(XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV!

Rifneno wrote:

ZerebusPrime wrote:

Yemeth wrote:Do these people have no idea of literary analysis?

That was my complaint.  The mass population of apparent idiots playing this game shocked and saddened me.

EDIT: I blame the United States public school system.

Because people from other countries are all with us, and it's only the Americans that are against using their fucking brain.

Nah, it's just that we're pumping them out of the system as fast as possible and in the greatest numbers.

ZerebusPrime wrote:

dorktainian wrote:honestly.... what is the fucking point of a mass effect game with the protagonist wearing a fucking rocket booster pack?  how the fuck would he find that useful?  jumping up fucking rockfaces?  really?  

I cannot be the only one who jumped off a cliff in ME1 and left my Mako someplace that was really, really, reeaaaally hard to get back to on foot. Or the only one who went toe to toe with Geth Armatures at range while crossing difficult terrain, for that matter. There are plenty of spots where I can think of a Jet Pack having been useful.

And yes, flying out in the open leaves you with zero cover and increases the likelihood of getting shot. Look at Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare to see what I mean. Jumps have to be done quickly with the goal of darting right back into ground cover as quickly as possible.

first thing you're not going to do tho is make yourself a target. Rocketman immediately becomes a target. Having said that, one way it would be kinda cool would be to take down massive bosses. still think it'll be lame but we'll see.

ZerebusPrime wrote:

Rifneno wrote:

ZerebusPrime wrote:

Yemeth wrote:Do these people have no idea of literary analysis?

That was my complaint.  The mass population of apparent idiots playing this game shocked and saddened me.

EDIT: I blame the United States public school system.

Because people from other countries are all with us, and it's only the Americans that are against using their fucking brain.

Nah, it's just that we're pumping them out of the system as fast as possible and in the greatest numbers.

Actually, like most western countries we don't grow too fast.  The biggest growers are places like India.  Places with tons of people, little to no education, no easy access to birth control, and little entertainment besides what nature gave us.  I haven't looked at the numbers but I'm pretty sure even Canada is growing faster than the US.  I mean per capita, even though Canada is the 2nd biggest country in the world landmass wise it only has 10% of the population of the US.  The rest is polar bears and yetis.  But those few people don't have much to do besides stay inside and fuck when it's 90 below plus windchill out.

The US makes a lot of stupid mistakes, and I mean a fucking LOT, but overbreeding isn't generally one of them.

Rif, why are you responding to my US education system comments with such seriousness?  If my tongue had been any more firmly planted in my cheek while writing those, I'd've been concerned it was mouth cancer.

EDIT: I do, however, have serious issues with individuals who go through English Lit or equivalent courses and then find themselves unable or unwilling to apply literary analysis techniques to works of fiction, modern or otherwise. That was the original point if I recall correctly.

ZerebusPrime wrote:Rif, why are you responding to my US education system comments with such seriousness?  If my tongue had been any more firmly planted in my cheek while writing those, I'd've been concerned it was mouth cancer.

"What is boredom?", Alex.

Well, here's a mildly satirical video that both amused and depressed me in equal measure...



Edit: from a parody channel on YouTube - apologies for any confusion caused.

Eryri wrote:Well, here's a mildly satirical video that both amused and depressed me in equal measure...

*stunned silence*

...  Holy shit.  I expected some random fans bitching.  I did not expect to see 2 former head writers disemboweling the company.  Especially Hudson!  Jesus Christ, I didn't even recognize Hudson because he never appears publicly or says anything about the series (post-ME3 release that is, I know he helped lie a bunch beforehand).

Can we now stop pretending there's any shimmer of hope for ME:A?

Even though those guys are just actors doing a skit, it does make me wonder how many of ME3's failings were down to bad creative decisions on Bioware's part, or the time crunch that was the fault of EA. I suppose we'll never know.

As for Andromeda, I'm looking forward to it in the same way I looked forward to Snyder's Batman v Superman coming out - just for the perverse pleasure of watching it get ripped to shreds. In a way I hope it's spectacularly terrible rather than just mediocre - more entertaining that way.

A skit?  Goddamnit, I had my hopes up that I'd have to see less "maybe Andromeduh won't be worse than cancer" nonsense.

Sorry Rif, I didn't think anyone would mistake them for the real Wynn and Hudson. I'll edit the post.

