839 réponses à ce sujet

[javeart]

I heavily disagree with those saying you can't have an outright happy ending due to the notion that any other ending will feel like a loss.  With Mass Effect 3, there weren't wildly different outcomes.  Everything was one note-depressing, grey, bleak.  Which not only didn't fit with the themes of the series but felt extremely homogenized and left the player feeling unsatisfied.  Variety is the spice of life.  I don't recall many people complaining about Jade Empire's endings, which were EXTREMELY polarized.  One was quintessentially happily ever after and the other was Evil guy wins.  But if I recall, that game was freaking awesome  and remains one of BioWare's favorite projects. 

 

So...in other words....there goes that theory of yours. 

 

Would ME3 ending have been better if one of the options was super happy and another one sucked, being such an important decision in terms of RP? I mean, you pick destry and everyones lives (even the geth and Edi), you reunite with your LI and win a medal and all that, and if you pick control, uops, sorry, you were indoctrinated, reapers win. There you go, one happy ending, one dark ending. It's that nice?

[TheodoricFriede]

Would ME3 ending have been better if one of the options was super happy and another one sucked, being such an important decision in terms of RP? I mean, you pick destry and everyones lives (even the geth and Edi), you reunite with your LI and win a medal and all that, and if you pick control, uops, sorry, you were indoctrinated, reapers win. There you go, one happy ending, one dark ending. It's that nice?

Frankly, i would have gladly taken that over what we got.

[Chron0id]

Would ME3 ending have been better if one of the options was super happy and another one sucked, being such an important decision in terms of RP? I mean, you pick destry and everyones lives (even the geth and Edi), you reunite with your LI and win a medal and all that, and if you pick control, uops, sorry, you were indoctrinated, reapers win. There you go, one happy ending, one dark ending. It's that nice?

I wouldn't take it to such extremes. 

 

But I would have indeed preferred it if there had been more varied endings.  One on the happier side with you reuniting with your LI, one that was bittersweet, and a third more Machiavellian ending like the Control option.  That would have been ideal.  Instead we're left with....

 

Suicide Option A

Suicide Option B

Suicide Option C

BONUS ROUND: Don't Like Any Of Those Choices?  LOL REAPERS WIN

 

And Hey, it worked for Jade Empire, why not this game?

[TheJediSaint]

Would ME3 ending have been better if one of the options was super happy and another one sucked, being such an important decision in terms of RP? I mean, you pick destry and everyones lives (even the geth and Edi), you reunite with your LI and win a medal and all that, and if you pick control, uops, sorry, you were indoctrinated, reapers win. There you go, one happy ending, one dark ending. It's that nice?

The ME3 endings weren't bad because they didn't have a happy option,  they were just plain bad.

[Chron0id]

Then ME3 endings weren't bad because they didn't have a happy option,  they were just plain bad.

They were bad for a cornucopia of reasons.

[javeart]

Frankly, i would have gladly taken that over what we got.

 

Let me guess, you don't usualy roleplay pro-cerberus and pro-control, do you?

 

I wouldn't take it to such extremes. 

 

But I would have indeed preferred it if there had been more varied endings.  One on the happier side with you reuniting with your LI, one that was bittersweet, and a third more Machiavellian ending like the Control option.  That would have been ideal.  Instead we're left with....

 

(...)

 

 

I take it to that extreme because it was an extreme example. What I meant it's ME3 endings are hard to take for most people, all of them, and it's not because all of them are equal, it's because all of them are (for most people) equally flawed.

 

I'm not opposed to happy endings, I'm opposed to give only one happy ending, a best ending

[TheodoricFriede]

Let me guess, you don't usualy roleplay pro-cerberus and pro-control, do you?

As if its even POSSIBLE to do so in that series and have it make any sort of sense at all.

[Ieldra]

And this is the conundrum with the term "choice." You like it because you can "choose how it all plays out." I dislike it because I feel there isn't any really meaningful choice, for me.

For me, a story where all your choices don't matter except in how they define your character sends a message of futility that transfers easily to the character I'm playing. Why try hard, why even think about what you're doing, if it all ends up in the same way? Sure, some decisions are like that, sometimes you can't make a difference, but a pattern of such decisions is depressing. Also, yeah, "you can't make a difference" is a possible and legitimate message to send for a story but pardon me if I tend to avoid that kind of story.

