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[InvaderErl]

The virus doesn't affect humans. It was likely intended to destabilize the other alien races to make way for future Reaper/Collector operations while keeping the one species they actually had an interest in, safe.

[SkullandBonesmember]

Revan312 wrote...

Well Smud, you summed up almost everything I've said on the boards since the game released, good job on the vid. There might have been a bit too much nitpicking concerning the last mission's who lives or dies moments and maybe the joker mission (though you mentioned that) but overall that's exactly how I felt about the games progression, meaning and execution. It was shallow and convoluted concerning the plot.

Hopefully vids like yours and the random posts myself and others have made will knock some sense into Bioware because they really do have the capability to pull off an amazing game, they just need to work through the main story arch and spend more time thinking about what the point of the game is. They lost themselves in gameplay mechanics this time I think and I'm hoping that they leave those pretty much alone and just concentrate on the flavor, atmosphere and meat of the game world as that's why I play RPG's.

QFFT. How I pray Bioware reads that and takes note and even the shooter fans.

Hopefully, yes, but I don't see it happening.

[Darkchipper07]

and I said the game was rushed and just cause its polished doesn't mean anything. Ok game not rushed only the story was rushed but the story is part of the game and if the story was rushed then the game was..??????



future dlc=stuff that they wanted to put in the game but didn't have time to so they'll release it later



but they planned it cause they knew that they didn't have enough time



looks>content

[Lemonwizard]

I finally got around to watching this whole thing, and I must say that while you have several excellent points, it's bogged down by a whole lot of complaining about tiny and insignificant stuff (or refusal to accept the idea of story and gameplay segregation), that is probably going to dampen your message and stop many people from recognizing the parts of your analysis that are spot-on.

[smudboy]

Lemonwizard wrote...

I finally got around to watching this whole thing, and I must say that while you have several excellent points, it's bogged down by a whole lot of complaining about tiny and insignificant stuff (or refusal to accept the idea of story and gameplay segregation), that is probably going to dampen your message and stop many people from recognizing the parts of your analysis that are spot-on.

Thanks Lemon.

Could you elaborate?

[Pacifien]

Lemonwizard wrote...
I finally got around to watching this whole thing, and I must say that while you have several excellent points, it's bogged down by a whole lot of complaining about tiny and insignificant stuff (or refusal to accept the idea of story and gameplay segregation), that is probably going to dampen your message and stop many people from recognizing the parts of your analysis that are spot-on.

Besides the obvious Red Letter Media comparison, this is probably the crux of my own critique of smudboy's critique.

Any story can be torn to shreds if you get into the little details. If you're looking for a well-structured story, you focus on the backbone of the story and pick the weak points that make the overall story crack. All the hairline fractures are just nitpicks and focusing on them muddles the impact of the critique. Scale back, find where the cracks start.

However, even the poorest of story structures can hide its flaws by the spectacle of the production and the presentation. So in the end, were you entertained? There is nothing wrong with cheap entertainment -- I daresay that even Stephen Hawking isn't made less intellectual because he laughed at a fart joke once. But some people are going to look at the spectacle and find no entertainment in it, and then all that's left is whether the story could engage them. Obviously, it can't for some people.

I would love if Bioware could find within itself the masterful development found in a Tim Schafer or Warren Spector game. None of Bioware's games, including Mass Effect 2, have managed to reach that level for me. I still have liked playing their games and all I can hope for is improvement.

Many elements of the game of Mass Effect 2 do improve upon its predecessor, but I will admit the overall story does not. It has a lot of smaller stories within the overall story that are quite promising, though. But I'm not going to say ME3 needs to be a combination of ME2 and ME1 because the developers can still go a very long way in improving both gameplay and story writing.

And in the end, I find the easiest critique that someone is willing to accept isn't an in-depth analysis of every way you went wrong, but suggestions on where you could be better. Wallowing in where it all went wrong is just going to make you look like a fool.

[glacier1701]

 Under normal war circumstances Smud's contention about keeping the Collector Base makes absolute sense. Yet the circumstances faced in ME1/ME2 is far from normal. Basically if the Council and Shepard lose this war then all current races lose everything regardless of their affiliation, participation or lack thereof in the fight. Everyone faces extinction. This changes the character of the war. Indeed the main problem of the war is that it is being fought against a foe that, so far as has been determined, has practice of at least 37 million years in the art of extermination. They are no normal enemy to whom you could surrender, regroup for a number of years and then perhaps go another round. So with this in mind lets go into some detail.

 #1 Smud reason for keeping the base - INFORMATION. I concede that there could be a lot of information on the base but the main ones that I can see that most probably are not known already and which are of potential use is that concerning how to make organic slurpies, how to use that in a machine/organic hybrid device and how to make a Reaper. Pretty much anything else that I can think of either has already been collected or if no use in stopping the Reapers. Remember that in defeating Saren a lot of data that Saren had on Sovereign was collected and most probably survived in the various research facilities he funded/setup. While Sovereign was destroyed at least some useful stuff came out of it in the form of the Thanix cannon and perhaps there are other items in development we still do not know of. The thing is that a lot of information on Reapers was collected at that point. Additionally we have Vee'tor's data which we can add to the data that EDI collected when Shepard first boarded the Collector ship. If you recall EDI was in the Collector database to be able to pull out data on experiments, how to move the flying platforms, open/close doors all of which are not necessarily the first things to find in databases. Then you have all the information EDI pulled out on the Collector Base. While perhaps not as much and not everything once again there was significant access here.

If this were not enough then you have Legion's data and whatever Cerberus data was found on the Derelict Reaper. There is also the potential data you might have should you have chosen to have the Heretics rewritten to rejoin the Geth. These Geth would also have a lot of information on Sovereign perhaps more than expected. In short while there is information loss it is not as great as TIM might make out other than that which he has most interest in which is how to make a Reaper. We do not really need that info since we are more concerned with how to take them apart and we already know one way is by sheer BRUTE FORCE. So in this case blowing up the Collector base is a valid option.

