Why the hate towards retake mass effect? All I see is hate.

[zehydra]

No, the reason EA gets away with what they do, is because people keep paying for their games, lol. People who don't actually care about games that much.

Basically, what I would say is, "If you really hate the ending that much, then don't buy it".

Obviously this is problematic since you usually don't know the games' ending until after you buy it.

Which is why you wait to see what other people say about it before you buy it, before everyone blindly sends Bioware money like they're signing up for the lottery (which they happened to win in times past).

People who keep paying for the game feeling like getting shafted is life and they should just accept it. Sometimes they're one in the same.

Part of that problematic problem and the main source of complaints is people who had trust in Bioware. Brand loyalty is a hard to earn commodity and it shows how much Bioware had that people are taking their complaints this far. It's easy to say 'don't buy the game on day one' if you weren't wholly invested in the series but a lot of people were and that is why pre-orders even sell at all.

Plus as easy as it is to say 'don't like the ending don't buy the game' but it's hard to avoid spoilers on the internet and the ending was of such a monumental scale of bad it taints the entire series as a whole. Should people wait until all three games are out before choosing to buy in?

I'd just say don't get that emotionally invested in a series, if it means you'd be willing to throw money at something you've never seen.

 

[ultramarine486]

I'd just say don't get that emotionally invested in a series, if it means you'd be willing to throw money at something you've never seen.

For a lot of people that's easier said then done.

 

[zehydra]

I'd just say don't get that emotionally invested in a series, if it means you'd be willing to throw money at something you've never seen.

For a lot of people that's easier said then done.

I know :/

but it doesn't make them not responsible for going out and buying something without thinking.

 

[SageRuffin]

Because they generally act like spoiled children that's why. (except for the charity thing, that was very nice)

Until people started demanding refunds when they found out their money actually was not in direct support of a new ending, but instead was going towards helping some less-fortunate kid-type kids.

The higher-ups at Child's Play were rather upset when they heard about that, to my understanding.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

It's really only the name I have a problem with. "Retake" implies that they own Mass Effect 3 in a way beyond their physical copy, which is ludicrous.

 

[SageRuffin]

I'd just say don't get that emotionally invested in a series, if it means you'd be willing to throw money at something you've never seen.

For a lot of people that's easier said then done.

Good thing I'm not one of those "lot of people".

I was attached to my FemShep while at the same time I wasn't. It was rather simple for me to disconnect myself from my FemShep since: a) I always play as my characters, not through them; b) I'm never get all that connected to characters of whom I can't customize 100%; c) my FemShep was based on a character that was 100% my own creation, so FemShep was essentially the original character "as envisioned by Mass Effect" and thus created a lot of personality conflicts (example: she'd actually drop more f-bombs than Jack). Hell, the last point alone is why I went through the game with at least 7 different characters (and playing each class to boot... Sentinel was such ass in the first game).

 

[Asita]

It's really only the name I have a problem with. "Retake" implies that they own Mass Effect 3 in a way beyond their physical copy, which is ludicrous.

You do realize that was a play on the ME3 marketing campaign (the tagline for which was "Take Earth Back"), right?

(For those curious, the oft-repeated "Hold the Line" is a similar call-back to a speech in the original Mass Effect)

 

[ProtonGuy]

The whole thing looks like a giant temper tantrum, grown men and women throwing themselves to the ground and crying until they get what they want. That's where I think a lot of the hate comes from.

 

[Frozen Donkey Wheel2]

It's really only the name I have a problem with. "Retake" implies that they own Mass Effect 3 in a way beyond their physical copy, which is ludicrous.

You do realize that was a play on the ME3 marketing campaign (the tagline for which was "Take Earth Back"), right?

(For those curious, the oft-repeated "Hold the Line" is a similar call-back to a speech in the original Mass Effect)

I....did not. I still think the implication is there, though, considering that they're trying to change someone else's creative property. Just a poor choice of words, that's all.

 

[ultramarine486]

Snip

Money is a core aspect of business, and likely the bottom line as well, but if making money is the sole reason a corporation acts then it's going to lose it's customers and the money they bring in due to displeasure at the product. Games Workshop is a good example of thinking about solely making money at the cost of customer loyalty. Giving up many things that lost them money, but made fans happy, and trying to force people to play bigger games that would cost them more to play caused many long time fans to jump ship in disgust.

The debate between capitalism and socialism isn't really something I can really take up due to lack of knowledge that would allow me to argue the points effectively. However there is more then one way to skin a cat and more then one way to entice change within business.

