I dissagree, one CAN make pro slavery/genocide likable or at least understand their pain. Behold the game that Mass Effect was inspired....and the antagonists:
Those guys were pretty awesome. I wonder if this was what the guys at Mass Effect were trying to go for. When you learned the reason these guys did what you did, it answered many questions without ever taking away their mystique. The slavery. Their idea of salvation through slavery. I also changed a bit what the fight was about. It made everything far less black and white.
Unfortunately, the way the delivered that particular plot twist fail flat. Why is that I wonder? Maybe the writers just didn't have the brilliance to properly write a twist like that. I would have liked anything about the ending if it was at least properly written.
EDIT: I also thought that the The Ur-Quan Kohr-Ah were a pretty good dig at an attitude of extreme paranoia where you start feeling justified in "preventive strikes". Those are just my two cents.
Adding on the resemblance with the ending, they use the exact twisted form of logic. They were the byproduct of slavery, yet they enslave civilizations. Maybe it's because in Mass Effect 3, you're never given the chance of debating with the reaper?
Notice how this and the two conversations before it is different in both mood and feeling from this:
Maybe it's just the star kid itself. He feels more petulant and more final. While the others were just preludes to a fight, this was an end. Maybe things would have been better if the star kid had come in two hours beforehand. You could have talked with your squad mates and other people at least. It wouldn't have made the argument any better, but it might have made it far more tolerable.
To fully understand, one has to start at the top. Mass Effect 3 was to be a proper ending to something we still had deep attachment to. This wasn't the Metal Gear Solid "finale" (now in quotes due to ore games) that lost us in convoluted twists, or God of War 3, which hadn't left us with enough emotional attachment to Kratos to care too hard about his final journey, or resident Evil which dropped its original plot in the intro to the 4th game. This was a proper end and we really wanted it to be gotten right.
This get off on the wrong foot when we got stuck with James Vega while having to pay extra for our prothean (love to dare EA to reverse that and see who bites). Playing the game, well, it wasn't perfect, but had few serious complaints. The opening was heavy handed as to desperation, but I thought it worked. While I have no love for the Mako, I did miss some form of hacking mini game. There were far more gun options than necessary that offered little difference and I missed the specialized heavy weapons. Still, I found these minor, and loved little things like nods to the books and comics. Playing through you really thought all the choices would impact the battle on various levels like front line strength, rear defense, supply lines, technical strength, and other factors that would spell out a complicated set of a final battle.
Then we got there and that didn't happen. You are moderately disappointed, so much you ignore only taking a squad to run the pillar not the whole team. Still very serviceable if not up to the hype. Then they don't just let the space macguffin work. It starts talking to you and every bad choice they could have made was made. At best it was poorly explained. At worst you have to ignore its central thesis coming into question if you solved the Geth / Quarion conflict. You have to ignore Sheppard unquestionably listening to it when he'd been spitting in the face of the reapers since the first game. Heck, you kind of have to forget 3 dead reapers this game, cutting into their unstoppable reputation. Following that up with a scene heavily implying the whole of the galaxy was toast and the Normandy crew were to the sole long term survivors and I suddenly couldn't process.
The fallout went as expected for a while: we were mad, ranted about it, made pointless petitions about it, ect. Just when we were moving on, the "journalist" crowd jumped in with the insults in various tones about how the voice of fans was irrelevant, and the artists words were final. Over the months I had a lot of issues with that from how this seemed to try and remove things from capitalism, to how artistic integrity didn't seem to be an issue when a feminist wanted make videos telling game companies how to portray women. But what has got me was the lack of defense for the ending. Most defenses fell into the realms of "it's not that bad" or " it's the journey not the destination" or "I liked it and that sentence should counter that 30 minute dissertation." Had more people stood up to say "this is why we should have liked it" things might have gone differently. Instead it devolved into squatters rights between artists and fans. Not pretty, both sides wanting better games, but not agreeing on how to best get there.
The EC gave it its script polish making it work better, if still based on flawed assumptions and gave us the aftermath we'd all expected. I can forgive minor issues with screens for characters I didn't use for technical limitations, but to be honest, without the "majority of technology is fried" bit from the original ending I'm left to wonder where software ends and synthetic life begins for the destroy ending. Then Leviathian comes out and its ending is the same info given in the EC. Not to be too conspiracy minded, but so much of me wonders if that had been the point: give an ambigious ending and sell the clarity to us for ten bucks. Even if it hadn't it would have been the accusation and it might have gotten uglier.
Today my anger's past, at least at Bioware. I mean, unless a trailer impresses I'll probably buy DA3 used, and I won't deny all this crap did was add to my cynicism (don't get your hopes up because they'll be dashed), but I'm willing to replay the game at some point. Most games don't try to be sweeping sagas instead of generic sequels, so unless Square Enix announces Kingdom Hearts 3 any time soon (yeah right) it may be a while before anything of this caliber gets tried again. When it does I hope they learn not to phone in something if it's likely to piss people off no matter how well it's done.
