Exactly, I agree. Bioware go caught up in making an epic ending and forgot that they were making a FPS game and not a movie or book. However, I still believe they were going for the Indoctrination theory. Hopefully the DLC will prove or disprove that.
Not true.
Bioware has, in the past, had some of the most talented writers ever to grace the role playing game genre. They have produced some of the finest RPGs ever made with STORY being what mattered most. In the case of the Mass Effect series, the writing is stellar, the story important, the lore integral and important...except for the last 1/2 hour of the last game. Then they take all the love, care and attention that was showered on the series from the get-go and flush it down the proverbial crapper. They were rushed to get something out the door and not given the time to bring the game to the conclusion that I believe ME deserves as the pinnacle of RPGs from Bioware.
They are focused on the multiplayer stuff, sure, but story has ALWAYS been the hallmark of Bioware until Dragon Age 2 and now Mass Effect 3. Realizing that both of those were developed under the wings of EA gives you a big clue as to what happened to ME3.
The journey was so epic, so grand, so filled with desperation, friendship, terror, love and heroics that the ending deserved to measure up to the story that made all of us love Shepard and her crew.
I absolutely adore this guy. He's only made three videos so far (and I linked the other two in another post), but he has a really wonderful, measured, carefully considered perspective. The video is 17 minutes long, and basically looks at the finances governing megapublishers and the inherent conflicts of interest between big publishers and smaller game studios. We've all seen videos like that before (read: where one guy is ranting that "EA is evil"), but that isn't the tack taken here. He editorializes a bit, but supports his conclusions. It's almost novel for YouTube.
Good, I loved the ending of me3, hey life is not disney land
Life is internally consistent. ME3's endings are not even close.
This isn't about not having a happy ending and going to disneyland. Its that fact that there are numerous glaring plotholes and inconsistencies.
The "fans are upset because there is no happey ending" meme is this discussions version of using an ad hominen to counter a valid argument.
Life is anything but consistent, if it was we would all have perfect lives. You could be living a great life and walk out to the street and get run over. I guess I could sit down and thoroughly analyze me3 if I wanted to but why? I am happy that bioware did away with the annoying mini games, the annoying vehicles, etc the story line is not quite as good as me2 but only cause in me2 we met new characters and the story line was all about fleshing out their lives, in me3 it was a continuation of that and the final chapter , that being said the story line was still very good. The ending with the kid was a little jarring but you have to remember the kid appeared throughout me3 and was a mystery. Al in all most people hated on me3 because they think Shepard dies,(the Disney land effect) There are also a vocal minority who took apart the whole story and are picking out flaws. I just enjoyed the game for what it was a very emotional, raw, visceral story.
Since when is consistency good stuff happening?
Internal consistency is stuff like a science experiment giving different people the same result. Thus being consistent with itself. Or when two people jump of the same bridge and both die. That is consistent. It certainly isn't nice or happy or a wonderful thing.
Again you are wrapped up in happiness which is not what this is about at all. Even going so far is to take a word that is not at all related to it and projecting another meaning on it.
Kid is not jarring to me. The kid is a cliche I have seen too many times and a nice neat plot device to wrap things up neatly but not. He wasn't mysterious at all. As soon I heard about it I groaned to myself and said "oh no they didn't di they?"
Think about it this way, a Pixar film costs about $10M to make including voice acting. The ending to Mass Effect 3 in sum total is about 15 minutes long, so you are looking at a cost of about $1.3M per ending. You might even be able to argue down that it is 750k per ending... but it is still quite expensive all together.
If they were to make totally new endings they would HAVE to charge for it because it costs so much to make. This of course would piss off fans to no end.
There was really no winning solution here for Bioware. Just adjusting and explaining the existing ending was the only real way to stay profitable and make most of their fans happy.
A person is allowed to hate an ending to a story. I'm sure that Twilight has as many haters as fans filled with people who hate and love the story. Often my girlfriend (who loves reading fantasy) will yell at her book "STOP MAKING BAD DECISIONS."
This just in: No further Bioware purchases by Rednecksith planned.
But seriously, they are dead to me. They took a franchise which had the potential to become one of the greatest sci-fi IP's of all time and completely and utterly destroyed it. Hell, it took Lucas 3 movies and a bunch of alterations to his original work, as well as a TV show to do it. Bioware nullified everything Mass Effect in about 10 minutes, which in retrospect is a pretty impressive feat.
Westwood Studios, Bullfrog, Origin Systems, Maxis, Pandemic, and now Bioware... God damn you EA.
