198 réponses à ce sujet

[Flamewielder]

Nightwriter wrote...
The story was unsatisfying for so many reasons. Can we really narrow it down to just one?
- It fails to create feelings of threat.

This. The Reapers storyline got sidetracked and the Collectors simply felt like mooks in comparison. Had hints been dropped at some point that the Collectors were building a Reaper (without revealing that humans were used as raw materials...), the sense of threat would have been stronger. The player could have been misled into believing the Collectors wer actually collecting pieces of Sovereign and were attempting to re-build it... THAT would have put the dread back into the main storyline.

- They never get you mentally or emotionally onboard with the story.

By this I assume you refer to the main (Reaper) plot and I agree. But the characters stories were great and emotionally engaging on an individual level. Playing ME2 feels more like reading a great short-stories collection set in the ME universe than the second chapter of "Shepard vs the Reapers" trilogy.

- The game doesn’t know whether it’s supposed to be about the characters or the Collectors, and in confusion makes a grab at both and fails.

I disagree on the characters but agree on the Collector main plot.

- The plot is not terribly interactive; you move through the story as if on a conveyor belt.

In all fairness, ME1 was no different: you can recruit some or all squaddies, you can skip some planets but some are unavoidable (i.e. Eden Prime, The Citadel, one of either Feros/Novaria, Virmire, Ilos, The Citadel Battle), Feros/Novaria being the only actual choice you're given (i.e. do one or the other, or both).

- The plot restart is handled sloppily enough that you feel like the whole thread of the story has been lost.

A necessary evil dictated by the changes in gameplay, but I agree Shepard could easily have woken up in an Alliance military hospital with physiological damage that affected his motor skills and some memory loss caused by anoxia and partial freezing of tissues without being "ressurected".

- The story itself goes nowhere and achieves nothing. You wonder why it’s there.

Same can be said of "The Dirty Dozen", which is a great movie IMO, but this goes back to the ME2 storyline being only marginally related to the main Reaper storyline; I feel THAT is the main weakness of ME2 as part of a "Shepard vs Reapers" trilogy.

- The necessity of working with Cerberus is never illustrated and feels impotent.

That's a big point right there: I know some Renegade fans may have complained about having to follow military procedures and rules but this is what Shepard is: a career military officer; a renegade Shepard can rationalise working alongside Cerberus but a paragon Shepard is essentially bargaining with the devil...

- They try to create drama about working with the "darker" side, but the drama feels impotent.

Only for a paragon Shep... renegade Shep will do whatever it takes, work with whatever ally of convenience to stop the Reapers; there's NO drama involved in the renegade case. It's this assymetry between the two moral paths that poses the problem, not the fac that Cerberus saved your life and gave you a ship and crew to do whatever you want with...

- Shepard focuses so much on other characters in this game that he/she no longer feels like an actual person.

I dissagree. The variety of characters offers a mirror you can use to define your Shepard better. Your reactions to the other characters define him/her.

Modifié par Flamewielder, 22 septembre 2010 - 01:18 .

[brfritos]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Most of the complaining I have heard about is the lack of continuity from ME1 - the reboot of the plot and all the characters ticked people off. 

My major complaint was the pacing. Between the collector ship and the final mission, all the energy just seems to drain from the story. With a couple less characters and a couple more main plot-driven mission to keep the tension up, it would have been fine.

You realize that this is very ironic, because after the Collector Ship is when you really can choose whatever you want to do in the galaxy.

The story in ME2 disappoint me a bit to be honest.

Only three lousy times facing the real enemies is...lousy.

[Newnation]

Breakdown Boy wrote...

I don't agree, the story is really wide and plot holes will exist, it's easy for us in hindsight to say, "hey you missed a spot" or "hey this doesn't make sense". They sold over 1,6 million copies and almost every fan has played the game ten or more times, this equates to million of observations and nitpicking. How many writers dit Bioware have in their team?

I say stop focusing on stupid plot holes that are common place in every story. Use your imagination?

