Mass Effect 3

[keg in kc]

Pretty nice blog commentary by Dr. Ray regarding Mass Effect 3 and the fan reaction:

To Mass Effect 3 players, from Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare

Posted on March 21, 2012 by darklarke

To Mass Effect 3 players, from Dr. Ray Muzyka, co-founder of BioWare

As co-founder and GM of BioWare, I’m very proud of the ME3 team; I personally believe Mass Effect 3 is the best work we’ve yet created. So, it’s incredibly painful to receive feedback from our core fans that the game’s endings were not up to their expectations. Our first instinct is to defend our work and point to the high ratings offered by critics – but out of respect to our fans, we need to accept the criticism and feedback with humility.

I believe passionately that games are an art form, and that the power of our medium flows from our audience, who are deeply involved in how the story unfolds, and who have the uncontested right to provide constructive criticism. At the same time, I also believe in and support the artistic choices made by the development team. The team and I have been thinking hard about how to best address the comments on ME3’s endings from players, while still maintaining the artistic integrity of the game.

Mass Effect 3 concludes a trilogy with so much player control and ownership of the story that it was hard for us to predict the range of emotions players would feel when they finished playing through it. The journey you undertake in Mass Effect provokes an intense range of highly personal emotions in the player; even so, the passionate reaction of some of our most loyal players to the current endings in Mass Effect 3 is something that has genuinely surprised us. This is an issue we care about deeply, and we will respond to it in a fair and timely way. We’re already working hard to do that.

To that end, since the game launched, the team has been poring over everything they can find about reactions to the game – industry press, forums, Facebook, and Twitter, just to name a few. The Mass Effect team, like other teams across the BioWare Label within EA, consists of passionate people who work hard for the love of creating experiences that excite and delight our fans. I’m honored to work with them because they have the courage and strength to respond to constructive feedback.

Building on their research, Exec Producer Casey Hudson and the team are hard at work on a number of game content initiatives that will help answer the questions, providing more clarity for those seeking further closure to their journey. You’ll hear more on this in April. We’re working hard to maintain the right balance between the artistic integrity of the original story while addressing the fan feedback we’ve received. This is in addition to our existing plan to continue providing new Mass Effect content and new full games, so rest assured that your journey in the Mass Effect universe can, and will, continue.

The reaction to the release of Mass Effect 3 has been unprecedented. On one hand, some of our loyal fans are passionately expressing their displeasure about how their game concluded; we care about this feedback, and we’re planning to directly address it. However, most folks appear to agree that the game as a whole is exceptional, with more than 75 critics giving it a perfect review score and a review average in the mid-90s. Net, I’m proud of the team, but we can and must always strive to do better.

Some of the criticism that has been delivered in the heat of passion by our most ardent fans, even if founded on valid principles, such as seeking more clarity to questions or looking for more closure, for example – has unfortunately become destructive rather than constructive. We listen and will respond to constructive criticism, but much as we will not tolerate individual attacks on our team members, we will not support or respond to destructive commentary.

If you are a Mass Effect fan and have input for the team – we respect your opinion and want to hear it. We’re committed to address your constructive feedback as best we can. In return, I’d ask that you help us do that by supporting what I truly believe is the best game BioWare has yet crafted. I urge you to do your own research: play the game, finish it and tell us what you think. Tell your friends if you feel it’s a good game as a whole. Trust that we are doing our damndest, as always, to address your feedback. As artists, we care about our fans deeply and we appreciate your support.

Thank you for your feedback – we are listening.

Ray

[duncan_idaho]

Spoiler!

I'm going to stump for the indoctrination theory again.

Reasoning:

1) After reviewing the Shepard dream sequences again, the dead figures show up as inky blots (which is how the Rachni queen referred to indoctrination in ME).

2) There are some references to buzzing or humming sounds when Shepard is around

3) The final sequence: Just way too many questions/inexplicable things for this to be just poor game design.

