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[PA Comic] Friday, March 16, 2012 - The Delicious Invasion

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Posts

  • DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    I dunno why people keep posting and twitter in have and tychos direction like tu don't understand why they don't like the ending. That doesn mean that the comic isn't funny

    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
  • musimmusim Registered User regular
    Its hard to laugh at this when every time I open a press page I'm being told I don't like the ending because it was sad or because I want attention for beating it so quickly. Its like I'm not allowed to dislike the endings by critics and the press which I thought is what Tycho was posting about on Wednesday.

  • PonyPony Registered User regular
    Gabe in particular is being... remarkably unpleasant and hypocritical about all this.
    I imagine that once you look behind that curtain a lot of “choices” in Mass Effect will break down. I think what Bioware does is make incredible games that give the illusion of real choice. I mean let’s be honest. Mass Effect is a very cool choose your own adventure book. “Do you kill the Geth? If so turn to page 22.”

    The book has been written and you can change the way you read it but don’t pretend you’re the author.

    And yet...

    831299891_hziEo-L.jpg

  • ImAFckingDragnImAFckingDragn Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Well, that's the usual last-ditch effort when someone is losing an argument and doesn't have any ground to stand on. They start attacking the people making the argument.

    ImAFckingDragn on
  • DonnictonDonnicton Registered User regular
    Pony wrote: »
    I think it's pretty telling when one side is critical of the material, and the other side is critical of the people.

    The saying does go, if you can't attack the point, attack the person.
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    You still got everything you wanted up till that last 10 minutes, and that last 10 minutes finished out the final big theme.

    That's the part that is incomprehensible to me. Bioware was able to do everything exceptionally well up until the very final part of the game. And then...this. How were they able to make the entire series so well, but then just flop over at the bottom of the ninth like that? All they had to do was continue what they were doing and rake it across the goal, and the series would have rocketed to legendary status.

    Instead... Well, it's still going to be legendary status, but I don't think in the intended way...

  • DelzhandDelzhand Hard to miss. Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    If you don't find this even partially funny, you're too close to the issue.

    Edit: What I mean is that if you find 99 out of 100 PA strips funny, but not this one, because it's a strawman or something, odds are that you have no problem when they "strawmanned" something you don't care about personally.

    Delzhand on
  • ImAFckingDragnImAFckingDragn Registered User regular
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    The game was so good, so amazing... Why did they have to give it such a bad ending?

    And just as an FYI, I have no problem with unhappy endings. In the original Dragon Age: Origins game, I gave my character's life to beat the darkspawn and it was amazing!

    Look, I have a ton of gripes with this ending, but I'm not going to sit here and list them again. If you want a good list of them look here...

    http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-end...-fans-are-right

    How do you respond to the argument that ME3 is the ending to the series, and so you got lots of ending relevant to your decisions, you just didn't like the last 10 minutes of cinematic?

    I mean, in any game we can take the ending to "and then they all got old and died and none of their shit really mattered too much." This one takes it to
    And then life as we know it got old and died, and none of their shit really mattered too much.

    You still got everything you wanted up till that last 10 minutes, and that last 10 minutes finished out the final big theme.

    Except the last 10 minutes were terrible, and basically destroy everything the game had built up to. I didn't want a happy ending honestly, but I wanted an ending that made sense and showed me the reward for my efforts.

  • PonyPony Registered User regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    If you don't find this even partially funny, you're too close to the issue.

    In the sense that you've been playing through a game series for five years waiting for this conclusion and have collectively dropped probably north of two hundred bucks on it over time and actually gave a shit about the characters and the story and are tired of being belittled and disregarded and personally insulted repeatedly from multiple gaming "journalism" and media outlets...

    ...yes you can say that a person is too close the issue to really find this comic that funny.

  • DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    musim wrote: »
    Its hard to laugh at this when every time I open a press page I'm being told I don't like the ending because it was sad or because I want attention for beating it so quickly. Its like I'm not allowed to dislike the endings by critics and the press which I thought is what Tycho was posting about on Wednesday.

    Really, the core problem is there's been lots of bitching about Mass Effect 3 for months even though its only been out two weeks. People complaining about multiplayer existing, people complaining about DLC being available on day one, people complaining because there are on disc assets for javik even though the dlc includes 600+ mb of content. When the rage goes from one thing to another, you can't expect people who don't share your cause to think "oh okay, this one has a good point"

    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
  • PonyPony Registered User regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    If you don't find this even partially funny, you're too close to the issue.

    Edit: What I mean is that if you find 99 out of 100 PA strips funny, but not this one, because it's a strawman or something, odds are that you have no problem when they "strawmanned" something you don't care about personally.


