3599 réponses à ce sujet

[MrFob]

I don't get where suddenly this 'victory through sacrifice' theme is supposed to come from.
If we look at the trilogy, the only instances where there is a necessary/inevitable loss of life of allies is:
(This is the extended version, btw.)

•  
• Eden Prime: Jenkins, Nihilus, Ashley's unit, and the one guarding Manuel and the other Doc (Actually plot devices, not related to any 'theme')
• Virmire: Ash xor Kaidan
• ME1 End: DA xor 5th fleet ships (Which belongs more into the 'Humans first vs Cooperation' theme)
• ME2 beginning: XO Pressley
• ME2: Colonists (Which is really more of an: 'Those evil guys are tots evil man, ebil I tell you!')
• ME3: Most/Every  planet (Which again is a plot device to show how superior the Reapers are.)
• Tuchanka: Mordin/Padok vs Urdnot Bakara (+ maybe Wrex) (I thought the theme here is: 'Do you trust Krogans')
• Cerberus Coup: One of [Thane, Kirrahe, Salarian Councilor] (Introduction of Kai Lame -The only Cerberus goon able to kill someone with a name in ever)
• ME3 end: Anderson

If we take only the ones that are actually of some meaning and involve a choice of some sort, the list is reduced to 3 entries [2,3,7].
That's not really that much instances (also pretty spread out) to constitute a major theme, imo.
(But at least its more than for 'Synths vs organics')

 

 
I would definitely include Mordin and Legion (and maybe Tali if you choose the geth) into the sacrifice theme. While the player has no direct control over their sacrifice, their deaths do massively promote the theme in ME3. Good people sacrifice themselves for their cause. In fact, I'd say it's very tough to make a non-cynical war story without including the theme of sacrifice to some extent.

 

If you are so inclined, you could even add all ME2 characters, that are willing to go on - what they perceive at the time as - a suicide mission. They bring their affairs in order first because there is a high chance that they won't come back after all. And if you play a certain way, you may have to sacrifice a lot on this mission. Of course, the fact that you can get through the mission without casualties mitigates this, even changes the theme from sacrifice to something akin to "we can beat even the worst odds" and just goes to show how the player's performance can change the theme.
 
No, the problem is not that the theme is not there. The problem is that due to all these choices and play styles, the story can be different for every player and the ending did not reflect that diversity. Hate to quote myself but before I write it all again, here is point 4 from my list of ending criticisms, which is on this issue:

4) A lack of variety that resembles the variety of moods within the series. Depending on whether you play paragon, renegade, paragade or renegon, whether you persuade a lot or not at all, you can actually change so much about the plot of this trilogy that its mood, its themes and maybe even its genre can change, depending on the player. A paragon may view it is a classic epic hero's tale, a renegade player may view it as a commentary on the dilemmas of leadership or maybe even view Shepard as an antihero. A non-persuading player may even view it as a string of tragedies where the protagonist is largely out of control. IMO, the endings do not offer choices that reflect all these moods and that variety. Some of them are catered to but some play-styles (my favorite ones included unfortunately) get left behind.

[Vanilka]

I think the 'canon' ending is that Shepherd choose to destroy the reapers and survived. You need a very high EMS, though. Although this is just a speculation, but I believe this is true based on descriptions of many. The moment your most used squad mates pause for a while when the crews wanted to put your name at the memorial wall in Normandy SR-2 and at that moment Shepherd woke up in the rubble, that highly suggest it is the canon ending. ME4 is on its way.

 

BW have always been adamant that there is no canon when it comes to decisions the player has to make throughout their games. And, to be honest, I think that's a good thing when it comes to RPGs where each player goes through their own, unique experience and makes decisions based on their own, unique reasoning. (Let's be honest here. None of us likes to be told their way to play the games is somehow inferior. Especially when we believe in the choices we make. In respecting that, I think BW are smart and thoughtful, or they're at least trying to be.) The reason they respect our decisions also might be, after all, why we're moving to Andromeda. Because in Milky Way it would either be making one of the endings canon, which might make a lot of players upset, or struggling through the painful process of respecting all three choices, which I don't believe to be feasible.

