Dragon Age Origins Lead Designer speaks out against ME3 Ending

[NKRevan]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

 

[PeterDawson]

It's story-writing 101 pretty much. I mean, unless you've got the talent to pull something off differently than the norm, hit the beats but tell them in an enticing and enthralling way. I mean, there's a term called the 'bioware RPG' because it hits its own general characteristics just right, and yet in spite of all the similarities people notice we still enjoy it. The 2nd part of a trilogy is generally regarded as being required to be the darkest and we already got a subversion as stuff got damn bleak in ME3 from the opening mission onwards. Still bucking one writing trend doesn't mean you should buck them all as you can be left with such a mess that people don't know what to make of it.

All I know is as a guy who'd played the games for over one hundred hours I wanted some kind of solid pay-off at the end and it did not feel like it at all. Origins might be pretty much a paint by numbers RPG in several respects, but I loved its ending. If you're gonna rock the boat, make sure you know what you're doing.

 

[wintercoat]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

And I'm sure they have a working, or at least fully intact, Mass Relay to study too, right? Oh, no, that's right, all those just blew up.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Therein lies what seems to be the main difference between the people who enjoy the ending and the people who don't. Fans who enjoyed the ending seem to have experienced sacrifice and loss constantly. Losses on Virmire were the first, but the Suicide mission's losses compound that, and then the deaths in ME3 work neatly into the 'loss, sacrifice and death' mood that has been built up in their game style. 'Scripted' deaths in ME3 can be a part of that, and if you didn't play ME2 well, then they're compounded constantly.

The game is geared for someone who didn't save a lot of people. The endings are all geared towards that. IT's all fine and good, but what about the players who haven't lost people every step of the way? That's the issue, the game is only satisfying and fulfilling for players who have lost. The players who saved their squadmates, worked through problems without making an arbitrary 'this or that' choice, the players who saved Wrex, who made it through the suicide mission without a loss, who only lost characters when it was completely unavoidable (and even then, they died because of their willingness to give everything for a better cause, a noble death in cause of something worthwhile).

It's a tone shift for players who don't 'lose', there's no ending for us. There's no resolution for us. For those of us, we've come to see the game as being one where we can overcome the worst and most maddening conflicts, where we overcame things that people said no-one could overcome, solved problems no-one could solve. That is the problem, there's three endings to chose from, but in essence, it's the Hobson's Choice, you get the same result, no matter what.

You're either dead or in ruins, your crew is lost, the galaxy is decimated, the mass effect relays are gone. At the end, the people you care about, the central aspect of everything that the game has been about, Character Development, Character relationships, is discarded and the central reason for investment is gone, your crew is marooned somewhere (Zorya actually) that you can't reach.

No matter what, the tone of your character and the relationship you have to the characters you've been invested in is the same.

I agree with you what say about everything (everything being that the ending created a hundred more questions). But I gotta ask... What makes you say they landed on Zorya? Isnt that way way out in the Ismar Frontier? Why would Joker abandon you and bolt all the way across there?

SO MANY THINGS JUST DONT MAKE SENSE! I prefer the indoctrination ending!

 

[NKRevan]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

And I'm sure they have a working, or at least fully intact, Mass Relay to study too, right? Oh, no, that's right, all those just blew up.

Oh just give it up. We have lots of stuff to go one. Previous research, wreckage, reaper corpses what have you.

Why is everyone so intent on thinking the galaxy is doomed just because we can't pop over to Omega for a drink anymore?

 

[PeterDawson]

Therein lies what seems to be the main difference between the people who enjoy the ending and the people who don't. Fans who enjoyed the ending seem to have experienced sacrifice and loss constantly. Losses on Virmire were the first, but the Suicide mission's losses compound that, and then the deaths in ME3 work neatly into the 'loss, sacrifice and death' mood that has been built up in their game style. 'Scripted' deaths in ME3 can be a part of that, and if you didn't play ME2 well, then they're compounded constantly.