    Most of the time that Mike and Jerry basically editorialize via their comic to attack people instead of their argument, it's not exactly their comedic best even if I don't care about or agree with the people they're attacking.

    These are usually strips that are motivated by Mike picking fights with people on the internet.

  • SgtJon117SgtJon117 Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    DVG wrote: »
    musim wrote: »
    Its hard to laugh at this when every time I open a press page I'm being told I don't like the ending because it was sad or because I want attention for beating it so quickly. Its like I'm not allowed to dislike the endings by critics and the press which I thought is what Tycho was posting about on Wednesday.

    Really, the core problem is there's been lots of bitching about Mass Effect 3 for months even though its only been out two weeks. People complaining about multiplayer existing, people complaining about DLC being available on day one, people complaining because there are on disc assets for javik even though the dlc includes 600+ mb of content. When the rage goes from one thing to another, you can't expect people who don't share your cause to think "oh okay, this one has a good point"

    How can I not expect that from the journalists though? That's their job. To research the issues that affect their community/demographic and provide articles. Even if they disagree they should be informed on the issue and know it's not some BS complaint (though I don't agree the previous complaints were entirely unfounded). They most of all should not be attacking their readership on a personal level. If they honestly disagree they should be defending the ending on its own merits if it truly has any and be capable of showing WHY they liked it. This is not the case.

    SgtJon117 on
  • DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    Are you talking about respectable journalists or bloggers writing opinion pieces?

    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
  • GanluanGanluan Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    I cannot fathom feeling insulted by a web comic about a video game ending.

    What's strange to me is that FO3's ending was terrible (worse than ME3) because it clearly had been set up in such a way because they ran out of time. That seemed to get less flak than ME3, whose ending did not seem rushed but instead seems designed to provoke arguments.

    Ganluan on
  • SgtJon117SgtJon117 Registered User regular
    DVG wrote: »
    Are you talking about respectable journalists or bloggers writing opinion pieces?

    Which is which nowadays? I can't even tell anymore. One day they claim to be gaming journalists the next they say they are just bloggers.

  • PonyPony Registered User regular
    SgtJon117 wrote: »
    DVG wrote: »
    Are you talking about respectable journalists or bloggers writing opinion pieces?

    Which is which nowadays? I can't even tell anymore. One day they claim to be gaming journalists the next they say they are just bloggers.

    They're journalists when they want the esteem of being respected as journalists, they're just bloggers when they don't want to hold themselves up to journalistic standards or ethics.

  • ImAFckingDragnImAFckingDragn Registered User regular
    Delzhand wrote: »
    If you don't find this even partially funny, you're too close to the issue.

    Edit: What I mean is that if you find 99 out of 100 PA strips funny, but not this one, because it's a strawman or something, odds are that you have no problem when they "strawmanned" something you don't care about personally.

    You're damn right I'm close to the issue, I loved this game series!

    I don't mind the comic, it illustrates how oblivious people are as to the real reason the fans don't like the ending. I'm not really arguing against the comic, I'm arguing against the horrible ending.

  • AgburanarAgburanar Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Pony wrote: »
    But, I don't know that there's a series that has comparably fucked up five years of build-up over the course of three god damn games

    I dunno. I loved the original Bard's Tale trilogy, but the third game had a pretty WTF ending.

    Of course, that was when the only place to complain about it was the local BBS, so it was just me & a couple of friends talking about how it could have been done better.
    Donnicton wrote: »
    That's the part that is incomprehensible to me. Bioware was able to do everything exceptionally well up until the very final part of the game. And then...this.

    They could have just
    replaced the last-minute-new-character with a hologram of Harbinger, and changed the tone of the conversation a bit,
    and it would have been a much more consistent ending.

    Agburanar on
  • DarkewolfeDarkewolfe Registered User regular
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    The game was so good, so amazing... Why did they have to give it such a bad ending?

    And just as an FYI, I have no problem with unhappy endings. In the original Dragon Age: Origins game, I gave my character's life to beat the darkspawn and it was amazing!

    Look, I have a ton of gripes with this ending, but I'm not going to sit here and list them again. If you want a good list of them look here...

    http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-end...-fans-are-right

    How do you respond to the argument that ME3 is the ending to the series, and so you got lots of ending relevant to your decisions, you just didn't like the last 10 minutes of cinematic?

    I mean, in any game we can take the ending to "and then they all got old and died and none of their shit really mattered too much." This one takes it to
    And then life as we know it got old and died, and none of their shit really mattered too much.

