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[GodWood]

WHY MASTER LI WHY!?

[Seagloom]

The KotOR and JE twists got a reaction from me, but I kinda saw the former coming and although I did not quite predict the latter, I knew something was up. I suppose that makes the JE plot twist a success on me. The thing is, I do not find these important. The Joining, dark ritual, and Warden death twists in Origins were all predictable. Most of the game was predictable, but I still enjoyed some of what I played. I think a story should flow naturally and not be crafted with the intention of shoving twists into it. Otherwise BioWare runs the risk of becoming the Shyamalan of gaming stories.

[Maria Caliban]

My mother ruined the JE plot twist for me. She wandered into the room while I played through the early sections and while Master Li was talking, she told me he was evil and obviously lying to my PC.

[Seagloom]

Your mother is astute. I totally did not catch Li's verbal cues until subsequent playthroughs. I chalk it up to Barry Dennen's voice acting. I kept thinking of Loghaire Thunder Stone from "Arcanum" as he used the same voice for Li. Loghaire was all honorable and stuff. I was too quick to buy into it.

[upsettingshorts]

Maria Caliban wrote...

My mother ruined the JE plot twist for me. She wandered into the room while I played through the early sections and while Master Li was talking, she told me he was evil and obviously lying to my PC.

Sylvius the Mad would like to interrogate your mother to determine what system she used to deduce that.

[They call me a SpaceCowboy]

THe nature of the collectors was a surprise to me. Since playing ME2 Ive spent a lot of time on these forums, so KOTOR and JE are spoiled for me. heh

[Tinxa]

The greatest plot twist for me was in KOTOR and Yoshimo in BG2 and I would like to see something like that in DA2. I haven't played JE but those plot twists sound great. The ME2 revelation wasn't really shocking for me it was more "Oh, I didn't know that, cool"



I just hope they won't spoil everything in a trailer like for DAO. I thought showing the landsmeet and Duncan killing Jory in trailers was completely unnecessary and it spoiled great moments in the game. The only big plot twist in DAO for me was finding out that Alistair was a king's son.

[Daewan]

They didn't call him "The Glorious Strategist" for nothing!

[MoogleNut]

I actually thought the prothean/collector reveal was really badly done - the dialogue wheel gives the game away before EDI has even finished speaking which spoiled the moment if not the actual revelation for me.

The whole Warden must die moment shook me up though and I had resigned myself to the fact that my character would not survive this game, even when Morrigan made her offer I was all set to refuse her until she pulled the 'do you want to break Leliana's heart?' card on me.

Dammed Bioware and their engaging characters!

As for DA2, i'm kinda expecting some sort of twist - Flemeth is in it up to her neck after all.

(edited for shpelling^^)

Modifié par MoogleNut, 28 novembre 2010 - 03:35 .

[Qset]

In DAO, the warden will die and DR were a surprise to me on 1st playthru, not jaw dropping, but decent twists and made me think about the options. The Redcliffe stuff was also interesting.

The Morrigan/Flemeth content has some twists and of course its still going on - not fully resolved across a single game/expansion yet.



DAO seemed to consist of many shades of grey choices as the plots developed that weren't apparent at the start of each quest rather than huge unexpected plot twists. Some of the epilogue content was also a surprise.

I am looking forward to seeing whats on offer in DA2 - we will probably get a bit more on the flemeth/morrigan situation but I think that will not be completely transparent until end of DA3

[Gtdef]

You killed my father!

No Hawke, I'm your father.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo, do not want.

[PsychoBlonde]

Maria Caliban wrote...

My mother ruined the JE plot twist for me. She wandered into the room while I played through the early sections and while Master Li was talking, she told me he was evil and obviously lying to my PC.

Ohh, sorry Maria.  When I played through JE for the first time, I remembered thinking, why is Master Li being so evasive?  He's acting like he's hiding something.  Huh.

In the absence of any other evidence, I just decided that he was pulling an "Inscrutable Wise Old Master Wants Apprentice To Figure It Out For Herself".  Boy was I surprised.  Best setup ever.

