108 réponses à ce sujet

[Foolsfolly]

I don't sit in the writer's room or even know how the room works and who's responsible for what. And I'm willing to bet neither do anyone else here. This is a very insulting thread for no reason. The fans on this site should be ashamed. It's like everyone stuck into a "I hate it more so I'm the better fan" mentality.



Mass Effect had some good writing in the story portions. Romance dialogue was terrible, though. Clunky bad soap-opera style dialogue.



Mass Effect 2 had better written characters and more fluid dialogue. However, the lack of a strong central villain hurt the story (we had nothing to fight against). Illusive Man's a far better written and more interesting character than Saren was...but the game ends too soon. We never got to fight the guy.



I have nothing bad to say about the writers at BioWare. This is a well written series. Most video games could be written by middle school literature students.

[Babli]

Just get rid of flying biotics, warriors on high heels and other of these "cool comics stuff" and ad more main story and real antagonist and I will be happy.



Or get back Drew Karpyshyn as a lead writer.

[Vanguard Of Destruction]

Babli wrote...

Just get rid of flying biotics, warriors on high heels and other of these "cool comics stuff" and ad more main story and real antagonist and I will be happy.

Or get back Drew Karpyshyn as a lead writer.

^This

[Vanguard Of Destruction]

Gibb_Shepard wrote...

Bring back Drew.

^Also This x 10

[morrie23]

To be fair, if people have a problem with the ME2 plot then they have every reason to call the lead writer out on it, because after all, he is the lead writer and is ultimately responsible for the story. I hope BioWare realise that peolpe do this is because they love ME so much, and want it to be the best it can be. However insulting the people who make these great games is hardly constructive (not sure if any insulting has gone on here, but nevermind).

[Fiery Phoenix]

I see no one insulting Walters or attacking him personally.

[SantosCapela]

FieryPhoenix7 wrote...

I see no one insulting Walters or attacking him personally.

adneate wrote...

Give Patrick Weekes the top writing job on ME3 and stick Mac in a broom closet or replace him with one of those typing monkeys. It's not like the plot could get any worse.

[Fiery Phoenix]

SantosCapela wrote...

FieryPhoenix7 wrote...

I see no one insulting Walters or attacking him personally.

adneate wrote...

Give Patrick Weekes the top writing job on ME3 and stick Mac in a broom closet or replace him with one of those typing monkeys. It's not like the plot could get any worse.

Well, let's just say I missed that one.

[AllThatJazz]

m14567 wrote...

Foolsfolly wrote...

I don't sit in the writer's room or even know how the room works and who's responsible for what. And I'm willing to bet neither do anyone else here. This is a very insulting thread for no reason. The fans on this site should be ashamed. It's like everyone stuck into a "I hate it more so I'm the better fan" mentality.
...

Couldn't agree more, too many armchair experts on this site.

Also agreed. And yes, I'm sure the folks at Bioware can handle criticism (they must be used to it by now, after all) - but Mac doesn't run the place, he just works there, and he must feel pretty crappy when he reads threads like this. Second, criticism isn't the same as 'slagging off', and a number of people on this forum have been guilty of the latter, which is ... just ... really inappropriate and downright rude.

It's fair enough if you don't like his writing style or whatever, and fair enough that you're (we're) passionate about Mass Effect; but can everyone at least try to express their feelings in a civilised way, rather than just having a go at the bloke? (Unnecessary Disclaimer: this post is obviously not targeted at those who have treated him with a bit of basic respect - which is, to be fair, most people.)

Edit: Group Hug? 

Modifié par AllThatJazz, 15 octobre 2010 - 03:12 .

[bluewolv1970]

I keep seeing the same comments repeated at lot -



get rid of mac walters



or



hopefully bioware will learn from their mistakes with ME3



What i do not understand is this - what mistakes does anyone think Bioware needs to learn exactly? I mean ME2 was a commercial success, a critical success (one of the highest rated reviewed games of the year), and even in the hardcore fan forum community the complaints are in the minority relative to the pleased fans (in other words ME2 isn't getting the bashing of dragon age awakening for example)...so really why would Bioware get rid of Mac Walters and more importantly why would they say boy we really f'd up ME2 back to the drawing board, other than the egocentric opinions of a few vocal posters who think their opinion is the center of the gaming universe?

[Fiery Phoenix]

AllThatJazz wrote...

Also agreed. And yes, I'm sure the folks at Bioware can handle criticism (they must be used to it by now, after all) - but Mac doesn't run the place, he just works there, and he must feel pretty crappy when he reads threads like this. Second, criticism isn't the same as 'slagging off', and a number of people on this forum have been guilty of the latter, which is ... just ... really inappropriate and downright rude.

It's fair enough if you don't like his writing style or whatever, and fair enough that you're (we're) passionate about Mass Effect; but can everyone at least try to express their feelings in a civilised way, rather than just having a go at the bloke? (Unnecessary Disclaimer: this post is obviously not targeted at those who have treated him with a bit of basic respect - which is, to be fair, most people.)

Edit: Group Hug? 

*joins hug*

[Fraevar]

I will say that most of the posters in here have been civilized and where some do tend to get angry, I can understand the frustration: ME2 was supposed to be the direct continuation of Shepard's story, but the core plot fails to really provide any kind of deep connection to previous events, to the point where Shepard herself is just a walking brick for solving everyone else's problems.

