152 réponses à ce sujet

[AllThatJazz]

@Akikishi yes, I know. Except that, depending on how you define 'major variation' there are differences within those three that make them not completely A, B or C. Low EMS Renegade Control is different from high EMS Paragon control even though they are technically the same choice. The daft thing was in how the endings were presented and how that statement was worded, not in what variations each one actually contained (and I say this as someone who didn't enjoy the end of the game). And even so, the 'loads of wildly different endings' claim, which is essentially what that was, is made by numerous companies whose endings are fundamentally no more different than those but they aren't given a load of grief. I think all companies should get off the 'how many endings there are' thing, but then game journalists and fans need to stop asking ...

[AkiKishi]

But we should remember that that game (which we don't have to talk about every time the word "ending" is mentioned!) was (1) delivered by a different Bioware team, not the same team working on DA; and was (2) the last in a trilogy, so - whatever you might think about the endings - the freedom did exist to create completely divergent endings, regardless of consequence to the setting. It seems very unlikely to me that the DA team will go in anything like that direction.

 

I have no doubt at all that the ending(s) of DAI will resemble the ending style of DAO far more closely than that of any of the ME games.

 

Well we have DA2 which ended the same way regardless of what side you choose, so I don't think either game is really a good example of delivering divergent endings. 

 

The other problem with divergent endings is while they work great in stand alone games, unless they acknowledged in future games , then they may as well not be there.

[AkiKishi]

@Akikishi yes, I know. Except that, depending on how you define 'major variation' there are differences within those three that make them not completely A, B or C. Low EMS Renegade Control is different from high EMS Paragon control even though they are technically the same choice. The daft thing was in how the endings were presented and how that statement was worded, not in what variations each one actually contained (and I say this as someone who didn't enjoy the end of the game). And even so, the 'loads of wildly different endings' claim, which is essentially what that was, is made by numerous companies whose endings are fundamentally no more different than those but they aren't given a load of grief. I think all companies should get off the 'how many endings there are' thing, but then game journalists and fans need to stop asking ...

 

I'll use Atelier Rorona as a example. 

 

These are the endings 

 

Bad > Astrid > Adventurer > Character > Pie/Rich > True/Good/Normal

Cordelia > Sterk > Iksel > Lionela > Tantris > Gio 

 

It's also possible to get an ending like. 

 

 

Which is the pie ending with a high female Hom rating. But that's not classed as an ending in it's own right. If you do accept that as an ending, then Rorona has over 30 endings.

 

This one is the rich ending with male Hom. 

 

 

What we should have are.

 

1. An ending where you screw up. 

2. An ok ending where things work out 

3. A true ending where things work out really well, but is very hard to accomplish. 

 

An ending for each companion with the highest rating triggering the ending. Modified by whether said companion was an LI.

 

Various what the Inquisitor did afterwards based on what you did during the game.

[AllThatJazz]

Well we have DA2 which ended the same way regardless of what side you choose, so I don't think either game is really a good example of delivering divergent endings. 

 

The other problem with divergent endings is while they work great in stand alone games, unless they acknowledged in future games , then they may as well not be there.

 Like Alex pointed out though, DA2 isn't the end of a trilogy - so there wasn't as much freedom to do a truly divergent ending -  unless Bio wanted to get themselves in the same mess they found themselves in after ME2. The suicide mission was great but it caused all sorts of problems for ME3 in terms of them lacking time/resources to fully and properly explore the consequences of those choices. Honestly,  I think that Hawke's personal choice in who to support (even though the bigger consequences of that were non existent) was probably the most the devs could do given that they clearly wanted the Mage/Templar issue to continue into the next game and didn't want too many variations to contend with.

[Heimdall]

I'm really not concerned about endings at this point. There I plenty of things the game could get wrong before I reach that point.

[Naktis]

Mine and Arishok opinion is the same.....NO!

[AllThatJazz]

@ Akikishi yes, the types you propose do sound good - not that different from the endings we got in Origins as far as the protag is concerned (Warden dies, Warden lives but someone else dies, everyone lives but there's a bit of a question mark as to what will happen as a result of that). The only problem I can see with the 'screw up' ending is that, assuming there are more Dragon Age games, there would have to be measurable, visible consequences to that screw-up, or Bioware will be in trouble (again) for ignoring player choice or not doing enough to show the results. There are already a fair few unanswered questions in the DA Universe (OGB, why is Leliana alive, what happened to Hawke and The Warden etc), too many more might just make things messy, depending on if they're dealt with in Inquisition.

