136 réponses à ce sujet

[Killjoy Cutter]

Pacifien wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...
What do you mean, I don't have time?  If I can catch Vido after letting the game sit for 8 or 9 hours unpaused, why can't I catch Vido if I make it through the entire refinery in five minutes or less?  Same Shep, same third team member, just reloaded and taking the other choice.  There aren't "two iterations" there. 

The only thing that seperates the two playthroughs of the mission is the contrivance.

The thing that I think players fail to understand is that if you make one decision, the outcome of the other decision does not exist. What could have happened had you taken the paragon route should be meaningless to the person who took the other path. That is some alternate universe where other things happened that have no bearing on your current playthrough.

I could do a speed run of the paragon path faster than the average time it takes someone to get through the renegade path, but still not catch Vido. Alternatively, I could take an hour playing through the renegade path battle and still catch Vido fine. The developers put not time limit on the mission, probably to accommodate the various types of players who take anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour to complete the same battles.

Your choices are only altering the outcome of your current playthrough. You could make a different choice in another playthrough only to discover it leads to the same outcome. Or you could make a different choice in another playthrough and discover it significantly alters the outcome. That's kind of the nature of an RPG.

It still comes down to being told that it's a matter of time, and finding out that the time is meaningless.  When I replay the mission with the same team and only vary it by that one choice, it becomes very transparent that the mechanic for the "time issue" is entirely contrived.


And no matter how narrow, I do want the chance to both rescue the workers and kill Vido. 

[Dean_the_Young]

Lots of people want to have their cake and eat it.



A saying which has long puzzled me, on account as you have to have a cake in the first place in order to be able to eat it.

[ADLegend21]

Tranceptor wrote...

As Paragon femshep:

I save the workers and then let Zaeed burn to death.

He was as dangerous to my team as he was to my enemies, I figured letting him roast would be the best way to make him understand that point of view.

This. This. This. This.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Lots of people want to have their cake and eat it.

A saying which has long puzzled me, on account as you have to have a cake in the first place in order to be able to eat it.

And it really has nothing to do with this situation. 

[Dean_the_Young]

That is exactly the situation.



The story has a choice of divergence: sacrifice your chances to kill Vido and save the workers, or let the workers die and kill him.



The cake delimma is a similar opportunity cost: if you eat the cake, you can't admire it. If you want to admire it, you can't eat it.



You want the boon of both choices, even though they are conditionally opposed.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

That is exactly the situation.

The story has a choice of divergence: sacrifice your chances to kill Vido and save the workers, or let the workers die and kill him.

The cake delimma is a similar opportunity cost: if you eat the cake, you can't admire it. If you want to admire it, you can't eat it.

You want the boon of both choices, even though they are conditionally opposed.

They are only conditionally opposed because of a false dichotomy put forth via an obvious contrivance.  In effect, we're being told "if you eat cake A, you cannot have cake B, because we're going to pretend that cake B doesn't exist any more".

(Never mind that the Normandy could easily intercept and destroy Vido's gunship.

Modifié par Killjoy Cutter, 19 octobre 2010 - 02:11 .

[Dean_the_Young]

There is no Cake A and Cake B. There is only one cake to be had, in that there is game time enough for one path or the other, not both.


(If Vido's gunship was intending to go into space, as opposed to a local base with air-defense assets, or hiding in terrain...)

Modifié par Dean_the_Young, 19 octobre 2010 - 02:24 .

[Killjoy Cutter]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

There is no Cake A and Cake B. There is only one cake to be had, in that there is game time enough for one path or the other, not both.

Sure there's a Cake B -- as shown by the complete lack of any actual time limit in catching up to Vido if you make that choice.  There's hours and hours of Cake B.

[Dean_the_Young]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

There is no Cake A and Cake B. There is only one cake to be had, in that there is game time enough for one path or the other, not both.

Sure there's a Cake B -- as shown by the complete lack of any actual time limit in catching up to Vido if you make that choice.  There's hours and hours of Cake B.

No, because that isn't game-story time. That's gameplay time, which, quite reasonably, does not track with gameplay time except in specific circumstances.

Should we go through all the times gameplay time doesn't match with game-story time? How about the Collector Base, where despite only ten minutes to get out you can have a boss fight you can postpone indefinitely? Samara, who doesn't break out of the station no matter how long it takes you? Tali's loyalty mission, where you are only gone 'hours' no matter how long (or short) it takes you to accomplish the mission? 

[Killjoy Cutter]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

There is no Cake A and Cake B. There is only one cake to be had, in that there is game time enough for one path or the other, not both.

Sure there's a Cake B -- as shown by the complete lack of any actual time limit in catching up to Vido if you make that choice.  There's hours and hours of Cake B.

No, because that isn't game-story time. That's gameplay time, which, quite reasonably, does not track with gameplay time except in specific circumstances.