    You still got everything you wanted up till that last 10 minutes, and that last 10 minutes finished out the final big theme.

    Except the last 10 minutes were terrible, and basically destroy everything the game had built up to. I didn't want a happy ending honestly, but I wanted an ending that made sense and showed me the reward for my efforts.

    Which is... that's wanting the birthday cake. The end of the story was
    that most of your decisions weren't meaningful in the grand scale of the universe, except for one big one that everything empowered you to make.

    What is this I don't even.
  • CrakesCrakes Registered User regular
    That this has even become some kind of critical issue has made me lose my faith in humanity.

  • ImAFckingDragnImAFckingDragn Registered User regular
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    The game was so good, so amazing... Why did they have to give it such a bad ending?

    And just as an FYI, I have no problem with unhappy endings. In the original Dragon Age: Origins game, I gave my character's life to beat the darkspawn and it was amazing!

    Look, I have a ton of gripes with this ending, but I'm not going to sit here and list them again. If you want a good list of them look here...

    http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-end...-fans-are-right

    How do you respond to the argument that ME3 is the ending to the series, and so you got lots of ending relevant to your decisions, you just didn't like the last 10 minutes of cinematic?

    I mean, in any game we can take the ending to "and then they all got old and died and none of their shit really mattered too much." This one takes it to
    And then life as we know it got old and died, and none of their shit really mattered too much.

    You still got everything you wanted up till that last 10 minutes, and that last 10 minutes finished out the final big theme.

    Except the last 10 minutes were terrible, and basically destroy everything the game had built up to. I didn't want a happy ending honestly, but I wanted an ending that made sense and showed me the reward for my efforts.

    Which is... that's wanting the birthday cake. The end of the story was
    that most of your decisions weren't meaningful in the grand scale of the universe, except for one big one that everything empowered you to make.

    Which is a really stupid way to end a story, especially when the game developers stated on multiple occasions that your decisions would have a huge impact on the end of the game.

  • ArceleborArcelebor Registered User regular
    Two requests:

    1) It would be great to see a 4th Panel on today's strip.

    2) I would be very interested to read Jerry's review of the published version of "Wise Man's Fear", as I found it a weaker sequel.

  • AnosognosAnosognos Who wants to play video games?Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Pony wrote: »
    Also, once again, it really bothers me how intellectually dishonest most conversations about the ending are in most places.

    The people who hate the ending are attacking the ending itself, the writing of it, it's messages, etc. etc.

    You get articles like that Gamefront one linked to above which point-for-point explain what was wrong with the ending and why they hate it.

    I don't really see people with any kind of volume making attacks against people who like the ending, like "If you like this ending clearly you are an idiot" or anything. I'm not seeing those kinds of articles, I'm not seeing people post giant rants blaming fans for liking the ending.

    Yet, conversely, you have articles like the one Colin Moriarty at IGN or Ben Kuchera at PA Report have done, essentially attacking people who hate the ending and questioning them personally. Instead of trying to defend the ending on its own merits, they resort to basically insults, calling people entitled whiners who don't understand real sci-fi and just want happy endings with ice cream and cake.

    This is what this PA comic is doing too, and it's dishonest and lazy. Gabe's newspost earlier this week tried to address people's actual criticisms with the ending, but it was still full of attacking the people, not the argument.

    I think it's pretty telling when one side is critical of the material, and the other side is critical of the people.

    We'll have to wait for the post, but I get the feeling the comic is intentionally facetious. I think the ending was poorly handled, but I also think the comic is amusing if not taken as a serious argument.

    I agree about the content/people dichotomy in this "discussion" though.
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    Disclaimer: I didn't play past ME:1. I just can't play all the games that I want to, unfortunately.

    Thpoilerth?
    Reading about the ending of ME3, though, sounds amazing to me. I love everything about it. I think this is a great, classic sci-fi story. It's exactly like every sci-fi book or movie, where you've spent the last 300 pages/two hours getting familiar with characters, their relationships, their motivation, and then in the last 10 minutes they're running out of oxygen, trapped on an asteroid with a space alien, hurtling into the sun, Aerosmith is singing and the last remaining crewman detonates the bomb that will save untold billions who have always been offscreen. It's sci-fi existentialism, where in the long-run of the "outside world" the actions of the characters have only culminated in a singular event, and the importance of the relationships and events that took place while we were watching exists only for itself.

    Sheperd has permanently affected what will occur in the next cycles. In the long run of the universe, which is what the last bit of cinematic is about, the only choice Sheperd really had was: what will I do as regards future life and this cycle of reaping. All the game up to that point had been about the interpersonal relationships and characters, but none of that shit matters. Life as everyone knows it is ending. Maybe there'll be more life later. For now, Sheperd can give the gift of hope (or not) in a couple ways to future generations.