Also, the outcome influences how we feel about a decision. If it doesn't work out, that's frustrating, if it does, it's satisfying. I consider a good mix of emotional moments as desirable for a story. If nothing matters, that's as boring as "everything works out" only with more depression added to the mix.

So, yes, I think it is very important that our decisions make a difference here and there, that within some limits, I can influence how things turn out.
  

You and I have very different interpretations of the PST ending.

Possibly. That I'm not religious may come into it here. Anyway, Grace alludes to my interpretation...
 

This strikes me as purely meta, however.  I don't see a conflict of player agency if the player's actions result in the player's death at the end of the narrative.  Player agency, to me, doesn't mean "I am in control of what does or does not happen to my character" but rather that the game allows me appropriate responses to what happens in the game.  The idea that the player can be placed into a spot, for instance, where performing an action results in their death is fine.  But if we metagame and decide to NOT perform that action (presumably a type of inaction, if we're at the end of the game) I don't feel it takes away from player agency if it still results in the player's death.

Technically, no, but if that comes as a surprise, I feel betrayed. In my tabletop roleplaying games, there is an unspoken contract that the GM will try to keep the player characters alive as long they don't do something stupid or deliberately and knowingly take an extra risk. Not everyone plays that way, and there are campaigns where "death by random die roll" is common. Those can be fun too. Your scenario, however, sounds like "death by fiat of the GM". There is a reason why those are almost universally disliked. There are games which end with everyone dead, where only what you did before matters in the end, but....and haven't I said something like this before...potential players are usually informed in advance so that they know what they're getting into. I see Bioware's writing teams as acting in the role of the GM. There's little worse that can happen to you as a roleplayer than to step unsuspecting into a "PC death by story design" scenario.

[javeart]

As if its even POSSIBLE to do so in that series and have it make any sort of sense at all.

 

It was one of the main parameters to roleplay your PC all along ME2. ME3 screw that option badly, yes... maybe you're suggesting that since people who wanted to explore that side of story was already screwed from the beginning of the game, it wouldn't have mattered if they got screwed a "little" more?

[TheodoricFriede]

It was one of the main parameters to roleplay your PC all along ME2. ME3 screw that option badly, yes... maybe you're suggesting that since people who wanted to explore that side of story was already screwed from the beggining of the game, it didn't matter if they got screwed a "little" more?

Ideally there would have been an option for them too.

 

But considering what you have pointed out, no it really wouldn't have mattered.

 

(Though id argue that it doesn't make sense to support Cerberus AT ALL in the series. But this isnt the place for that.)

[EmperorSahlertz]

And....how exactly did I reinforce the theory that a broad gambit of endings is bad?

Not that it is bad, but that one that is ultimately BETTER than the other is consdiered the "right" ending.

[javeart]

 

 

Ideally there would have been an option for them too.

 

But considering what you have pointed out, no it really wouldn't have mattered.

 

(Though id argue that it doesn't make sense to support Cerberus AT ALL in the series. But this isnt the place for that.)

The bolded it's my whole point. All RP decisions deserve a happy ending, or suffered the same lack of it. And an ending in which RP decisions play no part is kind of empty to me

[frylock23]

I guess the end I get needs to feel like a logical result of the path I took. It needs to "fit" with what I've come to expect from the results of the rest of my choices over the course of the game. Actually DA2 did this by training me to feel like almost every time I tried to get somewhere in time to intervene or prevent something from happening, I always arrived just a bit too late to stop it. I was there, but I was just along for the ride and become a visible symbol of the consequences.

 

And in DA:O of course, the idea of the US was planted early in the narrative, so you always knew it was coming.

