The Escapist's Game of the Year 2012

[crazyrabbits]

That doesn't really counter his point. People who disliked the ending are gonna be the ones who both comment over and over about it and the ones who vote in these polls.

We've already had this argument innumerable times, and each time, the people who defend the game come up with the same nonsensical arguments. 65,000 votes in favor of anything, regardless of whether it's right or wrong, and especially when it's the clear majority by a long shot, is a definite indicator where the tastes of the fanbase at large lie.

This was during the time of the "Bioware defense force" - you can bet that if there were such a "majority" of people who liked the game, they would have changed the tide and voted that the endings/game were fine. No such thing happened.

Aside from these scant few GOTY awards (not even from the outlets who really counted in terms of opinion - that is, if people didn't already perceive gaming journalism as a joke), the largest response to the game over the last nine months has been incredibly negative, even from people who liked the game in the first place. You can see it in this topic as well (as I posted before) - even the people who liked the game have to qualify it by saying one part of it was terrible.

They attempted something different, they didn't completely pull it off, but at least they looked to challenge boundaries and try something new rather than conform to the happily ever after model.

Again with the nonsensical "it can't be a happy ending" nonsense. There's nothing wrong with killing the protagonist or destroying the universe - provided it makes sense. There's a reason why story conventions that have been in use for hundreds of years are still regurgitated ad nauseum - they work.

Throwing all of your characterization and plot out the door so you can create an entirely new conflict in the last 15 minutes of the series is objectively bad writing. Creating a story (even a third installment) where the material doesn't give you a clear sense of what's going on, who's who and why any of this is important makes a work muddled. There are numerous other problems with the game beyond the ending, which most fans (if the response online is any indication, and not just this forum) have realized.

It has nothing to do with "challenging boundaries" and everything to do with ending a story in a way that makes sense.

 

[KrystelCandy]

ME3 wasn't even that good... gameplay was okay, but tedious and samey from beginning to end (especially on hardest difficulty), and the writing was downright terrible all the way through, with as usual, the companions being the really interesting part of the game rather than the story itself.

I don't even understand how it got first over Walking Dead... ah well.

That doesn't really counter his point. People who disliked the ending are gonna be the ones who both comment over and over about it and the ones who vote in these polls.

And criticising the endings for not being "bright" enough is just dumb. They attempted something different, they didn't completely pull it off, but at least they looked to challenge boundaries and try something new rather than conform to the happily ever after model.

Most people didn't complain about the endings being bright, it's that the endings were horrifically dark. Bioware was aiming for bittersweet and ended up with a "universe is ruined, everyone is dead" scenario... at least for the stuff before the ending DLC. I wouldn't call bad writing challenging boundaries is all.

 

[AnarchistFish]

That doesn't really counter his point. People who disliked the ending are gonna be the ones who both comment over and over about it and the ones who vote in these polls.

We've already had this argument innumerable times, and each time, the people who defend the game come up with the same nonsensical arguments. 65,000 votes in favor of anything, regardless of whether it's right or wrong, and especially when it's the clear majority by a long shot, is a definite indicator where the tastes of the fanbase at large lie.

yeah no. All it shows is that there was a large backlash. Not whether it was a majority or not. How is that a nonsensical argument?

They attempted something different, they didn't completely pull it off, but at least they looked to challenge boundaries and try something new rather than conform to the happily ever after model.

Again with the nonsensical "it can't be a happy ending" nonsense. There's nothing wrong with killing the protagonist or destroying the universe - provided it makes sense. There's a reason why story conventions that have been in use for hundreds of years are still regurgitated ad nauseum - they work.

Throwing all of your characterization and plot out the door so you can create an entirely new conflict in the last 15 minutes of the series is objectively bad writing. Creating a story (even a third installment) where the material doesn't give you a clear sense of what's going on, who's who and why any of this is important makes a work muddled. There are numerous other problems with the game beyond the ending, which most fans (if the response online is any indication, and not just this forum) have realized.

It has nothing to do with "challenging boundaries" and everything to do with ending a story in a way that makes sense.

I agree. But that's not what the poll said.

 

[tyriless]

Eh, ME3 wasn't all that bad up til the end.
...Well, apart from the multiplayer. That bit was Asshole Central.

Disappointing, and somewhat hypocritical choice, given how we had a solid month of bitching about the game.