 

All that said, I go with Destroy myself. I think that from what we've got, Destroy makes most sense. (My opinion.) I agree, however, that Shepard's possible survival and the destruction of the Reapers make the Destroy ending special and different from the other two (or three). So I understand where you're coming from.

[rossler]

As far as it being "fan opinion", it's what the events of the series pointed toward. It's what they showed and what they were about. As someone else said, there are many contradictions where it appears that they forgot about previous events. The problem isn't that they wrote it differently from how I viewed it; it's that they wrote it differently from what came before. This whole last bit reeks of you grasping at straws because you can't actually argue with what I said, so the problem becomes how I said it.

 

Everyone views the story through a different lens. You might think the ending is different than what came before, but not everyone believes that. 

 

If there was a problem with the story, they would have to reproduce the problem when they went to test the game. If they can't reproduce it, its not a problem with the story. 

 

A lot of the "vitriol" came from being flipped the bird by Bioware over their "artistic integrity".

 

It just means they're going to stick to their guns instead of resorting to fan fiction. You know, the customer isn't always right. Customer complains the ending is out of place. Company looks at, says it's not. Customer refuses to accept that for an answer and continues on until they get what they want.

 

People who said there could have been more closure got what they wished for though. People who wanted a thematically correct ending, and one that made sense did not, because the company couldn't reproduce their issue.

 

That's just how software testing works. They don't just fix things because a bunch of people are complaining on the internet. They have to look at the issue themselves and see if it's out of place or not. If it is, then they fix it. Otherwise they don't. 

[Natureguy85]

 
I would definitely include Mordin and Legion (and maybe Tali if you choose the geth) into the sacrifice theme. While the player has no direct control over their sacrifice, their deaths do massively promote the theme in ME3. Good people sacrifice themselves for their cause. In fact, I'd say it's very tough to make a non-cynical war story without including the theme of sacrifice to some extent.

 

If you are so inclined, you could even add all ME2 characters, that are willing to go on - what they perceive at the time as - a suicide mission. They bring their affairs in order first because there is a high chance that they won't come back after all. And if you play certain way, you may have to sacrifice a lot on this mission. Of course, the fact that you can get through the mission without casualties mitigates this, even changes the theme from sacrifice to something akin to "we can beat even the worst odds" and just goes to show how the player's performance can change the theme.
 
No, the problem is not that the theme is not there. The problem is that due to all these choices and play styles, the story can be different for every player and the ending did not reflect that diversity. Hate to quote myself but before I write it all again, here is point 4 from my list of ending criticisms, which is on this issue:

 

Tali commits suicide, so, no. However if you don't achieve peace, you are right that you could include whichever side you don't choose, though like Tali, the Quarians have themselves to blame in that situation.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Damn, we're still going on about this stuff. Years later.

 

To me it's pretty simple.

 

1. The VS sacrifice was a plot device and was your sacrifice even though since Kirahee somehow managed to get aboard the Normandy along with the person with the nuke, there was no logical reason you couldn't have rescued both.

2. Choosing whether or not to kill Wrex was also a plot device to define Shepard.

3. Choosing whether or not to kill the Rachni queen was a plot device to define Shepard.

4. The "save the council" or "let the council die" was to define Shepard and made no difference.

5. At the time, Mass Effect was in effect a pilot. Its success determined that there would be a sequel.

 

6. Shepard's death at the beginning of ME2 was a plot device as the only way to get Shepard to work for The Illusive Man. 

7. ME2 was in effect, an Arnold movie where you got to be the 1990s sci-fi action hero. Was it deep? No. Was it full of one liners? Yes. Was it fun? Yes. Could you be a douchebag? Yes. Could you lose most of your crew? 

8. The two biggest flaws with ME2 were that it had virtually no effect on the overall plot, and that key characters could die. So who were the key characters? Tali, Legion, Mordin, and Garrus. Everyone else was expendable. 

9. The only key decisions in ME2 affect Tali's trial and what you do with the Heretics.

10. When we started ME3 we knew that our decision whether or not to save the Rachni Queen would have a profound impact on the ending. 

