197 réponses à ce sujet

[Moiaussi]

D.Sharrah wrote...

If only we could submit hime to the torture of the "Pain"...anyone know the reference and what it entails?

You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

[Moiaussi]

RiouHotaru wrote..

My only guess as to why this is so?  Because it would make the Paragon decision the obviously superior choice, since you could save the hostage and destroy his ass on top of that.  The point of the choice is that it's a trade-off: Him, or the hostages.  To allow us to capture him or take him out after the fact would be unfair.

Not neccessarily. They could have given a time limit (just like the one with the bombs) to rescue the hostages and catch up with him before he gets away. Regardless, why can't one choice or other be 'obviously superior' on occasion? Isn't that just reality?

[LorDC]

Moiaussi wrote...
Regardless, why can't one choice or other be 'obviously superior' on occasion?

Because if one option is superior to another then you don't really have choice. Only illusion. It can work with some "minor" choices but not in culmination of the whole DLC.

Moiaussi wrote...
Isn't that just reality?

If reality was so good no one would have played games.

[Dean_the_Young]

[quote]LorDC wrote...

[quote]Moiaussi wrote...
Regardless, why can't one choice or other be 'obviously superior' on occasion?[/quote]
Because if one option is superior to another then you don't really have choice. Only illusion. It can work with some "minor" choices but not in culmination of the whole DLC.
[/quote]Choices can have uneven consequences. Most do. Unequal outcomes don't mean a lack of choices.

To answer Moiaussi's question, if it weren't DLC and there were overall balance between choices, I'd have no issue. As a singular product, though, unless it were to balance a disparity in the game, I don't think DLC choices are better off taking sides.


[quote]Moiaussi wrote...
Isn't that just reality?[/quote]
If reality was so good no one would have played games.[/quote]Reality doesn't allow us to play with guns, impossible technologies, and have low-cost rammifications for choices. That doesn't mean that games can't put weight on choices as part of the fun.

[D.Sharrah]

Moiaussi wrote...

D.Sharrah wrote...

If only we could submit hime to the torture of the "Pain"...anyone know the reference and what it entails?

You keep saying that word. I do not think it means what you think it means

"To the pain," means the first thing you lose will be your feet below the ankles, then your hands at the wrists, next your nose.



And, then my tongue I suppose. I killed you too quickly the last time; a mistake I don't mean to duplicate tonight.



I wasn't finished. The next thing you lose will be your left eye, followed by the right . . .



And, then my ears, I understand. Let's get on with it.



Wrong! Your ears you keep, and I'll tell you why. So that every shriek of every child at seeing your hideousness will be yours to cherish, every babe that weeps at your approach, every woman who cries out: "Dear God, what is that thing?" will echo in your perfect ears. That is what "to the pain" means. It means I leave you in anguish, wallowing in freakish misery, forever.

That sir is the "pain".  Perhaps now, someone will get the reference!

[LorDC]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Choices can have uneven consequences. Most do. Unequal outcomes don't mean a lack of choices.

Unequal is unequal to superior. If all consequences are equal there is no choice either. So it is a matter of balance and good design.

[kraidy1117]

Asheer_Khan wrote...

Three people?

If my memory still served me well there were more than three people in rooms with bombs.
One room was where Kate Bowman was held and that room was pretty good "packed" with people so was second room with bomb.

I known that Kate was willing to die (she sacrificed life of her own brother to protect Shepard actions) in order to stop Balak but since my Shepard didn't served in Specnaz, death of the hostages was not an option for her.

There was only three people. Even Shepard says so.

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Canon Shepard would scoff at the idea of letting Balak go.

Saving few people over offing some nutjob who'd kill billions? That's just insane.

Modifié par DarthCyclopsRLZ, 09 novembre 2010 - 09:25 .

[DarthCyclopsRLZ]

Double post.

Modifié par DarthCyclopsRLZ, 09 novembre 2010 - 09:25 .

[Moiaussi]

LorDC wrote...

Because if one option is superior to another then you don't really have choice. Only illusion. It can work with some "minor" choices but not in culmination of the whole DLC.

But sometimes the 'obviously superior' choice can bite you in the long run due to something that wasn't obvious at the time. Also what is obvious to one isn't obvious to another. Just look at all the posts in these forums of various people trying to claim various things are 'obvious.'

If reality was so good no one would have played games.

And yet we have people claiming that all games have to be dark and tragic or else they are not 'believeable.'

[Moiaussi]

D.Sharrah wrote...

Perhaps now, someone will get the reference!

If you didn't recognize my quote, you didn't get your own reference, lol.

[D.Sharrah]

Moiaussi wrote...

D.Sharrah wrote...

Perhaps now, someone will get the reference!

