Re-Take The Cabin

[Something Amyss]

What about all those poor people in Lucas-films Movie Bob? Or do you only have sympathy for people who work on projects that you didn't give a shit about to begin with?

Considering he's calling people out for behaviour he exibits...

If only the ENDING wasn't so insulting

I'd say it's more Bioware/EA that's insulting. The ending's just bad.

 

[SilverBullets000]

All those quotes are is an attempt to justify the vitriol, to justify the demands that Bioware change something that belongs them, regardless of how broken it is.

Bioware is a business, and the Retake movement represents a large portion of their customers. It is -absolutely- the right of the customer to demand quality in a product, vitriol or not (though the organizers of the Retake movement have been very polite and cordial).

Of course the product is Bioware's property, no one is contesting that. What is contested here is whether or not the players should quietly just deal with a broken end, or ask for better. Why is asking for the broken ending to be fixed wrong?

Exactly. Is it bad?

Because reviewers slam poor products and wish there were better things out there all the time.

Now there's some rational thinking.

When this first started, I thought the critics would support Retake simply because it implied that the average consumer was not going to put up with the quality of their product taking a nose dive during one of the the most important moments. Instead, we got called a bunch of entitled man-children simply because Retakers (I'm not part of Retake myself, even though I think what they did was at least partially right, though expressing it the wrong way) had the audacity to speak out against it.
Also, yes, I know there are idiots in it. There are idiots in everything that has a purpose, no matter how small that purpose is.

This is the part where I should discuss the artistic merit of the plot, how Bioware's artistic integrity would be compromised if they did do so, but I don't really beleive that to be the case. Throwing out the whole plot at the last ten minutes and being contrary to the core messages that the game was trying to make doesn't seem very artistic to me.

To avoid repeating what everyone else has already said, I'll get straight to the point:
How do critics expect better products to come if they do nothing about the ones that can be corrected when said correction is needed?

One more thing, to those that are bound to say that they liked the original ending: That's fine. If you do, then good for you, I'm glad at least you guys were able to enjoy it. (I'm aware that sounds sarcastic, but it isn't. Seriously isn't.)

 

[Casey Goddard]

Apples aren't oranges and computers aren't cars. Movies and video games aren't all that similar either yet Bob keeps acting like they're one in the same.

 

[Raesvelg]

Bioware has made it pretty clear through the entire series that a conventional victory against the Reapers was impossible.

I'm gonna have to call bullshit on this bit.

You'd be wrong then.

Yes, the Reapers ROLFstomped the galaxy countless times over in the past. It has however been explicitly stated that they did this because...

1) The preveious civilisations were too homogenised and not diversified enough (at least in the case of the Protheans anyhow) and were thus more predicatble and easier to break down.

You know of that happening in exactly one cycle, specifically the Protheans, who were probably one of the most powerful civilizations in the history of the cycles. And they still got wiped out without effect on the Reapers.

Anything else on that count is pure supposition.

2) They started the invasion by taking control of the citadel, killing the galactic rulers who usually occupied it and taking out all major forms of galactic communication and transport, leaving them free to wipe out system after system with methodical and overwhelming force.

It makes it easier, certainly. The way the war unfolds in ME3 pretty conclusively proves that it's not necessary, however, as the Reapers pretty much hit the major races all over the galaxy in rapid succession and win basically every fight they get into.

Without difficulty.

Tens of millions of years, tens of thousands of cycles, weapons of literally planet-shattering power deployed, and no previous cycle has ever defeated the Reapers. All they've ever managed to do, at best, is kill a few, and add a little bit more to the Crucible.

I stand by my statement. Bioware made it abundantly clear that a conventional victory against the Reapers was not possible.

 

[Raesvelg]

Comparing interactive mediums to uninteractive ones isn't a good comparison. A person might think a book character made a dumb decision, but they understand there's nothing you can do about it except stop reading, but in a game where every other decision is the game is made by the player, pulling that away in the last five minutes at the climax of the game and proceeding to make clear whatever choice you make destroys the galactic civilisation you've been trying to protect for around 100 hours of game time...yeah. Might have sounded good in an echo chamber with two guys who think alike, but will probably be held up as an example for years to come as to why game climaxes should be subject to peer review before the public gets to see it no matter who you are.

