writing an article about the ending to a game you haven't played seems weird
It's very weird. This is why I would like to play it first.
I have, however, had a lot of discussions with people about the ending, and the conceit of why people are angry about it is actually a pretty simple one to wrap your head around, and one that allows me to talk about a lot of things related to gaming narratives that I've been thinking about lately. But I don't plan to submit the article without first playing it and making sure I actually understand what I'm talking about.
me3 is basically a competent action game with the series' conversation mechanic laid over it
That's good news. Did it feel like combat got any deeper or interesting as the game went on? Because what bummed me out about 2 was how shallow it was.
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ButtlordFornicusLord of Bondage and PainRegistered Userregular
basically the reasons people hate the ending are a combination of
1) there's no apparent difference based on your choices
2) it comes out of fucking nowhere after what should have been the ending has already happened
3) "whaaaa whaaaaa i want a happy ending where
shep lives
because i'm a giant baby who can't handle anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows"
basically the reasons people hate the ending are a combination of
1) there's no apparent difference based on your choices
2) it comes out of fucking nowhere after what should have been the ending has already happened
3) "whaaaa whaaaaa i want a happy ending where
shep lives
because i'm a giant baby who can't handle anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows"
It also makes very little sense. It's very badly explained.
basically the reasons people hate the ending are a combination of
1) there's no apparent difference based on your choices
2) it comes out of fucking nowhere after what should have been the ending has already happened
3) "whaaaa whaaaaa i want a happy ending where
shep lives
because i'm a giant baby who can't handle anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows"
It also makes very little sense. It's very badly explained.
falls under 2) on that list
for the record i am totally down with the first two complaints, the third one is the only one that i scoff at because the people who say it are objectively wrong
ButtlordFornicusLord of Bondage and PainRegistered Userregular
other than being a giant baby who can't accept that
the entire game revolves around sacrifices that you have to make to save the galaxy and that suddenly not having to make the ultimate sacrifice yourself kinda undermines that
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ButtlordFornicusLord of Bondage and PainRegistered Userregular
also the ending we got (minus the part everyone agrees was butts on ice) was fucking incredible
i mean i'm sorry
there's no way that a happy ending could ever beat
shep and anderson leaning back, looking down on earth, slowly dying while anderson tells the player how proud he is of them before he dies
and then shep gets the call saying he still isn't done yet
basically the reasons people hate the ending are a combination of
1) there's no apparent difference based on your choices
2) it comes out of fucking nowhere after what should have been the ending has already happened
3) "whaaaa whaaaaa i want a happy ending where
shep lives
because i'm a giant baby who can't handle anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows"
It also makes very little sense. It's very badly explained.
falls under 2) on that list
for the record i am totally down with the first two complaints, the third one is the only one that i scoff at because the people who say it are objectively wrong
Character death is not a thing to be done lightly, and difficult to make people feel good about under even the best circumstances. I'm not suggesting Hollywood has the right of it with giving every movie a happy ending, but there's a pretty solid psychological reason why the happy ending is preferred, and flying in the face of that is often heedless and obstinate use of creative license (it's my art, I do what I want). The "shared ownership" of Shepard is absolutely a thing that Bioware played up and made integral to the experience, and so dismissing a fan reaction like that out of hand doesn't really seem fair to me. If they didn't do a good job presenting it, which is something I can't weigh in on one way or the other yet, then there may be more to people's reaction. It's plausible that they're not rejecting the idea that Shepard die, but rather the way in which he died.
But that's a lot of theory-crafting and has everything to do with how it's presented, which I won't be able to know for sure till I play through the game.