You also seem to think that the 'retake mass effect' group is actively trying to take over or control Bioware or EA. That or demanding their money back for lack of pleasure derived from the game. Last I checked the retake movement was more acting along the lines of 'you screwed up, please fix this'. It's less about making them do something and more about giving them a chance to clean up their mess of an ending before they do like you mentioned in your post, take their money elsewhere and never look back.

Comparing it to SOPA is a bit unfair as well since retake has done nothing along the lines of forcing EA to change the ending. Granted there was the FTC lawsuit but that's a debate more about false advertising then about forcing EA to change the ending. SOPA would have allowed actual censorship over then internet as opposed to a large group of fans trying to send a message to Bioware that they want and ending consistent with the series as a whole.

And for the record I never actually bought ME3.

 

[Abedeus]

That game you liked had a disappointing ending. A lot of narratives turn out that way.

Quit pitching a big hissy fit over the whole thing. It had a bad ending, get over it.

It's not about ending being bad. Stop being a closed-minded ignorant who read about the whole thing in one panel of Penny Arcade and thinks we are angry because bad things happen.

It's about lies from developers, inconsistencies, plotholes, breaking the lore and characters to accommodate a last-minute ending.

Lots of series have had sad endings. Persona 3 made me feel sad for few days after it ended, but in a good way.

Mass Effect 3 made me feel like a fucking sucker who got tricked into "16 different endings, your choices matter, there won't be ABC endings you just pick at the end!" and paid $60 for incomplete, rushed or underdeveloped product.

Because I don't think gamers need a higher sense of entitlement. When I saw the thread "What should we retake next?" show up I wanted to kill something. I'm not too happy about the ending, but god damn it didn't invalid the other 130 hours I spent on that Shepard over all three games, and that's not counting my other files. Also as mentioned "Retake" makes it sound as if it was ours. No, we didn't make it, it isn't ours. The cupcake thing? Pure childish. The only good came out of the donation, which apparently some idiots believed was toward changing the ending instead of charity. That says a lot.
Would an expanded ending be welcome? Yes, preferably along the lines of the indoctrination theory.
Do we need to give gamers the idea that they are allowed to change whatever they don't like? Hell. No.

I know, right, next thing you know, they'll be changing BOOKS!

What's that, Sherlock? You... died? And fans made Conan Doyle change the story? Oh, right, forgot.

Shut up.

Such a good argument right there. Insulting everyone who disagrees with you works wonders for your image. And how does a bad ending completely invalidate what I'm sure was an excellent experience playing the rest of the game?

So everyone gets the right to call us childish, entitled, but the second I said "shut up" which isn't an insult, I'm in the wrong?

Also, yes, it makes it impossible to play at least ME3 single player. Why bother? I won't get a different ending. My choices don't matter. I get to pick one of 3 endings at the end. That's it. It doesn't matter who we recruit, who we kill, who we betray, who we ally with. NOTHING. Krogans won't appear in the final push if I cure genophage, Salarians don't show up to help me if I betray the Krogans, Rachni don't come if I spared their queen. NOTHING.


Also, the ending has multiple inconsistencies. Teammates teleporting onto the ship that runs away from their beloved captain for no reason, Joker trying to outrun explosion while using INSTANTANEOUS TRAVEL, Harbinger despite being all creepy and rapey in ME2 (THIS HURTS YOU, I KNOW YOU CAN FEEL THIS) just leaves after blasting Shepard once in the face, Mass Relays explode with the power of a supernova when they go boom, and probably destroyed a piece of the galaxy, not to mention the cinematic is pretty much dead wrong - it starts out not only NOT in the Sol system, but in a relay that was already destroyed along with the whole solar system it was located in.

Don't forget that pretty much all Quarians and Turians on Earth will die of starvation pretty quickly, Krogans will eat everyone else, starting with Salarians, and it will happen within a year or so, since Earth was devastated so much it couldn't even feed the humans alone, not to mention half a dozen of other races.

 

[Abedeus]

That game you liked had a disappointing ending. A lot of narratives turn out that way.

Quit pitching a big hissy fit over the whole thing. It had a bad ending, get over it.

It's not about ending being bad. Stop being a closed-minded ignorant who read about the whole thing in one panel of Penny Arcade and thinks we are angry because bad things happen.

It's about lies from developers, inconsistencies, plotholes, breaking the lore and characters to accommodate a last-minute ending.

Lots of series have had sad endings. Persona 3 made me feel sad for few days after it ended, but in a good way.

Mass Effect 3 made me feel like a fucking sucker who got tricked into "16 different endings, your choices matter, there won't be ABC endings you just pick at the end!" and paid $60 for incomplete, rushed or underdeveloped product.

