Well, Retake Mass Effect 3 is pretty much over. What have we learned from this experience?

[BreakfastMan]

With the recent announcement of Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, it seems to me that the Retake ME3 movement is pretty much over. I have a feeling that the effects of this will be felt for years to come. The question remains though, as to what those effects might be and what exactly we have learned from this. What do you think we have learned from controversy surrounding the Retake Mass Effect movement?

I will tell you what I learned:

1: Many gamers have a deep seated distrust, and perhaps even hate, of gaming journalism.

2. Never, ever create trilogies, or a series with a pre-determined endpoint. Ever.

3. If the ending is not what people expect, people will rebel.

4. When gaming journalists are pushed, they can be just as nasty as any troll.

5. Fandoms are not loyal to the dev, they are loyal to the property.

6. To many people, video games are SERIOUS BUSINESS.

7. When fans work together for a common goal, they can get a lot of stuff done.

8. No matter what you do, if you anger fans, you are pretty much screwed. Even if you try to offer them concessions, there will still be a contingent of people who say that it is not good enough, and you can never hope to appease those people.

9. Devs should not take risks with properties with an established fan-base, lest they encounter enormous amounts of backlash.

EDIT: 10. Ending are the most important thing in any franchise to the fans. Don't screw them up.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Anyhow, I didn't see it as whining and complaining. I saw it as a peaceful, smart move to get the company to notice fans are serious about their passion, and want the best for their series.. not some hollow, nonsense ending which throws all our choices out the window.

I dunno... I would agree if most of the people in the movement seemed like that. But, some of the stuff that I have seen and heard slung Bioware's way, even after the announcement of the Extended Cut does not make it seem that way. There are a lot of angry, shallow people that are part of this movement, and it does not reflect well on the gaming community that those people are so numerous. :/ I just really do not like all the hate this thing has stirred up...

 

[RJ 17]

With the recent announcement of Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut, it seems to me that the Retake ME3 movement is pretty much over. I have a feeling that the effects of this will be felt for years to come. The question remains though, as to what those effects might be and what exactly we have learned from this. What do you think we have learned from controversy surrounding the Retake Mass Effect movement?

I will tell you what I learned:

1: Many gamers have a deep seated distrust, and perhaps even hate, of gaming journalism.

2. Never, ever create trilogies, or a series with a pre-determined endpoint. Ever.

3. If the ending is not what people expect, people will rebel.

4. When gaming journalists are pushed, they can be just as nasty as any troll.

5. Fandoms are not loyal to the dev, they are loyal to the property.

6. To many people, video games are SERIOUS BUSINESS.

7. When fans work together for a common goal, they can get a lot of stuff done.

8. No matter what you do, if you anger fans, you are pretty much screwed. Even if you try to offer them concessions, there will still be a contingent of people who say that it is not good enough, and you can never hope to appease those people.

9. Devs should not take risks with properties with an established fan-base, lest they encounter enormous amounts of backlash.

EDIT: 10. Ending are the most important thing in any franchise to the fans. Don't screw them up.

1: I'd say that was evident after Chabbot (or however her name is spelled) was announced as being in the game and the gamer community EXPLODED with hatred.

2: There's nothing wrong with making a trilogy so long as you know how to end it. Shepard making the "heroic sacrifice" would have been fine, but the execution of the ending just left everyone with a massive "WTF?!" bubble above their heads.

3: Again, it's not so much the content of the ending that matters, its how the ending is executed. If you execute an ending that's full of plotholes and continuity errors that offers absolutely no closure whatsoever to the decisions that your decision-based trilogy revolves around, people are going to be pissed.

4: True, can't argue with that. Just say that EVERYONE can be a big fat troll when and if they want.

5: Very good point.

6: True.

7: True, but that goes for mob mentality in general. When "The Masses" get pissed off and all their cries are being focused towards a single point, something HAS to happen or you'll have absolute chaos. Bioware got off lucky in that the only actual chaos that took place against them was receiving 400 cupcakes.

8: This ties into #7. But really, if devs didn't already know "You can't make all the people happy all the time" then they shouldn't be in business in the first place.

9: This I disagree with. Devs should feel free to take risks, I think we as the fanbase need to be more open to risks that are taken otherwise things will stagnate and there'll never be any change or innovation. The story-telling format in Dragon Age 2 was a HUGE risk which, obviously, many people disagree with. People complain about the mechanical issues of that game - of which there are plenty, such as the copy-paste dungeons - but there's just as many people who hated the way the story progressed and was told from such a character-centric narrative. I appreciated what they did and, at least to me, the story makes perfect sense.