Also stop compairing ME2 to Star Craft 2; the lazy buggars at Blizzard spent 12 years to create 1/3 of game with only one race in the single player campaign as well as making us pay for their sluggish effort; +/- $70. While Bioware has in the last couple of years brought out some of the best RPG's I've ever played.

Dude, get out of my head....I 've never played Star Craft though.

[J4N3_M3]

kaimanaMM wrote...

I think ME2 is a fantastic game and I absolutely love it, but I'm with Neofelis on this one.

The Collectors were kind of an 'ehhh' enemy.  We know they're abducting colonists, we don't really know why, but we assume it's not for an ice cream social.  Throughout the game, they show up out of the blue, put some people in pods and we always show up five minutes late.  We don't learn anything major about them until the revelation that they're omgprotheans (which, if you'd been into the story and discussed it with anyone, you probably could have put two and two together) and then the ending sequence.  They're an ambiguous group that does enigmatic things and I honestly expected us to run into them more often than we did.  And we didn't.

THIS!

[JohnnyBeGood2]

ahem, dear posters with femshep avatars... in the story of "the man from snowy river": the man from snowy river captures the colt from old regret (the priiiize in ME lingo) not the wild bush horses (the equivalent of a vorcha).



Long story short: would you mind prettying up those femsheps a little?

(watch out for the Cross-eye bug when screen capping)

[ratzerman]

Nightwriter wrote...

The story was unsatisfying for so many reasons. Can we really narrow it down to just one?

- It fails to create feelings of threat.
- They never get you mentally or emotionally onboard with the story.
- The game doesn’t know whether it’s supposed to be about the characters or the Collectors, and in confusion makes a grab at both and fails.
- The plot is not terribly interactive; you move through the story as if on a conveyor belt.
- The plot restart is handled sloppily enough that you feel like the whole thread of the story has been lost.
- The story itself goes nowhere and achieves nothing. You wonder why it’s there.
- The necessity of working with Cerberus is never illustrated and feels impotent.
- They try to create drama about working with the "darker" side, but the drama feels impotent.
- Shepard focuses so much on other characters in this game that he/she no longer feels like an actual person.

I agree with all of these points.

The sad thing is we can talk about this until we're blue in the face, and it won't make a damned bit of difference. ME2 got absurdly high reviews from the press, and that's all Casey Hudson talks about. He thinks he did everything right, so don't expect anything to change in ME3. Shepard will still be an emotionless, zombified terrorist weapon of mass destruction, and there's nothing we can do about it.

The Liara DLC gave me a glimmer of hope that there might be a spark of humanity left in Shepard, but I think that's because Mac Walters didn't write it.

Modifié par ratzerman, 22 septembre 2010 - 03:28 .

[Fiery Phoenix]

The only reason I'm not giving this too much thought is because ME2 is the middle part of a trilogy. In other words, I have high hopes for ME3. And I don't really have much else to say; you guys have nailed it down by this point.

Modifié par FieryPhoenix7, 22 septembre 2010 - 03:48 .

[GodWood]

God I hope Mac Walters isn't the lead writer for ME3.

[Anacronian Stryx]

One of the problems with ME2 is the monotony of the quests, Find a NPC-Recruit them-solve their personal problem- move to the next, Now i like great NPC's as much as the next person but this bunch all have favors to ask from Shepard and as their gestalt parent he has to set their lives strait.



Wouldn't it be cool if one of them came to Shepard with some form of aid for once?



Like you recruit Garrus and has a conversation with him.



Garrus : "Hey shep pal old friend, you know these weapons really ain't gonna cut it, what would you say if i told you where the Turian Hierarchy is developing some mighty fine cannon..hmmhuh?



Shep : "Sure Garrus tell me what your prob... wait what"?



Garrus : "yup you see we can just make a nice clean brake inn at a secret Turian base and grab some boomers.. or if you like we can walk in the front door it's all up to you".

[Asheer_Khan]

JohnnyBeGood2 wrote...

ahem, dear posters with femshep avatars... in the story of "the man from snowy river": the man from snowy river captures the colt from old regret (the priiiize in ME lingo) not the wild bush horses (the equivalent of a vorcha).