I have a theory or two about this. The bitching you are refering to occured throughout the year (which includes that forum that came right at December), and it kept Mass Effect 3 in the forthought of everyone's mind. Those that hated it continued to complain about it, however, for those of us who loved or liked it, we had to put up with the complaints which would come at every single turn. Want to discuss a film on one of Moviebob's forums? There was a nine in ten chance someone was going to crack a joke with ME3 as a punchline. It got old after the first month, and got really old when December came around. Apparenlty, we who enoyed the game couldn't be brow beaten into thinking that it was somehow subpar or mediocre just by tired out memes and the same "the ending sucks" rhetoric. All the negative deconstruction of the internet couldn't erase our favorite moments.

When voting came around, I personally thought it was best game of the year. However, I suspect some, but not all, thought the game got a bad rap, and though they may of liked other games more, these folks wanted to shine off the haters and say, "Yeah, we people liked this game, deal with it,".

As far as ME 3 GOTY win coming from no where, remember the old adage that those costumers who dislike a product are going to complain to five people, while those that enjoyed it are only going to recommend it to two.

 

[Atmos Duality]

I have a theory or two about this. The bitching you are refering to occured throughout the year (which includes that forum that came right at December)...

I'm referring to the most intense bitching, and when most of the arguments were still being made, rather than retread.

...and it kept Mass Effect 3 in the forthought of everyone's mind.

*snip*

As far as ME 3 GOTY win coming from no where, remember the old adage that those costumers who dislike a product are going to complain to five people, while those that enjoyed it are only going to recommend it to two.

You know what, I think you're onto something there.

Summarily:
I guess one could say..."The whining reached critical mass."
How ironic.

 

[Hargrimm]

Seems like a lot of people can't do basic math.

Mass Effect 3 got less that 14% of the vote. That's less than one out of seven.

That means that six out of seven people didn't vote for it.

So how can you in good conscience call it Game of the year, when the grand majority didn't vote for it?

That's just bullshit. This entire poll is bullshit, since none of these games have enough of the vote to be truly called GOTY of the Escapist community. A different system would have made more sense.

 

[Atmos Duality]

Seems like a lot of people can't do basic math.

Mass Effect 3 got less that 14% of the vote. That's less than one out of seven.

That means that six out of seven people didn't vote for it.

So how can you in good conscience call it Game of the year, when the grand majority didn't vote for it?

That's just bullshit. This entire poll is bullshit, since none of these games have enough of the vote to be truly called GOTY of the Escapist community. A different system would have made more sense.

What other kind of system?
This is basic popular vote with no weighting.

That is, unless you want to rig the polls into brackets, which creates its own set of problems.

What you have here is statistically, the more realistic sample you're going to get, love it or hate it.

 

[Hargrimm]

Seems like a lot of people can't do basic math.

Mass Effect 3 got less that 14% of the vote. That's less than one out of seven.

That means that six out of seven people didn't vote for it.

So how can you in good conscience call it Game of the year, when the grand majority didn't vote for it?

That's just bullshit. This entire poll is bullshit, since none of these games have enough of the vote to be truly called GOTY of the Escapist community. A different system would have made more sense.

What other kind of system?
This is basic popular vote with no weighting.

That is, unless you want to rig the polls into brackets, which creates its own set of problems.

What you have here is statistically, the more realistic sample you're going to get, love it or hate it.

How about a ranked system? What about more than one round with elimination?

It is weighted, just not in an obvious way. Most people aren't going to vote for a game they haven't played, so the poll is skewed in favour of the most played games, which tend to be AAA games.
PLaying all or even most of the games on that list would cost more money than most people are willing or able to spend on video games in a single year.

First off, what does "the more realistic sample"[sic] even mean in this context? What measure is "realistic" in this context?
Secondly, what this sample tells us is that there is no one game that could honestly be called GOTY, since even the one with the most votes got less than one out of seven.

 

[Atmos Duality]

How about a ranked system? What about more than one round with elimination?

So yeah, brackets.
Brackets are fine for tiered competitions when the order of the contest matters.
However, when looking for a population statistic (I'm treating those who voted as inclusive, since this is popularity, though technically this should be a sample statistic since I don't know if everyone voted), they introduce more error than raw popular sampling.

Sure, you get results, but you miss out on other data.

It is weighted, just not in an obvious way. Most people aren't going to vote for a game they haven't played, so the poll is skewed in favour of the most played games, which tend to be AAA games.

