394 réponses à ce sujet

[KaiserShep]

Adding the auto-refuse in shooting the catalyst is great. I managed to convince someone that doing so unlocks a secret ending, and I was rather pleased with the results. So, thank you, BioWare. You're alright. 

[AlanC9]

Shepard gets to be an idiot a lot. Funny how EC happens to make that bit of idiocy doom the galaxy after a bunch of youtube videos of people showing what they think of the endings started making the rounds.

I'll have to take your word for that. I can't imagine why anyone would make one of those, let alone watch one. But most vids strike me as being boring wastes of time.

Actually the "popular request" was to stand or fall based on EMS.

We didn't read the same threads. In the ones I read that EMS idea was highly controversial. Everyone liked the Refuse RP option, but having it actually work? After months of experience fighting the Reapers, and learning from that exoerience that conventional victory really is impossible, they'll suddenly be beaten by the Power of Friendship? The ending may be painful for some, but turning up the stupidity to eleven isn't the answer.

ANd yeah Bioware should have realized that they would unleash more "butthurt" as you so colorfully call it by introducing yet another stupidly dark ending when there was already a huge backlash over the surplus of bad endings they already provided.

But... but... haven't you been telling me for years that the fuss wasn't really about not having a happy ending? Have you finally come around on that? More importantly, should Bio have realized at the time that you wanted needed them to provide a happier ending?

Edit: Anyway, not wanting to add a happier ending is conceptually unrelated to adding Refuse. There's a potential conflict if Bio did want to do both but faced resource constraints, though.

Sure it could be general cluelessness. But just because they don't "get" why the lowbrow peons don't understand their magnificent "Art" doesn't mean they can't take umbrage at it. So either or both is entirely likely.

Hey, if you want to believe it, I certainly can't prove otherwise. Neither could Bio, since you'd just think they were lying anyway. But I don't see why we need to multiply entities needlessly here.

I also recall an even more popular request for showing Shepard surviving and being rescued/reunited with the Normandy. Instead we get... well, the exact same breath clip at a lower EMS.

An interesting choice, but I doubt that we'd find anything much beyond cheapness if we could dig into it.

[GoldenGail3]

I'm fine with Shepard being gone. I really didn't care about Sheps death. But I do think Adromana will be as sterotypical (ME's plot line was nothing special. Like at all, It was boring how overused the plot line was and stall it was). Or maybe it will not. I don't know, but I don't have much hope in MEA to be honest.

[Sanunes]

I'm fine with Shepard being gone. I really didn't care about Sheps death. But I do think Adromana will be as sterotypical (ME's plot line was nothing special. Like at all, It was boring how overused the plot line was and stall it was). Or maybe it will not. I don't know, but I don't have much hope in MEA to be honest.

 

BioWare has never made a really strong narrative for a game, where they have always shined was the characters and to me that is what hurt Mass Effect 3 the most was submitting to the non-stop threads of "I hope my favourite character returns in the next Mass Effect game".  I saw so many limitations on the characters I think they would have been better off just bring one or two and leaving all the other ones in past games.  I think that would have hid the problems in Mass Effect 3 the same way good characters have hidden the story issues in all their games in the past.

[Laughing_Man]

 A

 

...I am, however, dismissing assertions outright in the end because they are either uninformed, presumed in some cases, with an axe to grind, or very narrow-minded. 

 

Think of it this way. The arguments against the ending of Mass Effect 3 are one based on taste and perspective; what is subjective and what isn't, because the story and the design of the game is always subjective like any work.

 

 

B

 

People being mad over the interpretation the developers made is fair, but to take it to the extreme that most did is ridiculous. To presume that BioWare is purposefully sticking it to fans is ridiculous as well; that is not criticism that is sensationalism.

 

...

 

...

 

C

 

Again going back to Mass Effect 3, the argument that the ending was bad is fine, but the reaction and the frankly disgusting way the community behaved for the five months after the game was released was not. It makes the community look bad, and that is a problem. It is one thing to argue the ending was bad, it is another to curse the world and tell the developers to **** off.