11. We knew that there would be 16 wildly different endings depending upon the choices we made previously. 

12. Our first real sacrifice is dealing with the Genophage. Do we sacrifice the Salarian scientist or the Krogan?

13. The second sacrifice is what happens on Rannoch. This depends upon what happened in ME2. If you played your cards right you get to make peace and no sacrifice is necessary. If you didn't, you have to make a choice. Quarians or Geth? Depending upon how badly you screwed up in ME2 it's a numbers game.... unless you have the ME3 DLC, then you can go all moral and preachy, or simply follow your orders from Hackett - get him the Quarian fleet like he asked and not interfere in galactic affairs. I'm sure he had his reasons.

14. There are other minor sacrifices like letting Balak go free in ME3 if you didn't kill him in ME1. 

15. Then, there's the ending. You sacrifice yourself (synthesis) for a new galaxy. You become the overseer of the galaxy (control). Or you sacrifice the geth (if they're even around) and EDI and yourself in destroy. On your first play you don't know if you will survive. Or you lose your marbles and think that victory comes at too high a price and that you'd rather see the galaxy turned to reaper chow. 

 

Bioware cannot set a canon for this story because they respect our decisions.  So the only way out of this mess is to have ARKCON start before the end of ME3 and get us as far as **** away from the Milky Way Galaxy as possible before the Crucible goes off. Perhaps even have the ark leave right when the reapers start the invasion. The Council knew the reapers were coming. It was only a matter of when. They also knew there was no way they could build enough ships in time to defeat them. It could be that was why they denied reaper threat publicly and built the ark. Then during the war they build the crucible. 

 

Okay so if you guys want another game in the MW, it could happen after Andromeda.... about 500 years in the future after the MW has rebuilt and things have homogenized in the MW to where none of the endings matter. The only two people who would be alive would be Liara and Grunt. Liara would be the Shadow Broker ... invisible to the general public, so you wouldn't even need a cameo. And Grunt could have a cameo as the Urdnot clan leader on Tuchanka.

[themikefest]

6. Shepard's death at the beginning of ME2 was a plot device as the only way to get Shepard to work for The Illusive Man.

They didn't need to kill Shepard. Shepard still could work with Cerberus without being injured at all after helping Joker.
 

8. The two biggest flaws with ME2 were that it had virtually no effect on the overall plot, and that key characters could die. So who were the key characters? Tali, Legion, Mordin, and Garrus. Everyone else was expendable.

I would add another flaw. Too many squadmates. Why have 12 when 8 are needed to have everyone survive?

Garrus is not a key character in ME2
 

9. The only key decisions in ME2 affect Tali's trial and what you do with the Heretics.

What about saving/deleting Maelons data at the end of Mordin's loyalty mission?
 

15. On your first play you don't know if you will survive.

I might be the only one, but before I started my first playthrough of ME3, Shepard dying was the furthest thing from my mind. Shepard was killed at the beginning of ME2, so why would they kill him/her again?

 

Bioware cannot set a canon for this story because they respect our decisions.

No they don't. I like for them to explain if Garrus isn't recruited in ME1, how he and Kirrahe know each other if Garrus is taken to Sur'Kesh?
 

Perhaps even have the ark leave right when the reapers start the invasion.

That's what I believe. They leave before the events of ME3 that way there is no mentioning of the reapers at all in the next game.
 

Okay so if you guys want another game in the MW, it could happen after Andromeda.... about 500 years in the future after the MW has rebuilt and things have homogenized in the MW to where none of the endings matter. The only two people who would be alive would be Liara and Grunt. Liara would be the Shadow Broker ... invisible to the general public, so you wouldn't even need a cameo. And Grunt could have a cameo as the Urdnot clan leader on Tuchanka.

That won't happen since both can be dead

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 AHAHAHAHA!

 

No.

 

I actually like the ending, but calling it brilliant in the absolute is madness. Hell, the things they did that I found brilliant were probably not even intentional anyway -- LOL!

[Daemul]

 

It's been nearly 4 years people, 4 years, and you're still arguing about this ****. The rest of the world has moved on, let it go. 

 

This threads title really doesn't help matters though, it's intentional bait. 

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

You don't understand. 

 

There were 16 wildly different endings, but all the endings were virtually identical except for the colors of the explosions on your screen. After a month of rants on the board BioWare decided that we didn't understand the meaning behind the colors and decided to give us the Extended Cut at the end of June. It was then that we got the meaning behind those colors. And then they killed the last hope we had for indoctrination theory. But we still had marmalade theory.

