Bioware: Yes, We Are Listening.

[Merrick_HLC]

I didn't say "whiny" even once. And you even put quotes there. I said boring, which Kaiden was. Jacob was too, but I liked him for some reason. I said Vega was douchey. That's a character trait. I can dislike a guy without thinking he's a bad character.

No joke, just last night I was in a party playing ME 3 with a friend who was playing it as well, we were discussing our favorite squad formations and he asked if I liked to use Vega. My exact words "Yeah he's a tough warhorse but ehhhhhhhh....really, I gotta say he seems pretty douchey if you ask me."

As somebody who's worked for the industry before, I have to say, this whole thing is depressing. Yes, it's good for a dev to listen to customers, but they (devs in general) have so little control that seeing a fanbase get so bitchy and self-entitled that a dev is actually starting to cave and act like they need to apologise for the story they wrote is just heartbreaking. If you read a book and don't like the way it ended, you don't rip out the last few pages and send the author hate-mail until they re-write the ending for you. Gah, this whole fiasco is reminding me why I refuse to be called a "gamer". I don't have near the massive amounts of self-entitlement and nerdrage to feel at home with the community.

Welcome to the Interwebz, if you've got fingers and a keyboard that clearly gives you the right to be as bitchy/self-entitled/jackassian as you like.

But seriously, I agree fully with you. Evidently, though, there was a whole bunch of stuff that was cut for the ending. I'm not asking for Bioware to make gaming history by caving in and completely making a new, but I wouldn't mind them releasing a "Director's Cut" edition that had everything they chopped out of the ending.

Besides, what were people REALLY looking for in an ending? Something like this?

Images like that are like the equivalent of a strawman argument.

No one is asking for "super-happy funtime" ending.
People are asking for an ending that feels like an ending, not like we missed a reel of the movie.

Honestly if the game had ended with Shepard and Anderson looking out as the Catalyst fired.
No big final choice even....I think the reaction would be FAR more positive.
I thought that was the ending and I was happy, just hoping we'd maybe get a "Fallout" style montage of what our choices lead to for that universe.

But no, the Catalyst stuff happened,and there was no real closure to the universe just palette swap explosions.
It didn't feel like an ending, it felt like the game just stopped.

 

[Vegosiux]

Besides, what were people REALLY looking for in an ending? Something like this?

Just something that doesn't feel like an ass pull, really.

 

[RJ 17]

Snip

The comic was posted as a joke...as if all 3 panels of it didn't make that clear already. Lighten up my friend.

Besides, what were people REALLY looking for in an ending? Something like this?

Just something that doesn't feel like an ass pull, really.

As with what I mentioned, the comic was posted as a joke. I think the ending we COULD have gotten if Casey Hudson didn't go all psychotic with digital hatchet and go around chopping out crucial pieces of the ending because "I WANTZ PPL 2 TALK AHBOWT MAH ENDINGZ!!!"...the ending we would have gotten if that didn't happen would have likely been what people were looking for.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

that analogy is bit severe.

i would replace it with "just before finishing the marathon you get to the finish and there is nothing there, no officials, no one waiting for you, no finish line."

That's acceptable. I'd also accept "just before finish the marathon you realize despite its good intentions it's going to fund fundamentalist interests in a region already suffering from such groups." Just to be topical.

 

[Merrick_HLC]

Snip

The comic was posted as a joke...as if all 3 panels of it didn't make that clear already. Lighten up my friend.

Yes the comic is a joke, but the fact lots of people act like that's actually what people are requsting is pretty true.

Take a look around and count the "you all want some unrealistic happy ending" #'s and the "OH heaven forbid you should THINK about the ending" type comments.

The comic is a joke, but it's not far off from what some people seem to think the requesters actually want.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I think the ending we COULD have gotten if Casey Hudson didn't go all psychotic with digital hatchet and go around chopping out crucial pieces of the ending because "I WANTZ PPL 2 TALK AHBOWT MAH ENDINGZ!!!"...the ending we would have gotten if that didn't happen would have likely been what people were looking for.

Well, it worked. He got people talking about the endings.

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Besides, what were people REALLY looking for in an ending? Something like this?

