Mass Effect 3: New "Refusal" Ending

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â™ª wrote on 2012-06-28 08:33
Quote from Kueh;895886:
Yeah, but no one became emotionally invested in Wicker man and no one spent 5 years of their life with Wicker man as a familiar part of it.

They marketed the ending with the promise that there would be a variety of widely different endings. Instead, there was one ending with 3 versions, in all of them:
[SPOILER="Spoiler"]
- You die a horrible death.
- Everything you worked to build over the past three games is destroyed.
- Nothing you did as a player, none of the choices you made make any difference.
- Your crew abandons you.
- The majority of the military force of the galaxy is left stranded on earth. (The implications of how earth will be ran can be its own thread.)
- If you took the quarians, two thirds of the entire quarian race dies.
- If you took the turians, all of them who went to earth die.
- You blow up all the relays leaving everyone stranded where they were.
[/SPOILER]

You basically get to make a choice on how you want to destroy the universe. And what kind of choice is synthesis? You transform every living thing in the galaxy into something else without letting them know or asking them if they want it.
Yeah, but what about games that never get sequels
Like how HL3 was abandoned because the lead voice actor died
Personally, I'm grateful there was an ending because the series could have ended at ME2 and then everything you would have built up would have been for nothing anyway. It's really like that for any game that has multiple sequels.
Personally, I think it was a good ending poorly executed.
If the ending had made more sense, I would have liked it. Sure, I would have been sad, but all great things have to come to an end, and this is how bioware chose to do it.

Personally, I wouldn't have liked it if it was the typically "Yeaaa you're a hero, you saved the universe! Everyone's in peace now and it's all thanks to you"
That was the most expected ending and I like the twist, but like I said it looked like bioware was like "let's slap the rest of this together, it doesn't have to make sense, just get it done"
Kueh wrote on 2012-06-28 08:42

Quote from Drifter;895924:
I understand this, I also spent a vast majority of time Sculpting my story in this series, but what the way they chose to end it is still up to them.

It's a terrible thing they did and I can never forgive them for what they did to the series, but I will not side with those who say it is "the consumer's right" to change an artist's product.

That's hogwash. If I hire an artist to sculpt a butterfly and he sculpts a moth, it's well within my right to change the product. The fact that it's a product at all means that I, as the consumer, have the final say as to whether it's acceptable or not. This holds true for every product of any sort; artistic or not.

Sure, Bioware could have said, "We're sticking by our guns and sticking with our ending, because this is our product and you can't make us change it." But they didn't, because they're smart, and if they didn't change it, no one would have bought Mass Effect 4.
Sumpfkraut wrote on 2012-06-28 12:06

Quote from Drifter;895924:
It's a terrible thing they did and I can never forgive them for what they did to the series, but I will not side with those who say it is "the consumer's right" to change an artist's product.

If art is done for business, then business takes precedence. Artists who sell their work have no more special privileges than cooks who sell their food - who are artists and even far above that engineers themselves anyway. This isn't really about the way you arrange the basil leaves, it's about whether you serve burned meat and old, limb salad while clearly advertising as a first-class cook. That sure is worth a refund or a new meal, I think.
Chockeh wrote on 2012-06-28 15:28

[video=youtube;6nINYfgEG2w]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nINYfgEG2w&feature=g-u-u[/video]
paladin wrote on 2012-06-28 16:24

They just should not have marketed that ending
Its just not good thinking
if ea had never marketed the whole choose your ending junk they would of gotten alot of less Q.Q
You expected a somewhat diffrent ending but all the youtube videos just show the almost the exact same scene minus chaning a color or two
Misaka wrote on 2012-06-28 16:33

This thread right here :

http://social.bioware.com/forum/1/topic/355/index/12760240/1

With the extended cut, why is it that when you decide to ignore the Crucible's three options and let the cycle continue, the Catalyst growls at you in that voice and acts in a dismissive manner before disappearing? Shouldn't he be approving?

The Catalyst makes it clear beforehand that the Reapers want to continue the cycle
and want to continue to harvest organic life to stop the inevitable war
between organics and synthetics. So why would he be disapproving of Shepard letting it continue?

The Catalyst doesn't really represent the Reapers; it represents BioWare. And BioWare doesn't appreciate people rejecting its glorious artistic vision.
Drifter wrote on 2012-06-28 19:24

Quote from Sumpfkraut;895962:
If art is done for business, then business takes precedence. Artists who sell their work have no more special privileges than cooks who sell their food - who are artists and even far above that engineers themselves anyway. This isn't really about the way you arrange the basil leaves, it's about whether you serve burned meat and old, limb salad while clearly advertising as a first-class cook. That sure is worth a refund or a new meal, I think.