[themikefest]

But we still had marmalade theory.

Here's  The Jam Theory

[KrrKs]

I totally forgot about that. Marmalade theory was great!

[Ithurael]

The Marmalade Theory is my Spirit Animal

[Natureguy85]

Everyone views the story through a different lens. You might think the ending is different than what came before, but not everyone believes that. 

 

If there was a problem with the story, they would have to reproduce the problem when they went to test the game. If they can't reproduce it, its not a problem with the story. 

 

 

It just means they're going to stick to their guns instead of resorting to fan fiction. You know, the customer isn't always right. Customer complains the ending is out of place. Company looks at, says it's not. Customer refuses to accept that for an answer and continues on until they get what they want.

 

People who said there could have been more closure got what they wished for though. People who wanted a thematically correct ending, and one that made sense did not, because the company couldn't reproduce their issue.

 

That's just how software testing works. They don't just fix things because a bunch of people are complaining on the internet. They have to look at the issue themselves and see if it's out of place or not. If it is, then they fix it. Otherwise they don't. 

 

You're way off. Writing fiction is nothing like software testing. We're talking about issues of theme, logic, and emotion. I don't really know what you mean by "reproduce the problem" in this context. It's not like seeing if there is a bug where Shepard falls through the floor or a line of dialogue doesn't trigger.

 

Not everything is open to interpretation. Sometimes things happen and those events show certain things to be true or not. People can misinterpret things or otherwise draw conclusions that are not supported by events or dialogue.

 

 

 

Damn, we're still going on about this stuff. Years later.

 

To me it's pretty simple.

 

1. The VS sacrifice was a plot device and was your sacrifice even though since Kirahee somehow managed to get aboard the Normandy along with the person with the nuke, there was no logical reason you couldn't have rescued both.

2. Choosing whether or not to kill Wrex was also a plot device to define Shepard.

3. Choosing whether or not to kill the Rachni queen was a plot device to define Shepard.

4. The "save the council" or "let the council die" was to define Shepard and made no difference.

5. At the time, Mass Effect was in effect a pilot. Its success determined that there would be a sequel.

 

6. Shepard's death at the beginning of ME2 was a plot device as the only way to get Shepard to work for The Illusive Man. 

7. ME2 was in effect, an Arnold movie where you got to be the 1990s sci-fi action hero. Was it deep? No. Was it full of one liners? Yes. Was it fun? Yes. Could you be a douchebag? Yes. Could you lose most of your crew? 

8. The two biggest flaws with ME2 were that it had virtually no effect on the overall plot, and that key characters could die. So who were the key characters? Tali, Legion, Mordin, and Garrus. Everyone else was expendable. 

9. The only key decisions in ME2 affect Tali's trial and what you do with the Heretics.

10. When we started ME3 we knew that our decision whether or not to save the Rachni Queen would have a profound impact on the ending. 

11. We knew that there would be 16 wildly different endings depending upon the choices we made previously. 

12. Our first real sacrifice is dealing with the Genophage. Do we sacrifice the Salarian scientist or the Krogan?

13. The second sacrifice is what happens on Rannoch. This depends upon what happened in ME2. If you played your cards right you get to make peace and no sacrifice is necessary. If you didn't, you have to make a choice. Quarians or Geth? Depending upon how badly you screwed up in ME2 it's a numbers game.... unless you have the ME3 DLC, then you can go all moral and preachy, or simply follow your orders from Hackett - get him the Quarian fleet like he asked and not interfere in galactic affairs. I'm sure he had his reasons.

14. There are other minor sacrifices like letting Balak go free in ME3 if you didn't kill him in ME1. 

15. Then, there's the ending. You sacrifice yourself (synthesis) for a new galaxy. You become the overseer of the galaxy (control). Or you sacrifice the geth (if they're even around) and EDI and yourself in destroy. On your first play you don't know if you will survive. Or you lose your marbles and think that victory comes at too high a price and that you'd rather see the galaxy turned to reaper chow. 