First off, while games are an interactive medium, it's a limited interaction in most cases. This one, particularly so. Sure, the method by which Shepard arrives at a given event might vary depending on the choices of the player, but in the grand scheme of things, the event is unaffected by those choices.

You defeat Sovereign.
You defeat the Collectors.
You defeat the Reapers.

Everything else is window dressing. The illusion of choice. Shepard, for example, never gets the option to say "Well, to hell with fighting the Reapers, let's just follow the example of the Quarians, build big honking ark ships and fly our way out of the galaxy entirely". No, you're stuck following the story that Bioware wanted to tell you; the only difference is that you get to make some relatively inconsequential choices along the way.

As for the bit about all the choices resulting in the destruction of galactic civilization, that's one of the most enduring and least founded complaints I've seen out of the ReTake crowd, no offense. The galaxy loses the relays, yes. But the galaxy still has perfectly serviceable FTL travel, so life goes on. Just a bit slower.

They said it was impossible, but then in the previous two games had you do the impossible (multiple times) and come out the other end.

There's "impossible": "Defeat the Collectors on their own turf?! That's a suicide mission! We say that, even though we have no idea whatsoever what's waiting for us on the other side! For all we know, the Collector base is guarded by a troop of Boy Scouts armed with BB guns!"

(Which ultimately proves to be more-or-less the case... A couple fighters, one ship, no other major defensive systems... yeah, suicide mission there...)

And then there's impossible: "Defeat the Reapers, who have been systematically wiping all advanced civilizations off the map with almost no discernable effort for literally tens of millions of years?! Well... crap, that really is a suicide mission..."

(Total dreadnoughts among all the fleets of all the Citadel races? ~85
Total Reapers seen in the CS at the end of ME2? ~295)

 

[1337mokro]

Comparing interactive mediums to uninteractive ones isn't a good comparison. A person might think a book character made a dumb decision, but they understand there's nothing you can do about it except stop reading, but in a game where every other decision is the game is made by the player, pulling that away in the last five minutes at the climax of the game and proceeding to make clear whatever choice you make destroys the galactic civilisation you've been trying to protect for around 100 hours of game time...yeah. Might have sounded good in an echo chamber with two guys who think alike, but will probably be held up as an example for years to come as to why game climaxes should be subject to peer review before the public gets to see it no matter who you are.

First off, while games are an interactive medium, it's a limited interaction in most cases. This one, particularly so. Sure, the method by which Shepard arrives at a given event might vary depending on the choices of the player, but in the grand scheme of things, the event is unaffected by those choices.

You defeat Sovereign.
You defeat the Collectors.
You defeat the Reapers.

Everything else is window dressing. The illusion of choice. Shepard, for example, never gets the option to say "Well, to hell with fighting the Reapers, let's just follow the example of the Quarians, build big honking ark ships and fly our way out of the galaxy entirely". No, you're stuck following the story that Bioware wanted to tell you; the only difference is that you get to make some relatively inconsequential choices along the way.

As for the bit about all the choices resulting in the destruction of galactic civilization, that's one of the most enduring and least founded complaints I've seen out of the ReTake crowd, no offense. The galaxy loses the relays, yes. But the galaxy still has perfectly serviceable FTL travel, so life goes on. Just a bit slower.

They said it was impossible, but then in the previous two games had you do the impossible (multiple times) and come out the other end.

There's "impossible": "Defeat the Collectors on their own turf?! That's a suicide mission! We say that, even though we have no idea whatsoever what's waiting for us on the other side! For all we know, the Collector base is guarded by a troop of Boy Scouts armed with BB guns!"

(Which ultimately proves to be more-or-less the case... A couple fighters, one ship, no other major defensive systems... yeah, suicide mission there...)

And then there's impossible: "Defeat the Reapers, who have been systematically wiping all advanced civilizations off the map with almost no discernable effort for literally tens of millions of years?! Well... crap, that really is a suicide mission..."

(Total dreadnoughts among all the fleets of all the Citadel races? ~85
Total Reapers seen in the CS at the end of ME2? ~295)

You can put down the controller and not play. That's always an option. Rather than doing what Bioware wants me to do I could just say "Yeah this isn't fun any more, let's go play this game." The story Bioware wants to tell effectively ends the second I stop playing along with it.

Here's the thing about games. The player allows the story to be told and the way the player does things changes the way the story is told. Even in the most linear game how good the player is at the gameplay still changes the context of the events unfolding.