I absolutely adore this guy. He's only made three videos so far (and I linked the other two in another post), but he has a really wonderful, measured, carefully considered perspective. The video is 17 minutes long, and basically looks at the finances governing megapublishers and the inherent conflicts of interest between big publishers and smaller game studios. We've all seen videos like that before (read: where one guy is ranting that "EA is evil"), but that isn't the tack taken here. He editorializes a bit, but supports his conclusions. It's almost novel for YouTube.
I hadn't but I will check it out tomorrow. I can't bring myself to fire up ME 1, 2 or 3. Sheesh. Gotta do something.
It's understandable why some people cling to the IT so much. It's the perfect rationale for excusing away everything that doesn't make any sense in the ending under the nebulous idea of indoctrination. They can then simply go, "See? NONE OF THAT HAPPENED! Yay!"
Personally, I really do doubt it's true. Mostly because Shep shows no signs of it whatsoever. And outside the dreams, most of what is used as proof comes from the last 10 minutes of pure nonsense.
I think these epilogue slides will mostly be about what happens to the other races and all the people left stranded. That'll make some happy, though I'd wager more won't be.
But hey, SPECULATION FOR EVERYBODY!! is what they wanted. So if believing firmly in the IT makes the game better for you, more power to you! I'll probably not be interested in any further BioWare games.
Bioware has, in the past, had some of the most talented writers ever to grace the role playing game genre. They have produced some of the finest RPGs ever made with STORY being what mattered most. In the case of the Mass Effect series, the writing is stellar, the story important, the lore integral and important...except for the last 1/2 hour of the last game. Then they take all the love, care and attention that was showered on the series from the get-go and flush it down the proverbial crapper. They were rushed to get something out the door and not given the time to bring the game to the conclusion that I believe ME deserves as the pinnacle of RPGs from Bioware.
They are focused on the multiplayer stuff, sure, but story has ALWAYS been the hallmark of Bioware until Dragon Age 2 and now Mass Effect 3. Realizing that both of those were developed under the wings of EA gives you a big clue as to what happened to ME3.
The journey was so epic, so grand, so filled with desperation, friendship, terror, love and heroics that the ending deserved to measure up to the story that made all of us love Shepard and her crew.
The thing about what you guys keep saying that doesn't make sense is that even if they were rushed, how is the lore crapped on? I've asked already with no reply. Where was the lore broken? I've played one and two but not three. Even considering I really don't care about a spoiler, with so much hoopla I would rather know what the deal is.
Why would "rushed" force "stellar" writing, to become a break in canon? It doesn't make sense. I can see it causing a rushed ending that doesn't plug all holes, but not one that "breaks" the story. ANd if the writing was so stellar (all the way to the last 1/2 hour of 3), what sense does it make for it to just stop and they decide; hey!, none of this matters, lets just end it? It doesn't add up.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So i was playing through Mass Effect 1 doing a Renegade run when i came across this codex entry:
Primary Codex from Mass Effect 1:
Faster-than-light drives use element zero cores to reduce the mass of a ship, allowing higher rates of acceleration. This effectively raises the speed of light within the mass effect field, allowing high speed travel with negligible relativistic time dilation1 effects.
Starships still require conventional thrusters (chemical rockets, commercial fusion torch, economy ion engine, or military antiproton drive) in addition to the FTL drive core. With only a core, a ship has no motive power.
The amount of element zero and power required for a drive increases exponentially to the mass being moved and the degree it is being lightened. Very massive ships or very high speeds are prohibitively expensive.
If the field collapses while the ship is moving at faster-than-light speeds, the effects are catastrophic. The ship is snapped back to sublight velocity, the enormous excess energy shed in the form of lethal Cherenkov radiation.
Isn't that scene where the normady is traveling through a mass relay showing a field collapse, and if so, why isn't the entire crew dead. According to the Mass Effect 1 Codex, getting snapped out of FTL would bathe you in lethal Cherenkov radiation. I'm surpised i haven't seen this getting pointed out anywhere.
I'm so sick of the words "Artistic Integrity" being tied in with ME3. The writing is terrible. On thier own forums they have writing professors explaining in DETAIL why the ending is so bad and just how many plot holes are there.
Its all good though. After DA2 and this steaming pile of donkey dung (the story/ending, the gameplay was fun enough) Bioware can take thier "Artistic visions" and shove it. Sure I'll play future games of thiers. But not untill its 75% off or more. Not untill they show me they have gotten thier epic single player RPG mojo back.