When you combine that fact with stuff like the Sole Survivor getting absolutely no chance for conflict with TIM or Cerberus, even though it's directly established that this was a major traumatizing event in Shepard's life...well, something's wrong. Mac is good at doing short stories, he is, but on ME2 he failed to properly connect with what was established in the first game, and even worse, he failed to develop Shepard in any meaningful way. We had to wait for Patrick Weekes to do that 8 months after release in a DLC, and I am impressed that he managed to pull it off, given what he had to work with.

So yeah, keep Mac on board for writing sidequests and memorable minor characters, but BioWare really does need someone with a better grasp of overarching stories to handle the main plot.

Modifié par Delerius_Jedi, 15 octobre 2010 - 03:38 .

[Fiery Phoenix]

To summarize:

- Mac = individual and short stories

- Patrick OR Drew = Main plot



They're all good as long as they're given the correct tasks.

[DirtyVagrant]

The writing in both games is a team effort, Drew doesn't deserve all the credit/criticism for ME1 and the same goes for ME2 and Mac Walters.

[Kail Ashton]

Foolsfolly wrote...

I don't sit in the writer's room or even know how the room works and who's responsible for what. And I'm willing to bet neither do anyone else here. This is a very insulting thread for no reason. The fans on this site should be ashamed. It's like everyone stuck into a "I hate it more so I'm the better fan" mentality.



Mass Effect had some good writing in the story portions. Romance dialogue was terrible, though. Clunky bad soap-opera style dialogue.



Mass Effect 2 had better written characters and more fluid dialogue. However, the lack of a strong central villain hurt the story (we had nothing to fight against). Illusive Man's a far better written and more interesting character than Saren was...but the game ends too soon. We never got to fight the guy.



I have nothing bad to say about the writers at BioWare. This is a well written series. Most video games could be written by middle school literature students.

[patocerda]

Bring back Drew for the main plot!!

Leave Mac for the side quests and Patrick somewhere in the middle, maybe?

[THIS.HURTS.YOU]

Sounds like we're going to need a good team [of writers] for ME3.

[implodinggoat]

Sareth Cousland wrote...

ME1 had a main plot. ME2 is a sequence of stories. ME3 needs someone who can create an overarching plot, give the whole a feeling of connectedness, then gifted writers like Mac Walters can step in and flesh things out. From a commercial point of view, even that won't be necessary, as ME3 will certainly sell in spades - but I think many people would appreciate it.

Agreed.  The major flaw with ME2 is not that its poorly written, it's that the narrative doesn't coherently lead you from one event to the next (the random shuttle ride with your entire squad being the most glaring example).

Every mission in ME2 is entertaining and the supporting cast of characters is actually much stronger than in ME1.  While many of the supporting characters in ME1 feel as if they're just there as a plot device to advance the story  or hand out a sidequest the supporting cast in ME2 work to make the missions memorable and give the galaxy a life of its own in a way that ME1 didn't.

As a novelist Karpashyn focuses on making an engrossing central plot that can hold the audience's attention from start to finish driven by a compelling protagonist (Shepard) and antagonist (Saren).  The upside of this is that ME1 had the most engrossing and entertaining story I've ever seen in a video game; but the downside is that Karpashyn's heavy focus on advancing the main story and defining his protagonist and antagonist leads him to neglect the sidequests and minor characters.

I think Mac Walters is a great contributing writer, I just think that you need a novelist like Karpashyn as the lead writer since its the lead writers job to make sure that all the other writers cool ideas don't clash with the main narrative and to do that you need to think about the long term development of the narrative in other words you need to think like a novelist.

[Cyberfrog81]

Not overly interested in that comic. Not a bad interview though.



As for ridiculously underappreciated Walters, about the only serious problem I have with the writing in ME2 is Harbinger. Granted, Sovereign is a tough act to follow, but Harbinger as a 'character' was... weak. Pitiful. I can understand the problems people have with other things - e.g. Liara, Cerberus, continuity in general... but I can forgive all that. The lack of an interesting main villain though is a huge flaw.



ME2 is still fantastic, as a game. As a story though, it could have been even better.

[Nerevar-as]

To me the main plot of ME1 was like watching a TV series half season. Well written and focused. ME2 was the equivalent of watching 2 full seasons of stand alone episodes with only a few that actually follow the main story. Missions and characters were mostly good, but the sum of parts was far less than the separate ones.



About the interview, it seems in LotSB he was only the supervisor. Yet it beats any other part of ME2 by far IMHO. I´m worried.

[Darthbill52]

PoliteAssasin wrote...

Edit: It's not that I don't like Mac Walters, but I prefer the overall tone/feeling of Mass 1 to Mass 2. Mass Effect 1 was very original, it had that new, sci fi feeling. Mass 2 just feels like too much of a blockbuster movie. More action involved than story. 

-Polite

Ill Drink to that polite.  I felt like Shepard was going to report to the TIM's remark of  "Leave anything for us Shepard ?" Shepard pulling an Arnold from commando  "Just Bodies"   Also the credits just the segway it was missing something the pull of the game into the credits (End of ME1 to Credits rolling M4 Part II)  then Me2 goes into action movie music.  I agree it didnt have the same feel