A nice little bit is in Bastion where the Narrator changes several parts of his story depending on how often the player fell down off the level, how badly he gets hurt, what kind of actions the player takes, how long he spends on a single platform, etc.

The story progresses and changes according to what is being done.

Of course in the End you still do the exact same thing. You complete the game. That's what everything is leading up to. However if two Mass Effect fans compare what happened in their games they will end up with completely different stories and experiences. Some similarities sure and of course the same end goal, but in between is filled up differently.

Just because there isn't an option to create a Space Exodus fleet doesn't mean that the game is now a movie where no input is required from you except holding the stick forward. Stories need boundaries. You can't tell a story if everything is possible, but how you play it and what you do change it to a more personal story.

To say that "the game is unaffected by your choices" and "everything else [but the endings] are window dressing" is selling the medium short and quite honestly also the game you probably enjoyed playing. Not to mention the fast differences between different genres, story telling mechanics and gameplay styles you're ignoring by simply saying everything is "an illusion of choice".

 

[Therumancer]

Bob, before you go on about "Mass Effect 3" ever again, PLEASE do some bloody research. I've explained it to you in response to your videos and such (which you allegedly read), and pretty much everything I've referanced like the $3 interview app and such has been covered her eon The Escapist.

See, your the guy who has gone off on movie studios for selling out their product and delivering crap in order to make more money, at the expense of it's own integrity. That's what Re-take Mass Effect is about, people sick of companies destroying their properties for things like franchise potential. It's not a case of a bunch of creative sorts coming under fire simply for getting too creative, or anything like that. The business aspects of this entire thing ruins there being any kind of analogy there.

What's more, anyone who saw the trailers for "Cabin in The Woods" or anything related to it before the movie, should have known that this was NOT going to be a by the numbers horror movie. The trailers themselves showed birds slamming into force fields... and heck the poster itself has the cabin flipping around like a Rubik's Cube. That alone kind of changes the situation between ME3 and "Cabin", assuming you know anything about what the situation with ME3 is to begin with, which you apparently don't...

That Said (Spoilers ahead), whether you want to analyze it in a truely "meta" direction or not, the point was for "Cabin" to be something a bit differant, which it succeeded at. Taken on it's own merits I think it's ending is a good example of how something can have a disappointing ending, without inspiring the sheer kind of rage that ME3 did, which is why "Re-take ME3" stands out. Most people who leave "Cabin" disappointed tend to say that they would have ended it differantly, but not to the point of demanding the movie itself be changed, because it's still a worthy conclusion that fit within the movie.

Speaking for myself, I think the movie definatly showed the signs of being a project that was abandoned and then picked back up and finished later like we had heard. Up until the ending the movie managed to be able to kind of make points about the genere, while remaining consistant to it's own mythology. The final act started shooting out awesome like a machine gun in some aspects, but also managed to create problems in that it didn't stand up if examined. Things started moving towards the intended resolution in defiance of the movie's own logic. I'm hardly the only one who wondered why an organization that had been at this for so long wasn't prepared for the escape of their pet monsters, and why they kept trying to use ordinary firearms when these guys were experts able to control and command all these creatures and wrangle them back into captivity and such. What's more as the movie concludes, the "point" of the movie sort of clashes with what you'd have expected the actual characters to have done in the final moments of the movie.

In short it's a pretty good movie, but won't be great, because it probably needed to be done all at once with the fire hot, and it would have benefitted from being a little longer with a bit more thought put into the ending. That said it's not the kind of "bad" that inspires ME-3 like rage.

See arguably for Joss to have gotten a ME-3 response, he would have needed to pretty much have had to have made everything after them descending in the elevator transfer to psychodelic narration where someone muses on what had happened before, and might happen from that part, and then pretty much left the movie unresolved, followed by making it clear he planned to spin it out into a franchise and while he still could do that while ending th emovie properly, it's easier to do by not actually ending the first movie and giving answers that could be seeded into the first 4 planned sequels his Shareholders convinced him he should make and were already in the plannng stages... But even then that probably would have just ruined him, because as a stand alone product there wasn't the investment yet to make that kind of movie.

 

[omegawyrm]

Bob's silly liberalism shows again. Sucker Punch wasn't bad because it was an accusation of rape against the audience, it was bad because it was written/inspired by Zack Snyder's wife.

