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The worst part of ME3's ending? The more you think about it, the worse it gets.
Really felt this starting up ME1 again. That damn ending just hangs over your head the whole time.
It may interest some of you to know that the writing team was not involved in writing the ending sequence.
Coming back to this: Confirmed. Maybe.
This post seems to have gathered some controversy around its deletion and outing as well.
No other writer did, either, except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.
And honestly, it kind of shows.
Every other mission in the game had to be held up to the rest of the writing team, and the writing team then picked it apart and made suggestions and pointed out the parts that made no sense. This mission? Casey and our lead deciding that they didn't need to be peer-reviewe.d
And again, it shows.
If you'd asked me the themes of Mass Effect 3, I'd break them down as:
Galactic Alliances
Friends
Organics versus Synthetics
In my personal opinion, the first two got a perfunctory nod. We did get a goodbye to our friends, but it was in a scene that was divorced from the gameplay -- a deliberate "nothing happens here" area with one turret thrown in for no reason I really understand, except possibly to obfuscate the "nothing happens here"-ness. The best missions in our game are the ones in which the gameplay and the narrative reinforce each other. The end of the Genophage campaign exemplifies that for me -- every line of dialog is showing you both sides of the krogan, be they horrible brutes or proud warriors; the art shows both their bombed-out wasteland and the beautiful world they once had and could have again; the combat shows the terror of the Reapers as well as a blatant reminder of the rachni, which threatened the galaxy and had to be stopped by the krogan last time. Every line of code in that mission is on target with the overall message.
The endgame doesn't have that. I wanted to see banshees attacking you, and then have asari gunships zoom in and blow them away. I wanted to see a wave of rachni ravagers come around a corner only to be met by a wall of krogan roaring a battle cry. Here's the horror the Reapers inflicted upon each race, and here's the army that you, Commander Shepard, made out of every race in the galaxy to fight them.
I personally thought that the Illusive Man conversation was about twice as long as it needed to be -- something that I've been told in my peer reviews of my missions and made edits on, but again, this is a conversation no writer but the lead ever saw until it was already recorded. I did love Anderson's goodbye.
For me, Anderson's goodbye is where it ended. The stuff with the Catalyst just... You have to understand. Casey is really smart and really analytical. And the problem is that when he's not checked, he will assume that other people are like him, and will really appreciate an almost completely unemotional intellectual ending. I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it.
And then, just to be a dick... what was SUPPOSED to happen was that, say you picked "Destroy the Reapers". When you did that, the system was SUPPOSED to look at your score, and then you'd show a cutscene of Earth that was either:
a) Very high score: Earth obviously damaged, but woo victory
b) Medium score: Earth takes a bunch of damage from the Crucible activation. Like dropping a bomb on an already war-ravaged city. Uh, well, maybe not LIKE that as much as, uh, THAT.
c) Low score: Earth is a cinderblock, all life on it completely wiped out
I have NO IDEA why these different cutscenes aren't in there. As far as I know, they were never cut. Maybe they were cut for budget reasons at the last minute. I don't know. But holy crap, yeah, I can see how incredibly disappointing it'd be to hear of all the different ending possibilities and have it break down to "which color is stuff glowing?" Or maybe they ARE in, but they're too subtle to really see obvious differences, and again, that's... yeah.
Okay, that's a lot to have written for something that's gonna go away in an hour.
I still teared up at the ending myself, but really, I was tearing up for the quick flashbacks to old friends and the death of Anderson. I wasn't tearing up over making a choice that, as it turned out, didn't have enough cutscene differentiation on it.
And to be clear, I don't even really wish Shepard had gotten a ride-off-into-sunset ending. I was honestly okay with Shepard sacrificing himself. I just expected it to be for something with more obvious differentiation, and a stronger tie to the core themes -- all three of them.
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SPOILERS WITHIN SPOILERS
However, I would say there's a third theme: Achieving the Impossible. Regardless of how much it seems like something needs to be done, with the sole exception of the Virmire Choice, Shepard can ALWAYS find the third option. If there's no way out of a situation, it's because SHEPARD, and by extension YOU (as the player) screwed up.
I totally agree on this. And it's a big part of what was disappointing about the endgame for me. Shepard has always been big on taking, or making, a third option. But here, it's all presented in prepackaged form.
Personally, I would have liked my Shepard to have been able to find a way to resolve the conflict without destroying galactic civilization.
....no argument. Save that I'd want the Krogan on dinosaurs if you did that particular fetch-quest.
Good God yes. That and the hive-mind squadron from Zhu's Hope led by Shiala.
After having had a couple of weeks to digest everything, I think I'm done with BioWare and EA. The day one DLC that was partially on the disc, and somewhat essential to the story,(Best case scenario it was handled VERY poorly. Worst case, shenanigans on BioWare's part), and the botched ending is a double dose of crap.
I could have accepted a terribly written ending from a well meaning company that respects its customers, or an awesomely executed ending from a company that sees its customers as nothing more than objects from which to bled as much money as possible, but not both. Too bad we're getting the worst of both worlds.
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Yeah, man. Screw EA. I mean, sure, they put out a 90+/100 Metacritic-scoring game, but they did a couple things we think could have been done better. Must be time to boycott!
By the way, on the subject of Metacritic, I love the idiots-on-parade discrepancy between the professional critic ratings (20 reviews - every last one positive - from professional news outlets written by people who do this for a living) and the fan ratings (900 negative reviews written by internet people). When there is a 53-point difference between the score "fans" give the game and the score professionals give the game, it's worth asking what the difference is between every reviewer and the majority of internet fans writing reviews.
The answer, of course, is an appallingly overblown sense of personal gamer entitlement. It's a shame to see it's still alive and kicking.
