815 réponses à ce sujet

[smudboy]

FieryPhoenix7 wrote...

A plot is basically the why of a story.

You

[wizardryforever]

Nightwriter wrote...

The N7 missions felt like watching silent movies. There's really no other way I can put it. I mean they were clearly full of sound, gunfire and explosions and whatnot, yet my memory of them is soundless, like I am recalling a silent movie.

Yeah, I don't think either game did the side missions exactly right.  In ME1, there was Mako driving in every mission that got tedious really fast, and the same two or three buildings were used for all missions.  On the bright side, many of them had dialogue, and maybe even a moral choice at the end.  In ME2, all the boring driving is gone, and every mission is unique, but there is no dialogue, and few moral choices.  You run across some audio logs on occasion, but that's it.  I think I prefer ME2's side missions because I don't feel like I'm wasting time doing them, they are largely fun.

Oh, and the Cerberus Operative on Lorek also has a Paragon/Neutral/Renegade choice at the end.  FYI.

[Fiery Phoenix]

smudboy wrote...

FieryPhoenix7 wrote...

A plot is basically the why of a story.

You

[Iakus]

Malcolm Theory wrote...

Randy1083 wrote...
Yeah, but at least he didn't have to drive in the Mako and walk through the same old bunker to get there, right?

Unfortunately, it's a battle of style v. substance.

So when choosing between the two, I'd take the repeating bunkers.

I like this human.  He understands

[Nightwriter]

wizardryforever wrote...

Yeah, I don't think either game did the side missions exactly right.  In ME1, there was Mako driving in every mission that got tedious really fast, and the same two or three buildings were used for all missions.  On the bright side, many of them had dialogue, and maybe even a moral choice at the end.  In ME2, all the boring driving is gone, and every mission is unique, but there is no dialogue, and few moral choices.  You run across some audio logs on occasion, but that's it.  I think I prefer ME2's side missions because I don't feel like I'm wasting time doing them, they are largely fun.

Oh, and the Cerberus Operative on Lorek also has a Paragon/Neutral/Renegade choice at the end.  FYI.

Yeah, I would mako through a hundred boring offworld landscapes to get to a Toombs side mission, or a Major Kyle one.

I realize this is totally personal preference however. For me, another shoot-em-up isn't what fun is. Interacting with characters is gold, and more combat is copper. My first playthrough of ME2 was spent in horror of what the side quests had become. I didn't keep up with the thread of them at all, and some of them had fairly extensive threads.

[Christmas Ape]

Huge piles of roughly climbable polygons and pretty wallpaper on the skybox are not gameplay. They're substitutes for gameplay that pad the playthrough timer.

[Randy1012]

iakus wrote...

Malcolm Theory wrote...

Randy1083 wrote...
Yeah, but at least he didn't have to drive in the Mako and walk through the same old bunker to get there, right?

Unfortunately, it's a battle of style v. substance.

So when choosing between the two, I'd take the repeating bunkers.

I like this human.  He understands

Don't worry, guys, I'm totally on your side. See the avatar? 99% of everything I say is sarcastic and/or passive-aggressive nonsense.

I just couldn't find a more appropriate smiley for my last post. An eye-rolling one would have gone great there.

[Iakus]

Christmas Ape wrote...

Huge piles of roughly climbable polygons and pretty wallpaper on the skybox are not gameplay. They're substitutes for gameplay that pad the playthrough timer.

Much like, say, shooting mercs in pretty corridors? 

[Fiery Phoenix]

Joker is saying "Girls, are you serious?".

[Nightwriter]

You know, the last forum did have a rolling eye emoticon. I'd like to know where it went, I miss it.

[Christmas Ape]

iakus wrote...

Christmas Ape wrote...

Huge piles of roughly climbable polygons and pretty wallpaper on the skybox are not gameplay. They're substitutes for gameplay that pad the playthrough timer.

Much like, say, shooting mercs in pretty corridors? 

Hmm. Interactive, win/lose conditions, requires player decision-making...nope, that looks like gameplay.

And for the record, before the humps start rolling in and picking things apart, so is interaction with NPCs with the distinction that win/lose conditions are player-defined.

Modifié par Christmas Ape, 16 octobre 2010 - 06:49 .