The game is geared for someone who didn't save a lot of people. The endings are all geared towards that. IT's all fine and good, but what about the players who haven't lost people every step of the way? That's the issue, the game is only satisfying and fulfilling for players who have lost. The players who saved their squadmates, worked through problems without making an arbitrary 'this or that' choice, the players who saved Wrex, who made it through the suicide mission without a loss, who only lost characters when it was completely unavoidable (and even then, they died because of their willingness to give everything for a better cause, a noble death in cause of something worthwhile).

It's a tone shift for players who don't 'lose', there's no ending for us. There's no resolution for us. For those of us, we've come to see the game as being one where we can overcome the worst and most maddening conflicts, where we overcame things that people said no-one could overcome, solved problems no-one could solve. That is the problem, there's three endings to chose from, but in essence, it's the Hobson's Choice, you get the same result, no matter what.

You're either dead or in ruins, your crew is lost, the galaxy is decimated, the mass effect relays are gone. At the end, the people you care about, the central aspect of everything that the game has been about, Character Development, Character relationships, is discarded and the central reason for investment is gone, your crew is marooned somewhere (Zorya actually) that you can't reach.

No matter what, the tone of your character and the relationship you have to the characters you've been invested in is the same.

I agree with you what say about everything (everything being that the ending created a hundred more questions). But I gotta ask... What makes you say they landed on Zorya? Isnt that way way out in the Ismar Frontier? Why would Joker abandon you and bolt all the way across there?

SO MANY THINGS JUST DONT MAKE SENSE! I prefer the indoctrination ending!

I just find the options you're given are all terrible and there's no obvious reason to have to conform to any single one. I can live with the sacrifice part. I don't need a happy ending, though don't get me wrong I would enjoy having one be an option.

And yeah, taking the sacrifice element away from it, it still makes no sense and raises too many questions for the last few minutes of a game.

 

[josemlopes]

This is why we cannot have nice things, for we set up these absurd rules for video-games that only serve to permeate clichés and tired tropes, such as the Hollywood-esque notion that a movie (or in this case, Video-games) should only have happy-endings.

On the other hand somebody playing an epic role-playing video-game trilogy is going to *expect* to be the hero and save the universe. That's why they are playing the game. When expectations don't match reality, disappointment is created.

This explains why DA:O was so goddamn stale and bland, OF COURSE WE HAVE TO HAVE AN EVIL DARK FORCE THAT THREATENS TO CONSUME THE LAND AND ONLY THE CHOSEN ONE CAN SAVE US.

Jesus balls, this is the stupidest thing I have ever read, its people like him that are the reason why 90% of all RPGs have derivative-as-shit stories and character archetypes.

Yeah, I think that he missed the point about this. Isnt the problem the lack of input that the ending gets from players actions (like no matter what you do it will be basicly the same) instead of it being sad?

 

[PeterDawson]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

And I'm sure they have a working, or at least fully intact, Mass Relay to study too, right? Oh, no, that's right, all those just blew up.

Oh just give it up. We have lots of stuff to go one. Previous research, wreckage, reaper corpses what have you.

Why is everyone so intent on thinking the galaxy is doomed just because we can't pop over to Omega for a drink anymore?

Because of over-population, unclear levels of devastation, and one tiny planet with an unknown level of resources on said planet. I mean, even if they could build their own relay in a day, things would be bad. The fact that no matter what a perfectly good ship crashes is also a bit distressing as it implies bad things for other ships.

Also, you're trying to have a discussion. Telling someone to 'give it up' is not contructive.

 

[FFHAuthor]

I agree with you what say about everything (everything being that the ending created a hundred more questions). But I gotta ask... What makes you say they landed on Zorya? Isnt that way way out in the Ismar Frontier? Why would Joker abandon you and bolt all the way across there?

SO MANY THINGS JUST DONT MAKE SENSE! I prefer the indoctrination ending!