Total skit, 100% true.

Andromeda will probably be the last we see from ME, i'd be shocked if it's going to do good enough to get a sequel. No matter how much fan wanking i've seen over it, people still want to go back to the Milky Way.

Eryri wrote:Sorry Rif, I didn't think anyone would mistake them for the real Wynn and Hudson. I'll edit the post.

Judging by many of the posts on the video itself, I'm thinking a lot of people made that mistake.

It says a lot that nobody questions this kind of thing having actually come from them.

Although it should have tipped me off when Wynn was capable of forming complete sentences.

yep.  bioware is fucked.  EA is sucking the life out of it.  when the two owners jumped ship that should have been the straw that broke the camels back,then we had 'that' ending which went down really well with the general public (not including bioware fanboys) oh... day one dlc. javik (who was on the disc). but us ITers saw something wonderful in IT. the possibility of something mindblowing.  so it's a fuck you to jabba priestly, casey 'the worst storyteller in the history of storytelling' hudson, mac the hack walters, and the remaining bioware staff, soon to be absorbed by EA.

bioware. you fucked it up. you had something great and fucked it up.

I still think the open ME3 ending is due to business reasons. In such a state, it is always possible to resume the Shepard storyline at a later date. At best, this would mean two parallel ME storylines made by two different teams. so i don't necessarily see how they fucked up. IT is clearly correct, there is no offical comment on it, and Andromeda just (probably) chooses not to be a direct sequel. i would really like for ME:A to clear things up, but if it doesn't, I'll just stay away from literalist discussion until the Shepard storyline is finally picked up again.

Yemeth wrote:P.S. I still think the open ME3 ending is due to business reasons.

Clearly. They couldn't let all the fucking cretins know that they sided with the Reapers because the truth would hurt their sensitive little vaginas so they had to fuck us all instead.

In such a state, it is always possible to resume the Shepard storyline at a later date.

No, that is not going to happen. ME:A is set to release five years after ME3. If they're afraid to go back to it after half a fucking decade then they aren't going to go back to it later. It's over. It sucks, but it's over.

Even if they bring up Shepard's story again down the line, who's going to care?

If ME: A has absolutely nothing to do with Shepard or anything reapers (which they've said is the case) 2017 is release, give them a year to milk DLC and so forth...by 2018 is anyone even going to remember? The only chance they ever have of continuing the story is by tying it into ME: A somehow...and that's really unlikely.

Yemeth wrote:Hi guys - just to let you know, i started my own twitch channel where I will mostly be playing ME, other Bioware games, RPGs in general and some other narrative games. Stop by if you like and say hello if you have an account :) https://www.twitch.tv/yemeth_2008

P.S. I still think the open ME3 ending is due to business reasons. In such a state, it is always possible to resume the Shepard storyline at a later date. At best, this would mean two parallel ME storylines made by two different teams. so i don't necessarily see how they fucked up. IT is clearly correct, there is no offical comment on it, and Andromeda just (probably) chooses not to be a direct sequel. i would really like for ME:A to clear things up, but if it doesn't, I'll just stay away from literalist discussion until the Shepard storyline is finally picked up again.

Anyway - as I said, stop by if you like!

Cheers
Yemeth

here's what I think.

Bioware created an ending, and we got it. We got it and the powers that be threw their collective toys out their fucking prams. Also back then, Bioware had people working for them who were so antagonistic that you just wanted to grab a hold of them and kick the shit out of em. Jabba Priestly.....Cunt. Jessica fuckface.....Cunt. The list goes on.

As a result of their complete cuntishness, this forum was set up to explore IT which we did to death, even spawning Scary Door and taking into account Choose Wisely Theory..... which by episode six made less sense than finding a talented person on X Factor.

I think we were collectively fucked over by the powers that be. They hated we got it.

and look at how well they've done since then.

WeAreHarbinger wrote:...
The only chance they ever have of continuing the story is by tying it into ME: A somehow...and that's really unlikely.

Unless they have secretly been making a ME4 in parallel, all along, and plop it down with sudden fanfare right about... now.

Yah; Setting a new low-water mark for the term: "reaching". :7

I have been trying to wait patiently for the next game to come out and for me to play it before passing anything resembling a final judgement. It is not easy.

