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Post by opteronium on Jun 28, 2012 14:52:21 GMT 1
Its in accordance to what we like about Mass Effect.
First and foremost, we like the universe and the atmosphere, the world and its possibilities if you will. Preserving those elements by not cutting them off allows imagination to run on. It's Shepard's life, its the player's life... we don't want it to end in any way. We want Shepard to keep on doing what Shepard does.
The ending I propose would not in any way terminate this universe and would basically keep all the elements we like in it. Shepard's ending needs not to be discussed really. As a character, Shepard's soul purpose in the story is to save the galaxy. How much Shepard succeeds in doing that and in what way is what counts. After Shepard connects the crucible to the citadel, we only need to see what the consequences of all Shepard's actions amount to. Was it a success in deterring the Reapers or a failure? Against odds such as the Repears, every blow that is struck against them is a victory in itself. In the spirit Shepard stands for, many such victories bring overall victory. The message is that every little step forward is important, no matter how small, the same way everyone you can save should be saved.
As for the Repears, we like how scary and difficult they are. We like that they have a higher purpose that can not be completely grasped. In essence, they are ruthless and commited. The fight against them is all about socking it to them for the injustice they do other species by treating them as inferior and imposing their will on them without any interest in any kind of discussion, elaboration or persuasion. Pure mechanic indifference that denies other specie's existence or the meaning of their existence.
As such, the message of ME is HOPE. It gives us hope that somehow the Reaper threat will be overcome.
The proposed ending would also fall in accordance with what Javik tells about his cycle - many generations fighting many battles - a centuries long war.
Mind you, Prothean technology was superior to the one in the current cycle - Shepard finishing the Reapers in 1 battle is just too much like dumb luck in the big picture.
I think Bioware was too Hollywood on ME3 and was off the ball with their target audience. I can see how (younger) people with less developed taste would not be so picky - after all most sci-fi fans think star wars and star trek in their TV form is good science fiction...
final thought: read more books!
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Jun 28, 2012 15:21:07 GMT 1
Lieden - man, I will never understand your (or Tillian's) feelings here, but sorry to hear it! I do remember hating the endings to KotOR 2 and Dragon Age 2, so I guess I can imagine. Honestly, Lieden sums up what I think of ME3, so I'm not going to repeat here. To go slightly further, my fan fic flub senses started to tingle more than a dozen of times during my playthrough, as I've started to pick up the narrative flaws that I normally would come across in most fan fics. (Like that stupid plot armour that Kai Leng is wearing shamelessly, the author's rage against the audienece in a blatant manner, etc.) It doesn't help that my analytical designer glasses were worn at the time, on the first playthrough of all things. Maybe I'm expecting too much. I thought games are art and ment to reflect it in sophisticated manner on the same lines as other mediums. Guess I was wrong. Before you point fingers at me about how wrong I was, I've written an academic paper on that issue and I have some back up evidence on what the problem is and why certain people like Ebert still thought games are not art. However, that's another story, we're talking about ME3. In short, I've expected too much from that game and it's my mistake to believe that the series will give out something intelligent and interesting, in the likes of the Watchman comic. Hence that is why I couldn't take the game seriously nowadays. So to bury this debate between me and Buch: I don't care. Enjoy the game, you have my blessing.
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Aerecura
Commander
Calliope Queen
Posts: 244
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Post by Aerecura on Jun 28, 2012 15:43:27 GMT 1
Well, spank me cross-eyed and call me a honey badger, it looks like Bioware done got it right this time...
I can't speak too much to the new endings, because I just did a VERY cursory sweep of Youtube to get an idea of what's going on. Looks like they fixed all the major gaping plotholes I so loathed before. Like a lot of people have said already, I find it hard to accept that Shepard is dead, but eh, it would be silly to stick such ponies-and-rainbows endings on a story that actually has serious consequences. So I don't care too much that they didn't create new endings where he/she lived happily ever after and frolicked on Rannoch/Thessia/wherever with a cadre of little blue babies. Also, I love the concept of the fourth ending. And the expansion of dialogue with the Sage Starchild.