I was reading another post, and the guy posted an image of the Zorya skybox background, and it was identical to the ending scene skybox everyone was looking up at, same dual planets same sizes and everything, even the fauna represented on the planet is identical to Zorya. They don't say it but...either its another of the MASSIVE botches that the ending has (along with disappearing crew, teleportation, general desertion and abandonment, bad voice acting) or they INTENDED for the Normandy to be crash landed on an industrial mining world dominated by the Blue Suns.

 

[wintercoat]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

And I'm sure they have a working, or at least fully intact, Mass Relay to study too, right? Oh, no, that's right, all those just blew up.

Oh just give it up. We have lots of stuff to go one. Previous research, wreckage, reaper corpses what have you.

Why is everyone so intent on thinking the galaxy is doomed just because we can't pop over to Omega for a drink anymore?

For the same reason you seem so intent on pushing the idea that recovery will be a cinch. It took the Protheans years to create the Conduit, a one-way Mass Relay. And they not only had working Mass Relays to study, but also were more technologically advanced than the current cycle is.

 

[SajuukKhar]

For the same reason you seem so intent on pushing the idea that recovery will be a cinch. It took the Protheans years to create the Conduit, a one-way Mass Relay. And they not only had working Mass Relays to study, but also were more technologically advanced than the current cycle is.

Actually how long it took the protheans to make the conduit is never stated, try harder next time.

 

[NKRevan]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

And I'm sure they have a working, or at least fully intact, Mass Relay to study too, right? Oh, no, that's right, all those just blew up.

Oh just give it up. We have lots of stuff to go one. Previous research, wreckage, reaper corpses what have you.

Why is everyone so intent on thinking the galaxy is doomed just because we can't pop over to Omega for a drink anymore?

Because of over-population, unclear levels of devastation, and one tiny planet with an unknown level of resources on said planet. I mean, even if they could build their own relay in a day, things would be bad. The fact that no matter what a perfectly good ship crashes is also a bit distressing as it implies bad things for other ships.

Also, you're trying to have a discussion. Telling someone to 'give it up' is not contructive.

What over-population???

Did people forget the whole "We can still travel to other systems, it just takes us a bit longer" thing?

I'm saying give it up because people refuse to just accept that intergalactic civilization is not dead. Sure, it is hurt. Sure, there is damage, but there's no reason to believe the whole thing will fall apart.

People try to come up with reasons why everything would be super-bad, but I haven't seen a viable reason yet.

FTL Travel still viable? Yes.
Quantum Comms available and produceable? Yes.
Lots of people who can work together? Yes.

Hope lost? No.

 

[NKRevan]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

And I'm sure they have a working, or at least fully intact, Mass Relay to study too, right? Oh, no, that's right, all those just blew up.

Oh just give it up. We have lots of stuff to go one. Previous research, wreckage, reaper corpses what have you.

Why is everyone so intent on thinking the galaxy is doomed just because we can't pop over to Omega for a drink anymore?

For the same reason you seem so intent on pushing the idea that recovery will be a cinch. It took the Protheans years to create the Conduit, a one-way Mass Relay. And they not only had working Mass Relays to study, but also were more technologically advanced than the current cycle is.

I never said anything about it being easy.

It will be hard. There will be hardships ahead for the galactic community.

So?

 

[Von Strimmer]

I agree with you what say about everything (everything being that the ending created a hundred more questions). But I gotta ask... What makes you say they landed on Zorya? Isnt that way way out in the Ismar Frontier? Why would Joker abandon you and bolt all the way across there?

SO MANY THINGS JUST DONT MAKE SENSE! I prefer the indoctrination ending!

I was reading another post, and the guy posted an image of the Zorya skybox background, and it was identical to the ending scene skybox everyone was looking up at, same dual planets same sizes and everything, even the fauna represented on the planet is identical to Zorya. They don't say it but...either its another of the MASSIVE botches that the ending has (along with disappearing crew, teleportation, general desertion and abandonment, bad voice acting) or they INTENDED for the Normandy to be crash landed on an industrial mining world dominated by the Blue Suns.