If you didn't recognize my quote, you didn't get your own reference, lol.

Had to look at it again...now I remember that part...has to be one of the best explanations of torture ever!

[JG The Gamer]

I think Balak's going to be praised as a hero if you let him go. Clearly he answers to a higher authority and even if he doesn't succeed in decimating Terra Nova, he has injected fear into the civilians under the Alliance, knowing that the batarians (some of them) are willing to decimate entire worlds just to make a point.



If you kill Balak, he goes down as a martyr for his cause. And he said himself that he was the first of many. I feel as though there is some truth to what he is saying. Could have something to do with the Javelin Missiles fired at the colony on Watson.



Arresting him seems like the most utilitarian choice if you can handle a few innocent deaths on your hands. He can be taken in, interrogated (waterboarded possibly) and spend the rest of his life in an Alliance prison. And then there's prison justice...

[Felene]

I always hand Balak to the Alliance since he did mention something about a plan attack in the future.[make me think about Mass Effect Galaxy]

As for the three lives, I think its worth it consider what wound happen if Shepard let Balak go free.

Besides, given in to Balak's or any other terrists' threat is negative reinforcement.

Modifié par Felene, 10 novembre 2010 - 05:51 .

[DPSSOC]

Moiaussi wrote...

If reality was so good no one would have played games.

And yet we have people claiming that all games have to be dark and tragic or else they are not 'believeable.'

It's like the Matrix, if everything's sunshine and rainbows we won't accept it.  Escapsim needs to be believable, to an extent, to be effective.

Also, bit of back tracking

Xilizhra wrote...
Balak is not a terrorist mastermind. He's a slaver captain who got lucky. He just happened to land on X57 while it already had fusion torches shooting it towards Terra Nova, and decided on a whim to speed them up.

Ballak new where the aesteroid would be, he knew where it was going, he managed to by pass and gain control of the defense systems (with minimal casualties), and, had Shepard not shown up, would have killed a planet with no evidence or witnesses to say it wasn't just a horrible accident.

This screams of forethought and extensive planning.

[Moiaussi]

D.Sharrah wrote...

Had to look at it again...now I remember that part...has to be one of the best explanations of torture ever!

You are still mis-remembering. Would it help if I told you that was... inconceivable?

[Moiaussi]

DPSSOC wrote...

It's like the Matrix, if everything's sunshine and rainbows we won't accept it.  Escapsim needs to be believable, to an extent, to be effective.

"Everything" is rarely sunshine and rainbows. There is pretty much always someone like Udina in some sort of authority position at the end of the day, there is still the uneasy issue of the Council having to accept your proving them wrong, but not wanting to admit that publicly, there is still poverty, and strife, and unrest and racial tension.

The problem is that some people aren't willing to settle for "normal' issues at the end of the day. They don't seem happy unless you have a hamlet ending, with everyone dead and a foreign power coming in to pick the corpses.

That's fine once in a while, but when it is every time it is just as tedious as the fairy tale 'everything is perfect' ending.

Frankly, if what people seem to want for their fantasy really was reality, I think the suicide rates would be a lot higher....

[DPSSOC]

Moiaussi wrote...
The problem is that some people aren't willing to settle for "normal' issues at the end of the day. They don't seem happy unless you have a hamlet ending, with everyone dead and a foreign power coming in to pick the corpses.

That's fine once in a while, but when it is every time it is just as tedious as the fairy tale 'everything is perfect' ending.

Indeed, I enjoy a good tragedy now and again, but anything without moderation becomes dull.  Example, I love peanut butter, but if it's all I have day after day I rapidly get sick of it.

[D.Sharrah]

Moiaussi-

Not misremembering...just commenting on the two seperate things...first - because they were from seperate scenes I did not recall them being from the same movie; second - "to the Pain" has be to the best description of pain ever.

Sorry if there was any confusion...and yes it is all inconceivable.

"Never bet against a Scicillian when death is on the line."

Modifié par D.Sharrah, 10 novembre 2010 - 04:41 .

[RiouHotaru]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
You aren't being imaginative enough. Since I suppose I wasn't clear, I'll say it again.

It is neither impossible or hard to think of ways to rig a device to explode regardless after a point. Balak could set the bomb to go off by detaonater. Balak could set the bomb to go off if his omnitool detects he is dead. Balak could set the bombs to go off by a timer. Balak could set the bombs to go off if you opened the door. Balak could set the bombs to go off if anyone got within a certain proximity of them. Balak could do all of the above.

Personally, I like the idea that Balak's bombs go off the moment he gets a certain distance away.

Balak could do any number of things with the bombs that Shepard wouldn't know about, that would still trigger the bombs by the time he was free. All Balak has to do is not blow up the hostages until Shepard gives him enough of a head start, and there is no reason for him to not blow them up a moment longer.