Cabin in the Woods wasn't generally about the audience being evil gods, it was about the everyday evil that governing bureaucracies can force even normal people to accept as necessary. Or laugh along with. Here, for example, is a gathering of the liberal feminist rulers of Sweden. [http://www.friatider.se/shocking-photos-shows-swedish-minister-of-culture-celebrating-with-niger-cake#.T413VM2wzf1.facebook] These types of people exist and rule the civilized world today.

If Bob was a creative liberal he'd have asked a question like: "How come only the Americans are actively failing at escaping, while the Japanese and others manage to escape in the end?"

Y'know, the sort of thing that would at least invite a real discussion.

...What the hell?

 

[ImmortalDrifter]

Here's a proper metaphor for how the treatment of the film could replicate the retake ME movement.

It's the final moments of the film. All of the subjects are dead, and the closing arc is happening. Suddenly disco lights turn on inside the "film-makers" compound and every one starts doing the hussle. It shortly revealing through a totally irrelevant animated cut-away that all of the people that they murdered aren't really dead and this is just a punk'd style game show. Then the elder gods bust through the door to the compound and demand that they get what they payed 60$ for. (people being actually murdered)

Oh bob, when will you realize that your opinion on games stopped mattering when you said that a fucking mario game restored you faith in the modern game industry.

 

[Casey Goddard]

All those quotes are is an attempt to justify the vitriol, to justify the demands that Bioware change something that belongs them, regardless of how broken it is.

Bioware is a business, and the Retake movement represents a large portion of their customers. It is -absolutely- the right of the customer to demand quality in a product, vitriol or not (though the organizers of the Retake movement have been very polite and cordial).

Of course the product is Bioware's property, no one is contesting that. What is contested here is whether or not the players should quietly just deal with a broken end, or ask for better. Why is asking for the broken ending to be fixed wrong?

The problem wasn't so much with the "Retake" movement itself, it was the dipshit who thought it was a bright idea to file a complaint with the FTC that condemned the the group. As they say, "one entitled gamer spoils the whole group"

You do know that the FTC unofficially acknowledge BioWare falsely advertised ME3, right?

 

[Seanfall]

Bob's silly liberalism shows again. Sucker Punch wasn't bad because it was an accusation of rape against the audience, it was bad because it was written/inspired by Zack Snyder's wife.

Cabin in the Woods wasn't generally about the audience being evil gods, it was about the everyday evil that governing bureaucracies can force even normal people to accept as necessary. Or laugh along with. Here, for example, is a gathering of the liberal feminist rulers of Sweden. [http://www.friatider.se/shocking-photos-shows-swedish-minister-of-culture-celebrating-with-niger-cake#.T413VM2wzf1.facebook] These types of people exist and rule the civilized world today.

If Bob was a creative liberal he'd have asked a question like: "How come only the Americans are actively failing at escaping, while the Japanese and others manage to escape in the end?"

Y'know, the sort of thing that would at least invite a real discussion.

...What the hell?

*reads the comments you quoted* *reads again* *and a third time* Yeah no I'm with you what the everloving fuck?

 

[Karnesdorff]

First off, while games are an interactive medium, it's a limited interaction in most cases. This one, particularly so. Sure, the method by which Shepard arrives at a given event might vary depending on the choices of the player, but in the grand scheme of things, the event is unaffected by those choices.

You defeat Sovereign.
You defeat the Collectors.
You defeat the Reapers.

Everything else is window dressing. The illusion of choice. Shepard, for example, never gets the option to say "Well, to hell with fighting the Reapers, let's just follow the example of the Quarians, build big honking ark ships and fly our way out of the galaxy entirely". No, you're stuck following the story that Bioware wanted to tell you; the only difference is that you get to make some relatively inconsequential choices along the way.

Yes and no, to take a real world example, Operation Downfall would have had the eventual same result as dropping nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did (Japan loses WWII), but the world would have looked quite different if that'd happened, the 'story' of WWII would have had the same ending (Japan and Germany defeated), but the world that continued after that story would be far different. Between ME1 and ME2 you can see this, if you let the council die and install a human council, announcements on the Citadel make it clear that the Citadel's authority in intergalactic politics is falling apart, if you save them, the races are working together more than ever. Both situations carry on from Sovereign being defeated, but change the universe the story is happening in quite a bit.