Level-headed person: "Huh, the last five minutes of the game didn't really measure up to the quality of the rest of the game. Better knock off a few points for that one."
Crazy internet person: "Huh, the last five minutes of the game didn't really measure up to the quality of the rest of the game. Better give that game a zero!"
Imagine the outcry in college classrooms if professors graded papers the same way internet people graded entertainment.
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Yeah, man. Screw EA. I mean, sure, they put out a 90+/100 Metacritic-scoring game, but they did a couple things we think could have been done better. Must be time to boycott!
By the way, on the subject of Metacritic, I love the idiots-on-parade discrepancy between the professional critic ratings (20 reviews - every last one positive - from professional news outlets written by people who do this for a living) and the fan ratings (900 negative reviews written by internet people). When there is a 53-point difference between the score "fans" give the game and the score professionals give the game, it's worth asking what the difference is between every reviewer and the majority of internet fans writing reviews.
The answer, of course, is an appallingly overblown sense of personal gamer entitlement. It's a shame to see it's still alive and kicking.
Level-headed person: "Huh, the last five minutes of the game didn't really measure up to the quality of the rest of the game. Better knock off a few points for that one."
Crazy internet person: "Huh, the last five minutes of the game didn't really measure up to the quality of the rest of the game. Better give that game a zero!"
Imagine the outcry in college classrooms if professors graded papers the same way internet people graded entertainment.
I know a few "Professional" game critics. One in particular admitted to me he often writes reviews after about 15 min of play. So I wouldn't put all my stock into professional video game critics.
I think a lot of the bad fan reviews are not being fair to ME3 as a game on its own. I know I was constantly comparing the game to my past experiences with ME1 and ME2. The expectations were really high and its safe to say for a lot of fans the bar wasn't met. Since they are disappointed they are giving the entire game a fail.
I agree with your level headed vs. crazy internet person run down above I think its pretty accurate. However, im not going to say all fan reviews are crap because they don't agree with the Professionals.
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Well, imagine also this, most professional reviewers aren't sitting down to drop 30 hours in a review copy of a game. They'll play 8-10, then spend probably 3-5 writing and editing their review. They have to stay productive, and from the one or two websites I visit, the prominent reviewers spit out 2-3 per week, which either means A) they don't sleep to play 3 games to completion before reviewing, or B) they're playing enough of the game to get the feel for it and write a competent review. Sure, there were probably a few reviewers who played ME3 fully through before writing their review, but that would have been ALL they were doing for the better part of a week or so. I know it took me 2 weeks playing probably 5 hours a day to beat it with 90% completion (didn't get the DLC, so can't say 100). Assuming the reviewers play at a comparable pace, thats 3/4 of a work day for 12 work days to complete just this one game.
IMO that's how the game has so many 10/10, 9/10, 5/5, etc. The reviewers play enough of the game to give it a great score, but don't finish it until after they have some free time to actually play it.
Substandard ending aside, the rest of the game earns it a 9/10 from me, and with a complete and coherent ending, it would be a 10/10, right up there with Skyrim and Civ 5.
In Sweden, there have been quite a few articles about critic corruption in game ratings. Apparently, it's quite a serious problem that the professional critics in the high end gamer magazines are pressured in various ways to only give very high ratings. If they don't, well, someone tells that magazine not to let that person critique games from a certain company again, or the magazine doesn't get review copies from said company, doesn't get advance news, and so on. Professional critics have described the process, and it's inventive and varied. Let's just say it's not inflated entitlement that I think is the prime suspect in this syndrome.
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The answer, of course, is an appallingly overblown sense of personal gamer entitlement. It's a shame to see it's still alive and kicking.
Alternatively, "being tied by ad revenue to the company," "fearing the loss of interviews and preview copies," and "not actually playing to the end." Mind you, I'm not arguing that the game deserves a 0/10 either. But reviewers are not totally disinterested intellectuals, and players are not ravening hordes of idiots. Laying the disconnect entirely on "entitlement" is, frankly, childish.
EDIT: The "not playing to the end" is probably one of the biggest disconnects here. I remember one reviewer who was satisfied with the bleak ending he earned by plowing through the game, only to change his tune somewhat when he learned that was pretty much the only ending possible. Bioware's heavy press about "player choice" and "16 endings" didn't help matters, either.
RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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It's a bit silly to boycott Bioware. ME3 is a great game--still solidly in the top 5 CRPG ever, right up there with Planescape: Torment and KotOR. It's true that the ending was weak, but seriously, taken as a whole, the ME series is still top-notch stuff.
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It's a bit silly to boycott Bioware. ME3 is a great game--still solidly in the top 5 CRPG ever, right up there with Planescape: Torment and KotOR. It's true that the ending was weak, but seriously, taken as a whole, the ME series is still top-notch stuff.
1) The Dragon Age 2 rush job (wtf moment, was it released 8 months after DA? Riding on the success of the original, they ended up bringing us a reskinned ME clone).
2) Day 1 PAID dlc (sorry, there's no excuse for this. Getting more money for something that could have been included in the game @ release).Does the above smell of EA corporate nonsense? Possibly. I'll vote with my wallet though. It's not player entitlement in the above examples either.
P.S. (on a lesser note)
3) SW:TOR - another dropped ball here. Too limited character creation options coupled with all too easy endgame content. This game needed way more developement time, IMHO.
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This was an article I thought was particularly apt regarding the hubbub over ME3's ending:
Mass Effect 3 Protests Prove Annie Wilkes is the Patron Saint of Fandom
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1) The Dragon Age 2 rush job (wtf moment, was it released 8 months after DA? Riding on the success of the original, they ended up bringing us a reskinned ME clone).
