147 réponses à ce sujet

[Maera Imrov]

I don't see the point in closing a trilogy with an entirely new squad, or a squad only made up of people from ME1+some newbies. Negates 2 almost entirely. This is why I will be watching development closely before I decide on buying 3. There will be no rage, I don't get worked up enough to rage over games often, but if they cameo everyone but the ME1 people (none of whom I cared for except Wrex, Tali, and Garrus, and the latter two only became interesting to me in ME2), then I'll probably skip the game and just Youtube the major plot points.



Simple. No need for rage. Pocketbooks speak just as eloquently and with less forum drama. I doubt it'll make much of a point when everyone else will probably buy it regardless, but that's okay.

[Collider]

Nightwriter wrote...
Because I don't think Bioware would force gamers to go back and save more characters just to be able to have enough squaddies to progress with the story in ME3.

Ashley/Kaidan and Liara seem to be coming back, and also according to Bioware have large roles. That's 2 minimum. It's possible to save Morinth and Kasumi only, but really, if you do that, it seems likely you did it on puporse, and therefore don't have much room to complain if they aren't squad mates. Add two new squad mates and that's 4 squad mates. Possibly  5 is Wrex survived and they decide to make him a squad mate.

[Collider]

Arijharn wrote...
It will be logistically difficult I'm sure to think of the permutations that could occur to bringing those characters back (and I don't know whether it's realistic to expect someone like Wrex to come back as a party member considering he's out unifying the Krogan clans) but I do believe that BioWare, if nothing else, deserves to be given the benefit of a doubt.

I don't believe we need to be worrying about permutations. We never had much squad mate interactivity in the first place. It's likely to be binary. Either 0 they survived or 1 they didn't. Other than the characters themselves being alive, I don't it's going to
matter whether Jacob and Mordin survived over Jacob and Thane, for example. The only reason why I would worry about permutations is if the survival of one character or affects the storyline specifically if another character was also alive. But they haven't done that to begin with so I don't think we should worry about that.

[jlb524]

Collider wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...
Because I don't think Bioware would force gamers to go back and save more characters just to be able to have enough squaddies to progress with the story in ME3.

Ashley/Kaidan and Liara seem to be coming back, and also according to Bioware have large roles. That's 2 minimum. It's possible to save Morinth and Kasumi only, but really, if you do that, it seems likely you did it on puporse, and therefore don't have much room to complain if they aren't squad mates. Add two new squad mates and that's 4 squad mates. Possibly  5 is Wrex survived and they decide to make him a squad mate.

Just having a pool of less squad mates to pick from isn't necessarily going to make the game harder. 

[Nightwriter]

Arijharn wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

Arijharn wrote...

I don't think I agree with that, I think one of the reasons why they didn't focus on Wrex, Liara, Ash and Kaidan isn't so much that they couldn't think of what to do with them but basically because all things considered, they weren't immediately necessary.

This is Shephard's story, and I think all in all, it was a better decision to increase the cast list rather than just have the same crew continue again. Obviously though, they threw in the caveat with Garrus and Tali mainly because they underestimated just how much people took to them.

I thought it was because they wanted those characters to survive safely into ME3. 

I'm all for increasing the cast list so long as that doesn't cause problems for character recruitment or continuation in ME3.

That's true, but wouldn't you say that there's a reason to have them 'survive safely into ME3'?

It will be logistically difficult I'm sure to think of the permutations that could occur to bringing those characters back (and I don't know whether it's realistic to expect someone like Wrex to come back as a party member considering he's out unifying the Krogan clans) but I do believe that BioWare, if nothing else, deserves to be given the benefit of a doubt.

It will be interesting to learn if our DLC characters will return as well... frankly I hope so (and hopefully they'd return in any Awakening-esque expansions they bring out too) since they are way too interesting to just discard.

Oh, I agree, Bioware should be given the benefit of the doubt. And honestly, I find trying to make serious predictions about this pretty inconclusive - I'm just going to sit back and see how they do it.

And I hope, for your sake, then, that the DLC characters return. I don't have any of the DLCs and didn't play them but if you like them that much then it's only right they should come back.

[VettoRyouzou]

jlb524 wrote...

Collider wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...
Because I don't think Bioware would force gamers to go back and save more characters just to be able to have enough squaddies to progress with the story in ME3.