The main problem of the ending is that it rips away the illusion of choice, and with it immersion, by forcing you into a making one of three very similar choices and all the choices are something that most players would consider a 'bad end' (even synthesis destroys the relays and also forces body horror onto every single sentient in the galaxy) and the choices are based on a thesis that the game itself has been disproving up until 2nd last mission - EDI being revealed as the Luna AI you blew up and her shrugging it off, the character of Legion, Javik stating the diversity of this galaxy as being why he thinks victory may be possible (not likely, but possible), the oft mentioned possibility of a Geth/Quarian peace and after being presented with reasoning that is equally circular and violating the game's message up until then, you have no ability to question it, probably the only time in three games that happens.

As for the bit about all the choices resulting in the destruction of galactic civilization, that's one of the most enduring and least founded complaints I've seen out of the ReTake crowd, no offense. The galaxy loses the relays, yes. But the galaxy still has perfectly serviceable FTL travel, so life goes on. Just a bit slower.

Nope, because of the way FTL works in the ME universe, it can't be used to go beyond star clusters, the ME codex specifically states you need to discharge the drive core into a planets magnetosphere every so often, or it'll fry every living thing and electronic device on board (so no get out for the Geth either) a character in ME1 out an out tells you that without the relays that Intergalactic travel beyond your local area is impossible with the technology they have (fuel may also be an issue, but we don't know enough about fuel requirements and eezo resources to make a good estimation on that). So going between star clusters just on a FTL drive is a no-go by ME's own stated physics. People are at best stuck in their own star cluster for a long, long time. Which means if there is a densely populated colony without a sufficiently large farm world nearby, Sorry! Hope you like starving!

Communications wouldn't have been an an issue, since the game said that was a different system, but it also said the Reapers destroyed Comm-buoys in every system they entered and I suspect people's first priority isn't going to be getting them back up even if they know how and have materials and expertise on hand to do so. The whole dark age thing comes from answers on the Official ME3 twitter account which is where the 'everyone dies on the citadel' info comes from too. There's screencaps floating around.

There's "impossible": "Defeat the Collectors on their own turf?! That's a suicide mission! We say that, even though we have no idea whatsoever what's waiting for us on the other side! For all we know, the Collector base is guarded by a troop of Boy Scouts armed with BB guns!"

(Which ultimately proves to be more-or-less the case... A couple fighters, one ship, no other major defensive systems... yeah, suicide mission there...)

While it's somewhat novel to use poor writing to defend poorer writing, I'm not sure it's the stablest of foundations.

I assumed the lack of ability for a conventional win is why ME3 had the Crucible. But there were ways to make the game winnable without burning down the setting, Personally I would have preferred a Babylon 5 style 'Get the hell out of our Galaxy!' finale, even if it still required Shep's death.

K.

 

[Raesvelg]

You can put down the controller and not play. That's always an option. Rather than doing what Bioware wants me to do I could just say "Yeah this isn't fun any more, let's go play this game." The story Bioware wants to tell effectively ends the second I stop playing along with it.

You can put down the book and not read, or you can turn off the film and not watch, and so on.

Does that make these into interactive media?

The story ends where the story ends, regardless of where you choose to finish it.

To say that "the game is unaffected by your choices" and "everything else [but the endings] are window dressing" is selling the medium short and quite honestly also the game you probably enjoyed playing. Not to mention the fast differences between different genres, story telling mechanics and gameplay styles you're ignoring by simply saying everything is "an illusion of choice".

Oh, I certainly enjoyed the game, but I don't operate under any illusions when it comes to the "choice" factor in games. Each significant parameter of the game has a binary set of options: Pass, or fail. If you fail, you have to go back, and do it again.

You can pass in a handful of ways, in games that emphasize choice, but while there might be slight variations in the story, in the end you're back to that pass/fail mechanic.

Take a look at ME2. Strip away the insignificant bits like who among your crew dies, which is really only there to make you feel good about being a completionist, and you have two choices at the end of the game. Keep the base, or destroy the base, but in both of those cases, you have to defeat the Collectors. There is no other option. You do things the game's way, or not at all.

Part of the issue I have with the Re-Take crowd is that they distill the "ending" of ME3 down to the last 5 minutes or so. I went into the game viewing the game as a whole as the ending, and was pretty satisfied with the way it incorporated all my choices from the previous two games.