DA:O was released in Nov 2009. Its expansion pack (Awakening) was released in March 2010, 5 months after DA:O, and (IMO) was better than the core game. DA2 was released in March 2011, 17 months after DA:O. It was announced 8 months after DA:O, and took 10 months in development, which is pretty short, and was probably the reason that it was so cookie cutter. As an aside, yes thats a short development schedule, but would you prefer it to the three years between campaign #2 and a few more before campaign #3 ala Starcraft 2?
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This was an article I thought was particularly apt regarding the hubbub over ME3's ending:
Mass Effect 3 Protests Prove Annie Wilkes is the Patron Saint of Fandom
So... it is okay to complain, but not to want those complaints to actually change anything? A video game being considered "art" makes it sacrosanct, despite commercial art regularly being changed at the desire of executives or consumers? Giving bad Metacritic reviews and making mean Youtube videos are the equivalent of kidnapping an author and chopping off his limbs? I think this author needs to calm down a bit. He is responding to people overreacting by flipping an absolute fit.
His general idea might hold at least a little water if the game didn't toss out a "Hey, buy upcoming DLC!" blurb at the end. Because you know, all immutable artistic visions have a few bits added on at the end for a nominal fee. Michelangelo's David would have had a mustache if Florence coughed up a couple bucks after it was done.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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I thoroughly enjoyed DA2 and I don't understand the issues people seem to have with it. In fact, I much prefer the more personal story of DA2 than the whole "save the world" plot of DA1.
The Day 1 DLC issue is annoying, but nobody's holding a gun to your head. You decide for yourself if it's worth it, just like you decided to buy or not buy the game. I feel every penny I spent on ME3 and the DLC was exceptional value.
I have no experience with SWTOR because I prefer finite games to MMOs, which inevitably devolve into grindfests.
But seriously, a lot of people's beef with Bioware is like the old saying, they only ever remember the last thing you do. You could spend 20 years building bridges and smoke one rock and all of a sudden you're a crack smoker not a bridge builder.
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So after reflecting on the series (enough that I want to run a PnP game in the setting), I have to say: I love Mass Effect, the universe and series is absolutely my favorite science fiction story bar none.
Like many I wasn't thrilled with the ending. I wish there was more of a reflection on choices I made in the previous games.
That said each choice provided its own moment of glory. Highlights:
Rescuing the Rachni Queen and seeing Grunt covered in insect goo. "Anyone got something to eat?"
Seeing Legion's Sacrifice to create a lasting peace and symbiosis between the Quarians and the Geth.
Legion is why when I got to the end I chose the green ending. I could not be responsible for the death of EDI or Genocide of the Geth. Seeing Paragon Shepard's code uploaded into every living thing, would spell out a peaceful universe and a better tomorrow.
I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite sci-fi series ever.
I know a few "Professional" game critics. One in particular admitted to me he often writes reviews after about 15 min of play. So I wouldn't put all my stock into professional video game critics.
I'm sure that there are a few reviewers who write reviews based on incomplete playthroughs. However, most big-name review outlets have created policies within the last few years that require reviewers to note when they haven't completed a normal playthrough of the game. Furthermore, I can guarantee you that with a much-anticipated, AAA title like Mass Effect 3, the reviewer(s) probably played all the way through the game and did so well in advance of its release.
I don't put all my stock in any one professional video game critic. If Mass Effect 3 were receiving mixed reviews, it would be one thing. But it isn't. Mass Effect 3 is receiving unanimously positive reviews. Every professional critic game it good marks. So sure, maybe some of those didn't finish the game. But plenty did, and they still reviewed it very well.
There are a few people in this thread who are bringing up the standard you-can't-trust-professional-reviewers lines (and this isn't really directed at you, Pan, just a handful of others in the last few posts). I'm not saying there's no merit to the idea that professional reviewers are vulnerable to corruption (as silly as that seems). What I am saying is that unless your position is that pretty much every single reviewer is corrupt or incompetent (all of them), you need to accept that Mass Effect 3 is widely and legitimately considered a great game by people who are paid to know what is and isn't a great game.
If Bioware/EA were in the habit of delivering crappy games that cost a lot of money, that would be legitimate reason to boycott them (and it would be really easy to do so, because no one wants to play a crappy game). If Bioware/EA were in the habit of perpetrating human rights abuses on their employees or anyone else, that would be a legitimate reason to boycott them. "I didn't like the ending," or "I have to pay for a DLC pack," doesn't really qualify in my book, especially when the game is really, really good.
Here's something to chew on.
I see a lot of talk about artistic integrity and Mass Effect 3's ending, and how changing the end would ruin that integrity. What about the artistic integrity of pen and paper RPGs? I've changed something in every published product I've ever used. That goes for every gamer I've ever known as well. Does that destroy the artistic integrity of RPGs? Am I and my fellow gamers somehow insulting the people who put in a lot of time, hard work, and effort into a published game/supplement by dismissing some of what they have done?
The answer is no. And adding an alternate ending to ME3 won't destroy its artistic integrity either.
The beauty of electronic, interactive media is that any new ending to ME3 will ultimately be optional. If you're happy with the original ending, just don't download the new one. Everyone can be happy, or at least have their concerns addressed, and in no direct material way step on the toes of people with a differing opinion.
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Also on the matter of artistic integrity, if what's been said is true then not all of the artists were really on board with the ending that made it through. So there's that too.
A revised ending could present an opportunity to get the creative input of those other writers who, if that post was legit, actually penned some of the most engaging and resonating parts of the game.
1) The Dragon Age 2 rush job (wtf moment, was it released 8 months after DA? Riding on the success of the original, they ended up bringing us a reskinned ME clone).