Long story short: would you mind prettying up those femsheps a little?
(watch out for the Cross-eye bug when screen capping)

[off topic] It's interesting to do Kasumi's L - Mission right after recruit Mordin because of all those scars on face.

I often wonders why no one there commented fact that one of the guests have face like she have fife minutes early plastic surgery and forget to put bandages on her scars:huh:.[/off topic]

[Asheer_Khan]

GodWood wrote...

God I hope Mac Walters isn't the lead writer for ME3.

Sadly he will be stil lead writer because Drew Karpyshyn's team is bonded with ToR MMO, so Drew will write one or two episodes (missions?) for ME 3 but rest will remain in Walter's hands.

@FieryPhoenix.

ME series are no longer trilogy but all games are now stand alone (thanks to EA idiotic approach) which was confirmed by Bioware heads.
And because if intoducing ME series from ME 2 to PS 3 i really, really doubt that any decisions carried from ME 1 to ME 3 in imported saves will in matter of fact plays any significant role than simple e-mails in Normandy inbox.

[Flamewielder]

Breakdown Boy wrote...
I don't agree, the story is really wide and plot holes will exist, it's easy for us in hindsight to say, "hey you missed a spot" or "hey this doesn't make sense". They sold over 1,6 million copies and almost every fan has played the game ten or more times, this equates to million of observations and nitpicking. How many writers dit Bioware have in their team?
I say stop focusing on stupid plot holes that are common place in every story. Use your imagination?
Also stop compairing ME2 to Star Craft 2; the lazy buggars at Blizzard spent 12 years to create 1/3 of game with only one race in the single player campaign as well as making us pay for their sluggish effort; +/- $70. While Bioware has in the last couple of years brought out some of the best RPG's I've ever played.

This thread is not about nitpicking on details... we're not looking for Charlton Heston's watch in that chariot race scene. It's about storytelling. The same lead writer wrote ME1 and did a fine job. ME2 was good too, only it did not fit with what was percieved to be the main story arc "Shepard vs Reapers". This takes nothing from the skills of the BW writing staff...

If ME is still going to be about Shepard's fight against the Reapers, I expect ME3's storyline will bring the Reapers back into focus. ME2 was a collection of good short stories set in the ME universe but had relatively minimal relevance to the main "Shepard vs Reapers" plot beyond the admittedly great final mission.

Reapers will need to make their presence felt in a big way in ME3. Remember Shepard's first meeting with Sovereign on Virmire? How chilling was that! Harbinger never managed to make us feel the threat like Sovereign did. The idea of the Reapers using the Collectors to "build" a Reaper using human genetic material was an interesting one, even if the "terminator baby Reaper" was not unanimously liked.

With the Collector base destroyed or under Cerberus Control, what will the Reapers try next (other than take a couple of centuries to "walk" back to the closest relay on the galactic rim...)? The Collectors are nothing but tools, mooks, good enough as targets for a shooter but definitely not enough of a threat compared to their Reaper masters.

In short:

1) Less tools and a more focused plot for ME3. Bring the Reapers back into the storytelling crosshairs. We want to feel threatened again.
2) Bring back surviving ME2 squaddies for suitable cameo-missions (as optional temporary squaddies for players with imports).New players will have 6-8 new squadmembers to use, all tied to the plot.
3) Bring back the Virmire Survivor and Liara as plot relevant characters and/or squaddies.

[khevan]

I posted earlier what I thought the problem with ME2's story was.  Too focused on a character driven story, no continuity between those characters so that ME2 felt like a series of short, choppy, unrelated missions, and so many squadmates with their recruitment and loyalty missions that the main story missions got lost in the shuffle.
That was a (very) pared down version of what I think was wrong with ME2's plot.  I have a couple of ideas on how Bioware should have handled ME2 to make it a bit more cohesive, while still maintaining the direction they were trying to go with the whole character driven story concept.

