Bioware allows the release of "The Final Hours of Mass Effect 3" a tell all app for $2.99 WTF?!

[boag]

Redact everything I have ever said about ME3's ending. It is genius, pure genius. If you go look at the Indoctrination Theory over in the Bioware forums it makes perfect sense. It's just too damn smart for its own good!

Fuck it's amazing, the basic version is... No just read it, 'tis awesome

Let me just bring up the one I read.

http://w11.zetaboards.com/Theorycraftng_HUB/topic/7688087/1/

Mind = blown

Or i'm just scrambling for any reason to believe that the ending didn't just plain suck.

I'm sure there are smart people over at Bioware, but I really think you're are giving them too much credit with this whole indoctrination theory.

They simply made 3 crappy endings. Because they genuinely thought they were good, or because making various distinct endings depended on the choices you made throughout all 3 games would've taking unreasonable amounts of time and money.

But I guess whatever helps put it behind you.

its no longer a theory, they just blurted it out, there are scenes coming out that were cut from the final game for whatever reason, and the indoctrination sequence is part of those.

Then it still makes no flipping sense.

When Shep is presented the Destroy and Control options, they are highlighted by Anderson (Destroy) and TIM (Control). Meaning Shep already knew that Destroy was the right thing and Control was the wrong thing to do.

And if Shep was truly indoctrinated, why didn't the Reapers use his own trusted companions against him? And if they did and this was somehow cut from the game, then that means my choices where meaningless afterall because I was being indoctrinated.

I'm sorry, but I don't buy it. And if Bioware goes along with it then it's probably only to quence the massive fan rage.

Understand, everything after Shep falls to the ground is Indoctrination, the Options are there to either let Shep Free himself from it, or Accept the Indoctrination.

Your choice in the end does matter, because you either became indoctrinated or you didnt.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

For the unreliable narrator thing to work, it has to be established early and work with the premise of the book/literature. I've seen it done successfully as well, its part of the experience. It also has to be made obvious so we don't get a bunch of looney toons spinning 'theories'.

However, with this game, one about choices and all that shiny rpg goodness an unreliable narrative only works against their premise.

Eh, I disagree. Unreliable narrator is often very subtle, ala Fight Club or Usual Suspects, and the reveal only comes out at the end of the story. The clues are small and easily overlooked. You're not always trying to telegraph the fact you have an unreliable narrator.

I'm not saying this is what their plan was all along, or anything, just that there's sufficient material there for them to say "UNRELIABLE NARRATOR! INDOCTRINATION!" and retcon an ending in that isn't blindingly stupid.

They almost certainly won't, though. They'll tell us they're very sorry we didn't like the ending and explain why they thought the endings were fun and promise to do better next time and please buy DLC.

 

[Cranky]

Even if this were true, it is suggested that only one ending is correct, which defies the player choice philosophy Bioware had. It limits Shep living to just one of the choices made.

 

[boag]

Because there is now EVIDENCE THAT THEY CUT A LOT OF SHIT OUT OF THE ENDING!

http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/235/deletedscenes.jpg

I dont understand why you are being so obtuse about this, I thought you would be happy to be proven right about Bioware shitting on people and cutting shit out to sell to them later on.

You seem to not know when to pick your battles and come off as irrational everytime.

The Chobot incident? You were all over that.

The Prothean DLC? You were all over that.

When true shit hits the fan, you no longer any credibility and you come off as a raving lunatic.

Take this whole entire experience as a lesson, dont jump the gun, pick your battles.

I can now freely say that Bioware is a piece of shit company for pulling this crap, and that this will be last product I ever buy, I can now look forward to telling people who blindly defend bioware, that their company is full of greedy fucks that have always had shit plots since the days of Baldurs gate.

And that their only redeeming quality has been writing WITTY Dialogue.

OKAY THERE MISTER!!

You just hop on your magic bunny and ride the rainbow train to Narnia!

Seriously man. You're being ridiculous.

Where we disagree is the indoctrination theory. it just doesn't hold water. Yes, maybe they were planning it out. But alot of things get removed before release. For example, you and I know about that dark matter alternate ending. Just because it was planned doesn't mean that was their intention.

