Extra Credits Takes a Stab at the Mass Effect 3 issues

[ralfy]

Put simply, the C&Cs throughout the game should be connected to one of various endings.

 

[him over there]

Umm... Doesn't Bioware have to have some sort of Artistic Integrity to begin with regarding the ending in order for it to be ruined?

 

[Shavon513]

I respect what Bioware has done, and I hope they don't cave in to the massive amount of whining.

Sure, I am disappointed in how they didn't uphold everything they said they would, but the best thing I can do is to express my disappointment and not purchase their products until they shape up.

Leave the past as it is and focus on the future, bringing back the Bioware we once knew.

This reflects my opinion more than anything.

Yes, I'm pretty upset about the endings, and take many opportunities to voice my displeasure. I think Bioware needs to own that decision, but they don't need to give new endings. What's done is done, as they say. I really hope this results as a wake up call to the studio, and that the folks at Bioware focus on doing what they did well in the past.

 

[MrHide-Patten]

I love how when they left the escapist, everyone was wanting to burn the escapist down and the community hated Jim Sterlings guts when he got here. Now it seems people are quoting him forbadum on the whole games as art thing. Escapist you confuse you.

Although it could probably be that if you don't want BioWare's head on a pike, any words sound like; "I touch kids".
Truth, ends not good by any means. I'm just not that passionate to devote time to whining about something I can't change.

 

[WonderWillard]

I desperately hope Bioware doesn't overwrite what they've done. Not because I think it's perfect (I don't), but because they made an artistic choice.

No, fuck this, im done. Im never reading anything remotely related to EC again. I knew it was coming, I read it anyway, fuck this, fuck EC, fuck everything.

*Leaves tossing over random objects and kicking doors*

(Seriously though, I disagree. I knew EC would role out the pretentious artistic vision shit.)

Lol, you mad bro?

I knew EC would have something to say about Mass Effect 3. They referenced the first two games in many of their previous videos and obviously loved and respected the series. They also know games incredibly well, so I am happy that they believe that the ending should not be changed. I think that this is the best stance that fans can take. Some of my friends who don't play Mass Effect are sick of seeing fan rage all over the internet, and have actually been turned off from trying to get into the series because of it. The ending would benefit from some additional closure though, and it does sound like Bioware has something like that in store for us.

 

[FFHAuthor]

Is anyone going to acknowledge that maybe the idea of consumers holding a studio responsible for their actions might be a good thing? This will lead to developers being more inclined to accept real fan-feedback because it proves that we are still a powerful force to be reckoned with, and they'll be less likely to cut corners in places where it matters.

I'm very disappointed in EC for falling into that tired 'artistic integrity' bulls**t. It doesn't apply to a commercial product, and it does not justify a failure to meet the promises made before release, and Bioware will not set a 'dangerous precedent' by fixing their crass mistake, end of story.

Thank you for explaining this point of view. Commercial products don't get to hide behind "its just art, leave me alone."

It's kind of ironic really, before this, the lockstep mantra of the Gaming Reviewer/Game journalist/'look I talk about games online' crowd was that the gaming community DIDN'T take a stand on issues and that they had to do it at some point otherwise things would just keep getting bad. Now we have when it comes down to something that we love and is important...and all they can say is 'NO! IT'S ART! LEAVE IT ALONE!'


Fine, it's Art guys, but there is such a thing as BAD Art, and you don't see that in art Galleries, you see it hidden in garages. Art for Art's sake is a hollow reason for anything, doing something purely for the act of doing something, defending something purely for the sake that it is art cheapens it. Refusing to look at WHAT the Art is saying denies it the status of art, then it is merely a thing, a pointless, useless thing.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Yeah, it's art. The problem is that it's SHIT art.

 

[Active Schizophrenic]

My brain hurts after reading this thread. I will put $100 dollars on the fact that everyone was cool about games being considered "art" and would defend that games were "art" UNTILL the Mass Effect 3 fiasco when its all of a sudden "Wah nobody cares if games are art! change your game until we like it!" I want Bioware to charge around 20 U.S. dollars for this new ending if they make it and I want it to be so bad and cliche.

 

[girzwald]

I desperately hope Bioware doesn't overwrite what they've done. Not because I think it's perfect (I don't), but because they made an artistic choice.