If Shepard doesn't care about hostages, the hostages are useless in the first place, and no change. If Shepard does care about the hostages, the bombs can still go off regardless. The only reason it shouldn't is the same reason Balak can fly away: to allow a choice and difference of results of exist.


Point-wise, it could be the same as Bhatia's wife. You can paragon or renegade for both selections. Paragon and Renegade don't have to have different outcomes, just tones. Advertising can always be changed to reflect the game.

But again, what was the point?  In this situation, killing him is clearly the superior decision, because than at least when the hostages die, you can take it out on him.  If you let him go and then he kills the hostages anyway, congrats, you look like an idiot, and the player is left going "Well what was the point of that?"  The only way to balance one side with the other is to keep it as it is, deciding between Balak and the hostages.  At least then players get the option of a relatively equal trade-off.

Also, while sure, he could've thought of those bomb ideas, it's not a weakness on the game's part that he didn't.

[Asheer_Khan]

@Dean.



Did you served in SPECNAZ?



Because you presented thier line of toughs when comes to solving hostage problem (Moscow - Dubrovka Theatre is excellent example).



Lucky they are minority because Western AT teams are train with one prime directive.



- HOSTAGES LIFE ARE TOP PRIORITY.



So was my Shepard trained.



So what that Balak escape?



If Hegemony want open war against Alliance then i say Bringing ON... they got once thier three letters handled on Torfan and i don't see why Torfan scenario would not repeat again if necessary.



Balak and Vido are insignificant nobodys (ESPECIALLY Vido) not worth of life even single civilian.

And on the side note i think Bioware should really rethink adding situations like this to game without giving more variety of choices including Normandy presence at orbit.

[Moiaussi]

D.Sharrah wrote...

Moiaussi-

Not misremembering...just commenting on the two seperate things...first - because they were from seperate scenes I did not recall them being from the same movie; second - "to the Pain" has be to the best description of pain ever.

Sorry if there was any confusion...and yes it is all inconceivable.

"Never bet against a Scicillian when death is on the line."

Never start a land war in aisa! (Unless you are playing Civ, in which case it might well be fair game )

[tonnactus]

LorDC wrote...

You can imagine anything you want but if you let Balak go, he wins..

Thats interesting.How could someone win who failed at his mission and lost nearly all his troups?
And even his second in command in going to take over his position?

[DPSSOC]

Asheer_Khan wrote...
If Hegemony want open war against Alliance then i say Bringing ON... they got once thier three letters handled on Torfan and i don't see why Torfan scenario would not repeat again if necessary.

Torfan was pirates, not the Batarian military.  While I doubt there'd be much of a difference there still is one.  The problem with fighting the Batarians is they come across as guerilla fighters, taking pop shots then blending in with the populace.  These people are hard to fight because you can't just target civillians even if you know there are enemy combatants mixed in somewhere (well you could but you lose support back home and strengthen the enemy).

Asheer_Khan wrote...
Balak and Vido are insignificant nobodys (ESPECIALLY Vido) not worth of life even single civilian.

You can't be serious.  Vido is the head of the Blue Suns, Zorya doesn't change that, how is he insignificant?  As for Balak I repeat the question; is he capable, as an individual, of harming more people then are currently at stake (I saw 3)?  If so then saving the hostages is simply a delaying tactic (save lives now so he can kill others later).  Furthermore Balak is dangerous because he has something more important than resources at his disposal.  Balak possesses the will to kill millions of people for his cause.  There are plenty of Batarians who'll raid a colony here or there but Balak is the only one we encounter willing to start a full out war and, if you believe him, he's not alone.

Sparing Balak sends the message that the Batarians can cross that line and just walk away as long as they've got a couple people as insurance.  Killing Balak on the other hand sends the same message Torfan did; that potential losses won't stop us from gutting them if they decide to bring the fight to us.

[Dean_the_Young]

RiouHotaru wrote...


But again, what was the point?  In this situation, killing him is clearly the superior decision, because than at least when the hostages die, you can take it out on him.  If you let him go and then he kills the hostages anyway, congrats, you look like an idiot, and the player is left going "Well what was the point of that?"  The only way to balance one side with the other is to keep it as it is, deciding between Balak and the hostages.  At least then players get the option of a relatively equal trade-off.

Also, while sure, he could've thought of those bomb ideas, it's not a weakness on the game's part that he didn't.

I don't believe it's a weakness at all, since I think the value of the delimma is more than suffiicent for the medium.

I was disputing the person who claimed that letting Balak go should have been an obvious consequence-free choice on the grounds that the Normandy could have stopped him by pointing out that there was no guarantee besides plot intent that you could save the hostages in the first place.