[imaDEVIENT]

This is a cop out but I love all things ME equally.

[Epic777]

 I think me1 had a better story because
of a few reasons:
->Better antagonist in Saren
especially when dealing with an army of face lasses, personality-less
mooks such as the collectors, me1 krogan, geth, darkspawn, zerg,
splicers, borg etc.
You need a antagonist to be their face,
their voice such as Shodan, Andrew Ryan, Kerrigan etc. Me2 does not
have that and that's the one thing that was badly missed.



->All of the focus of me1 story was
stopping Saren, hell you have no idea what Saren is really up to or
even who the Reapers are until the the last parts of the game. The
player knows Saren is looking for the conduit and again the player
has no idea what that is but he has to find it. The rest of the me
universe was 'skipped through', the genophage, geth and quarian
conflict etc. Even Cerberus was given a casual glance.



->Everything came together,
everything is wrapped up, why Saren needed krogan, rachni and geth,
what the conduit was, who the reapers are. Importantly everything
makes sense



However I don't hate me2'story it is
above average but not exceptional. Since it does not have the linear
focus of me1 the player sees more of the me universe which I did like
plus it avoids the planets of hats which I also like. I disagree is
doesn't progress the story, as it answers the big question of why the
reapers reap the galaxy every 50,000 years which is the most
important question of me1.



On a side note: for those exceptionally
dissatisfied with the story how should it have been?

[khevan]

Epic777 wrote...

*snippage*

 On a side note: for those exceptionally
dissatisfied with the story how should it have been?

I speak only for myself, and no one else.   I'm also not posting this to start further debate, just answering a question.  These are my opinions, my own thoughts, and you can like 'em or dislike 'em, but nothing you say is going to change them, so it's in everyone's best interests that it's left at that.  That being said, on to my answer!

I've actually kinda eluded to this in previous posts, but I'll try to be a bit more specific.

Generally speaking, I'd have prefered that ME2 had several fewer characters, so that more time could have been spent on the Reaper Solution™. 

More specifically, I'd have changed the entire beginning, as having Shepard die  right off the bat makes very little sense to me.  I actually kind of like the twist that the Collectors are repurposed Protheans, so I think I would have left the Collectors as the "face" of the enemy for ME2, but I'd have made it clearer what they were trying to accomplish.  I would also have loved for a cutscene on Horizon, just after you destroy the Praetorian, where a collector drone, wounded but still alive, is taken over by Harbinger.  You have a conversation ala Virmire and Sovereign, doesn't have to be much more than a couple of lines each, but where Harbinger somehow references Shepard and the Prothean beacon, bringing back that "specialness" that Shepard had in ME1, at least in reference.  I'm not a writer, so I can't do the scene justice, so I won't try, but basically, Harbinger tries to take Shepard out, either to capture or kill, and the VS (having been unfrozen after the CS took off) shoots Harbinger from behind, starting the current cutscene in game.

I would also like for on the DCS that Harbinger starts saying stuff like "Resistance is futile.  We have you in our trap," etc, making it clear that the DCS was a trap for Shepard.  Also, the whole point to going to the DCS was to download the ships databases, giving us info on how to enter the Omega-4 relay.  In that download, there should have been majorly encrypted files, where EDI can start decoding them and giving Shepard and company tidbits about Reaper capabilities, motives or whatever, something that can help us, something we can use in ME3 to destroy the Reapers.  Even if the info we get on the DCS is vague stuff that points us in some kind of direction we can take in the early parts of ME3, it'd at least give us some kind of feeling that we did something about the Reapers in ME2, even if only a little.

I would also like there to be some situation during the suicide run where someone will die, no matter what you do.  Again, I'm no writer, so I have no idea of the best way for this to happen, but I'd much rather something like a Virmire choice, instead of a system where you can metagame your way out of such an emotional, traumatic moment.  Yes, it may be cliche', but having a run where literally no one dies is a bit of a stretch in my opinion.

Anyway, this is the best I can do at the moment, with trying to keep ME2 within something approaching the framework that exists right now.  Others may well have prefered a total rewrite, keeping the old squad, etc, but I'm fine with the basic framework of ME2.  I just wanted quite a bit less focus on the squad, more focus on the main storyline, and more focus on Shepard himself (or herself.)