Well, I got Mass Effect 3 a month or so after it came out, when I knew full well of the controversy. When I was about 8 hours in, when EDI becomes a crew member, my computer broke down and I had to have it fixed (which took a few months), and by the time I got it back, the Extended Cut was about to get released, so I just waited until it came out before finishing it.
That ending left me quite satisfied, so I can say I was quite lucky that all of those circumstances spared me of the legendarily horrible ending xD. I still googled it after I finished the game, and I have to admit, it was quite a mess. In hindsight, it feels like the original ending is the EC with some scenes cut off, rather than the opposite.
In hindsight, I'm actually impressed they did as well as they did. They attempted to weave a complex, narrative with many, many subplots that can go in multiple directions into a coherent trilogy of three games. That's never been done before. It's easy to say they fucked it up, but I'm kind of amazed they didn't fuck it up even more.
Man, if you knew all the content that was either chopped or left in unfinished form on the disc, you'd be amazed. Just about every criticism people have mentioned in regards to the game (more tough choices, war assets seen in action, Guardian being a dream sequence) was all left in the game files.
Sure, it's nice that 3 at least has an ending now, but I don't give them partial points for trying to make it up after the fact, nor do I give them points for releasing the rest of the "story" in DLC format. From Ashes and Omega were originally planned to be in the game, and (for whatever reason) were chopped out at some point in the production process and sold piecemeal.
The leaked possible ending I later learned about was much worse in my opinion (it makes far less sense than the one we got)
It only made less sense because it was directly tied into ME2, not its own game. Shepard had to choose between letting the galaxy fend for itself against the "tech singularity", or letting the Reapers win in an "ends justify the means" scenario. It would have been a much more difficult choice that what we got, where the rationale for the villain suddenly changes and we have no understanding of why we're making the choice in the first place.
The "indoctrination theory" would have been pretty much the worst ending I can imagine without going into complete, cartoonish absurdity or Shepard defeating the Reapers with THE POWER OF LOVE or something, so my original opinion on the ending (bemusement and disappointment) has actually been replaced with a more positive one.
Agreed. It seems people latched onto the waffling of the design team in regards to the ending (it seems at one point, they did intend it to be a dream, but this was changed for the final product), and the resulting mess was so bad that everyone just headcanoned their own resolution (which goes to show how much the game failed if people are willing to believe large chunks of it were caused by a glorified fever dream).
The story kind of ran out of steam in the end, yes, but I felt the game itself (and the whole series) was otherwise of such quality that I still like all three games and still feel good about them. The EC was quite satisfactory to me. Not everything I'd wished for, but I'm so jaded and pessimistic about unreleased games and game content that I wasn't expecting much from it.
The problem is that even people who liked the game now have to qualify each and every statement about it with, "Well, I know the ending sucked, but the rest of the game was magnificent!" It's that kind of cognitive dissonance that led to all these problems in the first place - Bioware trying to keep the ending while retconning chunks of it, fans decrying the DLC and poor business practices and still supporting them, etc. I don't mind if people love the game, but they fall into the same dissociative pattern where they trash the game on one hand and praise it on the other.
The fanbase is irrevocably fractured.
I'm actually cautiously optimistic now that BioWare has learned a bit about their own abilities and limitations and about their relationship with their customers that they'll be able to put together something truly excellent (or at least good) for DA3.
I'm not. I even supported the DA team in the face of criticism by others, but judging by all their recent announcements, the only thing they want to do is make another DLC-ridden Skyrim-lite clone with little originality.
As far as I'm concerned, they're a lost cause. Everything they've done in the preceding decade (morality, choices and consequences, compelling side characters) is being done just as good as, if not better than, other developers.
I personally liked it. It was not the best Mass Effect out of all three IMO. That title definitely goes to Mass Effect 2. It had some redeeming qualities:
A. A kinda fun Multiplayer, it did have it's tacked on feel but it was definitely fun for a time.
B. Squad mates moving about the ship in-between missions instead of being glued to their rooms.
C. The story had some nice twists and turns
The criticisms are all that come up first though for me. The ending sucked ass. I thought MAYBE it was all part of the indoctrination, but then I see myself wake up even after the extended DLC and think. Is it still the indoctrination theory? It all makes very little sense. The combat felt clunky compared to Mass Effect 2 and only being able to go into third person shooting instead of exploring the world or harvesting worlds is gone. Also, I miss the vastly superior music that Mass Effect 2 had.
But I see the ending as I blew up the reapers like I was supposed to, and unfortunately, Legion and Mordin died. The Geth and the Quarians are living in harmony together. The krogan have the Genophage cured, and Earth is being repaired after the reapers invaded, and all the races in the universe together have something they all can share, they survived.
f disgust, argument, wailing and gnashing of teeth following an end to a story that objectively isn't actually that bad. Where was that response to things like Halo 3? Or Gears of War?
Because while Halo 3 and Gears of war's endings were a giant explosion and something important happens, it was the solution to the problem and ultimately didn't betray the player for what they did.
Halo 3's ending was the Chief ending up in deep space and being "put to rest", not killed, but put into a dormant state until what we have now.