 

...

 

D

 

The whole point of this entire discussion is to show that it's a lot more going on than corporate shenanigans or a black and white point of view of things. There is always much more nuance in events; regardless of what we agree or disagree on; I would hope people would think like that, in the end.

 

A. Very presumptuous of you, not to mention unfair in the extreme.

ME3'a ending was bad for multiple reasons that go above simple taste and perspective.

 

First, the ending felt to me rushed and unsatisfying in the extreme, if the original ending was done with the EC, some of the dissatisfaction would have been mitigated. But that is just a sour side dish, and not the main problem of the ending.

 

One of the things that was said over and over by people during and after the ME3 ending festival was that the ending, specifically the Catalyst "make no sense".

 

And I more or less agree, for multiple reasons. Hell, even the famous meme nails some of it, and you know that you are in trouble if a meme sounds more logical than you. (there are also multiple holes in the ending, but that's just business as usual)

 

But let me give you one example to chew on:

 

The catalyst is supposedly an ancient AI, it saw everything, it knows everything, you can't really surprise it.

(based on the number of cycles it oversaw, and the various ways in which organics reacted towards it)

A human intelligence compared to it, is much like an insect's compared to a human.

 

The Catalyst had one objective: Prevent the destruction of organics by their creations - synthetics.

 

Yet when Shepard comes armed with the Power of Friendship, suddenly this god of intellect throws the towel, and either destroys itself and its thralls -

despite the fact that it has no way to ensure the success of its primary objective, or gives control over everything to a much lower form of intelligence -

Shepard the Glorious Insect - just because the current "solution" is not perfect.

 

From the perspective of the Catalyst, it should be able to afford waiting hundreds of cycles more in order to find the perfect solution.

Shepard should not be worthy of any consideration, and this cycle should not be considered special in any way, because from the Catalyst PoV

there should have been nothing special about either of them.

 

 

This is merely one problem I had with the ending, I have many more and no time or patience to fill entire pages about them.

The ME3 ending is a half-baked idea that has very little art about it, the "art" defense for it is a joke.

 

 

Again, even this idea could have been polished into something better given time, but obviously it was rushed, along with the final part of the game.

(which brings us full circle to the issue of product quality and business practices in video games)

 

 

B. You give the developers too much credit. They are humans like the rest of us, and seeing that they think very little of their enraged fans (much like you),

it is plausible to me that they would use fan request as a not-so-subtle way to give us a middle-finger.

 

I mean, why not? It's not like anyone can prove that this was the reason, and obviously they didn't like the audacity of their detractors.

 

C. Disgusting is an extremely subjective word, suffice it to say that I don't agree, and think that Bioware deserved to eat the sandwich it made for itself.

For every action there is a re-action, video game devs should keep that in mind.

 

In a way this is the blessing and the curse of ME, the writing was good enough to make us care, and inevitably explode when the the rug was pulled from under us.

 

D. Oh, I agree. Very rarely things are black or white, good or bad.

But in this case I believe that they are closer to my version of reality. Just try to follow and read a bit online on EA's business practices, contracts, etc.

Their way of doing business is not unique unfortunately, nor is it very consumer friendly.

[KotorEffect3]

Shepard was just the conduit in which I used to experience the mass effect universe.  I can still experience the ME universe as playing someone else and in many ways a new protaginist breathes fresh air into the series.  Shepard was great but it is time for him to retire.

[angol fear]

The ME3 ending is a half-baked idea that has very little art about it, the "art" defense for it is a joke.

 

The problem is that there is an artistic explanation for the writing of the ending so the art defense isn't a joke. You see it this way because of what you think you know about art (which is obviously wrong).

[Ahriman]

After this Shepard remark I was going to fuel my rage drive with this video. Turned out not so bad, most people just don't clearly understand what they want, except that only woman and her "sex stuff!", kek.