Well, since the only logical criteria for 'GOTY' here is popular opinion, in the context of "most popular game", that fits perfectly.
If AAAs are more likely to be played, they are more likely to succeed.

Personally, I'd have loved to see an indie game win, but that isn't what happened, now is it?
There isn't much you can do here to fix that.

PLaying all or even most of the games on that list would cost more money than most people are willing or able to spend on video games in a single year.

Yup.
And this same problem you present is amplified via bracketing.
Why?
Well, what does the person do if they come across two games they didn't play? (Assuming they're being honest)
Or one game they didn't play vs one they didn't like?
Not vote? Well, now you've just introduced an element of exclusion into a popular vote, and that's a source of error.

First off, what does "the more realistic sample"[sic] even mean in this context? What measure is "realistic" in this context?

That the population votes for the game they liked the most for that year, obviously.
Unless you're trying to objectify the relative qualities of titles, in which case a popular vote is not the way to do it, at all.

Secondly, what this sample tells us is that there is no one game that could honestly be called GOTY, since even the one with the most votes got less than one out of seven.

That's an arbitrary limit (or arbitrary significance), and not an objectively defined one.
What threshold do you consider?
Greater than 50%? That's just majority rules, and it it isn't any more conclusive, or less arbitrary than any other threshold, despite its common usage.

In a popular vote system, there are only two fields we can always assume (the vote cannot exist without): Maximum, and minimum.
In the absence of arbitrary thresholds, you can make simple, decisive conclusions based on those alone.

Just by showing that ME3 won with such a small % of the vote shows that we have a diverse selection of preference.
That's useful information, and information I would not be able to definitively tell through the use of brackets, because I don't know how many times each person voted within those brackets (vote one here, skip another there because I didn't play those games..vote the next bracket in).

 

[Hargrimm]

How about a ranked system? What about more than one round with elimination?

So yeah, brackets.
Brackets are fine for tiered competitions when the order of the contest matters.
However, when looking for a population statistic, they introduce more error than raw popular sampling.

Sure, you get results, but you miss out on other data.

When did I ever mention brackets?

It is weighted, just not in an obvious way. Most people aren't going to vote for a game they haven't played, so the poll is skewed in favour of the most played games, which tend to be AAA games.

Well, since the only logical criteria for 'GOTY' here is popular opinion, in the context of "most popular game", that fits perfectly.
If AAAs are more likely to be played, they are more likely to succeed.

Personally, I'd have loved to see an indie game win, but that isn't what happened, now is it?

I'd argue that GOTY should mean more than just "most popular", but that's another discussion entirely.

PLaying all or even most of the games on that list would cost more money than most people are willing or able to spend on video games in a single year.

Yup.
And this same problem you present is amplified via bracketing.
Why?
Well, what does the person do if they come across two games they didn't play? (Assuming they're being honest)
Or one game they didn't play vs one they didn't like?
Not vote? Well, now you've just introduced an element of exclusion into a popular vote, and that's a source of error.

Assuming I talked about brackets in the first place.

Secondly, what this sample tells us is that there is no one game that could honestly be called GOTY, since even the one with the most votes got less than one out of seven.

That's an arbitrary limit (or arbitrary significance), and not an objectively defined one.
What threshold do you consider?
Greater than 50%? That's just majority rules, and it it isn't any more conclusive, or less arbitrary than any other threshold, despite its common usage.

"Majority" is not arbitrary by definition. Tied to a proper voting system it would determine which game the Escapist community can agree on being GOTY.

In a popular vote system, there are only two fields we can always assume (the vote cannot exist without): Maximum, and minimum.

Those are not fields (in a mathematical sense). What are you talking about?

In the absence of arbitrary thresholds, you can make simple, decisive conclusions based on those alone.

Sure, but whether or not those conclusions are relevant is another matter.

Just by showing that ME3 won with such a small % of the vote shows that we have a diverse selection of preference.

Which was not the purpose of this poll.

That's useful information, and information I would not be able to definitively tell through the use of brackets, because I don't know how many times each person voted within those brackets (vote one here, skip another there because I didn't play those games..vote the next bracket in).

This information is irrelevant to the poll in question.