Edit:  Nightwriter, in another thread, actually posted some ideas that are better than my own.  I'm not going to change my post, as it expressed my own opinions, but I like the ideas expressed in this post from the Collectors - tragic figures? thread.

Nightwriter wrote...

I think the setup of the story should start with TIM unearthing some Prothean data discs that actually reference the Collectors. He's looking for ways to beat the Collectors, so he wants to know what the Protheans are saying.

But he can't. Because it's in Prothean. So who does he need? Why, yes, Shepard. He resurrects Shepard.

And the recordings actually translate into the logs of Prothean freedom fighters during the Reaper war, who are talking about the Collectors like they're "abominations", some phantom enemy. You have to unravel the mystery of the logs as you learn about the Protheans' struggle with this enemy. And then in the end, you find out the main Prothean featured in the logs, who fought so hard against the Collectors, is actually the one who became the Collector General.

Modifié par khevan, 16 octobre 2010 - 08:25 .

[Evil_Weasel]

smudboy wrote...

Evil_Weasel wrote...

Some of you people need to know what plot is, and yes, it can be measured that is what critics do.

I had to analyze plots for my theater arts class and learned a lot about story structure in the process.

And why can't you tell us?

Here, allow let me help, and here..

Well smudboy, I shouldnt have to as I already pointed out the plot of this story earlyer in this thread. I shouldnt have to every few pages, but I supose some people cant be bothered to read every page so Il repost it ......again.

This is from earlyer:

It is on page 29, its unedited on that page, so I did tell what the plot was thank you very much.

Evil_Weasel wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Much better soundtrack, much, much better story.

RoninOmega wrote...

Go ahead, be blind sighted and think
all I'm worrying about is all nostalgia, how can you tell why I'm mad at
SOME of the changes? I personally think mass effect 2 had better story,
character, and was aiming for better mechanics, and the game engine was
definitely improved for the game, but the weapons and armor, vehicle,
and level design is pretty bad, level design because most of the time it
felt like I was playing levels similar in design to shooters, where it
is a one way path, and then you just get transported back to the
normandy... It's a better alternative to same level desgin, but it
should be improved to not have that feeling either.

Really????!!!!!!??!?!?!?!!!!!!!???

OK, lets look at this

Story is blue

Character development is white

The story of Mass Effect 2 is:

You were dead, but we fixed that so you can stomp these alians that may have something to do with reapers. Please go to a collonie and check things out please.

Build your team, get Mordin.

Build your team, get Garrus.

Build your team, get Jack.

Build your team, get Grunt.

Collecters are attacking Horizion

Build your team, get Samara.

Build your team, get Thane.

Build your team, get Tali.

Make Mordin loyal.

Make Jacob loyal.

Make Miranda loyal.

Take the fight to the Collectors on the disabled Collector ship.

Build your team, get DLC characters Zaeed, and Kasumi maybe.

Make Garrus loyal.

Make Tali loyal.

Make Grunt loyal.

Make Samara loyal.

Make Thane loyal.

Make DLC characters loyal, if you got them.

Go get the Reaper IFF / build your team, get Legion.

Make Legion loyal.

Suicide mission.

As you can see, the story to ME2 is almost non existant, but you think it is great? Really!?!?!?!?!?

Now, yeah you got to spend a lot of time getting to know your characters, but as many have complained; they live in their insular little worlds were they have virtualy no opinions on the goings on of anything eals but their recruitmen and loyalty missions.

But for real, the game lacked story wise and if you dont think so then you were too busy shooting things to notice.


Had to repost this again, so what was the plot to ME2 people? What is your favorite part of the story?

Do you know what a plot is? Here is the Wikipedia Plot (narrative) definition. The plot to ME2 is razor thin in that your purpose was to find a conection between the Collecters and the Reapers, and travel through the Omega 4 relay......thats it, thats the plot. Everything eals was character development.

[Evil_Weasel]

Epic777 wrote...

 I think me1 had a better story because
of a few reasons:
->Better antagonist in Saren
especially when dealing with an army of face lasses, personality-less
mooks such as the collectors, me1 krogan, geth, darkspawn, zerg,
splicers, borg etc.
You need a antagonist to be their face,
their voice such as Shodan, Andrew Ryan, Kerrigan etc. Me2 does not
have that and that's the one thing that was badly missed.