We got an intentionally ambiguous ending. Anyone saying otherwise is either lying or blind, with combinations of possibly trying to jerk your chain. There was a DLC slyly aimed at the crowd of people who didn't believe what they saw was real (Leviathan), there was a DLC aimed at the crowd who wanted a harder challenge (Omega), and there was a DLC aimed at the crowd who wanted a happier ending (Citadel). That was most of the ME3 playing populace in those three groups. The Citadel's mall strip also covered just about every view of the ending (even the Shell Game view), meaning that after ME3 came out Bioware spent the entire year identifying every major and minor ME player group and nodding/winking at them.

The ME4 design documents were photographed to have existed very, very shortly thereafter.

Everything else is clutter to be swept from my zen-like mindset. There were promises written in all those nods and winks. ME:4ndromeda must deliver on them. The end. I demand it be that simple.

dorktainian wrote:here's what I think.

Bioware created an ending, and we got it.  We got it and the powers that be threw their collective toys out their fucking prams.  Also back then, Bioware had people working for them who were so antagonistic that you just wanted to grab a hold of them and kick the shit out of em.  Jabba Priestly.....Cunt.  Jessica fuckface.....Cunt.  The list goes on.

As a result of their complete cuntishness, this forum was set up to explore IT which we did to death, even spawning Scary Door and taking into account Choose Wisely Theory..... which by episode six made less sense than finding a talented person on X Factor.

I think we were collectively fucked over by the powers that be.  They hated we got it.

and look at how well they've done since then.

LOL WHAT? This makes absolutely no sense at all. No writer gets pissed because people "get" their work. They get pissed when no one gets it, but certainly not when someone does get it. When they write something deep and philosophical with subtext and all, people "getting it" and loving it as we did is *the* highest compliment and best feeling a writer can experience.

Jabba the Priestly was indeed an antagonist, belligerent sack of rat spooge the size of a small moon but he was also just a PR guy. He has exactly as much say in BW's big decisions as the janitor did. In fact, you'll recall that the fetid, dickless blob lost its job shortly after. It is entirely possible that his douchery toward us at the very least factored into the decision to rent all the heavy machinery necessary to remove it from the building.

Merizan wasn't belligerent, she was just stupid and useless. In fact, she actually claims to love IT.

Speaking of people and gelatinous life forms that used to work at BW, also consider that the company's founders left a few months after ME3's release. It is, again, entirely possible that EA refusing to continue Shepard's story is what made them walk away from the smoldering crater that EA calls a subsidiary.

Again, there's nothing to even hint that they "hated that we got it." The only one who seemed negative toward us was the avalanche of lard and he was just pissed because all the trolls our intelligence attracted meant more time doing his job and less time eating.

ZerebusPrime wrote:I have been trying to wait patiently for the next game to come out and for me to play it before passing anything resembling a final judgement.  It is not easy.

...

...meaning that after ME3 came out Bioware spent the entire year identifying every major and minor ME player group and nodding/winking at them.

The ME4 design documents were photographed to have existed very, very shortly thereafter.

Everything else is clutter to be swept from my zen-like mindset.  There were promises written in all those nods and winks.  ME:4ndromeda must deliver on them.  The end.  I demand it be that simple.

Yes. The way they threw a bone to just about everybody, in DLC, could just be the cheap placating it looks like, but one can always have hope, nonetheless... :7

In addition to the story given making little sense or context, I am somewhat sustaining deferring judgement, on the somewhat sinister tone of actual material presentation so far, which, contrary to PR comments that come with it, does not offer an air of us coming as any form of straggling refugees with cap in hand, but more as a faceless invading force, or vanguard thereof. There can be total EA assimilation, or there can be a typical Bioware twist in there... or something in between, I suppose.

Rifneno wrote:
Merizan wasn't belligerent, she was just stupid and useless.  In fact, she actually claims to love IT.

Merizan had to deal with a continuous barrage of ingrates on top of communicating with fans with brains. It was my impression that she started out fairly coherent but became less and less so as year dragged on, ergo she got stressed out and started slipping.

Rifneno wrote:

dorktainian wrote:here's what I think.

Bioware created an ending, and we got it.  We got it and the powers that be threw their collective toys out their fucking prams.  Also back then, Bioware had people working for them who were so antagonistic that you just wanted to grab a hold of them and kick the shit out of em.  Jabba Priestly.....Cunt.  Jessica fuckface.....Cunt.  The list goes on.