This poll was supposed to determine which game listed in the poll the Escapist community can agree on giving the title "Game of the Year".
What it did was tell us how many people liked a specific game the most. That is not a consensus.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

I'm not sure what your sayin ghere

He's saying if suddenly, right when Luke confronts the emperor, the emperor shows him that the empire created several utopias and the darkside was a necessary evil, and he'll stop using it once the rebels are gone, you know, things that make no sense and don't hold up when put into context.
That aside I really liked the extended cut, you should try it if you hated the original ending.

ah...thanks

I mena yeah, thats pretty much what the original ending feels like, and part of the reason is there was an alternate ending orginally planned that was forshadowed in ME2 (the sun on haestrom) and darkspace and all that....I'm not sure its that great but depending on how it was handled

of coarse ANYTHING would be better than what we originally got, even if shepard finds a hidden curtain and it turns out it was actually the "wizard" of oz speaking into a microphone....

I will play the extended cut at some point

By alternate ending you mean the original motivation behind the reapers.
In the interview with Drew (original lead writer) he said there were many reaper motivations discussed but none were set in stone and things can change. This really annoyed me...i think he must be just defending his old friends.

If he is speaking the truth then that is quite depressing...I invested in a vision, a planned trilogy..Not something that was made up on the fly.
Another starwars analogy incoming.... It would be like if star wars fans found out when episode 4 was released..Darth Vader was not meant to be Luke's father. Old fan boys would just die if this came out. You can create illusive man and collectors to further the plot, themes etc...but not the how and why of the reapers.

Here be MASSIVE spoilers, you have been warned:

Having played ME3 to completion only recently, with Leviathan, From Ashes, Extended cut and Omega DLC installed I can pretty accurately tell you the Motivations of the Reapers, as well as the the origins of the crucible and the "star child".

I doubt this will rectify the damage caused by seeing the vanilla ending, but I just want to impart what I know and why I have found the ending to be far more satisfying then what a lot of people have, rightly, experienced. I recommend you get Leviathan if either of you are willing to give ME3 a second chance. That and the extended cut really do add substantially to the end. Also, From Ashes if you haven't already, Javik is really fun to have around on missions where AI partners have shit to say. Omega is a nice and solid diversion in that it is a closed narrative with some great content, but it's skippable story wise.

Serious spoilers if you haven't played leviathan yet... final warning:

Spoiler

In Leviathan you are put on the trail of a mysterious Reaper Killer. After a series of freakish events, you are led to assume you are tracking a rogue Reaper who has turned traitor on its kind. Despite it violently trying to cover it's tracks, and other reapers also pursuing this "rogue", you eventually solve the mystery and confront the "Leviathan"...

Spoiler: This one is quite possibly the biggest reveal in ME lore, ignore if you want the surprise to really mean something

... who just so happens to be a living creature, one of the last remnants of the race that created the Reapers (indirectly). This species is the, self-prclaimed, apex sapient species to inhabit our galaxy, and tells you how they had conquered the galaxy by enthralling "lesser" sapient species with a power not unlike indoctrination. The Thrall species were allowed to thrive and grow naturally, offering tribute to their seemingly benevolent overlords.

But eventually, these thralls would advance to a specific point and, without fail, always attempted to create synthetics to be subservient to them. These synthetics would inevitably gain sapience and conflict would arise as a result. This had a negative impact to the "Leviathans" as their tribute dwindled as result of these conflicts (and because their enthralling powers had no control over synthetic life). After witnessing this event repeat over hundreds of millennia, the Leviathans attempted to resolve this inevitability, with little success. Finally they considered and proceeded in creating their own Artificial sentience to govern over their subservient species and prevent further cataclysms. This "intelligence" was, essentially, the first reaper, before they became genocidal war machines.

After a few more cycles, the intelligence, left to its own devices, derived a solution to the problem. In order to prevent life from exterminating itself accidentally, it deduced that controlled culling was the best course of action. The first species to be culled? The leviathans...

The intelligence had parameters to follow, one of which was to preserve cultures and species, and to resolve this logical conflict it attempted to minimize the destruction of culture (note that the reapers minimized collateral destruction when possible) and preserve the memories of the chosen species (in both form and abilities) after each "Harvest". The first harvested species dynasty and memories was recorded into the very first Reaper Construct... Harbinger.

To Top things off, the Leviathans, though caught by surprise, didn't attempt to rectify the issue as they saw it as a viable solution to their problem, just with unfortunate side affects. The remnants went into reclusion and used ancient artefacts to keep an eye on the galaxy and to acquire their tributes from small populations.