Gears of War's ending was Marcus Fenix setting off a bomb which heavily damaged the Locust horde (Gears 2 was much similar, almost wiping them out, with Gears 3 being the final nail in the coffin for them)
They were good endings (I particularly liked Halo 3's, satisfactory, yet, just fine. It felt like the ending to a Halo game, I had no rage and I don't think other people did.)
Mass Effect 3 was just out of context, it's like shattering the lego tower you've spent working up to in 3 different ways with different conditions on how you approached it. Sometimes you wanted it shattered, others you weren't expecting it and were horrified, others you just didn't give a shit. All that you worked on was changed somehow, while the above games only gave you extreme choice in the gameplay, not the story telling.
I agree with everything OP said, I felt like I got punched in the gut after watching the ending. Only to be punched again by Bioware themselves with their "Artistic integrity". After this and the Dragon Age fiasco, Dragon Age 3 will be the game that either makes or breaks Bioware.
I still have no idea how this could have even of happened in the first place. How in the Nine Hells does someone make an ending like the original or EC ending and not see how gob-smackingly stupid it is? Did no one double-check their work? Were they blinded by smugness? Did they just not care?
The only thing that I'm sure of is that I will not be buying anything Mass Effect related ever again. I have no idea where the Hell they are taking the franchise, but it damn sure isn't anywhere I want to go.
I guess I kinda find it hard to forget that the final boss of the epic space opera was a programming error that talked our character into committing suicide. Maybe I'm just weird like that.
That's just it- it's not, but it is the first time it got so much attention. Why? Because BioWare opened up to its fans. It tried to give them involvement in the project and then couldn't deliver. That is where all the disappointment comes from. And what evidence are you talking about,this isn't a court of law, this is all speculation and personal opinion as is everything on this thread!
OK. First things first. I know there was (and is to some extent whatever you may think) trust in bioware from people. However, there was more than just trust involved. Maybe some bioware fans generally fully trusted bioware to deliver something absolutely amazing beyond anything we had ever seen before. But most if not all whether they realize it or not would have also been effected by the hype. Also note that that is just the particular group of diehard (or previously so) bioware fans, a huge proportion of the players who played the game and of those who are complaining about the ending would have not had nearly that much trust compared to hype. So yes, there was trust, but you cannot discount the hype altogether. Amongst the general gaming populace the hype was very very large.
Also I just want to get one thing straight before going on. Your assertion that ME2 was something to lose some faith in bioware over is an opinion. Ok the story wasn't that amazing but the focus of the development had clearly been in the characters and the characters more than made up for it IMO. Basically saying that it isn't a point for or against them in a reasoned debate, because its too opinion based.
Saying that the end of mass effect 3 was a betrayal is in my opinion inaccurate. Unless bioware deliberately set out to screw over their fans as much as possible it was at worst, in and of itself a mistake. Apart from that the ending itself was in terms of logic no worse than many other things that have happened in games that we barely if ever mention. The catalysts logic was sound, it was based on reasoned assumptions and those assumptions can be disputed but it still made sense. However I will happily agree that it was implemented very badly and unclearly and also that the ending was entirely lacking on the emotional level (both things were addressed at least to a reasonable degree in the EC).
Bioware refused to entirely change the ending makes sense. From their perspective and from some others the ending was done badly but the actual concept was in no way fundamentally flawed (or at least no more than any other proposal I have heard). If we take it as granted that everyone believes that the entire thing in every aspect was fundamentally flawed then, and only then is Bioware just sugar coating a betrayal. It's a difference of opinion, see the next point.
We have 2-sides of an argument/difference of opinion here, and bioware attempted some form of reconciliation with the offended fans. The vast majority of fans on the other hand simply rejected anything they did. If Bioware has the wrong attitude I am afraid that the fanbase had a just as bad or worse one. The fanbase ridiculed their decisions, gave them sooo much shit (I'm pretty certain there were death threats involved at some point) and mostly just got angrier at them when they tried to improve things, basically a completely uncompromising attitude. OK bioware isn't the only one with a stake in the game, but they do have a stake in it just the same and the fanbase's response as a whole refused to acknowledge this. In the video he talks about how it is something that is owned by the fans as well as the company. Good, I can't argue with that. But as much as it can be thought that Bioware was acting like the fans had no say in it, the fans were definitely acting like bioware had no rights to it. Taken from that perspective its shit going both ways.
Ok, so motivation, a valid point. If their motivation for changing it was a we are 100% right but we are going to throw you a tiny bone attitude then that's bad. But I am not convinced that that is the case, sure there is definitely elements of this in their motivation but there was more to it than that. Also if someone had been giving someone else anywhere near as much shit about something like this as bioware was getting I can guarantee you that they would be at least a bit angry in return and I think their motivation was coloured by that.
About the last thing, that the 'artistic integrity' line could be exploited....yeah, that is dangerous. I agree that companies shouldn't just be able to go but hey 'artistic integrity' to any criticsim and use it as an excuse for poor games. But I don't think this will be too much of an issue, given the amount of hate that was given throughout the debate anytime someone said 'artisitc integrity' I sincerely doubt that any even semi-decent company is likely to try that line for some time. If you do hear it it will most likely be from fans who don't know better. Basically I think that won't be too much of an issue given how things turned out.
