After arguing about this all week in other places, I don't have the energy to do it again fully here.
People have been complaining about what has happened to fictional characters for at least 100 years, when so much pressure was brought on Arthur Conan Doyle that he had to bring back Sherlock Holmes after Richenbach Falls.
People have disliked popular fiction for longer than that. But, as much as an audience might not like a piece of fiction, I just don't think they should put pressure on the creators to change the story.
You are well within your rights as an audience to complain, to stop patronizing the creators who made it, or whatever.
Many people hated the ending of LOST. But I don't think people should have petitioned ABC/Disney/Cuse and Lindelof to make a new ending for the show. (The epilogue is not the same thing.)
Personally, I don't see how it isn't more than a vocal minority of people who became WAY TOO IMMERSED into a fictional universe and wanting their own way.
That's the rub though. LOST never claimed to be interactive, nor did it spend 8 years marketing that fans would get to choose how the story concluded.
Mass Effect did, and when push came to shove, Bioware didn't deliver, and that's what fans are upset about.
And I'm 100% not comfortable with the "games are unmaleable and art" conversation, because that's entirely thrown out the window when talking about RPGs (which can have wildly different endings and storylines depending on how you play) and DLC.
I mean the game is significantly different when Javik is in your party. Is the artistic experience hampered by his addition? If what you're saying is true then he should either have been shelved entirely or in the game from launch.
If it's not, then they can change the ending too.
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Holy crap. I haven't played any Mass Effect since a little bit of the first one, but seeing Excalibur talk about the ending reminds me so much of the ending to "Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords" which was not done by Bioware, but man. KOTOR2 was rushed to get it out in time for a Christmas release. I wonder if ME3 suffers from the same problems.
To fully end the cycle, everything must be destroyed expect for a small bit to start the cycle again. This time, the cycle will be able to play out without interference from anyone. It also makes sense since that the Relays would be used in this way since the Reapers are all over the place. To me, it made sense when they started talking about beginnings and endings that shit was going to eliminated. No, this game did not feel rushed. It was actually quite big.
(edited by lotjx on 26.3.12 1152) The Wee Baby Sheamus.
Twitter: @realjoecarfley its a bit more toned down there. A bit.
Originally posted by Mr. BoffoI wonder if ME3 suffers from the same problems.
Mass Effect 3 wasn't rushed, it just suffered from a disconnect between the game's head writing staff and its quest and character writers, all of which was documented in Geoff Keighley's documentary.
The biggest struggle was probably that Mass Effect's storyline guy Drew Karpyshyn left the Mass Effect team to work on Old Republic, and then left the Old Republic team to work on his novels. A lot of Karpyshyn's story ideas were scrapped in the preproduction of ME3 and while I happen to think Mac Walters is a decent writer, he suffers a lot from BioWare's in-house writer training (great character beats but muddled overall plot structure).
Originally posted by Mr. BoffoTo fully end the cycle, everything must be destroyed expect for a small bit to start the cycle again. This time, the cycle will be able to play out without interference from anyone. It also makes sense since that the Relays would be used in this way since the Reapers are all over the place. To me, it made sense when they started talking about beginnings and endings that shit was going to eliminated. No, this game did not feel rushed. It was actually quite big. .
I guess we're going to just have to agree to disagree here then. I just don't see the logic in that at all, and I don't think it plays into any of the endings. That is what you're presented with, yes, but in terms of how the series was written up to those last five minutes, it's completely incongruous. It is a literal deus ex machina cribbed without irony from the ending of the first Deus Ex, but there at least the entire game had been leading up to that choice. Here the choice is offered with little reguard to the context of the series.
Are all the people bitching about Shepard dying, also the same people who bitched about Neo dying at the end of The Matrix?
Very few people are bitching that Shepard died. Just that the endings don't make sense in the context of the rest of the series. I'm pretty sure everybody expected that he would die in most if not all of the endings.
(edited by Excalibur05 on 27.3.12 0003) For NFL Power Rankings, My Blog and More, check out Hock Show Dot Com (hockshow.com)
I didn't expect Shepard to die. It's not like I'm angry that he did, but I would have thought we would get a Harry Potter ending where friends of Harry die (it is a war), but Harry lives.
At the base of this, we have a development team that told us that there would be "wildly different endings," which again did not really happen. Instead, we get a goofy god-child and different COLORS of the same basic ending.
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I just finished it. Looks like spoilers are okay here.
I wouldn't have minded the endings if they were very different depending on which way you go.
I originally chose "Destroy" on accident, just because I walked up there to see what was up there and it wouldn't let me turn back once I had my gun drawn. When I played through the ending, my only thoughts were really "Huh, well, at least I killed the shit out of the Reapers. Sucks for Joker!" I didn't think it was bad, and I just accepted that as the way things ended for my guy.
Then, I chose the "Control" ending (what I really meant to do) and was kinda pissed that it was basically the same thing. Big Ben gets destroyed either way (even though nothing really explodes), the Normandy still crashes, and why do the Mass Effect relays have to explode no matter what?
So yeah, same basic feelings as everyone else. It doesn't matter to me whether or not both endings are shitty. What mattered to me was that the same thing happened with just that slight color switch from red to blue. Ooh.
This is one instance where I feel like fan anger should trump Bioware's artistic integrity. Give me more endings to choose from, please. That was supposed to be the point of the game.
I did get into multiplayer with a friend a few weeks ago, and I actually had a lot of fun with it. From about 4 or 5 sessions of it, I got my galactic readiness up to 75%. I was feeling good, and then I was told something that made me mad all over again (perhaps someone can refute this).
So not only do you basically have to play multiplayer to get the "good" endings, but after a certain point in the single player campaign story, you lose 1% of your galactic readiness EVERY DAY that you do not play multiplayer. That is some BS right there. Now obviously the answer would be to play tons of multiplayer right before you play the final mission, but this is just another instance where EA and Bioware pulls the rug out from under the loyal ME players.
I'm voting for this game in the Wrestling Observer Most Disgusting Promotional Tactic of the Year award.
"Put on your helmets, we'll be reaching speeds of 3!" "It was nice of you to give that dead woman another chance." "All right, look alive everybody...oh sorry Susan."- MST3K: Space Mutiny Click Here (facebook.com)
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