The Reapers are only part of a grander system. They are servants to it. That is their motivation. The intelligence was designed to fulfil its creators demands and the mass cullings was what it deemed the best course of action.

The next 2 paragraphs are somewhat speculative:

The citadel, though not specifically stated, is the Hub of this intelligence. The Crucible was an ever evolving project that was introduced by the Intelligence into organic cycles and left within the remains of harvested cultures, to create an alternative solution when organics had met certain criteria. It was left to chance technically, but giving the fact that the Intelligence is timeless, it was more of a case of inevitability. Shepards cycle was the first cycle to meet this criteria and to alter the parameters to the "solution" (or if you choose the 4th "bad" ending, the following cycle succeeds).

The condition set forward by the Intelligence was pretty simple. If organics succeeded in resisting the harvest and uniting against it, signified by the creation and completion of the crucible, the parameters the intelligence functioned under would be made obsolete and alternative solutions could be implemented. This is what we face when we arrive at the end.

The question now is, are the solutions satisfying to the player? For me, who chose synthesis, yes... but considering the choice is limited and all of them result in some sacrifice or risk, it isn't an easy pill to swallow nor is that substantial.

With the extended cut we see some exposition on how the galaxy you invested many hours into saving faired after your choice, so we get some definitive closure in that regard. But I think people would still be inevitably miffed that shepard has no choice but to die at the end.

Regardless of all that... I'm sickened that Leviathan plot line was cut from the the main game (and I'm definitely sure it was, giving how soon after release it was announced and how integral to the story it was... I can go into more detail if you want on this). I can't actually fathom how the ending could make sense without that DLC.

 

[IronMit]

SNIP

''Having played ME3 to completion only recently, with Leviathan, From Ashes, Extended cut and Omega DLC installed I can pretty accurately tell you the Motivations of the Reapers, as well as the the origins of the crucible and the "star child".''

I bought the Javik stuff. I watched Leviathan on youtube. I tried to watch Omega but I had stopped caring.I did read the first book and all the comics though.


ME3 makes sense if you play only ME3. The chaos-order synthetic story arc spurred on by the leviathan revelations fits together nicely. Here's the thing...if you replay the crap out of ME1&2 you see them going in a completely different dark energy direction. Several forshadowings in ME2. In ME1 sovereign mentions chaos or order but in a completely different context. In fact the word chaos or order is not mentioned any other time in all of ME1&2.

Combine this with 2 and 1/2 games of the narrative convincing you synthetics are actually good guys. The rannoch story arc has the possibility of ending peacefully, organic and synthetic can co-exist message. synthetics have personality.
Summed up in this scene;


was this actually a double twist then?

Theorising; ME3 got a budget from EA. They decided to mass market it. The story line had to be accessible for the new players to the franchise so they had to self contain it and disregard their own build up from previous games. They went with the overused sci fi technological singularity and piggy backed off the sub-story arc of the geth.

Anyway, back to the leviathan stuff;

A orb appeared in ME1; (3m35s)


The orb is prothean. The orb reveals lore about protheans watching earth from mars and guiding humanity.
Anyway ME3 dlc comes along and apparently its some special mind control tech of leviathans.

From the looks of it the current writers are just lifting some lore and making some poor fan fiction to back their new ending.
The original lead writer has yet to play the game last time I checked because 'his too busy'. If you lead the team that made 5000 years of lore for a universe, I don't care how busy you are you would play it.

 

[thanatos388]

Maybe because I still like reading books, it seems like reading books is quickly no longer a thing to do, perhaps kids just aren't understanding enough "good" stories these days. Is that why all of you give ME3 a pass? What was the last 20 books you read because you wanted to read, and not because you were forced to read it for a class?
.

hahaha...what?

oh I see, you read books so you must be soo enlighted.....I read books too, I liked ME3 all the way up to the ending, I have som issues with the story but overall I thourght the story was great

The ending was fine stop whining it was still better than about 95% of games endings. Also if you want to complain what about the side-quests in the citadel or the bugs. The game didn't feel complete in just a technical sense.

as much as it pains me to say I'm going to have to agree with murmillos in that no....the ending WAS fucking diabolical,logically, lore wise, from the veiw of what makes a good story it failed so hard it caused a blackhole which retroactivly sucked in the previous series

