3598 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

Willing suspension of disbelief is an important part of a lot of fiction. Treat your subject matter right and people will happiy go along with a fictional world where something is possible that isn't in reality, or where different events happened. Make it too glaringly obvious even within its setting at that suspension is lost, and the story with it. RPGs like Mass Effect operate under something similar when it comes to choice and freedom. Give enough even though things are mostly on rails and most of the audience will happily go along with it, but screw it up with too obvious railroading or contrivance and you'll lose them.

"Control over everything" isn't something that anyone ever asked for or expected so that's not much of a counter-argument.

Don't you love how "Having a good ending for Shepard" somehow translates to "control over everything"?

[rossler]

The ending wasn't really railroaded. Like I said you were given up to four ways to end the story with the Extended Cut. In addition to having a bunch of different slides showing the fate of the galaxy. There's lots of options and outcomes.

 

Which fits with this: Give enough even though things are mostly on rails and most of the audience will happily go along with it

[voteDC]

You're wrong.

http://www.dsogaming...-mass-effect-3/

There is an old saying that I've mentioned on here before. "Show. Don't tell."

If they intended for the high EMS destroy ending to be a confirmation of Shepard's survival, they why did they not provide confirmation of that? Why did they provide scenes that could be interpreted in different ways? A breath is not confirmation of survival. A person hesitating to think their friend dead is not confirmation of survival.

You can't show something ambiguous and then claim that is definitely only meant to be seen one way.

[rossler]

There is an old saying that I've mentioned on here before. "Show. Don't tell."

If they intended for the high EMS destroy ending to be a confirmation of Shepard's survival, they why did they not provide confirmation of that? Why did they provide scenes that could be interpreted in different ways? A breath is not confirmation of survival. A person hesitating to think their friend dead is not confirmation of survival.

You can't show something ambiguous and then claim that is definitely only meant to be seen one way.

 

They did kind of. There's a few clues. The N7 logo (only Shepard and Anderson have been through the N7 training program, as I recall). There are two versions of the scene, one male, and one female. Well, Anderson isn't a woman, so in both scenes it is Shepard.

 

You just have to think about it for a second.

[rapscallioness]

...hmm. where the heck is @Dreamgazer? DG is usually right in the middle of a ME3 ending "discussion".

[Dantriges]

According to the quote you provided, VoteDC didn´t doubt that it was Shepard but concentrated on "taking a breath is not survival" and "your LI hesitating to think of you as dead means nothing." Unless they are able to shape the universe with their thoughts, it just means that they are unwilling to think of you as dead. They didn´t receaive a message confirming Shep´s survival, otherwise there wouldn´t be a plaque and a ceremenony where they intend to put Shep´s name on the wall. AFAIK clinging to the last bit of hope that a loved one isn´t dead isn´t so uncommon.

 

Shep taking a breath. If we are honest, the body looks more like it´s a scene where some dude is about to die and utters with their last words "tell my wife/husband/kids, that I love them, urgh" or saying some final witty one liner before going into the great beyond.

 

And well, Shep looks like they need immediate medical attention, but they are alone. Some Medics rushing to the body would still keep it a bit ambigious but at least we would know that there is someone still alive who can help and found the body. Mac can still pretend that it´s all for naught and the wounds are too severe, if he wants to.. The Citadel was taken by Reaper forces, we don´t know if anyone is still alive up there and actually they shouldn´t. Gravity on the Citadel is generated by rotation and after switching to flower position, people stil alive till this point would have died or suffocate because there is no atmosphere anymore. Ok, if you hunt down the tidbits BW employees left in the social media, you find out, that not everyone died.

 

We still would have to overlook that a wounded Shep took an explosion right into the face and the decision "chamber" is actually a bubble of air surrounded by vacuum and somehow I doubt that it would hold after the whole Citadel was rocked by explosions and the catalyst keeled over. Nevermind that getting from the outer hull to an area where other people could be still alive is close to impossible.

 

Why didn´t they confirm Shepard´s survival in a more direct way? It seems to me that the scene was a compromise between the BW employees who wanted Shepard to be as dead as a doornail and the ones who rowed back after the backlash and wanted to contain the damage. And well IIRC the CEO and some others already leaned out of the window and did some PR speak about artistic integrity and stuff, so the couldn´t just go full reverse.

 

Ackland´s statement about Shepard´s survival? Ackland is a community manager. That´s a PR job.