 

Bioware cannot set a canon for this story because they respect our decisions.  So the only way out of this mess is to have ARKCON start before the end of ME3 and get us as far as **** away from the Milky Way Galaxy as possible before the Crucible goes off. Perhaps even have the ark leave right when the reapers start the invasion. The Council knew the reapers were coming. It was only a matter of when. They also knew there was no way they could build enough ships in time to defeat them. It could be that was why they denied reaper threat publicly and built the ark. Then during the war they build the crucible. 

 

Okay so if you guys want another game in the MW, it could happen after Andromeda.... about 500 years in the future after the MW has rebuilt and things have homogenized in the MW to where none of the endings matter. The only two people who would be alive would be Liara and Grunt. Liara would be the Shadow Broker ... invisible to the general public, so you wouldn't even need a cameo. And Grunt could have a cameo as the Urdnot clan leader on Tuchanka.

 

"Stop using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." You're right that some of those things are there just to shape Shepard and give the player a choice, but they aren't really plot devices if they don't drive the plot. For example, the Rachni Queen is a plot device, but because of the Mu Relay coordinates, not the set free or kill choice.

 

1) There was logical reason you can't rescue both; time. That could have been presented better and picking up the Salarians really hurt it. On the other hand, once I got over that I did like having them as a representation of how well I did on the mission.

 

5) Yes, but it wrapped itself up well and left lots of room for a sequel. Just like the first Matrix and even Star Wars, that could be it and everything would have wrapped up satisfactorily, with us imagining how the good guys eventually win the day. In the case of Star Wars, I'm glad they kept going. Not so much with The Matrix. Mass Effect wouldn't work quite as well for this just because of how powerful the Reapers are, but the first game finished off it's own plot very well.

 

8) Why is it a flaw in ME2 that "key characters" could die? Define "Key." Key for what and where? The only key character in ME2 is Mordin for his countermeasure. Nobody else is necessary for any special expertise.

 

9) How did you come up with that? Again, key for what? For ME3?

 

10) Does the smiley mean sarcasm? Because no we didn't and it didn't.

 

11) We were told that, but there were not. Krogan recover or don't are different epilogues, but Destroy, Control, Synthesis, and Refuse are the endings. And while I can't really argue with anyone that says Refuse is dumb, it's arguably the strongest thematically. It is answering "No" to Saren's question; "Is submission not preferable to extinction?" just as Shepard did in the first game. Destroy is also strong, as the goal was to defeat the Reapers. Control is poorly set up and Synthesis is complete BS and flies in the face of the themes.

 

They showed they don't really respect many decisions. Obviously they can't have everything make a big difference, but some things are silly. The most glaring, obvious ones are probably the Rachni Queen and the Human Reaper both being in ME3 regardless of choice.

[rossler]

You're way off. Writing fiction is nothing like software testing. We're talking about issues of theme, logic, and emotion. I don't really know what you mean by "reproduce the problem" in this context. It's not like seeing if there is a bug where Shepard falls through the floor or a line of dialogue doesn't trigger.

 

Not everything is open to interpretation. Sometimes things happen and those events show certain things to be true or not. People can misinterpret things or otherwise draw conclusions that are not supported by events or dialogue.

 

Well in writing, they have editors who check and make sure it all lines up. Perhaps it's the editor who tests things. So they look at the problem that the ending is out of place. If everything is correct to them, then there's no problem. The themes, tone, etc, must be fine, if they couldn't see an issue.

 

It's more the customer disagrees with the writer on things, and that's fine.

 

Some things are open to interpretation, but I think the issue the fans' have is they want very little open to interpretation, and pretty much most things clarified and settled into place. In a way that they don't have to think about anything. Lots of people have pointed out this game required very little thought, until the ending came along.

[angol fear]

Well in writing, they have editors who check and make sure it all lines up. Perhaps it's the editor who tests things. So they look at the problem that the ending is out of place. If everything is correct to them, then there's no problem. The themes, tone, etc, must be fine, if they couldn't see an issue.

 

Agree.

The producers defended the ending, the writers defended the ending, Mark Meer defended the ending. None of them saw a problem. So a lot of persons involved in the creation part saw nothing wrong with the ending. Ray muzyka also said that he personnally believed that Mass Effect  was the best work they have created, he said it in his response to the "fans" before the extended cut was released, he talked about the game with the original ending.

[dorktainian]

You don't understand. 

