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Post by Ryusui on Mar 16, 2012 17:24:26 GMT -5
We're not advocating for a world where focus group endings rule the day here. We're asking BioWare to make good on the implicit promise that when we embarked on this five-year, two-hundred-dollar journey, we'd get an ending or endings that actually reflected our choices and experiences. What we got was an incoherent mishmash that gave us three functionally identical options, all of which basically render everything we've done pointless, and whether we actually save Earth in the process ultimately comes down to a number which is primarily affected by how much time we've spent in multiplayer.We don't want a sugarcoated "everyone lived happily ever after because Shepard is THAT FREAKING AWESOME" ending. We just want one that makes some freaking sense. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 16, 2012 18:39:46 GMT -5
You know what? They have the right to do what they want with the story. Just like George Lucas has the right to fuck up the star wars movies every four years. But it doesn't mean that they're not fucking assholes for doing it.
And yeah, I'm pissed that they're acting like the main reason people are pissed is that it's a "downer" or "not happy" ending, when it's basically that they dumped a fart in the face to their loyal fans. Then again, Bioware's Canadian, that's a national sport up there.
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Post by Snarboo on Mar 16, 2012 21:05:34 GMT -5
Having not played any of the ME games outside of the intro to the first game, I still feel it's fair for Bioware and ME fans to complain about the ending Bioware gave them. It really sounds like an insult to the fans, so they have every right to criticize an ending they feel doesn't live up to the promises they were given or expectations they had for the series.
Obviously Bioware can end their series however they wish to, but if gaming is meant to be taken seriously as an artform, then we have every right to criticize them for their decisions. Critical discourse is a large part of art, so it saddens me to see a lot of valid criticism dismissed as "entitlement", or lumped together with those who have unreasonable opinions or are just plain dicks. And even if games aren't an artform, they still have a right to voice their criticisms for a product they invested time and money into.
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Mar 17, 2012 2:59:12 GMT -5
I actually like downer endings and often choose the worst possible outcome first, just for morose giggles.
But based on the 3 I've read, they're pretty much all the same, are inconclusive, don't make sense, and, as people have said, aren't really based on previous decisions. I kept thinking: "Crikey! How will that past decision affect things now?"
The answer is, it doesn't. Also, closure is very important for me. If the entire universe died, and everything was absolutely dead, I could probably roll with that. But now, it's like: how does that scenario even function, technically speaking?
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Post by derboo on Mar 17, 2012 3:03:52 GMT -5
Critical discourse is a large part of art, so it saddens me to see a lot of valid criticism dismissed as "entitlement", or lumped together with those who have unreasonable opinions or are just plain dicks. There's a world of differences between criticizing an author(ing group) and demanding to him to change his work. Anyway, the linked article is actually very critical about the ending (though aimed as a reply towards the claims of the "give us a real ending" campaign), but I guess one had to invest time to read it, and apparently RPG gamers hate that. It almost seems cartoonish: People who directly or indirectly commented on a slightly out-of-context sentence I've said (after the fact, I admit) I only quoted because I thought it was beautiful on its own in general discourse=5 People who read the linked article before posting=0? Is that estimate correct? What does condemning/judging something you haven't even read/considered make you? *As in |
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Post by Snarboo on Mar 17, 2012 5:09:07 GMT -5
There's a world of differences between criticizing an author(ing group) and demanding to him to change his work. I understand your comment was directed more at the fan campaign, but nobody here has advocated that Bioware change the ending, but have merely voiced dissatisfaction with how it was handled. And even if they had, isn't that within their rights? Videogames as a medium are much more open to change than something such as film, and it's not like there isn't a precedent for a game developer changing an ending after the fact (ie Bethesda with Fallout 3). We're also talking about a game with multiple endings to begin with, and a game that hyped up player choice in determining the ending. It would be a literal pittance to slot in new endings and keep the old ones intact for those that choose to see them. Whether Bioware wishes to do so is up to them, they don't have to compromise their artistic vision, but all signs are pointing to them doing it anyway and possibly even charging for it, so it's honestly a moot point. Edit: Now that I think about it, there's a precedence for this in movies, too. I know the Director's Cut of Blade Runner drastically changes both the movie and ending. So it's not unreasonable for a work's ending to be changed after its release. Why cherry pick an "out-of-context" quote to prove a point you were trying to make, then get mad when people respond to it without reading the entire article? No amount of criticism the author might have had for the game changes the meaning of the portion you cited, and it's completely fair to respond to that specific portion of the article if someone finds it disagreeable. Just as it is fair for you to cite it because you find it eloquent. Not to mention, your original post was dismissive of criticism by calling fans that were upset "haters". Ultimately, the article you posted is one man's opinions of ME3's finale. His views are perfectly reasonable, but so are everyone's in this thread, and most of us weren't dismissing the article so much as the section you cited. Also since when are people obligated to read something before posting on a forum?  |