 #2 Smud reason for keeping the base - Show people the Reapers exist!. Pretty much everything Smud says here is correct. The people who are making the decisions do not believe Shepard and here is final proof that what we say is actually true. And since the ONLY ship that can make it through the relay is the Normandy Shepard has the final say in who gets to view it except that is not 100% accurate. If any of the crew survives they are Cerberus though with a great deal of loyalty towards Shepard. Yet there could be ways of making them act against Shepard such as threats against family (the guy whose family was moved by Cerberus from New Canton for example) or other forms of blackmail. It is entirely possible that by use of anesthetic gas those who might oppose the takeover of the Normandy are rendered defenceless and find that the ship has been hijacked and they are left at an abandoned base somewhere thus allowing TIM full and unfettered access to the Base EVEN if Shepard did not desire that. However this is something that may or may not be an issue as each of us have a different game on the state of the crew and their loyalty to Shepard (by crew I do not mean Miranda, Mordin, Garrus etc).

 Yet even if we show the base to the non-believing Council there is the issue of too much time having passed with nothing being done. I can see there being perhaps 2 years before the Reapers arrive and I do not feel this is enough time to build anything but small ships which even with Thanix cannons on them (I am talking frigates and fighters and nothing bigger) cannot be fielded in enough numbers to counter the Reapers. So convincing others while good in one sense still leaves us in a position where nothing constructive can be done in the time remaining. I am willing to concede that there might be time so this even coupled with the danger of the wrong people getting access to the Collector base does NOT outweigh getting people aware of the danger. This reason is enough to negate my reasoning on information above so that the final decision is undecided at this point.

 #3 Smud reason for keeping the base - How did we reach the base? Mass relay technology is not an unknown science in so far as it seems possible that the current races could build their own relays including those which can span very long distances. In the war against the Reapers this really does not have anything to do with stopping them and is not valid reason for keeping the base. So this has no validity in the arguement.

 So at this point the decision is not final on what should be done with the base. What I believe decides the point is that of TECHNOLOGY. Now lets be clear this is not the same as information as in #1 above. The information on the base does include technological information but it also includes other types as well. However I am saying that the TECHNOLOGICAL information is what we do not need at this time. Why is that? Well basically as we find out from Sovereign much of the technological currently in use derives from Reaper technology. I would be very surprised if over the past 37 million years the Reapers have not seen everything that can be done with that tech especially under the lash of extermination being the price of not coming up with something, anything that might be of use to destroy Reapers. So this means that using Reaper technology is NOT going to create any surprises and so far 37 million years of history seems to be on the side of the Reapers in this case. 

 What needs to be done is for a means of coming up with something that is outside the realm of Reaper technology. Thus getting rid of the base means that there is no other option but to work on that with a desperation born of the knowledge of the price of failure. And surprisingly there are a couple of possibilities. You have to remember that so far as is known no-one has managed to stop the Reapers from using the Citadel from being used to make the surprise attack. So far as we know no-one has gathered the information we have on what the Reapers actually are. Even the Protheans did not fully understand what the Reapers were (thanks to the retconn of them being machine/organic hybrids). This gives us the possibility of biowarfare against the Reapers. This should be outside the familiar for the Reapers. There are some other things that could be pursued such as computer virus or finding big rocks to throw. Yet the main thing is that whatever is come up with not being based on Reaper tech should be a surprise for the Reapers. So then destroying the base is a means of ensuring that no time is wasted on pursuing avenues of research based on Reaper tech which have absolutely no guarantee of not having been used against the Reapers in the past and thus have existing countermeasures in place.

So in the end then this last part tips the balance towards getting rid of the base. Not for the reasons that we get given by BioWare. One of BioWare's reasons are that the base is an obscenity because of what was done to humans there. If this were a valid reason it would mean that we should get rid of Dachau or Buchenwald or Auschwitz rather than keep them as a reminder of what we can do to ourselves. That is basically what is being said. The other reason is to screw TIM over and I must admit that that does have a certain satisfying appeal to it but it cannot be the reason for destroying the base because it is too superficial. No the overriding reason to get rid of the base is to ensure non-Reaper based tech is the base for any possible measures to be used against the Reapers.

Modifié par glacier1701, 06 juin 2010 - 12:27 .

[Lemonwizard]

smudboy wrote...

Lemonwizard wrote...

I finally got around to watching this whole thing, and I must say that while you have several excellent points, it's bogged down by a whole lot of complaining about tiny and insignificant stuff (or refusal to accept the idea of story and gameplay segregation), that is probably going to dampen your message and stop many people from recognizing the parts of your analysis that are spot-on.

Thanks Lemon.

Could you elaborate?

Forgive me in advance for using very few specific examples, but your video was long and I don't really have the time to cover everything you discussed.


I think your big points like how the loyalty missions have no tie-ins to the main plot, Shepard does not develop as a character, ME2 has a horrible excuse for an antagonist, carrying the idiot ball every time you run into the collector ship, nobody bothering to report the derelict reaper, etc, all of these are almost exactly my thoughts on the issues.



However, any question that could realistically be answered by "it was cut from the animation budget because it wouldn't really make it that much cooler" is something you really just have to live with. Would it be nifty if the collectors had shuttles? Sure, but it's not that hard to stretch that such things exist and we just never see them. Many of the things you complained about could have very simple off-camera explanations if you are just willing to go along with willing suspension of disbelief. And, as Pacifien just explained, willing suspension of disbelief is necessary to enjoy any story. If you look closely enough, even the most well thought out and efficiently executed plots have little holes here and there. It's just part of life. It's essentially the same thing as pointing out that Shepard never eats or goes to the bathroom. You spent an hour picking the game apart when all the things that really mattered could have been discussed in twenty minutes.