I think what I enjoy isn't so much the "twist" as the realization, which you can accomplish in a lot of different ways rather than just having a "things aren't what they seem" situation.  I would quite enjoy playing through a game where a lot of quasi-inexplicable stuff is always happening, and the realization moment is when you finally figure out what all the clues add up to rather than some sort of big reveal.  But this would be extremely difficult to pull off given just how strongly the plot has to be telegraphed in most video games.  If it isn't telegraphed this way, you may have a large portion of your player base sitting at the end going "that made no sense whatsoever".

Or maybe not--because the realization can still have that same value no matter when you figure it out provided the writers don't make you act like you don't know.  It's something to think about, anyway.

[Saibh]

You know what I hate? Any plot twist that relies on the cunning lack of third-person pronouns.

They are so easy to spot. If I didn't know Jack was female from all of the marketing that completely gave the surprise away, it would have been obvious anyway. "Jack doesn't like being messed with, Jack's the toughest criminal here with crazy biotics. That criminal will kill anyone who looks at Jack funny."

Modifié par Saibh, 28 novembre 2010 - 06:47 .

[Eudaemonium]

I hear you, Saibh: the 'conspicuous absence of gendered language' trick. I similarly knew Jack was female from marketing, etcetera, but that was really obvious.

I actually had both KotOR and JE twists spoiled for me - well, the main ones. There were some other twists like the stuff to do with Death's Hand in JE that I didn't know about. The KotOR one was still amazing to see come to fruition, although it lacked the ooomph it might otherwise have had. The issue with Master Li is that he fits the 'wise elderly master/mentor figure who raises the protagonist' and is therefore doomed to either 1) die or 2) betray your sorry ass.

The issue with DAO was that it was all pretty predictable (enjoyable, but predictable), even if you hadn't worked it out then the revelations came as more of a 'oh, okay, that makes sense' rather than the jaw-dropping shock-and-awe effect of a Revan. ME2 was kinda the same way, which is okay - both are still enjoyable games. I also admit, while not a 'twist', I loved the way they built the atmosphere in the Deep Roads with regards to the fate of Branka's House.

[Gabey5]

best twists



1. revan

2. allistar royal

3. prothean/collector

4. he who slays archdemon must die

[Qset]

Eudaemonium wrote...

 I loved the way they built the atmosphere in the Deep Roads with regards to the fate of Branka's House.

Yup, that was very well done, the end boss for that level was a surprise although the build up did give some ideas on what to expect - but I didn't quite expect that....

While there were no huge plot twists in DAO, there were a lot of minor ones and some fairly big surprises along the way. Visiting Flemeths hut the 2nd time around and the outfit Flemeth decided to "wear" when I decided to carry out Morrigans wishes during my 1st playthrough was certainly a shocker

[yuri102010]

I would say the major plot twist would be in the metal gear games like when you managed to go through the first psx game thinking hey your a normal person. But all changed when u play metal gear 2 and revealing that your not normal but a clone who causing a lot of trouble and stuff...



The whole game it self was god like compare to BG and BG2 but when they try to close the story to whole franchise with the 4th game but in fact it opens up the another game in the series. Its like having tons of plot twists and headaches while making the story seem extremely interesting and the ending has tons of cliff hangers like able to change how the ending goes like one of the characters helps ya through out the mission turns out to be the person who was dragging ya on to help them and such and alll goes bad at the end.



I just love those type of fun plot twists....

[JrayM16]

Saibh wrote...

You know what I hate? Any plot twist that relies on the cunning lack of third-person pronouns.

They are so easy to spot. If I didn't know Jack was female from all of the marketing that completely gave the surprise away, it would have been obvious anyway. "Jack doesn't like being messed with, Jack's the toughest criminal here with crazy biotics. That criminal will kill anyone who looks at Jack funny."

I would add to that any plot twist relying on ridiculously obvious withholding of info from the reader/viewer.  Haven't seen something like this in a Bioware game yet but it's prevalent in literature (eg, "And then I told him what I was going to do.")

The only place I ever saw this device work was in Fight Club, mainly because they didn't draw attention to the fact that the main character's name was not revealed until the end.

[druplesnubb]

Personally I really liked the "three twists in a row" from the werewolf quest. Best sideplot ever in the whole game.