As a result of their complete cuntishness, this forum was set up to explore IT which we did to death, even spawning Scary Door and taking into account Choose Wisely Theory..... which by episode six made less sense than finding a talented person on X Factor.

I think we were collectively fucked over by the powers that be.  They hated we got it.

and look at how well they've done since then.

LOL WHAT? This makes absolutely no sense at all. No writer gets pissed because people "get" their work. They get pissed when no one gets it, but certainly not when someone does get it. When they write something deep and philosophical with subtext and all, people "getting it" and loving it as we did is *the* highest compliment and best feeling a writer can experience.

ok maybe I didn't put that quite right.

If they had a 'plan' that involved a huge twist in a following game, say something that involved shepards indoctrination, something which would be a pretty huge WTF, then they'd be a bit pissed off if some players actually spotted the seeds of said storyline they'd so carefully hidden in the ending. Something which would maybe become pretty huge in following games maybe?

Or they just dropped the ball and it's shit rushed nonsense.

Anyways Jabba wasn't the only arsehole moderator, the BSN was chock full of the cunts. In many ways it still is.

We can speculate they had plans beyond ME3 with Shepard, yet the fact remains that Shepard's story is over. As much as how some of us would like to believe otherwise Bioware fucked up big time. Regardless ME:A is relying on the name sake alone to sell and "remember" the races and saying" going back to ME1 feels" is all meant to keep the others in check.

It's sad to see them fall ever more deep, yet greed,lazy writing and EA runs deep in Bioware. And as much as we may dislike EA, this in turn also falls onto Bioware's part too. That breath scene is a slap to the face regardless of the " well this could have happened". That is basically saying "we were to lazy to explain shit so we just put a scene Shepard survives and now you can headcanon it"

As much as we speculated and formulated cases to help IT as a whole, it amounted to nothing grand in ME term wise. We slowly became divided, and once Jabba banned IT, pinned the site as an example basically, took our "group" chat that Byne had created. It was pretty much over on the BSn for a year and a half. Then after that IT was allowed to be talked about again.

Honestly Bioware could have brought IT talk back to the forums after CP's crazy ass stunt, yet that is really all "what ifs". Truth is we are here now and just talk about random topics, and we are few yet at least it is something good that is created out of the chaos.

ZerebusPrime wrote:Merizan had to deal with a continuous barrage of ingrates on top of communicating with fans with brains.  It was my impression that she started out fairly coherent but became less and less so as year dragged on, ergo she got stressed out and started slipping.

No, she was an incompetent spod from day one. It was within the first week that she said the Normandy's crash landing was on Mars or some such drivel. Also, I can't remember what it was precisely after all these years but I got the distinct impression from some of the things she said that she never actually played the game. It seemed like she'd gotten a synopsis of the game, cliff notes if you will, and was merely pretending to be into it because public relations was her job.

dorktainian wrote:ok maybe I didn't put that quite right.

If they had a 'plan' that involved a huge twist in a following game, say something that involved shepards indoctrination, something which would be a pretty huge WTF, then they'd be a bit pissed off if some players actually spotted the seeds of said storyline they'd so carefully hidden in the ending.  Something which would maybe become pretty huge in following games maybe?

If they wanted it secret, they'd have made it a LOT more subtle. IT is about as subtle as nuclear weapon. There's no way they'd have thought that no one would pick up on it with the millions of fans, thousands of which are rabid fans. They laid IT on way, WAY too thick for it to go over everyone's heads. They'd have to be idiots to think it had a chance to go unnoticed, while I've accused them of being many things I'd never accuse them of being stupid.

Or they just dropped the ball and it's shit rushed nonsense.

Not an option. There's too much evidence of IT for it to be a product of chance. They definitely wrote the ending as indoctrination. Of this I have no doubt.

Anyways Jabba wasn't the only arsehole moderator, the BSN was chock full of the cunts.  In many ways it still is.

True, but he was the only employee of BW that was that way. There were plenty of volunteer mods that were hypercunts, but they weren't employees of BW. Internet forum volunteer mods tend to be that way in general unless the admins are very careful. It's a position that attracts control freaks. And let's face it, the Million Pound March wasn't gonna take more time than absolutely necessary to assign random douchebags the power to do his job so he doesn't have to.