Ashley/Kaidan and Liara seem to be coming back, and also according to Bioware have large roles. That's 2 minimum. It's possible to save Morinth and Kasumi only, but really, if you do that, it seems likely you did it on puporse, and therefore don't have much room to complain if they aren't squad mates. Add two new squad mates and that's 4 squad mates. Possibly  5 is Wrex survived and they decide to make him a squad mate.

Just having a pool of less squad mates to pick from isn't necessarily going to make the game harder. 

True but you know people will whine if it "less deep" case of it, which to my argument be "you choice that path".

[Nightwriter]

jlb524 wrote...

Collider wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...
Because I don't think Bioware would force gamers to go back and save more characters just to be able to have enough squaddies to progress with the story in ME3.

Ashley/Kaidan and Liara seem to be coming back, and also according to Bioware have large roles. That's 2 minimum. It's possible to save Morinth and Kasumi only, but really, if you do that, it seems likely you did it on puporse, and therefore don't have much room to complain if they aren't squad mates. Add two new squad mates and that's 4 squad mates. Possibly  5 is Wrex survived and they decide to make him a squad mate.

Just having a pool of less squad mates to pick from isn't necessarily going to make the game harder. 

... Just less interesting.

[Collider]

jlb524 wrote...

Collider wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...
Because I don't think Bioware would force gamers to go back and save more characters just to be able to have enough squaddies to progress with the story in ME3.

Ashley/Kaidan and Liara seem to be coming back, and also according to Bioware have large roles. That's 2 minimum. It's possible to save Morinth and Kasumi only, but really, if you do that, it seems likely you did it on puporse, and therefore don't have much room to complain if they aren't squad mates. Add two new squad mates and that's 4 squad mates. Possibly  5 is Wrex survived and they decide to make him a squad mate.

Just having a pool of less squad mates to pick from isn't necessarily going to make the game harder. 

I never said it would. The point of my post was that you are likely to have more than enough squad mates for gamplay (you need only 2).

[jlb524]

Nightwriter wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Just having a pool of less squad mates to pick from isn't necessarily going to make the game harder. 

... Just less interesting.

That depends on the squad mates and how much effort they actually put into squad mate dialog this time.

Modifié par jlb524, 14 avril 2010 - 06:28 .

[Nightwriter]

jlb524 wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Just having a pool of less squad mates to pick from isn't necessarily going to make the game harder. 

... Just less interesting.

That depends on the squad mates and how much effort they actually put into squad mate dialog this time.

All I know is I loved all my squadmates ('cept Jacob, and I still kept him) and my game would be lamer without them.

Even if they gipped us on squadmate dialogue again - which I have no way of knowing they will - my game would still be better just by their presence in it.

[VettoRyouzou]

jlb524 wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Just having a pool of less squad mates to pick from isn't necessarily going to make the game harder. 

... Just less interesting.

That depends on the squad mates and how much effort they actually put into squad mate dialog this time.

And that were people are butting heads at, Is they have to figure out every scenario and make correct dialog for it and think that get costly.. Me I agree it be costly but not near as bad as the kotor mmo.

Personally I believe the game should work that you visit place you need to go even if they apart of that squad mate past or not only difference is if there alive and you bring them along that cretin area get allot more deeper.

Like here an example using tali again ((sorry the flotilla just an easy spot to work with)).

Example 1 Tali dead but was not exiled: You tell the people of the flotilla that she was brave fought with honor yada yada you get the drift and go on with your mission.

Example 2 Tali alive but was not exiled: You bring tali along you learn more over that character past if there a LI tie in you notice tali getting nervous and blushy over talking about it etc etc. Making it more deeper.

I mean there several example I could go over like ya know LI Tali exiled, LI dead tali exiled, Dead Tali LI exiled etc etc but to me this be the smartest action the story doesn't suffer it just deeper if there there.

[Collider]

I don't think they gipped us on squad mate dialogue. The total amount of lines or time duration of dialogue (including romance), aside from maybe Garrus, may be the same as romances with the ME1 squad mates. The distinction is that some of the dialogue is inaccessable if not in the romance, more so than ME1. In addition, ME1 was more properly paced.

[--Master of All--]

Peppard wrote...

--Master of All-- wrote...

Peppard wrote...

--Master of All-- wrote...
  I don't think Bioware will want to invest those types of resources into content that only part of the player base will experience. In short, I'd expect a lot of cameos, but probably not too many returning party members from either game.