 

There were 16 wildly different endings, but all the endings were virtually identical except for the colors of the explosions on your screen. After a month of rants on the board BioWare decided that we didn't understand the meaning behind the colors and decided to give us the Extended Cut at the end of June. It was then that we got the meaning behind those colors. And then they killed the last hope we had for indoctrination theory. But we still had marmalade theory.

 

I prefer dream theory myself if not going with IT.  Marmalade theory does sound awesome.  Maybe we could make up a new theory?  What about CRT theory?

[Natureguy85]

Well in writing, they have editors who check and make sure it all lines up. Perhaps it's the editor who tests things. So they look at the problem that the ending is out of place. If everything is correct to them, then there's no problem. The themes, tone, etc, must be fine, if they couldn't see an issue.

 

It's more the customer disagrees with the writer on things, and that's fine.

 

Some things are open to interpretation, but I think the issue the fans' have is they want very little open to interpretation, and pretty much most things clarified and settled into place. In a way that they don't have to think about anything. Lots of people have pointed out this game required very little thought, until the ending came along.

 

And when I look at the ending and judge it the failure it is, I am doing the same thing an editor does. I edit as a hobby. So is editing allowed or not? Did they really ever edit this ending? Was it done by someone familiar with the entire series? Or what about critics? They often critique things they are experts at viewing, using, or consuming, not creating. Is critique invalid now? I'm doing that too.

 

The ending did not require thought at all. It was just trying to be deep. Not everything had to be explained, even. It's like Midichlorians in Star Wars. It was totally out of place and total crap. They tried to explain something that didn't need explaining. Saying nothing is better than saying something stupid.

 

 

 

Agree.

The producers defended the ending, the writers defended the ending, Mark Meer defended the ending. None of them saw a problem. So a lot of persons involved in the creation part saw nothing wrong with the ending. Ray muzyka also said that he personnally believed that Mass Effect  was the best work they have created, he said it in his response to the "fans" before the extended cut was released, he talked about the game with the original ending.

 

So a bunch of company people towed the company line. Who cares what the voice actor said? None of that necessarily means anything. The producers didn't defend the ending itself as much as they defended their "artistic integrity". It wasn't "the ending is good because of substantive points A, B, and C." It was "this is what our writing team did and we stand by it." Mass Effect as a whole might be their best work, but the ending is terrible.

 

 

I prefer dream theory myself if not going with IT.  Marmalade theory does sound awesome.  Maybe we could make up a new theory?  What about CRT theory?

 

"Make up" is the key phrase here. IT is a cool idea but isn't supported by the games. I cringe a little bit when these are called "theories."

[angol fear]

So a bunch of company people towed the company line.

 

Give me an example where people defended something that they knew to be bad.

 

 

Who cares what the voice actor said?

 

I care and anyone who cares about the writing cares about what he has said. He was part of the process of creation.

You obviously don't know how it works in a teamjob like cinema or video games. When you interpret someone, you don't do it just like that. Do you really think that actors spend their time ignoring the writing, ignoring how they have to play etc...? They have to understand the writing, their character etc... They talk with the creators, the writers, the director. Even the composer talks with the director and knows the intention the director has.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure you didn't listen to what he has said, did you? (otherwise you would not be saying that)

 

 

None of that necessarily means anything.

 

It's easier to ignore things, sure.

 

 

The producers didn't defend the ending itself as much as they defended their "artistic integrity". It wasn't "the ending is good because of substantive points A, B, and C." It was "this is what our writing team did and we stand by it."

 

So you can't understand when it's not said explicitly?

They defended their game because the ending was criticized. I said that they defended it, and what you are actually saying is that they didn't argue to defend it. The artistic integrity that many here can't understand is their vision of the game, they always had some ambition for this trilogy, they ended the way they wanted it to end. And if they change it because people complain, that's where the artistic integrity will be lost.

Now seriously, do you really think Bioware could argue with you? Your opinion is made, you won't change it.

 

 

Mass Effect as a whole might be their best work, but the ending is terrible.

 

Show me where Ray Muzyka has said that. You are interepreting the way you want what he has said (actually you interpret nothing you are imposing your point of view). You are ignoring the context (the problem, when he has said that, was the original ending). The ending is what reveals the ambition they had for that trilogy, it's their best work thank to the ending. It's not your point of view, it doesn't change anything about what the game is.

