Iszfury said:
And, @ Toko Makt:
Thanks for addressing the topic as opposed to committing ugly ad hominem. Yeah, I was being callous, but you could of at least put me off respectably.
*
punches cheeks again* Too precious!
You want respect, you give respect. Your post gave no respect, was a blatant ad hominem on everyone who's upset with the ending of ME3 and voicing their opinion, and you got what you deserved from your infantile and obvious troll.
*
pinches cheek again* One day, you'll wear big troll pants. And on that day... well, by that day, I'll probably be in a nursing home and no longer able to post on the internet. But a guy can dream, can't he?
*
pauses, reads more posts, sighs* Oh allright Mr. Fussypants, I'll quote another one of your posts, go back to the original post that I replied to and consider a more reasonable response that doesn't involve pinching your cute little tear-streaked cheeks.
Iszfury said:
Only relatively linear logic is needed to explain the popular consensus on the issue:
My favourite poster from University was a picture of Mr. Spock (From Star Trek. The original Star Trek, not the Millennium eye-candy from a couple of years ago. I did mention Netscape in my post, and the usenet, showing just how hold I was, didn't I? At my age, I tend to forget important things on occasion.) and has the caption "Logic is the systematic method for coming to the wrong conclusion with confidence."
Iszfury said:
Fanbase Develops Creepy Emotional Attachment to Game ->
Admittedly there is some creepy emotional attachment by some fans. To reduce the entire fanbase to being people with creepy emotional attachments to the game is a blatant troll designed to denigrate anyone who is a fan of ME and who disagree's with you. There is absolutely and utterly no respect in this line, to the point where not even 100% Paragon Shep would attempt to debate this point, for to debate this particular point is to give it a legitimacy that this blatant, and infantile troll does not deserve in any way, shape or form.
Iszfury said:
Fanbase Begins to perceive work of art as their own->
In many ways the game is our own. The game was designed to elicit this feeling from the players, it was marketed with this end in mind. The game has been absurdly successful in this. Absurdly successful because it has been an epic undertaking, both in terms of programming and in terms of storytelling, to ensure that all the choices that the player has made
through three games is remembered and reflected every time a new decision is made. And while many of the conclusions are the same (ME1: Saren dies, Sovereign is defeated. ME2: Collectors are defeated. ME3: Galaxy is saved.) the journey there can be vastly different and individualized. (for a video game, with all the limitations of the medium) This is designed specifically to make fans perceive the game as being "their own". Incidentally, this is also the major point of many Western RPG's (like Fallout and Skyrim), so it's not just Mass Effect that attempts this. Mass Effect is simply the most successful of the bunch.
Iszfury said:
Fanbase is pissed by an ending that doesn't indulge their every expectation->
This is an absurd comment, far and away more absurd than the previous two. Charitably, it can be called hyperbole. And by reading just a few of the properly edited criticisms, particularly the ones who use proper spelling and grammar, it can be proven false. I would even go so far as to claim a single graphic can refute this absurd comment. (which I would post, if I actually had the inclination to put the effort into finding and posting it)
The largest complaint about the ending is that the player is asked to choose between three near-identical endings, unfortunately summed up by choosing between Red Explosions, Blue Explosions and Green Explosions. In each one, the ending is near identical; Red Explosions has the Reapers crashing on Earth, humans raising their weapons in victory, the Mass Relay's being destroyed, Joker and the Normandy crashing on an unknown world and surviving. Then an old man and a boy are in silhouette on the screen, with the old man talking about "the Shepherd". Blue and Green have the Reapers flying off instead of crashing. Green has the plant life looking somewhat synthetic, then Joker comes out looking part synthetic as well, and he puts his arm around EDI, who puts her arm around his waist in a loving way. The ending conversation between the Stargazer and the Child are identical.
Had one of the endings been this way - for example, if the Green ending was this, scene for scene, word for word - it would have been far less of an issue. Had the Red and Blue endings been unique, much of the controversy and anger would be gone. Had the ending dialogue between the Stargazer and the child been unique for each choice, the anger and controversy would be considerably lessened. There would still be the issues of the plot holes - mass relay explosions are supposed to destroy entire solar systems, why is Joker flying the Normandy away from Earth, how did the other companions get off of Earth and onto Normandy, etc.? - but instead of fans demanding new endings, they would be waiting for new DLC or an entirely new game (Mass Shift?) to explain it.