On the other had, BW set the default game in ME2 in a way that eliminated all the encounters  with Urd Wrex, Gianni, the lab Asari, Conrad V, Rachni Errand girl, and Shiala.  Now, if what you're saying is true, why wouldn't they set the default game (which players new to the series would use), so that more players see that stuff?  On the one hand, you can say, "oh a new player wouldn't get who these random people are", but really, that goes for Anderson, Liara, Ash/Kaidan too. 

BW doesn't JUST think about creating content that can be seen by the most number of players.They also want to "reward" repeat players and create replay value.  They may still go the cameo route of course, because it seems to me that sometimes they plan a lot of things and just run out of time to do everything.

I agree that Bioware has demonstrated that they are willing to place a limited amount of content into the game that not all players will experience, but when it comes to the real 'meat and potatoes' (party members, main quests, LIs, etc.) There tends to be much less variability and few, if any circumstances that would exclude new players from experiencing each of them in full. 

 Your original thought was that BW wouldn't
want to put work into designing content for "the few" as opposed to
stuff everyone could see.    So why wouldn't BW make  the default game one in which most, if not all, of the ME2 squad survives? 

 If anything, I would guess the majority of players kept almost all the team alive, anyway, so content based around previous squad characters presumably would be seen by a majority of returning players, and setting the default game that way would take care of new players. So while the programming might be more complicated for including previous squad characters  (and more expensive), it likely would still be content that a majority of players experience, and for most fans, WANT to experience.   So it might be worth it for BW to invest the resources, despite the increased cost, the same way it was worth it to invest some resources into the return of Conrad Verner type stuff, to increase the feel of a continuing story. 

It is possible. But, based on Bioware's previous games, I don't see this as a likely scenario. The least-expensive way they could allow a continuation of your ME2 party is if they rendered certain import saves as 'invalid', and imposed a canon storyline. I don't think that's going to happen, as this would completely destory their notion that 'choices matter'.

The alterantive to a canon storyline is to allow varaibility in who joins your party in ME3 based on who survived the first two games. This, imo, would be armageddon for the developers. In the worst-case scenario, a player would only have four surviving party members to draw from (Garrus, Tali, Liara, and Kaiden/Ashley). Going full paragon and full loyalty, a player could have as many as 15, including Kasumi. Even if the 'majority' of players completed ME2 with nearly everyone surviving (which I think is questionable in itself), Bioware would still have to allow for a huge amount of variability in the game's content to account for the minority of players who intentionally killed everyone they could, or decided to skip half the loyalty missions, etc., etc.

Of course, you could make the argument: 'well, they played poorly, they should have to face the consequences of their actions'. I don't think Bioware will want to alienate thousands of players by cutting a large chunk of content from their game.

So, in order to avoid reducing the amount of game content available to certain players, Bioware would then have to implement back-up charatcers ala Biff the Understudy that can stand-in for dead or missing party members. To accomplish this task, the amount of work for the developers would go completely through the roof. To provide replacements for all the party members who could die in ME2, while also allowing for variability in who survived ME1, the game would have to include a total of 27 fully-developed (and fully-voiced) potential party members (15 + 12), many of whom the player will never even meet. That's a lot of extra cost with very little benefit to Bioware. IMO, this is not the type of system they are likely to implement if they are trying to do a fast turnaround from ME2 to ME3. 

Modifié par --Master of All--, 14 avril 2010 - 10:29 .

[Peppard]

--Master of All-- wrote... 
It is possible. But, based on Bioware's previous games, I don't see this as a likely scenario. The least-expensive way they could allow a continuation of your ME2 party is if they rendered certain import saves as 'invalid', and imposed a canon storyline. I don't think that's going to happen, as this would completely destory their notion that 'choices matter'.   The alterantive to a canon storyline is to allow varaibility in who joins your party in ME3 based on who survived the first two games. This, imo, would be armageddon for the developers.

They aren't concerned only with the least-expensive ways to do things.  There's a certain "fan appeal" they want to create, and sometimes that might require them to pursue a more expensive route in development. (Celebrity voice casting for example, or the inclusion of female and male shep as a choice).

Far as your argument that they either have to force a canon story to simplify the variables, or else, deal with an impossibly complex set of variables,  that's a false choice too.     

 Think about it, within ME2 you already have variability in who joins your party, when and in what order.  That's why they can offer DLCs character like Kasumi long after many people have finished the entire game.    She could have been "dead" just as easily  as "not downloaded".