I honestly don't think they are going to sell the indoctrination "ending" thing. if they do. Listen, I'll be here to say "my bad" "Bioware are giant pricks"

Hell, maybe i'm missing something here. If you have something that can be considered evidence in your favour, I'd like to see it.



the deleted "scenes" you are talking about are here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVNv2fjnszg

Edit: And spare me with your little anti-bioware tirade. We both know in two weeks you'll be back at Best buy preordering another one of their useless games.

Dude, you just RE POSTED the same shit I posted in my original reply.

I keep telling you, they cut a ton of shit out, the Indoctrination thing was real and It got CUT!

You just RE POSTED evidence I already Gave you!

And a reply to you edit buddy, The only Bioware Game ive played Aside from ME in the last 10 years was KOTOR, and It was a piece of shit, I honestly dont think Bioware will come up with anything good anytime soon, not even ME1 was as good some people paint it.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Understand, everything after Shep falls to the ground is Indoctrination, the Options are there to either let Shep Free himself from it, or Accept the Indoctrination.

Your choice in the end does matter, because you either became indoctrinated or you didnt.

Okay, but then why does Shepard see Anderson doing the supposed wrong thing and TIM doing the supposed right one, if he's indoctrinated?

One of the points that apparently proves this theory is that the Paragon colour is used to highlight the BAD choice and the Renegade colour is used to highlight the RIGHT choice. So as to (supposedly) make Shep think he's doing the right thing when he's actually making the wrong choice, right?

But then why would Shep invision Anderson (his most trusted friend and father figure) choosing for the Renegade coloured option if the Reapers wanted him to believe that it was the wrong choice?

You see how this theory isn't making any sense in the context of what's actually on screen?

 

[Burst6]

Even if the indoctrination theory is true, i still hate it.

You have to be consistent with the game. Being straightforward all the way until the end and then vagueing out on us is a horrible idea.

Dark souls did vague right. You pretty much know nothing about the world and you have to piece the information together with small bits of dialogue, item descriptions, and general observations. The game needed to be pieced together and the holes needed to be filled with different theorems. Most enemies and bosses didn't talk and you had to actively search for their stories.

If one of the bosses came out and started babbling exposition, you would be confused and knocked out of immersion because that's not the games style.

Mass effect is 75% exposition and 25% gunfights. There's barely anything left to the imagination in 99% of the plot.

You know what they should have done? Explained everything. That's what the game has been doing, and that shouldn't have changed in the last 5 minutes.

Where the reapers come from, what's their true purpose, everything. They should have humanized the reapers. That's what mass effect does well, it shows the other side. They explained the geth, they explained cerberus, they explained saren, they explained everything.

I was fine with the indoctrination thing a little while ago, but now apparently there won't be an ending DLC to mass effect 3. We don't know what happens to shepherd when she survives the indoctrination. Is the earth destroyed? do the reapers get destroyed? Did a reaper gopher drill into corpseshep's back and raise his/her chest a little bit while it was eating?

The game doesn't have an ending. If the indoctrination thing is true, we don't know what happens, we just know shepherds chest raises in some rubble.

Maybe i read the article wrong and there will be ending DLC. Hopefully free ending DLC.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm not saying it has to be FULL BLOWN IN YOUR FACE type of thing. I'm saying if the best evidence we can scrounge up is blurry pictures and "glowing eyes" then the theory has little weight. A good "unreliable narrative" can be proven.

I just doubt Bioware is that.... talented.. so to speak. An "indoctrination" ending would take some serious planning. Nothing about the ending suggests planning.

There's a few strong pieces of evidence you can use to prop up an indoctrination scenario. The fact every time that kid appears in the beginning, there's a "danger" or "caution" sign right by his head, conspicuously visible. The fact the same creepy kid is smiling like a lunatic in your freaky dreams when you/he burn up. The rubble wake up in what appears to be earth. The growling heard when your attention is snapped away from the kid in the beginning (apparently in one of the novelizations, there was an audible "growl" when someone snapped out of indoctrination). The dreams themselves. The inky blackness/creepy whispering through much of the post-beam game play. The fact StarChild appears as a "ghostly presence" ala the codex description of indoctrination.

It's enough to make me think they were actually going to do something with it at some point, but that got cut, so now the clues are there, but they never really develop into anything.