First:  Drop at least 3-4 squadmates.  We seriously didn't need so many squadmembers crowding up the Normandy.  This would free up 6-8 recruitment and loyalty missions (and the respective resources needed for those missions)  This would have allowed for at least 2 more Horizon type missions, maybe even one connected to a recruitment. 

I would have kept the following list:

Miranda, Jacob, Mordin, Garrus, Jack, Tali, Grunt, and Legion.  I'd have redone their skill sets to make up for the lower number of squadmembers, but that's going a bit afield of where this post is meant to go, and would take up too much space, so I'll just move on.

Miranda and Jacob would have been with you from the beginning, as it is now.  You'd have the ability to recruit Mordin, Garrus and Grunt before Horizon.  After Horizon, you recruit Tali and Jack, and you are sent to recruit another human squadmember, but during that, the Collectors attack, and that squadmember is killed (after heroically helping you repel the Collector attack.).  This would be a Horizon length mission, and would let the Collectors be "in your face" a bit more.

After this last recruitment/collector mission, the loyalty missions begin, and you can get them at any point except for Jack's.  Hers is only available after 3 loyalty missions.  The reason is this:  When you go to nuke the Teltin facility, I'd rewrite the story of it a bit.  Make it clearer a bit earlier that Jack's memories of the place were skewed, and that the other kids were the guinea pigs for what they were doing to her, but at the end, instead of it being a Blood Pack fight and one of the surviving kids from the experiments, I'd make it a relatively small Collector fight.  The collectors are there trying to get information about human biotic potential, etc.  This again, puts the collectors in the forefront.  You finish off the loyalty missions, you do the IFF mission, get Legion, do his loyalty mission, then the suicide mission begins.

This is a bit more linear than how ME2 was originally set up, but not too much so, I don't think.  And the reason I chose the squadmates I did was because of the ability for more Miranda vs. Jack and Tali vs Legion fights.  For example:  Jacob hates mercs, right?  Garrus is basically a merc, however you want to pretty it up.  Could be a source of tension.  Mordin/Grunt?  Uh, Genophage?  That combo is made for squad tension.  It would only add two more scenes to the game, since Miranda/Jack and Tali/Legion is already there, but it would totally increase the level of interaction between the squad and their various stories.  I'd also add some scenes after missions (much like ME1 debrief after each story mission) where the squad can get together and have conversations about what's happened to this point, ect.  Increase the cohesiveness amongst the squad and their stories.

I realize that ME2 is set in stone, and ME3 is likely pretty darned close to it (storywise) by this point, so anything I say here is pretty much meaningless, but hopefully Bioware got the idea earlier. 

We really need a smaller squad, with more squad interaction, and more ties to the main plot during the squad missions.  That would have immensely improved ME2.

Sorry for the wall'o'text.  I get a bit verbose when talking about subjects like this.

[Cyberfrog81]

I wasn't disappointed. That said, Harbinger is a crappy Reaper and there is basically no other interesting "main antagonist" (like Saren in ME1) either.

ME3 better stay focused on the Reaper threat and be about preparing for the (seemingly) inevitable battle and then about how Shepard actually defeats them.

Modifié par Cyberfrog81, 24 septembre 2010 - 01:28 .

[Xilizhra]

I agree with you on your list of squadmates, mostly, khevan. But for the love of the Goddess, either have Samara instead of Jack or have Jack show up at the beginning instead of Jacob and have her be a weaker biotic or something. If your list stood as it is, it'd create an annoying species asymmetry. Or, I guess you could actually recruit Captain Enyala; that'd be fun. Heck, if you do it right, Enyala could have an awesome tension scene with Jacob, since she actually is a mercenary; Garrus didn't accept money for being Archangel, so he doesn't really count. I presume as well you'd be altering Grunt's personality, since as it stands, he doesn't care at all about the genophage. He was built to ignore it, after all.

Also, make Legion show up earlier. They appear much too late.

Modifié par Xilizhra, 22 septembre 2010 - 08:04 .

[Burdokva]

Sheepie Crusher wrote...

I think that the reason of the great dissapointment of ME2's story is because of the lack of great revelations.

Fix that to many "plot holes and poor pacing", and you've got it right.