[Han Shot First]

I think it is fairly clear that Shepard survives in High EMS Destroy. Besides the comment from Tully Ackland, it's just a matter of common sense. There would be no point from a development standpoint for the breath scene to even exist if there was no real difference in end state between High and Low EMS Destroy. Why create extra content only to portray Shepard's final breaths? This is doubly true in the Extended Cut version, where not only does High EMS Destroy result in the breath scene, but you get different and more hopeful version of the memorial service, where the LI (or a stand-in) never pins Shepard's name to the wall. You're not going to create extra content for an identical end state.

 

If you dig into the game's files the name of the two files associated with the breath scenes are something like Shepard_Alive_Male and Shepard_Alive_Female. 

 

I think the dev statement that implied a more ambiguous outcome than Tully Ackland's take was damage control. By that point a large portion of the gaming media and the minority of fans who actually liked the original endings, had rallied around Bioware's 'artistic integrity' in the face of demands for the endings to get a rewrite. It was similar to Bioware's face-saving claim that the Extended Cut merely clarified the lead writers' original intent, when it was patently obvious to most people that Bioware did in fact alter its endings slightly with the EC.

 

Finally, while Shepard surviving requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief...it is no more implausible than the Lazarus Project, the existence of element zero, biotics, the mass effect, or giant sentient plants that spew out fully formed Asari clones. Its even arguably more believable than any of those things. It has always baffled me that some people draw an arbitrary line with the breath scene and declare its impossible for Shepard to survive, after having suspended disbelief for all those other far-fetched things that come before it. It becomes downright amusing when those same people cite Synthesis, the most space-magicky of all the endings, as their favorite.

[dorktainian]

if you watch 'Choose Wisely Episode 6' then they think Shep is knocked out at some point on eden prime during the first game, by Sovereign after it realises Shepard has used the Beacon, and to some degree I can see where they are coming from.  The breath scene taking place as shepard 'wakes up'.  This would insinuate that the whole of ME1,2 & 3 has basically been a battle of survival in shepards mind as he lie injured after being attacked.

 

Does this mean I agree with them?  I dunno...

[von uber]

The issue of had with the breath scene is that it felt like a 'gotcha!' at the end.
Better to not have it at all if they weren't going to flesh it out.

It would be like

Spoiler

if in the save arcadia bay ending in LIS they had, at the funeral, a 5 second shot of chloe watching it happen.

[Vanilka]

From the mouth of Super Mac himself:

 

http://www.complex.c...er-white-moment

 

Sounds like you're purposefully dense.

 

Extended cut happened because people were pissed off and BioWare attempted to fix that with mixed results.

 

Maybe it's just me, but this tells me that he largely misunderstood what the problem even was. Yes, Shepard's possible death was likely a problem to many people. (Note that Shepard doesn't die in all of the endings. We've got the high EMS Destroy's breath scene. Why are people still upset then? Maybe, just maybe that means there's a little more to it than that.) However, even if Shepard rose from the rubble with thumbs up to the sound of electric guitars, the fact is that the ending is simply a contrived mess full of highly implausible, unexplained tech and it forces us to choose between eugenics, brainwashing, genocide, and lying down and dying (and merely leaving those wonderful choices to the following cycles, which makes Shepard look like an idiot), and we have to trust the word of the leader of the enemy that uses completely broken, bullshit logic that you can do nothing about. Not to even mention that scene basically consists of the game obviously telling you that you have gates A, B and C, explains what each of them does, and you should choose one of them to end the game. Yeah, that didn't break my immersion. That wasn't "videogamey". At all.

 

It's all so random that when the magical elevator lifted me for the first time, I thought Shepard was just tripping balls, that it was some transition scene to something else. While I understand the writer's intent behind the breath scene and thus I know my Shepard survived the ordeal, I still see all the mess Dantriges mentioned in one of the posts above. And, yes, I agree it's just as messy as Shepard's death and resurrection in ME2. Which doesn't mean it's suddenly okay just because the game managed to royally screw up before. (Are we going to constantly lower our standards? The game was broken before, so it never needs to make sense again?) But Han makes a good point that just because Shepard's survival looks like complete bullshit, that doesn't mean Shepard's meant to die in that rubble.

