642 réponses à ce sujet

[TEWR]

Dave of Canada wrote...

SgtSteel91 wrote...

Dave of Canada wrote...

The ending should have the main character boarding a train to leave while all his/her friends and family watch them leave, a photo of the group can be seen afterwards and everyone will be pleased because it's happy and sad at the same time.

Maybe an epilogue where the main character comes back for a week to hang out with the gang again? Maybe have a party, too?

Print it.

I have seen this ending before. It has been done. DA needs it as well, I agree.

Modifié par The Ethereal Writer Redux, 30 janvier 2014 - 04:09 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mr.House wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

]You can't claim there is one story when there are rpgs with one story, which is the point. Whatever DAo story is linear is moot, DAo has one story that you can change aspects in more ways but it's still one main story, and that is ending the blight which always ends with the Archdemon being defeated.

Why are you focusing on the least interesting narrative in DAO?

Because that least intresting narrative is the main story of the game.

Is there a reason we need to see it as the main story?  Why can't it be background action with a more personal story up front.

It all depends how you look at it.  I choose to look at it in a way that gives me a more enjoyable gameplay experience.

[Sylvius the Mad]

KaiserShep wrote...

Of course I do. I complete every game I play, and consider the ending to be very important, and can potentially break the experience.

I complete almost no games.  I rarely complete a game more than once or twice.

But I often replay games.  I start over, and play through until I'm pretty sure how my character's story ends, and then I start a different one.

Depending on the game, this can either mean that I replay most of the game, or just the beginning.  DAO sort of falls in the middle.  DA2 makes it just to the end of Act I.  KotOR lasts until the big twist.  Skyrim can last hundreds of hours, or just a few.

I've played through the first 5 chapters of Baldur's Gate probably 20 times., but I've actually never finished it.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 30 janvier 2014 - 04:34 .

[KaiserShep]

I'm into this kind of game primarily for the story. The only games I can never complete are ones like GTA, because who cares what they're about anyway? But I treat games like I treat movies. If I don't care to complete it, I'm not likely going to bother with it again anyway

[I SOLD MY SOUL TO BIOWARE]

They're actually my favourite kind of ending when done right.

[Red Panda]

^ That's a great point. Considering there's war everywhere, I'd rather this not end like a typical war story where the heroes win and everyone is happy.


What about and ending with serious moral compromise to challenge the player's decision making instead of simply picking all the nice person options to get the best ending?

Modifié par OperatingWookie, 30 janvier 2014 - 05:11 .

[Iakus]

OperatingWookie wrote...

^ That's a great point. Considering there's war everywhere, I'd rather this not end like a typical war story where the heroes win and everyone is happy.


What about and ending with serious moral compromise to challenge the player's decision making instead of simply picking all the nice person options to get the best ending?

Why does it have to be one or the other?

[KaiserShep]

I'm curious as to what defines "typical" in a fantasy epic involving a war that is neck deep in magic.

[Sylvius the Mad]

KaiserShep wrote...

I'm curious as to what defines "typical" in a fantasy epic involving a war that is neck deep in magic.

DA4 might be a post-apocalyptic game.

[KaiserShep]

Is there even going to be a DA4? I'd rather they cap this series off unless they really have some ideas that they think are worth creating a whole other game for.

[SirGladiator]

I'd never want a 'bad' ending, but the possibility of a bad ending should always be there, to make the good ending that much more satisfying. DAO's formula worked well, ME2's formula worked well, they can both end pretty much as happily or as badly as you want, based entirely on how you played the game. A game that 'couldn't' end well wouldn't be a game worth playing, and a game that couldn't end badly wouldn't be as much fun. You need to have the happy ending, and the bad ending as a possibility so that the happy ending means you earned it, rather than that it was simply a foregone conclusion all along, that's the most satisfying way of doing it.

[Ieldra]

KaiserShep wrote...
Is there even going to be a DA4? I'd rather they cap this series off unless they really have some ideas that they think are worth creating a whole other game for.

David Gaider said they do have those ideas. They just don't talk about them because they don't know if they'll ever be able to make games of them. 

[Ieldra]

Narrow Margin wrote...
If an ending's not good enough to stand up to that it's probably not good enough to stand alone. I think that's one of the positives of having a variety of endings offered. Each one has competition it needs to measure up to. After all. it's easy for tragic endings to be lazy melodrama, make them compete with what many people will consider to be the 'good ending' and there's motivation to put a little more meat on their bones. I'd like a tragic ending I want to choose despite 'better' options, just because it's a satisfying conclusion to the story.

