(March 20, 2012 09:43:48 PM)Varnis Wrote:  THIS^ is exactly the point I'm trying to make

Yeah, I mean. I played it. Did I notice that for the most part my choices didn't really do much for the ending but sometimes that's just how stories unfold. Sure. I didn't really get what happened with the normandy, and my ground crew magically appearing on it. I mean, if they had time to get them, they probably had time to get me, and then we could have had a picnic on the new planet.
For these reasons I did feel a bit disappointed, but I don't want to see them deliver a 'happy' ending-the ending was really philosophically/politically charged, and I think popping some crisp and huggles at the end would take away from it. It was nice and subtle the way it was.

How arrogant we are that we think all of our actions would direct the future of a galaxy, it's not enough to just save it apparently lol.

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(March 20, 2012 09:54:05 PM)Adam Wrote:  I'm honestly not quite sure where to start responding to the posts regarding my article, but perhaps this is a good time to clear things up.



I'm not entirely sure about your logic here, does this mean that the other X amount of minutes you were playing the game were so thoroughly ruined by your last five minutes of the game that you want a full refund? That's pretty baffling to me, so unless you absolutely hated your play-through of the game from start to finish I think it's fair to admit you're overreacting in terms of demanding a refund. Also, my quote was in reference to the series. How anyone who particularly enjoys an aspect of the entertainment industry enough to invest a massive amount of time and energy into appreciating every facet of it will naturally feel a little bit of self entitlement. There's a reason the term 'fanservice' exists, and it's to feed into that entitlement in a sense, to keep you happy and (in a way) to thank you for joining in the ride. I'm certainly not saying ME3 provided any of that unless you include the chance to chat with a Promethean for a few extra bucks fanservice, but please don't quote me out of context.

And you miss the point again, there is a reason writers spend a lot of time on endings, because a bad ending can ruin an otherwise great piece. And this is especially so for a game like mass effect where one of the biggest selling points is the story. From your comment I definitely see why you are not pissed, because you didn't play mass effect for the story, well that's you a lot of other people did, and the ending makes it unsatisfactory.

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(March 20, 2012 09:57:47 PM)funbacta Wrote:  Not 5 minutes, id you are going to say it, say it properly, the final 5 minutes (more like 15 minutes but who is counting. It's so important because it's the finale, and it wasn't just bad, it simultaneously undid all the character development over all three games, now if you didn't find that offensive and annoying, you probably were never that big of a fan anyway, which is cool. But now imagine if this was a novel a movie, a stage play, a Tv series e.t.c that you were a big fan off and tell me you won't be pissed.

15/2100 min bad to good ratio.

I don't see how it undid the character development, you're playing a war hero. The character is established already. You ended the game a war hero.

My favourite books kill off characters I become deeply attached to, constantly allude to but never resolve certain plots, and end on insanely tantalizing cliffhangers.

You must not read a lot of books.

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(March 20, 2012 04:49:02 PM)QuixoticMage Wrote:  Casey Hudson (Executive Producer) :

"At this point we’re taking into account so many decisions that you’ve made as a player and reflecting a lot of that stuff. It’s not even in any way like the traditional game endings, where you can say how many endings there are or whether you got ending A, B, or C…..The endings have a lot more sophistication and variety in them.”

If the industry "makes a mistake" they should own up to it, say they're sorry, correct it or not, and then move on. Bioware has done none of these things. On the other hands, Square Enix has apologized for the crappy boss fight in Deus Ex: Hr, Todd Howard has admitted to a screw up with Fallout 3's ending (and fixed it afterward).

Should we simply expect to be disappointed by the gaming industry? Should we simply expect to invest 200 dollars in a franchise, and then be mocked for daring to criticize the devs? Seriously.

I absolutely agree with you on the lack of variety in the endings, but I'm curious as to why you feel they need to explain themselves. Was their mistake not generating 16 different endings to a story that really didn't need that much diversity? Or was it simply leaving too many things unexplained at the very end? Mass Effect was never a story about anything except for the legend of Commander Shepard, so I also don't really understand the outcry against Bioware over not highlighting more detail into any event that occurs after the destruction of the Citadel. Additionally I don't see anything wrong with the introduction of the Citadel as the main antagonist at the very end, as it's not like we weren't given an explanation for the Reapers alongside it.

I don't play videogames for the sake of playing a videogame, I play them to become immersed in a story (outside of fighting games of any kind). So the idea that Bioware has 'robbed me' of 13 endings is insane. At no point was I ever playing the series so I can be given multiple endings, for the sake of having multiple endings. Were you? There are plenty of opportunities to reflect upon the decisions I've made, and possibly lament on the choices I made poorly, but if I really wanted to relive them I could simply play through again. That being said I was satisfied with what I got simply because it was the logical conclusion to the story. Perhaps not Joker and EDI randomly popping up on some planet, but as I said before this was first and foremost a story about Commander Shepard's legend.

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(March 20, 2012 10:03:13 PM)funbacta Wrote:  And you miss the point again, there is a reason writers spend a lot of time on endings, because a bad ending can ruin an otherwise great piece. And this is especially so for a game like mass effect where one of the biggest selling points is the story. From your comment I definitely see why you are not pissed, because you didn't play mass effect for the story, well that's you a lot of other people did, and the ending makes it unsatisfactory.

I'm not entirely sure how you gathered this as my entire article was based around the story of the game, and how I felt it came full circle. Maybe you can clarify by attempting to explain how one five minute ending undid all of the character development, as you stated before?