- Why does Shepard have a gun with unlimited ammo? Seriously, you can sit there and just pound away with that thing for however many shots in a row you want. Complete violation of the game mechanic. Mistake?
- How does Anderson get to the station before Shepard? How does he beat Shepard down the only hallway to the control console?
- How is the Illusive man able to control Shepard and get him to shoot Anderson?
- Why does you see inky blackness at the edge of the screens when the Illusive man is trying to influence Shepard (as he holds his head)
- Why does Anderson look at Shepard while saying things such as "You're indoctrinated!" to the Illusive man?
- Why does Shepard only notice he's bleeding from a wound in his left side ONLY after Anderson "dies" (coincidentally, the same wound Anderson took from Shepard's gun)
- Why is the final sequence so inexplicable. The Normandy is suddenly in space AND in the middle of a Mass Relay jump. Your squadmates from the last mission somehow: 1) Survived the charge to the beam with no wounds and 2) were transported to the Normandy before its jump
- The only other time we've seen the destruction of a Mass Relay, it caused the system's sun to go nova. How does Earth survive this fate?
- Doesn't the synthesis thing sound an AWFUL lot like Saren's plan? Wasn't Saren ALSO completely unaware he had been Indoctrinated?
- Why is the ONLY way to get the "best" ending to do the "red" or "renegade" or "bad" option?

Lots of reasonable stuff with some video evidence backs it up (some good stuff on YouTube if you take the time).

And it makes the ending - and the entire third game and really everything done since the mission on Arotoht, a great, big mind-f***. That's the type of thing Bioware LIVES to do.

The final mission on the "Citadel" wasn't Shepard fighting to win the war against the reapers. It was Shepard fighting to win the war for his mind. He defeated the indoctrination. The reapers and relays haven't been destroyed, but his mind is his own. Winning by "synthesizing" or "taking control" are false victories seen only in his mind - and that's why Shepard can't survive. Winning by "destroying" the reapers gives him his mind back.

And they still have the chance to address this/expand on it in DLC or even a future game.

If the entire story arc was set up to cleverly conceal that Shepard was indoctrinated, they wouldn't just blow that in a press release.

[keg in kc]

I covered most of the indoctrination theory almost two weeks ago, check post 165.

I just don't buy that it's intentional. I think they may use it in the end, but I just don't believe they would stay silent through the PR nightmare that's been the last two weeks. For the simple reason that it's costing them not only in terms of reputation, but in money. Because not everybody pre-orders and not everybody buys day 1. And (supposedly at least) people have been returning the game, and refuse to replay it. I think with the literal flood of negative reactions, they would have made a definitive statement about it (and I believe that they in fact have, in saying several times that the ending is the ending).

I think the thing with (maybe) Patrick Weekes on the Penny Arcade forums was pretty interesting, and if it was him, pretty telling. But it may well not have been him. If you don't know what I'm talking about, you can read about it here. The text of the comments made by his Penny Arcade account (but maybe not him...) are spoiled below:

Spoiler!

I have nothing to do with the ending beyond a) having argued successfully a long time ago that we needed a chance to say goodbye to our squad, b) having argued successfully that Cortez shouldn’t automatically die in that shuttle crash, and c) having written Tali’s goodbye bit, as well as a couple of the holo-goodbyes for people I wrote (Mordin, Kasumi, Jack, etc).

No other writer did, either, except for our lead. This was entirely the work of our lead and Casey himself, sitting in a room and going through draft after draft.

And honestly, it kind of shows.

Every other mission in the game had to be held up to the rest of the writing team, and the writing team then picked it apart and made suggestions and pointed out the parts that made no sense. This mission? Casey and our lead deciding that they didn’t need to be peer-reviewe.d

And again, it shows.