[Mister Mida]

casedawgz wrote...

Everybody talks about "middle of the trilogy syndrome." Can someone name for me a middle entry in a respected trilogy that was actually afflicted with this? I'm drawing blanks, because all I can think of are the Two Towers, which owned the Fellowship, Empire Strikes Back, which owned the whole franchise, and Godfather 2, which owned modern cinema as a whole.

Maybe as a book, TTT doesn't suffer of the 'sucking middle act', but for me the film adaptation is the lesser of the three films.

[ratzerman]

GodWood wrote...

God I hope Mac Walters isn't the lead writer for ME3.

Me too. But like I said before, Casey Hudson thinks everything about ME2 was perfect. So naturally, he'll be keeping his lil buddy Mac on as head writer. I'd name my first born Bioware if they made Patrick Weekes head writer, though.

[Lunatic LK47]

Breakdown Boy wrote...

Also stop compairing ME2 to Star Craft 2; the lazy buggars at Blizzard spent 12 years to create 1/3 of game with only one race in the single player campaign as well as making us pay for their sluggish effort; +/- $70. While Bioware has in the last couple of years brought out some of the best RPG's I've ever played.

Ever crossed your mind that Blizzard was doing their damnest to make sure everything is canon and that they wanted campaign to be as high-quality as possible? 

[TuringPoint]

I've heard most people say TTT was the worst. The only people who like it most just really like battle scenes, for the most part.



While people may not like ME2, it seems like a vast majority do like it. I think Bioware is moving their ability to tell a story effectively to a whole new level in ME2.



I can't see how the pacing was bad in ME2. Even on repeated playthroughs, I never find myself getting bored or agitated. I definitely had both in ME1, which had needlessly lengthy, unskippable cut-scenes out the wazoo. ME2 keeps it to dialogue, and cutscenes which don't drag on pointlessly, which keeps the plot going forward. The beginning sequence is annoying if you're trying to get to character creation, but even there I think there was good pacing.



Plot holes are arguable, and ME1 is plagued with a few as well, which for ME1 and ME2 may just be because Bioware never bothered explaining certain things.

[Lunatic LK47]

casedawgz wrote...

Everybody talks about "middle of the trilogy syndrome." Can someone name for me a middle entry in a respected trilogy that was actually afflicted with this? I'm drawing blanks, because all I can think of are the Two Towers, which owned the Fellowship, Empire Strikes Back, which owned the whole franchise, and Godfather 2, which owned modern cinema as a whole.

Uh, Godfather 2 was meant to be the final story. Godfather 3 was never planned from the get-go until Copolla needed to film it for his personal bills.

[Lunatic LK47]

GodWood wrote...

God I hope Mac Walters isn't the lead writer for ME3.

I'll take Mac over Drew anyday since he was responsible for Wrex and Garrus.

[Whatever42]

brfritos wrote...

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Most of the complaining I have heard about is the lack of continuity from ME1 - the reboot of the plot and all the characters ticked people off. 

My major complaint was the pacing. Between the collector ship and the final mission, all the energy just seems to drain from the story. With a couple less characters and a couple more main plot-driven mission to keep the tension up, it would have been fine.

You realize that this is very ironic, because after the Collector Ship is when you really can choose whatever you want to do in the galaxy.

The story in ME2 disappoint me a bit to be honest.

Only three lousy times facing the real enemies is...lousy.

Agreed. That three times is why the energy level drops. The freedom after the collector ship is great but none of the missions drive the story forward. So you feel like its hours and hours of side missions. Great side missions to be sure but all the tension of the main story fades away.

Now imagine if we dumped two characters - thats 4 missions gone. Add their dialogue to the other characters to provide more depth. Take their missions and make two long collector missions - perhaps you deal with a collector agent or you discover a prothean ruin with another beacon and the collectors fight you for it and you gain more revelations on the collector purpose - just, something.

But maybe the story is too basic to come up with good missions. Maybe the Shadow Broker had to be our face villian and perhaps you had to defeat his schemes to overcome you with the Liara mission being the grand finale.