You know, there's a quote from my grandfather that goes with this perfectly...

Aw, muffin. News flash, sometimes things end up in the shit. You may not like it, and it may not be fair. But it may have escaped your notice, but life isn't fair.

There are times when endings end up sucking, and you didn't get what was marketed to you. Are you going to wither away and die? Are you going to contract cancer and be eaten away? No, you're going to ***** and moan, and the second EA does some other thing that's typical of business, you're going to move on to the next "holy crusade of gaming" like every other fucking idiot in this petulant fanbase.

Get over it, Mass Effect having a shit ending isn't the end of the world, stop pretending that it is.

Hi, tell your grandpa it's the XXI century, and you can't go to another company for product you like.

Like someone said - you and people like you are the reason EA, Capcom and other douchebags get to do whatever the fuck they want. You just don't care. It doesn't affect you, so you don't care. And when it happens to you, it's too late. EA already ruined a fuckload of franchises and companies, Bioware is next in line after Maxim, Bullfrog, Westwood and others.

 

[Gigatoast]

They didn't do themselves any favours with that name.

However, at this point I suspect a lot of the "hate" stems from people being just plain sick of hearing about the whole thing.

"Retake Mass Effect" is poking fun at "Retake Earth". How are people still missing that?! It's a joke!

But the original tagline was "Take Earth Back".

Yeah, you're right there. I suppose they just felt "Retake" had a better ring to it. The idea is still the same though even if it isn't a completely accurate satire.

Not to mention the double entendre of retake as in to 'take it back', and retake as in 'try again'. Their asking for a "retake", a do-over on Bioware's part.

 

[MetalMagpie]

It's not that I don't understand. I felt like I'd been completely betrayed when I walked out of the cinema after watching X-men: Last Stand. I really enjoyed the first two films, but the third one was so terrible that it almost felt like it had been done on purpose just to spite me. So I ranted about it to a couple of friends (who mostly gave me the "I'm-not-really-listening" smile), then I moved on with my life.

Now imagine that the first two X-Men games were much, much better... that each of them were 30-50 hour epics... that you WERE Wolverine (or whoever)... and at the end of the third movie a sudden plot twist reveals that Dark Phoenix is really a creature created to save the world by reshaping it entirely.

And you can only defeat her by using a piece of alien tech that will also kill you.

And once you "defeat" Dark Phoenix, the rest of the X-Men magically end up on the moon and the movie ends without any sort of epilogue.

...then you'd be somewhere approaching my level of rage when - seven friggin books in - the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series decided to completely destroy all integrity the protagonist ever had.

That one took slightly longer than X-men. (I still haven't been able to go back and reread the earlier books.) But, at the end of the day, it's important to just take a nice deep breath and carry on.

Because unless you're in company entirely consisting of disgruntled Anita Blake fans, then whining about it doesn't really earn you many friends. Trust me on that one.

(By the way, that alternative X-men 3 idea sounds pretty sweet compared with the actual film! Although I'm not sure what you mean by "you WERE Wolverine", except in a video game sense. I.e. If I had to press buttons to get Wolverine through the film.)

I dunno. I think that sometimes rage is good. Maybe nothing comes out of this. Or maybe game developers take more care with their endings, and the medium improves. I'm hoping for the latter, to be honest. And honestly, I don't think this will set back the game industry any more than anything else that EA has done will. Can't see how that would be possible.

You may be right and something may actually come of all the rage. But my answer to the thread-starter is still the same: the hate towards Retake Mass Effect is most likely simply down to the fact that people find listening to whining about stuff they don't care about annoying.

Arguably, the group of fans with the most reason to complain are still Star Wars fans. They waited all those years for the prequel films, and what they got just wasn't up to scratch. The rage is all very understandable, but that doesn't make it any less annoying for people who aren't fans.

 

[Jitters Caffeine]

I guess because the whole thing on paper sounds very childish. Like a toddler who holds his breath because his mom won't let him eat cake for dinner. Only now it's become more like a full blown tantrum. Not only that, but the sheer amount of hyperbole being thrown around like people saying that the ending "ruined the entire series" or that "the ending ruined my experience with the entire series". People are acting like the game releases snakes or bees into your home when you reach the end epilogue. Did I like the ending? Not particularly. But what didn't happen? It didn't ruin all the fun I've had with the series. I'll keep playing the games, Mass Effect 3 included. Because I love the characters, the setting, and the plots that are present within each game. If just one of these people would take the time to talk like an actual human being without resorting to acting like the game destroyed their entire world, got them fired from their job, ran off with their girlfriend, and killed their dog, it'd probably do them a lot of good.