If you’d asked me the themes of Mass Effect 3, I’d break them down as:

Galactic Alliances

Friends

Organics versus Synthetics

In my personal opinion, the first two got a perfunctory nod. We did get a goodbye to our friends, but it was in a scene that was divorced from the gameplay — a deliberate “nothing happens here” area with one turret thrown in for no reason I really understand, except possibly to obfuscate the “nothing happens here”-ness. The best missions in our game are the ones in which the gameplay and the narrative reinforce each other. The end of the Genophage campaign exemplifies that for me — every line of dialog is showing you both sides of the krogan, be they horrible brutes or proud warriors; the art shows both their bombed-out wasteland and the beautiful world they once had and could have again; the combat shows the terror of the Reapers as well as a blatant reminder of the rachni, which threatened the galaxy and had to be stopped by the krogan last time. Every line of code in that mission is on target with the overall message.

The endgame doesn’t have that. I wanted to see banshees attacking you, and then have asari gunships zoom in and blow them away. I wanted to see a wave of rachni ravagers come around a corner only to be met by a wall of krogan roaring a battle cry. Here’s the horror the Reapers inflicted upon each race, and here’s the army that you, Commander Shepard, made out of every race in the galaxy to fight them.

I personally thought that the Illusive Man conversation was about twice as long as it needed to be — something that I’ve been told in my peer reviews of my missions and made edits on, but again, this is a conversation no writer but the lead ever saw until it was already recorded. I did love Anderson’s goodbye.

For me, Anderson’s goodbye is where it ended. The stuff with the Catalyst just… You have to understand. Casey is really smart and really analytical. And the problem is that when he’s not checked, he will assume that other people are like him, and will really appreciate an almost completely unemotional intellectual ending. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it.

And then, just to be a dick… what was SUPPOSED to happen was that, say you picked “Destroy the Reapers”. When you did that, the system was SUPPOSED to look at your score, and then you’d show a cutscene of Earth that was either:

a) Very high score: Earth obviously damaged, but woo victory

b) Medium score: Earth takes a bunch of damage from the Crucible activation. Like dropping a bomb on an already war-ravaged city. Uh, well, maybe not LIKE that as much as, uh, THAT.

c) Low score: Earth is a cinderblock, all life on it completely wiped out

I have NO IDEA why these different cutscenes aren’t in there. As far as I know, they were never cut. Maybe they were cut for budget reasons at the last minute. I don’t know. But holy crap, yeah, I can see how incredibly disappointing it’d be to hear of all the different ending possibilities and have it break down to “which color is stuff glowing?” Or maybe they ARE in, but they’re too subtle to really see obvious differences, and again, that’s… yeah.

Okay, that’s a lot to have written for something that’s gonna go away in an hour.

I still teared up at the ending myself, but really, I was tearing up for the quick flashbacks to old friends and the death of Anderson. I wasn’t tearing up over making a choice that, as it turned out, didn’t have enough cutscene differentiation on it.

And to be clear, I don’t even really wish Shepard had gotten a ride-off-into-sunset ending. I was honestly okay with Shepard sacrificing himself. I just expected it to be for something with more obvious differentiation, and a stronger tie to the core themes — all three of them.

I think the indoctrination theory is really interesting, and could result in something cool, but I'm of the belief that it's entirely coincidence, and if they do manage to salvage something from the ending, it's just dumb luck.

And if they make us PAY for the "real" ending to the game, I hope there's a shitstorm that makes the ending reaction now pale in comparison. If there is end DLC, it better damned well be free.

[keg in kc]

I should add this:

I think if we actually get end DLC in April then it was planned that way.

If end DLC is announced in April but we don't get it until months later, then it's reactionary. They may still try to say it's part of a plan at that point, but I'll never believe it.

I do think the fact that on one hand they announced well before release and in no uncertain terms that there would not be post-game DLC and on the other that there's no post-game save point indicates pretty strongly that the game ended as intended. Of course I do hope I'm wrong about that, and that this is all some super-genius swerve.