sarukun on
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ButtlordFornicusLord of Bondage and PainRegistered Userregular
no, people are rejecting the thign that happened, not the way it happened, i'm saying this from experience, i spent an entire night arguing with idiots about it at one point
the way it happened was incredible
i don't get choked up or emotional over much because i got brain worms
but i got choked up over the last five good minutes of that game
people just didnt want that thing to happen at all
other than being a giant baby who can't accept that
the entire game revolves around sacrifices that you have to make to save the galaxy and that suddenly not having to make the ultimate sacrifice yourself kinda undermines that
and i get where you're coming from
but while mass effect is a lot of things, it is certainly not atypical science fiction
and it's pretty typical of science fiction to work out ok
there are plenty of stories that work just fine that have themes of sacrifice that work out ok in the end and are not compromised as a result
ah yes, dismissal on the grounds of exaggerated infantilism
i got nothing against happy endings but being absolutely infuriated that there isn't one, in a game that really doesn't have any happy moments at all because seriously one of the recurring themes is sacrifice, strikes me as just a child pouting because they didn't get their way
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ButtlordFornicusLord of Bondage and PainRegistered Userregular
everything working out ok in the end would completely undermine the point of me3
and arguably the whole trilogy
so no i don't think it's unreasonable to call the people who cried about it stupid babies with big stinky doodooheads
no, people are rejecting the thign that happened, not the way it happened, i'm saying this from experience, i spent an entire night arguing with idiots about it at one point
the way it happened was incredible
i don't get choked up or emotional over much because i got brain worms
but i got choked up over the last five good minutes of that game
people just didnt want that thing to happen at all
I'm sure SOME people are crybabies about a thing.
Happens constantly.
I'm not qualified to weigh in on whether most or all of the people feel that way about it, though. Just sayin' some people might have been grumpy about something else and are not good at the word-typings.
Plus, most people don't know what they really want most of the time, but I think they generally have a pretty solid idea of what they absolutely don't want, especially once they've seen it, which leads me to suspect it wasn't handled in the best possible way.
no, people are rejecting the thign that happened, not the way it happened, i'm saying this from experience, i spent an entire night arguing with idiots about it at one point
the way it happened was incredible
i don't get choked up or emotional over much because i got brain worms
but i got choked up over the last five good minutes of that game
people just didnt want that thing to happen at all
yes it was incredible, it was really well delivered
but that doesn't suddenly invalidate their wish for something a little less melancholy
ah yes, dismissal on the grounds of exaggerated infantilism
i got nothing against happy endings but being absolutely infuriated that there isn't one, in a game that really doesn't have any happy moments at all because seriously one of the recurring themes is sacrifice, strikes me as just a child pouting because they didn't get their way
You should also consider that the premise of most crises in the Mass Effect universe tend to end with "Shepard flexed his bad-ass muscle and the day was saved and also he didn't have a scratch on him", so flying in the face of that pattern is a pretty delicate prospect.
everything working out ok in the end would completely undermine the point of me3
and arguably the whole trilogy
so no i don't think it's unreasonable to call the people who cried about it stupid babies with big stinky doodooheads
Yeah, no, I definitely have to take issue with this, the player is not conditioned to expect this from the way situations that have gone before have been resolved in the Mass Effect universe.
It would take some pretty good writing and plot-planning to do such an abrupt 180 for Mass Effect 3.
Maybe they nailed it; I'll know when I get up thte gumption to make with the downloadings, hopefully for less than retail.
I disagree that it would undermine the point. Maybe it's because I played it pretty much straight paragon, but I always came away from the games with a feeling of optimism.
I disagree that it would undermine the point. Maybe it's because I played it pretty much straight paragon, but I always came away from the games with a feeling of optimism.
See? Shepard eats impossible odds for breakfast and shits hope all through ME 1 and 2. You better have a pretty good reason for turning all that on its head and you damn well better be careful about it.
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ButtlordFornicusLord of Bondage and PainRegistered Userregular
i dunno, sacrifice for the greater good is a pretty big part of the series
i dunno, sacrifice for the greater good is a pretty big part of the series
starting from virmire
That's a good counter example. I'm trying to think of others but I'm coming up empty; I don't know if they did an awesome job continuing that thread in concrete ways throughout the series to make such an ending work for most people. The closest I can come up with is the weird relationship with Liara in ME2 if she was your love interest in ME 1, but you can even make that sort of "work out".
Edit: And killing Morinth. Although that doesn't reeeeally work if you chose not to kill Morinth. =P
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ButtlordFornicusLord of Bondage and PainRegistered Userregular
i dunno, sacrifice for the greater good is a pretty big part of the series
starting from virmire
soooooo
getting through ME2's ending and everyone surviving the impossible odds suicide mission
that's not an optimistic ending
it is entirely possible and much more likely to have like half of your crew die doing that shit (along with the kidnapped crew if you wait too long to do the mission (my crew all died that way but my team survived))
which makes me wonder what happens if one of those characters dies and then you start me3
This is a fun discussion, guys. Whatever I have to say about Mass Effect's gameplay, it's certainly given me a lot of fodder for interesting conversations.