'Exploration', 'co-op', 'more space' these are just trends modern marketing tries to shove into customer's mouth. There are dozens kinds of these, I suppose a lot of these people want 'skyrim exploration' where you go from quest point A to quest point B and get three more quests, but they never give a thought how that would actually work in space setting.

[GoldenGail3]

BioWare has never made a really strong narrative for a game, where they have always shined was the characters and to me that is what hurt Mass Effect 3 the most was submitting to the non-stop threads of "I hope my favourite character returns in the next Mass Effect game".  I saw so many limitations on the characters I think they would have been better off just bring one or two and leaving all the other ones in past games.  I think that would have hid the problems in Mass Effect 3 the same way good characters have hidden the story issues in all their games in the past.

Indeed. Indeed, so. If they did that though, then DAI would be slightly better (I would've preferred that Morrigan/ Warden Alistair never existed in DAI). Leliana was alright, but it led us to fasely believe that we'd get a glimpse of the Warden. Those darned past LI's leading people on. And their past companions. Yeah, I think Bioware should let go of past companions (and I never did play ME2 or ME3, just watched YouTube videos of those).

[Laughing_Man]

The problem is that there is an artistic explanation for the writing of the ending so the art defense isn't a joke. You see it this way because of what you think you know about art (which is obviously wrong).

 

There is an artistic *excuse*, not a valid artistic explanation.

 

I will freely admit that I care very little most of the time about much of what is referred to these days as "art".

 

Mass Effect is a story that had potential, and from story-telling perspective (and logic) the ending is a failure.

[themikefest]

Adding the auto-refuse in shooting the catalyst is great. I managed to convince someone that doing so unlocks a secret ending, and I was rather pleased with the results. So, thank you, BioWare. You're alright. 

I shot at the thing a few times, but that was before the extended cut was released.

 

I've never picked refuse, but watched it on youtube. I like to hear why Bioware had the thing say SO BE IT in a deep voice. Yeah Shepard gets to talk big, but it means nothing. Shepard ends up standing there like a dumda**. I wonder if Shepard dies there or if a shuttle comes by to pick him/her up. If its the latter, I would like to hear the excuse Shepard gives for not using the crucible.

[Iakus]

 

 We didn't read the same threads. In the ones I read that EMS idea was highly controversial. Everyone liked the Refuse RP option, but having it actually work? After months of experience fighting the Reapers, and learning from that exoerience that conventional victory really is impossible, they'll suddenly be beaten by the Power of Friendship? The ending may be painful for some, but turning up the stupidity to eleven isn't the answer.

 

Then I guess We read different threads.  Because I read some pretty elaborate ideas regarding EMS levels, what forces you got to join you, surviving characters, all contributing to the state o the galaxy and Shepard's survival

 

 

 

But... but... haven't you been telling me for years that the fuss wasn't really about not having a happy ending? Have you finally come around on that? More importantly, should Bio have realized at the time that you wanted needed them to provide a happier ending?
Edit: Anyway, not wanting to add a happier ending is conceptually unrelated to adding Refuse. There's a potential conflict if Bio did want to do both but faced resource constraints, though.

Look again at what I wrote, because I used those words deliberately:

 

"yet another stupidly dark ending when there was already a huge backlash over the surplus of bad endings they already provided."

 

One thing EC did do was stamp smiley faces all over the endings, the high EMS ones at least, to demonstrate "this is a victory, congrats!"  Because genocide or eugenics are good things I suppose.   But that doesn't make the endings any less terrible.  But Refuse is just deliberately dark.  It's punishing the player for not going along with the "Art"  It's the DM flipping the table after the players call him on his BS.

 

And if it was resource constraints then they should say resource constraints.  It wouldn't make the endings any better but it could potentially head off any ill-will.  Might make people more "open minded" about the future

 

 

 

Hey, if you want to believe it, I certainly can't prove otherwise. Neither could Bio, since you'd just think they were lying anyway. But I don't see why we need to multiply entities needlessly here.
 