Why would "rushed" force "stellar" writing, to become a break in canon? It doesn't make sense. I can see it causing a rushed ending that doesn't plug all holes, but not one that "breaks" the story. ANd if the writing was so stellar (all the way to the last 1/2 hour of 3), what sense does it make for it to just stop and they decide; hey!, none of this matters, lets just end it? It doesn't add up.
EXACTLY.
Why?
*warning - angry Spock - and you saw what angry Spock did to Kirk?*
As someone who has spent a LOT of time with the Mass Effect series, multiple play throughs and full content play throughs of the first two games etc etc.
It in all honesty feels like Bioware made 95% of ME3, then quite literally handed it off to another studio that hadn't played either ME1 or 2 or even played any of the earlier parts of ME3 and said "Here you go! Make an ending - we don't care what it is but make 3 of them."
And the studio they handed it off to was quite literally the worst development studio on the planet.
It doesn't make any sense.
There is no "artistic vision created by the writers of the Mass Effect series" it is 100% pure and total garbage and I refuse to believe that the same people who wrote the rest of the game(s) and did such a fucking fantastic job creating one of the best sci-fi universes ever created...
also created that bullshit.
I simply refuse to believe Bioware has fallen that far because the rest of ME3 was totally awesome.
It has to be a joke or some sort of crazy plot to generate hype and publicity etc.
I may be delussional in thinking that but I would rather cling to my desperate delussions than face the reality that Bioware probably just sucks a lot of ASS now that they are under the heal of EA and their bullshit.
Why would "rushed" force "stellar" writing, to become a break in canon? It doesn't make sense. I can see it causing a rushed ending that doesn't plug all holes, but not one that "breaks" the story. ANd if the writing was so stellar (all the way to the last 1/2 hour of 3), what sense does it make for it to just stop and they decide; hey!, none of this matters, lets just end it? It doesn't add up.
EXACTLY.
Why?
*warning - angry Spock - and you saw what angry Spock did to Kirk?*
As someone who has spent a LOT of time with the Mass Effect series, multiple play throughs and full content play throughs of the first two games etc etc.
It in all honesty feels like Bioware made 95% of ME3, then quite literally handed it off to another studio that hadn't played either ME1 or 2 or even played any of the earlier parts of ME3 and said "Here you go! Make an ending - we don't care what it is but make 3 of them."
And the studio they handed it off to was quite literally the worst development studio on the planet.
It doesn't make any sense.
There is no "artistic vision created by the writers of the Mass Effect series" it is 100% pure and total garbage and I refuse to believe that the same people who wrote the rest of the game(s) and did such a fucking fantastic job creating one of the best sci-fi universes ever created...
also created that bullshit.
I simply refuse to believe Bioware has fallen that far because the rest of ME3 was totally awesome.
It has to be a joke or some sort of crazy plot to generate hype and publicity etc.
I may be delussional in thinking that but I would rather cling to my desperate delussions than face the reality that Bioware probably just sucks a lot of ASS now that they are under the heal of EA and their bullshit.
Yeah, these are basically my thoughts (without actually knowing what they did to wrap it up). Almost makes me wanna go buy it just to see this last 5%.
Did they leave holes that can be filled? IE: (the indoctrination theory) Or was it simply a contradiction to everything else that happened before? That's the main question for me. To me the (none of this happened at all) idea just doesn't make sense being in a video game. Especially a role-playing game. As I could see that totally ruining the feeling that your own decisions had anything to do with the outcome.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
IMO the negative backlash could take this one of two ways. Either A: Bioware/EA realize they need to put the Bioware back into Bioware (Let Bioware actually do their thing, IE: Ncsoft/-A-Net relationship) or B: Bioware becomes the next Bullfrog, Westwood, etc... History tells us it will be the latter.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Why would "rushed" force "stellar" writing, to become a break in canon? It doesn't make sense. I can see it causing a rushed ending that doesn't plug all holes, but not one that "breaks" the story. ANd if the writing was so stellar (all the way to the last 1/2 hour of 3), what sense does it make for it to just stop and they decide; hey!, none of this matters, lets just end it? It doesn't add up.
EXACTLY.
Why?
*warning - angry Spock - and you saw what angry Spock did to Kirk?*
As someone who has spent a LOT of time with the Mass Effect series, multiple play throughs and full content play throughs of the first two games etc etc.
It in all honesty feels like Bioware made 95% of ME3, then quite literally handed it off to another studio that hadn't played either ME1 or 2 or even played any of the earlier parts of ME3 and said "Here you go! Make an ending - we don't care what it is but make 3 of them."