[rant/]see the thing is that its generally accepted that TRUE ART IS ANGSTY and that the more depressed me make ourselfs the "better" somthing is, and while getting an emotioanl raction is great and all just being depressing on its own doesnt make it better....thats just lazy, also throwing incoherant shit together to be "symbolic" is fine IF IT IS but no...no ME3 your not fooling anyone with this bullshit, this is not arty

oh and keeping us confused and in the dark is also not "deep" and "arty" its fucking stupid..tell me...please why would you do that at the END of a long running series? tell me whoever wrote that WHAT THE FUCK HAPPNED!!?? I NEED TO KNOW, THATS ACTUALLY PRETTY FUCKING IMPORTANT[/rant]

I havnt played the extended cut yet so no spoilers blah blah blah thanks...

The ending makes more sense to those who have played the dlc. No this does not make it a good ending. Just not a "Diabolically" horrendous monster of a ending. A lot has been explained in the extended cut. What Bioware wanted to tell makes sense in its most updated form (but it does piss me off what they did to retcon certain aspects of the ending. Can you explain where they were trying to be artsy? The whole thing was incomplete on its own. I think the main problem with the ending and the game in general was that it was simply EA'ed to death for as early release as physically possible.

 

[Ragsnstitches]

SNIP

''Having played ME3 to completion only recently, with Leviathan, From Ashes, Extended cut and Omega DLC installed I can pretty accurately tell you the Motivations of the Reapers, as well as the the origins of the crucible and the "star child".''

I bought the Javik stuff. I watched Leviathan on youtube. I tried to watch Omega but I had stopped caring.I did read the first book and all the comics though.


ME3 makes sense if you play only ME3. The chaos-order synthetic story arc spurred on by the leviathan revelations fits together nicely. Here's the thing...if you replay the crap out of ME1&2 you see them going in a completely different dark energy direction. Several forshadowings in ME2. In ME1 sovereign mentions chaos or order but in a completely different context. In fact the word chaos or order is not mentioned any other time in all of ME1&2.

Combine this with 2 and 1/2 games of the narrative convincing you synthetics are actually good guys. The rannoch story arc has the possibility of ending peacefully, organic and synthetic can co-exist message. synthetics have personality.
Summed up in this scene;


was this actually a double twist then?

Theorising; ME3 got a budget from EA. They decided to mass market it. The story line had to be accessible for the new players to the franchise so they had to self contain it and disregard their own build up from previous games. They went with the overused sci fi technological singularity and piggy backed off the sub-story arc of the geth.

Anyway, back to the leviathan stuff;

A orb appeared in ME1; (3m35s)


The orb is prothean. The orb reveals lore about protheans watching earth from mars and guiding humanity.
Anyway ME3 dlc comes along and apparently its some special mind control tech of leviathans.

From the looks of it the current writers are just lifting some lore and making some poor fan fiction to back their new ending.
The original lead writer has yet to play the game last time I checked because 'his too busy'. If you lead the team that made 5000 years of lore for a universe, I don't care how busy you are you would play it.

I must admit, I'm giving a few leniencies to the complete trilogies. The Dark Energy mystery, the one raised in Talis Dossier mission on Haelstrom and the few random references elsewhere throughout Mass Effect 2 do allude to something else happening, but it's just that, a mystery. There is no substantial link between the reaper cycles and the Dark Energy mystery.

My theory... they didn't know how they were going to resolve the story when ME2 was in production and decided to leave the speculations open ended. Dark Energy could have been one of the possible themes for a resolution... but it was ditched, perhaps for your theory to create a closed space for new comers to enter the story or perhaps it was simply not as coherent as they liked.

However, the Leviathan story gives credence to the Human Reaper we see at the end of ME2.
*ME2 establishes that the reapers convert the harvested races into new reapers.
*We know that Harbinger was the first reaper and his image takes after the first species that was harvested.
*We are also told in the codex that the varieties of reapers are vast in both size and shape, even though we only see a few specific types over the course of the game.
*The main antagonists in ME2, The collectors are reapers by way of Prothean conversions, similar to the husks and the alien variants we see in ME1-3, though at a more advanced stage of change.

Where is the Prothean Reaper? Who knows, perhaps they only make reapers when its necessary like when numbers need to be replenished. The Death of Sovereign possibly necessitated a new reaper. Otherwise converted populations like The Collectors and Keepers might have been the means to preserving the sapient species memories.