Actions speak louder than words

 

 

An interesting choice, but I doubt that we'd find anything much beyond cheapness if we could dig into it.

Really bad time to get cheap, when you're trying to win back the faith of your fans.

[Sartoz]

The problem is that there is an artistic explanation for the writing of the ending so the art defense isn't a joke. You see it this way because of what you think you know about art (which is obviously wrong).

                                                                                                    <<<<<<<<<<()>>>>>>>>>>

 

"... writing the ending..."

 

Hm.. And here I thought writers has writing skills and artists had visual talent (ie: painting, drawing, graphics..etc).

 

Plus, the game director / manager,  made the final decision to go with the original rainbow coloured endings which, to me, is where the blame lies and not the writers / graphic artists.

 

[Ahglock]

<<<<<<<<<<()>>>>>>>>>>

"... writing the ending..."

Hm.. And here I thought writers has writing skills and artists had visual talent (ie: painting, drawing, graphics..etc).

Plus, the game director / manager, made the final decision to go with the original rainbow coloured endings which, to me, is where the blame lies and not the writers / graphic artists.

Not sure if serious.

But Art encompasses writing, movies, painting etc. games people are on the fence about.

Did bioware drop the it's our art line or did a reviewer or defender?

Either way it's stupid. My sister is a writer and yet she had people read passages, the entire book etc to see what works and what doesn't, she listens to her test audience her editor and fellow writers. You don't stick your head in the sand and cry it's art if it doesn't connect with your audience. You look to why your vision didn't work or connect and try to improve things at least for the future.

People like to throw the art excuse as if that is some absolute defense against criticism. Sorry but even if this was art it was really bad art and people can judge that. It being art has no bearing on its quality.

Whether it's a game ending that didn't resonate with its audience of a artistic vision either way it's something that did not resonate with its target audience. Not for lack of getting it but because it was poorly done and nonsensical.

[Iakus]

 
Did bioware drop the it's our art line or did a reviewer or defender?
 

http://blog.bioware....3-extended-cut/

 

Are there going to be more/different endings or ending DLCs in the future?

No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.

 

 

Why are you releasing the Extended Cut DLC?

Though we remain committed and are proud of the artistic choices we made in the main game, we are aware that there are some fans who would like more closure to Mass Effect 3. The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer fans additional context and answers to the end of Commander Shepard’s story.

 

So you see, it's not them.  It's us. 

[LinksOcarina]

http://blog.bioware....3-extended-cut/

 

Are there going to be more/different endings or ending DLCs in the future?

No. BioWare strongly believes in the team’s artistic vision for the end of this arc of the Mass Effect franchise. The extended cut DLC will expand on the existing endings, but no further ending DLC is planned.

 

 

Why are you releasing the Extended Cut DLC?

Though we remain committed and are proud of the artistic choices we made in the main game, we are aware that there are some fans who would like more closure to Mass Effect 3. The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer fans additional context and answers to the end of Commander Shepard’s story.

 

So you see, it's not them.  It's us. 

 

Fair enough but again, does the authorial intent matter?

 

For us it might not. I really can care less how anyone interprets the ending because all interpretations are arguably valid. That is was art does for the most part. But for BioWare, that is basically a nice way of say "The endings made sense to us." in the end.

 

Is that really an invalid interpretation? Fans may agree or disagree with it, but it's the simple dismissal of fans and their opinions on it as a company; and that is perfectly fair if you ask me.

 

Not sure if serious.

But Art encompasses writing, movies, painting etc. games people are on the fence about.

Did bioware drop the it's our art line or did a reviewer or defender?

Either way it's stupid. My sister is a writer and yet she had people read passages, the entire book etc to see what works and what doesn't, she listens to her test audience her editor and fellow writers. You don't stick your head in the sand and cry it's art if it doesn't connect with your audience. You look to why your vision didn't work or connect and try to improve things at least for the future.