What I am equally afraid of is the trend set in the opposite direction of games companies making drastic changes to their games purely because of their fans. I'm not saying stuff shouldn't be made for the fans, but once again this shouldn't be all or nothing and if bioware *had* folded completely it would have set an equally dangerous trend.
I think we are fortunate that it didn't go distinctly either way so the two dangers are still fairly in balance so neither will be exploited excessively.
(geeze that went on for a bit, if you can't be bothered reading the whole thing please do at least read the last three paragraphs. aka the bit about repercussions in the industry/exploiting.)
So Dragon Age fans wanted Dragon Age to be more like Call of Duty right? I am willing to bet Bioware did what they did based on figures and statistics over what the fans wanted. Fans wanted to see Tali without her mask on (not all, but a large number) and they spent all of 5 mins in photoshop for that request. They couldn't even be bothered to make the hand match the anatomy of their model of Tali. They do love their fans after all. Which fans asked for their choices to not have anything to do with the ending? I seem to recall many fans asking if there was a lot of dicversity in the ending and Bioware saying "OMG Yes! I can't even count how many endings there are, maybe a bajillion... could only be a gazillion?"
Where did I say anything bout Dragon Age 2? The Tali thing was a flop, I agree, but it was again a demand of the fans. I completely disagree with the accusations about the endings. I would have hated if the game arbitrarily made the largest choice in the game for me. I welcomed the hard decision at the end. And through the extended cut I saw all my previous decision's results. So that is completely up to the one playing, so it's not a flaw of the game entirely, but also of the player and his tastes. Nobody can satisfy everyone- but BioWare tried and that was their folly. You say it yourself- you are angry because of the feedback we got from them in the development stage of the game. The end result is that the game is perfectly fine, if with a few minor flaws, but the expectations that Bioware seeded were not met. If no one was promised anything, we would be cheering ME3 right now.
Overall, I like the game a lot. The first two both rank in my top five, though. Mass Effect 3...I won't bother to rank.
Things they got right:
-The gameplay. It takes Mass Effect 2's combat and makes it even more fun. Cover feels even more optional (especially if you're a Vanguard or an shotgunning Infiltrator), and each style of Assault/Tech/Biotics is viable and satisfying.
-Choice in combat: Choice takes a backseat in terms of narrative, but there is tons of meaningful choice elsewhere. I still contend that the first game actually had the least amount of this, despite the ton of loot you find. Why? There was always a clear-cut "best" option over what gear to use. In Mass Effect 3, it depends on your playstyle. Do you want a gun that hits hard but fires slowly and weighs a ton? Do you just want to carry one weapon? And so on and so forth. I'll likely be using a different couple guns for each playthrough of Mass Effect 3. I love that about it.
-Level design: The levels in Mass Effect 3 often remind me of The Battle of the Citadel in the first game. This was a huge weakness of the second game, which had too many generic factories with boxes and more boxes. Mass Effect 2 was a very square game. Mass Effect 3's levels tell their own story, and have incredible set pieces that demand your attention.
-Those little moments: That night out with Garrus? The conversations between crewmates on the Normandy? The Asari commando in Huerta Memorial? Jack's student's exclaiming, "I WILL DESTROY YOU!"... the list goes on. Mass Effect 3 is full of character. It was able to bring a tear or a smile. It could shock and anger you for the right reasons (as well as the wrong ones, but we'll get to that). The care put into little moments like these make those other moments all the more perplexing.
-A meaty experience. For me at least, a playthrough of Mass Effect 3 is roughly the same amount of time as the second game (and a good bit more than the first game). And though planet-scanning returns, the time spent doing it is a fraction of what it was in Mass Effect 2 (to the point of almost being negligible). This is a meaty game. It's full of fights and conversations and very little fluff. Whereas I'd spend a great deal of time bouncing around in Mako in the first game or scanning planets in the second, I'm usually doing just what I want to be doing in Mass Effect 3. They even cut out the hacking and bypassing minigames (not that I miss them. They weren't bad, just repetitive). The absence of fluff is very much welcome.
But then there's the bad.
-The ending. Not even my biggest issue, really. It was bad, but those ten minutes don't really put much of a dent into the experience. No, my biggest issue is...
-Shepard. Assuming you've been with the series from the start, here's your first hour or so of Mass Effect 3: You select a save and import your character that you've been on this journey with for five years. You're then treated with this face that looks nothing like that character. But you're dedicated right? So if you're like me, you went back to an old save from Mass Effect 2 and take a picture. Then you start ME3 back up and try your best to recreate the face in that picture by manipulating the sliders. You finally get the face right (or close enough), so you start up the game...
The opening scene plays out and you pick your first dialogue option. This single dialogue option then dictates an entire conversation between you and Anderson (while a character, James, we never met in the first two games but is apparently a familiar enough acquaintance to chime in looms around in the background). We then meet an Alliance council, pick another dialogue option and then Shepard basically speaks on his own for a while.