->All of the focus of me1 story was
stopping Saren, hell you have no idea what Saren is really up to or
even who the Reapers are until the the last parts of the game. The
player knows Saren is looking for the conduit and again the player
has no idea what that is but he has to find it. The rest of the me
universe was 'skipped through', the genophage, geth and quarian
conflict etc. Even Cerberus was given a casual glance.



->Everything came together,
everything is wrapped up, why Saren needed krogan, rachni and geth,
what the conduit was, who the reapers are. Importantly everything
makes sense



However I don't hate me2'story it is
above average but not exceptional. Since it does not have the linear
focus of me1 the player sees more of the me universe which I did like
plus it avoids the planets of hats which I also like. I disagree is
doesn't progress the story, as it answers the big question of why the
reapers reap the galaxy every 50,000 years which is the most
important question of me1.



On a side note: for those exceptionally
dissatisfied with the story how should it have been?

Over all, that is a good post. While I dont think the story is great, (maybe the presentation is what you liked) your on target with the why many moan and groan about the ME1 and ME2 story problem.

Think back to the movie X2 the second X-men movie got nothing done. They spent the whole movie trying to get to a secret facility in Canada and stop the neffarios plan of a madman.....with lots of action secqenceses in between. Sure, characters were developed, relationships were strengthend or altered, and a butt-load of foreshadowing was done. What was the plot of X2....mutants are to dangorus to go un-checked so war is virtualy declared upon them, mutants rebele and the X-men fight back. Basicly the same way ME2 ended up, in the middle with little progress.

Unfortunatly, this is the middle game and they wrote it that way. They were saveing all the big anwsers for ME3 meaning we learned.....what, that collecters, an alian we only heard about in the first 15 minutes of the game that were introduced as slightly uncommon knowledge to your two sqadies Jacob and Miranda were conected to the Reapers. We learned that Reapers are aparently made from ........ sapient creature paste.....or something like that. Somewere in there there was a bit about two factions of Geth and dark energy build up, and some new lore about the speicies that exist which will probably be disregaurded in ME3 causing more retcon uproar.

As for I and my thoughts, to be honest, the game needed at the very least an epilog, maybe 10 minutes of conversations and cutscenes worth combined of story wrap up. Maybe if you didnt blow up the Collector base you can learn something about Reapers from the base which they kindly tell you before the credits roll, or if you did blow it up you decide to pick up a piece of the Human Reaper's brain and or body fluids (that would ofcourse be damaged by the radiation pulse making either useless if you save the base) which gets analiyzed and brings in some similar clues about Reapers. This would have given wheight to all our efforts, it would be considered a win so far as getting information about our enimies.

And for the love of.......they could have at least explained why Sovreign looked like a shellfish .....is that armor, is it a ship it exist inside of....is that what the alian that it was made from looked like? WHY!?

Modifié par Evil_Weasel, 16 octobre 2010 - 10:42 .

[smudboy]

Evil_Weasel wrote...

Well smudboy, I shouldnt have to as I already pointed out the plot of this story earlyer in this thread. I shouldnt have to every few pages, but I supose some people cant be bothered to read every page so Il repost it ......again.

This is from earlyer:

It is on page 29, its unedited on that page, so I did tell what the plot was thank you very much.

Oh pooh.

You just described the storyline.  I was hoping for a bit more elegant definition...

[Gibb_Shepard]

Evil_Weasel wrote...

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Much better soundtrack, much, much better story.

Really????!!!!!!??!?!?!?!!!!!!!???

OK, lets look at this

Story is blue

Character development is white

The story of Mass Effect 2 is:

You were dead, but we fixed that so you can stomp these alians that may have something to do with reapers. Please go to a collonie and check things out please.

Build your team, get Mordin.

Build your team, get Garrus.

Build your team, get Jack.

Build your team, get Grunt.

Collecters are attacking Horizion

Build your team, get Samara.

Build your team, get Thane.

Build your team, get Tali.

Make Mordin loyal.

Make Jacob loyal.