And the studio they handed it off to was quite literally the worst development studio on the planet.
It doesn't make any sense.
There is no "artistic vision created by the writers of the Mass Effect series" it is 100% pure and total garbage and I refuse to believe that the same people who wrote the rest of the game(s) and did such a fucking fantastic job creating one of the best sci-fi universes ever created...
also created that bullshit.
I simply refuse to believe Bioware has fallen that far because the rest of ME3 was totally awesome.
It has to be a joke or some sort of crazy plot to generate hype and publicity etc.
I may be delussional in thinking that but I would rather cling to my desperate delussions than face the reality that Bioware probably just sucks a lot of ASS now that they are under the heal of EA and their bullshit.
Excellent post and I agree, but the angry Spock bit reminded me a of a classic TV guide blurb about Trek.
"Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk."
- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode "Amok Time"
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
Well said though I'd like a happy ending. Why not give people choices rather than only one: Destroy the known galaxy and everyone in it and die. That, quite simply, sucks.
And life isn't consistent. Our lives are filled with anxiety and worry and a lot more bad stuff which is why I play games in the first place. I want something different from what I experience every day of my life. Bioware gave me Shepard and allowed her to save the galaxy twice before ME3. She's heroic and bold. Bioware made us love our Shepards AND the people she met in her journey. To think that anyone would be satisfied with an ending that basically nullifies everything she was is a slap in the face to all of us who, by extension, became Shepard. There should be an option for life or death, destruction or salvation.
While I don't mind Shepard dying in the end, making the ultimate sacrifice for the galaxy and saving it in the process - or at least that would be the case if the ending was done right - I too would have loved an ending akin to the original Mass Effect. That, quite simply, was the best ending to any game I've ever played. The rising music, the shifting camera, Shepard running up over the rubble and his companions showing obvious relief. It always, without fail, brings a smile to my face. And that's what I always loved about Mass Effect, is that it can make you feel good about your actions in game, despite it just being a game.
The ending to ME3 was the complete opposite, it just ended up making you confused, a little angry and thinking, "WTF?!".
The thing about what you guys keep saying that doesn't make sense is that even if they were rushed, how is the lore crapped on? I've asked already with no reply. Where was the lore broken? I've played one and two but not three. Even considering I really don't care about a spoiler, with so much hoopla I would rather know what the deal is.
Why would "rushed" force "stellar" writing, to become a break in canon? It doesn't make sense. I can see it causing a rushed ending that doesn't plug all holes, but not one that "breaks" the story. ANd if the writing was so stellar (all the way to the last 1/2 hour of 3), what sense does it make for it to just stop and they decide; hey!, none of this matters, lets just end it? It doesn't add up.
If you want to see what the "Retaker" movement cites as reasons that the endings violate the lore of the series, this is a great video about it:
IMO the negative backlash could take this one of two ways. Either A: Bioware/EA realize they need to put the Bioware back into Bioware (Let Bioware actually do their thing, IE: Ncsoft/-A-Net relationship) or B: Bioware becomes the next Bullfrog, Westwood, etc... History tells us it will be the latter.
I doubt Bioware would ever revert back to the same Pre-EA bioware even if EA decided "Hey, we're going to step back and let you do your own thing". How they handled this ending, SWTOR, and DA2 shows that they only care about generating a bottom line and quality assurance isn't something we should expect from them ever again.
The whole "Artistic vision" bullshit they're spewing is ridiculous. But thats mostly Casey throwing a temper tantrum that people didn't like his ending.
As far as this DLC they're promising goes, Its probably going to do little more than add insult to injury. I don't see them doing anything other than making a crappy 5 minute epilogue that will likely create as many plotholes as it plugs up. While i cant see them being able to fudge the ending worse than its current state, i don't see them making it any better without making serious changes to the endings format.
Think about it this way, a Pixar film costs about $10M to make including voice acting. The ending to Mass Effect 3 in sum total is about 15 minutes long, so you are looking at a cost of about $1.3M per ending. You might even be able to argue down that it is 750k per ending... but it is still quite expensive all together.
If they were to make totally new endings they would HAVE to charge for it because it costs so much to make. This of course would piss off fans to no end.
There was really no winning solution here for Bioware. Just adjusting and explaining the existing ending was the only real way to stay profitable and make most of their fans happy.
A person is allowed to hate an ending to a story. I'm sure that Twilight has as many haters as fans filled with people who hate and love the story. Often my girlfriend (who loves reading fantasy) will yell at her book "STOP MAKING BAD DECISIONS."