Sounds more like a rushed stock photo than anything else. I'm going to hold out until Bioware gives us some answers (god help them if they try to make you pay for an ending), and hopefully then some things will become clear. For now its just one bit WTF?!?! Gears 3 had a better ending than this!

 

[PeterDawson]

Not doomed, but definitely severely crippled.

Which is an exceedingly temporary state.

Until someone figures out how to make new Relays, which I doubt would be any time soon. Trade is near impossible when it takes you 3-5 years to travel between systems.

Yeah....because we totally don't have the galaxies brightest all gathered in one place to crack down on research like never before...


Oh wait...we do have that.

And I'm sure they have a working, or at least fully intact, Mass Relay to study too, right? Oh, no, that's right, all those just blew up.

Oh just give it up. We have lots of stuff to go one. Previous research, wreckage, reaper corpses what have you.

Why is everyone so intent on thinking the galaxy is doomed just because we can't pop over to Omega for a drink anymore?

Because of over-population, unclear levels of devastation, and one tiny planet with an unknown level of resources on said planet. I mean, even if they could build their own relay in a day, things would be bad. The fact that no matter what a perfectly good ship crashes is also a bit distressing as it implies bad things for other ships.

Also, you're trying to have a discussion. Telling someone to 'give it up' is not contructive.

What over-population???

Did people forget the whole "We can still travel to other systems, it just takes us a bit longer" thing?

I'm saying give it up because people refuse to just accept that intergalactic civilization is not dead. Sure, it is hurt. Sure, there is damage, but there's no reason to believe the whole thing will fall apart.

People try to come up with reasons why everything would be super-bad, but I haven't seen a viable reason yet.

FTL Travel still viable? Yes.
Quantum Comms available and produceable? Yes.
Lots of people who can work together? Yes.

Hope lost? No.

Over-population I mean the fact that everyone's stuck in the Sol system with little chance to spread out, at least right away. Even if the ships were functioning you've got potential problems due to now-limited resources since the closest available stops are in bad shape. Worst case every ship crashed like the Normandy, which is very possible thanks to it being a functioning ship that still crashed. Then you've got thousands of ships with who knows how many survivors and who knows how long for a way to get them off-planet. That doesn't even get into if quantum comms might be down. Yes they can work together but its still a very nasty situation.

 

[SajuukKhar]

Over-population I mean the fact that everyone's stuck in the Sol system with little chance to spread out, at least right away. Even if the ships were functioning you've got potential problems due to now-limited resources since the closest available stops are in bad shape. Worst case every ship crashed like the Normandy, which is very possible thanks to it being a functioning ship that still crashed. Then you've got thousands of ships with who knows how many survivors and who knows how long for a way to get them off-planet. That doesn't even get into if quantum comms might be down. Yes they can work together but its still a very nasty situation.

A great deal of those ships and their crews would be entirely unrecoverable.

 

[Von Strimmer]

Therein lies what seems to be the main difference between the people who enjoy the ending and the people who don't. Fans who enjoyed the ending seem to have experienced sacrifice and loss constantly. Losses on Virmire were the first, but the Suicide mission's losses compound that, and then the deaths in ME3 work neatly into the 'loss, sacrifice and death' mood that has been built up in their game style. 'Scripted' deaths in ME3 can be a part of that, and if you didn't play ME2 well, then they're compounded constantly.

The game is geared for someone who didn't save a lot of people. The endings are all geared towards that. IT's all fine and good, but what about the players who haven't lost people every step of the way? That's the issue, the game is only satisfying and fulfilling for players who have lost. The players who saved their squadmates, worked through problems without making an arbitrary 'this or that' choice, the players who saved Wrex, who made it through the suicide mission without a loss, who only lost characters when it was completely unavoidable (and even then, they died because of their willingness to give everything for a better cause, a noble death in cause of something worthwhile).