The other thing that I thought was a bit silly was your complaints about the hold the line section prior to the final boss, simply because they ran completely contrary to the entire rest of your analysis. The answer to your complaint about the section where you play as Joker is "Yes it's bogus storywise, but this is a fun change of pace for gameplay!". You seem to take issue with this mode of doing it, which I can respect, but then you go and begin complaining about random hold the line deaths, suddenly changing from "hey you got your gameplay in my story!" to "hey you got your story in my gameplay!". It IS realistic that fewer people would have a harder time holding off the same amount of collectors, that combat specialized characters would be better at defending in a last stand style fight than tech specialized characters, and in a real battle, people die at random all the time from some stray piece of shrapnel or that one bullet that was in the right place at the right time. Being able to easily save everyone would be the story fail here, not the way it is currently. I thought this undermined the rest of your point.




Overall, I think you're wrong to focus so much on little details that can be chalked up to simple causes, and distract people from your main points about the big issues, which are what really need to get fixed.

Modifié par Lemonwizard, 06 juin 2010 - 12:35 .

[glacier1701]

Lemonwizard,



I think I can answer somewhat for Smud and of course definetly for myself. Willing suspension of disbelief is something that we all practice when we go into watch a movie or play a game. The issue is one of how much can you tolerate of small things not being there before they become enough of a problem to break that willing suspension of belief. That level of tolerance is different for each of us. What happens is that once it is broken then even the things that perhaps could be smoother over no longer can be and you start to spot everything that is a problem. Smud has limited himself to only a few of the things that bother him the most and most of that centers around the story/plot as presented in ME2. My concerns are in other areas but a lot of what I find concerns me pop up in Smud's video. He even covered some things that I have had no experience of since in ALL my game playthroughs I've not had those situations crop up. Yet when I saw them, checked them out I find that they are concerns and issues.



It is the little details that make the game. BioWare has a lot of small detail in the game yet at the same time in some of the most important parts that attention to detail went by the boards. A few words extra could have saved a lot of problems but that time was not taken. Would it have been that hard to have had EDI say 'The Collectors have boarded with shuttles'? Even if they did not show shuttles it would have explained somewhat of what went on. Yet BioWare did not take the time and put no effort into doing that. It spent its time and budget on such things as toggleless helmets, a dozen characters of which 4 really could have not been worked on and would not have been missed, retconning the Reaper background, and giving us a flawed reason for why suddenly the Collectors are now into wholesale kidnapping and so on and so on.



In the end it comes down to this ME2 is a good game but has a horrendously bad story/plot yet BioWare seems to think that it got the story/plot right which a large enough number of people who bought the game do not agree with.

[smudboy]

glacier1701 wrote...
 Under normal war circumstances Smud's contention about keeping the Collector Base makes absolute sense. Yet the circumstances faced in ME1/ME2 is far from normal. Basically if the Council and Shepard lose this war then all current races lose everything regardless of their affiliation, participation or lack thereof in the fight. Everyone faces extinction. This changes the character of the war. Indeed the main problem of the war is that it is being fought against a foe that, so far as has been determined, has practice of at least 37 million years in the art of extermination. They are no normal enemy to whom you could surrender, regroup for a number of years and then perhaps go another round. So with this in mind lets go into some detail.

Correct.  The initial, or simplified reaction to keeping it is: get every edge you can.

 #1 Smud reason for keeping the base - INFORMATION. I concede that there could be a lot of information on the base but the main ones that I can see that most probably are not known already and which are of potential use is that concerning how to make organic slurpies, how to use that in a machine/organic hybrid device and how to make a Reaper. Pretty much anything else that I can think of either has already been collected or if no use in stopping the Reapers. Remember that in defeating Saren a lot of data that Saren had on Sovereign was collected and most probably survived in the various research facilities he funded/setup. While Sovereign was destroyed at least some useful stuff came out of it in the form of the Thanix cannon and perhaps there are other items in development we still do not know of. The thing is that a lot of information on Reapers was collected at that point. Additionally we have Vee'tor's data which we can add to the data that EDI collected when Shepard first boarded the Collector ship. If you recall EDI was in the Collector database to be able to pull out data on experiments, how to move the flying platforms, open/close doors all of which are not necessarily the first things to find in databases. Then you have all the information EDI pulled out on the Collector Base. While perhaps not as much and not everything once again there was significant access here.

This is fair.  I would say that having a piece of engineering is more efficient than simply having data or plans on it.  (Which is under the assumption there are such pieces of data already present from EDI.  If not, then the more reason.  If there was a comment or more exposition we would have better understanding on each of the sources (Veetor Data, Collector Ship/Base, Derelict Reaper.))

If this were not enough then you have Legion's data and whatever Cerberus data was found on the Derelict Reaper. There is also the potential data you might have should you have chosen to have the Heretics rewritten to rejoin the Geth. These Geth would also have a lot of information on Sovereign perhaps more than expected. In short while there is information loss it is not as great as TIM might make out other than that which he has most interest in which is how to make a Reaper. We do not really need that info since we are more concerned with how to take them apart and we already know one way is by sheer BRUTE FORCE. So in this case blowing up the Collector base is a valid option.

If by destroying Sovereign as our only example, there's still unclarity whether it was by brute force via Alliance, or occurred after the final form of Saren/Sovereign was revealed/transformed, and then defeated.
(And such speculation: http://masseffect.wi...:Saren_Arterius).  Either way, we're still not sure how.  Having access to an emeny space station that births our enemy (and potentially our enemy's ship) should provide quite a few answers.  If we wish to know how to take something apart, I'd imagine one can first look to how something is constructed.