No, fuck this, im done. Im never reading anything remotely related to EC again. I knew it was coming, I read it anyway, fuck this, fuck EC, fuck everything.

*Leaves tossing over random objects and kicking doors*

(Seriously though, I disagree. I knew EC would role out the pretentious artistic vision shit.)

Games critics defending "artistic integrity" blah blah blah is getting so fucking old.

Yeah, how DARE game critics want to treat games as a true art form? Shame on them for trying to treat the medium with a little bit of respect.

If this is the kind of shit we get when games are considered "art" then I don't want games to be art. Leave the pretentious bullshit to the painters and movie makers.

 

[Nouw]

Well, to be fari Kubrick's movies seem to be alwasy shitty as adaptations of the source material. 2001 was a great film, but if you read the book start to wonder if Kubrick ever did.

Kubrick and Clarke collaborated on it together .

 

[Kahunaburger]

My brain hurts after reading this thread. I will put $100 dollars on the fact that everyone was cool about games being considered "art" and would defend that games were "art" UNTILL the Mass Effect 3 fiasco when its all of a sudden "Wah nobody cares if games are art! change your game until we like it!" I want Bioware to charge around 20 U.S. dollars for this new ending if they make it and I want it to be so bad and cliche.

ITT: We act like something being art makes it impossible to criticize, and someone being an artist makes it unthinkable for them to get requests.

 

[Merrick_HLC]

My brain hurts after reading this thread. I will put $100 dollars on the fact that everyone was cool about games being considered "art" and would defend that games were "art" UNTILL the Mass Effect 3 fiasco when its all of a sudden "Wah nobody cares if games are art! change your game until we like it!" I want Bioware to charge around 20 U.S. dollars for this new ending if they make it and I want it to be so bad and cliche.

ITT: We act like something being art makes it impossible to criticize, and someone being an artist makes it unthinkable for them to get requests.

Exactly.

A lot of "art" responds directly or indirectly to fan complaints.

Batman movies get HORRIBLE fan response for being over the top & campy as hell?
Newer Batman movies swing HARD in the other direction making things far more 'realistic' & serious tone.

X-men movies get fan hate for turning into big actionfests with bad plots & no real character development.
X-Men:First Class becomes probably the most character driven movie of the series.

(I know I'm using things that are 'blockbusters' and not 'arthouse' but still they're as much 'art' as anything)

Just because "Max Hell: Toad Warrior" is a film someone made, and it IS therefore "art" does not mean that people can't criticize it.

If a TV show does a storyline that strongly derails a character, fans will complain and the changes may be addressed in story (quite sure this has happened though I'm too lazy to look up examples)

Games are also a medium where changes after production are the NORM and not the exception, IMO it's more like making suggestions before it's really complete.
Games are no longer 'finished products' until the last DLC is released.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And I further have a problem with people who not only fail to stand up to these assholes and tell them to stop, but most of the time pretend it's nothing worth being offended about.

How on EARTH do you propose to stop people voicing their opinions? This concept of "a community needs to silence vocal troublemakers in order to merit respect" is ludicrous. It's always been ludicrous. Does the left wing of the political spectrum and every good idea it's ever had collapse because of some outspoken nutjobs? Or the right? Or anything? How are we to go around muzzling people who loosely affiliate themselves with us, but don't represent our values, so that we're not tarnished by association? Would it even be ethical to do that? Isn't it YOUR job to think critically and make distinctions?

Good grief Vornoff. You can be a very sensible guy. I can't believe you wrote that.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Did I say "silence?" I just said to stand up to them. Is it really that difficult to turn to some loudmouth douchebag and say, "Dude, quit it. You're not helping."?

You can't stop stupid people from being stupid, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't stand up to them when they get on their soapbox and presume to speak for you.

How am I to do that, exactly? When Zeel talked about hating the ME3 endings, he and I spoke with once voice. When Zeel talked about ANYTHING else, my level of distaste for both his message and his method of delivery was so palpable you could cut it with a knife. How then do I "stand up" to Zeel and prevent his message from reaching your ears? Do I scour the forums for posts by him, and try to shout him into silence? You are talking about the words and actions of demographic that are, by definition, attention seeking and immature. No amount of "standing up" to them is going to change the volume or tenor of their behavior.