10: Same as with 2 and 3: it's all in the execution.

 

[BreakfastMan]

1: I'd say that was evident after Chabbot (or however her name is spelled) was announced as being in the game and the gamer community EXPLODED with hatred.

2: There's nothing wrong with making a trilogy so long as you know how to end it. Shepard making the "heroic sacrifice" would have been fine, but the execution of the ending just left everyone with a massive "WTF?!" bubble above their heads.

3: Again, it's not so much the content of the ending that matters, its how the ending is executed. If you execute an ending that's full of plotholes and continuity errors that offers absolutely no closure whatsoever to the decisions that your decision-based trilogy revolves around, people are going to be pissed.

4: True, can't argue with that. Just say that EVERYONE can be a big fat troll when and if they want.

5: Very good point.

6: True.

7: True, but that goes for mob mentality in general. When "The Masses" get pissed off and all their cries are being focused towards a single point, something HAS to happen or you'll have absolute chaos. Bioware got off lucky in that the only actual chaos that took place against them was receiving 400 cupcakes.

8: This ties into #7. But really, if devs didn't already know "You can't make all the people happy all the time" then they shouldn't be in business in the first place.

9: This I disagree with. Devs should feel free to take risks, I think we as the fanbase need to be more open to risks that are taken otherwise things will stagnate and there'll never be any change or innovation. The story-telling format in Dragon Age 2 was a HUGE risk which, obviously, many people disagree with. People complain about the mechanical issues of that game - of which there are plenty, such as the copy-paste dungeons - but there's just as many people who hated the way the story progressed and was told from such a character-centric narrative. I appreciated what they did and, at least to me, the story makes perfect sense.

10: Same as with 2 and 3: it's all in the execution.

1. Yes, I agree, but I think it really came to forfront once the whole ending debacle started. Things really kicked into high-gear then.

2. The idea of the "no-trilogies" thing in my head is that a trilogy it will create a franchise with a pre-determined endpoint. By the time you get to that end-point, one should have a large fan-base (for how else did you get to that point). By then, when you have to end it, no ending will satisfy the entire fan-base, and there will be people complaining about it. The only way to avoid that is, in my mind, to not create trilogy to begin with, since there is really no way to avoid that otherwise. :/

3. People were going to be pissed about the ending even if it did make perfect sense. If shep made a heroic sacrifice, the fan-base would rebel because the ending was not happy enough. If shep did have a happy ending, a portion of the fan-base would criticize bioware for not taking risks or going for the most obvious, artistically uninteresting ending.

9. I agree that devs should be able to take risks, but they honestly cannot at this point. See your example of the backlash against DA2, the backlash against Windwaker when it first came out, etc.

 

[MomoElektra]

3: Again, it's not so much the content of the ending that matters, its how the ending is executed. If you execute an ending that's full of plotholes and continuity errors that offers absolutely no closure whatsoever to the decisions that your decision-based trilogy revolves around, people are going to be pissed.

I veto that. You are right about the ending being poorly executed but I find the ending, beside the execution, to be racist bullshit. It is not only bad storytelling to make the bad guy "kind of the good guy*" in the last few minutes, it's a really bad mind fuck, too.


*I don't agree with space kid, but the people who wrote the ending seem to

 

[RJ 17]

2. The idea of the "no-trilogies" thing in my head is that a trilogy it will create a franchise with a pre-determined endpoint. By the time you get to that end-point, one should have a large fan-base (for how else did you get to that point). By then, when you have to end it, no ending will satisfy the entire fan-base, and there will be people complaining about it. The only way to avoid that is, in my mind, to not create trilogy to begin with, since there is really no way to avoid that otherwise. :/

I can see your point, but I still don't think people should be afraid of making trilogies. As you said, you can do the ending one way and piss off half the people or do it another way and piss off the other half. As such what you do is hold your nose and commit to a choice. You're ALWAYS going to have people bitching at your ending, see the Star Wars series. That means the best you can do is try to please as many people as you can and just accept that not everyone will like what you can do. It doesn't mean that you should avoid trilogies all together. Would we all like to see more adventures with Shepard? Certainly. But his/her story is completed. The story to unite the galaxy and save it from the Reapers was something that only Shepard could do. That is his/her legend. Without the Reapers there is no Shepard. And lets face it, even if Shepard survived and everything was intact with society, I'd imagine the first thing he/she would want to do is take a llllllloooooooonnnnnnnnggggggg vacation, if not completely retire.

