Soooo....Mass Effect 3

[Armin]

Actually, legal proceedings concerned, Jester, I'm pretty much 100% with you here. I very much doubt that any of the argumentation, logical and valid as it may be, would hold any water in court.
From my German point of view I actually doubt that any formal complaint would even *go* to court here; my guess would be that any judge would dismiss the claim in advance on formal reasons alone.

BUT, the point that I was trying to make by mentioning the talk about law suits, FTC complaints and class action suits spooking through people's heads is the sheer *scope* of how much people feel cheated, lied to and betrayed by a company they used to love.

BioWare, in one single act of greed or stupidity, has managed to destroy 10+ years of reputation building, killed their community (which has degraded into flame wars, insults and stubborn denial of each others points) and destroyed not only their own credibility, but also those of dozens of magazines and internet sites, that blindly and ignorantly repeat their PR platitudes and fail to even recognize objective facts.

Thankfully, in the pen&paper campaign I have been running over the last 3 years, MY Mass Effect Story (D20 modern/future rules) will end the way this epic deserves...

[Jester]

BUT, the point that I was trying to make by mentioning the talk about law suits, FTC complaints and class action suits spooking through people's heads is the sheer *scope* of how much people feel cheated, lied to and betrayed by a company they used to love.

BioWare, in one single act of greed or stupidity, has managed to destroy 10+ years of reputation building, killed their community (which has degraded into flame wars, insults and stubborn denial of each others points) and destroyed not only their own credibility, but also those of dozens of magazines and internet sites, that blindly and ignorantly repeat their PR platitudes and fail to even recognize objective facts.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd played the game already? I guess I just don't get the sheer visceral reaction. So they made a good game with a bad ending. So it wasn't exactly what was promised - your choices don't matter to the resolution, you get to pick your ending rather than it emerging from previous choices (from what I understand). That's bad, but it's hardly a deep personal betrayal that will leave you shattered for ages to come. People use the word "love" here - as if what BioWare had with its customers was a romance, and the heartbreak therefore justifies the opposite reaction, a rage born of trust betrayed. Maybe it's the plot-centric nature of their games that makes them the target for this? Maybe it's the sense that EA had a hand in it? I'm not getting it.

I've played loads of BioWare games, some of which I've absolutely loved (BG, BGII, ME2) some of which have been pretty damn good (DA, ME1, KotOR), and some of which I haven't particularly cared for (Jade Empire, DA2, NWN.) I feel like BioWare makes quality games that are, on the whole, worth buying. But I don't, despite actually knowing people who work there, feel like they have some profound personal obligation to me. It is disappointing that DA2 isn't very good, but it doesn't fill me with rage and indignation. I don't deserve my money back, and I don't feel like yelling about it either.

Does anyone remember KotOR 2? (Not BioWare, just to be clear.) That game was outright broken. Parts of it were simply unfinished, and obviously so. You could break plots, dialogues, characters by sneezing on them (my Hanharr had 99 wraparound bugged strength... by accident.) The ending was simply nonexistent. Placeholder graphics stood in for actual finished product. There, I could maybe see the argument that I'd been sold a bill of goods, that the game was shipped unfinished. (Even then, probably not good enough for a formal complaint.)

But here? Because the ending isn't what people expected or wanted? Because it doesn't reflect their choices in the way Casey Hudson implied? I don't get it. It's just not that infuriating to me - and I'm as deep into Cmdr. Shepard's story as anyone, having logged well over 300 hours in the series so far.

-Jester

[Taelas]

People likely build on others' reactions. Someone who feels a little betrayed might feel more so if someone else states their disappointment. In an environment like the BioWare Social Network, where three out of every four posts for the past three weeks has concerned the state of the ending, I am not surprised it built to completely unimaginable proportions.

KotOR 2 overall was worse, yes, but I also wasn't nearly as invested in KotOR 2 as I was in ME3; it had a new protagonist and the plot wasn't quite as good as the original. The ending I would actually say was better than ME3's, though.