Yes, for a cook it is relatively simple to fix the problem since he can take the meal back and prepare it again. but the same does not hold true for a product of this magnitude. Once it's out there it's out there, and whether we like it or not that's the way it is.

now a refund is understandable, but a revision of the entire game isn't (and yes the entire game just sat there and destroyed the universe for me, not just the ending).

Quote from Kueh;895933:
That's hogwash. If I hire an artist to sculpt a butterfly and he sculpts a moth, it's well within my right to change the product. The fact that it's a product at all means that I, as the consumer, have the final say as to whether it's acceptable or not. This holds true for every product of any sort; artistic or not.

.

Except you didn't hire bioware to build your game, they created their product and marketed it. you had the choice to buy it or not.
now if you didn't like said product, fine. but that still gave us no right to petition to change it. just accept it and move on.

Now what bioware has done is not completely change the endings, they just added a bit more to it. and gave us a new one that is pretty depressing but understandable.

All in all, this was the only way the fans and the creators were going to come to an agreement anyways.

Quote from paladin;896060:
They just should not have marketed that ending
Its just not good thinking
if ea had never marketed the whole choose your ending junk they would of gotten alot of less Q.Q
You expected a somewhat diffrent ending but all the youtube videos just show the almost the exact same scene minus chaning a color or two
This, with all of my approval.

They really should not have marketed the choose your ending thing, if they didn't then people wouldn't be AS mad as they are now.
Kueh wrote on 2012-06-28 19:37

Quote from Drifter;896175:
Except you didn't hire bioware to build your game, they created their product and marketed it. you had the choice to buy it or not.
now if you didn't like said product, fine. but that still gave us no right to petition to change it. just accept it and move on.

Except that I didn't say I hired Bioware. I was only remarking that the ideal that artistic rights supersede consumer rights no matter what is outrageous.
â™ª wrote on 2012-06-28 20:23

Quote from Sumpfkraut;895962:
If art is done for business, then business takes precedence. Artists who sell their work have no more special privileges than cooks who sell their food - who are artists and even far above that engineers themselves anyway. This isn't really about the way you arrange the basil leaves, it's about whether you serve burned meat and old, limb salad while clearly advertising as a first-class cook. That sure is worth a refund or a new meal, I think.

I don't think badly cooked food would be the proper analogy for this, more like you like x type of food but when a cook added x seasoning you dislike it.
There are plenty of games that suck or have bad endings, but to demand more or something better isn't really up to the consumer. Personally, I don't think bioware was planning an ME4 and this was the way the wanted to end the series. You didn't have to buy the game, you could have waited and read the reviews. I pre-ordered the game, and I don't regret it. Me and everyone else got what they paid for, they got entertainment.

If you pay to see a movie and you hate it, you can't expect your money back and you can't expect compensation for that movie.
Sumpfkraut wrote on 2012-06-28 20:33

Quote from â™ª;896215:
I don't think badly cooked food would be the proper analogy for this, more like you like x type of food but when a cook added x seasoning you dislike it.

It is. The ending is technically extremely lazy executed, with little differences -most of which are entirely abstract- in between the "choices". It's, for what it could and according to advertising should have been, the modern A Winner Is You, except you don't really win.

An example of what you bring up would rather be something like adding a silly kissing scene while crying something along the lines of "OMG I'm so happy, now we can have many kids, Shepard my love!" with some string arrangement playing a romantic melody as the screen fades over Shepard and Liara standing in front of a setting sun.

But sure, if you like your meat dry and chewy then I guess it's alright.

Quote from â™ª;896215:
If you pay to see a movie and you hate it, you can't expect your money back and you can't expect compensation for that movie.

I would argue that depends on the advertising. Customer and provider are both supposed to treat each other reasonably. And if the provider doesn't, I don't see why the customer should at all costs. Of course it would help the provider a lot, but we're not dirty corporatist pigs now, are we.
Kueh wrote on 2012-06-28 20:47

Quote from â™ª;896215:
Personally, I don't think bioware was planning an ME4 and this was the way the wanted to end the series.

Whether or not it will be called Mass Effect 4, it's been confirmed that the Mass Effect universe isn't over, and that Bioware still has plans for it.
Lolicon wrote on 2012-06-29 07:05

I'll just leave this here.

[Image: http://chzvideogames.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/video-game-memes-the-final-solution.jpg]
Drifter wrote on 2012-06-29 08:41

Quote from Kueh;896185:
Except that I didn't say I hired Bioware. I was only remarking that the ideal that artistic rights supersede consumer rights no matter what is outrageous.