3. People were going to be pissed about the ending even if it did make perfect sense. If shep made a heroic sacrifice, the fan-base would rebel because the ending was not happy enough. If shep did have a happy ending, a portion of the fan-base would criticize bioware for not taking risks or going for the most obvious, artistically uninteresting ending.

As I mentioned, the key is to NOT try and please everyone cause it's impossible. Come up with a good, solid ending and hope that MOST of the fanbase likes it. There will always be some that are disappointed, but there's nothing you can do about that. Make your choice for how you want to end your series and stick to it. Execute it with a good series of events that are clean of plotholes and other errors and that's about all you can really do.

9. I agree that devs should be able to take risks, but they honestly cannot at this point. See your example of the backlash against DA2, the backlash against Windwaker when it first came out, etc.

Which brings me back to the fact that we as a fanbase need to be more open to experimentation and risk taking. We terrify devs by railing against them when they try something new or innovative, and yet with sigh and groan when we're given something we consider to be bland and cliche. WE cannot have it both ways, WE have to stop sending them mixed signals.

 

[RJ 17]

3: Again, it's not so much the content of the ending that matters, its how the ending is executed. If you execute an ending that's full of plotholes and continuity errors that offers absolutely no closure whatsoever to the decisions that your decision-based trilogy revolves around, people are going to be pissed.

I veto that. You are right about the ending being poorly executed but I find the ending, beside the execution, to be racist bullshit. It is not only bad storytelling to make the bad guy "kind of the good guy*" in the last few minutes, it's a really bad mind fuck, too.


*I don't agree with space kid, but the people who wrote the ending seem to

Well that goes into what I said about #8: you're not going to please everyone with your ending. It's impossible. Best you can try to do is make an ending that MOST people enjoy and accept the fact that you're always gonna have some people bitching about what you do.

 

[Fappy]

I'm sure there will be some people holding the line after PAX. Some of them are in for the long haul.

 

[BreakfastMan]

2. The idea of the "no-trilogies" thing in my head is that a trilogy it will create a franchise with a pre-determined endpoint. By the time you get to that end-point, one should have a large fan-base (for how else did you get to that point). By then, when you have to end it, no ending will satisfy the entire fan-base, and there will be people complaining about it. The only way to avoid that is, in my mind, to not create trilogy to begin with, since there is really no way to avoid that otherwise. :/

I can see your point, but I still don't think people should be afraid of making trilogies. As you said, you can do the ending one way and piss off half the people or do it another way and piss off the other half. As such what you do is hold your nose and commit to a choice. You're ALWAYS going to have people bitching at your ending, see the Star Wars series. That means the best you can do is try to please as many people as you can and just accept that not everyone will like what you can do. It doesn't mean that you should avoid trilogies all together. Would we all like to see more adventures with Shepard? Certainly. But his/her story is completed. The story to unite the galaxy and save it from the Reapers was something that only Shepard could do. That is his/her legend. Without the Reapers there is no Shepard. And lets face it, even if Shepard survived and everything was intact with society, I'd imagine the first thing he/she would want to do is take a llllllloooooooonnnnnnnnggggggg vacation, if not completely retire.

If you are going to do something that pisses people off, makes them protest, boycott, and rail against you, what the hell is the point? If you are making something to entertain, and you instead anger 30-40% of your fanbase, does that not mean you fail? It all seems utterly pointless that, for whatever you do, fans will say that you have "lost integrity", or whatever, and there is no gaining back those people you lost. Isn't it not better to avoid that, keep your fanbase mostly intact, and continue to make money so you can live another day?

9. I agree that devs should be able to take risks, but they honestly cannot at this point. See your example of the backlash against DA2, the backlash against Windwaker when it first came out, etc.

Which brings me back to the fact that we as a fanbase need to be more open to experimentation and risk taking. We terrify devs by railing against them when they try something new or innovative, and yet with sigh and groan when we're given something we consider to be bland and cliche. WE cannot have it both ways, WE have to stop sending them mixed signals.

I really wish we could. I really wish, but with the current attitude among hardcore gamers, I don't see that attitude going away anytime soon.

 

[Merrick_HLC]

1- I'd say that's logical since most gaming jouralism is sites that are supported damn near entirely by gaming ad revenue.

2-The problem is they didn't have an endpoint in mind when they started the series, from their own comments they came up with it kind of on the fly, off the hip.

3- No, I didn't really have an "Expectation" for the ending other than "It will be good, it will take into account the choices made over the course of the games & the endings will be quite different"
2 of these I expected because that's what they TOLD me to expect.

4- True of anyone really.

5- Very true.

6- Everything is important to someone.

