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Alain Post posted:I'm going to say that the idea of the climax of Mass Effect being "Kill the big bad Reaper to win" is like, self-evidently bad. It's not just a case of it not being creative enough, though it sure as poo poo isn't creative. That would've been profoundly, self-evidently better than any ending where I do not get to kill the big bad Reaper.
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Nov 30, 2016 02:04
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I bet you wanted a conventional war victory too. You rear end in a top hat
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Nov 30, 2016 02:07
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Alain Post posted:I'm going to say that the idea of the climax of Mass Effect being "Kill the big bad Reaper to win" is like, self-evidently bad. It's not just a case of it not being creative enough, though it sure as poo poo isn't creative. And it still would have been better than what they rolled out lmao
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Nov 30, 2016 02:10
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[Defensive Bioware Voice that sounds weirdly similar to a college student that waited until 2am to write his paper voice] the plebes just wanted a traditional and neat happy ending and they cannot appreciate my Art
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Nov 30, 2016 02:11
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This thread is proving that they were right.
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Nov 30, 2016 02:15
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:[Defensive Bioware Voice that sounds weirdly similar to a college student that waited until 2am to write his paper voice] the plebes just wanted a traditional and neat happy ending and they cannot appreciate my Art Don't doxx me. When I think of the Starkid, I think of the ending they were going to go with for the first season of the Battlestar remake. Basically, RDM wanted Gaius Baltar to be wandering through the opera house and he'd turn around and come face to face with God (as portrayed by Dirk Benedict). Two things stopped him from going through with this: one, an inability to make it compelling with a feasible conclusion to the fact that God had shown up and, two, the fact that every other writer on the staff apparently revolted at the concept. wyoak posted:it's true, the entire narrative was setting the reapers up as an unstoppable force, it woulda been pretty dumb if shep found a death ray on mars and shot them in the belly or something. it wasn't that a conversation with a god to close the series was a bad idea in concept, it's more that the ending boiled down to "press A for green hat, B for red hat, X for blue hat" Don't the dream sequences end with visions of Shepard and the starkid burning in flames? It's weird imagery when we're supposed to accept his choices.
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Nov 30, 2016 02:25
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The Extended Cut ending is actually worse than the ending as shipped, too.
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Nov 30, 2016 02:27
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Milky Moor posted:The Extended Cut ending is actually worse than the ending as shipped, too. Agreed
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Nov 30, 2016 02:36
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Can't polish a turd
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Nov 30, 2016 02:49
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I actually invented the concept of liking the mass effect 3 ending
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Nov 30, 2016 02:54
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Bioware should reach out to Paradox and ask if they can borrow Andreas Waldetoft to help with the soundtrack. He did the music for Stellaris, and it owns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qq50NrujfC8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC4IAH2TvWY Bloody Pom fucked around with this message at 03:03 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 02:59
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Digging this thread up from its grave to post thisLt. Danger posted:I can't believe a work of fiction would imbue a character with symbolic meaning. What makes it really great is that it serves as piece de resistance to ME3's abundant fascist iconography and ideology Basic Chunnel fucked around with this message at 03:29 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 03:13
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Like it's a series in which civilian institutions like "democratically elected governments" and "journalism" are inerringly weak / corrupt / obstructionist. Meanwhile the only figures of any real wisdom / benevolence / willingness to face Hard Truths are military officers, and they are the only things preventing the annihilation of a helpless and agency-free populace (as embodied by a nameless, cowering child) that is actively resented for its ignorance.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:21
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I wish that mass effect ditched the reapers altogether and just let you play as space cop because you were the only dude bad enough to stop a guy like Saren. I mean hell, Saren using cloning technology to bribe the krogan to his side and start an interstellar war between the council and the Terminus systems is an awesome story prompt with no need to bring in the reapers at all. It could even bring in that whole "strong military versus weak central government" angle above and pin it as Saren's motivation. He views the council as weak and starts a war to prove their frailty, and it is up to Shepard to prove Saren wrong and uphold the ideals of democracy in the face of militants fascism.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:27
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:Can't polish a turd No, but they can add little painted other turds in attempt to distract from the main one. Arcsquad12 posted:I wish that mass effect ditched the reapers altogether and just let you play as space cop because you were the only dude bad enough to stop a guy like Saren. I mean hell, Saren using cloning technology to bribe the krogan to his side and start an interstellar war between the council and the Terminus systems is an awesome story prompt with no need to bring in the reapers at all. I'd have been fine with that. Saren needed more development and a game just going around, stopping a takeover would be great. If they'd wanted, there could have been little hints of the Reapers as some greater danger, but don't have one reveal itself in the first game. Let us just think that Saren had some huge ship, but in the final moments, let the ship blast its way off and reveal the big twist that it was the true mastermind to go on as the antagonist of the sequel. That would have been a much better use of the premise and have a good point to build sequel stories onto. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 03:33 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 03:30
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OtherworldlyInvader posted:This is a good point and I'm going to quote it so it doesn't get lost in the wall of text. Before going into ME3 I was convinced that the climax would be structured similarly to the suicide mission except you're ordering the specific fleets and assets and such around instead of your immediate squadmates. I'm convinced that would have been better and actually made your choices throughout the series matter somewhat.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:31
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      That "tangy" panel needs to be an av or smiley. 