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(March 20, 2012 09:58:17 PM)Kioran Wrote:  Yeah, I mean. I played it. Did I notice that for the most part my choices didn't really do much for the ending but sometimes that's just how stories unfold. Sure. I didn't really get what happened with the normandy, and my ground crew magically appearing on it. I mean, if they had time to get them, they probably had time to get me, and then we could have had a picnic on the new planet.
For these reasons I did feel a bit disappointed, but I don't want to see them deliver a 'happy' ending-the ending was really philosophically/politically charged, and I think popping some crisp and huggles at the end would take away from it. It was nice and subtle the way it was.

How arrogant we are that we think all of our actions would direct the future of a galaxy, it's not enough to just save it apparently lol.

The ending wasn't philosophically charged, the ending was a grade schoolers idea of deep and pertinent, any body over the age of 12 will see it for the shallow, shoddy, pretentious work that it was, which is particularly surprising because the rest of the game was actually well written. These are just some examples of the horrible writing.

SPOILERS:
Introducing a character at the end of the game, giving no time for character development, that AI child was a deus ex machina if I ever saw one, or the fact that characters suddenly act contrary to established behavior lets forget for a moment that your team somehow gain powers of teleportation, and they turn into cowards and flee the battle that may very well decide the fate of the galaxy. Lets talk about Shepard, the same Shepard, who moments ago was being thanked by EDI for treating her like part of his crew, the same Shepard who reunited the Quarians and their AI children the Geth, the Shepard who has put an end to centuries long feuds, is given a shoddy, obviously wrong argument full of fallacies (considering that Shepard just negotiated peace between the Geth and the Quarians) by this "godchild." And then given 3 functionally identical options; Screw the galaxy with red, green or blue colors, and given all that has been established about Shepards character there's not even an option to tell the kid to f*** off, or even convince him that he is wrong, you can convince Saren and the illusive man to shoot themselves for f***s sake. It wasn't a deep or thought provoking ending, it was shallow and cheap.

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Not even going to comment on the superior-mindedness of this article...so much condescension...

If anyone's interested in some good, thoughtful coverage of this issue that's fair to the players, the situation and Bioware, head over to Forbes.

Paul, Dave and Erik aren't "ashamed" of fans like this writer and the rest of his ilk who stand over us peons as we play video games in our Star Wars jammies in our parents' basement. Because, you know, we're all just a bunch of losers.

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(March 20, 2012 10:18:25 PM)Adam Wrote:  I'm not entirely sure how you gathered this as my entire article was based around the story of the game, and how I felt it came full circle. Maybe you can clarify by attempting to explain how one five minute ending undid all of the character development, as you stated before?

Mass Effect has always been a character driven story, an ending that has pretty much every major character acting contrary to established form without an explanation is terrible, and unravels everything already established about the characters, and in a story driven by character development it unravels the whole story. It would be like in Batman at the end of the Dark Knight suddenly saying, ah f*** it the Joker can blow up those hostages, we'll get him next time. Even if you had enjoyed the movie up until that point I'm pretty sure that deviation from character will ruin the story for you, I know it will ruin it for most people. So the fact that you can't see that leads me to conclude the story was never a big priority to you in the first place, or you have blinders on for some reason.

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(March 20, 2012 08:24:36 PM)HypnoKitten Wrote:  3) The argument that 'the whole game was an ending' is nice, but untrue. In every trilogy (Star Wars, Matrix, whatever) the third part is a form of closure.. but there is still a climax and conclusion at the end of the story. That is the ending, and it was not affected by the player's actions throughout the game.

That is the summary of people's arguments so far, if you would like to go back and edit the article. It has nothing to do with happy fluffy story endings. That said, I don't agree with trying to Force Bioware to fix anything. It is a piece of art, even if the painter left the corner of the painting unfinished and pretended it was intentional. They screwed up and lost a lot of the favor that Bioware was floating on up until now, and I think the bulk of loyal fans are just trying to give them a chance to fix this.

As I've already brought up my thoughts on your first two points elsewhere I thought it would be worthwhile to bring up your third. You're correct, the third part of any trilogy is where the closure comes into effect but how that closure comes about differs from story to story. In Return of the Jedi it started from Lukes change in character within the first few moments of the film comparative to his attitude in the second, for the Matrix is was at the very end when Keanu Reeves became Jesus and did a whole bunch of stuff that required CG. You're trying to tell me that the climax of the game wasn't changed by player choice, when in fact it was. I say that the ending of Shepard's story started with the invasion of Earth, but for the sake of argument lets say that it begins with the final assault against the Reapers. Aren't you given better odds via cinematic depending on how prepared your forces are? Are there not characters waiting at the final outpost to speak with you one last time? Do you not get to choose when to kill the Illusive Man, or if you can save Anderson based upon your actions earlier in the game? I'm not really how much more choice you would like really.

By highlighting point number 4 on your list all you're telling me is that you didn't like the way the end of the game was turning out. What other endings would you have written? One where Shepard defeats the aliens, everyone is happy, and the universe is saved? I would love to hear about this magical land in which Shepard survives all obstacles, comes out on top, is lavishly rewarded for saving everyone and we're treated to a series of status quo cutscenes. The fact that you're more upset about the various colors of the endings rather than the ending your own Shepard accomplished indicates to me that it was never about the journey for you, but rather the destination. If the destination of ME3 disappoints you, I can't but feel you may have missed the point.

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(March 20, 2012 10:05:26 PM)Kioran Wrote:  15/2100 min bad to good ratio.

I don't see how it undid the character development, you're playing a war hero. The character is established already. You ended the game a war hero.

My favourite books kill off characters I become deeply attached to, constantly allude to but never resolve certain plots, and end on insanely tantalizing cliffhangers.

You must not read a lot of books.

If you see what most people are saying and my reply to your earlier comment you would see it was never about getting a happy ending. And why the hell no ta happy ending a lot of the greatest epics have happy endings, that's another very juvenile idea right there, epic endings have to have the hero die.

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