So that's my biggest problem, and it reared it's ugly head before you even got out of character creation and persisted throughout the game. This Shepard doesn't feel like my Shepard. He speaks on his own too much. The dialogue options are too condensed (where's the middle ground? It's best suited for this game, since it relies less on the Paragon/Renegade dichotomy. But you'll likely just end up spamming the top right or bottom right option, and investigate when needed). And this problem shows up again in the (pre EC, haven't gone through it since and don't plan on it. I quit before coming back on the Citadel from now on) ending, when Shepard is way too trusting and accepting of what a freaking Reaper AI has to say. That's not my Shepard. And that's the feeling I have when I'm playing much of Mass Effect 3. This isn't the character I went through the first two games with.
-The choices that didn't pan out. Renegade Shepards (though I don't consider my main one that) get screwed. Paragon/Renegade was never good and evil. It was by-the-book/merciful vs Dirty Harry. But beyond that, some choices just make little difference, even some of the first two games' biggest ones (the fate of the Council, the human councilor, the Collector base, the Heretic Geth, the Rachni queen). I know they can't make a completely different game for every decision, but there are ways to make the consequences of those choices satisfying in small ways. One example in which I think they accomplished this was David Archer (from the Overlord DLC for Mass Effect 2). One appearance (or nonappearance) and another later conversation are pretty much all the acknowledgment you get from the final choice of that DLC, but it feels tangible. It's not huge, but it's enough. But then choices like the fate of the Collector base were were just all but inconsequential (that one really just changed the decor in a single room. That's it. And that's the choice everyone was going crazy over after finishing the second game). This is definitely my second biggest problem with Mass Effect 3.
So my pros outweigh my cons, but Mass Effect 3 is still much too flawed in some core ways for me to love it too much. It's the most frustrating game of the year, and maybe ever. To do so much right but then neglect some of the heart of the series (choice, Shepard him/herself)...
Great game. Pretty poor Mass Effect game.
That is part of the extended cut which was only released due to fan outcry. And was also mainly put in there due to so many fans wanting to shoot the starkid in the face. Which makes sense to me. All 3 games you have indocrinated (read crazy) people saying to control the reapers is the only way. All game long Shepard and all NPC's are like "meh that's not even worth consideration." The writers basically say "Meh, that isn't worth exploring." Then in the last 10 minutes the thing that controls the reapers tell Shepard (hence the player) "Nah, its cool." Same with Destroy and Synthesis.
Kipiru said:
Savagezion said:
So Dragon Age fans wanted Dragon Age to be more like Call of Duty right? I am willing to bet Bioware did what they did based on figures and statistics over what the fans wanted. Fans wanted to see Tali without her mask on (not all, but a large number) and they spent all of 5 mins in photoshop for that request. They couldn't even be bothered to make the hand match the anatomy of their model of Tali. They do love their fans after all. Which fans asked for their choices to not have anything to do with the ending? I seem to recall many fans asking if there was a lot of dicversity in the ending and Bioware saying "OMG Yes! I can't even count how many endings there are, maybe a bajillion... could only be a gazillion?"
Where did I say anything bout Dragon Age 2? The Tali thing was a flop, I agree, but it was again a demand of the fans. I completely disagree with the accusations about the endings. I would have hated if the game arbitrarily made the largest choice in the game for me. I welcomed the hard decision at the end. And through the extended cut I saw all my previous decision's results. So that is completely up to the one playing, so it's not a flaw of the game entirely, but also of the player and his tastes. Nobody can satisfy everyone- but BioWare tried and that was their folly. You say it yourself- you are angry because of the feedback we got from them in the development stage of the game. The end result is that the game is perfectly fine, if with a few minor flaws, but the expectations that Bioware seeded were not met. If no one was promised anything, we would be cheering ME3 right now.
You didn't say anything about Dragon Age 2, you claimed Bioware is only guilty of listening to their fans too much. I pointed out Dragon Age because that is also Bioware who gave the fans a handwave and dismissal. Mass Effect 3 gave a handwave as well. The Tali thing was one of the few things that ME3 catered to as fan service and they couldn't even bother to do it beyond a 5 min photoshop job. Where is all this other fan service in the game? Multiplayer.... required multiplayer? That sounds like something RPG fanswould request and nothing like trying to poach CoD's audience. Paying money to interact with a prothean on launch day? Sounds more like a cash grab than fan service. Modding ability? Oh wait, that wasn't in there. Oh I know, giving you all of 5 minutes with previous crew members but basically excluding them from the title. This game isn't about fan service, its a handwave and dismissal. The ending did make the choice for you. You could choose shit, poop, or a turd. All 3 went against what the previous story had been about. All 3 were not only things that the game had ignored (save destruction which was the consequence for losing) but were actually preached against since the start of ME1.
