That is an interesting bit of info I wasn’t aware of, ReptileHouse, but note this passage from your link: ‘Writing to friends about the revised ending, Dickens seems positive: “I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and I have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration” and “Upon the whole I think it is for the better.”’ Dickens believed he improved the story he told by revising the ending. I think that’s worth pointing out.
Oh, absolutely. It is by no means a perfectly analogous situation. I just keep seeing folks talking as if changing an ending to a significant work of literature had never been done before, and that’s not accurate.
Note that there is still lots of academic debate over whether Dickens should have done so and whether the new ending improved the work or not.
I’m not trying to weigh in one way or the other on the merits of Bioware changing the ME3 ending. I’ve stayed out of that particular fight so far, and plan to keep it that way. :)
Who said it’s never been done before?
I said it’s not something anyone generally does.
ShivaX
3105
You can add Crime and Punishment as well.
shrug. Not trying to pick a fight with you, Telefrog, or anyone else. That particular instance has always been interesting to me as a Dickens fan, and this whole situation reminded me of it, so I thought it a relevant bit of information to provide for folks who might not have been aware of it before.
My point, such as it is, is merely that this sort of debate isn’t new.
Thanks for posting that Dickens example. For those who didn’t click the link, it simply points out that a friend prevailed upon Dickens to write a happier ending for Great Expectations. What isn’t clear from that link is whether this was before the less happy ending had been published. Weren’t Dickens’ novels published as serials? In which case, did he actually publish an ending and then change it based on his friend’s feedback?
Anyway, editorial tinkering before or after publication is far older than the 19th century. Ask anyone who’s studied the Bible. Besides, whether it’s new isn’t as relevant as whether it’s unusual.
Shiva, tell us more about the Crime and Punishment example.
-Tom
My recollection is that Dickens published one ending, prompting his friend to harass him about it, and he then followed it up with an alternate which is now considered the canonical ending due to Dickens stated preference for it.
He did typically publish as a serial. I believe he was also paid by the word, which may also have played into his willingness to write a follow-up chapter. ;)
I’m also interested in hearing about C&P. I wasn’t aware that was the case there.
And that’s who wrote and published the Extended Cut DLC. Not any disgruntled fans - believe me, it would change a lot more if I were responsible for its content, and I suspect the same is true of most of the other people who disliked the ending. It may be a step they took in response to petitions and loud voices on the internet, but absent evidence otherwise I think it’s reasonable to presume they did so voluntarily and in line with their creative and artistic intent.
Besides, if I were going to rewrite anything in the game, I’d take out space ninja.
You and me both, man.
Wait, you’re arguing that Bioware wanted to release a revised ending, and wasn’t at all influenced by the controversy? Amazing. Now I’ve heard it all.
-Tom
No, I’m arguing that they were not -coerced- by the controversy. Of course they were influenced.
Right. “Voluntarily and in line with their creative and artistic intent”. I love how you assume this “absent evidence otherwise”. Nice try.
-Tom
Again, from everything I’ve read, the extended cut is ME3’s ending, extended. I hope it makes the ending better, but it’s unlikely that it addresses many of the issues I had with the content of the ending - i.e., the whole three-way choice and the nature of the Catalyst - even though it sounds like it addresses some of the issues I had with the delivery (holes in continuity and extremely brief, uninformative cutscenes with minimal variation). I don’t see that as giving the petitioners what they demanded (I wasn’t one of them, but it certainly doesn’t give me what I was looking for), but I do see that making sense if Bioware saw that some of their fans were unhappy and attempted to address that issue without changing the substance of the ending that they wanted to deliver. Unless you have evidence that the decision and its details came from outside Bioware’s writing team?
“It’s what Bioware wanted to do all along! Unless you have evidence to the contrary, I’m right!”
As they say on Citadel Station, that vorcha won’t hunt.
-Tom
Or, alternatively, “it’s the same ending that was in the shipped game, but longer, so if they’d been forced to change something surely they should have changed something?”
(Well, supposedly. Again, haven’t seen the extended cut for myself.)
Edit: Or, y’know, we could go by Bioware’s official statements on the matter:
Why are you releasing the Extended Cut DLC?
Though we remain committed and are proud of the artistic choices we made in the main game, we are aware that there are some fans who would like more closure to Mass Effect 3. The goal of the DLC is not to provide a new ending to the game, rather to offer fans additional context and answers to the end of Commander Shepard’s story.
or
“We are all incredibly proud of Mass Effect 3 and the work done by Casey Hudson and team,” said Dr. Ray Muzyka, Co-Founder of BioWare and General Manager of EA’s BioWare Label. “Since launch, we have had time to listen to the feedback from our most passionate fans and we are responding. With the Mass Effect 3: Extended Cut we think we have struck a good balance in delivering the answers players are looking for while maintaining the team’s artistic vision for the end of this story arc in the Mass Effect universe.”
Could just be face-saving lies, sure. But surely you’d need to present some actual evidence to support that conclusion?
jeffd
3116
Out of curiosity: would anyone have objected to Obsidian patching in a more extensive ending to KOTORII, after the fact?
Also in general: it’s pretty well accepted that developers often release games in unfinished states. Is it such a hard lift to imagine that the story might be one of the things they left unfinished?
The bizarre hostility to adding on to a game’s ending as opposed to changing other aspects of a game really perplexes me! Especially given that the additional content is entirely optional.
Not I. I would have been very happy to see it.
Hey, if you’re going to take everything you read from PR at face value, I have no desire to disabuse you of that. By the way, did you hear that THQ is restructuring, Age of Empires Online is a thriving RTS, and Qualcomm’s keynote at CES fired up consumers? Because until I hear “evidence to the contrary”, that’s totally how it all went down!
-Tom
Well, I finally finished it. And after the fantastic writing and excellent pacing of the rest of the game, that info-dump from the star-child seems a terrible way to end the game. As others have said, up to that point it really was an epic story. Then it all just goes a bit flat.
Given they are making a new ME game, I can’t see any ending beyond ‘destroy’ being explored further. But what a bizarre negative condition on that ending.
Oh, well. I can see why the original would have left fans irate. The ending left a sour taste in my mouth, but I’ll probably replay the whole game at least once more regardless. But it’s weird how the game suddenly changed from one of the best Bioware RPGs into… well, a missed opportunity. What a shame.
I’m actually quite sad.
That’s because you apparently have no problem with a handful of angry self-entitled fans hijacking the narrative of the Mass Effect games. But you’re right that it could have been worse. I couldn’t care less about some expanded optional ending I’ll never play. What I mind is that EA listened to those yahoos.
But by all means, let’s start out round umpteen of the same conversation with a misrepresentation of each other’s opinions! We can draw this out for at least a few more months to tide us over until Dragon Age 3.
-Tom