And again, my only complaint about the game is that the ending lacks resolution. I may get to see the impact of the choices I made in ME/ME2, but for the most part I only get a hint at the impact of my choices in ME3. I cured the Genophage, do the Krogan go on a rampage? I reunited the Quarians and the Geth, does that peace last? Hell, I fused all organic and synthetic life in the galaxy together; what, precisely, does that mean?

Most of those are questions I don't really need answered, of course, but it would be nice to know.

 

[Raesvelg]

Yes and no, to take a real world example, Operation Downfall would have had the eventual same result as dropping nukes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki did (Japan loses WWII), but the world would have looked quite different if that'd happened, the 'story' of WWII would have had the same ending (Japan and Germany defeated), but the world that continued after that story would be far different. Between ME1 and ME2 you can see this, if you let the council die and install a human council, announcements on the Citadel make it clear that the Citadel's authority in intergalactic politics is falling apart, if you save them, the races are working together more than ever. Both situations carry on from Sovereign being defeated, but change the universe the story is happening in quite a bit.

And yet, it has no significant effect on the events of Mass Effect 2.

I install a human-dominated Council, I let the old obstructionist one die, I preserve human power at the expense of the other Citadel races and yet...

I still get sent out in a single ship hunting Geth because the new Council apparently still doesn't believe in Reapers. I'm still forced to team up with Cerberus, still forced to take on the Collectors all by my lonesome, and so on, and so on.

The illusion of choice. Announcements on the Citadel are the epitome of window dressing.

The main problem of the ending is that it rips away the illusion of choice, and with it immersion, by forcing you into a making one of three very similar choices and all the choices are something that most players would consider a 'bad end' (even synthesis destroys the relays and also forces body horror onto every single sentient in the galaxy) and the choices are based on a thesis that the game itself has been disproving up until 2nd last mission - EDI being revealed as the Luna AI you blew up and her shrugging it off, the character of Legion, Javik stating the diversity of this galaxy as being why he thinks victory may be possible (not likely, but possible), the oft mentioned possibility of a Geth/Quarian peace and after being presented with reasoning that is equally circular and violating the game's message up until then, you have no ability to question it, probably the only time in three games that happens.

Part of the issue here is (no offense) apparently the inability of people to see past the cutscene.

The ramifications of each of those options are immense; they are, obviously, vastly different outcomes than either of the previous game endings, which had relatively little impact on the universe as a whole. In one case, Shepard essentially becomes the space-god of the Galaxy, controlling the Reapers and presumably, someday, possibly going insane and restarting the cycle. In another case, all synthetic life in the galaxy is destroyed, presumably quite possibly including races that no-one has yet encountered, and certainly destroying the Geth. In the last case, all life in the galaxy is fused into a single technorganic whole, and the potential ramifications of that are... difficult to imagine, frankly.

But it does imply the possibility of Joker/EDI babies. So it's not all bad.

Sure, the cutscenes look the same, which was honestly a bit lazy on Bioware's part, but when you're looking to use the same magical macguffin in one of three ways, it doesn't exactly lend itself to wildly divergent cutscenes.

And again, sure, in all cases the Relays are destroyed. It's not the end of the universe.

Another part of the issue is in terms of scale.

The Reapers are clearly taking the long view. Sure, you can have the occasional success with an AI, but even in the ME universe, up until Space Jesus Shepard shows up, it does seem that the majority of AIs go rogue and turn on their creators eventually.

It's like calculating the odds that the planet will be hit by a substantial asteroid causing mass extinctions; barring outside intervention, it will happen someday, it just might take several million years. The people living on the planet might want to write off the chances because they're so remote, but the Reapers have a different take on the matter.

They're looking at every advanced race in the galaxy at once, and saying "Well, eventually one of you is going to screw up and make something that'll wipe out all organic life, so it's best to convert you all into more Reapers now so we don't have to lose the biological diversity of the galaxy".

Nope, because of the way FTL works in the ME universe, it can't be used to go beyond star clusters, the ME codex specifically states you need to discharge the drive core into a planets magnetosphere every so often, or it'll fry every living thing and electronic device on board (so no get out for the Geth either) a character in ME1 out an out tells you that without the relays that Intergalactic travel beyond your local area is impossible with the technology they have (fuel may also be an issue, but we don't know enough about fuel requirements and eezo resources to make a good estimation on that). So going between star clusters just on a FTL drive is a no-go by ME's own stated physics. People are at best stuck in their own star cluster for a long, long time. Which means if there is a densely populated colony without a sufficiently large farm world nearby, Sorry! Hope you like starving!