As for the extended cut, Bioware tried to get out of having to do anything like that so it only gets half credit for it. I am disappointed by it for many reasons, not just because of pre-release attitude. The entire thing was a trainwreck all the way through. It was like a car accident that just kept piling up more and more cars as it went on. I am upset that the game was merely average and so many people treated it like a second coming of christ defending every step of Bioware's actions in the same manner as Bioware (handwave and dismissal then go on to say how everything else was preposterously perfect... until the next thing gets brought up.) This inevitably fueled Bioware's view that their shit don't stink but the fans' smell horrible, the ungrateful little sods we are. This isn't really about expectations. I went into ME3 with very low expectations. I knew Shepard was going to die, I knew it was the end of the series so the reaper threat would probably be concluded. Beyond that, I didn't have much. There were other games I was invested in, ME didn't get that much hope dumped into it to be honest. Hell, I didn't even buy it at launch (thank god). I still don't own it due to a lot of reasons, not a few minor reasons.
I have seen first hand what it has to offer by playing around with it and it still hasn't been worth a purchase. I just have an apathy about my Shepards now because the story makes no sense. I tried to go back through and run on but knowing what is waiting at the end, I just don't care. It isn't epic, it's deflated. Everything I knew about the universe is turned on its head without any real explanation in the closing moments. You never find out exactly what the crucible is, how it works, etc. It just does. Reapers are supposedly half organic yet they are treated like full synthetics with self awareness. Hell, synthesis just means that someday someone could make another space magic device and enslave all the life in the galaxy. It's just a really, really weak and pointless end to something that had some decent potential even by sticking to the classic formula of good guys vs. bad guys.
I assure you, we would not be cheering on ME3 right now. There are problems with the game that go beyond the lies. These problems are so big that they would be seen as lame as hell without the the pre-release stuff. The lies are just really, really low and its amazing how many people will defend that type of business practice for mediocre gameplay. That is like salt in a wound. The wound being there is bad enough but the salt is a constant reminder.
The lies are just really, really low and its amazing how many people will defend that type of business practice for mediocre gameplay. That is like salt in a wound. The wound being there is bad enough but the salt is a constant reminder.
I'm not defending any business practice, but a game I love and see nothing wrong with. I truly am sorry that there are people as disappointed as you, but I still give it all out to the individual's perception of the product. As I said, I acknowledge there are problems within the game, but nothing of the horrifying scale you describe. If we accept that our two opinions are equal in weight, then it leaves the whole thing to be a matter of taste, whether the game is good or not. I still say the biggest flaw of BioWare is their effort to please as much people as possible and failing. I may be wrong, but that's it for me.
OK. First things first. I know there was (and is to some extent whatever you may think) trust in bioware from people. However, there was more than just trust involved. Maybe some bioware fans generally fully trusted bioware to deliver something absolutely amazing beyond anything we had ever seen before. But most if not all whether they realize it or not would have also been effected by the hype. Also note that that is just the particular group of diehard (or previously so) bioware fans, a huge proportion of the players who played the game and of those who are complaining about the ending would have not had nearly that much trust compared to hype. So yes, there was trust, but you cannot discount the hype altogether. Amongst the general gaming populace the hype was very very large.
If by hype you mean this braindead attempt of "marketing":
The only thing i can see here is the kind that would interest the COD fans or outsiders that dont know any better about the seires. I doubt that any fan of ME (you know, the people who know their stuff about the series and are interested in plot details and lore) would get hyped to this unless its the developer speaking (you know, the people that we trust) If those people lie, then we wouldnt have any ground and logic to follow these people
Also I just want to get one thing straight before going on. Your assertion that ME2 was something to lose some faith in bioware over is an opinion. Ok the story wasn't that amazing but the focus of the development had clearly been in the characters and the characters more than made up for it IMO. Basically saying that it isn't a point for or against them in a reasoned debate, because its too opinion based.
This may be a real shocker to you, but you can have opinions that are based on facts. (This water is wet, the sun is bright, these socks are cozy, etc.)
We can in fact argue that our opinion is factual, because we are not actually making an argument: we are making an observation, and that is: There is no point to ME2. It didnt advance the overarching plot of stopping The Reaper invasion, we didnt prove the existance of Bob, The Derelict Reaper, to The Council and start the armada to stop the Reapers (we end up doing that in ME3) Curiously enough, in ME3 Leviathan DLC, we find out that pieces of Sovereing were being preserved by The Alliance, makes you wonder why they didnt use that as evidence. We didnt make peace between Quarians and Geth when Legion was present on Tali's Trial (we do that on ME3.) And of course, The Human Reaper remains STILL appear on the Cerberus base in ME3 even when you choose to blow up the Collector Base and shouldnt have survived the explotion (no explanation of course)
When writing stories, the characters MAKE the plot. But in ME2, the characters are more like Pokemon that talk at human lvl, they move the plot foward because the script says so. They wasted all that money just to tell individual stories but have no relation to the plot. Why? they made it just fine before, how did they miss it even with a bigger budget?
