A Response to Evil Chris

For those of you who missed it, check out his comments here: http://www.holdtheline.com/threads/m-m-fundraising-campaign-kicks-off.1309/page-3 and on page 5 of the thread.

Hmm. I wondering if invoking him will cause him to show up. Evil Chris Priestly!

I wanted to respond to him, and I wanted to respond to him here. I'll pull that response into a new thread for cohesion purposes. We wouldn't want it to be...

.... that'd be in bad taste, wouldn't it?

Meh. That's never stopped me before.



Yes. This is going to be one of those threads, where I break up a wall of text by posting videos and pictures that are only funny to me.

One of the things that he's said is that people are always surprised when they show evidence of listening. Well, to be honest, Mr. Priestly, the question isn't if you're listening. The question is if you're hearing us.



(Hah! And you thought I'd go with a White Men Can't Jump reference!)

There's a lot of people out there, with varying complaints about the ending. Many of these people ended up here. I'm not going to talk about the problems. I'm going to talk about the conversation, or quite frankly, the lack of it. To do that, you have to understand the types of people who are still actively complaining. You will not find people who are completely Disillusioned. Those people complained, probably once, and then went to find something else to do.

Those of us who are disheartened, but willing to believe you can (and will) fix it, however, fall into several groups.

There are the people who believe you are playing a longer game with us fans, and were seeking to avoid an "It Was His Sled" moment. (Personally, I've leaned toward this for a long time.) Similarly, people have taken it completely Meta, and think this is some sort of in house fight with EA. These two views have one thing in common. We've not yet seen the real ending. Is there something to do that?

Quote: BioWare suggests you should not delete your Mass Effect save files when you complete the final game in the trilogy next month. "It wouldn't be a bad idea (to keep your ME3 saves)" said Associate Producer Mike Gamble in an interview with GamerZines. "Obviously I can't say anything, but it wouldn't be a bad idea..."
-Gamespot



Who knows? The Truth rumor stands at about 50% correct; with the other half still up for debate.

The other side of this coin is those who just think you blew it. Realized it when the forums burst into flames, and have been trying to figure out how to put out the fire.

It's been over three weeks since PAX-East, and over a month since Dr. Ray Muzyka's blog entry offering a "non"-apology to the fans who were currently in an outright riot on their social site. We still don't have a straight answer to this question: "Was there always planned to be post/concurrent ending DLC?" And that fact is driving us crazy.

But! You may ask me, "Isn't Bioware in trouble no matter which answer it is? Won't they get flamed for the connotations in the answer?" Maybe. But that is already happening. And it's happening assuming the worst part of both halves are true.

The first step of solving a problem is admitting it is a problem, and there's the stinker. We have not yet heard anyone admit there is a problem.



(I so wanted to go with a ReBoot reference here. I just couldn't find a video with him saying "This is bad. Very Bad.")

Which gets me to the other part of Mr. Priestly's complaint.

"When we were sent the cupcakes we all agreed that they would be tasty, but the spirit in which they were sent was not supportive of us as a studio."

It's this kind of statement that makes us ask: Can you hear us? Now?



If we were not supportive of you - as a Studio -- we would not have tried to sweeten your disposition. Most people, companies, what have you, do not get this second chance. We want you to have a second chance.

There is such a thing as constructive criticism. Please accept it from us. Take these "protests" in the spirit they are intended: "Yes, there was a screw up. But we can accept your constructive criticism and we believe we can fix the problem."

That presupposes that you understand there is a problem.

Please understand that.

Please understand that we want to help you fix that problem.

Please understand that we want to make ourselves believe...

er. We want to believe that you're not just listening, but that you're hearing us. That you will be able to converse with us.

Alright. I'm done. All I can offer is a soda for making it through this. If we're all lucky, someone will be by with cookies.

I wanted to make this explicit; and I don't know that I did.

Chris: You asked. "Would we be here if we thought Bioware had created a good ending?"

And that's not the right question.