As to whether or not Bioware has the talent to write something clever...clearly they have some talented writers, or none of us ever would've cared enough about the games to fuss about the ending. What's in question is the ability of said writers to deliver high quality writing consistently.

 

[Phlakes]

I can now freely say that Bioware is a piece of shit company for pulling this crap, and that this will be last product I ever buy, I can now look forward to telling people who blindly defend bioware, that their company is full of greedy fucks that have always had shit plots since the days of Baldurs gate.

Grow up. You're regurgitating all the typical "fuck all of ______ forever for doing something I disagree with", something I'm sure you've seen dozens of people do with other games. If you do disagree with what they've done, cool, that's fine, but every person at Bioware has worked their ass off for years just to entertain the public, so no, they're not a "piece of shit company" and they're not "full of greedy fucks", you're being irrational and immature and you'll be too blinded by rage to see it for a good while. So grow up.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

...but every person at Bioware has worked their ass off for years just to entertain the public...

I....think the primary reason they did that is so that they could collect a paycheck.

Not saying they're all evil monsters or anything, but this is a job for them, yeah? They weren't doing it to be altruistic.

I think boag is feeling emotional and overstating his point, but let's be rational here and not go 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Bioware is a business. EA is a business. They are selling us a product. The relationship between customer and developer is a little more mercenary than "working their ass off just to entertain the public".

 

[Emiscary]

Okay. Phlakes, is it? I call bullshit. Every person at Bioware did not work their ass off for years "just" to entertain the public. If they were motivated by a desire to entertain for its own sake they'd be street performers living off pocket change. They're not selfless paragons (I couldn't resist), they're workers being paid to do a job. And you don't get to decide what people can and cannot say about a worker who they feel didn't do their damned job. Regardless of whether they phrased it politely. Why? Because in a capitalistic democracy, you ARE guaranteed a right to voice displeasure at a professional who you think wronged you. However the hell you want. If that means being obnoxious for some people, than so be it. Sometimes it takes obnoxious to get a point across.

 

[Phlakes]

...but every person at Bioware has worked their ass off for years just to entertain the public...

I....think the primary reason they did that is so that they could collect a paycheck.

Not saying they're all evil monsters or anything, but this is a job for them, yeah? They weren't doing it to be altruistic.

I think boag is feeling emotional and overstating his point, but let's be rational here and not go 180 degrees in the opposite direction. Bioware is a business. EA is a business. They are selling us a product. The relationship between customer and developer is a little more mercenary than "working their ass off just to entertain the public".

No one takes a job in game design for just the money. At least 99% of them don't. People are just too quick to dehumanize any kind of organization, makes it easier to call them greedy fucks when you don't consider that all the people at Bioware and EA have friends, families, things that piss them off, and emotions just like everyone on this forum, and that, surprisingly enough, they actually don't go out of their way to fuck with their consumers.

Okay. Phlakes, is it? I call bullshit. Every person at Bioware did not work their ass off for years "just" to entertain the public. If they were motivated by a desire to entertain for its own sake they'd be street performers living off pocket change. They're not selfless paragons (I couldn't resist), they're workers being paid to do a job. And you don't get to decide what people can and cannot say about a worker who they feel didn't do their damned job. Regardless of whether they phrased it politely. Why? Because in a capitalistic democracy, you ARE guaranteed a right to voice displeasure at a professional who you think wronged you. However the hell you want. If that means being obnoxious for some people, than so be it. Sometimes it takes obnoxious to get a point across.

See above. No, they're not completely selfless, but they're not all "greedy fucks" like the internet loves to make them out to be.

 

[Emiscary]

See above. No, they're not completely selfless, but they're not all "greedy fucks" like the internet loves to make them out to be.

Lemme ask you something, what's the approximate percentage of the staff at Bioware that you're familiar with personally? If it's somewhere south of 1% as I expect it is, you have exactly as much insight into the character and inner workings of the company as the "the internet" does. (I find it weird that you try to distance yourself from the medium you're using to spread your message...) And therefore exactly as much right to make aspersions on said character or mission statement.