 

I ME2, the mission was supposed to be a suicide mission. In a way, it helped damage the ending of ME3 because we were allowed to come back with all our companions so easily from the ending of ME2. We pull of the impossible once and so easily, then they don't let us have even one avenue of doing it again. I remember the early speculations that it might even be tied to keeping your aquarium fish alive in ME2 and then running a NG+ of ME3 to unlock a secret ending that let you not someone end up either sacrificing yourself or causing genocide. They let you pull off the impossible so much (killing Sovereign, suicide mission where everyone comes out alive, curing the genophage, brokering peace between the Quarians and Geth, pulling together intergalactic peace and unity in the face of tremendous odds ...), that the ending while maybe being more "realistic" in terms of the situation, violated what people had come to expect thematically from the series itself in that you weren't allowed to pull of the biggest hat trick of all no matter what you did.

[Xilizhra]

And in DA:O of course, the idea of the US was planted early in the narrative, so you always knew it was coming.

Er, when?

[EmperorSahlertz]

Er, when?

Back when they said that your chances of succeeding, let alone survivng, was slim at best?

[frylock23]

We knew from the outset that in order to slay an archdemon a Warden must die. Or at least I remember knowing that from early on.

[TheJediSaint]

To get back on topic before this turns into an ME3 thread, I don't need a "Happy Ending" for DAI.  Even after we save the world, Thedas can be broken, our friends can be dead, and Schoomples can get eaten by a Genlock.  I will be satisfied as long as the ending is consistent with the narrative and hits all the right feel buttons.

[Chron0id]

To get back on topic before this turns into an ME3 thread, I don't need a "Happy Ending" for DAI.  Even after we save the world, Thedas can be broken, our friends can be dead, and Schoomples can get eaten by a Genlock.  I will be satisfied as long as the ending is consistent with the narrative and hits all the right feel buttons.

I do man. I NEED IT.

 

[javeart]

So, I'm curious, if it's not too OT. All of you who want one happy ending, are you just willing to roleplay whatever it takes to get it or are you just assuming that the requisities are going to fit your PC?

[Chron0id]

So, I'm curious, if it's not too OT. All of you who want one happy ending, are you just ready to roleplay whatever it takes to get it or are you just assuming that the requisities are going to fit your PC?

I'm ready to roleplay to get it.  Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter.  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

[jtav]

We knew from the outset that in order to slay an archdemon a Warden must die. Or at least I remember knowing that from early on.

You only find out at Redcliffe when Riordan tells you. You may be confusing that with knowing the Joining kills you, eventually.

[javeart]

I'm ready to roleplay to get it.  Nothing is handed to you on a silver platter.  CHALLENGE ACCEPTED

 

 ok, I see. There's nothing that you wouldn't do? there's no issue of the Thedas universe as we know it, about which you already have a very defined opinion? I know It's not going to be like that, but if it comes to kill the templars? Ok, Kill the mages? Ok. Destroy the even rebellion? Ok. Really? That's so practical   I really could not do some things

 

edit: that's why I hope there's not only one good ending, in all honesty 

[Chron0id]

 ok, I see. There's nothing that you wouldn't do? there's no issue of the Thedas universe as we know it, about which you already have a very defined opinion? I know It's not going to be like that, but if it comes to kill the templars? Ok, Kill the mages? Ok. Destroy the even rebellion? Ok. Really? That's so practical   I really could not do some things

 

edit: that's why I hope there's not only one good ending, in all honesty 

OH I see what you're asking! 

 

Hmm.....yes that is trickier...do the ends justify the means?  In that case, I hope there isn't just one happy ending either!  >_>

[Voxr]

For me I actually liked US. I like the idea of riding out in a blaze of glory giving it all you got since you have nothing to lose because you're dead anyway. I knew when I first played DA:O about half way through (well after orzammar) if I get to sacrifice myself I'll do it. And I'll take that choice most likely in DA:I too. That being said I don't mind the PC living or even a happy ending. I just don't like the "superman plot armor we all made it from the right choices and through the power of friendship and everything is a ok!" ending.

[Maria Caliban]

Back when they said that your chances of succeeding, let alone survivng, was slim at best?

They have said that at the beginning of every epic fantasy story or action movie ever.

The chances are always one to a million.

I just don't like the "superman plot armor we all made it from the right choices and through the power of friendship and everything is a ok!" ending.

Funny enough, you get the Dark Ritual whether or not you're friends with Morrigan. You don't even have to work for it.