Pixar films cost about $10m to make? This made coffee shoot out of my nose. Cars 2 cost 200 million not including marketing as did Toy Story 3. I couldn't find info for their first feature length movie Toy Story, but their second featur length movie was A Bug's Life which cost 120 million back in 1998, not including marketing. So it is much worse than you figure.
Edit: Sorry that came out rude and that wasn't my intention.
Best treatise I've read (and I've read most of 'em) on the MESS that the Mass Effect 3 ending embodies. It's long but a great read if you want to know why people are so unhappy. It's reasonable and very well-written:
Best treatise I've read (and I've read most of 'em) on the MESS that the Mass Effect 3 ending embodies. It's long but a great read if you want to know why people are so unhappy. It's reasonable and very well-written:
Disclaimer: This ain’t geek nitpicking - just basic logic and reason accessible to any rational person paying moderate attention to the events depicted on-screen!
I found the disclaimer odd when the contents are filled with statements like "all were thought to be dead, yet someone still tried contacting Shepard" When I got to that point I just couldn't read anymore. Sounds like simple "hope" to me.. and I fancy myself a rational person.
The bit about the kid and the citadel was also confusing and hard to follow due to the structure being so back and forth. That part is a mess, as it seemed more like a person explaining their own take on previous revelations. Not to mention trying to state as fact what purpose this or that serves in the greater galaxy, like say the issues they bring up with synthetics. As well as the question asked "why not just destroy all synthetics?". That question could be answered a hundred ways, depending on who they're referring to that should want to kill all synthetics. I have no idea who they were referring to ( if that wasn't obvious)
That link might make sense to a person who played the finale and knows the course of events, to someone who hasn't (me) it literally looks like "nitpicking" for lack of a better word.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
If you haven't played it then you're right when you say that it is a convoluted mess. Even having played it twice, the ending is a convoluted mess to me too. The writer hit it out of the park on this one. If reading it makes no sense, imagine having invested 150+ hours in the three games and still feeling lost, confused and angry.
Bioware through the last 20 minutes of 3 made me love Shepard and her drive to unite the galaxy against the Reapers and to give all species a chance at self-determination. They made me love my friends and LIs. They made me respect my enemies for the most part. They made me glad that I was so invested in the games that they felt like an extension of myself. Corny? Maybe. But it's true. Bioware is that good which is what makes the ending so unbearably tragic, to use an overinflated word but one that is eerily fitting.
Do yourself a favor and watch the video I linked a few posts up. It gives a visual representation and makes it somewhat easier to understand.
The point of the whole exercise is that the game ended horribly. 95% of the game is wondrous and fun to play (that Tuchanka mission? Brilliant!). The last 5% destroys all replayability and leaves players feeling bitter and confused when they were promised so much more. I realize that this has become par for the course in game development in many ways but...still...the Mass Effect universe deserves better than it got....and so does my femShep, Kal.
If you haven't played it then you're right when you say that it is a convoluted mess. Even having played it twice, the ending is a convoluted mess to me too. The writer hit it out of the park on this one. If reading it makes no sense, imagine having invested 150+ hours in the three games and still feeling lost, confused and angry.
Bioware through the last 20 minutes of 3 made me love Shepard and her drive to unite the galaxy against the Reapers and to give all species a chance at self-determination. They made me love my friends and LIs. They made me respect my enemies for the most part. They made me glad that I was so invested in the games that they felt like an extension of myself. Corny? Maybe. But it's true. Bioware is that good which is what makes the ending so unbearably tragic, to use an overinflated word but one that is eerily fitting.
Do yourself a favor and watch the video I linked a few posts up. It gives a visual representation and makes it somewhat easier to understand.
The point of the whole exercise is that the game ended horribly. 95% of the game is wondrous and fun to play (that Tuchanka mission? Brilliant!). The last 5% destroys all replayability and leaves players feeling bitter and confused when they were promised so much more. I realize that this has become par for the course in game development in many ways but...still...the Mass Effect universe deserves better than it got....and so does my femShep, Kal.
Yeah that's really the point I was making, I'm thinking about adding ME3 to my GF's gamefly cycle I hear most of the game is enjoyable, and I figure if I could enjoy KOTOR2 ending considered I can at least make it to the end to know how it all fits together (err doesn't fit together) .
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
THIS is why Shepard, Anderson, Liara, Kaiden, Legion, Hackett, Ashley, Miranda, Garrus et al deserve better. ME is such an epic well crafted story except for 20 minutes that betrays everything we as players experienced in the rest:
Comments
Not true.