Actually it's kind of hard to really nail down some of the themes and tones of the trilogy because those very things can be presented quite differently depending on how you play.
i dunno, sacrifice for the greater good is a pretty big part of the series
starting from virmire
soooooo
getting through ME2's ending and everyone surviving the impossible odds suicide mission
that's not an optimistic ending
it is entirely possible and much more likely to have like half of your crew die doing that shit (along with the kidnapped crew if you wait too long to do the mission (my crew all died that way but my team survived))
which makes me wonder what happens if one of those characters dies and then you start me3
hmmmm
i'll pick it up again when it's cheap
Right, but let's be real, most people want the "good ending", and they try to save every single character. I personally played the ending like 10 or 15 times because I kept losing people and wasn't satisfied with that outcome. Providing the option for people to get through Mass Effect 2's supposedly "impossible odds" mission effectively unscathed was probably not a great plan if they wanted the player to really deal with the notion of a universe where sometimes, sacrifices HAVE to be made.
I'm not suggesting it's as easy as tweaking the game so somebody HAS to die, I'm just pointing out an inconsistency in the theme that I'm sure some people have problems with.
i dunno, sacrifice for the greater good is a pretty big part of the series
starting from virmire
soooooo
getting through ME2's ending and everyone surviving the impossible odds suicide mission
that's not an optimistic ending
it is entirely possible and much more likely to have like half of your crew die doing that shit (along with the kidnapped crew if you wait too long to do the mission (my crew all died that way but my team survived))
which makes me wonder what happens if one of those characters dies and then you start me3
hmmmm
i'll pick it up again when it's cheap
exactly
entirely possible
i don't think people are arguing that ME3's only ending should be happy
just that there should be a possibility
and that's not too much to ask
there are examples of saddening sacrifice and great optimism in ME3 and you can make a good argument for either one. At the end of the day I think ME has a fair greater (albeit more metagame) theme of possibilities, and that's all people want
your point makes plenty of sense
but theirs does too
calling them babies just because they want the option makes you just as bad as the people who think that there should only be a happy ending available
that was a fun discussion considering the reason I don't go to the mass effect 3 thread anymore is that I couldn't deal with it
Actually it's kind of hard to really nail down some of the themes and tones of the trilogy because those very things can be presented quite differently depending on how you play.
It's one of the inherent problems with the very ambitious nature of the story they set out to build.
I'm most concerned that this apparent (and well-publicized) "failure" will give other developers cold feet with this sort of epic narrative, and I think that would be a tremendous shame.
i dunno, sacrifice for the greater good is a pretty big part of the series
starting from virmire
soooooo
getting through ME2's ending and everyone surviving the impossible odds suicide mission
that's not an optimistic ending
it is entirely possible and much more likely to have like half of your crew die doing that shit (along with the kidnapped crew if you wait too long to do the mission (my crew all died that way but my team survived))
which makes me wonder what happens if one of those characters dies and then you start me3
hmmmm
i'll pick it up again when it's cheap
exactly
entirely possible
i don't think people are arguing that ME3's only ending should be happy
just that there should be a possibility
and that's not too much to ask
there are examples of saddening sacrifice and great optimism in ME3 and you can make a good argument for either one. At the end of the day I think ME has a fair greater (albeit more metagame) theme of possibilities, and that's all people want
your point makes plenty of sense
but theirs does too
calling them babies just because they want the option makes you just as bad as the people who think that there should only be a happy ending available
that was a fun discussion considering the reason I don't go to the mass effect 3 thread anymore is that I couldn't deal with it
This is a GREAT point. the inconsistency is not one of any particular message... but rather that the game up to that point provided a variety (however subtle the differences) of possible messages, and capped things off with a very final and firm lack of that variety.
also hey @Stilts whenever you're ready to hear about Pokemon and how I will continue to buy those games despite thinking they are not very good tell me
I think shepard dying should have been a POSSIBLE ending
but you should have also been able to survive
just like in ME2
you might run into a situation where people decide that the sacrifice ending is the "bad" or "fake" ending
but considering that they managed to make multiple endings for Tuchanka and Rannoch that I'd say are all equally satisfying, I trust that they'd be able to pull it off
Actually it's kind of hard to really nail down some of the themes and tones of the trilogy because those very things can be presented quite differently depending on how you play.