This is of cousre questionable, since there has yet to be a Human Reaper in existence.  We can assume that the process, if it is the same for other Reapers, isn't simply human-genetic-slurpee specific.  Considering the lack of understanding of the entire process, and poor exposition from the narrative, it could very well be a genie in a bottle (with additional catastrophic results.  It's anyone's guess where they take this choice.)

 #2 Smud reason for keeping the base - Show people the Reapers exist!. Pretty much everything Smud says here is correct. The people who are making the decisions do not believe Shepard and here is final proof that what we say is actually true. And since the ONLY ship that can make it through the relay is the Normandy Shepard has the final say in who gets to view it except that is not 100% accurate. If any of the crew survives they are Cerberus though with a great deal of loyalty towards Shepard. Yet there could be ways of making them act against Shepard such as threats against family (the guy whose family was moved by Cerberus from New Canton for example) or other forms of blackmail. It is entirely possible that by use of anesthetic gas those who might oppose the takeover of the Normandy are rendered defenceless and find that the ship has been hijacked and they are left at an abandoned base somewhere thus allowing TIM full and unfettered access to the Base EVEN if Shepard did not desire that. However this is something that may or may not be an issue as each of us have a different game on the state of the crew and their loyalty to Shepard (by crew I do not mean Miranda, Mordin, Garrus etc).

A minor corollary to this is, in the all dead/save the base ending, we see a number of ships apparently sent by TIM advancing on the base.  Now how TIM magically manufactored and was successful in making a small number of IFF ships sent at a moments notice of neutron bombing, is ridiculously unknown; but hey, that's TIM (the plot) for you.  The three major ones are EDI wouldn't allow such behavior, you may not have saved any Cerberus red-shirts, and that saving the base is directly toward Cerberus.  (We all know there is no option for Shepard to save the base and hand it over to someone else).

 Yet even if we show the base to the non-believing Council there is the issue of too much time having passed with nothing being done. I can see there being perhaps 2 years before the Reapers arrive and I do not feel this is enough time to build anything but small ships which even with Thanix cannons on them (I am talking frigates and fighters and nothing bigger) cannot be fielded in enough numbers to counter the Reapers. So convincing others while good in one sense still leaves us in a position where nothing constructive can be done in the time remaining. I am willing to concede that there might be time so this even coupled with the danger of the wrong people getting access to the Collector base does NOT outweigh getting people aware of the danger. This reason is enough to negate my reasoning on information above so that the final decision is undecided at this point.

This is also fair.  We really have no idea when "the Reapers are coming."  (Let alone how Shepard knows/when "Harbinger is coming." Or our third-person omniscient view of a Reaper fleet going somewhere at the end of the game.) It is an immediate concern, but we can't measure that immediacy.

The idea I think you're going with is "is there time to build a fleet/acquire/develop this technology/convince others."  Well, if in your first argument, you say we may already have a ton of data that gives us enough time to decode, then we can argue we may already have the engineering from the base to not construct, but to jury-rig into supposed armament/defenses.  If we argue that there is no time at all to build tech, then it would simply be more efficient to convince as many minds as possible given our current Thanix cannons tech.

 #3 Smud reason for keeping the base - How did we reach the base? Mass relay technology is not an unknown science in so far as it seems possible that the current races could build their own relays including those which can span very long distances. In the war against the Reapers this really does not have anything to do with stopping them and is not valid reason for keeping the base. So this has no validity in the arguement.

I admit it's a weak point.  And though it's possible natural habitable areas of the galactic core could be safe to travel, I was under the impression that it was a manufactured safe-zone.

 So at this point the decision is not final on what should be done with the base. What I believe decides the point is that of TECHNOLOGY. Now lets be clear this is not the same as information as in #1 above. The information on the base does include technological information but it also includes other types as well. However I am saying that the TECHNOLOGICAL information is what we do not need at this time. Why is that? Well basically as we find out from Sovereign much of the technological currently in use derives from Reaper technology. I would be very surprised if over the past 37 million years the Reapers have not seen everything that can be done with that tech especially under the lash of extermination being the price of not coming up with something, anything that might be of use to destroy Reapers. So this means that using Reaper technology is NOT going to create any surprises and so far 37 million years of history seems to be on the side of the Reapers in this case.

Similar to Shamus' reasonings of keeping the base (proof, memorial, tech, intel), "Info+" could mean anything recovered.  For me, number one is "wtf was going on?"  However, information can also mean technology.  (I'm using the info->knowledge argument.  Just because we have info doesn't make it knowledge.  But, if we understand the info, it does, and such, we can use what we've learned to build technology.)  Again, using the same argument, why build the potential technology from possible EDI-data when we can cannibalize and jury-rig the potential engineering and definite info?

Now your'e referring to the potential new technology/engineering found wouldn't be very new, or anything different or as advanced as the Mass Relay stuff found from Mars, or Sovereign.  Well, you may be right.  You may also be wrong.  It's sheer speculation to say that an unknown alien spacestation that creates cybernetic giants wouldn't have any weapons-tech.  (And you're using the argument that we're here to Stop The Reapers via weapons-tech; correct me if I'm wrong.)  Because time is of the essense.  And I agree: our ingenuity and efficienty can't beat millions of years.

But this is all comes down to the assumption (unless I'm wrong, just correct me) that we're wasting our time trying to 1) get potential tech, 2) convince others with less proof.

My answer is: 1) it's better to have a mysterious something than not, to figure out its application later (a la Mordin), 2) Mass Effect brains have problems with being convinced with evidence (but I've a feeling this won't even be an issue in ME3, considering the either/or choice this results in, and the massive dichotomy it would create in an end to the series.)