[Quark]

Yes, of course there's spoilers here.

This thread is showing perfectly the hate I have for the entitlement gamers have come to expect from everything they ever get. You want to go sue Bioware because you don't think the ending was affected enough, despite them saying it would be? Well, 1) The entire game was the ending, and 2) Go sue Peter Molyneux for every game he ever made.

I thought the ending was meh, with one plot hole (potential for a squad mate you took on the final mission to end up on the Normandy) and a hell of a lot of unexplained parts. But unexplained doesn't automatically equal plot hole.

Joker - he has a history of trying to save the ship no matter what. Trying to stay behind in the beginning of ME2. Unshackling an AI to escape Collectors. Why is he running away from what's coming his way? Easy - he thinks it'll destroy the ship.

Relay - I think there's a huge difference between throwing an asteroid into a Mass Relay, and some (presumed) creator of the relays sending a signal through them where the signal forces them to fall apart.

I'll see what comes of this "explanation" as one post worded it, and I guess I'll reserve final judgement until then. But this game was most certainly worth it, and I think the mass outcry over the ending says more about gamers than the game itself. Imagine Game of Thrones being a game first before a book or a show - how bad would gamers have responded to that one?

[Lissa]

BUT, the point that I was trying to make by mentioning the talk about law suits, FTC complaints and class action suits spooking through people's heads is the sheer *scope* of how much people feel cheated, lied to and betrayed by a company they used to love.

BioWare, in one single act of greed or stupidity, has managed to destroy 10+ years of reputation building, killed their community (which has degraded into flame wars, insults and stubborn denial of each others points) and destroyed not only their own credibility, but also those of dozens of magazines and internet sites, that blindly and ignorantly repeat their PR platitudes and fail to even recognize objective facts.

Maybe I'd feel differently if I'd played the game already? I guess I just don't get the sheer visceral reaction. So they made a good game with a bad ending. So it wasn't exactly what was promised - your choices don't matter to the resolution, you get to pick your ending rather than it emerging from previous choices (from what I understand). That's bad, but it's hardly a deep personal betrayal that will leave you shattered for ages to come. People use the word "love" here - as if what BioWare had with its customers was a romance, and the heartbreak therefore justifies the opposite reaction, a rage born of trust betrayed. Maybe it's the plot-centric nature of their games that makes them the target for this? Maybe it's the sense that EA had a hand in it? I'm not getting it.

I've played loads of BioWare games, some of which I've absolutely loved (BG, BGII, ME2) some of which have been pretty damn good (DA, ME1, KotOR), and some of which I haven't particularly cared for (Jade Empire, DA2, NWN.) I feel like BioWare makes quality games that are, on the whole, worth buying. But I don't, despite actually knowing people who work there, feel like they have some profound personal obligation to me. It is disappointing that DA2 isn't very good, but it doesn't fill me with rage and indignation. I don't deserve my money back, and I don't feel like yelling about it either.

Does anyone remember KotOR 2? (Not BioWare, just to be clear.) That game was outright broken. Parts of it were simply unfinished, and obviously so. You could break plots, dialogues, characters by sneezing on them (my Hanharr had 99 wraparound bugged strength... by accident.) The ending was simply nonexistent. Placeholder graphics stood in for actual finished product. There, I could maybe see the argument that I'd been sold a bill of goods, that the game was shipped unfinished. (Even then, probably not good enough for a formal complaint.)

But here? Because the ending isn't what people expected or wanted? Because it doesn't reflect their choices in the way Casey Hudson implied? I don't get it. It's just not that infuriating to me - and I'm as deep into Cmdr. Shepard's story as anyone, having logged well over 300 hours in the series so far.

-Jester

Think of it this way Jester, you've spent 300 hours on something, you add another 30 or so hours to that, and then everything is completely invalidated in 5 minutes, wasting all that time you spent. The ending to ME 3 reminds me of a Choose Your Own Adventure book I read while in elementary school where the optimal outcome, as stated at the start of the book, was to make no choice at all. No matter how much you tried, you could not reach that optimal ending, this is what ME 3 feels like to me. Literally, everything you've done up to the ending, all the time you've invested, is for naught.