More like double that amount of time. And, honestly, that's not that short of a development cycle considering how much of the infrastructure of the first game they were able to reuse. Dragon Age 2 ended up with a roughly 8/10 average score. Less than Dragon Age: Origins, but certainly not a bad reception. The gaming community's impression of Dragon Age 2 is not a reflection of a poor quality game; just a design philosophy some community members had issues with coupled with the customary echo-chamber, bandwagon-happy nature of gaming communities populated by more crazy people than level heads.
2) Day 1 PAID dlc (sorry, there's no excuse for this. Getting more money for something that could have been included in the game @ release).
Who says it should have been included in the game at release? You?
There is a significant period of time after the game is completed and sent off to print but before the game's release date. With actively-supported games (by which I mean pretty much every game released these days), that gap is used to continue development of DLC. If DLC is ready to go when the game's release date rolls around, there's no reason not to release it.
So are you saying there's "no excuse" because you know there really isn't an excuse, or are you saying "no excuse" because you're ignorant of any of the legitimate reasons a company might have for releasing a DLC package on the day of release?
Does the above smell of EA corporate nonsense? Possibly. I'll vote with my wallet though. It's not player entitlement in the above examples either.
Yes it is. Believing that you should be given extra content for free after the game has already gone into production is pretty much the definition of gamer entitlement.
P.S. (on a lesser note)
3) SW:TOR - another dropped ball here. Too limited character creation options coupled with all too easy endgame content. This game needed way more developement time, IMHO.
Another dropped ball with an aggregate professional review score of 85. I bet there are a lot of game studios who wish they'd drop balls like that more often.
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** spoiler omitted **
And absolutely agreed on loving this series and setting as a whole.
Speaking of moving parts:
Cripes, speaking of Jack, everything about how her life's turned out post ME2. I was really happy with that development.
That batarian and human actually bonding at the refugee camp.
Also from the camp, that turian C-Sec officer keeping an eye on that likely orphaned human girl.
Heck, everything about the two turian officers in front of Purgatory.
Or the salarian soldier gushing over his new armor to the friend that coincidentally sold her car recently.
Or Khalisah's turnaround, if you go the Paragon route with her. That little scene really set a lot of the tone for me early into ME3. Here's one of the purposefully irritating chew toys of the setting, whose whole purpose so far has either been to get punched in the face or recieve an awesome verbal beatdown, but now for the first time she's sympathetic for reasons you're all too familiar with by that point.
And the realization late in the game that the asari commando suffering PTSD at Heurta is very likely confessing directly to Shepard and begging him/her for that gun.
Oh, and the apparent death of Emily Wong during the Reaper invasion...
"Make your noise. Try to scare us. You want to see how a human dies? At ramming speed"
Gah, the bad thing is once you start pointing out all of those bits, it's hard to stop. :)
Here's something to chew on.
I see a lot of talk about artistic integrity and Mass Effect 3's ending, and how changing the end would ruin that integrity. What about the artistic integrity of pen and paper RPGs? I've changed something in every published product I've ever used. That goes for every gamer I've ever known as well. Does that destroy the artistic integrity of RPGs? Am I and my fellow gamers somehow insulting the people who put in a lot of time, hard work, and effort into a published game/supplement by dismissing some of what they have done?
The answer is no. And adding an alternate ending to ME3 won't destroy its artistic integrity either.
The beauty of electronic, interactive media is that any new ending to ME3 will ultimately be optional. If you're happy with the original ending, just don't download the new one. Everyone can be happy, or at least have their concerns addressed, and in no direct material way step on the toes of people with a differing opinion.
I don't buy the artistic integrity argument either, but nor do I buy the argument that games ought to be subject to the whims of their most vocal "fans". It should be up to the game's designers how they want to handle such a response, and that decision should be based on a balanced look from the perspective of both the business and the product.
The other two endings were just stupid. It is like they ran out of money and ideas and just had to put something in there.
Now its their game and they can end it however they want but I still see it as a large smudge on an otherwise amazing game.
I'll still play through again in a couple months as Renegade Shepard to see how taking the opposite choices throughout the series change things (if at all)
I don't buy the artistic integrity argument either, but nor do I buy the argument that games ought to be subject to the whims of their most vocal "fans". It should be up to the game's designers how they want to handle such a response, and that decision should be based on a balanced look from the perspective of both the business and the product.Here's something to chew on.
I see a lot of talk about artistic integrity and Mass Effect 3's ending, and how changing the end would ruin that integrity. What about the artistic integrity of pen and paper RPGs? I've changed something in every published product I've ever used. That goes for every gamer I've ever known as well. Does that destroy the artistic integrity of RPGs? Am I and my fellow gamers somehow insulting the people who put in a lot of time, hard work, and effort into a published game/supplement by dismissing some of what they have done?
The answer is no. And adding an alternate ending to ME3 won't destroy its artistic integrity either.
The beauty of electronic, interactive media is that any new ending to ME3 will ultimately be optional. If you're happy with the original ending, just don't download the new one. Everyone can be happy, or at least have their concerns addressed, and in no direct material way step on the toes of people with a differing opinion.
As a writer who hopes to have fans someday, I have to disagree to a point. Good, sane fans keep artists in check and those fan's concerns should be taken seriously. If enough of those good, sane fans say you screwed up, chances are you screwed up. If you have a chance to fix the mistake, you should. Just like with any profession.
Writers can often get lost in their omniscient point of view, and create something that makes perfect sense in their mind, but is totally lost on an audience that lacks the author's all-seeing eye. I'm sure the writers of the ME3 ending thought they had made something that was totally amazing, and with all that they know it could very well be.If I were in their place, after I swallowed a bit of hurt pride, I would happily do an alternate ending for the fans that wanted one.
I'm sure the writers of the ME3 ending thought they had made something that was totally amazing, and with all that they know it could very well be.
The writing team was not involved in the ending.