    So all the game up to that point has let you play out your little sandbox fantasy with your people. The last 10 minutes are a reminder that in the face of all the progress of the universe, that shit barely matters.

    So, is everyone basically just pissed off that the final cinematic doesn't highlight their characters, when they got all of that in everything leading up to it? That there's a bigger story to tell than which character kissed which?


    The problem I have with this is that written science fiction has moved on from this kind of thinking for some very good reasons.
    The golden age was about swashbuckling adventure that happened to take place in space. It was about Big Ideas.

    The new wave focused on extrapolating on the social consequences of change. This made the fiction meatier but tended to go off the rails due to the period's fixation with transcendence through psychotropics.

    Cyberpunk had a similar social focus to the new wave but gave up on transcendence, replacing it with simply escaping oppression.

    Now we don't have a strong movement that is purely science fiction, as the speculative fiction genre has moved toward the more fantastical (not that that kind of stuff didn't already exist). But things that still fall into science fiction follow these themes. There's post-cyberpunk. There's new space opera.

    The thing about these modern forms is they generally don't end a character story with transcendence and Big Ideas. That's because modern authors (edit: except Rudy Rucker) recognize that stuff sucks as a plot resolution. It's why genre fiction has, historically, often been spoken of as a ghetto.

    Transcendentalism is lazy and unsatisfying. Big ideas are great, but they don't make a story without characters. Saying "and then this amazing thing happened" does not resolve a story. "This amazing thing happened and here's how it affected everyone" does.

    Anosognos on
    Beemo_Controller.png
  • DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    I didn't feel my decisions were invalidated by the end. I also really didn't feel any deus ex machina out of it.
    The Crucible is introduced in the first hour, and the whole game it's reinforced that they have no fucking idea what it's going to do. The whole game I was wondering what it was going to end up doing, because if it was just a supergun it wouldn't have had all this buildup. And if it was a supergun how was it going to kill all the reapers everywhere when they are so spread out? The idea that the mass relays were going to propagate the energy throughout the galaxy made sense, it also made sense to me that they would be similarly destroyed by it since it's also Reaper Technology. Even after arrival, I never assumed that destorying the relays in this fashion would produce a supernova event,because for one, the explosions looked very different, and two, I didn't fly an asteroid into each one. I felt that the galaxy losing super-fast travel was a reasonable price to pay for being removed from the cycle, and they still have FTL Drives and the ExtraNet to communicate and travel. Life is less convenient, but now they get to write their own future free from the cycle. (And shit, the Quarians are there with them and can teach them how to live on the road while they begin the much longer haul back to their home worlds)

    The substance of the ending isn't a problem, in my view. Would I have liked more? Yes. But that's because I love mass effect and I always wanted more of it. I was sad at the end not because of the content, but because Shepard was firing her gun for the last time and I'd never be spending another moment directing her actions in a way I haven't already. I still know what state I left the galaxy in. I would take more scenes in the ending. But that's the thing: I am always going to want more Mass Effect.

    I can agree that the actions of the Normandy and crew at the last moment are a little head scratchy. But it doesn't tarnish my feelings about the game and series in general. (and it's easy enough for me to hand wave away as "Hackett ordered the Normandy away after the crucible didn't fire"

    DVG on
    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
  • PlatyPlaty Registered User regular
    I know that Video games as a whole never had great writing, but the Mass Effect ending is executed in such a clumsy fashion that it made me wonder what was going on at Bioware. Especially since everything Bioware staff said about the ending differed so greatly from the finished product. I'm not offended by the comic, but I kind of agree that Jerry should recognize bad writing.

  • CambiataCambiata Commander Shepard The likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered User regular
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    The game was so good, so amazing... Why did they have to give it such a bad ending?

    And just as an FYI, I have no problem with unhappy endings. In the original Dragon Age: Origins game, I gave my character's life to beat the darkspawn and it was amazing!

    Look, I have a ton of gripes with this ending, but I'm not going to sit here and list them again. If you want a good list of them look here...

    http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-end...-fans-are-right

    How do you respond to the argument that ME3 is the ending to the series, and so you got lots of ending relevant to your decisions, you just didn't like the last 10 minutes of cinematic?

    I mean, in any game we can take the ending to "and then they all got old and died and none of their shit really mattered too much." This one takes it to
    And then life as we know it got old and died, and none of their shit really mattered too much.

    You still got everything you wanted up till that last 10 minutes, and that last 10 minutes finished out the final big theme.