Luckily, one of my cousins is letting me use his Origins account, so hopefully I will actually be playing this shortly. I was seriously on the point of standing on street corners with a sign saying, "Will Whore Self Out for Origins Account Info."
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Jun 28, 2012 16:02:25 GMT 1
...Honey Badger, what...?
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Jun 28, 2012 16:05:27 GMT 1
I don't care much for those happy sappy endings either, especially if it seemed out of place. I could count a few games that ended on bittersweet note that I really like and find it nice.
My problem with the game and the ending is mostly about the starchild concept. He's seemed to out of nowhere and his reasonings were circular, the developers were hellbent that following his views are the best thing for the galaxy, even though he's seemed questionable in terms of being trust worthy.
On the positive side. At least there's closure in the EC, which is ok, but honestly they should put that in the first place before the game went gold at the very least.
And to put in the context that art is subjective, while the endings are an improvement, it still doesn't convinced me to boot up ME3 immediately. Maybe I'll play it again when I'm in a better mood, like having a successful career and not worrying whether I'll go hungry the next day, due to having my support funds being cut off.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Jun 28, 2012 16:16:15 GMT 1
In the words of Jeremy Jahns,...Bioware must've thought "they have pyscic powers so we knew what we are coming from, they know what we are thinking. I think that's very cool that they think that we have powers and stuff and wait...no we dont, well i dont anyway."
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Aerecura
Commander
Calliope Queen
Posts: 244
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Post by Aerecura on Jun 28, 2012 17:34:32 GMT 1
...Honey Badger, what...? You heard me. Honey Badger don't care. Honey Badger don't give a damn. Also, I love the guy in that video. His original video with complaints about the ending really nailed all of my half-formed thoughts about why I didn't like it. And his new video just confirms the positive stuff that I glossed over on Youtube. So hurrah.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Jun 28, 2012 18:43:56 GMT 1
Karma point for Honey badger...even if he dont care.
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Post by Clint Johnston on Jun 28, 2012 21:34:36 GMT 1
I disagree Opteronium. We've all gone over how bad the original ending was and everyone acknowledges (except buch) that it needed work. They did that work. They cleaned up plot holes and they gave us a glimpse of the future we arranged. I think they did an excellent job (Granted I've only played 1 of the 4 new endings). At this point the criticisms leveled against the fans when we were upset originally start to ring true. This was their story to finish in the way they wanted to do it. When those endings were poorly thought out, we had every right to address that issue. Now that they have cleared it up, we need to enjoy the game or find something else to do. I like your idea, but the fact of the matter is it's done. We may get more DLC eventually, but this ending is as set in stone as anything ever is in gaming, and I'm amazed we got this much.
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Post by Mister Buch on Jun 28, 2012 21:39:45 GMT 1
We've all gone over how bad the original ending was and everyone acknowledges (except buch) that it needed work. It needed more Anderson. No actually, I agree with your post 100% Clint. It did need work. I never thought the original ending was good, I just thought it wasn't terrible. In the new cut, I think it's good but not great.
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Post by opteronium on Jun 29, 2012 8:05:31 GMT 1
I also think Bioware deserves respect for making ME universe, making a good game and for caring enough to attempt a fix of the ending. Above all, such a game is revolutionary, and certainly something that hasn't been done before so a lot can be forgiven in a technical sense.
On the story side of things, this doesn't apply. Good art, especially literary art, is something that you can't take anything away from without ruining it.
Also as far as old ending vs new ending goes, new ending is much more satisfactory, but neither ending can compare in quality with all the rest MassEffect awesomeness (MassEffectness).
I'm just saying that ME could have been a perfect score, but for whatever reasons, Bioware went Forrest Gump on us, stopped running and decided to walk home. They put on a little jogg with the extended cut but fans would be tattooing 'Bioware' on their firstborn's foreheads if Bioware would have made the right choice.