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One quick bit of plot-based hope I've seen mentioned but haven't seen myself:
Anyone seen this?
Of course, there's still the matter of Citadel exploding....dammit....
As a writer who hopes to have fans someday, I have to disagree to a point. Good, sane fans keep artists in check and those fan's concerns should be taken seriously. If enough of those good, sane fans say you screwed up, chances are you screwed up. If you have a chance to fix the mistake, you should. Just like with any profession.
The problem is that "good, sane fans" tend to use their voices more rarely than the rabid, much more vocal segment of the fanbase. I wager that if you ignore the poo-flinging mass, the "good sane fans" are probably in the "Hey, Mass Effect 3 is a great game with an ending that doesn't really live up to the rest of the game," camp. As a group of designers, I don't know that that complaint alone would justify returning to the game to alter its ending. If changes are made to the game's ending, it will be because of the crushing weight of internet rabble descending on EA/Bioware's perceived reputation.
Writers can often get lost in their omniscient point of view, and create something that makes perfect sense in their mind, but is totally lost on an audience that lacks the author's all-seeing eye. I'm sure the writers of the ME3 ending thought they had made something that was totally amazing, and with all that they know it could very well be.
If I were in their place, after I swallowed a bit of hurt pride, I would happily do an alternate ending for the fans that wanted one.
And it may be that we get just that. We'll see.
Personally? Despite not having finished the game, I've got my fingers crossed for the "indoctrination theory" that keeps floating around. I love those kinds of mind games. Unfortunately the fact that this means the game's actual ending would be DLC means that I don't think it's really going to pan out that way. I don't know that EA/Bioware would risk that sort of move. It would be amazing, but I don't see it as likely.
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Thing to keep in mind about the artistic integrity argument is that Mass Effect is not a painting, song, film, book, or any other type of regular art form. It is a Role Playing Game where players take control of a character and make decisions based on how you, the player, would like the story to progress. Unlike films or literature the player is interacting with the product on a whole different level. I believe this needs to be considered when measuring the success of the game.
I have no idea how heavy player interaction should weigh though. I was disappointed in much of the games execution. I can say the graphics were beautiful, the game play mechanics solid, and the story telling for the most part was good. I cant in good faith say it is a bad game.
I think its great people are letting Bioware know they are disappointed. I think its a shame they are making demands that Bioware change it for them for free. I guess I need to ask, was player interaction simply a stated goal by the design team? Has this become another "I was promised!" situation?
Thing to keep in mind about the artistic integrity argument is that Mass Effect is not a painting, song, film, book, or any other type of regular art form. It is a Role Playing Game where players take control of a character and make decisions based on how you, the player, would like the story to progress. Unlike films or literature the player is interacting with the product on a whole different level. I believe this needs to be considered when measuring the success of the game.
Interactive art predates the video game medium, and it would have been presumptuous then to try and dictate to the artist that they accommodate the wishes of the person interacting.
I have no idea how heavy player interaction should weigh though. I was disappointed in much of the games execution. I can say the graphics were beautiful, the game play mechanics solid, and the story telling for the most part was good. I cant in good faith say it is a bad game.
I think its great people are letting Bioware know they are disappointed. I think its a shame they are making demands that Bioware change it for them for free. I guess I need to ask, was player interaction simply a stated goal by the design team? Has this become another "I was promised!" situation?
No one was "promised" anything, and the fact that some people think they were is a problem in and of itself. Purchasing a video game for $60 does not entitle you to more than the game contains. Those $60 are a richer experience than most other $60 games out there, so it's silly too complain from a cost perspective. I'd easily pay upwards of $100 for the privilege of playing through Mass Effect 3, and I am not a particularly wealthy individual. If I felt like I was being charged too much for the quality being offered, I might raise an objection. But I felt like I was getting far more than my money's worth, so I don't see cause for complaint.
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Interactive art predates the video game medium, and it would have been presumptuous then to try and dictate to the artist that they accommodate the wishes of the person interacting.
Do you have examples of pre video game interactive art? I guess I have not given it much thought before. It would be interesting to compare how its been received in other mediums.
** spoiler omitted **
However, this doesn't mean anyone was alive. It just means they reused a background. Plus, one of the writers tweeted something to the effect of "Ya, pretty much everyone on the Citadel died horribly."
Despite not having finished the game, I've got my fingers crossed for the "indoctrination theory" that keeps floating around.
At this point, so am I. It would be the only "clarification" I think people would find palatable. However, a lot of the evidence for it can be as easily explained with "it is a video game." A bad texture doesn't mean it is a dream, it just means they aren't going to spend a bunch of time on a background item that appears once. Plus, the production documents from "Final Hours" seem to contradict it. Unless, of course, that is also part of the deception... [dramatic music]
No one was "promised" anything, and the fact that some people think they were is a problem in and of itself.
We could debate what "promised" means, but there were quite a few misleading statements pre-release. I'm sure you've already seen them, from Casey Hudson's infamous "No A,B,C ending," to Mac Walters claiming that the Rachni have "huge consequences, even in the final battle." These quotes came out after the game was sent to certification, so there is no way they didn't know what was being presented. While this sort of thing wouldn't be enough to drive sensible people (who, I still contend, make up a large portion of those upset) into a rage, it was just another pile of kindling that helped set up this conflagration.
The problem is that "good, sane fans" tend to use their voices more rarely than the rabid, much more vocal segment of the fanbase. I wager that if you ignore the poo-flinging mass, the "good sane fans" are probably in the "Hey, Mass Effect 3 is a great game with an ending that doesn't really live up to the rest of the game," camp. As a group of designers, I don't know that that complaint alone would justify returning to the game to alter its ending. If changes are made to the game's ending, it will be because of the crushing weight of internet rabble descending on EA/Bioware's perceived reputation.