[Iakus]

Give me an example where people defended something that they knew to be bad.

 

Why should he?  They never defended the endings period.  No one from Bioware has ever explained the logic behind the ending, or why they think it fits into the trilogy, or even explained how they came up with it in the first place (aside from some strange scribblings on a piece of paper)

 

Instead they shrouded themselves in "artistic integrity" and ropped the mic like that explained everything.

 

 

 

I care and anyone who cares about the writing cares about what he has said. He was part of the process of creation.
 

Unless Mark Meer loved the endings so much he bought several million copies of the game, his opinion is no more or less valuable than mine, yours or NatureGuy85's

 

 

 

 
So you can't understand when it's not said explicitly?
They defended their game because the ending was criticized. I said that they defended it, and what you are actually saying is that they didn't argue to defend it. The artistic integrity that many here can't understand is their vision of the game, they always had some ambition for this trilogy, they ended the way they wanted it to end. And if they change it because people complain, that's where the artistic integrity will be lost.
Now seriously, do you really think Bioware could argue with you? Your opinion is made, you won't change it.

Show me where they defended the ending, rather than tell the audience they were just too stupid to understand it?

[rossler]

And when I look at the ending and judge it the failure it is, I am doing the same thing an editor does. I edit as a hobby. So is editing allowed or not? Did they really ever edit this ending? Was it done by someone familiar with the entire series? Or what about critics? They often critique things they are experts at viewing, using, or consuming, not creating. Is critique invalid now? I'm doing that too.

 

The ending did not require thought at all. It was just trying to be deep. Not everything had to be explained, even. It's like Midichlorians in Star Wars. It was totally out of place and total crap. They tried to explain something that didn't need explaining. Saying nothing is better than saying something stupid.

 

Editing as a hobby makes you an armchair editor, not a professional editor like the ones at Bioware. Who went to university and earned their education instead of being trained on internet sites like TV Tropes.

 

You're just going to have to accept that the people who made this game disagree with you, and things won't be fixed exactly how you want them to be. If the ending was fixed so that everything fits with how you view the story, it might break it for someone else who views things a bit differently.

 

It's okay to dislike what they did with the ending though.

[Iakus]

Editing as a hobby makes you an armchair editor, not a professional editor like the ones at Bioware. Who went to university and earned their education instead of being trained on internet sites like TV Tropes.

 

Given even professionals who call out ME3 on its flaws apparently don't know what they are talking about either, that puts him in good company.

[Geth Supremacy]

ME:A's ending will be even better!  You just have to wait until PS5 and XB1 to get the bonus content and ending for the game.  They will not be available on current gen.

[rossler]

Given even professionals who call out ME3 on its flaws apparently don't know what they are talking about either, that puts him in good company.

 

So the fans and amateurs know it better than the professionals who wrote it in the first place?

[Tim van Beek]

So the fans and amateurs know it better than the professionals who wrote it in the first place?

Argument from authority (https://en.wikipedia..._from_authority).

 

We could play a little game, you keep repeating how the Mass Effect team knew better, and I cite an obvious error. We could keep that up for quite a while.

 

Here we go: In the mission brief of Priority: Earth Hackett says "Without the crucible, we cannot defeat the Reapers conventionally", implying that the Crucible will help to defeat the Reapers conventionally. What the writers obviously intended to say was "We need the crucible, because we cannot defeat the Reapers conventionally".

 

I don't think one needs a university degree to understand what went wrong here, and that either the editors were asleep or absent (given the known history my educated guess is the latter). The sentence would even be wrong if the editor had two university degrees!

 

 

Give me an example where people defended something that they knew to be bad.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean to insult you, but I am wondering if people can live in totally different worlds? Do you know people who work for some organisation, corporation, government?

Think of any movie actor who has to go on a tour to promote a movie that he/she absolutely does not like and hated making because that is part of the movie contract? (Yes, that happens. E.g. Ewan McGregor/Star Wars the prequel triology).

[themikefest]

I would say had more time been given to ME3, the ending, as well as other parts of the game, might be different or at least slightly different than what was seen in the game.