 

The Atelier game is a good example of wildly different endings, that sounds great. Are these endings supposed to carry through to the next game, though? And was there a trade-off in terms of overall story, gameplay, characters, visuals in favour on concentrating on the endings? Personally, I still think there was enough variation in ME3's endings (even within ABC) to give choices some weight and a feeling of difference (particularly post EC), but that's obviously highly subjective. Whether any of them were an enjoyable experience is, uh, another argument.

 

I have to admit, I can't get into Atelier enough to want to experience any of the endings, let alone 11 of them. I find the overall plot and characters bland and dull, though I will give it another crack at some point because I really want to like it. Give me one ending and a game I really enjoy, or even a crap ending and a game I enjoy, rather than a magnificent endings rainbow to a game I dislike. Your point was well made, though.

[AlexJK]

What we should have are.
 
1. An ending where you screw up. 
2. An ok ending where things work out 
3. A true ending where things work out really well, but is very hard to accomplish. 

The only problem I can see with the 'screw up' ending is that, assuming there are more Dragon Age games, there would have to be measurable, visible consequences to that screw-up, or Bioware will be in trouble (again) for ignoring player choice or not doing enough to show the results.

 
Solution: major "failure" ending cannot be carried to future games? (Minor screw ups with consequences can be, of course, in the context of wider success.)

 

Although the idea of failure in an ending needs to be handled pretty carefully anyway, for at least one good reason - most players probably wouldn't like it, and as far as selling more DA games goes, that's a Bad Thing ™.

[AkiKishi]

 
Solution: major "failure" ending cannot be carried to future games? (Minor screw ups with consequences can be, of course, in the context of wider success.)

 

Although the idea of failure in an ending needs to be handled pretty carefully anyway, for at least one good reason - most players probably wouldn't like it, and as far as selling more DA games goes, that's a Bad Thing ™.

 

As long as you leave a time gap anything can happen. Unless you burn the world to ash or something (Bound by Flame) most endings can be "fixed" outside of player control. If there is a DA4, then it should take place in a very different world setting with no real cross over except perhaps Flemeth. That's how the Atelier games tend to handle endings game to game, it's something the character did, but it did not last.

 

Failure ending depends entirely on when the fail flag is raised. In some cases it's no different to failing combat and requiring a reload. Other times you can do something to trigger it early on. In most games failing is really hard. Planescape Torment has a number of endings that could be called fail endings and it handles them really well.

[fchopin]

If they planned the structure of the game from the beginning i don’t see why the endings should not deliver.

[AllThatJazz]

Yeah I wouldn't object to a 'destroy the world, mwahahaha' ending, even though I can't imagine ever playing it. Though I could see the same people who already dislike BioWare's handling of c&c complaining that it's a copout.

 

Same with it being like in Atelier - just moving the story geographically and ignoring what came before would lead players to complain that their actions had no consequences/were being handwaved because the repercussions aren't dealt with.  For a franchise (and indeed a style of game) that's marketed as 'Decisions Matter!' that may well be a problem to many. Not to me, I have to say. I prefer the idea of games that are largely independent of one another and where only 'flavour' consequences cross over at all. But I think there are many BioWare fans who are very into the cross-game c&c.Also, too many years in the future and the entire series would require a name change  - the series as it is, is supposed to be about this hundred-year span called the Dragon Age. 

 

Planescape was amazing - but again, they could do what they wanted with the ending because a) it was an incredibly personal story where the consequences had little to no impact on anyone or anything aside from Nameless himself and b ) no danger of a sequel. 

 

I need to go and do some exercise! It's been good exchanging opinions, Akikishi and Alex

[AlexJK]

As long as you leave a time gap anything can happen. Unless you burn the world to ash or something (Bound by Flame) most endings can be "fixed" outside of player control. If there is a DA4, then it should take place in a very different world setting with no real cross over except perhaps Flemeth. That's how the Atelier games tend to handle endings game to game, it's something the character did, but it did not last.

This is probably getting a bit hypothetical now, but you can't ask for both endings that have lasting consequence, and endings which "did not last". Dragon Age has, so far, shown that it wants to be a relatively small, quite persistent world with recurring characters, locations and themes, so large time- or setting-shifts aren't going to work.
 

Failure ending depends entirely on when the fail flag is raised. In some cases it's no different to failing combat and requiring a reload. Other times you can do something to trigger it early on. In most games failing is really hard. Planescape Torment has a number of endings that could be called fail endings and it handles them really well.

Can you call something which requires a reload an "ending"? It should certainly be hard to fail though. Ironically, ME3 actually got the idea right - build up war assets, then your success is dependent on whether you gathered enough. The execution was, shall we say, flawed, though.