Bioware has, in the past, had some of the most talented writers ever to grace the role playing game genre. They have produced some of the finest RPGs ever made with STORY being what mattered most. In the case of the Mass Effect series, the writing is stellar, the story important, the lore integral and important...except for the last 1/2 hour of the last game. Then they take all the love, care and attention that was showered on the series from the get-go and flush it down the proverbial crapper. They were rushed to get something out the door and not given the time to bring the game to the conclusion that I believe ME deserves as the pinnacle of RPGs from Bioware.
They are focused on the multiplayer stuff, sure, but story has ALWAYS been the hallmark of Bioware until Dragon Age 2 and now Mass Effect 3. Realizing that both of those were developed under the wings of EA gives you a big clue as to what happened to ME3.
The journey was so epic, so grand, so filled with desperation, friendship, terror, love and heroics that the ending deserved to measure up to the story that made all of us love Shepard and her crew.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Suzie, have you seen this video on EA/BioWare? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6TmTv6deTI&feature=youtu.be
I absolutely adore this guy. He's only made three videos so far (and I linked the other two in another post), but he has a really wonderful, measured, carefully considered perspective. The video is 17 minutes long, and basically looks at the finances governing megapublishers and the inherent conflicts of interest between big publishers and smaller game studios. We've all seen videos like that before (read: where one guy is ranting that "EA is evil"), but that isn't the tack taken here. He editorializes a bit, but supports his conclusions. It's almost novel for YouTube.
Since when is consistency good stuff happening?
Internal consistency is stuff like a science experiment giving different people the same result. Thus being consistent with itself. Or when two people jump of the same bridge and both die. That is consistent. It certainly isn't nice or happy or a wonderful thing.
Again you are wrapped up in happiness which is not what this is about at all. Even going so far is to take a word that is not at all related to it and projecting another meaning on it.
Kid is not jarring to me. The kid is a cliche I have seen too many times and a nice neat plot device to wrap things up neatly but not. He wasn't mysterious at all. As soon I heard about it I groaned to myself and said "oh no they didn't di they?"
Making new endings costs money.
Think about it this way, a Pixar film costs about $10M to make including voice acting. The ending to Mass Effect 3 in sum total is about 15 minutes long, so you are looking at a cost of about $1.3M per ending. You might even be able to argue down that it is 750k per ending... but it is still quite expensive all together.
If they were to make totally new endings they would HAVE to charge for it because it costs so much to make. This of course would piss off fans to no end.
There was really no winning solution here for Bioware. Just adjusting and explaining the existing ending was the only real way to stay profitable and make most of their fans happy.
A person is allowed to hate an ending to a story. I'm sure that Twilight has as many haters as fans filled with people who hate and love the story. Often my girlfriend (who loves reading fantasy) will yell at her book "STOP MAKING BAD DECISIONS."
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
This just in: No further Bioware purchases by Rednecksith planned.
But seriously, they are dead to me. They took a franchise which had the potential to become one of the greatest sci-fi IP's of all time and completely and utterly destroyed it. Hell, it took Lucas 3 movies and a bunch of alterations to his original work, as well as a TV show to do it. Bioware nullified everything Mass Effect in about 10 minutes, which in retrospect is a pretty impressive feat.
Westwood Studios, Bullfrog, Origin Systems, Maxis, Pandemic, and now Bioware... God damn you EA.
I hadn't but I will check it out tomorrow. I can't bring myself to fire up ME 1, 2 or 3. Sheesh. Gotta do something.
Holding. The. Line.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's understandable why some people cling to the IT so much. It's the perfect rationale for excusing away everything that doesn't make any sense in the ending under the nebulous idea of indoctrination. They can then simply go, "See? NONE OF THAT HAPPENED! Yay!"
Personally, I really do doubt it's true. Mostly because Shep shows no signs of it whatsoever. And outside the dreams, most of what is used as proof comes from the last 10 minutes of pure nonsense.
I think these epilogue slides will mostly be about what happens to the other races and all the people left stranded. That'll make some happy, though I'd wager more won't be.
But hey, SPECULATION FOR EVERYBODY!! is what they wanted. So if believing firmly in the IT makes the game better for you, more power to you! I'll probably not be interested in any further BioWare games.
The thing about what you guys keep saying that doesn't make sense is that even if they were rushed, how is the lore crapped on? I've asked already with no reply. Where was the lore broken? I've played one and two but not three. Even considering I really don't care about a spoiler, with so much hoopla I would rather know what the deal is.