Saying that the end of mass effect 3 was a betrayal is in my opinion inaccurate. Unless bioware deliberately set out to screw over their fans as much as possible it was at worst, in and of itself a mistake. Apart from that the ending itself was in terms of logic no worse than many other things that have happened in games that we barely if ever mention. The catalysts logic was sound, it was based on reasoned assumptions and those assumptions can be disputed but it still made sense. However I will happily agree that it was implemented very badly and unclearly and also that the ending was entirely lacking on the emotional level (both things were addressed at least to a reasonable degree in the EC).
Keep in mind that we DO mention when shit hits the fan before, but since most of those games are made by people we barely know ("The Guy I Meet In A Bar Analogy" of Archengeia) we just say "Oh well, shame on me". But when we trust this person to deliver quality....and fails THIS hard, then rage will ensue. The last time a well know and trusted franchize got fucked up was Metroid Other M, and if Samus wasnt loved or know by almost all gamers, then nobody would gave 2 fucks about her being a "submise woman that cant do shit without the Marty Adam Stu"
And what are the assumptions you speak off? remember that if this is one of those things that you have to read other Sci Fi to "get it" then i am afraid that such thing is no excuse, the narrative of the game ITSELF has to mention it or else its just head cannon like the Indoctrination Theory. Maybe you read other Sci Fi with rogue AI and acording to you, ALL AI have incomprehencible logic, therefore this is just another case of it and no reason to complain (it didnt happen before to other best selling Sci Fi, so why this one wouldnt be ANY different, AMA RIGHT?) First off, if they did this because of an homage and still fuck up in making it be part of the narrative in the most natural way possible, then they failed. Also, those AI werent incomprehensible (neither is Star Child) because after some thought you understand how they end up doing what they do. With Star Child however, we take our time to think about it, to connect the dots......and the end result is incomprehensible, both for the character (if this thing could be even be CONSIDERED a character at all) and for the writers. Its just beyond our understanding how they thought this was a good idea.
If you are one of those fans that are only in the game for the emotion of the characters, proper closure to see how they survived the ordeal or to bang the L.I. then sure, the EC fixed all the problems for you......but that is only like, what, 33% of a broken game?
I could even argue that one can like and hate a game simultaneusly. For example, lets say that my magnificient persona is being dragged to see the new painful Transformer 4 by my backstabing friends. They prevent me from saying anything negatively by drugging me so i become more stupid and i end up enjoying the movie. After "surviving" that, my intelligence goes back to me and noticed how awful the movie was even when my memory recall those moments as being awesome or even heartbreakening. Does that makes me an hypocrite and have to defend this movie just because my emotions tell me this is good? i doubt it. I dont find people that do like ME3 ending to be hypocrites but their logic for liking is just emotional or they just didnt pay ANY attention to the story. But if we dont think carefully our words about WHy this is good, then we may end up doing more damage to the future than we know becaue the writers (and future writers that take notes from this thing) will find themselves confused on how people are attracted to this (the same way that people are confused on why in the fuck is Twilight popular)
Bioware refused to entirely change the ending makes sense. From their perspective and from some others the ending was done badly but the actual concept was in no way fundamentally flawed (or at least no more than any other proposal I have heard). If we take it as granted that everyone believes that the entire thing in every aspect was fundamentally flawed then, and only then is Bioware just sugar coating a betrayal. It's a difference of opinion, see the next point.
We have 2-sides of an argument/difference of opinion here, and bioware attempted some form of reconciliation with the offended fans. The vast majority of fans on the other hand simply rejected anything they did. If Bioware has the wrong attitude I am afraid that the fanbase had a just as bad or worse one. The fanbase ridiculed their decisions, gave them sooo much shit (I'm pretty certain there were death threats involved at some point) and mostly just got angrier at them when they tried to improve things, basically a completely uncompromising attitude. OK bioware isn't the only one with a stake in the game, but they do have a stake in it just the same and the fanbase's response as a whole refused to acknowledge this. In the video he talks about how it is something that is owned by the fans as well as the company. Good, I can't argue with that. But as much as it can be thought that Bioware was acting like the fans had no say in it, the fans were definitely acting like bioware had no rights to it. Taken from that perspective its shit going both ways.
Ok, so motivation, a valid point. If their motivation for changing it was a we are 100% right but we are going to throw you a tiny bone attitude then that's bad. But I am not convinced that that is the case, sure there is definitely elements of this in their motivation but there was more to it than that. Also if someone had been giving someone else anywhere near as much shit about something like this as bioware was getting I can guarantee you that they would be at least a bit angry in return and I think their motivation was coloured by that.
Actually they DID retcon a lot of things, but riddle me this: If they are soooo confident of their "artistic vision" then why the 2 writers that did the ending dont come to the Comic Cons or whatever to explain it? after all, if there is a message or statement to be made, then i am sure they would be able to explain it, right??......right?
I would be a bit puzzled than angry is my shit isnt loved, but i would at least have the decency of telling you why its the way it is, why i did this scene with this angle/filter/whatever, why x character had y expresion, why i think this message is more powerful delivered that way and so on. This will allow me to do 2 things:
1) It show to the audience that i did the best i could with the research and information available
2) In the event i fucked up, i can learn from those mistakes to make it even better. After all if a message like, for example: "The Goverment is branwashing your children into being compulsive masturbators" is worth making a whole STORY out of it, then i may as well do my fucking best to deliver it properly.