Listen, I was just trying to make a point that analogies, while nice and easy to make arguments sway to one side or the other, are completely pointless when trying to discuss a product like this. (It can be both an artistic creation AND a product marketed to masses) as a consumer you have a right to say whether or not the product was of quality that adheres to your standards, but to go so far as to say your right allows you to completely revise the product, then you are the one making outrageous claims.

In short, yes you can complain and ask for a refund, but a revision is just a bit much don't you think?

Besides, the only thing I really side with bioware on was not changing the endings. other than that, I completely hate how they ruined one of my favorite series.
(and they didn't really change the endings, they are still the same crap with some epilogue sprinkles to lessen the taste of utter crap that they were)
Kueh wrote on 2012-06-29 09:31

Quote from Drifter;896815:
Listen, I was just trying to make a point that analogies, while nice and easy to make arguments sway to one side or the other, are completely pointless when trying to discuss a product like this. (It can be both an artistic creation AND a product marketed to masses) as a consumer you have a right to say whether or not the product was of quality that adheres to your standards, but to go so far as to say your right allows you to completely revise the product, then you are the one making outrageous claims.

In short, yes you can complain and ask for a refund, but a revision is just a bit much don't you think?

Besides, the only thing I really side with bioware on was not changing the endings. other than that, I completely hate how they ruined one of my favorite series.
(and they didn't really change the endings, they are still the same crap with some epilogue sprinkles to lessen the taste of utter crap that they were)

The point that I'm trying to make is that the wants of the consumer come before the wants of the artist, and Bioware knows it whether they like it or not. And my claim isn't outrageous in the slightest. If it really were all that outrageous, do you really think anyone would have seen the extended cuts?

And, I don't think you've seen the endings before the extended cuts if you don't think they changed the endings. Each of the endings was completely overhauled. Take the control ending, for example:
[SPOILER="Spoiler"]Before: Shepherd died, and the invasion of the reapers was stopped, and that was about it. After the cut: Shepherd literally becomes the reapers and sets out to be a positive force in the galaxy, actively working to rebuild both the mass effect relay system, as well as planets ravaged by the old reapers. In addition, Shepherd remains as an active force to guide and protect sentient life.[/SPOILER]

Nearly every bit of technical lacking that the endings had was removed, redone, or reworked so that the ending worked as a tasteful and satisfying conclusion to an epic trilogy, something the unedited ending (read: singular) failed in every way. The ending was so abysmally broken that it didn't even count as an ending from a literary standpoint. When your product is 60% story, 10% lore, and a mere 30% action, this is a major failing. A failing that one could liken to getting spam instead of the promised full course dragon cuisine.

Your ideal is cute, and I actually agree with you when the work of art isn't a product, but the cold fact is that Mass Effect's worth, and the worth of its potential as a continued series, can be measured out in nickels and dimes, and Bioware threatened itself by offending its consumers. They could have given all the fans a corporate shaft and left the ending as it was, but they knew that if they did that then the harvest they'd receive for any further Mass Effect titles, or any Mass Effect 3 DLC, would be greatly diminished.

The exchange that was made with the release of the extended cut DLC was very much a barter. As a collective, consumers said, "Bioware, I want a better ending than the one you gave us. Make one or I will no longer continue my patronage to you." Bioware bought back the respect of fans that it had lost with an exchange. To say that the consumer, as a general entity, doesn't have the right to ask for certain things defeats the entire purpose of an economy.

I'm going to make another analogy, at the risk of sounding completely pointless. Consider a president who wants to run for a second term, who holds a particular standpoint that is both controversial and a minority. He could, if he wanted, hold fast to his old policies, or write new ones to appease the masses who had spoken out demanding that he change or risk losing any subsequent runs he might make. In the end, he accepts the terms that the people put out for him, rewrites his old, unpopular policies, even though he rather fancied them himself, and adopts a new more popular policy, that holds mere hints of what it was before.

In fact, that's less an analogy, and more a generalization of something that happened quite often, and still does happen.

In short, there is a supply and demand that must be obeyed, both by consumers, and by producers. If the consumers have a demand that isn't met, and threaten to remove their supply, then the producer must choose either to provide for the demands of the consumer, or deprive himself of the consumer's supply. This two-way coincidence of wants is the driving force of any economic exchange, and is the highest-ordered power; it isn't restricted by artistic fancies.
Drifter wrote on 2012-06-29 18:21

Quote from Kueh;896834:
The point that I'm trying to make is that the wants of the consumer come before the wants of the artist, and Bioware knows it whether they like it or not. And my claim isn't outrageous in the slightest. If it really were all that outrageous, do you really think anyone would have seen the extended cuts?