Instead, Bioware chose 'beleiving in their writers' creative vision' over good literary art. Insult to injury here being, that we all know the starchild was a last minute throw-in that compromised what was otherwise up to that point, pure perfection. Starchild and space vodoo isn't art, its a shit smear.
It's upsetting that this 99.9% magnificence can't be made 100% magnificence because Bioware insist on Starchildren and space voodoo instead of admitting a fart.
We have an almost epic mass effect that just needs an incy bincy little tweek. Fans would hold their nose and pretend Bioware didn't shit a brick on the runway with that ending, as long as Bioware would remove the kid and the voodoo. Instead, Bioware is drowning the stinker in cologne while it smears it limping to the finish line.
They tripped on their own poo, then slipped on it when they diluted it with aftershave.
Stop the show, call the cleanup crew, resume the show. I'd gladly pay for a good ending at this point. Its the same as going to see a good sci-fi movie (which there arent many) at the theater. EVE online player pay to play. DLC isn't that much different. Why can't Bioware be creative, make a lot of good endings and sell them as DLC. Then everyone can chose the one they like. Please, please, pretty please, let us co-create and continue ME universe together, I want to show it to my grandchildren (without nose clips).
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Post by Mister Buch on Jun 29, 2012 21:37:27 GMT 1
Small thing supporting my earlier harping on - about the Catalyst appearing as a child for good reason, and the 'parents / children' thing relating to artificial intelligence in Mass Effect 2. Admiral Koris has a line, when he opposes the war in the second game: "They are... our children, Captain."
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Post by herrwozzeck on Jun 30, 2012 1:54:09 GMT 1
So I played through the ending (finally), and... well...
I think the endings are okay. I ended up going with Destroy at the end of the day because I can't quite take the thought of hijacking all life in the galaxy without them asking for it first and controlling the Reapers seemed like a victory for them. And even then, I wasn't too happy at having committed genocide on all synthetic life, though that is mitigated slightly by the fact that I think people could reconstruct synthetic life eventually. And hey, I think the quarians and the geth will prove the Catalyst wrong eventually.
I'm typing up a DA journal of all my thoughts, but they all boil down to this:
1) The Normandy flying in to pick up your squadmates in the EC still doesn't make that much sense: maybe they should've gone with a shuttle. Also, it happens kinda suddenly.
2) The Catalyst... I'm with Buch on the reasoning behind making it a child. As for its reasoning for creating the Reapers... it doesn't make much sense, but given the tone of the conversation I think it makes sense to the Catalyst. I think the Catalyst's reasoning ultimately makes more sense if you think about the Catalyst as an iteration of Hal-9000 where it malfunctions in subtle ways that the AI can't seem to realize.
3) I was so tempted to pick refuse, but I was like "but that means everyone else dies..." So what can a guy do, y'know?
4) D'aww, lookit the widdle kwogan kiddies!!!!
5) Bioware actually needed the Extended Cut? Honestly, without having played the original ending, it feels like this is how the ending should've been treated by Bioware. So yeah, I call dick move, Bioware.
Okay, so they may have restored my faith. I don't know. We'll see what happens when they start hyping up Dragon Age 3...
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Post by opteronium on Jun 30, 2012 13:10:24 GMT 1
I'm sticking to my opinon about children and voodoo. Higher standards, deeper plots, more of what we like. Good is good but better is better than good. The new endings are an improvement over the old but they dont fix ME3 for me. Im sure most of you saw this, but those who didn't, do check it out. www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZOyeFvnhiIBioware should have saved ME3 by adopting indoctrination theory, but maybe they were afraid somone would want some royalties for it...
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Post by Knightfall on Jun 30, 2012 22:49:05 GMT 1
Here's an article from Joystiq where the author argues that the ending is flawed from a storytelling perspective. Basically, he thinks the Extended Cut can't fix the ending, because it still draws attention to things that were, what he thinks, were never a strong or detailed part of the games. It's interesting, and I'm not sure I completely agree, but still! www.joystiq.com/2012/06/29/its-all-too-much-why-mass-effect-3s-extended-cut-ending-cant/
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