People like to throw the art excuse as if that is some absolute defense against criticism. Sorry but even if this was art it was really bad art and people can judge that. It being art has no bearing on its quality.

Whether it's a game ending that didn't resonate with its audience of a artistic vision either way it's something that did not resonate with its target audience. Not for lack of getting it but because it was poorly done and nonsensical.

 

Actually, it does have bearing on its quality. 

 

For one, the reasons you mention about improvements is a big sticking point; and its something BioWare did. 

 

Second, and more importantly, quality is still subjective in of itself. The Lord of the Rings is a terribly written novel, but it is well loved and critiqued for decades now by scholars, linguists, editors and historians. We can really argue quality in that way if we want to, but even through poor quality, there is merit in themes and interpretation.

 

Which brings me to point 3....

 

 

A. Very presumptuous of you, not to mention unfair in the extreme.

ME3'a ending was bad for multiple reasons that go above simple taste and perspective.

 

First, the ending felt to me rushed and unsatisfying in the extreme, if the original ending was done with the EC, some of the dissatisfaction would have been mitigated. But that is just a sour side dish, and not the main problem of the ending.

 

One of the things that was said over and over by people during and after the ME3 ending festival was that the ending, specifically the Catalyst "make no sense".

 

And I more or less agree, for multiple reasons. Hell, even the famous meme nails some of it, and you know that you are in trouble if a meme sounds more logical than you. (there are also multiple holes in the ending, but that's just business as usual)

 

But let me give you one example to chew on:

 

The catalyst is supposedly an ancient AI, it saw everything, it knows everything, you can't really surprise it.

(based on the number of cycles it oversaw, and the various ways in which organics reacted towards it)

A human intelligence compared to it, is much like an insect's compared to a human.

 

The Catalyst had one objective: Prevent the destruction of organics by their creations - synthetics.

 

Yet when Shepard comes armed with the Power of Friendship, suddenly this god of intellect throws the towel, and either destroys itself and its thralls -

despite the fact that it has no way to ensure the success of its primary objective, or gives control over everything to a much lower form of intelligence -

Shepard the Glorious Insect - just because the current "solution" is not perfect.

 

From the perspective of the Catalyst, it should be able to afford waiting hundreds of cycles more in order to find the perfect solution.

Shepard should not be worthy of any consideration, and this cycle should not be considered special in any way, because from the Catalyst PoV

there should have been nothing special about either of them.

 

 

This is merely one problem I had with the ending, I have many more and no time or patience to fill entire pages about them.

The ME3 ending is a half-baked idea that has very little art about it, the "art" defense for it is a joke.

 

 

Again, even this idea could have been polished into something better given time, but obviously it was rushed, along with the final part of the game.

(which brings us full circle to the issue of product quality and business practices in video games)

 

 

B. You give the developers too much credit. They are humans like the rest of us, and seeing that they think very little of their enraged fans (much like you),

it is plausible to me that they would use fan request as a not-so-subtle way to give us a middle-finger.

 

I mean, why not? It's not like anyone can prove that this was the reason, and obviously they didn't like the audacity of their detractors.

 

C. Disgusting is an extremely subjective word, suffice it to say that I don't agree, and think that Bioware deserved to eat the sandwich it made for itself.

For every action there is a re-action, video game devs should keep that in mind.

 

In a way this is the blessing and the curse of ME, the writing was good enough to make us care, and inevitably explode when the the rug was pulled from under us.

 

D. Oh, I agree. Very rarely things are black or white, good or bad.

But in this case I believe that they are closer to my version of reality. Just try to follow and read a bit online on EA's business practices, contracts, etc.

Their way of doing business is not unique unfortunately, nor is it very consumer friendly.

Go through these in order.

 

A. At the same token, this presumes the Reapers are all-knowing to begin with.

 

Consider the following: The Leviathans who created the Reapers felt they were omnipotent and all-knowing, but they couldn't figure out the problem no matter what they did. This lead to the Reapers creation, and their current solution. But now the Reapers are paused for thought in regards to what to do with their cycle, because there has been resistance for billions of years over it. 