[Eudaemonium]

druplesnubb wrote...

Personally I really liked the "three twists in a row" from the werewolf quest. Best sideplot ever in the whole game.

I think my enjoyment of the twists here was sullied by the fact the quest is TOO. GODDAMN. LONG. Barrign that though, they were nice twists.

As Qset said, there are a lot of little twists throughout - largely in relation to the main quest-chains (aside from the Mage Tower, really, that didn't have any to speak of). And yeah, thinking back on it, Flemeth's 'costume' when you go to fulfil Morrigan's wishes did make my jaw drop. In a "OMFG I am going to die so hard right now" way.

[Nerevar-as]

JE, I only wondered why he made the mistale of outing himself to the rival in the school. Even the flaw in the combat style was something that was mentioned to make the PC a better fighter. Then came the reveal, and replaying noting the hints and plans. He was a Magnificent Bastard indeed. With zero redeeming points.



KOTOR, I was spoiled before playing. Still think the same as when I learned the twist. So if Palpatine is hit hard enough on the head, he can get a free start? I´m more afraid of the "twist" TOR will pull on both Revan and Exile, however.

[Saibh]

Nerevar-as wrote...

JE, I only wondered why he made the mistale of outing himself to the rival in the school. Even the flaw in the combat style was something that was mentioned to make the PC a better fighter. Then came the reveal, and replaying noting the hints and plans. He was a Magnificent Bastard indeed. With zero redeeming points.

You know what gets me about that "one weakness" they keep talking about? He doesn't exploit it. Unless your one weakness is "LOOK SOMETHING SHINY", I fail to see how he used it against you. He chucks something into the air, and you look up, then he kills you.

That's not exactly a flaw in technique, unless "easily distracted" was the flaw.

[Lord Gremlin]

Daewan wrote...

They didn't call him "The Glorious Strategist" for nothing!

But he ended up dead, so his strategy sucked.

[PsychoBlonde]

JrayM16 wrote...

I would add to that any plot twist relying on ridiculously obvious withholding of info from the reader/viewer.  Haven't seen something like this in a Bioware game yet but it's prevalent in literature (eg, "And then I told him what I was going to do.")

I'm not sure the cases where some kinds of information are intentionally withheld should be considered a plot twist unless some kind of initial expectation is set up as to what is going to happen--and something else happens instead.  When it's simply used as a device to show that *a plan was made* without making your story completely boring by first spelling out the plan and then showing the plan being carried out, that's different.  (Tell then Show it Again being probably the worst writing idea ever.) 

Sometimes this is done the other way around where the plan is spelled out and it's the implementation that's skipped (when *showing* what happened would be boring, because the plan was about people doing stuff like gathering supplies, cleaning their armor, driving to the airport, etc.)  This sort of thing needs to be done so that you have logical transitions, but it's not always the most interesting stuff to read.

I think the best twist implementation of this sort is to *not* try and set up a *particular* expectation.  That's almost always going to be FAIL with at least a portion of your audience if not the whole audience.  (Bioware does this a lot, unfortunately.)  Hence why the Deep Roads sequence worked.  Everyone would have some sort of expectation of how/when they were going to find Branka and crew, and during that sequence there's the increasing knowledge that something AWFUL has happened.  The hints you get don't make much sense and are easily dismissed or only contribute to the reveal.  And then the precise nature of what happened is made plain.  It works great.

But when you *try* to set up a particular expectation, almost always the writers wayyyy overshoot the mark.  The way to tell that you've overshot is when it becomes awkward to *not* inadvertantly reveal the information.  Which is why it's so common to have major revelations be made by crazy people--because you can always justify them not telling you the whole story in a coherent manner.

[PsychoBlonde]

Lord Gremlin wrote...

Daewan wrote...

They didn't call him "The Glorious Strategist" for nothing!

But he ended up dead, so his strategy sucked.

His strategy was great.  His intelligence was what lacked.  The devil's always in the details.  How was he supposed to know that the Water Dragon could mystically bring you back to life?!

Which is, of course, the problem with being this kind of villain.  Nobody can know EVERYTHING--and one tiny thing you overlooked can destroy your entire plan.