Why would "rushed" force "stellar" writing, to become a break in canon? It doesn't make sense. I can see it causing a rushed ending that doesn't plug all holes, but not one that "breaks" the story. ANd if the writing was so stellar (all the way to the last 1/2 hour of 3), what sense does it make for it to just stop and they decide; hey!, none of this matters, lets just end it? It doesn't add up.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
So i was playing through Mass Effect 1 doing a Renegade run when i came across this codex entry:
Primary Codex from Mass Effect 1:
Faster-than-light drives use element zero cores to reduce the mass of a ship, allowing higher rates of acceleration. This effectively raises the speed of light within the mass effect field, allowing high speed travel with negligible relativistic time dilation1 effects.
Starships still require conventional thrusters (chemical rockets, commercial fusion torch, economy ion engine, or military antiproton drive) in addition to the FTL drive core. With only a core, a ship has no motive power.
The amount of element zero and power required for a drive increases exponentially to the mass being moved and the degree it is being lightened. Very massive ships or very high speeds are prohibitively expensive.
If the field collapses while the ship is moving at faster-than-light speeds, the effects are catastrophic. The ship is snapped back to sublight velocity, the enormous excess energy shed in the form of lethal Cherenkov radiation.
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Isn't that scene where the normady is traveling through a mass relay showing a field collapse, and if so, why isn't the entire crew dead. According to the Mass Effect 1 Codex, getting snapped out of FTL would bathe you in lethal Cherenkov radiation. I'm surpised i haven't seen this getting pointed out anywhere.
I'm so sick of the words "Artistic Integrity" being tied in with ME3. The writing is terrible. On thier own forums they have writing professors explaining in DETAIL why the ending is so bad and just how many plot holes are there.
Its all good though. After DA2 and this steaming pile of donkey dung (the story/ending, the gameplay was fun enough) Bioware can take thier "Artistic visions" and shove it. Sure I'll play future games of thiers. But not untill its 75% off or more. Not untill they show me they have gotten thier epic single player RPG mojo back.
EXACTLY.
Why?
*warning - angry Spock - and you saw what angry Spock did to Kirk?*
As someone who has spent a LOT of time with the Mass Effect series, multiple play throughs and full content play throughs of the first two games etc etc.
It in all honesty feels like Bioware made 95% of ME3, then quite literally handed it off to another studio that hadn't played either ME1 or 2 or even played any of the earlier parts of ME3 and said "Here you go! Make an ending - we don't care what it is but make 3 of them."
And the studio they handed it off to was quite literally the worst development studio on the planet.
It doesn't make any sense.
There is no "artistic vision created by the writers of the Mass Effect series" it is 100% pure and total garbage and I refuse to believe that the same people who wrote the rest of the game(s) and did such a fucking fantastic job creating one of the best sci-fi universes ever created...
also created that bullshit.
I simply refuse to believe Bioware has fallen that far because the rest of ME3 was totally awesome.
It has to be a joke or some sort of crazy plot to generate hype and publicity etc.
I may be delussional in thinking that but I would rather cling to my desperate delussions than face the reality that Bioware probably just sucks a lot of ASS now that they are under the heal of EA and their bullshit.
Bioware is no longer capable of producing high, top quality products. that's what happens when a company decides to become part of EA.
i already uninstalled ME3, 2 and 1. they managed to kill the franchise.
Yeah, these are basically my thoughts (without actually knowing what they did to wrap it up). Almost makes me wanna go buy it just to see this last 5%.
Did they leave holes that can be filled? IE: (the indoctrination theory) Or was it simply a contradiction to everything else that happened before? That's the main question for me. To me the (none of this happened at all) idea just doesn't make sense being in a video game. Especially a role-playing game. As I could see that totally ruining the feeling that your own decisions had anything to do with the outcome.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
IMO the negative backlash could take this one of two ways. Either A: Bioware/EA realize they need to put the Bioware back into Bioware (Let Bioware actually do their thing, IE: Ncsoft/-A-Net relationship) or B: Bioware becomes the next Bullfrog, Westwood, etc... History tells us it will be the latter.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Excellent post and I agree, but the angry Spock bit reminded me a of a classic TV guide blurb about Trek.
"Mr. Spock succumbs to a powerful mating urge and nearly kills Captain Kirk."
- TV Guide, describing the Star Trek episode "Amok Time"
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "
While I don't mind Shepard dying in the end, making the ultimate sacrifice for the galaxy and saving it in the process - or at least that would be the case if the ending was done right - I too would have loved an ending akin to the original Mass Effect. That, quite simply, was the best ending to any game I've ever played. The rising music, the shifting camera, Shepard running up over the rubble and his companions showing obvious relief. It always, without fail, brings a smile to my face. And that's what I always loved about Mass Effect, is that it can make you feel good about your actions in game, despite it just being a game.