Drifter fucked around with this message at 03:36 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 03:34
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Alain Post posted:I'm going to say that the idea of the climax of Mass Effect being "Kill the big bad Reaper to win" is like, self-evidently bad. It's not just a case of it not being creative enough, though it sure as poo poo isn't creative. Here's a well executed drawing which doesn't demonstrate a single drop of creativity:  Here's a poorly executed drawing which demonstrates some level of creativity:  Creativity and being unique aint worth poo poo if you're a hack, unless you're judging worth by "how much can we laugh at this poo poo." "Build up a villain and have a big boss battle at the end" isn't creative but it works so people keep using it. ME3 threw that out which is fine, but what did they replace it with? A long sequence where the starkid comes out of nowhere and talks at you a bunch before offering you 3 dumb choices that have almost nothing to do with the game you've been playing? There's a reason I've never seen this in a game before, the reason is its absolute garbage. If defeating the big boss and winning the game isn't a good fit for Mass Effect 3's narrative, then we're back to Milky Moor's original point of "maybe you should re-think making your 3rd person cover shooter's narrative about fighting giant space battleships."
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Nov 30, 2016 03:37
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Arcsquad12 posted:I wish that mass effect ditched the reapers altogether and just let you play as space cop because you were the only dude bad enough to stop a guy like Saren. I mean hell, Saren using cloning technology to bribe the krogan to his side and start an interstellar war between the council and the Terminus systems is an awesome story prompt with no need to bring in the reapers at all. Jesus Christ yes, apocalypses are played the gently caress out.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:38
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Nov 30, 2016 03:40
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OtherworldlyInvader posted:Here's a well executed drawing which doesn't demonstrate a single drop of creativity: Killing the credibility of your trilogy's supposedly galaxy-threatening main antagonist by having them go down like chumps by hitting the glowing weak spot is bad and it doesn't have poo poo to do with high art, creativity, or whatever the gently caress. It isn't just uncreative conceptually, it's bad conceptually. It's not something that can be executed well.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:41
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"Save the World" is pretty much Bioware Standard Practice™ - one of the most promising things of Andromeda (that might be totally shot down in flames by the looks of it) was that "the initiative is about being explorers and settlers", which would be actually novel and interesting for them to make.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:41
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Like, Jesus Christ, imagine if the narrative arc of all three Mass Effect games came down to "John Shepard beat the incredible, galaxy-threatening existential threat to all life because he knew something that every other cycle didn't know: To attack the glowing spot with his gun for critical hit damage" Like what the gently caress. That sucks rear end
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Nov 30, 2016 03:44
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Alain Post posted:Killing the credibility of your trilogy's supposedly galaxy-threatening main antagonist by having them go down like chumps by hitting the glowing weak spot is bad and it doesn't have poo poo to do with high art, creativity, or whatever the gently caress. It isn't just uncreative conceptually, it's bad conceptually. It's not something that can be executed well. Then maybe they should re-think making their 3rd person cover shooter's narrative about fighting giant space battleships.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:45
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OtherworldlyInvader posted:Then maybe they should re-think making their 3rd person cover shooter's narrative about fighting giant space battleships. This is maybe true but "Mass Effect should have been about something else" isn't very interesting criticism.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:46
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Alain Post posted:Killing the credibility of your trilogy's supposedly galaxy-threatening main antagonist by having them go down like chumps by hitting the glowing weak spot is bad and it doesn't have poo poo to do with high art, creativity, or whatever the gently caress. It isn't just uncreative conceptually, it's bad conceptually. It's not something that can be executed well. Ah yes and the solution is apparently to go with something much worse
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Nov 30, 2016 03:46
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All I wanted for the ending was to have a large battle involving all the war assets I got including that stupid loving spider queen that jumped ship on my super weapon
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Nov 30, 2016 03:46
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Alain Post posted:Like, Jesus Christ, imagine if the narrative arc of all three Mass Effect games came down to "John Shepard beat the incredible, galaxy-threatening existential threat to all life because he knew something that every other cycle didn't know: To attack the glowing spot with his gun for critical hit damage" Yup, this was the only other option besides the starkid. It makes sense now why they went with the starkid when they only had these two options. I was wrong about mac Walters, who also definitely doesn't wear a stupid hat all the time because he can't come to terms with his hair loss.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:47
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moist turtleneck posted:All I wanted for the ending was to have a large battle involving all the war assets I got including that stupid loving spider queen that jumped ship on my super weapon In retrospect they really were asking for it when they introduced the Rachni queen in the first game
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Nov 30, 2016 03:47
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But didn't we fight a reaper mid game and we just shot it in the "eye", right?Alain Post posted:In retrospect they really were asking for it when they introduced the Rachni queen in the first game Just because she's not wearing a dress, doesn't mean that she's saying yes. 