    Except the last 10 minutes were terrible, and basically destroy everything the game had built up to. I didn't want a happy ending honestly, but I wanted an ending that made sense and showed me the reward for my efforts.

    Which is... that's wanting the birthday cake. The end of the story was
    that most of your decisions weren't meaningful in the grand scale of the universe, except for one big one that everything empowered you to make.

    No man, the real issue is 'turn the reapers (and everyone else) into ice cream'. That is the problem I have. And Gabe obviously didn't have that problem because that's the choice he made. But it would have been nice, over the content of three games, that they make 'everyone turns into ice cream' into something that's hinted at, or struggled with, or even mentioned once. But it never is. It's just the 'happy' ending they throw at the end: We're all ice cream now! Yaaaaaay!

    For me that is the absolute worst ending, because it has zero context. How can you weigh the consequences of a choice that makes no sense? Telling people "Becoming ice cream will make everyone happy, forevermore!" is the way they decided to contextualize it. But surely everyone can agree that simply stating that something is the best thing ever without giving any other information about that thing, is terrible writing.

    "If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
  • DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    But he also gets a segway!

    DVG on
    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
  • HeisenbergHeisenberg Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    Darkewolfe wrote: »
    The game was so good, so amazing... Why did they have to give it such a bad ending?

    And just as an FYI, I have no problem with unhappy endings. In the original Dragon Age: Origins game, I gave my character's life to beat the darkspawn and it was amazing!

    Look, I have a ton of gripes with this ending, but I'm not going to sit here and list them again. If you want a good list of them look here...

    http://www.gamefront.com/mass-effect-3-end...-fans-are-right

    How do you respond to the argument that ME3 is the ending to the series, and so you got lots of ending relevant to your decisions, you just didn't like the last 10 minutes of cinematic?

    I mean, in any game we can take the ending to "and then they all got old and died and none of their shit really mattered too much." This one takes it to
    And then life as we know it got old and died, and none of their shit really mattered too much.

    You still got everything you wanted up till that last 10 minutes, and that last 10 minutes finished out the final big theme.

    Except the last 10 minutes were terrible, and basically destroy everything the game had built up to. I didn't want a happy ending honestly, but I wanted an ending that made sense and showed me the reward for my efforts.

    Which is... that's wanting the birthday cake. The end of the story was
    that most of your decisions weren't meaningful in the grand scale of the universe, except for one big one that everything empowered you to make.

    That's an insanely pretentious way to end a trilogy that's never even hinted at caring about bigger ideas or philosophical questions. It just does not fit with the tone at all.

    Heisenberg on
  • AnosognosAnosognos Who wants to play video games?Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    DVG wrote: »
    I didn't feel my decisions were invalidated by the end. I also really didn't feel any deus ex machina out of it.
    The Crucible is introduced in the first hour, and the whole game it's reinforced that they have no fucking idea what it's going to do. The whole game I was wondering what it was going to end up doing, because if it was just a supergun it wouldn't have had all this buildup. And if it was a supergun how was it going to kill all the reapers everywhere when they are so spread out? The idea that the mass relays were going to propagate the energy throughout the galaxy made sense, it also made sense to me that they would be similarly destroyed by it since it's also Reaper Technology. Even after arrival, I never assumed that destorying the relays in this fashion would produce a supernova event,because for one, the explosions looked very different, and two, I didn't fly an asteroid into each one. I felt that the galaxy losing super-fast travel was a reasonable price to pay for being removed from the cycle, and they still have FTL Drives and the ExtraNet to communicate and travel. Life is less convenient, but now they get to write their own future free from the cycle. (And shit, the Quarians are there with them and can teach them how to live on the road while they begin the much longer haul back to their home worlds)

    The substance of the ending isn't a problem, in my view. Would I have liked more? Yes. But that's because I love mass effect and I always wanted more of it. I was sad at the end not because of the content, but because Shepard was firing her gun for the last time and I'd never be spending another moment directing her actions in a way I haven't already. I still know what state I left the galaxy in. I would take more scenes in the ending. But that's the thing: I am always going to want more Mass Effect.

    I can agree that the actions of the Normandy and crew at the last moment are a little head scratchy. But it doesn't tarnish my feelings about the game and series in general. (and it's easy enough for me to hand wave away as "Hackett ordered the Normandy away after the crucible didn't fire"

    Again, I think the comic is funny. I can hear Anderson and it's hilarious.

    As for the ending, I got the same one Gabe did. My problem with it was it felt like
    it basically did turn the reapers into ice cream. Seriously, how is this tissue-to-circuitry transmutation via energy pulse supposed to work? It's way outside of the established rules of the ME universe. Or, at least, it seems to be. One of the main rules of science fiction is not breaking your own internal logic.