If that is the ending I was influencing the story to achieve, then yes, I expect my gorramn Space Sundaes. If I spend three games beating up the Reapers just to Renegade myself into becoming king of the universe with the entire asari race as my harem begging me to pump up their genetic code a few evolutionary levels then the game had better end with me "embracing eternity" 'til kingdom goddamn come. Figuratively speaking.

That's the catch; the ending only takes everything you've done up 'til that point halfway into consideration: the rest is just a "choose your destiny" button at the end of the game, which is almost as bad as the ending to Deus Ex: Human Revolution but without five years of gaming dribbling down the gamer's legs like the child that never was.

 

[RJ 17]

I think the ending we COULD have gotten if Casey Hudson didn't go all psychotic with digital hatchet and go around chopping out crucial pieces of the ending because "I WANTZ PPL 2 TALK AHBOWT MAH ENDINGZ!!!"...the ending we would have gotten if that didn't happen would have likely been what people were looking for.

Well, it worked. He got people talking about the endings.

You know what? That was my thought exactly when I read the article about him wanting the ending specifically to be polarizing. To which my response is "There's nothing wrong with having an ending that's polarizing and open to interpretation. I understand your wanting everyone to forever remember the ending to Mass Effect 3. But there IS something wrong about going through and cutting out critical information in the ending that leaves it just a mix of random scenes pasted together. There's a difference between having an ending that's so brilliant that people keep pointing out little nuances to display just how brilliant it is and having an ending that is so horribly executed that people have to actively piece together scraps of information to fill in the massive plot holes that you left...and even then there's no way to prove anything since there's evidence for and against each theory. This is what induces a clinical condition that doctors refer to as "Nerd Rage", and it is a sign of either piss-poor writing if nothing was cut and this is the problem, or piss-poor directing if things were cut and this is the problem.

 

[Tony2077]

lets just hope they don't let the over-zealous fanatics drive them to do something they shouldn't

More like over-zealous fanatics drive them to something they should've done in the first damn place.

Like not having a fucking abysmal ending to an amazing trilogy.

i really really hope your right but unless thing have changed when i wasn't looking the ending will be better the way it is

 

[BloatedGuppy]

You know what? That was my thought exactly when I read the article about him wanting the ending specifically to be polarizing. To which my response is "There's nothing wrong with having an ending that's polarizing and open to interpretation. I understand your wanting everyone to forever remember the ending to Mass Effect 3. But there IS something wrong about going through and cutting out critical information in the ending that leaves it just a mix of random scenes pasted together. There's a difference between having an ending that's so brilliant that people keep pointing out little nuances to display just how brilliant it is and having an ending that is so horribly executed that people have to actively piece together scraps of information to fill in the massive plot holes that you left...and even then there's no way to prove anything since there's evidence for and against each theory. This is what induces a clinical condition that doctors refer to as "Nerd Rage", and it is a sign of either piss-poor writing if nothing was cut and this is the problem, or piss-poor directing if things were cut and this is the problem.

People are pretty mad about the "LOTS OF SPECULATION!!!" bit at the bottom of the designer notes. And the thing is, I don't even mind speculative endings that leave a lot of loose ends. Sopranos? I dug that ending. Lost? Beautiful. Inception? Blew my mind. Bring on the speculation, by all means. But don't cheap out. Don't create NEW questions to answer questions in the last 5 minutes. Don't give us a shabby, confusing cut-scene with logical impossibilities in it. Don't give us a Windows Screensaver and a silhouette of a narcoleptic sounding Buzz Aldrin stumbling over his lines as a denouement. Because if you do THAT, the only thing anyone will be speculating about is whether or not you've lost your mind.

 

[RJ 17]

Besides, what were people REALLY looking for in an ending? Something like this?

If that is the ending I was influencing the story to achieve, then yes, I expect my gorramn Space Sundaes. If I spend three games beating up the Reapers just to Renegade myself into becoming king of the universe with the entire asari race as my harem begging me to pump up their genetic code a few evolutionary levels then the game had better end with me "embracing eternity" 'til kingdom goddamn come. Figuratively speaking.

That's the catch; the ending only takes everything you've done up 'til that point halfway into consideration: the rest is just a "choose your destiny" button at the end of the game, which is almost as bad as the ending to Deus Ex: Human Revolution but without five years of gaming dribbling down the gamer's legs like the child that never was.