 What needs to be done is for a means of coming up with something that is outside the realm of Reaper technology. Thus getting rid of the base means that there is no other option but to work on that with a desperation born of the knowledge of the price of failure. And surprisingly there are a couple of possibilities. You have to remember that so far as is known no-one has managed to stop the Reapers from using the Citadel from being used to make the surprise attack. So far as we know no-one has gathered the information we have on what the Reapers actually are. Even the Protheans did not fully understand what the Reapers were (thanks to the retconn of them being machine/organic hybrids). This gives us the possibility of biowarfare against the Reapers. This should be outside the familiar for the Reapers. There are some other things that could be pursued such as computer virus or finding big rocks to throw. Yet the main thing is that whatever is come up with not being based on Reaper tech should be a surprise for the Reapers. So then destroying the base is a means of ensuring that no time is wasted on pursuing avenues of research based on Reaper tech which have absolutely no guarantee of not having been used against the Reapers in the past and thus have existing countermeasures in place.

That same argument could be applied to keeping the base.  Using non-Reaper tech to experiment on Reaper tech, either in the laboratory or simulations.  Again, Reaper baby maker.  It makes our enemies.  How would rocks fair against a Reaper's body/ship body?  What's more possible: speculating that EDI might already have the data but hasn't decrypted it yet?  Or ensuring we have it?

So in the end then this last part tips the balance towards getting rid of the base. Not for the reasons that we get given by BioWare. One of BioWare's reasons are that the base is an obscenity because of what was done to humans there. If this were a valid reason it would mean that we should get rid of Dachau or Buchenwald or Auschwitz rather than keep them as a reminder of what we can do to ourselves. That is basically what is being said. The other reason is to screw TIM over and I must admit that that does have a certain satisfying appeal to it but it cannot be the reason for destroying the base because it is too superficial. No the overriding reason to get rid of the base is to ensure non-Reaper based tech is the base for any possible measures to be used against the Reapers.

The idea that humankind is an unknown or under the interest of the Reapers does have key points: they obviously weren't expecting us.

But your argument is based on using Reaper-tech that is located from the base to defeat Reapers.  It could just be to analyze the data (which EDI already has) more efficiently for all the possible alternatives you came up with (by having a base to test it in) by having a laboratory.  We could just be finding weaknesses in the creation of a Reaper to use practical means of deafeating them.  Whereas in Mars, makind found FTL spaceships, Eezo and a malfunctioning Mass Effect core, the (ridiculously) massive Collector Base makes the most advanced sentient life form in existence, that created mass effect cores.  That happens to be our enemy.  That wants to destroy us.  Forever, again.

You do not want to get rid of this thing: especially if your argument boils down to "you're wasting your time trying to convince people and make potential weapons."

[smudboy]

Lemonwizard wrote...
Forgive me in advance for using very few specific examples, but your video was long and I don't really have the time to cover everything you discussed.

No worries. I think I get what you're saying.

I think your big points like how the loyalty missions have no tie-ins to the main plot, Shepard does not develop as a character, ME2 has a horrible excuse for an antagonist, carrying the idiot ball every time you run into the collector ship, nobody bothering to report the derelict reaper, etc, all of these are almost exactly my thoughts on the issues.

The "role players" would see the Shepard character not developing point as either minor, non-existent, or sheer hypocrisy on my part.

However, any question that could realistically be answered by "it was cut from the animation budget because it wouldn't really make it that much cooler" is something you really just have to live with. Would it be nifty if the collectors had shuttles? Sure, but it's not that hard to stretch that such things exist and we just never see them. Many of the things you complained about could have very simple off-camera explanations if you are just willing to go along with willing suspension of disbelief. And, as Pacifien just explained, willing suspension of disbelief is necessary to enjoy any story. If you look closely enough, even the most well thought out and efficiently executed plots have little holes here and there. It's just part of life. It's essentially the same thing as pointing out that Shepard never eats or goes to the bathroom. You spent an hour picking the game apart when all the things that really mattered could have been discussed in twenty minutes.

Sorry but, "because it's not cool enough" has no place in a writers' brain.  As the audience, who understands a thing about game engines and writing/camera work, I can say I wasn't even thinking this way.

Considering the Collectors have been doing what they wanted within the timeframe of the plot for 2 years, not leaving a trace, yet all their collection methods do not explain or show this (quite the opposite), or how they travel to locations outside of their Cruiser, then yes, it is something that crossed my mind that needed explanation (ditto with how Cerberus collected that seeker-swarm for Mordin.)

For example, we know they have air-locks of some sort on the Cruiser, else we wouldn't have been able to land our shuttle there when it was disabled.  But where were their shuttles?  Why even have airlocks?  Do they have some kind of organic shuttles that are part of the walls, that come out at certain times?  Do they even breathe? etc.  These little details add up, already next to the huge holes.  (The biggest being the shuttle-mission fiasco, and the scene it leads into, which that too still has holes.)

If this was a story about how Shepard eats and sleeps, but we don't see that, then that would be a huge issue (note: Gardner, mess hall, bathrooms, etc.)  But this is a story about stopping the Collectors: our enemy that doesn't leave a trace behind them, till now.  Somehow we got a seeker-swarm: how?  Somehow they land on planets but don't leave a trace, but we only see the way they do.  Why?  Somehow they played possum and tried to kill us, but later they tried to capture us.  Why?  etc. etc. etc...

The other thing that I thought was a bit silly was your complaints about the hold the line section prior to the final boss, simply because they ran completely contrary to the entire rest of your analysis. The answer to your complaint about the section where you play as Joker is "Yes it's bogus storywise, but this is a fun change of pace for gameplay!". You seem to take issue with this mode of doing it, which I can respect, but then you go and begin complaining about random hold the line deaths, suddenly changing from "hey you got your gameplay in my story!" to "hey you got your story in my gameplay!". It IS realistic that fewer people would have a harder time holding off the same amount of collectors, that combat specialized characters would be better at defending in a last stand style fight than tech specialized characters, and in a real battle, people die at random all the time from some stray piece of shrapnel or that one bullet that was in the right place at the right time. Being able to easily save everyone would be the story fail here, not the way it is currently. I thought this undermined the rest of your point.