Should we go through all the times gameplay time doesn't match with game-story time? How about the Collector Base, where despite only ten minutes to get out you can have a boss fight you can postpone indefinitely? Samara, who doesn't break out of the station no matter how long it takes you? Tali's loyalty mission, where you are only gone 'hours' no matter how long (or short) it takes you to accomplish the mission? 

1) Once the larval Reaper attacks, how do you postpone indefinately?  Eventually, it starts tearing the platforms down.

2) If you take 24 hours of single-playthrough gameplay to get through the Eclipse building, you deserve to have Samara leave the station.

3) Who takes more than hours on a single playthrough to retake the Allerai (sp)? 

And in each case, you're not presented with a choice where you can either take the time to do this, or to do that.  That's the kicker in the Zaeed LM -- that you're told you didn't catch Vido because you took too long, but time quite obviously has nothing to do with it.

[Asheer_Khan]

Vido is too small fish in the pond to justify in any way letting workers die (beside his face when one of his goons get hit on board that gunship told me that he didn't after all escaped rather sorry end...) and beside... if you let Zaeed once take over control putting Shepard's authority under question, there will be not a single guarantee that for example during C-base mission Zaeed won't start acting on his own (again) putting entire mission in danger.

[Dean_the_Young]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

There is no Cake A and Cake B. There is only one cake to be had, in that there is game time enough for one path or the other, not both.

Sure there's a Cake B -- as shown by the complete lack of any actual time limit in catching up to Vido if you make that choice.  There's hours and hours of Cake B.

No, because that isn't game-story time. That's gameplay time, which, quite reasonably, does not track with gameplay time except in specific circumstances.

Should we go through all the times gameplay time doesn't match with game-story time? How about the Collector Base, where despite only ten minutes to get out you can have a boss fight you can postpone indefinitely? Samara, who doesn't break out of the station no matter how long it takes you? Tali's loyalty mission, where you are only gone 'hours' no matter how long (or short) it takes you to accomplish the mission? 

1) Once the larval Reaper attacks, how do you postpone indefinately?  Eventually, it starts tearing the platforms down.

I've never seen it tear down the platform, and you can certainly go long enough so that the battle and the cutscenes take more than 10 minutes.

2) If you take 24 hours of single-playthrough gameplay to get through the Eclipse building, you deserve to have Samara leave the station.

And yet she doesn't.

Magic.

3) Who takes more than hours on a single playthrough to retake the Allerai (sp)? 

Presumably someone who takes nine hours on Zaeed's LM on either path.

Or someone who puts down the controller but doesn't want to turn of the system and then forgets about it.

And in each case, you're not presented with a choice where you can either take the time to do this, or to do that.  That's the kicker in the Zaeed LM -- that you're told you didn't catch Vido because you took too long, but time quite obviously has nothing to do with it.

Time quite obviously has nothing to do with the others either, despite time being mentioned.

[Dean_the_Young]

Asheer_Khan wrote...

Vido is too small fish in the pond to justify in any way letting workers die (beside his face when one of his goons get hit on board that gunship told me that he didn't after all escaped rather sorry end...) and beside... if you let Zaeed once take over control putting Shepard's authority under question, there will be not a single guarantee that for example during C-base mission Zaeed won't start acting on his own (again) putting entire mission in danger.

Yes Khan.

Zaeed is going to blow up the doors to the Collector base, threatening all the innocent Collectors inside, because he has a big goddamn decades long feud with theCollectors.

[Nightwriter]

Now. There is no real threat to Shepard's authority, from any crew member.

The fact that human lives > revenge is quite enough reason to paragon it, we don't need to go throwing a You Need To Beat 'Im Into Submission reason in there to make it more justifiable.

Smacking him around is just a nice bonus.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

There is no Cake A and Cake B. There is only one cake to be had, in that there is game time enough for one path or the other, not both.

Sure there's a Cake B -- as shown by the complete lack of any actual time limit in catching up to Vido if you make that choice.  There's hours and hours of Cake B.

No, because that isn't game-story time. That's gameplay time, which, quite reasonably, does not track with gameplay time except in specific circumstances.

Should we go through all the times gameplay time doesn't match with game-story time? How about the Collector Base, where despite only ten minutes to get out you can have a boss fight you can postpone indefinitely? Samara, who doesn't break out of the station no matter how long it takes you? Tali's loyalty mission, where you are only gone 'hours' no matter how long (or short) it takes you to accomplish the mission? 

1) Once the larval Reaper attacks, how do you postpone indefinately?  Eventually, it starts tearing the platforms down.

I've never seen it tear down the platform, and you can certainly go long enough so that the battle and the cutscenes take more than 10 minutes.

2) If you take 24 hours of single-playthrough gameplay to get through the Eclipse building, you deserve to have Samara leave the station.

And yet she doesn't.

Magic.

3) Who takes more than hours on a single playthrough to retake the Allerai (sp)? 