    And, yes, I wanted to see exposition on social consequences.

    I certainly don't want happy ending DLC though.

    Anosognos on
    Beemo_Controller.png
  • AgburanarAgburanar Registered User regular
    DVG wrote: »
    I didn't feel my decisions were invalidated by the end. I also really didn't feel any deus ex machina out of it.
    The Crucible is introduced in the first hour, and the whole game it's reinforced that they have no fucking idea what it's going to do. The whole game I was wondering what it was going to end up doing, because if it was just a supergun it wouldn't have had all this buildup. And if it was a supergun how was it going to kill all the reapers everywhere when they are so spread out? The idea that the mass relays were going to propagate the energy throughout the galaxy made sense, it also made sense to me that they would be similarly destroyed by it since it's also Reaper Technology. Even after arrival, I never assumed that destorying the relays in this fashion would produce a supernova event,because for one, the explosions looked very different, and two, I didn't fly an asteroid into each one. I felt that the galaxy losing super-fast travel was a reasonable price to pay for being removed from the cycle, and they still have FTL Drives and the ExtraNet to communicate and travel. Life is less convenient, but now they get to write their own future free from the cycle. (And shit, the Quarians are there with them and can teach them how to live on the road while they begin the much longer haul back to their home worlds)

    The substance of the ending isn't a problem, in my view. Would I have liked more? Yes. But that's because I love mass effect and I always wanted more of it. I was sad at the end not because of the content, but because Shepard was firing her gun for the last time and I'd never be spending another moment directing her actions in a way I haven't already. I still know what state I left the galaxy in. I would take more scenes in the ending. But that's the thing: I am always going to want more Mass Effect.

    I can agree that the actions of the Normandy and crew at the last moment are a little head scratchy. But it doesn't tarnish my feelings about the game and series in general. (and it's easy enough for me to hand wave away as "Hackett ordered the Normandy away after the crucible didn't fire"

    Most of the people, when clarifying the deus ex machina comment, say that
    they're talking about the Guardian / star-child / midget head reaper. That bugged me as well, just because they introduced a new major character three minutes from the end.

    And I didn't see anything wrong with the Normandy's part in the end cutscene, on my first playthrough.
    That was with my Shephard that made it through ME2 with only Zaeed, Jack and Garrus surviving. I got the "crucible is damaged, and blows up Earth" ending. In that case, the Normandy fleeing ahead of the shockwave made a lot of sense. But... to use the same scene in the ending in which the shockwave is just reprogramming the Reapers, or turning all organics / synthetics into cyborgs? That was kinda head-scratching.

    If I had to guess, I'd say that part of the end was made for the purpose of use in the worst possible ending, and then they decided it looked too cool to only get used once.

  • ImAFckingDragnImAFckingDragn Registered User regular
    edited March 2012
    The problem is that you really DON'T know what state you left the galaxy in.
    With the mass relays destroyed and the armies of the entire galaxy near earth, how are any of the alien races going to return to their homeworlds? Without the Mass Relays, it would take them decades to move across the galaxy and return to their places of origin, and that's not taking into account food or fuel. Do they all just live on earth now? How will they get food? We know that human food is toxic to some of the alien races so what are they going to do?

    ImAFckingDragn on
  • FeralFeral MEMETICHARIZARD interior crocodile alligator ⇔ ǝɹʇɐǝɥʇ ǝᴉʌoɯ ʇǝloɹʌǝɥɔ ɐ ǝʌᴉɹp ᴉRegistered User regular
    I saw this in the awesome forum and I figured it would be more appropriate to respond here rather than there.
    Pony wrote: »
    Also, once again, it really bothers me how intellectually dishonest most conversations about the ending are in most places.

    The people who hate the ending are attacking the ending itself, the writing of it, it's messages, etc. etc.

    You get articles like that Gamefront one linked to above which point-for-point explain what was wrong with the ending and why they hate it.

    I don't really see people with any kind of volume making attacks against people who like the ending, like "If you like this ending clearly you are an idiot" or anything. I'm not seeing those kinds of articles, I'm not seeing people post giant rants blaming fans for liking the ending.

    Yet, conversely, you have articles like the one Colin Moriarty at IGN or Ben Kuchera at PA Report have done, essentially attacking people who hate the ending and questioning them personally. Instead of trying to defend the ending on its own merits, they resort to basically insults, calling people entitled whiners who don't understand real sci-fi and just want happy endings with ice cream and cake.