 

Anyway, see what I mean? There are so many glaring issues but the lack of "happy ending" is the one that's constantly brought up somehow. "The fans whine because they wanted their blue babies," or whatever. (Again, if Shepard takes the high EMS Destroy route, nothing's really stopping the "blue babies", is it?) To be honest, Synthesis is about the biggest "and they lived happily ever after" I have ever seen beyond fairy tales. High EMS Destroy is positive as heck with the EC and a bunch of synthetics is about the only thing you lose (and you're not even forced to deal with consequences of sacrificing them in any way). So is it really about the lack of happy ending? Or is it about the fact they're trying to feed us this, "Shepard lives, yay!" but then show us 316846313 reasons why that's impossible? That they feed us that, "Reapers are defeated, yay!" but it took a totally implausible device that was made by countless cycles that had no effing idea what they were doing, what that thing is, what it does and where it goes and yet managed to upgrade it perfectly for it to release an almighty, galaxy-engulfing wave that's some-bloody-how capable of inserting synthetic parts into organic DNA? I was pretty ready for Shepard to die (which, funnily enough, didn't happen in the end for me). I just wasn't ready to lose so many braincells.

 

Well, that's my experience anyway.

 

That's not to argue with the OP or people who enjoy the ending. I respect that and I'm happy for you. I wish I could enjoy it, too. But I think we all must remember from time to time that saying that "Mass Effect 3's ending is absolutely brilliant!" is just as subjective and emotional as my saying that "ME3's ending is total and utter crap."

 

Just my two credits.

[Dantriges]

Finally, while Shepard surviving requires a great deal of suspension of disbelief...it is no more implausible than the Lazarus Project, the existence of element zero, biotics, the mass effect, or giant sentient plants that spew out fully formed Asari clones. Its even arguably more believable than any of those things. It has always baffled me that some people draw an arbitrary line with the breath scene and declare its impossible for Shepard to survive, after having suspended disbelief for all those other far-fetched things that come before it.

 

You forgot FTL.

Some of the stuff listed is part of the setting from day one and they spent quite some time and effort to establish it. You either buy in and suspend dibelief or you don´t. It´s not a hard science setting. If you don´t , play something else. They are part of the setting deviations from reality or at least from how most people agree what´s possible or not.

Are you arguing about the existence of unicorns in a fantasy setting, too?

I had this debate a few times over the last 25 years since I started P&P roleplaying and see it crop up fro time to time in online communities.

It goes something like this: There are elves and magic in the setting so why can´t I have a lightsaber, a magic nuke, kill a god, build a flying ship, do stuff someone else did in a movie.

Other stuff is derived from the altered reality, so I can see where it´s coming from.

The rest? Do we need to put in a list at the end of every post what we find stupid? I file it under "everyone has stupid ideas or makes a mistake from time to time" and go on. It becomes more of a problem, when the pile grows to large proportions as it did. Bonus points for not even bothering anymore, like "you wanted him to live, so Shep lives, tada." So if you really need to know, I find the Lazarus project stupid, the ME 2 should never have happened IMO.

BTW why does everyone complain about the creeper with a skinjob but not about the creepers in general? Not that I say, the Thorian is totally believable but everyone concentrates on clonechick.

[Iakus]

Maybe it's just me, but this tells me that he largely misunderstood what the problem even was. Yes, Shepard's possible death was likely a problem to many people. (Note that Shepard doesn't die in all of the endings. We've got the high EMS Destroy's breath scene. Why are people still upset then? Maybe, just maybe that means there's a little more to it than that.) However, even if Shepard rose from the rubble with thumbs up to the sound of electric guitars, the fact is that the ending is simply a contrived mess full of highly implausible, unexplained tech and it forces us to choose between eugenics, brainwashing, genocide, and lying down and dying (and merely leaving those wonderful choices to the following cycles, which makes Shepard look like an idiot), and we have to trust the word of the leader of the enemy that uses completely broken, bullshit logic that you can do nothing about. Not to even mention that scene basically consists of the game obviously telling you that you have gates A, B and C, explains what each of them does, and you should choose one of them to end the game. Yeah, that didn't break my immersion. That wasn't "videogamey". At all.