 

[JediMB]

...then you'd be somewhere approaching my level of rage when - seven friggin books in - the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series decided to completely destroy all integrity the protagonist ever had.

That one took slightly longer than X-men. (I still haven't been able to go back and reread the earlier books.) But, at the end of the day, it's important to just take a nice deep breath and carry on.

Because unless you're in company entirely consisting of disgruntled Anita Blake fans, then whining about it doesn't really earn you many friends. Trust me on that one.

Yeah, I'll just consider myself lucky to have so many friends, both RL and online, who also hate Mass Effect 3's ending. That, along with a singular blog post I put together, stops me from doing stupid things like creating threads on The Escapist. ;D

Hell, just yesterday I got a message from a friend I haven't seen since last year (although we're meeting this weekend), who was disappointed after playing through the game. He had figured he'd try the third game first, and if he liked it he'd go back and play the first two games too. That just isn't happening anymore, since he didn't like how all his choices throughout the game were rendered null and void, so he doesn't have any interesting games to play for most of the rest of the year. Oops.

(By the way, that alternative X-men 3 idea sounds pretty sweet compared with the actual film! Although I'm not sure what you mean by "you WERE Wolverine", except in a video game sense. I.e. If I had to press buttons to get Wolverine through the film.)

Yeah, it's... I suppose it's really hard to come up with something convoluted enough in the context of the X-Men, considering how the Marvel universe tends to work.

And yes, I meant in the video game sense, since being/controlling the main protagonist (and I do wish Wolvie wasn't the main protagonist) tends to make the experience more personal.

 

[JediMB]

Arguably, the group of fans with the most reason to complain are still Star Wars fans. They waited all those years for the prequel films, and what they got just wasn't up to scratch. The rage is all very understandable, but that doesn't make it any less annoying for people who aren't fans.

I always find this highly amusing, because I'm a Star Wars fan who didn't rage about the prequels, a Dragon Age fan who didn't rage about the changes in the sequel (although the final act was especially messy), and a Mass Effect fan who... yeah.

I'm usually able to find enjoyment even in terribly flawed products, and rationalize away continuity and lore issues, but with Mass Effect 3 things are different.

 

[nolongerhere]

It's not that I don't understand. I felt like I'd been completely betrayed when I walked out of the cinema after watching X-men: Last Stand. I really enjoyed the first two films, but the third one was so terrible that it almost felt like it had been done on purpose just to spite me. So I ranted about it to a couple of friends (who mostly gave me the "I'm-not-really-listening" smile), then I moved on with my life.

Now imagine that the first two X-Men games were much, much better... that each of them were 30-50 hour epics... that you WERE Wolverine (or whoever)... and at the end of the third movie a sudden plot twist reveals that Dark Phoenix is really a creature created to save the world by reshaping it entirely.

And you can only defeat her by using a piece of alien tech that will also kill you.

And once you "defeat" Dark Phoenix, the rest of the X-Men magically end up on the moon and the movie ends without any sort of epilogue.

...then you'd be somewhere approaching my level of rage when - seven friggin books in - the Anita Blake Vampire Hunter series decided to completely destroy all integrity the protagonist ever had.

That one took slightly longer than X-men. (I still haven't been able to go back and reread the earlier books.) But, at the end of the day, it's important to just take a nice deep breath and carry on.

Because unless you're in company entirely consisting of disgruntled Anita Blake fans, then whining about it doesn't really earn you many friends. Trust me on that one.

(By the way, that alternative X-men 3 idea sounds pretty sweet compared with the actual film! Although I'm not sure what you mean by "you WERE Wolverine", except in a video game sense. I.e. If I had to press buttons to get Wolverine through the film.)

I dunno. I think that sometimes rage is good. Maybe nothing comes out of this. Or maybe game developers take more care with their endings, and the medium improves. I'm hoping for the latter, to be honest. And honestly, I don't think this will set back the game industry any more than anything else that EA has done will. Can't see how that would be possible.

You may be right and something may actually come of all the rage. But my answer to the thread-starter is still the same: the hate towards Retake Mass Effect is most likely simply down to the fact that people find listening to whining about stuff they don't care about annoying.

Arguably, the group of fans with the most reason to complain are still Star Wars fans. They waited all those years for the prequel films, and what they got just wasn't up to scratch. The rage is all very understandable, but that doesn't make it any less annoying for people who aren't fans.

True. It's still the internet though. Almost everyone is constantly whining about something, be it the fact that more attractive people than them are more successful sexually, or the fact that their boss is piping in salvia through the air vents and won't let them out of their cubicle. I find it easier to just let the whining that isn't important to me go on. It's not like these threads are disguised.