    This is what this PA comic is doing too, and it's dishonest and lazy. Gabe's newspost earlier this week tried to address people's actual criticisms with the ending, but it was still full of attacking the people, not the argument.

    I think it's pretty telling when one side is critical of the material, and the other side is critical of the people.

    I love the Gamefront article. I think it captures the essence of the major criticisms quite well. I also largely agree with you, Pony.

    (With the caveat that, from my personal perspective, most of the debate has been charitable from both sides, and I'm cautious about painting large groups of people with the same brush. It's really just a handful of comments from high-profile writers that I've found objectionable beyond a level of respectful disagreement.)

    Also, Forbes has run a series of opinion pieces by Dave Thier and Paul Tassi that all voice similar criticisms. I also particularly liked Eric Kain's piece dissecting the 'gamer entitlement' meme (here).

    This is from Forbes for chrissakes, not some fanfic tumblr with a readership of 20.

    I don't see how somebody could read the Gamefront article and the Forbes articles and come to the conclusion that all the critics wanted was an icecream-and-cake ending.

    every person who doesn't like an acquired taste always seems to think everyone who likes it is faking it. it should be an official fallacy.

    the "no true scotch man" fallacy.
  • AnosognosAnosognos Who wants to play video games?Registered User regular
    DVG wrote: »
    I didn't feel my decisions were invalidated by the end. I also really didn't feel any deus ex machina out of it.
    I still know what state I left the galaxy in. I would take more scenes in the ending. But that's the thing: I am always going to want more Mass Effect.

    I can agree that the actions of the Normandy and crew at the last moment are a little head scratchy. But it doesn't tarnish my feelings about the game and series in general. (and it's easy enough for me to hand wave away as "Hackett ordered the Normandy away after the crucible didn't fire"

    The problem is that you really DON'T know what state you left the galaxy in.
    With the mass relays destroyed and the armies of the entire galaxy near earth, how are any of the alien races going to return to their homeworlds? Without the Mass Relays, it would take them decades to move across the galaxy and return to their places of origin, and that's not taking into account food or fuel. Do they all just live on earth now? How will they get food? We know that human food is toxic to some of the alien races so what are they going to do?

    Don't worry, the flotilla has 800,000 tons of turian chocolate.

    Beemo_Controller.png
  • glendale2xglendale2x Registered User new member
    Everything here is probably a spoiler, so...
    I spent a ridiculous amount of time doing every single side mission, quest and scan, no matter how minor. Some of my decisions sucked - I was shocked when I overheard the refugees mention that Kelly had been coldly executed during the Cerberus raid on the Citadel - and some made all my previous actions feel like a payoff. I put a lot of work towards trying to have the best possible outcome in then end, because that's just how I roll.

    Mordin's death to put right what was once wrong in curing the genophage was both sad and rewarding. In my game there was no other option as far as I was concerned. I couldn't betray my good friend Wrex, a friend who would follow me to hell, just to make some shady back room deal with the salarians. Had it been his brother because I foolishly killed (or was forced to kill) Wrex way back in the beginning on Virmire then no, I wouldn't have felt bad lying about curing the genophage, and I would have been disappointed to have Mordin die for that. For me, watching Mordin work while the shard burns down while singing "scientist salarian" to himself just about brought a tear to my eye.

    Being able to bring peace between the quarians and the geth was another good moment. Will the peace last? Maybe. Legion "dies" sort of, but we're shown a machine that became alive and ultimately chose to give up its life for the greater good. Again depending on choices made along the way one may feel differently about Legion's fate, or even killed him in what effectively would be the genocide of the geth. Either choice had its consequences, but provided I could I saved them both (and I did) to ensure both sides would be there to fight the Reapers as allies. Artificial life siding with organic life to fight another artificial life (plus EDI's own self-revelations) should have meant something to the endgame.

    Seeing and speaking to Thane in his final days in the hospital was cool, as were all my encounters with those that survived the previous two games. But when Thane showed up to fight Kai Lang? Epic. The choices I made resulted in Thane showing up to kick some ass. He ultimately dies from a combination of his wounds and terminal illness, but like Mordin it was a good end. The other cameos were nice to see Miranda, Jacob, and Jack, back in action. The Jack and Joker dialog was funny and heartwarming. Of course, if you failed to save the academy in time then Jack will be back, which is tragic, yet it fits perfectly.