It's one of the inherent problems with the very ambitious nature of the story they set out to build.
I'm most concerned that this apparent (and well-publicized) "failure" will give other developers cold feet with this sort of epic narrative, and I think that would be a tremendous shame.
I don't know that many other developers are really cut out to even attempt something like the Mass Effect trilogy, regardless of the response to the ending. There are plenty of epic narratives rolling around in gaming, or attempts at an epic narrative, but most don't let players affect the story with their choices. And the ones they do tend to neuter those choices to the point where the effect is felt more from a gameplay perspective than a narrative perspective.
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VivixenneRemember your training, and we'll get through this just fine.Registered Userregular
because i'm a giant baby who can't handle anything that isn't sunshine and rainbows"
honestly, I seldom see this as a complaint
I see this as what people THINK complainers are complaining about, but I've not actually seen very many people actively complain about this
honestly, it's just that the ending doesn't make any fucking sense, and in a game where 99% of it is watertight in detail and writing and thought, for it to completely fall apart in basic logic in the last 1% is super, super bad
maybe if the rest of the game was less watertight with its detail, the ending may actually have been forgivable
but because the rest of the game is of such great quality and makes so much sense and forces you think weigh options and think critically (well, more critically than most other games encourage), the expectations on the ending were that it would be of equal quality on those counts, and it wasn't, because it falls apart with just a few basic questions
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It's very weird. This is why I would like to play it first.
I have, however, had a lot of discussions with people about the ending, and the conceit of why people are angry about it is actually a pretty simple one to wrap your head around, and one that allows me to talk about a lot of things related to gaming narratives that I've been thinking about lately. But I don't plan to submit the article without first playing it and making sure I actually understand what I'm talking about.
That's good news. Did it feel like combat got any deeper or interesting as the game went on? Because what bummed me out about 2 was how shallow it was.
1) there's no apparent difference based on your choices
2) it comes out of fucking nowhere after what should have been the ending has already happened
3) "whaaaa whaaaaa i want a happy ending where
It also makes very little sense. It's very badly explained.
http://deicidecomic.tumblr.com/
READ MY COMIC ^^
falls under 2) on that list
for the record i am totally down with the first two complaints, the third one is the only one that i scoff at because the people who say it are objectively wrong
i'm not saying that's the ending I would want but I understand they might want an ending where things work out happy
there's not anything wrong with wanting that
i mean i'm sorry
there's no way that a happy ending could ever beat
and then shep gets the call saying he still isn't done yet
no goddamn way
the way it happened was incredible
i don't get choked up or emotional over much because i got brain worms
but i got choked up over the last five good minutes of that game
people just didnt want that thing to happen at all
but while mass effect is a lot of things, it is certainly not atypical science fiction
and it's pretty typical of science fiction to work out ok
there are plenty of stories that work just fine that have themes of sacrifice that work out ok in the end and are not compromised as a result
there's nothing wrong with wanting a happy ending
people like feeling happy
doesn't mean their a baby
means they just want things to work out a-ok!
i got nothing against happy endings but being absolutely infuriated that there isn't one, in a game that really doesn't have any happy moments at all because seriously one of the recurring themes is sacrifice, strikes me as just a child pouting because they didn't get their way
and arguably the whole trilogy
so no i don't think it's unreasonable to call the people who cried about it stupid babies with big stinky doodooheads
I'm sure SOME people are crybabies about a thing.
Happens constantly.
I'm not qualified to weigh in on whether most or all of the people feel that way about it, though. Just sayin' some people might have been grumpy about something else and are not good at the word-typings.
Plus, most people don't know what they really want most of the time, but I think they generally have a pretty solid idea of what they absolutely don't want, especially once they've seen it, which leads me to suspect it wasn't handled in the best possible way.
yes it was incredible, it was really well delivered
but that doesn't suddenly invalidate their wish for something a little less melancholy
and calling them babies for that is pretty silly
the dlc should seriously just cut that out
and be done with it
You should also consider that the premise of most crises in the Mass Effect universe tend to end with "Shepard flexed his bad-ass muscle and the day was saved and also he didn't have a scratch on him", so flying in the face of that pattern is a pretty delicate prospect.