7- Damn straight. (Of course how good or bad this is is up to individual interpretation)

8- True to a large extent. Fans are the lifeblood of any entertainment medium. You can only lose so much before you die. And if they turn against you.... it's not pretty.

9- There can be risks. Just there's a difference between good risk and bad risk. I think there are some big risks taken in ME2 & ME3 that worked very well.
The problem is that their "biggest risk" was effectively changing the very genre of the game in the last 10 minutes. And that risk failed, big, and thus became the 'risk' most talk about.

As opposed to say, the risk of having the ability to accidently kill damn near your entire squad in ME2, which was handled well and made people want to play again many times over.
That's the thing with risks.
A win pays off big. A loss causes massive damage.

10- The endings are what people remember. If you're big idea for the ending is "Let's make controversy" I'd say you're flat out doing it wrong.
While many good stories are/were controversial and/or had controversial endings ... they did so as fitting endings for their property, not making it seem like it was pulled out of ones posterior JUST to be shocking.

 

[RJ 17]

If you are going to do something that pisses people off, makes them protest, boycott, and rail against you, what the hell is the point? If you are making something to entertain, and you instead anger 30-40% of your fanbase, does that not mean you fail? It all seems utterly pointless that, for whatever you do, fans will say that you have "lost integrity", or whatever, and there is no gaining back those people you lost. Isn't it not better to avoid that, keep your fanbase mostly intact, and continue to make money so you can live another day?

If you piss EVERYONE off, it means you fucked up the execution by, just for example, leaving it full of plotholes, continuity errors, questions about what exactly just happened, and questions about what happens for an epilogue.

If you put together a clear, coherent ending that is executed well, doesn't have massive holes, it actually fits the story and narrative of the series, and doesn't leave huge questions behind, then that's the best you can do. Entertainment isn't a perfect medium. Take any trilogy you want: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean (the first three, at least), and go around asking people "Which is your favorite one?" You'll get responses in favor of all 3 movies, but it won't be unanimous "Oh, the 2nd one was easily the best". You might even get people to say "God damnit I hate the 3rd installment."

The true question isn't "Did you like the way they ended the trilogy?" but rather "Did you like the entire story over all?" Just as ME 3 proved that you can love a game but hate the ending, it also proves that you can love an entire series but hate the ending. Which comes back to my point: the best you can hope to do - if you decide to write a trilogy - is come up with an ending that you think MOST can appreciate. And if you fail at that then you'll get what ME 3 gave us: an ending that very few can appreciate P I've seen topics pop up around here from people saying they liked the ending so far enough).

 

[boag]

what I learned from the retake project, is that the videogame industry needs to die off completely and start up again.

 

[Savagezion]

3. People were going to be pissed about the ending even if it did make perfect sense. If shep made a heroic sacrifice, the fan-base would rebel because the ending was not happy enough. If shep did have a happy ending, a portion of the fan-base would criticize bioware for not taking risks or going for the most obvious, artistically uninteresting ending.

That is a very presumptuous thing to say. "Even if the ending did make sense" doesn't apply here because Mass Effect's ending didn't, at all. Many endings out there suck and do make sense and this hasn't happened. I don't remember Halo 3 having a "Retake Halo". Gears of War 3 didn't have backlash. Uncharted 3 didn't have backlash. The gaming community has already proved a level of tolerance.

What I have learned from all this may sound cynical but I learned Bioware is clearly no longer the company that it once was. Brent Knowles, former Bioware developer and lead designer of DA:O said so a while back that, "Bioware is no longer the company I remember." Now, I totally believe and agree with him. Bioware for all intents and purposes is now seen as EA to me. I now refer to them as Beaware.

 

[endtherapture]

If you put together a clear, coherent ending that is executed well, doesn't have massive holes, it actually fits the story and narrative of the series, and doesn't leave huge questions behind, then that's the best you can do. Entertainment isn't a perfect medium. Take any trilogy you want: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean (the first three, at least), and go around asking people "Which is your favorite one?" You'll get responses in favor of all 3 movies, but it won't be unanimous "Oh, the 2nd one was easily the best". You might even get people to say "God damnit I hate the 3rd installment."

I'd say this is definitely an exception with LoTR. The 2nd LoTR film is widely regarded as the weakest one, and the 3rd one is considered the best (winning the most Oscars), but I think that comes from the fact that LoTR wasn't written as trilogy - it was all one large ongoing epic story which HAD to be split up (for the Books) and the films were all produced in one epic 3 year sitting, it's kinda an anomoly for LoTR. Halo is similar - I enjoyed Halo 3 the most personally, but Halo 2 is generally considered the worst.