 

The Reapers are flawed like everything is flawed; the logic makes sense only to them because it is what they know. The Catalyst only knows what it is designed for; to find a solution. It is clear that Shepard in this case is proof that this solution can't sustain itself much longer. 

 

So its literally the Reapers now in the same position as the Leviathans, seeking outside knowledge to solve this very problem. That question in of itself is cyclical, and also proves how fatalistic Mass Effect can be, these cycles will likely continue to happen after the Reaper War in the far future.

 

And right there is also proof as to not only why its art, but why its important to analyze it. This is what critique is; we can disagree if it's a good ending (and I fully admit it's not fullproof) but to disregard it fully is a mistake.

 

B. Even if it was a middle finger to the fans, id say it was justified considering how the fans behaved. I don't believe that is the case though.

 

That being said, it's not really relevent at all. 

 

C. Behavior of people, however outraged you are, is not justified if you act like a jerk. That is not really debatable if you ask me. People should be better than that, but instead they retreat and act petulant and vile. 

 

 There is usually a time and place, and a way, to do such things. To quote Robin Williams from the movie Dead Poets Society "Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone." Simply put, the fan reaction was terrible; reasons justified or not, I condemn the fans for their overall behavior on that one.

 

D. So do we beholden the sins or triumphs of a company from the past to meet their standards in the present? A lot of the problems people have with EA are stemming from decades of leadership under other CEOs, emails from the EA spouse in 2004, and other things they percieve as negatives today; like project ten dollar.

 

Yet, it is foolish to beholden the current climate of EA to their past. Case en point, Valve has recently been making questionable decisions for Steam and the Steam community, mostly through project Greenlight, the paid for Mod content, customer service and the like. Yet we keep praising Valve as being a "gamer first" company.

 

But are they really? General perceptions may argue that, but once again, everything is not purely black and white; even corporations are shades of gray when it comes to policies and practices. EA is one of the few companies recently to invest in new technology and gaming rigs; it's why Frostbite looks so damn good. They also are one of the leading companies right now to invest in smaller game titles; that game Unravel is supposed to be a continuation of their EA Partners program, and shows that the company is looking to diverge out of AAA production a bit, which should be a good thing.

 

Take the good with the bad; I guess I am saying. All companies have flaws, but to hold them to their flaws, especially when they are in the past, is a bit arrogant in the end.

[Iakus]

Fair enough but again, does the authorial intent matter?

 

When paying customers are on the receiving end?

 

Clearly it doesn't   Otherwise they wouldn't be making another Mass Effect game, now, would they?

[N7Swag91]

I may didn't like the endings, but that didn't stop me from liking the ME series as a whole and I'm still looking forward to ME:A

 

Other companies managed to turn me off completely from their franchises.

 

 

Despite all its flaws ME3 was a decent game and I still enjoy it. Call me an idiot but I still trust Bioware

[Quarian Master Race]

Was hoping to discuss the thread topic, but discussion has already been subject to the Murphy's Law of Mass Effect discussion (the longer it goes on, the more likely people are to start QQing about ME3's ending).
 

It was a great speech though and keeps in line with what Shepard has been saying since ME1. idk who that derpy fool is at the end of ME3 as he stands there and allows some robot to tell him that peace is impossible unless he loses himself to Reaper Powerz, Alter the entire galaxy into  some sort of mono race, or kill the Geth and EDI whose very existence proved him (Catalyst) wrong throughout the series. 

I like how the dumb, self righteous turd in the Refuse ending rightfully watches his/her entire civilization reduced to ash because of their own arrogance and petulance, instead of doing what needs to be done. People of that mindset deserve the failure they recieve. In fact, I wish the devs hadn't included the bits about Liara's timecapsules somehow working. Just slides of Reaper boots stamping on organic faces forever until the end of time because you failed. Would've gotten the message across better.