While, as I've said, the game is good up to that ending, the ending does not present closure, just more questions along with numerous plot holes. And as you pointed out, ME 3 almost parallels KotOR 2 (difference being that ME 3 is more polished and finished), where it leaves more questions than answers when it finishes.

[Lissa]

Yes, of course there's spoilers here.

This thread is showing perfectly the hate I have for the entitlement gamers have come to expect from everything they ever get. You want to go sue Bioware because you don't think the ending was affected enough, despite them saying it would be? Well, 1) The entire game was the ending, and 2) Go sue Peter Molyneux for every game he ever made.

I thought the ending was meh, with one plot hole (potential for a squad mate you took on the final mission to end up on the Normandy) and a hell of a lot of unexplained parts. But unexplained doesn't automatically equal plot hole.

Joker - he has a history of trying to save the ship no matter what. Trying to stay behind in the beginning of ME2. Unshackling an AI to escape Collectors. Why is he running away from what's coming his way? Easy - he thinks it'll destroy the ship.

Relay - I think there's a huge difference between throwing an asteroid into a Mass Relay, and some (presumed) creator of the relays sending a signal through them where the signal forces them to fall apart.

I'll see what comes of this "explanation" as one post worded it, and I guess I'll reserve final judgement until then. But this game was most certainly worth it, and I think the mass outcry over the ending says more about gamers than the game itself. Imagine Game of Thrones being a game first before a book or a show - how bad would gamers have responded to that one?

Quark, I think what you're missing is that most people think that the 5 minute ending, which I agree with, invalidated everything you've done up to that point. Literally, no matter what choices you took, the outcome was set in stone. BioWare, specifically Casey Hudson the lead of ME 3, stated that your choices, all the way reaching back to ME 1 and going forward, would matter and we see that that is not the case. And you have to admit, there were way too many plot holes created by the ending as it stands now.

[Jester]

Think of it this way Jester, you've spent 300 hours on something, you add another 30 or so hours to that, and then everything is completely invalidated in 5 minutes, wasting all that time you spent.

...

Literally, everything you've done up to the ending, all the time you've invested, is for naught.

If I thought of it that way, I'd be miserable. I'd have to change my whole perspective on why I play video games. I didn't start playing the Mass Effect series all those years ago as an investment for this one moment, which will pay off or not in the final minutes of ME3. I played them because I enjoyed them at the time. If I've got 329 hours of really neat gaming (okay, so the Mako hours can be subtracted), and an ending which does not satisfy, then I'm a reasonably happy camper. The one not-so-great moment does not travel back in time and erase my past happiness.

And as you pointed out, ME 3 almost parallels KotOR 2 (difference being that ME 3 is more polished and finished), where it leaves more questions than answers when it finishes.

You know, I'm actually okay with that. I don't have a closure obsession. Things can remain mysterious. Sometimes that's even for the best. Perhaps not here, I don't know. To put it in context of an unambiguously good game with a highly ambiguous ending, I'm really perfectly okay without knowing what the final fate of the Nameless One is. Kind of better that way, really.

-Jester

Afterthought: If you're thinking of Inside UFO 54-40, I actually really like that idea. Doesn't frustrate me at all - reminds me of Borges, asking interesting questions about what, exactly, it means to be a reader, before French postmodernists came and ruined all the fun forever.

[Lissa]

Think of it this way Jester, you've spent 300 hours on something, you add another 30 or so hours to that, and then everything is completely invalidated in 5 minutes, wasting all that time you spent.

...

Literally, everything you've done up to the ending, all the time you've invested, is for naught.

If I thought of it that way, I'd be miserable. I'd have to change my whole perspective on why I play video games. I didn't start playing the Mass Effect series all those years ago as an investment for this one moment, which will pay off or not in the final minutes of ME3. I played them because I enjoyed them at the time. If I've got 329 hours of really neat gaming (okay, so the Mako hours can be subtracted), and an ending which does not satisfy, then I'm a reasonably happy camper. The one not-so-great moment does not travel back in time and erase my past happiness.