Presumably someone who takes nine hours on Zaeed's LM on either path.

Or someone who puts down the controller but doesn't want to turn of the system and then forgets about it.

And in each case, you're not presented with a choice where you can either take the time to do this, or to do that.  That's the kicker in the Zaeed LM -- that you're told you didn't catch Vido because you took too long, but time quite obviously has nothing to do with it.

Time quite obviously has nothing to do with the others either, despite time being mentioned.

There isn't, however, a false dichotomy on any of those other missions that makes the fakeness of the whole thing patently obvious.

(The 8 or 9 hours I mentioned was a deliberate test to see if it was at all possible to take too long to catch Vido if you chose to persuit him.)

[Zulu_DFA]

Asheer_Khan wrote...

Vido is too small fish in the pond to justify in any way letting workers die (beside his face when one of his goons get hit on board that gunship told me that he didn't after all escaped rather sorry end...) and beside... if you let Zaeed once take over control putting Shepard's authority under question, there will be not a single guarantee that for example during C-base mission Zaeed won't start acting on his own (again) putting entire mission in danger.

I'm curious. Did you gun Wrex down on Virmire? Because you are talking about it. Virmire was Shepard's mission, and Wrex trained a gun on the Commander.

As opposed to Zorya, which was Zaeed's mission and Shepard's task there was only to provide Zaeed with fire support.

[Dean_the_Young]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

There isn't, however, a false dichotomy on any of those other missions that makes the fakeness of the whole thing patently obvious.

All the choices are 'false dictomys' in a game where the choices (and the consequences) are, by the very nature of fiction, arbitrarily written. It's the nature of the medium.

(The 8 or 9 hours I mentioned was a deliberate test to see if it was at all possible to take too long to catch Vido if you chose to persuit him.)

If you needed to test to figure that out there wasn't a timer function, you're very special.

[Killjoy Cutter]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

There isn't, however, a false dichotomy on any of those other missions that makes the fakeness of the whole thing patently obvious.

All the choices are 'false dictomys' in a game where the choices (and the consequences) are, by the very nature of fiction, arbitrarily written. It's the nature of the medium.

(The 8 or 9 hours I mentioned was a deliberate test to see if it was at all possible to take too long to catch Vido if you chose to persuit him.)

If you needed to test to figure that out there wasn't a timer function, you're very special.

I wanted to be sure before I said something, you know how people are around here. 

(All I did was leave it on while I went to work for the day.)

[Kenshen]

If this mission was a real one it would be easy. Let Zaeed go after Vito and do his thing while I try and save the workers from the fire. I never understood why this big bad merc needs me to hold his hand while he chases after the guy who shot him in the head. Since the game doesn't allow this option and the fact that I really don't like Zaeed I always save the workers and punch Zaeed in the face.

[Siansonea]

Call me crazy, but I think Vido's kinda hot. Zaeed has to play rescue worker, too bad so sad.

[Killjoy Cutter]

aryon69 wrote...

If this mission was a real one it would be easy. Let Zaeed go after Vito and do his thing while I try and save the workers from the fire. I never understood why this big bad merc needs me to hold his hand while he chases after the guy who shot him in the head.

There is that, as well.  Heck, I'd even send the other squadie with Zaeed to watch his back (and shoot him in it if he does anything else that stupid).  Shep can rescue a few workers alone and probably get to that last big swarm of Blue Suns before the other two do anyway.

[Asheer_Khan]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

Asheer_Khan wrote...

Vido is too small fish in the pond to justify in any way letting workers die (beside his face when one of his goons get hit on board that gunship told me that he didn't after all escaped rather sorry end...) and beside... if you let Zaeed once take over control putting Shepard's authority under question, there will be not a single guarantee that for example during C-base mission Zaeed won't start acting on his own (again) putting entire mission in danger.

I'm curious. Did you gun Wrex down on Virmire? Because you are talking about it. Virmire was Shepard's mission, and Wrex trained a gun on the Commander.

As opposed to Zorya, which was Zaeed's mission and Shepard's task there was only to provide Zaeed with fire support.

I never have a reason to gun down Wrex since i not only spend lot of time to talk with him but as well helped him find his family armor so entire "reasoning" was quick so my Shep and him could focus on mission again.

[Tranceptor]

Siansonea II wrote...



Call me crazy, but I think Vido's kinda hot.

You're crazy.

[Ralnith]

I save the hostages most of the time, even on renegades. If Zaeed really was such a great merc, he would set aside any of his personal issues and do the mission. That is part of his job and it is exactly what Shepard expects him to do at the end: complete the mission objective, no matter the cost. In this case, the mission objective is "save workers", not "run off to kill some guy you hate". If he can't stay rational and do his job, he's worthless as a merc.

[Dean_the_Young]

So, your basis of decision is on the no true scotsman fallacy?