To that I'd argue the point that when you put the entire series into perspective you come to realize that all the alliances you've built/cut off, all the choices you've made through the entire series were for a single purpose: to help Shepard build a united galactic fleet. But that's getting into a discussion about the games in general, and I understand that people hate the fact that we don't find out what happens to the Krogan, Quarians, and Geth. But that's a closure issue, not a "your actions were inconsequential" issue.

But I do want an asari harem with Aria AND Sha'ira as my queens...get a whole yin-yang thing going with my embracing of eternity. :3

 

[RJ 17]

People are pretty mad about the "LOTS OF SPECULATION!!!" bit at the bottom of the designer notes. And the thing is, I don't even mind speculative endings that leave a lot of loose ends. Sopranos? I dug that ending. Lost? Beautiful. Inception? Blew my mind. Bring on the speculation, by all means. But don't cheap out. Don't create NEW questions to answer questions in the last 5 minutes. Don't give us a shabby, confusing cut-scene with logical impossibilities in it. Don't give us a Windows Screensaver and a silhouette of a narcoleptic sounding Buzz Aldrin stumbling over his lines as a denouement. Because if you do THAT, the only thing anyone will be speculating about is whether or not you've lost your mind.

My point exactly. There's nothing wrong with having an open-ended ending. But when you butcher up what could have been an acceptable ending to make way for an open-ended ending, your ending becomes disjointed and impossible to follow because that's not how it was originally intended and written. It'd be like if Mass Effect 1 ended with confronting a Geth Prime at the controls of the Citadel and Saren was nowhere to be found.

 

[electric method]

Tbh, I'd like to say, yes BioWare will listen and have an engaging discourse with it's fan base via the Q&A section of the BSN. That, however, will not be the case. In light of recent BioWare history, in regards to TOR, BioWare asked for feedback etc about the abysmal framerate some people were/are having. They said they needed time to look into it and that they would get an answer out soon.

When their "promised" answer came it was basically a sticky forum post telling people to update their drivers and a few other trivial things as well. There was also a highly insulting part about how it was the fans computers being to blame and not their game. There was also commentary to BioWare about why certain bugs that were reported in the extensive beta testing were allowed to make it into the retail version of the game. BioWare never responded to any of it.

Lately all BW does is smoke and mirrors deflection of the pertant questions and won't take a stance on any hard questions posed them. When confronted with "you advertised this, or said this about such and such game", BioWare usually just doesn't answer or gives some trite answer that resolves nothing.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

What's the point of having your Shepard influence events over three games and five years if the ending you're fighting for, the one you're visualizing as you help your crew and the worlds you visit, doesn't exist? It's like you sign up for a marathon, you train for months to get ready, and on the big day you push yourself through grueling hours of running that strain your body to its limits and just before you reach the finish line you get hit by a car. The sudden, tragic, anti-climax of it all is everything you could expect it to be: a pointless act that resulted in an unwanted end and unfulfilled hopes beyond your control.

So yeah, just sit there and tell me how all these years deciding the outcome of Mass Effect, the CORE ASPECT of the games, has no relevance on how it ends. Because the irony is so thick I can spread it on a bagel.

that analogy is bit severe.

i would replace it with "just before finishing the marathon you get to the finish and there is nothing there, no officials, no one waiting for you, no finish line."

i would add in that, before hand, they said that there would be lots of people to cheer you on and you would receive an awesome free shirt and medal when you completed it.

 

[Pumpkin_Eater]

I still wouldn't doubt it, at least not judging by their past:

Fans hated the Mako. Make was replaced.
Fans hated the first inventory system. Inventory was scrapped.
Fans wanted less dice rolls involved in shooting. So it was.
Fans wanted to date/bone Tali and Garrus. And it happened.
Fans wanted less or no planet scanning. There was less planet scanning.
Fans wanted bigger hub areas. The Citadel was greatly expanded.
Fans hated boring human male squadmate. They got a different boring human male squadmate.
Fans hated that boring human male squadmate. They got a douchey male squadmate.
Fans wanted multiplayer. Well...they got it anyway.

And there's more...but I'm getting bored. Someone else can continue if they wish.

Some of those points don't hold up to scrutiny.