You'd lose that bet. If 90% of your fanbase is angry with you, it also means that 90% of the brain trust is going to be on that side. There have been *so many* well thought-out, deeply analytical articles written about why the endings where bad, that it kind of has moved out of being subjective.
Here are a few of the really good ones:
Second Link is only to the blog, since the writer used a swear word in the title and the automatic filter on this site corrupts the link. :-/
The article is from the 26th of March and really worth reading, IMHO, so if you have interest in doing so, follow the link and look at the post in question.
Here's a link to a BSN thread which gathers ending related articles:
@ Mr. Betts
1) regarding DA2- you can hang on to every review if it makes you happy. I don't rely on reviews more than a baseline opinion, not the end all be all word of gaming gospel. Iirc there was a decent chunk of unhappy fans with DA2.
2) regarding day 1 paid DLCs- You are assuming it wasn't cut from the game before production. Either way it seems like a money grab. A couple of weeks after release and we would probably not even argue about this one.
3) regarding SWTOR- you don't seem to have lengthy MMO experience. My MMO guild mates would all disagree with you. We read Alot of MMO forums with WoW, SW, Rifts, etc. Its Another example of you clinging to reviews. Read what the MMO players are saying if you have any interest in it. My MMO pals have all returned to WoW, and friends from other guilds seem to be trickling back as we wait for Guild Wars 2 to try out next.
Sorry if I seem snarky, but you presume to know where I'm coming from on this. I don't see it that way.
As for the ending, I'm 75% to keep artistic integrity and 25% for the fans that want closure. I'm pro darker, non-sunny endings (even with some dangling threads for sequel possibilities).
Take Dead Space 1 as an example, my friend watched me beat it and said "all that to get effed at the end? I'm never playing this". I thought the unhappy ending was a perfect fit for the game. A happier get the girl and escape the planet would have worked too but would have also been cliche.
On the smaller hand, burning your customers is never good. Maybe a vocal majority wants closure and all questions answered but I still wouldn't want them dictating to the developers.
I do think reviews are skewed tbh. Mass Effect 1 had some issues of its own like erratic weapon damage (sometimes weapons felt like they worked well, sometimes you emptied ammo into a target with little effect), and the really bad handling Mako vehicle for starters. The Mako felt like a Prius that someone forced bigger tires onto without tricking out the suspension for extreme off road use. Then there's the recycled building floor plans on the Mako drop missions, etc.
ME1 was a good game overall with lots of positives, but review sites gave it Abit too much credit with scores that high.
@ Mr. Betts
1) regarding DA2- you can hang on to every review if it makes you happy. I don't rely on reviews more than a baseline opinion, not the end all be all word of gaming gospel. Iirc there was a decent chunk of unhappy fans with DA2.
One review is not gaming gospel. An aggregate of professional reviews, however, is a reliable indicator of a game's quality. Fan reaction, on the other hand, is a reliable indicator of nothing more than controversy.
2) regarding day 1 paid DLCs- You are assuming it wasn't cut from the game before production. Either way it seems like a money grab. A couple of weeks after release and we would probably not even argue about this one.
I don't need to assume anything. You said there was "no excuse". I pointed out that there certainly is a valid excuse - that development continues on a game after it's been sent to printing. Did you not know this? Or did you simply ignore it as a possibility because it doesn't fit your "EA/Bioware sucks!" narrative?
3) regarding SWTOR- you don't seem to have lengthy MMO experience.
Oh dear.
My MMO guild mates would all disagree with you. We read Alot of MMO forums with WoW, SW, Rifts, etc. Its Another example of you clinging to reviews. Read what the MMO players are saying if you have any interest in it.
I have been. It may startle you to discover that video game reviewers tend to play a lot of video games, MMOs included. They fall into the group of "MMO players" just as much as the people you're talking about do. The only real difference between all the reviewers and all the internet people is that reviewers tend to know what the hell they're talking about.
By the way, I have an active SW:tOR account, and I think it's deserving of an 85/100.
My MMO pals have all returned to WoW, and friends from other guilds seem to be trickling back as we wait for Guild Wars 2 to try out next.
Well, I mean, that makes sense. WoW is a stellar game. But it looks at this point like Old Republic has some staying power.
Sorry if I seem snarky, but you presume to know where I'm coming from on this. I don't see it that way.
Really? This coming from the guy who told me, "You don't seem to have lengthy MMO experience,"?
but review sites gave it Abit too much credit with scores that high.
And it's quite clear that opinions of games change over time, once people think about certain games a little harder.
Resident Evil (notably Code Veronica) is a good example. Extremely (over-)positive review scores when it first came out... and then any re-release gets (over-)hammered in the opposite direction. Turns out, though, that RE:CV just never was that great.
"Professional" reviewers (LOL) are not only not infallible, but they make fairly egregious mistakes much of the time. They don't mean much (though a little more than a screaming fanboy "0/10" review, of course. But still relatively meaningless overall, since it's just one douche's opinion in a sea of opinions).
I predict ME will be remembered as a fantastic series with a completely crap ending, and (until the ending is possibly 'fixed' - ah, the era of console patches) will affect replay value (which, in turn, affects how people will see it down the road).
I also think it's pretty clear that BioWare has been struggling of late, notably in the eyes of consumers (the only ones who really matter, since, in the end, this is a commercial endeavor, not "art"). From the not-very-good DA2 to ME3's ending to mixed feelings about SWTOR (and, hey - Sonic RPG!), they might have overextended themselves. (And pointing out BioWare's ancient history - look! Torment! KOTOR! - is pretty silly.)