Exactly. I can make characters for whom a tragic ending is appropriate, and then if the game gives me a plausible (!) option to get that I will choose it. Most of my characters, however, are not of that kind, and for them I want to avoid a tragic ending.

Which is why I said that for a forced tragic ending to work, the main character has to be strongly predefined as someone for whom such an ending is appropriate. ME3 tried to make Shepard such a character, but the project leads appeared to have forgotten that it's impossible to do that with the weight of two games where the main character was less defined.

[Neverwinter_Knight77]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Any tragedy in the ending should be a result of our choices. It should not be pre-determined.

This.  Also, I love happy endings.  Tragedy only works for me when there's a sequel to right the wrongs.  Even then, it has to be done just right.

[Lotion Soronarr]

KaiserShep wrote...

Narrow Margin wrote...

If an ending's not good enough to stand up to that it's probably not good enough to stand alone. I think that's one of the positives of having a variety of endings offered. Each one has competition it needs to measure up to. After all. it's easy for tragic endings to be lazy melodrama, make them compete with what many people will consider to be the 'good ending' and there's motivation to put a little more meat on their bones. I'd like a tragic ending I want to choose despite 'better' options, just because it's a satisfying conclusion to the story.

And this is true of DA:O's ending. I've seen all sorts of arguments against taking the dark ritual and going with the Warden's death ending, despite being able to avoid it.

I'd say it's not really a "dark" ending. Death of a protagonist by itself does not make the ending dark.
Aside from the Warden dying, what is the difference?

It's hard ot make a "good" ending and a "bad" ending equally attractive. Most would argue that the bad ending isn't bad to begin with in that case.

DA:O was good in that regard. The final choice was a matter of how much you trust Morrigan and how much you are willign to risk.
The problem is if a "good" ending is achieved by doing rational, smart stuff while to reach a "bad" ending you have to perpusfully gimp yourself. If faliue is impossible as long as yo uhave the most basic amount of intelligence, than that isn't challenging or attractive.

[Lotion Soronarr]

EJ107 wrote...

It depends entirely on if it fits the tone and genre of the game/movie/book whatever the ending is part of. One of the reason I despised Mass Effect 3's ending so much is that the ending and Shepard dying just didn't fit the tone of the games. They were always more heroic sci-fi than biblically symbolic art pieces, which is what the ending amounted to.

I disagree.
Just because you choose to see it as Star Trek doesn't mean it is star trek.
It was obvious even from ME1 that the reapers are not a easy foe...and even in ST people die.

I think that there should always be an option for the protagonist to survive in these sort of games.

To me the survival of the protagonist is irrelevant to the qualtiy of the plot/story. That said, I do not mind an option to walk away at any time. It would end the game early with a slide card (and if the stakes are high enough, like in ME3, the end of the world), sure...but it's STILL a choice the player should be allowed to make.

I personally have no problem with a "rocks fall, everybody dies" ending.
Or a "stray bullet catches X in the head".
Because people die.
There doesn't have to be a heroic sacrifice. Or a willing one. Sure, if you want to play a character who runs away to live in a land with blackjack and hookers, go for it. I'd support the game that allows that. But I'm agaisnt the idea that we get to direct the consequences of our action and be the ultimate director.


Yes, your character CHOSE to go to the land of LasVegasia. However, what happens htere is not and should not be under the players control - EVER. The player should control ONLY the the PC and nothing else. Not the action of hte others or hte enviroment.

PC climbs a volacano and the volcano blows up? He defeats the big bad in a cave and the cave come down crashing? Too bad, you're dead. You don't get to control the volcano or the cave. In other words, the PC's survival should NOT be a guarantee and it's NOT something that must be in.

If you don't like it, reload or play another game.

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 30 janvier 2014 - 10:23 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

TheRedVipress wrote...
At this point there was not even a real need for personal sacrifise - a deus ex machina of this caliber does not need the broken corpse of one man to work its space magic, and a personality imprint could have been taken without the need for the protagonist to be fried to death by electricity.

The ending is not the problem of ME3. ME3 is hte problem of ME3. The writing was bad from the start. The enmd was jsut the mobst obvious example.

And while I hate the catalyst, I do not think we know enough about a personlity imprint process to know that there is a way to do it wihout killing the guy. In science-fiction, making engrams usually destroys the original brain.

