JCBFGD said:
Yeah, I'm gonna have to say fuck you guys. Maybe if you were story writers there and decided that you could do better, then this'd be okay. But no, you're a bunch of whiny, entitled, self-important douchebags. You're consumers buying a form of art (in the same way that movies are art), and when buying art, you have no right to ***** about how shitty it is. You bought someone else's creative work, and if their work is not up to your standards, then that's your loss. It's not their job to remake it to suit your wants.
So if a company releases a game with shitty code that makes some part of the game un-playable, the only people that should complain are the ones that can program, right?
The internet is full of stupid arguments. Yours is one of them.
The end of Mass Effect 3 fails to deliver as promised, explicitly. Several BioWare representatives promoting the game before release touted the ending as one that would not leave a lot of unanswered questions, and would provide real choices, not "A, B, or C" (that was from Casey Hudson.) The ending is not as advertised, and is pretty unequivocally broken from a story perspective, including characters magically teleporting to the Normandy, the introduction in the last 3 minutes of a new and vague character (Star Child) around which the entire game trilogy revolves, without any foreshadowing or relevance, and a total failure to wrap up established plot lines. The narrative is broken, as surely as a bugged encounter can be broken.
This isn't just an issue of people not liking it, any more than a bugged boss fight is just an issue of "learn to play." It's fucking broken.
We all know what happened to Knights of the Old Republic II (The Sith Lords) at Obsidian: they ran out of time, so it was pushed out the door and onto shelves with a shitty, unfinished end that didn't make a lot of sense. While Obsidian at the time was trying (unsuccessfully) to follow in BioWare's footsteps, it is sad to see that BioWare is now following in Obsidian's.
Look, Mass Effect 3 is a goddamn brilliant game. It really sets a new standard in interactive storytelling. It is for that reason that the end stands out - it simply doesn't fit with the rest of the game, at all. It is a non sequitur. It is, just to reiterate a point, broken.
Final point: this is not a one-off purchase. A lot of us pre-order and buy games day-one from BioWare and other companies based on their track record, as well as other related crap like soundtracks and the occasional t-shirt or ball cap. When people express their opinion of the endings of Mass Effect 3, they aren't saying "you owe us a new ending, because we are entitled." They're saying, in essence, "if you're satisfied with that ending and don't feel the need to finish this right, that will fundamentally change our business relationship going forward." I buy a lot of games when they hit the $20 mark, a year or so after they are released, and moving BioWare games into that "wait-and-see" category for a big chunk of their fan base isn't whining, or a sense of entitlement, or douche-baggery. It is also avoidable, if BioWare makes good with the patches and DLC to provide an end that makes some sense in the context of the Mass Effect series and ME3 specifically.
I don't give a shit about the day-one DLC, I think the game (other than the end) was a good value at its list price and the DLC was worth what they charged for it. What I do give a shit about is the apparent abandonment of a commitment to quality on the part of one of my favorite game developers. If the Edmonton BioWare studio can't be depended on to avoid story cock-ups like this, well... that's a fucking shame.
All of that aside, giving money to a charity that helps sick kids is a good thing, always, and if you do it to draw attention to your online petition, or to advertise, or to get a tax break, it is still a good thing... because you're helping sick kids. The only thing foul and venomous is your sanctimony on the issue.