The Joker mission was an effecive use of dramatic storytelling: meaning the point wasn't lost on me, even if the build up and execution was poor on suspension of my gray matter.

If the narrative doesn't show or explain something, yet something happens, it's one of two things: 1) it's poorly done or the writer had no idea what to do, 2) that was the entire point in some contemporary setting, and usually used as a shock value.  For the hold the line, it isn't just about fewer people (because people can die if they're all there and all loyal), it's the type of people hiding behind their invincible chest high walls (and apparently their level/upgrade/something else.)  Which goes back to my expert-argument: how much more focus do these professionals need?  They're just signed up for a suicide mission.  TIM says they're the best there is.  So we have to go play councillor so they "feel loyal" and are now not going to die firing a gun at an opposing force because of some unknown/unseen/untold stat that is completely beyond my control/understanding?

Sure, sh*t happens in life.  But sometimes it doesn't?  What?  (Loads of people had this same reaction when it happened to them the first 3 months of release.)  If the narrative is going to be under control of the user in 6 ways, and only through trial and error/meta-gaming we find out the magical quality of the result we choose, and we've done all the "gaming" part we could do within our confines of basic choice making via simple logic, but that logic isn't the games logic, then there's a disconnect.  And that disconnect has nothing to do with the lack of intelligence of the audience.  It's because that's how the game was designed.  (Which is then inherently illogical, and stupid.)

Overall, I think you're wrong to focus so much on little details that can be chalked up to simple causes, and distract people from your main points about the big issues, which are what really need to get fixed.

Thanks for the feedback.  But your main issues aren't necessarily mine. I'm sure you, or others, might have some I missed.  For me, it'll always be about plot.  And for the ending, when it gave us control over the whole point of the plot (which I believe was one of the selling points of Mass Effect/2), and for it to be abysmally illogical, is pretty bad.

[Lemonwizard]

The point I'm trying to make is things like do the collectors have shuttles are questions that clearly have an implied yes (since they're obviously not teleporting around or anything of that nature), we just never see them because they'd only ever be seen for a few seconds in one or two cutscenes and Bioware doesn't want to have to design entire new models for such sequences.





It's not a plot hole, it's a development snag. They do not have infinite resources. Would it be better if we got to see all the interim stuff? Of course it would. But sometimes they take shortcuts, it's just something we have to live with.

[Pacifien]

There is something about storytelling that bugs me which is a writer's tendency to over explain elements that can just as easily be implied or interpreted in a myriad of ways. Because it's not written or shown in a story does not mean it didn't happen or the writer couldn't be bothered to incorporate it into the story.

Every fantasy or science fiction universe falls into this trap. The fans want more. Explain more. Show more. Which can just as well bite them in the ass if the writer does show more and it turns out the explanation is much worse than what you imagined.

I'm not trying to say that explanations should be minimal, nor that forcing one to use their imagination to fill in the holes makes for a good plot. There's a balance and you don't get bogged down with explanations when the player is wanting to get on with it.

There's a video where the developers explain their design of the Collector ship/base that is drastically different from what we see in the game. They knew the Collectors were the keepers of advanced technology beyond any other species out there. And so their ship was very angular, mechanical, efficient, and cold. But when it came time to transfer that design into a 3D computer model, the lighting wouldn't reflect off surfaces correctly. The mission levels became repetitive and had the atmosphere of complete boredom. And so the design was completely changed to be more organic, fluid, darker and almost an extension of the Collectors own body dynamic. And they said they knew this design didn't really make sense, it's like designing a ship modeled after the human body, organic flesh and all.

When you run into problems with plot versus gameplay, it seems obvious that you should then rewrite the plot to work within the limitations of the media in which it's presented. Which is great if you have unlimited resources and time to design the perfect integration of the two. They had the design of the Collectors, they had the story taking you to their ship. And then they discovered that the ship design that made logical sense didn't work. Unfortunately, they had two years to make the game. Do you scrap the Collector design and the story element that takes you to the ship? Or is it faster to just change the ship design even if you know it doesn't make sense?

Perhaps the developers should have taken three or four years with the development of Mass Effect 2. Potential business suicide, but Bioware has some clout perhaps to get away with it.

I think I've been rambling this entire post without a point. I was just about to bring in the Portal development commentary into the mix, particularly what the GLaDOS voice actress has to say about how much the developers really don't have planned even as she was recording dialogue. Why am I bringing up the development process of a game at all? I don't know. Certainly it has nothing to do with developing a solid plot beyond being the implementer of the plot.

I think I need to cut back on the caffeine intake.

[Mayson02]

smudboy wrote...

(1 of 6) ME2: A Plot Analysis

I just started watching the first one.

You sound like Wil Wheaton (or however it's spelled)

[Revan312]

Lemonwizard wrote...

The point I'm trying to make is things like do the collectors have shuttles are questions that clearly have an implied yes (since they're obviously not teleporting around or anything of that nature), we just never see them because they'd only ever be seen for a few seconds in one or two cutscenes and Bioware doesn't want to have to design entire new models for such sequences.


It's not a plot hole, it's a development snag. They do not have infinite resources. Would it be better if we got to see all the interim stuff? Of course it would. But sometimes they take shortcuts, it's just something we have to live with.

I totally understand that and know that they can't show literally everything but when there's enough small holes it starts to ruin the integrity of the fabric.  ME2 went a bit too Michael Bay and Bioware decided that bombastic characters and explosions was a better way to draw in an audience than to actualy flesh out a potentially dry but ultimately realistic and subtley enjoyable universe.