And as you pointed out, ME 3 almost parallels KotOR 2 (difference being that ME 3 is more polished and finished), where it leaves more questions than answers when it finishes.

You know, I'm actually okay with that. I don't have a closure obsession. Things can remain mysterious. Sometimes that's even for the best. Perhaps not here, I don't know. To put it in context of an unambiguously good game with a highly ambiguous ending, I'm really perfectly okay without knowing what the final fate of the Nameless One is. Kind of better that way, really.

-Jester

Afterthought: If you're thinking of Inside UFO 54-40, I actually really like that idea. Doesn't frustrate me at all - reminds me of Borges, asking interesting questions about what, exactly, it means to be a reader, before French postmodernists came and ruined all the fun forever.

The only thing I can suggest at this point to you Jester is to get the game and play it or actually look at some fo the spoiler material about the ending. I think it would change your mind if you actually saw what it all led to.

[Jester]

The only thing I can suggest at this point to you Jester is to get the game and play it or actually look at some fo the spoiler material about the ending. I think it would change your mind if you actually saw what it all led to.

Already did. Got tiring discussing it spoiler-free. I've seen better endings, but it didn't blacken every memory of my Shepards, wrenching my guts and causing me to re-evaluate 300 hours of gameplay. Just looked like some writers were watching a little too much of a few trendy sci-fi shows/movies.

-Jester

[Quark]

Quark, I think what you're missing is that most people think that the 5 minute ending, which I agree with, invalidated everything you've done up to that point. Literally, no matter what choices you took, the outcome was set in stone. BioWare, specifically Casey Hudson the lead of ME 3, stated that your choices, all the way reaching back to ME 1 and going forward, would matter and we see that that is not the case. And you have to admit, there were way too many plot holes created by the ending as it stands now.

I already covered your plot holes - again, unexplained does not necessarily mean plot hole. I saw one that is truly a hole - an undeniable mistake. And again, treat all of ME3 as the ending. Treat the entire last mission as your ending if you desire. If you're just looking at the epilogue after your decision, well, it stands up just about as well as BG2:ToB's 2 sentence blurbs.

"What, it says Jahiera and I stay as a couple but rarely actually see each other? Screw that, that's not *my* ending!"

[Taelas]

Well, 1) The entire game was the ending

While it is technically true that the entire game was the ending of Shepard's story, I don't think that's enough. ME3 needs to have an ending to its storyline that is worthy of the game by itself, without having to consider the entire game an ending to a trilogy. Otherwise, what's the point of getting there?

Also, this "entitlement" thing is starting to annoy me. Yes, there are certainly idiots clamoring around, but that does not mean that everyone who is dissatisfied with the ending and want a new one are among them.

There is nothing wrong with being dissatisfied with something and asking the creators to change it, as long as it is done in a proper manner. Most of the people I've seen on BSN have been generally polite and mature about it (even to the point of starting a donation drive for Child's Play while explaining their issues with it).

If I thought of it that way, I'd be miserable. I'd have to change my whole perspective on why I play video games. I didn't start playing the Mass Effect series all those years ago as an investment for this one moment, which will pay off or not in the final minutes of ME3. I played them because I enjoyed them at the time. If I've got 329 hours of really neat gaming (okay, so the Mako hours can be subtracted), and an ending which does not satisfy, then I'm a reasonably happy camper. The one not-so-great moment does not travel back in time and erase my past happiness.

I agree that it can't erase past happiness, but it can tarnish memories of it. It hasn't done so for me, but right when I got to that final choice, I was paralyzed for a few minutes--I was thinking, "It can't end like this!" This was before even making that choice. (I felt even worse after it, and replayed the last segment over to see the other outcomes in the hopes of something else.)

After thinking about it some more, I decided that, while I still didn't like the ending and would prefer a different one, I could accept it. I still don't like it, though.