Who was to say the Orbs were Prothean? It's established that all the most advanced civilisations piggy backed off of the previous cycles lost technologies. Perhaps the Orbs were always leviathan orbs... after all, the Mission "Project Firewalker" in ME2 alludes to this mystery heavily:

*You are locating a missing science team within another Cerberus Cell. They were on the verge of a major discovery when they went off the grid.
*You eventually discover the site of their discovery, which contains a "prothean" sphere.
*It is established through datapads that both the Geth (presumably Heretic geth) and the Collectors have an interest in this orb... why? If the collectors are protheans, why would they seek this orb if it was their own technology? It's established in Leviathan that the reapers actively search out the remnants of their creators.
*Upon activating the orb a "wave of energy" bursts out from it, carrying huge amounts of mostly indecipherable data that could not be tracked (implying it was going somewhere). It is established in leviathan that the Leviathans communicate over interstellar distances via FTL energy bursts (that they apparently emit themselves). We see these pulses in action in Leviathan when it downs the Kodiak transport.

EDIT 1: I forgot the most important point of all... there is a mention of indoctrination among the science team. This is odd because unless they came into contact with a reaper then indoctrination could not occur. There was no active Reaper in ME2 and the only case of indoctrination appears on the Dead Reapers Husk (a different Cerberus Cell) and in the DLC Arrival (Alliance Military). There is no other mention of reaper contact throughout... yet we learn that one of the members betrays the science team by way of threats via The Collectors. So either the confusion caused one researcher to assume the other was indoctrinated (the one who was giving away data to collectors and geth) or that he was manipulated by the sphere to turn on his cohorts.

It's also established that the Orbs were meant to be discovered, since it allows the leviathans to peer into the worlds outside their domain and control lesser sapients if need be. The events of the Leviathan of Dis was the hiccup that eventually leads to their discovery.

Perhaps the Protheans were, in small populations, thralls to the leviathans?

EDIT 2: It's speculated that the sphere you acquire from completing firewalker is the same sphere you see in the Lab in leviathan. Since the Normandy was grounded and deconstructed/reconstructed after the events of Arrival, we can assume the artefact was confiscated for research.

 

[chiggerwood]

Spec Ops: The Line. It pushes gaming forward, and makes it grow up by a large bound and it only makes 3rd place? It could be worse I know, but it deserved it more than Mass Effect 3. If it fell to 2nd right behind the walking dead I'd be happy as hell, because the walking dead is indeed a fantastic game, but ME3!? Why? What did ME3 do that was so fucking great!? Oh well the people have spoken and It doesn't affect my personal favorite game, or my "enjoyment" of it. Good job to The Walking Dead, and ME3 can go fuck itself into oblivion.


Happy new year everyone, don't die!

 

[Atmos Duality]

When did I ever mention brackets?

Single elimination rounds is a form of a bracket system. It's the simplest bracket system, in fact.
Every March Madness bracket done here on the Escapist every year uses that very system.

I'd argue that GOTY should mean more than just "most popular", but that's another discussion entirely.

Whatever.

Assuming I talked about brackets in the first place.

Redundant.

"Majority" is not arbitrary by definition. Tied to a proper voting system it would determine which game the Escapist community can agree on being GOTY.

The definition of Majority isn't arbitrary, but using it AS your threshold for decision making is completely arbitrary.
Different branches of government use different thresholds for decisions making: Congress uses 2/3rds majority for most of its decision. Some state governments use Majority. Others use 3/5ths.
A jury uses Unanimous (100%) as its threshold.

As for a "proper" voting system, you dip into consensus here, and frankly, you're not going to get an actual consensus on that even if you use an elimination system. At best, the facade of consensus.

The single vote system used here is the most accurate, because it's only one vote per person, per game.
You don't have to worry about overlap, or any of those other problems you conveniently ignored.

Those are not fields (in a mathematical sense). What are you talking about?

Yes, those are very much fields in a poll. (would you prefer I call them something else?)

The criteria you voted on; in this case, video games.
Honestly, what else could I possibly be talking about?

Sure, but whether or not those conclusions are relevant is another matter.

By definition, a popularity vote only cares about which field has the highest (or maximum) number of votes.
ME3 settled that condition, since that was the only conclusion we cared about, relevance is of no further matter.

Which was not the purpose of this poll.

You make complaints about this very point...

Secondly, what this sample tells us is that there is no one game that could honestly be called GOTY, since even the one with the most votes got less than one out of seven.

