclusion to Rannoch? Why does the Catalyst accept the Destroy option when it acknowledges that it is not a permanent solution? Does the Catalyst think Shepard some how knows better or did the Crucible change him? Why does the Citadel have a destructible fuel pump that activates the Crucible? Why does the Citadel have electric knobs that allow... whatever the exact mechanics of the Control option are? Can the Catalyst read minds or was there only one kid character model, if the former, what technology is it using? How come the results of Synthesis or it's mechanics were not even hinted at in the bulk of the game?

There's more but that would require watching the end again and I hope I made my point; which is that almost every other line of dialogue is something that doens't makes sense, or brings up another unanswered question, or questions the Reapers past actions. Some of these questions are bigger than the other ones and I'm sure a good deal of them have a fan theory or super detailed lore speculation that at most handwaves the problem. The point is the entire ending sequence is so weird that the only way to make sense of it is to jump down the rabbit hole; only much like Alice, we find that the world beneath the surface is even more mad.