EA and Bioware don't suck. EA publishes Alot of games/franchises that I will continue to buy. The last great game from Bioware for me was DA:O. I've bought (and enjoyed) almost everything else from Bioware. I'm just not wasting any more money and time into another of their games till they get back to what they were.
I can live without The DA and ME franchises.
I've read and heard Alot about EA being a BBEG of a company, even if it's true I will continue to buy EA published games until those go the way of the recent Bioware offerings. There are plenty of other offerings out there.
@Betts - most MMO reviews get props for a smooth launch (reliable non-crashing servers) and polish (which are pretty much features already existing in other MMOs as they learn from the mistakes of the originators). 85/100 is still too generous considering the graphics and animations of this game compared to WoW, Rifts, and GW2. Add to that the limited character options, easy, non-rewarding endgame etc. i'm a huge star wars fan but after playing TOR since release, it's underwhelming even in its infancy and I was really excited about it initially. YMMV.
I would have given it a 7.5/10 or 75% etc at best.
Late Edit*** Is TOR your first MMO? Just curious.
Agree with Arnwyn too, btw.
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I got pass Bioware's infallible perceptions years ago.
I liked Baldur's Gate. I did not play Baldur's Gate 2 much because I was heavily involved in D&D3E at that point, and going back to BG2 really screwed me up rules wise.
Neverwinter Nights was pretty good overall. Fallen paladin was a bit of a cliche, but whatever. Expansions were really fun as well
KotOR was awesome. 1 real complaint was I started really noticing the Bioware NPC cliches. The innocent girl, the sexy girl, the crazy badass killer, the best friend, the wise old man. My other complaint is that it got so popular, it retconned SW Expanded Universe stuff. Darth wasn't used as a title until after Darth Bane (like 1000 years after KotOR). Colors for lightsabers didn't indicate class. There were no "classes" for Jedi.
Jade Empire was my first real big negative experience. Characters were boring, combat was terrible, story was okay, the big mix of Eastern influences was a big negative to me (since I'm Chinese). Bioware passing on KotOR3 to make this garbage pissed me off beyong belief.
ME was a really fun if unpolished game. Great story, characters weren't as falling into the Bioware cliches. However, the programming for the game was poor, and slow load times and constant disk spins just annoyed me.
I hated Dragon Age actually. The story was solid enough, but the gameplay was just awful. Freeze enemy, repeat. I put it on hard mode immediately, and noticed that healing is almost needed. Combat felt limiting after that. This was the only game other than Baldur's Gate that I thought was actually hard. Every other Bioware game has been easy, even if I turn up the difficulty.
ME2 was more polished than ME and a great game. My only real issue with the game was the story is a bit odd (Shepard dying and resurrected by Cerberus, Collectors seemed odd as a villain choice until it was discovered Reapers controlled them).
Haven't played DA2 because I am waiting for a huge price drop. I did this with ME2 and it worked great. Another reason was because I hated DA:O, so I wasn't in a rush to waste $$$ for a game that I didn't like, and lots of people didn't like.
I don't play MMOs, so no TOR for me to judge.
So since Jade Empire (terrible game) for me, it's been overall a decline for Bioware with the exception of ME (good game) and ME2 (great game) to DA:O (bad game) and JE and lack of KotOR3. Unfortunately, bad experiences tend to influence people more than good games, so Bioware has been on the edge for me. I don't buy their games automatically anymore. I bought ME3 at release basically because I wanted to beat the game and a series that I love so I don't get accidentally spoiled.
I figured the game's ending can't be that bad. It's just typical internet rage.
And then I finished it, and I couldn't disagree. It was legit. I've said this before, and this is from a guy who liked the Sopranos ending (didn't watch Lost). Bioware dropped the ball. A new ending isn't going to be the same. I won't get the same feeling of satisfaction like I would have if the ending was done better from the beginning. If the "clarification" ends up being good or logical at least, then I'll feel better, but not the way I would feel if it was done the 1st time. It's not possible to recapture the feeling of something done right the first time. And that's ultimately what I'll be disappointed by.
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In the end, you're only as good as your last hit. If Bioware can't put out quality games for me, I am not going to buy new games. Brand loyal can easily be abused, and I only spend money on things that I like, not on the memories of what was good in the past.
The ending was a huge disappointment, and it will certainly influence me for the future.
I don't think EA pressuring Bioware into things is a huge problem. EA and Activation has done plenty of f&@*ed up things, but Bioware has been on running downhill before EA picked them up.
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I agree that the whole "I'm done with Bioware" thing is silly. I keep hearing it again and again. Personally I liked Dragon Age 2 more than the original (which to be honest felt like a Neverwinter Nights 2 rip off to me.) SWTOR was decent (although my personal dislike of MMO's has coloured things somewhat) and ME3 was the best game I have ever played up until the ending.
It is not gamer entitlement to ask for an ending to be of the same quality as the rest of the game. Whilst we are about it, changing the ending isn't as unprecedented as people seem to think it is. Fallout 3 changed the ending through DLC. Plus the "games are art" stuff doesn't fly either. Arthur Conan Doyle bought back Sherlock Holmes due to fan demand and even Charles Dickens changed the End of Great Expectations because his fans hated the bleak ending.
Games may very well be art but in this case they are also a mass produced piece of entertainment. I love this series, I really do. I just want it to have the ending it deserves and I believe fans are justified in asking for that.
Is there a real difference between the action, role play,and storage.
In "Action Mode," most conversation decisions are made for you. There is no new content, just the removal of choice for those who don't care.
"Roleplay Mode" is the standard. Full choices in conversation, full combat difficulty.
"Story Mode" also lets you make full conversation decisions, but moves the combat difficulty down to the absolute minimum. It is for those that want the story, but are bad at / don't enjoy the shooter elements. Again, no new content.