    And then the final push comes. My squad and I fight valiantly alongside literally the rest of the galaxy that I worked hard to bring to bear in full force. An ending full of inconsistencies, plot holes, and straight up WTF is shoehorned in as if it were copied directly from Deus Ex (June 2000) with updated graphics. No matter what, I find it highly unlikely that Shepard would ultimately assist the reapers. Why would Joker suddenly run from the fight? How did he know the mass relay was about to self destruct and manage to make it there before the Citadel did its thing? How did anyone in my squad even get back onboard when they were all down on Earth fighting? Liara was with me during the run to the beam with ol' Harby firing lasers of doom at everyone, and somehow she is suddenly back on the Normandy running away to crash land on some unknown jungle planet? Nothing in the ending is even remotely believable if you actually played the game in its entirety.

    I suppose maybe if you're the kind of gamer that only plays through the critical path, ignores the side quests, and quickly blows through dialog that the ending makes sense to you. I can't fathom that it does if you've played the previous installments to their full extents multiple times.

  • DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    DVG wrote: »
    I didn't feel my decisions were invalidated by the end. I also really didn't feel any deus ex machina out of it.
    I still know what state I left the galaxy in. I would take more scenes in the ending. But that's the thing: I am always going to want more Mass Effect.

    I can agree that the actions of the Normandy and crew at the last moment are a little head scratchy. But it doesn't tarnish my feelings about the game and series in general. (and it's easy enough for me to hand wave away as "Hackett ordered the Normandy away after the crucible didn't fire"

    The problem is that you really DON'T know what state you left the galaxy in.
    With the mass relays destroyed and the armies of the entire galaxy near earth, how are any of the alien races going to return to their homeworlds? Without the Mass Relays, it would take them decades to move across the galaxy and return to their places of origin, and that's not taking into account food or fuel. Do they all just live on earth now? How will they get food? We know that human food is toxic to some of the alien races so what are they going to do?
    Based on data from ME for FTL drives, it would take about 22 years to get end-to-end in the galaxy, however most of the council homeworlds are relatively close to earth (the migrant fleets has probably the longest haul ahead of them, but don't you think spending another 18 years or so getting home is a small price to pay for not getting your species harvested by ancient synthetics?). I'm not saying they don't have some problems, or they don't have rebuilding to do and things to work out, but they aren't insurmountable problems.

    Also, I wish more of the discussion on the ending could be like this. Less demanding it be changed and more hypothesizing on what the galaxy does now

    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
  • MoistMoist Registered User regular
    Everyone becoming icecream is what Saren wanted, the all icecream ending is not a 'good' ending unless you thought he was a real smart guy and wished to subscribe to his newsletter.

    Controlling the iceacream is what the IM wanted, but you don't control the icecream, it controls you, that's what (nearly) three Mass Effect games taught me.

    Destroying the icecream is the least evil of all the endings despite possibly resulting in a galactic genocide worse than anything the icecream could have accomplished.

    Bravo Shepard you arse, should have just shot herself.

  • DVGDVG No. 1 Honor Student Nether Institute, Evil AcademyRegistered User regular
    Can I just say how much I love Shepard's unbridled excitement in the second panel?

    Diablo 3 - DVG#1857
  • BlackSpyBlackSpy Registered User new member
    We play games on reprogrammable computers. It's kind of our raison d'être. Why is it such a hard idea to grasp that, if a whole load of people don't like the way the game ended, they ask the developer to look into the whole reprogramming thing? We are sitting at machines purpose-built to revise information, and there's some question over using our equipment for its intended purpose is some unpardonable blasphemy against the content gods?

  • CorehealerCorehealer The Apothecary The softer edge of the universe.Registered User regular
    All this ending discussion makes me both interested in playing the game and reviling the thought of giving Bioware money for the privilege of possibly being disappointed with the ending.

    I also agree with everything Pony is saying insofar as I am able having not played ME3 yet and viewing all this furor over the ending with a great mixture of emotions.

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  • TheCanManTheCanMan GT: Gasman122009 JerseyRegistered User regular
    I've never played a Mass Effect game (I have the first two in my Steam GameBank™), but I still laughed at the last panel.

  • MyDcmbrMyDcmbr PEWPEWPEW!!! America's WangRegistered User regular
    edited March 2012
    Yeah, not a huge fan of this comic.

    My issue with the ending isn't it being "happy" it's the fact that it DOESN'T MAKE ANY SENSE!

    Ending Spoilers
    Garrus was with me when we got hit by the beam, why was he on the Normandy without a scratch on him? How did the Normandy get thru at least one relay so fast? Why did Joker turn tail and run? How did he get the crew on board in such a short time and get so far away? Why did the relay exploding damage the Normandy when it didn't damage any of the Alliance ships in orbit?

    And going, "well that's what the creators wanted to do so deal with it" is not a valid explanation.

    MyDcmbr on
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