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Post by X-pert74 on Mar 17, 2012 6:35:00 GMT -5
It's killing me to not be able to discuss the ending with everyone, yet I've been so busy with real life that I've had almost no time to play Mass Effect 3 since getting it. I finally was able to play one or two missions tonight, but now it's incredibly late. I hope I can beat it before inevitably coming across a spoiler somewhere online.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2012 7:48:52 GMT -5
Critical discourse is a large part of art, so it saddens me to see a lot of valid criticism dismissed as "entitlement", or lumped together with those who have unreasonable opinions or are just plain dicks. There's a world of differences between criticizing an author(ing group) and demanding to him to change his work. Anyway, the linked article is actually very critical about the ending (though aimed as a reply towards the claims of the "give us a real ending" campaign), but I guess one had to invest time to read it, and apparently RPG gamers hate that. I totally agree with what Snarboo said. I actually took the time to read it, but to be honest you only needed to read that part you quoted to come to the same conclusion. It was a fine article and touched on much of what's been enraging people until he got to the "don't fix it" part, and in doing so invalidated and threw away everything that he said before. How ironic, that an ending can fuck up the whole...what a concept... I'm going to violate Godwin's law here and cite George Lucas again. He fucked up Star Wars. Forever. There's no going back. He also fucked up Indiana Jones, although that's part Spielberg's fault. Does the creator or contributor to something have the right to do that to our childhood memories? Oh yeah, sure. But he should also have the sense to see where he screwed up and try to make things right instead of turning a blind eye to it. But they don't owe anything to the whiny, bitchy, petulant little fans that pay for their livelihoods, I suppose... I don't want a happy ending. I want a fucking ending like Farewell, Yamato where they ram the Normandy into something critical and they all die saving the day. Or at least the option to do so. But that's probably not going to happen. So failing that, I think that people that are pissed off should stop wasting their time raising money for Child's Play and start looking for a good lawyer to do a class-action lawsuit against Bioware and EA for not making good on what they said they were going to do - IE, have your choices impact the story and the ending. |
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Post by kyouki on Mar 17, 2012 9:02:42 GMT -5
Class action lawsuit!
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Mar 17, 2012 9:31:42 GMT -5
Is that estimate correct? Was I counted in that estimate? In my defence my reply was more at other replies than your link specifically. I've read it, and he makes excellent points regarding how the ME2 ending was far better integrated with your actions (the suicide mission and its outcomes). It doesn't change my view though. Perhaps the fact I haven't played the game yet makes me more open to a new ending. His whole arguments boils down to: I had to suffer it, so therefore so should everyone else.Someone mentioned Bladerunner's new ending. The director's cut flat out sucks balls. They removed the voice-over monologues which added 90% of the film's flavour. I refuse to watch Bladerunner if it doesn't have the bit where he explains the gutter-trash language spoken by that cop. Luckily I have it on VHS. For the record characterisation mean nothing to me in narratives - I am all about infodumps, scenarios and scenery. Characters are merely disposable MacGuffins to facilitate them. |
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Post by derboo on Mar 17, 2012 14:56:02 GMT -5
Edit: Now that I think about it, there's a precedence for this in movies, too. I know the Director's Cut of Blade Runner drastically changes both the movie and ending. So it's not unreasonable for a work's ending to be changed after its release. The situation with Blade Runner was very different though (or so it seems, as we don't really know the internal workings that lead to the Mass Effect 3 Ending). The voice over was put in because some executives thought the movie's audience would be too dumb to get it without them, IIRC both Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford have stated they hated it to begin with. (There's even a story about how Ford tried to speak it in an intentionally dull tone in hope it'd get deleted again). Why cherry pick an "out-of-context" quote to prove a point you were trying to make, then get mad when people respond to it without reading the entire article? No amount of criticism the author might have had for the game changes the meaning of the portion you cited, and it's completely fair to respond to that specific portion of the article if someone finds it disagreeable. You're right, and I'll admit that it was a mistake to quote that portion to begin with. I also want to apologize to the rest of you for my snappy last comment. Jason X was the only one who it should have been aimed at, as he's the only one who comes off as a raving zealot in this thread. Not to mention, your original post was dismissive of criticism by calling fans that were upset "haters". Is "hater" pejorative? I honestly didn't know, I've probably called myself a hater of something more often than everyone else combined. Anyway, to try and get myself on the trail I secretly hoped to pursue, I'll quote this comment from that same page: In the case of Legion, AFAIK you can only make peace between the Geth and the Quarians if you recruited him in the previous game, which is a fairly major choice to make. Wrex is smart enough to spot your work on the Genophage, whereas Wreav isn’t. The false Rachni queen is unreliable… it’s unreasonable to expect insane differences for every minor decision, but Bioware went one *hell* of a lot further than anyone else has ever attempted. That does seem to disprove the theory that "your decisions matter" was all a lie because of the ending. Why does it all have to happen(/be redundantly repeated) after the last player input has been made? Are the common epilogue textboxes of "and xyz did abc" really that great? |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2012 17:27:14 GMT -5