I need to go and do some exercise! It's been good exchanging opinions, Akikishi and Alex

Enjoy An unusually productive chat for these forums!

[AkiKishi]

Yeah I wouldn't object to a 'destroy the world, mwahahaha' ending, even though I can't imagine ever playing it. Though I could see the same people who already dislike BioWare's handling of c&c complaining that it's a copout.

 

Same with it being like in Atelier - just moving the story geographically and ignoring what came before would lead players to complain that their actions had no consequences/were being handwaved because the repercussions aren't dealt with.  For a franchise (and indeed a style of game) that's marketed as 'Decisions Matter!' that may well be a problem to many. Not to me, I have to say. I prefer the idea of games that are largely independent of one another and where only 'flavour' consequences cross over at all. But I think there are many BioWare fans who are very into the cross-game c&c.Also, too many years in the future and the entire series would require a name change  - the series as it is, is supposed to be about this hundred-year span called the Dragon Age. 

 

Planescape was amazing - but again, they could do what they wanted with the ending because a) it was an incredibly personal story where the consequences had little to no impact on anyone or anything aside from Nameless himself and b ) no danger of a sequel. 

 

I need to go and do some exercise! It's been good exchanging opinions, Akikishi and Alex

 

All endings in Atelier are personal to the character. There is no world shaking implications for any of them. The world carries on regardless of whether Rorona opens a pie shop

 

Trying to change the state of the world is only going to result getting tied up in knots and either ignoring certain things, or overplaying others. We have already seen this with stuff like the OGB. 

[AkiKishi]

This is probably getting a bit hypothetical now, but you can't ask for both endings that have lasting consequence, and endings which "did not last". Dragon Age has, so far, shown that it wants to be a relatively small, quite persistent world with recurring characters, locations and themes, so large time- or setting-shifts aren't going to work.
 

Can you call something which requires a reload an "ending"? It should certainly be hard to fail though. Ironically, ME3 actually got the idea right - build up war assets, then your success is dependent on whether you gathered enough. The execution was, shall we say, flawed, though.


Enjoy An unusually productive chat for these forums!

 

Atelier games are very personal to the character. Rorona opened a pie shop, but she then went on to teach Totori alchemy and then discover the potion of loli. None of the endings really precludes any of that happening even if she got the adventurer ending rather than the pie ending it still slots together. On the other hand trying to rationalise the three ME3 endings into ME4 would be far more difficult. 

 

If you choose not to reload it is But seriously people often reload to get different flag states rather than replay the game. Especially for collecting trophies. The thing with ME3 was you could not win either. Not sure if they changed that, but I'd lost interest by the time the ending patch came out. If you can't win, then it loses meaning and is not really a failure. 

[wetnasty]

 

1. An ending where you screw up. 

2. An ok ending where things work out 

3. A true ending where things work out really well, but is very hard to accomplish. 

 

 

Funny because that's exactly what ME3 had, yet you just spend the last 2 pages blasting it. 

 

1. Ending where you screw up

 

2. Ok ending where things work out

 

3. True ending where things work out really well

 

But I guess that doesn't count because THAT'S NOT THE ENDING I WANTED!!!!!!!!!! -tantrum- 

[Kantr]

I have faith and I like what I've read.

[AkiKishi]

Funny because that's exactly what ME3 had, yet you just spend the last 2 pages blasting it. 

 

1. Ending where you screw up

 

2. Ok ending where things work out

 

3. True ending where things work out really well

 

But I guess that doesn't count because THAT'S NOT THE ENDING I WANTED!!!!!!!!!! -tantrum- 

 

Try quoting the whole thing maybe not just the bit you need to make a point ?

 

What we should have are.

 

1. An ending where you screw up. 

2. An ok ending where things work out 

3. A true ending where things work out really well, but is very hard to accomplish. 

 

An ending for each companion with the highest rating triggering the ending. Modified by whether said companion was an LI.

 

Various what the Inquisitor did afterwards based on what you did during the game.

 

And if your including the patched in endings, really don't bother.

[wetnasty]

Try quoting the whole thing maybe not just the bit you need to make a point ?

 

What we should have are.

 

1. An ending where you screw up. 

2. An ok ending where things work out 

3. A true ending where things work out really well, but is very hard to accomplish. 

 

An ending for each companion with the highest rating triggering the ending. Modified by whether said companion was an LI.

 

Various what the Inquisitor did afterwards based on what you did during the game.

 

And if your including the patched in endings, really don't bother.

 

Even without the "patched in" endings, you still get a scene where you screw up (the normandy blows up) everything worked out ok (but shepard dies) and a "true ending" (shepard breathes). 