And, I don't think you've seen the endings before the extended cuts if you don't think they changed the endings. Each of the endings was completely overhauled. Take the control ending, for example:
[SPOILER="Spoiler"]Before: Shepherd died, and the invasion of the reapers was stopped, and that was about it. After the cut: Shepherd literally becomes the reapers and sets out to be a positive force in the galaxy, actively working to rebuild both the mass effect relay system, as well as planets ravaged by the old reapers. In addition, Shepherd remains as an active force to guide and protect sentient life.[/SPOILER]

Nearly every bit of technical lacking that the endings had was removed, redone, or reworked so that the ending worked as a tasteful and satisfying conclusion to an epic trilogy, something the unedited ending (read: singular) failed in every way. The ending was so abysmally broken that it didn't even count as an ending from a literary standpoint. When your product is 60% story, 10% lore, and a mere 30% action, this is a major failing. A failing that one could liken to getting spam instead of the promised full course dragon cuisine.

Your ideal is cute, and I actually agree with you when the work of art isn't a product, but the cold fact is that Mass Effect's worth, and the worth of its potential as a continued series, can be measured out in nickels and dimes, and Bioware threatened itself by offending its consumers. They could have given all the fans a corporate shaft and left the ending as it was, but they knew that if they did that then the harvest they'd receive for any further Mass Effect titles, or any Mass Effect 3 DLC, would be greatly diminished.

The exchange that was made with the release of the extended cut DLC was very much a barter. As a collective, consumers said, "Bioware, I want a better ending than the one you gave us. Make one or I will no longer continue my patronage to you." Bioware bought back the respect of fans that it had lost with an exchange. To say that the consumer, as a general entity, doesn't have the right to ask for certain things defeats the entire purpose of an economy.

I'm going to make another analogy, at the risk of sounding completely pointless. Consider a president who wants to run for a second term, who holds a particular standpoint that is both controversial and a minority. He could, if he wanted, hold fast to his old policies, or write new ones to appease the masses who had spoken out demanding that he change or risk losing any subsequent runs he might make. In the end, he accepts the terms that the people put out for him, rewrites his old, unpopular policies, even though he rather fancied them himself, and adopts a new more popular policy, that holds mere hints of what it was before.

In fact, that's less an analogy, and more a generalization of something that happened quite often, and still does happen.

In short, there is a supply and demand that must be obeyed, both by consumers, and by producers. If the consumers have a demand that isn't met, and threaten to remove their supply, then the producer must choose either to provide for the demands of the consumer, or deprive himself of the consumer's supply. This two-way coincidence of wants is the driving force of any economic exchange, and is the highest-ordered power; it isn't restricted by artistic fancies.

I'm going to have agree to disagree on some points (but hey it's just opinions mostly), other than that, I completely agree with you.
It's just that sometimes people seem to forget that while the consumers have a vast amount of rights, the producers do as well. There is a balance but recently it has shifted a bit too much onto the consumers side. (again, opinions)

And the reason the ending was complete crap to me was
[SPOILER="Spoiler"]The god child out of nowhere, how they spent two games with the reapers telling us their purpose is beyond human comprehension and when the god-child tells you the purpose it's completely understandable if not for the whole geth/quarian thing. and the entire Deus ex Machina pull at the ending, the fact that TIM was hyped up to be this mysterious man who was untouchable and whatnot, and ends up dying in the lamest way possible, oh and anderson following you up the crucible, even though he was never seen amongst the people charging towards the beam elevator. it really makes no sense and was just dissapointing. I like the gameplay and characters but the story was trashed among major points in the story for me...[/SPOILER]
The extended cut endings sort of fix this, but the endings were just bad for me in general (the only one I really like is the refusal one).

Still, I wasn't among those who petitioned to change the ending. I saw no need to, if it was going to end like that I'd be perfectly fine with it. I trust they would learn from their mistake, and I'm actually kind of glad they didn't really change anything. It was more along the lines of they added onto the endings to help them make more sense (for instance, during the final charge, the exchange between shepard and his love interest; which helps explain why she leaves). The only thing I was slightly miffed about was people demanding different endings (and I mean the ones asking for "Completely" different endings).
That's all I was trying to say really.

(And sorry about the analogy thing, the thing is that whenever someone uses an analogy to make a point in an argument it makes them sound ridiculously condescending, barring the fact that all it does is open up room for people to poke holes in said analogy; Also apples to oranges and etc.)

(Not trying to keep this fire going, just something I thought I should comment on before ending my stay in this discussion, we obviously have different opinions and any further posting will get this argument nowhere. In fact I do believe some of your opinions hold merit and hope that in no way have my replies caused you any grief. I sincerely respect your opinions and hope this discussion has not made you think ill of me.)

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