989 réponses à ce sujet

[Obadiah]

That's now trying to suggest that they're mutually exclusive. Sorry, strawman.

It is illustrative of the point that hate does not mean that a piece of art is bad or poor quality.

...
Sorry, that's complete nonsense. Hate is just the far end of dislike. "It's your fault" is the classic cop-out argument. You can dislike something and see some good aspects in it. You can dislike something and see no good aspects in it. You can hate something that has a message you find thoroughly repulsive, or which simply presses all the wrong buttons, and that's an entirely valid response. If you're going to deny the strongest negative responses you also have to deny the strongest positive ones. You appear to be just trying to find excuses instead of reasons to dismiss responses that differ from yours. The existence of daft or ignorant reasons for hating something doesn't preclude the possibility of good ones (and once again the same is true for loving something).

Like books, movies, and TV shows, Bioware games are designed to evoke an emotional response (one would assume it was not outright hate), but once we've experienced an emotional response, we need to step back and let it go to evaluate the story.

Now, if one does let go of their initial reaction, and then evaluates the story, and then still hates it, well that's different.

But we're talking about this in the context of the ME3 ending and this forum, and I don't see people letting go of their initial hate to evaluate the ending as a piece of fiction. What I see is that the people that hated the ending initially just collect and hold on to every negative message posted on this forum as the only valid messages that there are, to justify their initial reaction. That's the player's own fault.

A lot of the criticisms of the ending are valid (not immediately obvious how supported by plot, not interactive enough, can't fully make an argument, not explicit enough), its just not a reason to hate the ending, especially after the EC. As for repugnant messages, I have seen people throw around words like genocide, eugenics, racism, tyranny, dictatorship, etc., but they don't want to actually engage in a conversation about any of those interpretations - they just use those words to try to shut the conversation down. This becomes painfully obvious because, as I have said before, I'm pretty sure if those players that still hate the ending could destroy the Reapers without destroying EDI, the Geth, and every AI in the galaxy, they would be just fine with the ending.

Modifié par Obadiah, 09 novembre 2014 - 11:47 .

[Reorte]

Although there's some validity to what you're saying I see the same thing from the people defending it. So what if they wouldn't hate it if the geth and EDI survived? I doubt they'd be just fine but it may push it from "hate" to "dislike", rather like the silly ME2 Reaper Baby. It's a sum of a lot of aspects. By all means question peoples' responses but it sounds more like you're dictating how they should feel. Everything you say for people who hate something applies equally to the people who love something. If the EC didn't address the points that put people off the most then they're free to carry on hating it. Disagree, fine, but you can't say there's no reason to still hate it. If it's still hated it's still hated, simple as that.

Emotion comes first, deconstruction second. (One) point of the deconstruction is to try to determine why someone felt the way they did, not to say whether their emotions are right or wrong. Emotions aren't right or wrong, they just are (although how people react and deal with them very much can be - however they felt the people making threats were totally out of order for example). You may find that the reason for the emotion isn't as obvious as the person who felt it first thought, but it's still there. All you're doing is trying to work out why.

[angol fear]

@ sH0tgUn jUliA, Olivier Messiaen is one of my favorite composer, I've studied his music too. I've chosen Pierre Boulez because I know that it's harder to like his music. But are you sure you don't have time to waste hating the game because it's been long time since you've been posting the same way you've posted, and in your post, are you sure there's no hate? ("The writers p*ssed me off. Starbrat p*ssed me off","And it didn't matter because no matter what I picked the relays were destroyed, so f*ck 'em")

 

@ Reorte, I've said that the emotional aspect and the intellectual aspect aren't mutually exclusive, I've said that they are part of the same thing. What you really don't understand is that your emotions were educated. You can hear passively or actively. Passively is the one you were talking about : listening without taking care of the structure, without analysis. Even with passive listening, an intellectual part is working, that intellectual part is the part that recognize things you already know to send an emotional message of satisfaction or not. Technical understanding is always here, even if it's passive. As far as you can anticipate a music, it's the intellectual part working here, not the emotional. But I repeat, they do work together! There's no (real) separation/ opposition to do.

Then the emotion doesn't mean that something is good or not. I've already said that too. Yes, you can be blinded in hate or love, it's the same, but I'm talking about hate because it's the problem here. (It doesn't mean that I want to dictate people's emotion!)

 

For what I was saying, Obadiah explained it very well.

 

So I'll go back on something I've said : "emotional response is valid as an emotional response not as a criticism". In a criticism, there's emotional response, but it's not the starting point, it can't be the starting point otherwise it would be the same works that will be liked and supposed to be good. We agree that emotions has nothing to do about quality (I've already said that too. If you disagree then you should explain me "Emotions aren't right or wrong"). You can like something"bad" and dislike something "good". As long as it is a personal opinion, it's ok. When people start to talk about "bad writing" and many more things they say, they aren't in personal opinion, they try to justify their opinion by the quality. Now there's a problem! Some will try to intellectually justify their hate, other won't because they will only repeat everything they read.