It's a tone shift for players who don't 'lose', there's no ending for us. There's no resolution for us. For those of us, we've come to see the game as being one where we can overcome the worst and most maddening conflicts, where we overcame things that people said no-one could overcome, solved problems no-one could solve. That is the problem, there's three endings to chose from, but in essence, it's the Hobson's Choice, you get the same result, no matter what.

You're either dead or in ruins, your crew is lost, the galaxy is decimated, the mass effect relays are gone. At the end, the people you care about, the central aspect of everything that the game has been about, Character Development, Character relationships, is discarded and the central reason for investment is gone, your crew is marooned somewhere (Zorya actually) that you can't reach.

No matter what, the tone of your character and the relationship you have to the characters you've been invested in is the same.

I agree with you what say about everything (everything being that the ending created a hundred more questions). But I gotta ask... What makes you say they landed on Zorya? Isnt that way way out in the Ismar Frontier? Why would Joker abandon you and bolt all the way across there?

SO MANY THINGS JUST DONT MAKE SENSE! I prefer the indoctrination ending!

I just find the options you're given are all terrible and there's no obvious reason to have to conform to any single one. I can live with the sacrifice part. I don't need a happy ending, though don't get me wrong I would enjoy having one be an option.

And yeah, taking the sacrifice element away from it, it still makes no sense and raises too many questions for the last few minutes of a game.

Assassins Creed 2 made more sense at the end.
***SPOILER WARNING SINCE I CANT DO SPOILER TAGS***
***FINAL WARNING***
Whats up with the option (where if you destroy the reapers) and have over 5000 in war assets, that Shepard starts breathing again on Earth surrounded by concrete?

 

[PeterDawson]

Over-population I mean the fact that everyone's stuck in the Sol system with little chance to spread out, at least right away. Even if the ships were functioning you've got potential problems due to now-limited resources since the closest available stops are in bad shape. Worst case every ship crashed like the Normandy, which is very possible thanks to it being a functioning ship that still crashed. Then you've got thousands of ships with who knows how many survivors and who knows how long for a way to get them off-planet. That doesn't even get into if quantum comms might be down. Yes they can work together but its still a very nasty situation.

A great deal of those ships and their crews would be entirely unrecoverable.

Aye. I mean, I would never say something is hopeless, but given what little destruction we see, the situation is still very, very bleak, even without getting into quite a few of the possible ramifications of other things.

 

[FFHAuthor]

Sounds more like a rushed stock photo than anything else. I'm going to hold out until Bioware gives us some answers (god help them if they try to make you pay for an ending), and hopefully then some things will become clear. For now its just one bit WTF?!?! Gears 3 had a better ending than this!

Though it doesn't exactly seem to make things feel better. "Don't worry, it didn't mean anything, it was just laziness!"

And yes...I've made the Gears of War 3 'had a better ending' argument too.

 

[Melon Hunter]

Over-population I mean the fact that everyone's stuck in the Sol system with little chance to spread out, at least right away. Even if the ships were functioning you've got potential problems due to now-limited resources since the closest available stops are in bad shape. Worst case every ship crashed like the Normandy, which is very possible thanks to it being a functioning ship that still crashed. Then you've got thousands of ships with who knows how many survivors and who knows how long for a way to get them off-planet. That doesn't even get into if quantum comms might be down. Yes they can work together but its still a very nasty situation.

A great deal of those ships and their crews would be entirely unrecoverable.

Aye. I mean, I would never say something is hopeless, but given what little destruction we see, the situation is still very, very bleak, even without getting into quite a few of the possible ramifications of other things.

One little glimmer of hope, having just seen the ending for myself; if you look closely, the Crucible has a mass relay inside it when it docks with the Citadel. Presumably there are plans for how to build more mass relays inside the Crucible's blueprints. I have to side with the others in the debate here and say that galactic civilisation isn't doomed forever. It can definitely rebuild. It's just a question of how long.