[Quark]

Also, this "entitlement" thing is starting to annoy me. Yes, there are certainly idiots clamoring around, but that does not mean that everyone who is dissatisfied with the ending and want a new one are among them.

Right, because there hasn't been people talking about suing Bioware in this very thread. And it's not just ME3. It's every game ever released anymore. Either it's a 1 or a 10 - there is no in between. The game was perfect in every way, or you'll never trust the company again. You'll start up petitions, harass and threaten the developer's staff, and threaten to sue them.

(By the way, that's why social.bioware.com has been relatively clean. After the staff harassment just before release they completely clamped down on the forum, and seriously up the code of conduct requirements).

The mentioned Child's Play donation was shut down by Gabe because it was causing more problems than it was worth for the organization - he instituted a new rule regarding donations because of it.

The list of games I've enjoyed in the past 2-3 years that have been thoroughly derided on the internet is staggeringly long. If a reviewer gave a game a *gasp* 85, they can never be trusted again. I can't say this about previous games, though. The entire environment is toxic and I'm getting sick of it.

[Lissa]

Quark, I think what you're missing is that most people think that the 5 minute ending, which I agree with, invalidated everything you've done up to that point. Literally, no matter what choices you took, the outcome was set in stone. BioWare, specifically Casey Hudson the lead of ME 3, stated that your choices, all the way reaching back to ME 1 and going forward, would matter and we see that that is not the case. And you have to admit, there were way too many plot holes created by the ending as it stands now.

I already covered your plot holes - again, unexplained does not necessarily mean plot hole. I saw one that is truly a hole - an undeniable mistake. And again, treat all of ME3 as the ending. Treat the entire last mission as your ending if you desire. If you're just looking at the epilogue after your decision, well, it stands up just about as well as BG2:ToB's 2 sentence blurbs.

"What, it says Jahiera and I stay as a couple but rarely actually see each other? Screw that, that's not *my* ending!"

Ok Quark, let me blow some holes in your holes. How did Joker get into the relay network so quick after picking up the squadmembers that were on the ground? Remember, the final seen shows one of the people that was with you during the run to the Citadel beam and that person is unhurt and alive. So how does Joker go from picking up said squad member, that probably should be dead or in such bad shape that they couldn't be walking about of the Normandy after the crash landing.

How is it that the Normandy miraculously drops out of relay space and ends up in a system that happens to have a garden world that Joker then crash lands on after the damage that is shown when the Normandy is thrown out of relay space.

Answer me those things if you think you plugged my prior plot holes, cause the above ties in quite well with the holes I pointed out earlier.

[Lissa]

Also, this "entitlement" thing is starting to annoy me. Yes, there are certainly idiots clamoring around, but that does not mean that everyone who is dissatisfied with the ending and want a new one are among them.

Entitlement, in this case, is something different entirely. What we have is the developer outright lying about what the ending is going to involve not 3 weeks before the game ships. At that late stage, they know what is involved in the ending and Casey Hudson blantantly lied about it. While the rest of the game is good, one has to wonder what is going through a producers head when they have to lie like that that close to a release.

If a developer lying to me so close to the release of their game telling me that the game is one way and it's found to be another, then I guess I'm an entitler. In my mind, if a developer says that they've got something really awesome and they don't, the consumer complaining about that is not acting entitled, they are asking for some truth. If a consumer thinks that something a developer is doing is more grandiose in their mind that what the developer says and then complains loudly when the developer does what they say they were going to do, but the final product was not as the consumer wanted, that's entitlement. So what's going on with ME 3 right now, it's not entitlement in my mind because BioWare made these grandiose comments such a short time before launch and didn't deliver.

[Quark]

Ok Quark, let me blow some holes in your holes. How did Joker get into the relay network so quick after picking up the squadmembers that were on the ground? Remember, the final seen shows one of the people that was with you during the run to the Citadel beam and that person is unhurt and alive. So how does Joker go from picking up said squad member, that probably should be dead or in such bad shape that they couldn't be walking about of the Normandy after the crash landing.