Mako was removed. The hammerhead is DLC only and can't really be considered a replacement.
Dice rolls? KOTOR used dice rolls, ME has always been point and shoot, with predictable damage
ME 2 had more, not less, emphasis on planet scanning (credits were all you got in ME). It was even more essential in ME 3, as it directly accounted for a long chunk of total war assets. You also had to play the annoying cat and mouse game with the Reapers.
Citadel was its largest in ME. ME 2's Illium + Citadel + Omega might be as expansive as the original Citadel.

Besides, what were people REALLY looking for in an ending? Something like this?

That's about as well written and plausible as the actual ending.

 

[Hazy]

Which is, unsurprisingly, what Priestly just recently did to the entire Bioware forum - lock it down like Nazi Germany High School on Spring Break.

A message board is not public. It is private property that the owner is free to run as they please. How is that any way the same thing as Nazism?

So wait a second, let me get this straight: you're completely fine with a company that says "Hey, discuss this game" and if it's not glowing praise, the thread is locked and the forum is shut down if this is a widespread occurrence?

The Nazism joke was obvious hyperbole, but if someone honestly thinks this is, in any way, a respectable way to run a message board, they are delusional.

See, this is kind of what I'm getting at. Some people aren't content to express themselves. They have to be malicious about it.

But I do know how to express my feelings about this. I know how to express my disdain for what Bioware has become. I know how to express my utter contempt when they cut their games up into little tiny pieces and force feed it back to the consumer base. I'm expressing my contempt for them outright lying to consumers, and how far they've fallen as a company.

Hey, here's an idea: maybe Bioware shouldn't make shitty games. That would solve everyone's problems.

 

[DustyDrB]

I still wouldn't doubt it, at least not judging by their past:

Fans hated the Mako. Make was replaced.
Fans hated the first inventory system. Inventory was scrapped.
Fans wanted less dice rolls involved in shooting. So it was.
Fans wanted to date/bone Tali and Garrus. And it happened.
Fans wanted less or no planet scanning. There was less planet scanning.
Fans wanted bigger hub areas. The Citadel was greatly expanded.
Fans hated boring human male squadmate. They got a different boring human male squadmate.
Fans hated that boring human male squadmate. They got a douchey male squadmate.
Fans wanted multiplayer. Well...they got it anyway.

And there's more...but I'm getting bored. Someone else can continue if they wish.

Some of those points don't hold up to scrutiny.

Mako was removed. The hammerhead is DLC only and can't really be considered a replacement.
Dice rolls? KOTOR used dice rolls, ME has always been point and shoot, with predictable damage
ME 2 had more, not less, emphasis on planet scanning (credits were all you got in ME). It was even more essential in ME 3, as it directly accounted for a long chunk of total war assets. You also had to play the annoying cat and mouse game with the Reapers.
Citadel was its largest in ME. ME 2's Illium + Citadel + Omega might be as expansive as the original Citadel.

I don't think you got the point. Whether the new game implemented something better or not is irrelevant. I'm just saying the team listened to fans and made changes accordingly.

Mako was removed because people hated it. They really hated it. It might be hard to remember because people also hated planet scanning and the Hammerhead, but they really hated the Mako. Its removal was a response to fan criticism.

I don't know why you're bringing KotOR into this. People had a problem with the fact that in the first game, aiming at an enemy doesn't mean you'll definitely hit them. There were dice rolls involved in your chance to hit in addition to where you were aiming. You improved your accuracy by leveling up your specific weapon skill. But even then, a hit wasn't a guarantee.

Planet-scanning is more necessary in ME3, but it also takes far less time. I could scan entire systems in the amount of time I'd scan a planet in ME2 (at least at the beginning of ME2, when I was trying to accumulate all the different minerals). The time of planet scanning was cut down because people didn't enjoy that mechanic.

And I'm saying people didn't like how the Citadel was so much smaller in the second game, so they made it big again in ME3. It might not be as big in square footage (or whatever the video game equivalent is), but it feels bigger because the areas are meatier (more NPCs to interact with, less long relatively empty areas).

 

[FFHAuthor]

So wait a second, let me get this straight: you're completely fine with a company that says "Hey, discuss this game" and if it's not glowing praise, the thread is locked and the forum is shut down if this is a widespread occurrence?

Actually, it was shut down for him to make another message about the zero tolerance policy the forums had against making threats of violence against the staff.