I think this is a great innovation, personally. The only problem is that the game seems to be written for "Action Mode," reducing the interactive bits in all conversations (presumably to save on voice actor time). Work out that kink, and it will be a great way to allow all sorts of people to enjoy the game.
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RPG Superstar 2015 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2013 Top 16
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@Mikaze:
The asari at the desk in the Embassies that helps the human soldier get her asari daughter out.
If you go Renegade and shoot Mordin, his death scene is horrifyingly gut-wrenching. If not, "someone else might have gotten it wrong" and humming "I Am the Very Model of a Scientist Salarian" as he resolutely strides toward his certain doom. Mordin has big brass lizard balls that could put any krogan to shame.
The guy in the hospital who's losing his leg and all he can think about is getting back to his unit.
The Huerta nurse in the Commons who can't work with the asari commando because she looks like the human girl.
Kelly Chambers' summary execution.
Man, these could go on and on.
The problem is that "good, sane fans" tend to use their voices more rarely than the rabid, much more vocal segment of the fanbase. I wager that if you ignore the poo-flinging mass, the "good sane fans" are probably in the "Hey, Mass Effect 3 is a great game with an ending that doesn't really live up to the rest of the game," camp. As a group of designers, I don't know that that complaint alone would justify returning to the game to alter its ending. If changes are made to the game's ending, it will be because of the crushing weight of internet rabble descending on EA/Bioware's perceived reputation.You'd lose that bet. If 90% of your fanbase is angry with you, it also means that 90% of the brain trust is going to be on that side. There have been *so many* well thought-out, deeply analytical articles written about why the endings where bad, that it kind of has moved out of being subjective.
Here are a few of the really good ones:
Second Link is only to the blog, since the writer used a swear word in the title and the automatic filter on this site corrupts the link. :-/
The article is from the 26th of March and really worth reading, IMHO, so if you have interest in doing so, follow the link and look at the post in question.
Here's a link to a BSN thread which gathers ending related articles:
Thanks for the links. My favorites?
The Forbes articles. Even Forbes agrees that the endings are horrible, not only from a narrative standpoint but from a bussiness view too.
I enjoyed most of MASS EFFECT 3. I agree that people giving the game 1 star on Amazon because they just hated the ending but loved the rest of the game isn't really fair. When I reviewed the game for Amazon I knocked off a single star: penalising the game 20% for a problem that affected less than 1% of the time I spent playing the game seemed harsh enough. Amusingly, my review (which went into the ending's problems in some detail) was marked down because dozens of people thought the game should have been given one star by everyone and responded angrily towards anyone who disagreed (or even agreed with them but didn't feel the same need to penalise the whole game). Petty and lame behaviour.
At the same time, MASS EFFECT 3's ending is objectively terrible:
Spoiler:The end of the story, however, is designed to give you the opportunity to show the Reapers that the various species of the galaxy - organics and synthetics both - can band together and cooperate for the sake of their mutual survival, thus justifying the end of the Cycle. It's good storytelling.
This isn't the way it's presented at all:
On the more brutal side of things, Javik also tells you that the Protheans created a synthetic servitor race that rebelled and which they then utterly destroyed, and set about preventing synthetic life from developing elsewhere in the galaxy during their cycle, before they were wiped out by the Reapers.
So Shepard has THREE data-points showing that the Catalyst's assertions that synthetic life will always try to destroy organic life, and will always be successful at that, to be utter drivel. Yet he does not voice that opinion. You are given no chance to point out that the Catalyst's viewpoint is flawed. Shepard just says, "Maybe...I don't know." Cheers, Shep. That's the hard-hitting, decisive guy/gal we've been hanging out with for 100 hours right there.
No. Basically you have to destroy all synthetic life (including the geth and EDI), tell the Reapers to get stuffed (which does not preclude them returning later) or engage in synthesis, removing free will from all the people of the galaxy (and going against one of the overwhelming themes of the series, the freedom of choice). Whichever way you cut it, it's terribly inconsistent and illogical storytelling.
By the way, on the subject of Metacritic, I love the idiots-on-parade discrepancy between the professional critic ratings (20 reviews - every last one positive - from professional news outlets written by people who do this for a living) and the fan ratings (900 negative reviews written by internet people). When there is a 53-point difference between the score "fans" give the game and the score professionals give the game, it's worth asking what the difference is between every reviewer and the majority of internet fans writing reviews.The answer, of course, is an appallingly overblown sense of personal gamer entitlement. It's a shame to see it's still alive and kicking.
The reason is that computer game websites and reviews are dependent on advertising revenue from the game companies to survive. They will therefore give major games high scores almost no matter what, to appease the companies and retain their advertising spend. Games journalists risk getting fired if they give Tripl-A games bad reviews. That's why games journalism has a really bad reputation.
The writing team was not involved in the ending.
This is correct. The original ME core writing team had mostly moved on to THE OLD REPUBLIC post-ME2. My understanding is that a grand total of one writer worked on all three games in the series, and on the first game in only a very junior capacity. Drew Karpyshyn has even said that the reasoning and motivation behind the Reapers was radically different in his original design.
Even within that context, the ending of ME3 was created by just two people sitting in a room, lacking the peer-review process of the rest of the writing team (who double, tripled and sextuple-checked every other piece of writing in the game to make sure it worked and made sense) and presented to them as a fait accompli (with voice-acting already completed), so their changes and notes could not be acted upon.
Thanks for the links. My favorites?
The Forbes articles. Even Forbes agrees that the endings are horrible, not only from a narrative standpoint but from a bussiness view too.
You're welcome.
It's really beyond me what the thought process's were at BioWare HQ in doing the ending this way. It doesn't make any sense from a storytelling perspective *and* a business perspective. By PAX, we will know if they will continue to bungle this or come to their senses.