The problem is that before reception there's creation. Creation is about intentions. You can't talk about the quality of something if you don't care about the intention, the ambition. I've tried to talk with some people about it. The answer was : "you can't know the intention of the author because reception is subjective". That answer just show how bad reader the one I was talking to is. Because yes you can know the intentions without asking the author. The text gives clues, and sometimes answers.

 I'll take an example but very exaggerated : if you go and see a comedy, you don't expect it to make you cry. Subjectivity won't change anything. You'll only sound stupid when you will say that "it's bad because I didn't cry". What I mean is that you're only the reception of something created with intentions. If you ignore these intentions, you can't do a valid criticism.

And before you say it, no I'm not saying that intentions analysis and reception analysis are mutual exclusive. I'm saying the opposite : you need to step back to evaluate different aspects of the story. But the real starting point of a real criticism is the intention/ creation, not the emotion/ reception.

[MrMrPendragon]

I do believe a happy ending that made sense would've solved a lot of problems.

 

People will be less motivated to nitpick when they get the result that they want. They're not going to question it because everything is fine and dandy. Some people may not settle for a happy ending, but there's no doubt that the backlash would've been thinned out if one of the endings was Shepard walking away into the sunset.

 

If you give them a bad ending that pissed them off, they're going to start looking for things to validate their anger and in we go with the "Couldn't have_____" or "Major Plot hole (spoilers) threads" or "I'm still surprised at how stupid Bioware is in ______ game" threads.

 

 

 

editted for typos

[sveners]

If I go to see a comedy, advertised as a comedy, and it makes me cry, is that my fault?

[angol fear]

If I go to see a comedy, advertised as a comedy, and it makes me cry, is that my fault?

 

If you don't understand what I wrote, it's your fault.

[KaiserShep]

If I go to see a comedy, advertised as a comedy, and it makes me cry, is that my fault?

 

What about crying from laughter?

 

Anyway, it's kind of a shaky comparison, because some comedies have a fair bit of tragedy in them.

[Iakus]

I do believe a happy ending that made sense would've solved a lot of problems.

 

People will be less motivated to nitpick when they get the result that they want. They're not going to question it everything is fine and dandy. Some people may not settle for a happy ending, but there's no doubt that the backlash would've been thinned out if one of the endings was Shepard walking away into the sunset.

 

If you give them a bad ending that pissed them off, they're going to start looking for things to validate their anger and in we go with the "Couldn't have_____" or "Major Plot hole (spoilers) threads" or "I'm still surprised at how stupid Bioware is in ______ game" threads.

Thisthisthisthis

[Reorte]

@ Reorte, I've said that the emotional aspect and the intellectual aspect aren't mutually exclusive, I've said that they are part of the same thing. What you really don't understand is that your emotions were educated.

You can have something intellectual and completely emotionless (a technical manual or a scientific paper). You can be moved emotionally without any education on anything. Babies have emotions. Animals have emotions. There'll be some trigger there that can be analysed and worked out but calling that an intellectual requirement is massively overstating it. An intellectual understanding of something gives a vastly wider scope but it isn't completely necessary.
 

So I'll go back on something I've said : "emotional response is valid as an emotional response not as a criticism". In a criticism, there's emotional response, but it's not the starting point, it can't be the starting point otherwise it would be the same works that will be liked and supposed to be good. We agree that emotions has nothing to do about quality (I've already said that too. If you disagree then you should explain me "Emotions aren't right or wrong"). You can like something"bad" and dislike something "good". As long as it is a personal opinion, it's ok. When people start to talk about "bad writing" and many more things they say, they aren't in personal opinion, they try to justify their opinion by the quality. Now there's a problem! Some will try to intellectually justify their hate, other won't because they will only repeat everything they read.

Yet when it comes to a work of fiction what the emotional reponse you get from it is the most important thing. It IS the starting point. That's what tells you whether it's worked or not (and obviously will be different for different people).

Emotions aren't arbitrary so, once you're beyond the basic, you can dig through a work and analyse it to try to pick out the reasons you felt the way you do. When people start to talk about bad writing they are very often being completely accurate about it. All you are doing is finding excuses to dismiss what they said, in a way I rather suspect you wouldn't if it was someone explaining why they liked something.
 