My main gripe about the entire game is just how quickly and forcefully they swept the main story arch under the rug.  This is waaaay more spin-off oriented than what a direct sequal should feel like, especially with the "threat" presented in the first game.

What I find interesting is just how much smaller scale they went in terms of atmosphere for the mission.  The first game was about this huge threat that nobody believed was real and your attempts to both prove them wrong and stop a rogue agent that was playing an integral role in helping to execute the plan of the Reapers.  It was continualy showing you threw both the actions of Saren and the Beacon visions just how dire the situation was.  In the end you beat Saren and by doing so, allowed the fleet of the citadel enough time to actually kill Sovereign.  Without their support none of it would have been possible.

In Me2, you have you and your squad in a Cerberus frigate kill a mostly unknown enemy in a region of space nobodys in and that ultimately just resets the story back to when you defeat Sovereign/Saren. It only took the team and an AI to destroy the threat rather than a united front of every race.  It was just underwhelming in comparison.  Also,  the big "reveal" of ME2 at the end was completely illogical and just downright contrived.  I agree with Smud that this was a really poorely executed plot and that a bit more time in the oven would have done a lot for this game in terms of story.

[bjdbwea]

I've already said it in another thread: Great analysis, smudboy. Thanks for investing the effort. If BioWare would consider your criticisms, it could only make the next game better.

[badkenbad]

bjdbwea wrote...

If BioWare would consider your criticisms, it could only make the next game better.

God I hope not. The first three parts of this "analysis" are so far off the mark I don't even know where to begin criticizing its criticisms.

[Revan312]

badkenbad wrote...

bjdbwea wrote...

If BioWare would consider your criticisms, it could only make the next game better.

God I hope not. The first three parts of this "analysis" are so far off the mark I don't even know where to begin criticizing its criticisms.

I'm REALLY glad you don't write media because his criticisms are fairly basic no no's to writing, yet were used in ME2. 

-No depth whatsoever to his death/resurection, whether it be a self realization or pondering

-No character evolution for the main character

-No continuation of the previous games enemy

-Nearly no information about the new enemy

-No rhyme or reason givin for the creation of the super hardcore squad made up of random people "chosen" for this mission

-No connection between various characters (solo character vignettes)

-Numerous plot holes

-A terribly disconnected antagonist

-Step and fetch "Loyalty" missions plagued by Daddy issues

All of those are the points he makes in the first three parts, which all of them are pretty much standard "don't do this" devices in creative writing.  The reason I think you don't know where to start in criticizing his criticisms is because he's correct and you just don't want to admit it.  Logic and depth are replaced with pew pew and.... more pew pew in this sequal which isn't really a fair trade off, at least to us.  If you thought it was perfect as is, then great, but don't start crafting novels because people will quickly tire of illogical contrivances and shallow development.

Modifié par Revan312, 06 juin 2010 - 07:31 .

[Chuvvy]

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

ALL Major plot points from ME 1 are expanded in ME 2.

By a quarter of an inch.

[Revan312]

Slidell505 wrote...

Onyx Jaguar wrote...

ALL Major plot points from ME 1 are expanded in ME 2.

By a quarter of an inch.

QFT  I mean what's expanded on really, the ambiguous issues surrounding things like slavery, racism, loyalty and obligation?  Nope, not really.  How about the Reapers... hmm, well sort of, kind of in a way, well actually not really at all, just a few retcons about how they're now organic hybrid machines with a lust for human slushies.  How about the characters then... nope, a zero on that front as well, just some emo plot devices surrounding Garrus and Tali leaving a SLEW of new characters that also have little character evolution, if any.

So what WAS expanded on, the only thing I can even think of is the backstory of the Geth (Which I'll admit was really interesting) but that was about it...

[Lemonwizard]

Pretty much the only thing Bioware could do that would ****** me off more about ME2's story would be if, after they spent this whole game practically ignoring the main plot to focus entirely on completely disconnected character development would be if they then got to ME3 and said "Oh, by the way, because they have a possibility of dying, we're not using any of these characters in this installment".







It would just completely nullify ME2's entire purpose in the trilogy.

[badkenbad]

Revan312 wrote...
The reason I think you don't know where to start in criticizing his criticisms is because he's correct and you just don't want to admit it.

Um, no. Sure, he makes a lot of points, the problem is that many of them have nothing to do with the game Mass Effect. The conclusion I came to by the third video was that the guy hadn't played the game, or if he had, hadn't read any of the codex or explored any of the dialogue.

Also it was painfully obvious that he was trying to copy RedLetterMedia's style and doing a painfully poor job of it. It really hurt his criticism, because to fit the style he had to make up a whole bunch of things that weren't really wrong with ME2.

Anyway, I meant it when I said I didn't know where to begin, and I don't really want to take the time to take notes and refute each point he makes (or makes up) in his hour worth of video. I just hope that Bioware doesn't pay any attention, because I certainly wouldn't want this game to follow the boilerplate conventional story tropes that smudboy is so in love with.

I will say one thing, though. It's a mistake to analyze the story of a video game as if it were a movie or a book. Video games aren't movies or books. They don't work the same way. The stories don't work the same way. Judging video game stories with the same measures as other media only makes you look like an Ebert.

[Revan312]

Lemonwizard wrote...

Pretty much the only thing Bioware could do that would ****** me off more about ME2's story would be if, after they spent this whole game practically ignoring the main plot to focus entirely on completely disconnected character development would be if they then got to ME3 and said "Oh, by the way, because they have a possibility of dying, we're not using any of these characters in this installment".

It would just completely nullify ME2's entire purpose in the trilogy.

Yah, that is a major concern for me as well.  It's going to be interesting to see how they'll ever pull off the squad continuation in an even halfway decent way.  Plus imagine a transfer of just you and two squaddies surviving.  That leaves Liara and Ash/Kaiden for pick up (4 total members) without introducing ANOTHER slew of new characters.