About the last thing, that the 'artistic integrity' line could be exploited....yeah, that is dangerous. I agree that companies shouldn't just be able to go but hey 'artistic integrity' to any criticsim and use it as an excuse for poor games. But I don't think this will be too much of an issue, given the amount of hate that was given throughout the debate anytime someone said 'artisitc integrity' I sincerely doubt that any even semi-decent company is likely to try that line for some time. If you do hear it it will most likely be from fans who don't know better. Basically I think that won't be too much of an issue given how things turned out.
What I am equally afraid of is the trend set in the opposite direction of games companies making drastic changes to their games purely because of their fans. I'm not saying stuff shouldn't be made for the fans, but once again this shouldn't be all or nothing and if bioware *had* folded completely it would have set an equally dangerous trend.
Day 1 DLC, Anti Piracy measures that affect more the noble customer rather than the pirates, Permanent Online Connection even for single player games (once their servers go caput, you can no longer enjoy your games.) And of course, having the REAL ending of the story into DLC rather into the full product (see Asura's Wrath and Final Fantasy XIII-2)
This isnt a case of "oh, you are being just paranoid" this is a fucking certainty that they will piss on the customer more and more. They got away with ALL that and more, so why not just add "Artistic Integrity" into the mix? what is stopping them? the gamers are too afraid of making games to be forever a children's plaything rather than art, and they end up shutting up when the medium needs them the most. Hell, even the journalist end up failing in favor or the companies that provide them with Ad revenue and end up lying about who is the real "entitled" monster here.
This WILL happen, its absolute, it is meant to happen.
Already said before that they cant claim integrity when its clear from DAY 1 that the game is tampered by corporate motives, to make the game to appeal to the masses, so whatever art is there after all the raping the game has is almost minimal, not even a fraction of the artist vision.
Art is supposed to be the sum of each part of that work that elevates it to something more bigger than it is. When one of those parts fail, it all goes to hell really fast.
Unlike what Movie Bob tells everyone, the product (its a product face it) being changed by the audience appeal isnta real problem because the art was already buttfucked before it reaches the audience, so the artist has to deal with even worse shit. There is something that the people here dont want to tell you and that is the fact that having an audience that is too apathetic to DEMAND quality on their art, means that the artist has NO reason to compete or strive with other artist on the medium of choice. When the audience its too dumb to realise the sheer difference between good movies/games like Citizen Kane, Melancholia, Legacy of Kain, IJI, Planescape Torment and Deus Ex, and compare them as being just as GOOD like these ones: Daikatana, Twilight, Birth Of a Nation, Mein Kampf, Metroid Other M and Freedy Got fingered, then you know that Art as we know it is done for.
We would be living officialy in a "Orwellian 1984" Distopia. A world where people dont understand the concept of Objective Reality. A place where the bigger the lie, the more it will be believed, and right now, the lie is: "Gamers are violent, hedonistics and entitled"
Apart from that the ending itself was in terms of logic no worse than many other things that have happened in games that we barely if ever mention. The catalysts logic was sound, it was based on reasoned assumptions and those assumptions can be disputed but it still made sense.
His whole thesis was based on an appeal to probability [http://www.toolkitforthinking.com/critical-thinking/anatomy-of-an-argument/deductive-logic-arguments/appeal-to-probability-1] and circular logic (and seeing how Sovereign was the reason why the Geth started to attack organics after many years of isolation, there is even an element of self-fulfilling prophecy added to the whole mess). And the only evidence we get is his word for it. If anything his logic sure as hell isn't sound.
I could write long paragraphs on what else is wrong with his logic, but I think I can sum it up somewhat crudely with this:
EDIT:
DioWallachia said:
but riddle me this: If they are soooo confident of their "artistic vision" then why the 2 writers that did the ending dont come to the Comic Cons or whatever to explain it? after all, if there is a message or statement to be made, then i am sure they would be able to explain it, right??......right?
I would be a bit puzzled than angry is my shit isnt loved, but i would at least have the decency of telling you why its the way it is, why i did this scene with this angle/filter/whatever, why x character had y expresion, why i think this message is more powerful delivered that way and so on.
This. Exactly this. When you are being criticized for your work, you should at least be able to explain what you were thinking and where you wanted to go with it in the first place, and then people can take it or leave it. Neither Hudson, Walters, or Bioware in general have done any of this.
Trying to wave off your critics with "It's art, I don't have to explain it" is what a hack does.
Bioware released a free DLC to soothe hurt feelings and fans still were mad
Then everyone moved on and realized that holding a petty grudge for far longer than reasonable hurts nobody but yourself.
Or at least I hoped that last point was true but reading some of the comments in this thread made me realize the unfortunate truth that people will take 1% of a game and make it the most important thing in their lives and refuse to change their opinions, and yes they are opinions.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
Also see Star Wars.