They're certainly better than the alternative of being left with no difference in endings besides a color change between the three choices given to you by a character dumped into the fray at the last moment with no build up in the previous games. |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 17, 2012 17:30:31 GMT -5
Thank god. I was waiting for someone to put me in my place. Mission accomplished! |
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Post by LouieBee on Mar 17, 2012 17:36:09 GMT -5
Is that estimate correct? Was I counted in that estimate? In my defence my reply was more at other replies than your link specifically. I've read it, and he makes excellent points regarding how the ME2 ending was far better integrated with your actions (the suicide mission and its outcomes). It doesn't change my view though. Perhaps the fact I haven't played the game yet makes me more open to a new ending. His whole arguments boils down to: I had to suffer it, so therefore so should everyone else.Someone mentioned Bladerunner's new ending. The director's cut flat out sucks balls. They removed the voice-over monologues which added 90% of the film's flavour. I refuse to watch Bladerunner if it doesn't have the bit where he explains the gutter-trash language spoken by that cop. Luckily I have it on VHS. For the record characterisation mean nothing to me in narratives - I am all about infodumps, scenarios and scenery. Characters are merely disposable MacGuffins to facilitate them. Woah, woah, woah. What? I mean, sure, you can DISLIKE the Directors Cut of Blade Runner- it confirms Deckard's place as a replicant, ends pretty much on a cliffhanger and is notably more violent, all in all, but on it's own merits those changes were justified. The fairy tale ending was unbelievably unrealistic when you consider the dark and typically jaded attitude to the plot and setting. And, really, the voice over is entirely hit and miss. I see why it was implemented: Blade Runner is a film noir, can be a difficult film to understand initially and you can build story alot easier this way too. Although alot of the narrated dialogue in the theatrical cut was just awkward and jarring to hear. Infact the voice overs didn't seem to match Deckard's thought process, espcially the compartive of skinjob to racial slurs. It ultimately kills some of the more touching moments in the film (e.g. Roy's death). So to say the Director's Cut "sucks balls" is quite insulting. It's stuck with most fans, and with good reason. |
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Post by Sketcz-1000 on Mar 18, 2012 3:01:34 GMT -5
For the record I am a Bladerunner fan, it's in my personal top 100 film list, and I try to introduce newcomers to it at every opportunity. When I do so, it's with the original version. Someone mentioned Bladerunner's new ending. The director's cut flat out sucks balls. Woah, woah, woah. What? I mean, sure, you can DISLIKE the Directors Cut of Blade Runner- it confirms Deckard's place as a replicant It confirms nothing of the sort. A silly dream about a unicorn doesn't tell me anything other than Deckard had a dream about a unicorn. If it had actually been confirmed in an obvious manner then I'd probably quite like that. You are right, and I actually prefer the new ending in the director's cut, where the elevator closes and the credits roll. The original ending is rubbish, and is actually pieces of footage from Stanley Kubrick's The Shining which the studio used to shoehorn in, so it appears they're in a nice place. But, ultimately, my sole reason for hating the director's cut is the loss of the monologues: I'm a fan and I passionately hate the Director's Cut. For me so much of the atmosphere is due to those dialogues. I once watched the director's cut with someone who had never seen the film before, and during that bit where that guy talks a funny language, the other person was asking me: do you know what that funny language is? And I had to explain: it's not a funny language, that gibberish he talked was city speak, gutter talk. A mishmash of Japanese, Spanish, German, what have you. He didn't really need a translator, he knew the lingo, every good cop did. But he wasn't going to make it easier for him.. That was such a cool moment in the film. It was part of the film's lore, part of its background culture. I mean, fuck, they invented an entirely new language for the film, in the same way Panzer Dragoon invented a new language. If you were to list the coolest scenes in any film ever, that scene, with the cop talking to Deckard and his explanation afterwards, would be on my top 10, alongside... I, dunno, Darth Vader's father reveal, or the Statue of Liberty in Planet of the Apes? To remove the voice over basically strips one of my favourite films of my favourite scenes and makes the entire film worthless to me. For me Bladerunner is nothing without those monologues. If I had the skill and time I would take the director's cut, with its improved ending, and I would re-instate the monologues from the theatrical cut to make the ultimate perfect version. As it stands, I cannot stomach the film without those monologues. To me, they are its soul, the provider of its atmosphere. To remove the voice overs is akin to removing the colour and making the film monochrome. |
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