 

With the extended ending you get a scene featuring a LI. And what you did in the game determines the epilogue (Geth/Quarian, Krogan genophage, etc.)  

 

Soooo... still confused. 

 

 

P.S. I didn't quote the "whole thing" because no1curr about your crappy Anime game endings. 

[9TailsFox]

Funny because that's exactly what ME3 had, yet you just spend the last 2 pages blasting it. 

 

1. Ending where you screw up

 

2. Ok ending where things work out

 

3. True ending where things work out really well

 

But I guess that doesn't count because THAT'S NOT THE ENDING I WANTED!!!!!!!!!! -tantrum- 

I agree one cements like this of reason ME3 ending is bad because it is not the ending I wanted. But it have much bigger problems like change lead writer (DA don't have this problem I fell what David Gaider and writing team will deliver great story) All main story after ME1 just went down and it was saved only because great characters. Even hell is great place if you have good company. Other big problem main theme unity true diversity changing to man versus machine (Yes it was since ME1 but it was secondary). Ok I can continue all day but I don't want start other ME3 ending sucks topic.

Spoiler

[SolNebula]

Honestly I have two prerequisites for accepting an ending:

 

1) I win (meaning destroying my enemy) otherwise is pointless gaming for me and I start to think I wasted my time (exception can be made if the next game will continue the story)

 

2) I survive as the main protagonist, because you cannot really win if the main protagonist is not alive at the end of the story.

 

The rest is quite secondary. I don't mind if this ending is difficult to achieve, provided I have the possibility to get it if I play well.

 

I consider myself a pragmatic guy so I'm not going to be mad if for the sake of the franchise another ending is canon I just want to be able to have a good ending in my game. If the next game is going to continue from another ending I can deal with it.

[9TailsFox]

Even without the "patched in" endings, you still get a scene where you screw up (the normandy blows up) everything worked out ok (but shepard dies) and a "true ending" (shepard breathes). 

 

With the extended ending you get a scene featuring a LI. And what you did in the game determines the epilogue (Geth/Quarian, Krogan genophage, etc.)  

 

Soooo... still confused. 

 

 

P.S. I didn't quote the "whole thing" because no1curr about your crappy Anime game endings. 

ME3 Ending spoiler.

Spoiler

No matter what you do, you must do what reapers said, you pick one of reapers offer, you can't win, and if you resist reapers you lost.

[thebigbad1013]

I have no doubt that they will be able to deliver. Yes, Mass Effect 3's ending was...well, what it was, but it's not like unsatisfying endings are a BioWare trademark by any means. And Mass Effect 3 is the only time a BioWare ending has disappointed me.

[wetnasty]

But that's the same thing in ALL games....

 

In DA:O you can't just say "you know what, screw this, I'm gonna use the anvil to turn myself into a golem and solo the archdemon, np, i got this y'all." 

 

You HAVE to destroy the enemy in the only way possible. No other method would've worked with the reapers. You spend 75% of the game trying other methods and they don't work. The true variation comes in what happens after you choose your method. Forget the whole scene with the crucible. If you take that out, and just go based on EMS, you'll see that the endings are indeed varied, in the ways that have been outlined.

 

But I digress. My point is not that Bioware does "your" endings wrong. My point is that your endings are extremely flawed because Bioware's games have almost always had your formula (whether or not you choose to accept this as a fact). I don't want an ending with those 3 basic options  (bad, ok, and good). I'd rather something where I weigh out my positive and negatives and eventually am tasked to make the best ending depending on my willingness to get the job done and the sacrifices I may or may not have not made.

 

To be able to choose "bad" "good" or "ok" is not realistic (yep, I'm using that word). Because if I know the options going in, I OF COURSE am going to choose the best option. And I think that's what makes replaying certain games' endings not as fun for me. 

[Innsmouth Dweller]

actually, imho ME3 endings were pretty damn good (imho there were 2 endings - 'red/green/blue' and my favourite - the 'screw you all, do what you please'), never understood what the hate was all about.

 

but whatever, it's fixed setting. they cannot doom their own world or trap themselves in multiple choices scenario (they could always retcon ending, true). unless... next game is a prequel to DA:O!

 

anyway, at some point it would mean designing parallel scenarios instead of quasi-linear story. the budget is fixed, nobody sane would design a game with relatively high replayability but lasting about 5 minutes. they are trying to create the illusion of choices by designing interactive environments and that's... quite brilliant idea. and the idea with the Keep - that's like nicest thing ever - giving the player ability to impact the world beyond single game.