How is it that the Normandy miraculously drops out of relay space and ends up in a system that happens to have a garden world that Joker then crash lands on after the damage that is shown when the Normandy is thrown out of relay space.

Answer me those things if you think you plugged my prior plot holes, cause the above ties in quite well with the holes I pointed out earlier.

I already mentioned the squadmate as the potential plot hole. It's bad either way - everyone's on the ground at some point, but *depending on your squadmate choices and LI* it may be someone in your final mission group on the Normandy, which is clearly worse. But thanks for showing you don't really read what I say.

[Lissa]

Ok Quark, let me blow some holes in your holes. How did Joker get into the relay network so quick after picking up the squadmembers that were on the ground? Remember, the final seen shows one of the people that was with you during the run to the Citadel beam and that person is unhurt and alive. So how does Joker go from picking up said squad member, that probably should be dead or in such bad shape that they couldn't be walking about of the Normandy after the crash landing.

How is it that the Normandy miraculously drops out of relay space and ends up in a system that happens to have a garden world that Joker then crash lands on after the damage that is shown when the Normandy is thrown out of relay space.

Answer me those things if you think you plugged my prior plot holes, cause the above ties in quite well with the holes I pointed out earlier.

I already mentioned the squadmate as the potential plot hole. It's bad either way - everyone's on the ground at some point, but *depending on your squadmate choices and LI* it may be someone in your final mission group on the Normandy, which is clearly worse. But thanks for showing you don't really read what I say.

No, it's been confirmed that it's always your love interest and one of the squad members from the final push. That's been confirmed by a bunch of people that have compared what they saw for ending survivors. And if you take the third option, you will get always EDI as well with Joker, so Joker, Love Interest, someone from final push, and EDI.

So yes, the whole ending has that plot hole that is impossible to get around and totally destroys any continuity.

[[wcip]Angel]

So ... who likes bananas?

[NuurAbSaal]

So ... who likes bananas?

I do! As a matter of fact, I just ate one. It was delicious.

take care
Tarabulus

[[wcip]Angel]

lol



Today's Extra Punctuation:

But I doubt the fanbase of Mass Effect were dismayed because they wanted an appropriate ending to the story. Rather, they wanted some kind of appropriate closure for the many-storied and I would argue unnecessarily lengthy process up to this point. Perhaps some epilogue where we get to see what all the characters we met along the way got up to after the events of the series, which I imagine would be easier if they hadn't pretty much all been killed off. I've been given to understand that Bioware are talking about changing the ending under the massive pressure from the idiot fanbase, and I hope like hell they're just talking about doing something like that, an epilogue appendix style thing just to square away the subplots.

Because it would set a horrible precedent if they're serious about actually changing the ending in line with some kind of democratically agreed upon alternative, rather than merely expanding or adding to it. I'm not as incensed about this concept as Moviebob has been on Twitter lately, but I can definitely say it's a bad idea. Because if it's established that the creators of a story can be pressured by constant browbeating by the audience, then the sanctity of the creator's original intention is made meaningless. The series will effectively have no ending, just a big gap with the words "Audience: Fill In Your Preferred Ending Here". This may be a time of politically correct inclusion of all points of view, but sooner or later the cockheads of the world are just going to have to accept that there are people who know better than them. You know. People who don't have cocks for heads. (emphasis added)

[Taelas]

I have to wonder what world these people live in, those who don't understand that this already exists. It has already been established -- you might even say it is standard practice. Most creative works go through several different iterations before one is settled on, if not dozens or even hundreds of them. Anyone who has any experience as a writer knows this. You try something out, and if it doesn't feel right, you change it and do something else instead.

Charles Dickens, one of the greatest historical writers, changed the ending of Great Expectations due to fan outrage at a perceived 'bad ending'. Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, was pressured into resurrecting his protagonist by his editors and the readers. Akira Toriyama, the author of the manga Dragon Ball, continued the story long after he had intended to finish it, again, due to pressure from his publishers.