The Retake ME3 "movement" (and god, I hate calling it that, I just can't think of what else to call it) actually began with the STATED GOAL of offering constructive feedback instead of name calling and aggression. They actively requested calm, effective discussion, and deliberately donated to charity to try and color their "cause" in a positive light. Merizan praised their efforts as the right way to protest, and said she was proud to serve a fan base that behaved in such a fashion. Their reward for this behavior was to be branded by "journalists" and backlashing community members as crybabies, whiners and entitled children, and to have their little movement get colored by the shitty behavior of EVERY SINGLE IDIOT who didn't like the ending and felt the need to let the world know about it. Did you argue with a stupid person, who had stupid reasons for not liking ME3, and expressed them in stupid ways? Well, that's now the public face of Retake ME3!

How does anyone "stand up" to that? Why does anyone have to specifically issue statements of non-affiliation every time someone stupid opens their mouth? Perhaps you are a man. Every time a man does something stupid, do you need to seek him out and stand up to him, or be tarnished by his behavior and beliefs? Do I need to HEAR you say "I am against rape", and until I hear you say it, I must assume you are pro-rape, because you are a man, and a man raped someone?

Essentially what you're trying to do here is establish justification for ad hominem attacks. You want to be able to undermine a perceived demographic based on the behavior of certain individuals, and since you realize you can't attribute that behavior to all of them, you've chosen a new angle of attack, which is to blame them for not "standing up to it". As though we all had a moral imperative to kick the soapboxes out from under the feet of everyone we disagreed with, on the off chance they might presume to speak for us.

Again, it is your responsibility to think for yourself, to treat individuals like individuals, and to judge arguments based on the merits of the argument, and not on the behavior of some of the people who might be issuing them.

 

[Jaeke]

Us spectators decide, ultimately, who is the artist, what is art, and what is not.

"Artists" may finish a work they have done over their lifetime and consider it a masterpiece, but it is us, the spectators, who judge the work, and decide if its art.

Lying for cash isn't art. Its a scam.

 

[=HCFS=Discoman]

Stating mass effect fans are entitled...Isn't the basic mascot for the fans of the series the 'take my money!' picture?
Haven't the people who liked it bought, well, everything tangentially related to it?
Hell, I have all the DLC for ME2. Well, all that is available on the pc. I have all the DLC for Dragon Age: Origins.It isn't much of an investment monetarily, but I do have a substantial time and emotional investment.

Yeah, I checked out videos on the ending. Extra Credits does have a point: it is unsatisfactory. It raises more questions than it answers. What happens to everyone? How is my squad effected by whatever choice I make? etc, etc.

But, as an artist myself, I can agree with the point that it was a choice. Artistic choice? I am not so sure. It was an ending written in the script and done in cinematics by player choice. But the ending doesn't really fit with everything else in the ME universe and everything that has happened so far.

The way a sculpture looks is artistic choice. You can't really change the way a sculpture looks either after it's finished-it's a hard an expensive task.
ME storytelling so far has been an example of games as art. Story as art.
But the ending-one thing art generally has is flow; things in the piece are there to interact with other things in the piece. But the ending doesn't mesh with the existing universe Bioware created. It's like if the Mona Lisa had cuts through the canvas.
Changing it to better flow with the existing universe would be like removing the aforementioned cuts. I don't care if they do make a fourth game because some new ending had Shepard survive.
I personally just want to see it flow better. Bioware made many great games (ME, ME2, DA:O) so why did this one end up not so hot?
Not being in employ of Bioware or EA, all I can do is take a stab at it.

well, just my two cents. Now just to sit back and enjoy the rage that this thread is generating.

 

[traineesword]

Yeah. But I do believe the people demanding a change have been the worst by far. At least my side of the argument didn't have people demanding their money back from a fucking charity.

People from "your side of the argument" were attacking said charity for accepting money in the first place. But let's not play that game, because it's childish.

sorry to quote you almost at random, but you were the only person who replied to this guy's claim (or at least i didn't see any others for another 2 pages) that they took from a charity seemingly saying that the charity was not deserving money.
So which charity was this sorry? or is it referring to the "re-take ME3" which I believed was actually a kick-starter inspired project?

I'm not trying to start any argument here, I just want to know (and I certainly don't want to re-start a 20 day finished thread about a game I've never played)