Make Miranda loyal.

Take the fight to the Collectors on the disabled Collector ship.

Build your team, get DLC characters Zaeed, and Kasumi maybe.

Make Garrus loyal.

Make Tali loyal.

Make Grunt loyal.

Make Samara loyal.

Make Thane loyal.

Make DLC characters loyal, if you got them.

Go get the Reaper IFF / build your team, get Legion.

Make Legion loyal.

Suicide mission.

As you can see, the story to ME2 is almost non existant, but you think it is great? Really!?!?!?!?!?

Now, yeah you got to spend a lot of time getting to know your characters, but as many have complained; they live in their insular little worlds were they have virtualy no opinions on the goings on of anything eals but their recruitmen and loyalty missions.

But for real, the game lacked story wise and if you dont think so then you were too busy shooting things to notice.


Had to repost this again, so what was the plot to ME2 people? What is your favorite part of the story?

Do you know what a plot is? Here is the Wikipedia Plot (narrative) definition. The plot to ME2 is razor thin in that your purpose was to find a conection between the Collecters and the Reapers, and travel through the Omega 4 relay......thats it, thats the plot. Everything eals was character development.

Dude wtf? I was saying that ME1 had a better sound track and a much better story. Don't start throwing walls of text at me, we're both in agreement.

[AmstradHero]

Evil_Weasel wrote...
Think back to the movie X2 the second X-men movie got nothing done. They spent the whole movie trying to get to a secret facility in Canada and stop the neffarios plan of a madman.....with lots of action secqenceses in between. Sure, characters were developed, relationships were strengthend or altered, and a butt-load of foreshadowing was done. What was the plot of X2....mutants are to dangorus to go un-checked so war is virtualy declared upon them, mutants rebele and the X-men fight back. Basicly the same way ME2 ended up, in the middle with little progress.

Firstly, it's hard to take your thoughts and analysis of storytelling seriously when your posts are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

I liked X2 more than X-men 1. Why? Because the presentation was better. It was a character driven piece. It developed the personalities of the people involved and showed you how they developed and matured as people because of the events they experienced. Go back to my post at the bottom of page 30 - the narrative was better, even though the plot wasn't as strong. Same goes for ME2 versus ME1. (Again, in my opinion)

Books and movies aren't constrained by the need to create narrative based entirely around the plot, and some of the best films of all time are excellent because of their characterisation.  Of course, there are some excellent plot-driven films and books as well.

Why should games be constrained to only producing plot-driven narrative? Can't we have a character driven title? Can't we have a game where we get to know and experience the journey of characters and how they mature rather than a "look at the huge explosions!" plot? Why can't we have a game like ME2 that focuses entirely on introducing and developing characters? If those characters and their personalities and going to be used and demonstrated in the final chapter of the trilogy, surely the time spent developing their character in ME2 will be worth it?

Just a thought...

Edit: Also, I completely disagree that ME1 had a better soundtrack.  ME1's soundtrack was enjoyable, but ME2's soundtrack is brilliant.  The themes for Samara, Tali and the Suicide Mission in particular are superb.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 16 octobre 2010 - 12:43 .

[smudboy]

AmstradHero wrote...

Firstly, it's hard to take your thoughts and analysis of storytelling seriously when your posts are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

I apologize.  It is a constant struggle, my brain, keyboard, and fingers have other thoughts...

Books and movies aren't constrained by the need to create narrative based entirely around the plot, and some of the best films of all time are excellent because of their characterisation.  Of course, there are some excellent plot-driven films and books as well.

When the narrative doesn't focus on a plot, we have problems.  Or streams-of-consciousness.  Same thing really.

Why should games be constrained to only producing plot-driven narrative?

That'd be the point.

Can't we have a character driven title?

Why not?  But then the character is the plot.  And we all know ME2 was a plot driven story with 12 other stories tacked on.

Can't we have a game where we get to know and experience the journey of characters and how they mature rather than a "look at the huge explosions!" plot?

Of course.  But those characters have to be woven into the narrative, they can't just have their own plot, completely independent of the main plot.  Pick a damn protagonist and stick with it, ME2!