 

It's all so random that when the magical elevator lifted me for the first time, I thought Shepard was just tripping balls, that it was some transition scene to something else. While I understand the writer's intent behind the breath scene and thus I know my Shepard survived the ordeal, I still see all the mess Dantriges mentioned in one of the posts above. And, yes, I agree it's just as messy as Shepard's death and resurrection in ME2. Which doesn't mean it's suddenly okay just because the game managed to royally screw up before. (Are we going to constantly lower our standards? The game was broken before, so it never needs to make sense again?) But Han makes a good point that just because Shepard's survival looks like complete bullshit, that doesn't mean Shepard's meant to die in that rubble.

 

Anyway, see what I mean? There are so many glaring issues but the lack of "happy ending" is the one that's constantly brought up somehow. "The fans whine because they wanted their blue babies," or whatever. (Again, if Shepard takes the high EMS Destroy route, nothing's really stopping the "blue babies", is it?) To be honest, Synthesis is about the biggest "and they lived happily ever after" I have ever seen beyond fairy tales. High EMS Destroy is positive as heck with the EC and a bunch of synthetics is about the only thing you lose (and you're not even forced to deal with consequences of sacrificing them in any way). So is it really about the lack of happy ending? Or is it about the fact they're trying to feed us this, "Shepard lives, yay!" but then show us 316846313 reasons why that's impossible? That they feed us that, "Reapers are defeated, yay!" but it took a totally implausible device that was made by countless cycles that had no effing idea what they were doing, what that thing is, what it does and where it goes and yet managed to upgrade it perfectly for it to release an almighty, galaxy-engulfing wave that's some-bloody-how capable of inserting synthetic parts into organic DNA? I was pretty ready for Shepard to die (which, funnily enough, didn't happen in the end for me). I just wasn't ready to lose so many braincells.

 

Well, that's my experience anyway.

 

That's not to argue with the OP or people who enjoy the ending. I respect that and I'm happy for you. I wish I could enjoy it, too. But I think we all must remember from time to time that saying that "Mass Effect 3's ending is absolutely brilliant!" is just as subjective and emotional as my saying that "ME3's ending is total and utter crap."

 

Just my two credits.

THis human understands

[Alfonsedode]

still complaining about the ending 3 years later !

about a game you still play or worse, talk about and not play anymore !

[Dantriges]

Not everyone on the board completed the game when it was published.

 

Uh well why not. You can also speculate about the misty vapors of Andromeda, but there isn´t much, besides shrug and wait..

[rossler]

Since you're talking about the ending not making sense, I have something to share with you.

 

 

 

Working as intended it seems. Some people managed to figure out what was going on with the kid too. So it's not complete nonsense. 

 

It doesn't give me the full conversation for some reason, so I had to post images. 

[themikefest]

According to the quote you provided, VoteDC didn´t doubt that it was Shepard but concentrated on "taking a breath is not survival" and "your LI hesitating to think of you as dead means nothing." Unless they are able to shape the universe with their thoughts, it just means that they are unwilling to think of you as dead. They didn´t receaive a message confirming Shep´s survival, otherwise there wouldn´t be a plaque and a ceremenony where they intend to put Shep´s name on the wall. AFAIK clinging to the last bit of hope that a loved one isn´t dead isn´t so uncommon.

If that's the case, why put up Anderson's name? How do they know he's dead? How do they know if Shepard is dead at all to put up the name?

 

The other thing is if Shepard doesn't have a LI or romanced Miranda or Jack, why would the character holding the nameplate be unwilling to put up the nameplate especailly if they don't have a connection to Shepard like a LI?

[von uber]

Some people managed to figure out what was going on with the kid too. So it's not complete nonsense. 

 

 

Ah the old 'you just don't understand it' claim.

 

 

We have dismissed that.

 

 

Yes Grunt, I've already said it.

[rossler]

Ah the old 'you just don't understand it' claim.

Ah, the old 'the customer is never at fault' claim that I've heard one too many times.

 

Tell me, if you had a problem with a piece of software, would you blame the programmer too? If the software worked for some people as I've stated above, but not in your case, I wouldn't look to the programmer being at fault. If every single person was having issues, then it would be the programmer's fault. 

 

This appears to be an isolated incident than cannot be reproduced, because some people's game worked as intended, and while yours didn't.

[Dantriges]

If that's the case, why put up Anderson's name? How do they know he's dead? How do they know if Shepard is dead at all to put up the name?

The other thing is if Shepard doesn't have a LI or romanced Miranda or Jack, why would the character holding the nameplate be unwilling to put up the nameplate especailly if they don't have a connection to Shepard like a LI?