The ending to ME3 was the complete opposite, it just ended up making you confused, a little angry and thinking, "WTF?!".
If you want to see what the "Retaker" movement cites as reasons that the endings violate the lore of the series, this is a great video about it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6M0Cf864P7E
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I doubt Bioware would ever revert back to the same Pre-EA bioware even if EA decided "Hey, we're going to step back and let you do your own thing". How they handled this ending, SWTOR, and DA2 shows that they only care about generating a bottom line and quality assurance isn't something we should expect from them ever again.
The whole "Artistic vision" bullshit they're spewing is ridiculous. But thats mostly Casey throwing a temper tantrum that people didn't like his ending.
As far as this DLC they're promising goes, Its probably going to do little more than add insult to injury. I don't see them doing anything other than making a crappy 5 minute epilogue that will likely create as many plotholes as it plugs up. While i cant see them being able to fudge the ending worse than its current state, i don't see them making it any better without making serious changes to the endings format.
Pixar films cost about $10m to make? This made coffee shoot out of my nose. Cars 2 cost 200 million not including marketing as did Toy Story 3. I couldn't find info for their first feature length movie Toy Story, but their second featur length movie was A Bug's Life which cost 120 million back in 1998, not including marketing. So it is much worse than you figure.
Edit: Sorry that came out rude and that wasn't my intention.
Best treatise I've read (and I've read most of 'em) on the MESS that the Mass Effect 3 ending embodies. It's long but a great read if you want to know why people are so unhappy. It's reasonable and very well-written:
A Logical Breakdown of Why the Mass Effect 3 Ending Makes No Sense
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Disclaimer: This ain’t geek nitpicking - just basic logic and reason accessible to any rational person paying moderate attention to the events depicted on-screen!
I found the disclaimer odd when the contents are filled with statements like "all were thought to be dead, yet someone still tried contacting Shepard" When I got to that point I just couldn't read anymore. Sounds like simple "hope" to me.. and I fancy myself a rational person.
The bit about the kid and the citadel was also confusing and hard to follow due to the structure being so back and forth. That part is a mess, as it seemed more like a person explaining their own take on previous revelations. Not to mention trying to state as fact what purpose this or that serves in the greater galaxy, like say the issues they bring up with synthetics. As well as the question asked "why not just destroy all synthetics?". That question could be answered a hundred ways, depending on who they're referring to that should want to kill all synthetics. I have no idea who they were referring to ( if that wasn't obvious)
That link might make sense to a person who played the finale and knows the course of events, to someone who hasn't (me) it literally looks like "nitpicking" for lack of a better word.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
@Distopia
If you haven't played it then you're right when you say that it is a convoluted mess. Even having played it twice, the ending is a convoluted mess to me too. The writer hit it out of the park on this one. If reading it makes no sense, imagine having invested 150+ hours in the three games and still feeling lost, confused and angry.
Bioware through the last 20 minutes of 3 made me love Shepard and her drive to unite the galaxy against the Reapers and to give all species a chance at self-determination. They made me love my friends and LIs. They made me respect my enemies for the most part. They made me glad that I was so invested in the games that they felt like an extension of myself. Corny? Maybe. But it's true. Bioware is that good which is what makes the ending so unbearably tragic, to use an overinflated word but one that is eerily fitting.
Do yourself a favor and watch the video I linked a few posts up. It gives a visual representation and makes it somewhat easier to understand.
The point of the whole exercise is that the game ended horribly. 95% of the game is wondrous and fun to play (that Tuchanka mission? Brilliant!). The last 5% destroys all replayability and leaves players feeling bitter and confused when they were promised so much more. I realize that this has become par for the course in game development in many ways but...still...the Mass Effect universe deserves better than it got....and so does my femShep, Kal.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah that's really the point I was making, I'm thinking about adding ME3 to my GF's gamefly cycle I hear most of the game is enjoyable, and I figure if I could enjoy KOTOR2 ending considered I can at least make it to the end to know how it all fits together (err doesn't fit together)
.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
THIS is why Shepard, Anderson, Liara, Kaiden, Legion, Hackett, Ashley, Miranda, Garrus et al deserve better. ME is such an epic well crafted story except for 20 minutes that betrays everything we as players experienced in the rest:
HOMECOMING
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
"Gypsies, tramps, and thieves, we were called by the Admin of the site . . . "