And if there are new squad mates for that type of playthrough, and you transfer over a perfect end save where everyone survived that means it will be more than 12 team members which is bordering on redundent.  Also the fact that with limited resources comes limited development and with 12 squad members now and the obvious inclusion of Liara and Ash/Kaiden(14 at that point) really how much character depth is there going to be.  There was nearly none in this game, add more people and it gets even worse...

I'm expecting a cluster **** with ME3 that's going to be even shallower than this one.  Here's hoping they prove me wrong.

Modifié par Revan312, 06 juin 2010 - 09:10 .

[Revan312]

badkenbad wrote...

Revan312 wrote...
The reason I think you don't know where to start in criticizing his criticisms is because he's correct and you just don't want to admit it.

Um, no. Sure, he makes a lot of points, the problem is that many of them have nothing to do with the game Mass Effect. The conclusion I came to by the third video was that the guy hadn't played the game, or if he had, hadn't read any of the codex or explored any of the dialogue.

Also it was painfully obvious that he was trying to copy RedLetterMedia's style and doing a painfully poor job of it. It really hurt his criticism, because to fit the style he had to make up a whole bunch of things that weren't really wrong with ME2.

Anyway, I meant it when I said I didn't know where to begin, and I don't really want to take the time to take notes and refute each point he makes (or makes up) in his hour worth of video. I just hope that Bioware doesn't pay any attention, because I certainly wouldn't want this game to follow the boilerplate conventional story tropes that smudboy is so in love with.

I will say one thing, though. It's a mistake to analyze the story of a video game as if it were a movie or a book. Video games aren't movies or books. They don't work the same way. The stories don't work the same way. Judging video game stories with the same measures as other media only makes you look like an Ebert.

What did he make up?  Every point in his video was a point of contention I had as well.  He essentially said the game is shallow and lacks focus, which it does, he just pointed out specific flaws to make the claims.  My list above is exactly the list of points he makes and all of them are bad writing techniques and although I agree that games are different in pacing from books or movies they shouldn't be let off the hook in terms of story structure and plot mechanics.

And about the highlighted above, what in ME2 wasn't boilerplate conventional story tropes.  The entire game is one big action movie cliche after another with all the dark emo personal issues of a bad soap opera thrown in.  David Lynch this is not, there are no risks or creative angles.  My gripe is that if your going to make the classic "man saves universe from unspeakable evil" story for the thousandth time you probobly better make it pretty tight as that story is as old as time itself.  ME2 goes down the same weathered path but just leaves large areas of space in it's wake, areas that are never developed or just flat out ignored.  That's his point as well I believe.

I'll admit it gets a bit nit picky in places like the joker mission and the suicide run but overall I think it makes a good case of why ME2 feels devoid of meaning as really, it's a fluff piece that could have been an expansion to the first and never changed a thing where we left off in ME1.

Imagine Empire Strikes Back is just Luke rushing off to another planet and fighting some unknown enemies and then the movie ends.  It would have been pointless, which is essentially the story presented here, it's simply filler.  And if this was about the characters, why is there so little development in that department and why is there so many new individuals introduced while the original ones are swept to the side.

This game was about the eye candy and explosions, really nothing more.  It really didn't expand on anything in the universe that couldn't have been expanded on in character dialogue and codex entries besides the faceless and intelectually devoid enemy that's eradicated by the end.

[finnithe]

smudboy wrote...

finnithe wrote...

1. http://masseffect.wi...wiki/Collectors

According to EDI, the Collectors share the same DNA structure as the Protheans, leading her to conclude that the Collectors were Protheans genetically modified and given cybernetic enhancements. Remember when Vigil was talking about how the Reapers enslave organics and turn them on others? The Collectors are an example of the Reapers using that strategy. Not only that, but they show what will happen if the Reapers are allowed to conquer the galaxy.

The Collectors are "melting" the humans to create the Human Reapers, as all the tubes going towards the Human Reaper signify.

And what is your point?

Perhaps I wasn't being clear. The Collectors symbolize what happens when a race falls under the Reaper influence, the Collectors being Protheans with extensive genetic rewriting and cybernetic enhancements, as EDI states. The Human Reaper is this symbol extended to humans. It ties in with my point about giving races the freedom to develop on their own (i.e. without Reaper influence) because in my opinion, the Human Reaper symbolizes the end result of dependency on Reaper technology, i.e. becoming like the Reapers themselves, which would mean the loss of our own humanity. I referred to Mass Effect: Retribution, because we'll probably see the first steps to that finality presented in Paul Grayson, who has been infused with Reaper technology as the preview suggests. 

You'll note how the Collectors are really the idea of Saren or Matriarch Benezia, except taken much, much further. Instead of seeing the dangers of an individual under Reaper influence, we see an entire race who has been under their influence for a long period.

I used the term "self-determination" since in politics its seen as the freedom of a people to of a territory or national grouping to determine their own political status and how they will be governed without external influence. I guess this wasn't really the best term either. I really meant to refer to a race's ability to grow, evolve and advance in technology without external influence. In Mass Effect, the external influence would be the Reapers, who as Sovereign states, have been governing the galaxy's growth for millions of years through their Mass Relays and Citadel Station.

The endgame decision of Mass Effect 2 concerns this theme because the Reaper technology in the base will likely have that same result of humanity evolving down the Reaper's lines, risking themselves into being turned into something resembling Saren or the Collectors, or as the Human Reaper at the end suggests, something much worse. 

Now that I think about it, you are probably right about Sovereign's speech. Mass Effect 1, being the first game in the series, needs a lot of exposition, and the reveal that Sovereign itself was a Reaper was done well through that speech. I'm just happy they didn't do it again with Harbinger in the second game. 

Modifié par finnithe, 06 juin 2010 - 10:35 .