The question you need to ask is: "Would we be here if didn't still think Bioware could create a good ending?"

As it has been pointed out already, everybody is entitled to their own opinion.

We think there are problems with the ending - we should point them out.
Bioware thinks we are wrong about the issue - they should explain why we are wrong
Bioware can't explain the issue - they should acknowledge that there's a problem and fix it

The problem is that Bioware did not explain anything so far. Of course, they think that they will solve everything with the Extended Cut. But we have no reason to belive that the Extended Cut will solve anything. Bioware thought that the current ending is good and they were surprised with negative reaction, so we have every right to be doubtful of the Extended Cut.

A nice read! I will post more feedback tomorrow. I'm being chased by a man with shotgun.

If he asks if I'm a God, I'm saying yes. That's all.

The entire letter can be summed up with this part right here.

Read and understand this, Bioware: 99% of companies that drop the ball in as spectacular a fashion as did you did do NOT get a chance to redeem themselves. In our throw away disposable world these days, that simply does NOT happen. If we didn't believe that this could be fixed and fixed well, we wouldn't bother trying to maintain your attention. We wouldn't be wooing you, whispering our protestations out of our love for your past work. We wouldn't bother you, our reluctant paramour, with promises of candy and forgiveness if all is made right.

LISTEN, don't just hear.

Would we be here if the ending was good? No. That's the answer to Chris' question. If the ending was good we'd all be off replaying the game over and over. But the ending isn't good. It's terrible. No...worse...it's illogical. Let me cite an example.

Battlestar Galactica. There are a lot of people who don't like that show ended. I happen to love the ending of the show. It's basically Synthesis done right. But I undersand the gripes. People were upset at the "God did it" ending, I get that. But here's the difference between how Mass Effect ended and how Battlestar Galactica ended. BSG set it up. The ending was entirely consistent with everything that had gone before. Some people assumed there would be some grand scientific explanation or that we'd see Earth in the future, kicking Cylon ass or whatever. But from the very beginning, the notion of a higher power at work was right there. Whether a person liked the ending or not, it made sense within that universe.

I can't speak for everyone else, but if the ending to Mass Effect 3 had made sense, I wouldn't be here. If it had followed the themes and plot threads through to a logical conclusion, whatever that conclusion was, I wouldn't be here. I might have still hated the ending but I'd have chalked it up to different tastes and moved on. Mass Effect 3's ending wasn't consistent with the universe the games had created. It wasn't consistent with the Shepard Bioware had allowed me to build across three games. Actually, forget the first two games. It wasn't consistent with the game it appeared in. I don't like the ending to The Sopranos but it was consistent with the themes of the show so I moved on fairly quickly.

If the ending worked, I wouldn't be here. But the ending didn't work. And that's the point.

Kalia, couldn't say it any better. In fact I do believe, no one could.

...except for the Star Child. *dodge and away*

I liked you until that Star Child shit.

I'm sorry, can I make it up somehow?

All jokes aside, you really pointed out perfectly, what this side is for.

I'm just giving you trouble. Nothing to make up that a little sucking up elsewhere in the forums won't cover.

What you're saying IS true. I don't deny that.

But would you be here if you didn't think Bioware wasn't capable of doing better?

No I wouldn't. I'd be in Edmonton trying to get a job.

I read those posts, glad to know I'm not the only one who thinks he missed the point.

No one can exist in a vacuum of praise. While it sounds nice, the incentive to try harder or do better does not exist when mediocre garners high praise and zero criticism.

So it would be really bad to say... Evil Chris Priestly, Evil Chris Priestly, Evil Chris Priestly!

"It's SHOWTIME!"

Does anyone think the guy, Evil Chris Whatever, was trolling? Perhaps background check? If it is him he just made an ass of himself.

That's pretty normal for him.

Next time he replies on the forum, please notify him. I have about a dozen polite responses in mind for him, yet ultimately burns him.

The name's Troll. Gale Troll.