But for Star Wars, Empire is clearly the most loved, and for Matrix and Pirates, the first ones were the best.

 

[BreakfastMan]

3. People were going to be pissed about the ending even if it did make perfect sense. If shep made a heroic sacrifice, the fan-base would rebel because the ending was not happy enough. If shep did have a happy ending, a portion of the fan-base would criticize bioware for not taking risks or going for the most obvious, artistically uninteresting ending.

That is a very presumptuous thing to say. "Even if the ending did make sense" doesn't apply here because Mass Effect's ending didn't, at all. Many endings out there suck and do make sense and this hasn't happened. I don't remember Halo 3 having a "Retake Halo". Gears of War 3 didn't have backlash. Uncharted 3 didn't have backlash. The gaming community has already proved a level of tolerance.

You must be looking at something different from I, for I do not see a "level of tolerance" towards really anything in the gaming community. We are the most divided and angry fan-community I have ever seen.

And I do not think it is presumptuous. I have seen a number of people argue not just in favor of an ending that makes sense, but an ending that is happy. Therumancer, for one. I sincerely doubt those people would be happy if we got an ending that made sense without IT.

What I have learned from all this may sound cynical but I learned Bioware is clearly no longer the company that it once was. Brent Knowles, former Bioware developer and lead designer of DA:O said so a while back that, "Bioware is no longer the company I remember." Now, I totally believe and agree with him. Bioware for all intents and purposes is now seen as EA to me. I now refer to them as Beaware.

Yep, they screwed up the ending to a great game and you are prepared to write them off because of that. "level of tolerance", eh?

 

[BreakfastMan]

The true question isn't "Did you like the way they ended the trilogy?" but rather "Did you like the entire story over all?" Just as ME 3 proved that you can love a game but hate the ending, it also proves that you can love an entire series but hate the ending. Which comes back to my point: the best you can hope to do - if you decide to write a trilogy - is come up with an ending that you think MOST can appreciate. And if you fail at that then you'll get what ME 3 gave us: an ending that very few can appreciate P I've seen topics pop up around here from people saying they liked the ending so far enough).

That is my point: the price of failure is far too great. Bioware has gotten a lot of bad press, and a lot of fans are jumping ship because of this (see above). Bioware is going to be weaker after this. They have lost reputation in the eyes of the fans, their main source of revenue. This is something they cannot gain back, no matter what they do. Wouldn't it have been better, business wise, to have the series not be a trilogy and just continue on without end? They would not have pissed off the fans nearly as greatly then.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

That is my point: the price of failure is far too great. Bioware has gotten a lot of bad press, and a lot of fans are jumping ship because of this (see above). Bioware is going to be weaker after this. They have lost reputation in the eyes of the fans, their main source of revenue. This is something they cannot gain back, no matter what they do. Wouldn't it have been better, business wise, to have the series not be a trilogy and just continue on without end? They would not have pissed off the fans nearly as greatly then.

They can still salvage the IP if they do a really bang up job of the DLC. They're listing a bit, but I think it'll take one or two more near misses or one real stinker before they really start hemorrhaging fans.

It's Mass Effect itself that has taken the real battering here.

 

[dreadedcandiru99]

Just a few assorted things:

1: Many gamers have a deep seated distrust, and perhaps even hate, of gaming journalism...When gaming journalists are pushed, they can be just as nasty as any troll.

"Hate" might be a bit much, but I'll definitely be taking most of the things gaming journalists say with a massive grain of salt from now on.

2. Never, ever create trilogies, or a series with a pre-determined endpoint. Ever.

I thought the problem was that they didn't have an ending in mind--that they made the Battlestar Galactica mistake of just making things up as they went. It's generally a bad idea to set out on a road trip without at least some idea of where you want to wind up.

3. If the ending is not what people expect, people will rebel.

Indeed they will, especially if the ending is the exact opposite of what you told them it would be.

9. Devs should not take risks with properties with an established fan-base, lest they encounter enormous amounts of backlash.

Taking risks is fine with me. Shitting the bed and then wailing "ARTISTIC INTEGRITY!" is not fine with me.

8. No matter what you do, if you anger fans, you are pretty much screwed.

Yeah, possibly. Based on what I've read so far, I have very little confidence that this "Extended Cut" thing will do any good (More Star Child dialogue! That's exactly what I was hoping for! Oh, happy day!). Despite all my issues with the indoctrination theory, I think I'd rather have that than this. Trying to "clarify" the existing ending will almost certainly be an exercise in futility, like trying to clean up a train wreck with a feather duster.