Why can't we have a game like ME2 that focuses entirely on introducing and developing characters? If those characters and their personalities and going to be used and demonstrated in the final chapter of the trilogy, surely the time spent developing their character in ME2 will be worth it?

Well, I'm with you.  However, ME2 didn't focus entirely on introducing and developing characters.  It was a frame story.  There was an actual plot, that went nowhere and magically ended.  
The side quests had nothing to do with anything.
Compounded with the facts that a) these side quests are optional, and some characters don't even need to be recruited these characters can die, c) these characters don't even need to be loyal, d) these characters don't even need to be imported, e) ME3 is labeled as a stand alone game, then yeah, you begin to see the problem.

Or you didn't understand and stuff. But that's okay, my grammar sucks.

[Elyvern]

AmstradHero wrote...

Why should games be constrained to only producing plot-driven narrative? Can't we have a character driven title? Can't we have a game where we get to know and experience the journey of characters and how they mature rather than a "look at the huge explosions!" plot? Why can't we have a game like ME2 that focuses entirely on introducing and developing characters? If those characters and their personalities and going to be used and demonstrated in the final chapter of the trilogy, surely the time spent developing their character in ME2 will be worth it?

Just a thought...

There is nothing to stop them from being character driven. In fact, ME2 IS character-driven, except the only character which doesn't get fleshed out is....Shepard. Therein lies the problem: I felt far more affinity with my squadmates than with the character that I'm supposed to be playing. And we can always assume that squadmates would come back in ME3 and justify the entire spotlight on them in ME2, but you don't know that for sure.

[AmstradHero]

smudboy wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
Firstly, it's hard to take your thoughts and analysis of storytelling seriously when your posts are riddled with spelling and grammatical errors.

I apologize.  It is a constant struggle, my brain, keyboard, and fingers have other thoughts...

Did you perhaps fail to read that I was quoting Evil_Weasel and not you? I've generally found your posts to be gramatically correct, even if I've pretty much disagreed with your viewpoint on most issues.

smudboy wrote...
When the narrative doesn't focus on a plot, we have problems.  Or streams-of-consciousness.  Same thing really.

Countless critically acclaimed and classic pieces of literature disagree with you. Sorry.

smudboy wrote...

AmstradHero wrote...
Why should games be constrained to only producing plot-driven narrative?

That'd be the point.

Why? Why should we do things exactly as they've been done before? Sounds a recipe for never getting anything new or innovative.  Let's all go play Halo 357: Platform Hotel. Great. I can't contain my excitement.

smudboy wrote...
Compounded with the facts that a) these side quests are optional, and some characters don't even need to be recruited these characters can die, c) these characters don't even need to be loyal, d) these characters don't even need to be imported, e) ME3 is labeled as a stand alone game, then yeah, you begin to see the problem.

Now this is actually a valid point. I do worry about this aspect of ME3, that it might completely ditch any prior knowledge or information we've received in ME1 and ME2.  I'm hoping that's not the case.

Modifié par AmstradHero, 16 octobre 2010 - 01:05 .

[smudboy]

AmstradHero wrote...

Did you perhaps fail to read that I was quoting Evil_Weasel and not you? I've generally found your posts to be gramatically correct, even if I've pretty much disagreed with your viewpoint on most issues.

But I wanna play too!

Countless critically acclaimed and classic pieces of literature disagree with you. Sorry.

Don't apologize.  They're obviously wrong, whatever those pieces of literature are!

Why? Why should we do things exactly as they've been done before? Sounds a recipe for never getting anything new or innovative.  Let's all go play Halo 357: Platform Hotel. Great. I can't contain my excitement.

I don't see how a game has to relate to a plot.

Innovation comes from what and how you tell a story.

However, a story still needs a plot.  The audience needs to identify and understand what is going on.  I'm sure you can tell an entire story about alien robots that can't relate to the human condition, and have a myriad of motives that are never realized, but you'd be wasting your time.

Now this is actually a valid point. I do worry about this aspect of ME3, that it might completely ditch any prior knowledge or information we've received in ME1 and ME2.  I'm hoping that's not the case.

How dare you!  All my posts are valid and filled with meaning!  (Or at least one seething hilarious article of wisdom.)

And if ME2 had a plot, character driven or otherwise, we wouldn't have this, and many other problems.