... only to then dismiss it?

What?

This information is irrelevant to the poll in question.

I know it's irrelevant to the poll. Just stating why you use certain sampling methods in certain situations.

This poll was supposed to determine which game listed in the poll the Escapist community can agree on giving the title "Game of the Year".
What it did was tell us how many people liked a specific game the most. That is not a consensus.

It's a popularity contest and nothing more.
As for "Consensus", knowing this website that's not going to happen.
It was never on the table to begin with, and at best is a strawman argument.

 

[Hagi]

I'm happy Mass Effect 3 won and I think it's an excellent showcase for the strength of our interactive medium.

Many of the complaints raised against Mass Effect 3 are quite true. The ending was horrible, the story not really that special and whilst the characters were good they certainly weren't outstanding. Yet it still managed to touch people in a way that few stories do.

I think that's exactly because of the strengths of this medium and how Bioware utilized them. Character interaction is simply a very powerful tool that can take characters which would be good in other mediums to amazing. And they definitely used it right, people truly came to care about their crewmembers.

Whilst I haven't played the Walking Dead, not a huge fan of zombies, from what I hear it likewise relies heavily on this gameplay mechanic of character interaction.

So I'm glad ME3 won, they deserve it for their excellent usage of a great interactive gameplay mechanic that many other games eschew in favor of cutscenes or other non-interactive methods.

 

[AzrealMaximillion]

6 pages in.

When the math is all said and done it shows a paltry turnout in terms of votes for this event. I'd have to say that ME3, while good as a game, should not have gotten GOTY. Brought nothing new to the table and had the controversy of having EA and Bioware apologize for it. You don't apologize for a game of the year, you just don't. It makes no sense.

 

[IronMit]

I must admit, I'm giving a few leniencies to the complete trilogies. The Dark Energy mystery, the one raised in Talis Dossier mission on Haelstrom and the few random references elsewhere throughout Mass Effect 2 do allude to something else happening, but it's just that, a mystery. There is no substantial link between the reaper cycles and the Dark Energy mystery.

My theory... they didn't know how they were going to resolve the story when ME2 was in production and decided to leave the speculations open ended. Dark Energy could have been one of the possible themes for a resolution... but it was ditched, perhaps for your theory to create a closed space for new comers to enter the story or perhaps it was simply not as coherent as they liked.

SNIP

Perhaps the Protheans were, in small populations, thralls to the leviathans?

The protheans were in the previous cycle and leviathans are from infinite cycle before so i don't get what you are trying to say. Doesn't matter anyway.


My point is they did know the reaper origin story and the reason for their behaviour. If they didn't then that is retarded. You don't make 5000 years of lore and not figure out the reason behind the 'enemy' plan.
Dark energy is forshadowed several times in ME2. Only dark energy, not order/chaos, not anything else. You add forshadowing when you know it is what you are going with.


outline of dark energy from the lead writer;
http://www.polygon.com/gaming/2012/8/20/3256678/original-mass-effect-writer-talks-about-the-possible-endings-for-mass

specifically talks dark energy


However;

at the end he says dark energy was one of many endings being considered...


First of all dark energy is not an ending it is the entire backstory and motivation, the point of the reapers. Drew saying him and other writers don't know is absolute double speak bulshit...covering for his friends that still work at BW. This would mean half the conversation in ME1 with sovereign doesn't really mean anything, 'cos the writers didn't know themselves!

It brings me back to my star wars analogy - when part 4 was released the writer knows what the dark side of the force is, he already knows Darth Vader was luke skywalkers father. And the writer/s know the emporer wants power and that's what the dark side is all about. If Lucas and co said 'well the motivation of the dark side and emporer was being considered along with many other ideas until half way from return of the jedi..well that would be more retarded then ja ja binks.

Basically they either altered the reaper motivation, or they weren't too sure in the first place. Either way I am disappointed because it's the one thing you set in stone. I don't care about star child, about collectors, about TIM getting a bigger part, about arrival dlc. You make that stuff up as you go along and fit it in..it's the means to tell a story, move the plot, filler and a means to reveal revelations and themes to the audience.....BUT you don't go changing the entire point of everything..that is retarded.

God I am bitter!

 

[scorptatious]

Well, despite the ending, Mass Effect 3 was an overall good game, I gotta admit that.

Kinda glad to see Journey and XCOM up there as well.