As for the bolded bit, how do either prove anything? I see this assertion all the time, but The Catalyst never stated that temporary "cooperation" wasn't possible over short periods of time, only that conflict is inevitable. The geth were vicious murderbots for 2.75 games, and getting them on your side involves letting them provide a perfect case study of the problem or holding a gun to the quarian species' collective heads and violently forcing them to capitulate upon pain of death. I don't see how either does anything but confirm the Catalysts logic. The same animosities are still there, and just because the Gerrel, Xen and Geth VI types have been forced to submit temporarily doesn't at all rule out their continuing to incite conflict in the future. Indeed, unless you pick the Synthesis ending (the same one that makes goddamned Wreav aka Mr. "We flay our enemies alive and drown them in geysers of their own blood" into a big green treehugging neohippie), either the geth die or each faction gets their own slide and the quarians are still in their suits, which given Tali's dialouge on developments after the ceasefire suggests that the nascent cooperation didn't last very long, and it is probably a good thing that Shepalyst is around to keep the "peace".

The fact that so many people bring this up as some sort of argument makes me almost wish that Xen's sidemission where she attempts to sabotage the geth would have been kept as an indication of where things really stand. Organic society isn't homogeneous. Reconciliation types exist, but so do hawks, and that is all it takes. That was sort of the whole point that arc was trying to teach you with the differences between the different admirals' viewpoints. The types who want conflict aren't simply going to submit. They'll keep plugging away until they succeed or die.

As for EDI, I really don't see how a single synthetic who after a thorough reprogramming has managed to not mass murder any meatbags for a whole 2.5 years since Luna as being evidence for anything. 2.5 years in organic murder terms is what we would call "still with 897.5 years of consecutive life sentences to go" for the amount carnage that thing caused only a couple of years previously. It's far too premature to suggest it can't or won't come to a different conclusion about its subservient place in organic society similar to its previous behavior without the fundamental changes brought about by two of the endings (or its being rendered nonfunctional in the other two).

 

[Steelcan]

I may didn't like the endings, but that didn't stop me from liking the ME series as a whole and I'm still looking forward to ME:A

 

Other companies managed to turn me off completely from their franchises.

 

 

Despite all its flaws ME3 was a decent game and I still enjoy it. Call me an idiot but I still trust Bioware

I trust them to muck it all up again, they have earned no trust for the ME series whatsoever.

[LinksOcarina]

When paying customers are on the receiving end?

 

Clearly it doesn't   Otherwise they wouldn't be making another Mass Effect game, now, would they?

 

There was a quote by Neil Gaiman, which he gave during the documentary The People vs. George Lucas a few years back that can sum this up a bit I think. 

 

 

I don’t have any problem at all with fan edits, fan remixes. It’s an absolutely legitimate and really cool response to the art. But I also don’t believe that any of those fans has the right to go and knock on my door and say, “I don’t like this character, I want you to take him out of your book.” ‘Cause it’s like, “No, I got to make this, this came out of my head, leave me alone.” 

 

There is a degree of legitimacy to that, id say. We have the Happy Ending mod, it gives fans what they want in one form. We have the Extended Cut, which gives fans another form of closure.

 

BioWare escapes with their version intact regardless in the final cut, and their interpretation is just as important as our interpretation. So I would argue that intent does matter to some degree. Maybe not to our personal enjoyment, but almost certainly to the reason why it was created. 

[Laughing_Man]

 

A.

...

The Reapers are flawed like everything is flawed; the logic makes sense only to them because it is what they know. The Catalyst only knows what it is designed for; to find a solution. It is clear that Shepard in this case is proof that this solution can't sustain itself much longer.

...

B. Even if it was a middle finger to the fans, id say it was justified considering how the fans behaved. I don't believe that is the case though. That being said, it's not really relevent at all. 

 

C. Behavior of people, however outraged you are, is not justified if you act like a jerk. That is not really debatable if you ask me. People should be better than that, but instead they retreat and act petulant and vile. 