Yeah, no, I definitely have to take issue with this, the player is not conditioned to expect this from the way situations that have gone before have been resolved in the Mass Effect universe.
It would take some pretty good writing and plot-planning to do such an abrupt 180 for Mass Effect 3.
Maybe they nailed it; I'll know when I get up thte gumption to make with the downloadings, hopefully for less than retail.
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
Echo Boomers?
See? Shepard eats impossible odds for breakfast and shits hope all through ME 1 and 2. You better have a pretty good reason for turning all that on its head and you damn well better be careful about it.
starting from virmire
soooooo
getting through ME2's ending and everyone surviving the impossible odds suicide mission
that's not an optimistic ending
That's a good counter example. I'm trying to think of others but I'm coming up empty; I don't know if they did an awesome job continuing that thread in concrete ways throughout the series to make such an ending work for most people. The closest I can come up with is the weird relationship with Liara in ME2 if she was your love interest in ME 1, but you can even make that sort of "work out".
Edit: And killing Morinth. Although that doesn't reeeeally work if you chose not to kill Morinth. =P
it is entirely possible and much more likely to have like half of your crew die doing that shit (along with the kidnapped crew if you wait too long to do the mission (my crew all died that way but my team survived))
which makes me wonder what happens if one of those characters dies and then you start me3
hmmmm
i'll pick it up again when it's cheap
My Let's Play Channel: https://youtube.com/channel/UC2go70QLfwGq-hW4nvUqmog
yeah, I guess around the eighties there was another miniature baby boom when all the Baby Boomers started having kids
Right, but let's be real, most people want the "good ending", and they try to save every single character. I personally played the ending like 10 or 15 times because I kept losing people and wasn't satisfied with that outcome. Providing the option for people to get through Mass Effect 2's supposedly "impossible odds" mission effectively unscathed was probably not a great plan if they wanted the player to really deal with the notion of a universe where sometimes, sacrifices HAVE to be made.
I'm not suggesting it's as easy as tweaking the game so somebody HAS to die, I'm just pointing out an inconsistency in the theme that I'm sure some people have problems with.
exactly
entirely possible
i don't think people are arguing that ME3's only ending should be happy
just that there should be a possibility
and that's not too much to ask
there are examples of saddening sacrifice and great optimism in ME3 and you can make a good argument for either one. At the end of the day I think ME has a fair greater (albeit more metagame) theme of possibilities, and that's all people want
your point makes plenty of sense
but theirs does too
calling them babies just because they want the option makes you just as bad as the people who think that there should only be a happy ending available
that was a fun discussion considering the reason I don't go to the mass effect 3 thread anymore is that I couldn't deal with it
It's one of the inherent problems with the very ambitious nature of the story they set out to build.
I'm most concerned that this apparent (and well-publicized) "failure" will give other developers cold feet with this sort of epic narrative, and I think that would be a tremendous shame.
This is a GREAT point. the inconsistency is not one of any particular message... but rather that the game up to that point provided a variety (however subtle the differences) of possible messages, and capped things off with a very final and firm lack of that variety.
but you should have also been able to survive
just like in ME2
you might run into a situation where people decide that the sacrifice ending is the "bad" or "fake" ending
but considering that they managed to make multiple endings for Tuchanka and Rannoch that I'd say are all equally satisfying, I trust that they'd be able to pull it off
http://www.audioentropy.com/
I don't know that many other developers are really cut out to even attempt something like the Mass Effect trilogy, regardless of the response to the ending. There are plenty of epic narratives rolling around in gaming, or attempts at an epic narrative, but most don't let players affect the story with their choices. And the ones they do tend to neuter those choices to the point where the effect is felt more from a gameplay perspective than a narrative perspective.
honestly, I seldom see this as a complaint
I see this as what people THINK complainers are complaining about, but I've not actually seen very many people actively complain about this
honestly, it's just that the ending doesn't make any fucking sense, and in a game where 99% of it is watertight in detail and writing and thought, for it to completely fall apart in basic logic in the last 1% is super, super bad
maybe if the rest of the game was less watertight with its detail, the ending may actually have been forgivable
but because the rest of the game is of such great quality and makes so much sense and forces you think weigh options and think critically (well, more critically than most other games encourage), the expectations on the ending were that it would be of equal quality on those counts, and it wasn't, because it falls apart with just a few basic questions