There's a vast difference between the following choices for how to handle the fate of a particular character:
(A)  make the character an integral part of the main story arc,  
(  a brief cameo NPC with little interaction,    
© a  sidekick squad mate with a bunch of quippy, but essentially irrelevant  remarks  

Choice A would require some creation of a canon story, that ignores players choices, so that's out.
Choice B  is what BW's done before, but has received negative fan feedback for choosing
Choice C is something new, that, relies on the modular design of ME2 to pull off
 

 
In the worst-case scenario, a player would only have four surviving party members to draw from (Garrus, Tali, Liara, and Kaiden/Ashley). Going full paragon and full loyalty, a player could have as many as 15, including Kasumi. Even if the 'majority' of players completed ME2 with everyone surviving (which I think is questionable in itself), Bioware would still have to allow for a huge amount of variability in the game's content to account for the minority of players who intentionally killed everyone they could, or decided to skip half the loyalty missions, etc., etc.  
 
Of course, you could make the argument: 'well, they played poorly, they should have to face the consequences of their actions'. I don't think Bioware will want to alienate thousands of players by cutting a large chunk of content from their game.

They aren't cutting anything from those players--they are potentially offering them "replay value."  Others might also see importing a save with only a few survivors as a challenge, a player super-insanity run if you will.
 

  


So, in order to avoid reducing the amount of game content available to certain players, Bioware would then have to implement back-up charatcers ala Biff the Understudy that can stand-in for dead or missing party members. To accomplish this task, the amount of work for the developers would go completely through the roof. To provide replacements for all the party members who could die in ME2, while also allowing for variability in who survived ME1, the game would have to include a total of 27 fully-developed (and fully-voiced) potential party members (15 + 12), many of whom the player will never even meet. That's a lot extra cost with very little benefit to Bioware. IMO, this is not the type of system they are likely to implement if they are trying to do a fast turnaround from ME2 to ME3. 

I think you're making assumptions  just to make it sound harder, and downplay the value of having returning characters, just because there are a few players who may not see a few of those characters in  imports to ME3.   While having "everyone survive" may not be the most common result,  I bet the average player is much closer to having several team mates survive than the blood bath scenario.   I keep seeing posts that it is "too easy" to save people in fact.    I have not seen many posts that it is "too hard" to save most of the squad.

  BW could design a game that works well based around a minimum squad of 6 characters  (since 6 was the magic number in ME1) covering   3 basic classes (tech/combat/biotic).  They start everyone off with  at least one character in each of the 3 classes (Liara--biotic),   Virmire Survivor (now a combat person), and a third character for Tech, who could be new.     That gives them a fourth character that can be anything they want, probably a hybrid type.    The two new characters, plus the 2 old ME1 can be used for anything central story related (the way Jacob and Miranda work in ME2).   

 So total VA they need to do:  17.   (me2 dirty dozen, 3 for me1 and 2 new ones).   They could easily skip doing some celebrity VA things like Captain Bailey in my opinion, to bring us that.     

[Andrew_Waltfeld]

Peppard wrote...

I think you're making assumptions  just to make it sound harder, and downplay the value of having returning characters, just because there are a few players who may not see a few of those characters in  imports to ME3.   While having "everyone survive" may not be the most common result,  I bet the average player is much closer to having several team mates survive than the blood bath scenario.   I keep seeing posts that it is "too easy" to save people in fact.    I have not seen many posts that it is "too hard" to save most of the squad.

You literally have to TRY to get your members killed, and assuming the player is using his head, he is more than likely to pick any of the squad-members that will succeed. To be honest, an player using their head, they are coming out with everyone alive. The upgrade system made it very clear that you will want X, Y and Z upgrades if you want your squad-mates to surivive. The game also made it clear what objectives you are going to be facing and give pretty of options of choices that you explored in the background, (miranda, garrus, samara etc as leaders). I see no reason why your deadly 12 squadron is not still with you at the begining of ME3 if they are sitting there in the cargo bay, starting to make plans for the reapers at the end. I would almost go so far as an 7 year old would be able to make the decisions correctly if given the the choices and had played ME1/Me2 throughly.

More often than not, there is going to be 1 or 2 casulties at most for people. You pretty much have to plan your bloodbath. People are assuming an pattern when there is no pattern as of yet. Two dots do not make an pattern on an graph, only an slope. it's simply an line. Nobody believes two points of data is proof or an pattern. It's only two times. and most of the time, people are assuming ME2 will happen again in ME3, which I severily doubt. IT is more of an waste of a resources to have everyone as cameo's then it is to keep them as squadmates... all of them. Sure 1,2, maybe 3 squadmates are missing, but then, they simply replaced by the returning squadmates from ME1. In my opinon, all of the suriving squadmates will return in ME3. It makes no common sense to roll out an new squad with the exause of "VA costs."