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Nov 30, 2016 03:48
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Actually in retrospect they got bought out by a huge entity and suffered a brain drain and then terrible project management brought on by an unrealistic timeline and pressure from above.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:50
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Drifter posted:But didn't we fight a reaper mid game and we just shot it in the "eye", right? Yeah, which was kind of stupid. But that was one Reaper, and the "Harbinger as end boss" poo poo kind of implies that killing him somehow wins the game by video game logic, unless people honestly don't mean that when they talk about that as a possibility.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:51
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:Actually in retrospect they got bought out by a huge entity and suffered a brain drain and then terrible project management brought on by an unrealistic timeline and pressure from above. EA works in mysterious ways
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Nov 30, 2016 03:52
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It's worth noting that they were thinking about a big end boss fight with TIM but decided it didn't work. Which is probably true- the bigger problem with TIM is killing his credibility by indoctrinating him.
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Nov 30, 2016 03:52
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Kai Lung should have come out at the end and ninja-flipped onto the back of a reaper and wave his cowboy hat around and then the reaper rears up like a giant Black Stallion and then Kai Lung could ride it into the CItadel and everything explodes and buildings crumble and then you have to fight Kai Lung ontop of the reaper and then when you beat Kai Lung for the final time all the reapers crowd around his dead body as it floats off into space and then they do their air horn blast BWWWAAAAAAAAA but it's like they're all crying and then they all turn to you and then space bow and then they all say "What are your wishes, new master?" *fade to black* Man, that would've been great.
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Nov 30, 2016 04:02
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Alain Post posted:It's worth noting that they were thinking about a big end boss fight with TIM but decided it didn't work. Which is probably true- the bigger problem with TIM is killing his credibility by indoctrinating him. It's also worth noting that no one cares there wasn't a traditional boss fight so much as that the ending was a jarring departure in tone and theme from the entire rest of the game. As another person said the best mechanical thing they could have done with the ending was a suicide mission style allocation of assets on a galactic scale followed by a coherent and thematically consistent narrative resolution of the plot. But clearly they had deadlines to hit. Luckily they didn't torpedo their entire valuable IP by focusing on the short term oh wait that's exactly what happened.
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Nov 30, 2016 04:38
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Alain Post posted:Like, Jesus Christ, imagine if the narrative arc of all three Mass Effect games came down to "John Shepard beat the incredible, galaxy-threatening existential threat to all life because he knew something that every other cycle didn't know: To attack the glowing spot with his gun for critical hit damage" This is a gross simplification. It would suck rear end if that was what Bioware went with for a hypothetical ME3. But, even ME1 establishes a simple issue: the Reaper Citadel gambit has failed for the first time in history. The fact that this leads to nothing and the Reapers could have just came in from dark space and won the war in about the same speed is just baffling and a total failure of storytelling. They utterly annihilated the Batarian people without any other power noticing, then somehow made it to Earth, Palavan and so on simultaneously. "The journey from dark space has made the Reapers vulnerable," would have fit neatly and made the victories in ME1 and ME2 maintain some semblance of meaning to the player. Alain Post posted:Yeah, which was kind of stupid. But that was one Reaper, and the "Harbinger as end boss" poo poo kind of implies that killing him somehow wins the game by video game logic, unless people honestly don't mean that when they talk about that as a possibility. A final confrontation with Harbinger could very easily be two things if put at the end of a hypothetical ME3. If Shepard has enough good boy points and choices to win, like ME2, it is Shepard finishing off the figure responsible for murdering him/her in ME2. Maybe the Normandy, covered by the allies, sweeps in and shoots him in the face. If Shepard doesn't, then it can very easily become defiantly spitting in the face of the devil as the world burns around you by changing the dialogue. This time, the Normandy gets blasted out of the sky. Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 04:43 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 04:38
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Uh if they had included all that complicated and gay ME1 story stuff in ME3 it wouldn't have been the perfect entry point for new players looking to experience a critically acclaimed action shooter about uniting the galaxy against an invading force.
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Nov 30, 2016 04:42
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Milky Moor posted:This is a gross simplification. I mean, you could do that but I think implementing any kind of after-the-fact justification that basically means "actually you can blow up the Reapers in normal space combat and win the war now" isn't really satisfying to me. (same with people who bring up the Thanix Cannon as some kind of plot device) The fact that you bought extra time (with a big assist from the Protheans) in ME1 is meaningful enough for me. Feels Villeneuve fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 04:43
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A Buff Gay Dude posted:Uh if they had included all that complicated and gay ME1 story stuff in ME3 it wouldn't have been the perfect entry point for new players looking to experience a critically acclaimed action shooter about uniting the galaxy against an invading force. If it were me, I'd probably try to make the best drat ending I could so I'd get people to go back and buy and play the first two entries. But I just post words on an Internet forum.
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Nov 30, 2016 04:44
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