Where is that stated, because I've no recollection of it. The only time I can recall anyone making a specific reference to FTL travel in terms that are relevant to this discussion would be when Ash dismisses a dozen light years as being "only a day's cruise", in a universe where ships can go days between dumping excess charge.

For that matter, the concept of a "star cluster" being some sort of island in a sea of emptiness just isn't the way that the galaxy is structured. It may be less convenient to travel between stars outside of the denser clusters, and hence they would tend to be exploited particularly if there are Relays nearby, but I doubt you could find a spot in the galaxy where there wasn't another star system within, say, 25 light years.

As for a galactic Dark Age... well, of course that's going to happen. In the same sense that we had a Dark Age in Europe; life goes on, but there are no large empires during that period, and in some places, some of the science of the past is lost to the depredations of local warfare and barbarians.

It was clearly not the end of all life in Europe.

While it's somewhat novel to use poor writing to defend poorer writing, I'm not sure it's the stablest of foundations.

I'm not the one trying to use the "doing the impossible" bit as a justification for a different ending in ME3.

I assumed the lack of ability for a conventional win is why ME3 had the Crucible. But there were ways to make the game winnable without burning down the setting, Personally I would have preferred a Babylon 5 style 'Get the hell out of our Galaxy!' finale, even if it still required Shep's death.

And now we're back to telling a story other than the one that Bioware wanted to tell, and the illusion of choice.

 

[tmande2nd]

Anyone else notice that the Escapist gets someone to blog/vlog/review/preach/etc but they just get more and more and more filled with themselves over time?

Bob you can review a movie real good but you dont know jack shit about ME3 if you keep regurgitating the same PR lines that every EA ad fed person keeps saying.

We are not angry we did not get an ending we did not want.
We are angry we got an ending we were told we would not get, and that makes no sense.

But hey what do I know I have just been playing games for 15 some odd years

 

[Karnesdorff]

The illusion of choice.

Which the ending of ME3 destroys. Audiences and players forgive a lot as long as you keep them immersed, ME1 and ME2 certainly had their writing problems (Hey why don't almost all the named characters all go off on a pleasure cruise while we install the Reaper IFF, no reason!), but they got written off because it went somewhere good. ME3 didn't get that same bye because people didn't think the ending satisfying enough to give it that bye.

Part of the issue here is (no offense) apparently the inability of people to see past the cutscene.

The ramifications of each of those options are immense; they are, obviously, vastly different outcomes than either of the previous game endings, which had relatively little impact on the universe as a whole.

And again, sure, in all cases the Relays are destroyed. It's not the end of the universe.

But it is the end of the civilisation you've been fighting to protect for the whole series. I understand the ramifications, even the really dumb ones like since Geth and EDI are Quantum computers and thus beings of light stored on data servers the concept of them part 'meat' now is bizarre, or that since the Normandy was EDI's real body(she says that herself)presumably the Normandy is partly organic now too and has flesh. Maybe that's how they solve the need for additional fuel, you can run your ship on hamburgers now. With the Destroy ending how does the red explosion know what is a VI and what is AI or the difference between an AI and an iPad? If it doesn't did it just brick all the ships in Sol system? Can I think of anything that allows the fusion of organic and synthetic DNA (sic) other than 'Space Magic!'. My point is that when all of your endings are 'Do X...and also destroy galactic civilisation/burn down the setting for no real clearly stated reason.', that rider looks pretty big.

The Reapers are clearly taking the long view. Sure, you can have the occasional success with an AI, but even in the ME universe, up until Space Jesus Shepard shows up, it does seem that the majority of AIs go rogue and turn on their creators eventually.

...

They're looking at every advanced race in the galaxy at once, and saying "Well, eventually one of you is going to screw up and make something that'll wipe out all organic life, so it's best to convert you all into more Reapers now so we don't have to lose the biological diversity of the galaxy".