 

There is usually a time and place, and a way, to do such things. To quote Robin Williams from the movie Dead Poets Society "Sucking the marrow out of life doesn't mean choking on the bone." Simply put, the fan reaction was terrible; reasons justified or not, I condemn the fans for their overall behavior on that one.

 

D. So do we beholden the sins or triumphs of a company from the past to meet their standards in the present?

...

Case en point, Valve has recently been making questionable decisions for Steam and the Steam community, mostly through project Greenlight, the paid for Mod content, customer service and the like. Yet we keep praising Valve as being a "gamer first" company.

 

A. Clear how? Shepard proved nothing, and did nothing to change what was known from the start to the Catalyst.

Synthetics are a threat to organics, a momentary peace and some examples of cooperation between Synthetics and Organics do not change anything.

 

So why should the Catalyst doubt itself?

The Power of Love and Friendship? Please. It should have already seen everything during the who-knows-how-many

cycles before this one. You shouldn't be able to out-think, out maneuver, impress, or surprise something like that.

 

And even so, perhaps I could understand ordering a retreat in order to re-evaluate the problem,

but destroying itself therefore losing any chance of solving the problem, or giving control to an infinitely inferior intelligence,

sounds to you like choices that a super-smart cold, hard, logic machine would choose?

 

You are grasping at straws.

 

 

The Rest

 

As for the rest I'll just say this:

 

Regarding corporations: You seem to have much faith in them, good for you. I disagree, and don't really care enough to try and convince you otherwise.

 

I simply think that inherently most large corporations are hardwired to consider the agenda of maximizing profit first, while being nice or friendly to consumers is either much later down the line, or not on the agenda at all.

 

Regarding your "condemnation" of "The Fans":

You condemned a large group of people merely because of their associations. There is no cohesive unit called "Bioware's Fans".

 

There is an unholy mix of persons of any type imaginable, that usually can agree on very little.

On the ending, there was a very broad consensus: Most people simply didn't like it. This was where the cohesion ended.

This cohesive unit splintered when it came to the question of why the ending is so bad, and to the level of reaction.

 

Your coming on your high horse in your shining armor to defend poor Bioware by pretending like "The Fans" are a cohesive body that can be blamed

for the actions of individuals, is rather hypocritical considering.

 

Did those to devs you mentioned deserve a verbal lynching? Of course not. (regardless if they are to blame for the ending or not)

That said, I will not be blamed for actions that others performed that I didn't agree with and that had nothing to do with me,

nor do I feel the need to apologize for them.

 

The fans were not nice and polite when they protested the ending (that again was very widely disliked for multiple reasons)?

Well tough, I didn't think that using this ending, or Bioware's responses immediately after the ending were polite either.

 

I also don't consider politeness for its own sake as highly as you seem to consider it.

Sometimes, you simply can't be polite if you want to make your point.

[KaiserShep]

Who cares about outthinking the Catalyst when you can kill it? In the end, all that matters is whether or not you believe that the galaxy can carry on without it and all other robots destroyed.

[FumikoM]

All I care about is BW giving the next lead an actual personality. The way Shepard and Hawke had, or that you could develop. And not like the Inquisitor; a blank slate that never ever develops from being that.

I hate the Inquisitor, but I love Shepard and Hawke. They are the main reason I replayed the ME series and DA:2 numerous times.

If they go the way of DA:I, I'll be sure to never buy another game from BW.

[Laughing_Man]

All I care about is BW giving the next lead an actual personality. The way Shepard and Hawke had, or that you could develop. And not like the Inquisitor; a blank slate that never ever develops from being that.

I hate the Inquisitor, but I love Shepard and Hawke. They are the main reason I replayed the ME series and DA:2 numerous times.

If they go the way of DA:I, I'll be sure to never buy another game from BW.

 

I liked Hawke most of the time, Shepard on the other hand felt dumb - I don't want to see another like him.