[Kileyan]

I do kinda see what some people are talking about. Gamers are hard to please. Many never killed Wrex, they recruited every single character, and weren't happy until they got high loyaltly, did every single mission and kept everyone alive. They are invested in the old characters and want them back.



Then you have other players, those that went out of their way to create a wonky save with as many dead or missing characters as possible. Perfectly valid playstybles but not the common one, the go out of their way to see what they can break, then aren't happy when its broken.



How do they include a full compliment of returning squad mates for the majority of save games, yet make sure the crazy dead crew save players have a full diverse crew without breaking continuity and having dead people join them in ME3.



It is gonna be a mess. They could please likely 90% of the players by assuming everyones main save has at most one person dead who they disliked. But still, they can't tell someone with a save game, they have carried through for 4 years of this game, that their choices aren't valid, and they must just look over dead characters coming back to life to have a diverse crew.



Its gonna take a mix of the old crews and 3 or 5 brand new crew members to fill out some peoples saves, into a playable game?

[DarthCaine]

I'm gonna quote myself from another thread

DarthCaine wrote...

The reason why only Garrus and Tali were recruitable in ME2 was because they can't die in ME1

Wrex, Ashley and Kaidan weren't squad mates in ME2 'cos they could die in ME1 and BioWare was too lazy to make multiple full squad mates from which you can get only one (in the Ash/Kaidan choice). Liara wasn't a squad mate 'cos the other LIs weren't

(A hopeful reason would be that they did so that the variations in ME3 would be much less and the ME1 characters could die only once, just like all of ME2's squad)

It's the same reason why only Oghren was recruitable in DAO:A (he can't die). Morrigan also can't die but wasn't recruitable 'cos the other LIs (Leliana, Zevran and Alistair) could die

BioWare is infamous for making little to no consequences

It all depends on whether BioWare is not too lazy to make multiple squad mates based on your choices (for example if Garrus dies, we get a new ME3 squad mate to replace him who isn't recruitable if most squad mates survived)

BioWare has 3 paths:

1. They take the ME2/DAO:A road and make a whole new crew (for which a lot of people would be angry) and once again proving that your choices don't matter and BioWare is lazy

2. They make some of the characters, that aren't LIs, recruitable (that's Wrex, Grunt, Mordin, Legion, Samara,Morinth, Zaeed and Kasumi)

3. They make ALL the LIs recruitable (for the others non LIs it's up to them)

DarthCaine wrote...

Andrew_Waltfeld wrote...

Of course, some consider that bio-ware will just throw everyone in because it is the final chapter.

And BioWare would have to make only 16+ different characters, all with full dialogue and romances (and they'd have to make some new squad mates to replace the dead characters and for the Default Shepard most WILL be dead)

It's not very realistic thinking, is it?

Modifié par DarthCaine, 15 avril 2010 - 01:37 .

[DarthCaine]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

DarthCaine wrote...

1. They take the ME2/DAO:A road and make a whole new crew (for which a lot of people would be angry) and once again proving that your choices don't matter and BioWare is lazy

2. They make some of the characters, that aren't LIs, recruitable (that's Wrex, Grunt, Mordin, Legion, Samara,Morinth, Zaeed and Kasumi)

3. They make ALL the LIs recruitable (for the others non LIs it's up to them)

How are these recruitable if they are dead in my ME2 save import into ME3?  Retconning?

It all depends on whether BioWare is not too lazy to make multiple squad mates based on your choices (for example if Garrus dies, we get a new ME3 squad mate to replace him who isn't recruitable if most squad mates survived)

And BioWare would have to make only 16+ different characters, all with full dialogue and romances (and they'd have to make some new squad mates to replace the dead characters and for the Default Shepard most WILL be dead)

Modifié par DarthCaine, 15 avril 2010 - 01:47 .

[ImperialOperative]

Nostradamoose wrote...

we don,t know... So betting on anything is heavy risks...

but the priize...

[ImperialOperative]

LOGIC?  WHAT SAY YOU?

[RhythmlessNinja]

Reducing roles, Heavy Risk....



But the Priiize...