My guess is we won't even get the ending DLC first. I think we'll get the compaign to retake Omega for Aria before anything related to the end. That and whatever multiplayer component comes with it.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

I should add this:

I think if we actually get end DLC in April then it was planned that way.

If end DLC is announced in April but we don't get it until months later, then it's reactionary. They may still try to say it's part of a plan at that point, but I'll never believe it.

I do think the fact that on one hand they announced well before release and in no uncertain terms that there would not be post-game DLC and on the other that there's no post-game save point indicates pretty strongly that the game ended as intended. Of course I do hope I'm wrong about that, and that this is all some super-genius swerve.

My guess is we won't even get the ending DLC first. I think we'll get the compaign to retake Omega for Aria before anything related to the end. That and whatever multiplayer component comes with it.

I like the Omega idea. Is this just speculation, or have you heard something?

Aria one of my favorite characters. Seems like she'd be a great love interest for a Renegade Shepard as well. I like the little cutscene where he wakes up on the seat next to her after he's had too much to drink, and she's clearly being protective of him.

[keg in kc]

Originally Posted by frazod

I like the Omega idea. Is this just speculation, or have you heard something?

Aria one of my favorite characters. Seems like she'd be a great love interest for a Renegade Shepard as well. I like the little cutscene where he wakes up on the seat next to her after he's had too much to drink, and she's clearly being protective of him.

It's a popular rumor. I don't think there's anything definitive yet.

[veist]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

It's a popular rumor. I don't think there's anything definitive yet.

Its kind of an elephant in the room plot hook, I'm not sure why else you'd write her into the game the way they did unless its because you wanted to do a retake Omega mission.

[Wyatt Earp]

Maybe I'm giving Bioware to much credit but I'm still thinking that the indoctrination is intentional. It's been a major theme in all 3 games and to me it's one of the reapers most powerful weapons. Here is a great video about the indoctrination theory. Won't imbed it due to spoilers, in case some have not finished or even played it yet.

*Spoilers*
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ythY_GkEBck

[Third Eye]

I've been avoiding this thread like the plague. I got a late start on 3 because I was finishing up a replay of the others, so I'm a little behind.

I'm probably half-way into this one, but I haven't yet figured out how the multiplayer ties in with the campaign. I have friends who have beaten it without doing any MP and they said it didn't seem to matter, but then I've heard from others that it does make a difference. I'm sure this has been discussed before, but in my efforts to avoid spoilers, I was hoping someone could fill me in on this.

[keg in kc]

The multiplayer raises your readiness, which means more of your war assets count toward your effective military strength. I think the only real difference is that it's harder to get a certain bonus scene at the end with a lower EMS. But basically, you don't need to play the multiplayer, it just means you can complete the game with fewer assets.

For what it's worth, I avoided the multiplayer like the plague the first week, and now I play it more than the singleplayer. It's...strangely addictive.

[Third Eye]

Originally Posted by keg in kc

The multiplayer raises your readiness, which means more of your war assets count toward your effective military strength. I think the only real difference is that it's harder to get a certain bonus scene at the end with a lower EMS. But basically, you don't need to play the multiplayer, it just means you can complete the game with fewer assets.

For what it's worth, I avoided the multiplayer like the plague the first week, and now I play it more than the singleplayer. It's...strangely addictive.

Sounds like I may want to give it a go then, thanks!

[Kraus]

Multiplayer is a blast with friends. Randoms not so much.

[keg in kc]

I only play it with randoms. I only run bronze, though, aside from a few random silver games. No desire to ever run gold. My luck seems to be okay, though. The only time I ever fail is if somebody bails during the match. Although I did run one of them yesterday as a duo.

[Saulbadguy]

Just beat it. Not sure what just happened.

[veist]

Originally Posted by Saulbadguy

Just beat it. Not sure what just happened.

That is really the biggest problem with the ending, its really stuck in the worst possible way between a sudden end and denouement.