The problem is that before reception there's creation. Creation is about intentions. You can't talk about the quality of something if you don't care about the intention, the ambition. I've tried to talk with some people about it. The answer was : "you can't know the intention of the author because reception is subjective". That answer just show how bad reader the one I was talking to is. Because yes you can know the intentions without asking the author. The text gives clues, and sometimes answers.
 I'll take an example but very exaggerated : if you go and see a comedy, you don't expect it to make you cry. Subjectivity won't change anything. You'll only sound stupid when you will say that "it's bad because I didn't cry". What I mean is that you're only the reception of something created with intentions. If you ignore these intentions, you can't do a valid criticism.
And before you say it, no I'm not saying that intentions analysis and reception analysis are mutual exclusive. I'm saying the opposite : you need to step back to evaluate different aspects of the story. But the real starting point of a real criticism is the intention/ creation, not the emotion/ reception.

How a work is received is the important thing, like I said. The intention behind it is entirely beside the point beyond academic curiosity in trying to work out why something worked or didn't. Which is more important, what the creator intended or what he actually produced? It's entirely possible to see what a writer was trying to do, and to see when he failed. If a joke fails to raise a smile from anyone it's a failure, no matter the intention. That's the starting point of your criticism - the comedy wasn't funny, it didn't make you laugh. The rest of it is about working out the answer to the question of why it didn't.

The "comedy didn't make me cry" example isn't what we're dealing with here. We've got "the comedy didn't make me laugh." We've also got some of the equivalent of expecting a drama only for it to turn out to have far too many jokes in it, so it looks rather too much like a comedy. You may get one or two people expecting a tragedy and turning up to a comedy and thus coming away disappointed. If you get a lot of people expecting a tragedy and try playing "it was a comedy!" line to defend your work then you've screwed up somewhere along the line.

[Reorte]

If you don't understand what I wrote, it's your fault.

You can't keep trotting out the "it's your fault" line every time someone disagrees with you.

[KaiserShep]

If a story's internal logic isn't sound, intention becomes kind of meaningless. I constantly use this as an example because I hate these movies, but it's why Abrams' intentions in the new Star Trek movies are of little importance to me, since the films' plots fail on such a basic level.

[Reorte]

Although it's still possible to enjoy a story riddled with plot holes and inconsistencies and nonsense that shows a writer doesn't know what he's talking about (it's not as if they were absent in Mass Effect before ME3).

Too much of that will drag a work down but it's possible to keep people along for the ride and still have problems. Not having any mistakes or inconsistencies as well as having all the good stuff is better still of course, and getting everything technically perfect doesn't guarantee a good story either.

[angol fear]

You can't keep trotting out the "it's your fault" line every time someone disagrees with you.

 

Defending sveners for being so provocative, using the example that is supposed to be an "exaggeration" ( "I'll take an example but very exaggerated "), telling something that isn't what we're talking about, are you sure you have understood my answer to him? sveners knows what he was doing : he was trolling, so I trolled too. If he wanted to discuss, he would have given his point of view and we would have discussed.

 

Ok, I'll just ask you something and really want you to answer : What is a masterpiece? Can you explain what is a masterpiece?

[Obadiah]

...
By all means question peoples' responses but it sounds more like you're dictating how they should feel. Everything you say for people who hate something applies equally to the people who love something. If the EC didn't address the points that put people off the most then they're free to carry on hating it. Disagree, fine, but you can't say there's no reason to still hate it. If it's still hated it's still hated, simple as that.
...

I'm just trying to get people to be intellectually honest about why they hate the ending.

[dreamgazer]

If I go to see a comedy, advertised as a comedy, and it makes me cry, is that my fault?

Depends on if it's advertised as a comedy or a comedy-drama.

If it's a pure comedy, then no, not really. Though that's at the discretion of the creators. If it's a comedy-drama combo, then yes.

Mass Effect has been advertised as a demanding moral dilemma from the beginning.

[voteDC]

I'm just trying to get people to be intellectually honest about why they hate the ending.

Because of its flawed execution.

People can argue the intent behind the three choices, it is after all a good topic for discussion.  Yet I find it hard to believe that anyone could argue for the result of those three choices being executed well.

It's an older trope but it checks out "Show. Don't tell."

The Catalyst told me that my choices would have wildly different repercussions on the galaxy. Then the game proceeded to show me nigh on identical cut-scenes.

Now I've posted that before and I don't see how it isn't 'intellectually honest.'

 

@ sH0tgUn jUliA, Olivier Messiaen is one of my favorite composer, I've studied his music too. I've chosen Pierre Boulez because I know that it's harder to like his music. 

It's entirely possible to appreciate the technical aspects but think the piece itself is 'crap'.

This is true of music, games, house building, car manufacture etc.

Also the flip side is also completely true. You can think something is technically poor but even then it is possible for it to deliver an uplifting response.