They assume that everyone must be dead who was on the Citadel, want to do something to cope with it or honor them and the LI just disagrees.
 
I don´t know. Reuse of assets which are good enough in their opinion?
 
What´s the alternative? Someone on the Citadel phoned the Normandy: "Hey dudes, Anderson is dead, Shep, too." And LI just refuses to accept that and is right somehow?
Or Anderson dead, Shep´s probably not going to make it. Wow, these guys are really eager to see you dead then.

If they are communicating with someone who knows that Anderson is dead but Shepard´s condition is uncertain why have a plaque for Shepard? Ok, why have this scene at all then, if they don´t know? It seems they work under the assumption Anderson and Shep were on the Citadel and no one could have survived that.

[Iakus]

Ah, the old 'the customer is never at fault' claim that I've heard one too many times.

When such a large number of customers all say the same thing.  There's probably something to it.

[von uber]

You can't compare a piece of software to a story.
Point is that a lot of people thought the ending wasn't good. That's their opinion.
If you think it's the best thing ever then that's great for you. I wish it was the same for me to be honest.

[themikefest]

They assume that everyone must be dead who was on the Citadel, want to do something to cope with it or honor them and the LI just disagrees.

Assuming and knowing are two different things. No one knew Anderson was on the Citadel.
 

I don´t know. Reuse of assets which are good enough in their opinion?

It was lame
 

What´s the alternative? Someone on the Citadel phoned the Normandy: "Hey dudes, Anderson is dead, Shep, too."

Yes. They called the extension number for the guy who was able to reach everyone with the holobyes. He passed the number of the Normandy for the person to call the ship. hahahahahahaha

Most likely someone found the body of Anderson, and I would guess that same person(s) found Shepard's body. I would guess someone from C-sec. That individual or maybe someone else was able to send a message to Hackett who then forwarded the message to the Normandy. The other thing is if control or synthesis is chosen, he could say that Shepard is currently missing and presumed dead.

 

If they are communicating with someone who knows that Anderson is dead but Shepard´s condition is uncertain why have a plaque for Shepard? Ok, why have this scene at all then, if they don´t know? It seems they work under the assumption Anderson and Shep were on the Citadel and no one could have survived that.

There's an idea. Throw the memorial scene in the garbage. That should never of happened. All squadmates plus the ones from ME2, should've been on Earth at Shepard's side fighting the  reapers. Have the Normandy flying around firing at the reapers or taking out a large number of uglies for Shepard and squad to move forward

[oddball_bg]

When such a large number of customers all say the same thing.  There's probably something to it.

No it isn't.It's so wrong to think that just because the masses claim something it is automatically correct!There is a classic Ibsen play called "Public Enemy" that deals with the exact same problem.I suggest you give it a read.

[rossler]

If there was as many people as you claim having these problems Iakus you'd have a new ending that made sense by now. Which you don't. So....Maybe it's an isolated incident that they can't reproduce. Hmm? Hmm?

[MrFob]

Oh, just look at these board's entries, facebook pages, blogs, game magazine news pages or even non-game-related websites like forbis from 2012 and you'll find there were quite a few people who were upset. Of course, most of them are no longer around 4 years later.

 

In any case, I think the breath scene was a really bad idea simply because this was (and was always stated to be) the end of Shepard's story. I could have totally accepted the scene at the end of ME2 or if they said that they might do another Shepard game after ME3 or even if they said that they were going to maybe, just maybe do something with the character in the future. Some inkling that this was going to go somewhere. But no, this was always and with 100% certainty intended to be the ultimate end of Shepard.

 

And you do not end a story by saying "it's up to audience to imagine the outcome".

 

Because in that case, you haven't really ended the story at all. This is the real problem of the breath scene IMO. They could have let Shepard die definitively and I'd have been ok with it, they could have let Shepard live and ride into the sunset with the LI and I'd have been ok with it. They could have had multiple endings that do either one or the other, according to EMS or your final decision or both and I'd have been ecstatic. But ending a character's arc - especially a player character who the audience was set up to identify with - on what is ultimately a cliff hanger scene is not good style, it's actually horrible story telling.

 

If they dealt with this situation in Andromeda, it would somewhat improve the situation (not a lot but a bit). However, I doubt they will as the design goal for ME:A seems to be to go as far away from the trilogy (and the endings in particular) as possible.