But we don't see that, the AI you chased in the Citadel in ME1 wasn't looking to kill everyone, it was looking to escape the Citadel to go live with the Geth because it knew it'd be destroyed if it was found, Luna AI/EDI is already covered, the side missions on Rannoch in ME3 and conversations with Legion in ME2 make clear it was the Quarians that went crazy and tried to kill the geth, not vice versa, the Geth could have wiped out eh Quarians as they fled Rannoch but didn't and in ME3 the geth are fighting in the Reapers side because the Quarians attacked them and then the Reaper code kept them in lockstep until you break that. Again, even speaking to Javik, he mentions that there were two similar races in his time, one a race of synthetics that the Protheans wiped out (so Organics wiped out synthetics in his time, not vice versa), and another race of beings who were a synthesis of organic and synthetic that were acceptable neighbours until the Reapers hacked their systems and turned them into murderbots (It hardly counts if the reapers force them against their will to kill organics), neither case supports Tiny Space Hitler's endgame thesis, really nothing in the game really supports TSH's thesis.

Where is that stated, because I've no recollection of it.

...

It was clearly not the end of all life in Europe.

Yet was hardly what one would call a win condition for Europe either.

The limitations of FTL are mentioned in the in-game codex in any three of the games, the ME3 wiki ( http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/FTL ) which is a cut as paste of the in game info and I believe it's either Engineer Adams or Nihlus at in ME1 that talks about the importance of Mass Relays to galactic civilisation. I believe this is also given as the reason why a huge percentage of the galaxy is unexplored, there's a lot of dead space between star clusters. Also, bear in mind that while 12 light years a day sounds fast, the Milky Way Galaxy is 100000?120000 Light years across, those Quarians and Geth, with Rannoch being on almost the total opposite end of the galaxy, are going to have a long, long way home (since they have to go up a spiral arm across and down another since you can't cross dark space for the reasons stated), if they can even get there.

True there's lots of stars, but how many of them have planets? How many have planets with Magnetospheres (only 6 planets in our solar system, including Earth, have one)? If you are in a desert, perhaps there is usually an oasis every 5 miles or so, but it doesn't help much if you can't find it or you find that between you and your final destination there's a 100 mile stretch of empty desert.

I'm not the one trying to use the "doing the impossible" bit as a justification for a different ending in ME3.

And yet, the series has very much been about doing the impossible, by the end of ME3 Shep could have brought an extinct race back from the dead, brokered a peace in a war that lasted hundreds of years, brought the Krogans to the brink of a new renaissance(or tricked them) and have them fighting alongside the Turians and Salarians, saved thousands of lives, and that's not even the end game quest. My argument seems to be rather consistent with the message of the series up until the last five minute conversation with Tiny Space Hitler.

And now we're back to telling a story other than the one that Bioware wanted to tell, and the illusion of choice.

The ending was kitbashed by two people on the writing team just four months before the game was supposed to be in stores and doesn't seem to have been the original ending anyway. 'the story they wanted to tell' doesn't quite seem to tally with that, 'the straw they grabbed' seems a bit more appropriate. Hell, even that 'Dark Energy' idea they thought about for an ending would have been better than that and still pretty grim.

EDIT: Also, how does this chime with that ending being 'the story they wanted to tell?'
http://i.imgur.com/xOQo5.jpg

K.

 

[pigmy wurm]

I just saw Cabin last night, and it was amazing, although I didn't feel it was as easily spoiled as you think it was, which is good because if it was it would be much worse to re-watch later on.

When I was looking to buy tickets for it one of the sites I was on showed it with a 70% review score from both critics and fans which shocked me because everything I had heard about it (not just from you) said it was amazing. After I saw it though the score made sense, that was the score from the people who saw the title, and saw the poster, and heard that it was a horror movie, and maybe saw a bit of the trailer. What they weren't expecting was a movie that, in addition to being genuinely scary and suspenseful was also incredibly subversive and really funny (but in a dark way). One more subtle subversion that I noticed is the movie built up more sympathy for the main characters. Once you know that these characters are being punished for elements of their personality that are being forced on them it corrupts the schadenfreude that most horror films generate. You can't get some satisfaction from the alpha male dying in a brash display of machismo when you know that he is actually (as the movie says) a sociology major on a complete academic scholarship who a few hours earlier was recommending political science books to the main character. I think some of the back lash is that horror fans are okay feeling grossed out or freaked out by a characters death, but they aren't use to feeling sad.

And Bob you sure do love poking that Mass effect issue with a stick, don't you?