In short. Just because something is technically proficient, doesn't mean it is good.

[Obadiah]

Because of its flawed execution.

People can argue the intent behind the three choices, it is after all a good topic for discussion. Yet I find it hard to believe that anyone could argue for the result of those three choices being executed well.

It's an older trope but it checks out "Show. Don't tell."

The Catalyst told me that my choices would have wildly different repercussions on the galaxy. Then the game proceeded to show me nigh on identical cut-scenes.

Now I've posted that before and I don't see how it isn't 'intellectually honest.'

The criticism is not intellectually dishonest, it is however obviously intellectually dishonest to say it is a reason to hate the ending, or have the developers change it.

[Reorte]

Mass Effect has been advertised as a demanding moral dilemma from the beginning.

So you'll go into the first one with a bit of an expectation based on that3, and into the following ones based on the previous entries in the series.

[Reorte]

The criticism is not intellectually dishonest, it is however obviously intellectually dishonest to say it is a reason to hate the ending, or have the developers change it.

Why?

[Obadiah]

Why?

Because making the decisions more explicit, more divergent, in a show-not-tell way when players already know what the message is, is a waste of time - aptly proven by using this criticism on the EC, which is practically the same ending as the original, more explicit, but still hated.

[voteDC]

The criticism is not intellectually dishonest, it is however obviously intellectually dishonest to say it is a reason to hate the ending, or have the developers change it.

That is precisely a intellectual reason to say I 'hate' the ending. They failed to convey the differences between the three choices in any meaningful manner. That also makes it a very good reason to request that the ending was changed, which I think Bioware did really quite well with the Extended Cut.

I do wonder why though that when Bethesda changed the ending to Fallout 3, no-one really cared about that. No-one rose up in defense of their original vision. I wonder what it is that makes people argue that Bioware's original endings for Mass Effect 3 should have remained immutable.

There was the side calling for Bethesda to change the ending but the opposite didn't exist.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

The original intent of the Original Ending was to have Shepard dead and leave the galaxy a wasteland with the mass relays destroyed in all three endings. Basically all the endings were the same except for the color of the explosions on your screen: You died, the relays were destroyed, and the Normandy crashed. It was not only the end of Shepard, but the end of the Mass Effect Universe. Then they tacked on this breath scene because some of the writers felt the ending was "too bleak" and wanted to give a "glimmer of hope."

 

Now tell me why we had no reason to be upset after waiting five years. We waited five years; played ME1 and ME2 over and over again to get different combinations so we could have multiple plays of ME3 with different Shepards. We waited five years to kick the reapers in the daddy bags, and we got this?

 

 

So Bioware writers circled the wagons and said, "You just didn't understand what we meant." We understood. They didn't.

 

They pulled the "silent majority" crap campaign, and us complaining were marginalized. We were the vocal minority, and only a small minority. ... right.

 

And they gave us the EC four months later. It is essentially the same ending with a saccharine coating. They backed off of the "end of the MEU" and had the relays get repaired because of new future plans, and because any proposed DLC would be tanked if they didn't. As it was the DLC didn't sell anywhere close to what it would have sold had they written a more upbeat ending in the first place. Hope is something in short supply these days. Everything is post-apocalyptic, and that's become a cliche now. Dashing hope at the end of ME3 tanked their sales.

 

So I say we waited five years for this. It was crap. Don't say I didn't understand it. The first paragraph above contains words from the writers. The wasteland comment was direct from Mac Walters a month before release when questioned whether there would be any post game DLC - "No. It's a wasteland."

[Obadiah]

...
They failed to convey the differences between the three choices in any meaningful manner.
...

I don't see how one could say that.

Of course, there was the video that showed how stylistically similar the explosions were to each other, but the explosion and the escape were never the meaning of the choice, so how could that fail to convey it? The meaning was always in the choice itself and its effects, Reapers dead, Reapers controlled, or life advanced with Reapers now among us. The war ended and civilzation moved on. That meaning was fairly well conveyed in the original ending. For all practical purposes it is the same in the EC.

[dreamgazer]

Earth and the Normandy's landing spot not being destroyed suggest they did NOT intend for the galaxy to be ka-put.

And again, the galaxy's gonna be in shambles, a "wasteland", because of the Reaper invasion. The galaxy's entering a new Reconstruction Era.

[Reorte]

Because making the decisions more explicit, more divergent, in a show-not-tell way when players already know what the message is, is a waste of time - aptly proven by using this criticism on the EC, which is practically the same ending as the original, more explicit, but still hated.

So it shows there was a fundemental underlying problem with the whole concept and not just with the lazy half-arsed execution. That said some liked the EC so for them the identikit endings were the real problem. For others that wasn't, and they continue to dislike it.