[Il Divo]

HiroVoid wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

Killdren88 wrote...

Gotta agree with Kaiser here. For me the Destination always justifies the Journey that you went on. Not to bring of ME3, but I feel cheated that all of my running around alliances made peace made with the Geth only for it to be meaningless in the end. That is Mass Effect's greatest Sin for me.

No, what made the ending horrible was it made no sense, not because it was dark.

Could it be argued the tone being dark is part of the reason it was horrible due to being in a series that up until that point had basically been Star Trek or Star Wars in tone?

It could, but we were also dealing with a series where up until this point every antagonist could have been easily blown up with a grenade.

If you up the scale of your protagonist, there's a good chance you're upping the stakes. It doesn't help that ME1 established Sovereign as insanely powerful and ME2 made no efforts towards a solution to the Reaper problem. ME3 via its main missions already has a different tone to ME1 or 2.

[Il Divo]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

]You can't claim there is one story when there are rpgs with one story, which is the point. Whatever DAo story is linear is moot, DAo has one story that you can change aspects in more ways but it's still one main story, and that is ending the blight which always ends with the Archdemon being defeated.

Why are you focusing on the least interesting narrative in DAO?

Because that least intresting narrative is the main story of the game.

Is there a reason we need to see it as the main story?  Why can't it be background action with a more personal story up front.

It all depends how you look at it.  I choose to look at it in a way that gives me a more enjoyable gameplay experience.

This is exactly why I see the main plot as the main story. Headcanon, things that I imagine, are never as epic in scope as the story/options encouraged by the game.

[wiccame]

I hate playing a game, where the big focus is choice. I shape a character, the story, to my liking, to how I want it played out. I don't want to reach the end and not be able to determine how my story ends.
So if there has to be a tragic ending, I would also want there to be a happy ending, because that should be a choice too.

[Ridwan]

I prefer a happy ending. Cause I want to replay a game, and not feel like crap after it ended.

[TheChris92]

dreamgazer wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Mr.House wrote...

]You can't claim there is one story when there are rpgs with one story, which is the point. Whatever DAo story is linear is moot, DAo has one story that you can change aspects in more ways but it's still one main story, and that is ending the blight which always ends with the Archdemon being defeated.

Why are you focusing on the least interesting narrative in DAO?

Because that least intresting narrative is the main story of the game.

This is a BioWare game, after all.

I believe David Gaider said it best himself -- What BIoWare do best is not story but characters. We aren't here for an engaging plot but engaging characters that drives it.

[TheChris92]

HiroVoid wrote...

Could it be argued the tone being dark is part of the reason it was horrible due to being in a series that up until that point had basically been Star Trek or Star Wars in tone?

I've never seen Star Trek but I'd like to believe that it is much more dark than the latter. Or is the argument based on Star Wars being relatively consistent in tone through all of it, whereas Star Trek tends to shift? I think there's a bit of difference when it's a show as opposed to a movie series.

Modifié par TheChris92, 30 janvier 2014 - 12:21 .

[Slayer299]

Tragic endings aren't a problem so much if they are a result of what choices we've made in-game and not a matter of the writers/devs wanting the ending to be 'edgy/dark' or 'happy endings are too cliche' or some such thing that leaves ZERO choice in the outcome (good or bad).

Someone earlier said "It's all about the Journey and not the destination", to that I have to disagree, because if the destination sucks eggs than the entire journey was damn pointless after all that. Since why would I want to make a return trip and second time?

[EmperorSahlertz]

This right there is the problem. A tragic ending is NOT a "bad ending", it is just an ending. A happy ending is not a "good ending" either. It all depends on the execution of the plot and the journey up to this point.

For instance, The Walking Dead game from TellTale has what many would describe as a tragic ending, but it is a very "good ending" because over the course of the game you have become invested in the characters, and therefore the ending leaves a huge impact on you.

People also need to understand the difference between a tragic ending and a hopeless ending. A tragic ending does not mean you need to end in failure, or that your entire previous journey has been for nothing, it just has to be sad. Personally I particularly love the ending of the novel/movie 'The Road' because while being extremely sad and tragic, it also leaves one hopeful.

However, if given the chance to avoid tragedy 90% of people will do so, for obvious reasons (it isn't nice to feel sad). So tragedy often has to be forced on the player, such as a companion sacrificing himself/herself, the main character's mother dying, or any such thing.