So in that light, allow me to make another obnoxious, aggravated aspersion on the company's character:

If I had to guess after having ridden the wave of the Mass Effect experience as a whole I'd say there's probably a big engraved plaque hanging somewhere in a fat balding guy's office at EA headquarters (for the sake of this example I'm going to assume EA lairs in a a secret base under a radioactive sewage plant) that reads "REMEMBER: YOU OWE THEM NOTHING. GIVE IT TO THEM."

 

[BloatedGuppy]

you're claiming a lot of things here.

1. I don't see "danger" or "caution" above the kids head. ever.

2. A kid smiling is hardly evidence.

3. Shepard waking up alive is just that = shepard waking up alive.

4. "The growling" are you serious? Are we submitting random noises into evidence now? it's called ambiance. Its part of building the narrative.
5. I'm pretty damn sure the dream was about the people were unable to save. ergo, the last dream you can hear dialogue from dead squadmates and legion.
6.I don't consider that a "ghostly presence" it wasn't hovering or anything. It was just some demi-god glowing ethereally shit.

No, sorry these clues are you guys fishing. I mean come on. "growling" you cant be serious about that one.


Yes, I think they have some talented writers but this theory is a load of crock.

1. Watch the clip of him getting on the shuttle, and in the vent. On three different occasions you'll see "Danger" and "Caution" signs conspicuously hovering right by his head.

3. Well, we've been over this before. Shepard is informed by the Magic Space Baby that he/she will die regardless of outcome chosen, and given you see Shepard die in two of the endings and watch the Citadel explode in the third, the scenarios in which Shepard waking up in a pile of concrete with wind blow lie somewhere between slim and none.

4. Dude, the growl when you snap out of indoctrination is something they established in their own lore. If you watch the clip of the kid in the vent, there's an EXTREMELY conspicuous growl precisely at the moment Anderson calls Shepard's name and snaps his attention away. It's hardly a background noise.

6. Why make it ethereal at all?

Meh. It's irrelevant. I'm not going to waste a lot of time trying to sell you on a theory I'm 95% convinced they won't follow up on anyway. But since you know from the developers notes that they were planning an indoctrination sequence anyway, I'm really not sure why you've decided to go all cognitive dissonance and completely disregard the idea that they laid the groundwork for something that later got cut. One post ago you say you don't believe the hints propping up an unreliable narration twist need to be overt, now you're flipping out because they're not overt enough. I know being contrary is basically your raison d'etre, but even you must get tired of it sometimes.

 

[Phlakes]

See above. No, they're not completely selfless, but they're not all "greedy fucks" like the internet loves to make them out to be.

Lemme ask you something, what's the approximate percentage of the staff at Bioware that you're familiar with personally? If it's somewhere south of 1% as I expect it is, you have exactly as much insight into the character and inner workings of the company as the "the internet" does. (I find it weird that you try to distance yourself from the medium you're using to spread your message...) And therefore exactly as much right to make aspersions on said character or mission statement.

Well, is an average person a greedy fuck? I guess that depends on your definition of greedy fuck, but no, most people in the world are not the kind that would exploit a consumer base for money. So, by that logic, taking a sample that works in the entertainment industry (you know, to entertain people) you can't deny that if you took a random person from Bioware, there's a pretty damn high chance of them not being a greedy fuck.

And no, I don't know what they personally are like, but I know what people are like, and anyone who makes the assumption that an entire organization is full of greedy fucks is being very irrational.

EDIT: Also, you know what I mean by "the internet" there.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

No one takes a job in game design for just the money. At least 99% of them don't. People are just too quick to dehumanize any kind of organization, makes it easier to call them greedy fucks when you don't consider that all the people at Bioware and EA have friends, families, things that piss them off, and emotions just like everyone on this forum, and that, surprisingly enough, they actually don't go out of their way to fuck with their consumers.

And 99% of statistics are made up on the spot? Don't use the "people" argument either. Boag might have been too quick to dehumanize an organization, so deal with boag. Lots of people are unhappy with Bioware in a more reserved fashion.

As a consumer, I'm not of the mind that they went out of their way to fuck me, but barring further evidence coming to light, it certainly does seem like they half-assed a pretty crucial element of the product they sold me. After half-assing a goodly portion of the last product they sold me. I think I'm within my rights to express a lack of patience with them.