But the endings are nearly identical, right down to using the same end dialogue. I can accept (grudgingly) that the three cinematics would be nigh-identical. Graphic and video files take up more space than audio files, so I would (curmudgeonly) accept that aspect if the end audio was different. Part of me might even accept it if the dialogue was the same, but the audio was different; Red explosions, it sounds human. Blue explosions, it sounds alien (possibly leading to the implication that humans are gone, and a new cycle has begun with the Reapers coming back), Green explosions it sounds almost like a Geth talking. If they had done that, I might be far less annoyed with the ending.
Iszfury said:
Yes, Lulz are made. And due to the infantile nature of the three points, Lulz are made at your expense too. Suck it up buttercup, and do better next time if you don't want Lulz made at your expense.
Iszfury said:
Y'know what?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to DISLIKE the ending, but a full-scale internet fundraiser and organized webhate specifically targeted at Bioware is something of an embarrassment to the community. Not only is the effort futile and it would reflect poorly on EA in a business sense to commit to the changes, ME3 IS art. Bob makes a point. Although being sold as a product, is there really any other way to acquire art but in the form of a product? Paintings; music are also "products", acknowledging the means by which we acquire them. Some of the most catastrophic compromises in regards to artistic integrity have been made when artists cave in to common demand. It's silly and childish. I was kind of put off by the ending myself, and can understand the arguments objecting to its quality, but the arguments for its modification or total revamping are lunacy. Art is too multifaceted and subjective for people to qualify a certain aspect of it as being inadequate and deserving of a refund. It just DOESN'T serve a straightforward enough utility. It satisfied you as a whole, did it not? I figure most people here loved the game until the end - so much so that it pissed them off all the worse. For all those complaining, suck it up, and get on with your lives.
Some of your points are salient. Yes, the Retake Mass Effect drive is over the top and embarrassing, even if it has raised tens of thousands of dollars for charity. Yes, no matter what BioWare does, there will be people who are going to be annoyed by any ending; Paragon Male Shep/Tali Shippers are going to want 100% complete Paragon Shep to settle down on Rannoch with Tali and make little four fingered babies who's legs bend the wrong way, and if they don't get that they will scream.
Most of them aren't. Particularly regarding the points about "art", and the forms of art you compare them to. ME3 is not art in the same way a painting is art. It is closer to music, but even that is tenuous. A painting is made by one person from start to finish. It may be shown to others as a draft or a work in progress, but not as a general rule. Music is typically made by a small group of people (a band), and may be played for people as a draft form or work in progress; it's not uncommon for groups to debut new songs at live concerts to see the crowd reaction, and it's very common to play the music for industry insiders who are looking for how best to market the music being made... and who will "advise" on how to change the music to make it easier to market.
Movies are a better comparison since movies, like games, are long term collaborative endeavours made up of many small pieces and with many contributors. They are also shown, in rough form, to an audience to gauge their reactions and then adjusted accordingly... even if the "vision" of the "art" is at odds with what the test audience wants. If the "artist" (director, writer, producer, etc.) wants the movie to end with everyone dying horrific, poignant deaths, but the test audience wants the Hero to live, most of the time the artist bends their "artistic integrity" to give the audience what it wants in a way that the artist can be satisfied with. If the artist doesn't do this, the people who invested in the movie are likely to remove them from the project and find someone who will give the audience what it wants. This happens all the time in the movie industry.
Incidentally, this is a point which I consider to be one of the best to refute Bob Chipman's infantile tweets. Artists in the movie industry regularly compromise their artistic integrity to give the audience what they want, so that the audience will actually buy the product. And with the advent of DVD's and BluRay, now you can get movies that are the Directors Cut and show what the artist truly wanted to do with the movie. In a sense, some movies even come with DLC - deleted scenes, extended scenes, or in the case of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, extended movies. Which you can only get if you buy the DVD/BluRay, which tend to be more expensive than even the most expensive movie ticket. So his argument that the artists at BioWare and EA shouldn't compromise their art due to the reaction of the audience is utterly laughable.
And hell, if movie producers could revise aspects of the movies that the fans hated as easily as game studios can release DLC to revise parts of games that didn't work, producers would do that in a heartbeat. Perhaps the most obvious examples would be M. Night Shyamalan's last three (four? five?) movies, which were panned for their failed "twist endings", could be changed and perhaps save the studios millions of dollars. If they could spend $1 million getting an editor to take unused takes to make a new ending, and could guarantee that the movie made an extra $10 million dollars, they would jump on that like starved pit bulls on raw beef.
tl;dr : *
pinches cheeks again* You are so cute when you're indignant and stomping your little feet to be taken seriously!
