292 réponses à ce sujet

[Tamahome560]

I would not judge ME2's story as a separate story. It's just a second stage of a 3 stage story thus it is not fully developed yet so it cannot be judged until we see the final act of it. It's like reading a book and saying that the beginning was awesome but the middle was meh ... but hey I've never actually even looked at the ending and the last chapters to see if the middle was meaningful. It's not like a middle of a book is usually more of a lead up to the climax ....

[Iakus]

Tamahome560 wrote...

I would not judge ME2's story as a separate story. It's just a second stage of a 3 stage story thus it is not fully developed yet so it cannot be judged until we see the final act of it. It's like reading a book and saying that the beginning was awesome but the middle was meh ... but hey I've never actually even looked at the ending and the last chapters to see if the middle was meaningful. It's not like a middle of a book is usually more of a lead up to the climax ....

I really hope this turns out to be the case.  However, each Mass Effect game is supposedly going to stand on its own.  ME 1 managed to have a beginning, middle, and end.  At the same time, it left the overall story open for the rest of the trilogy.  It stood on its own while introducing a much bigger story.  Presumably, all three games were supposed to be like this.  In a sense, you are supposed to judge each story seperately.  It's three complete stories that form a larger whole.

ME 2. however, doesn't stand alone. The game tells you that the Collectors are working for the Reapers, but we really don't see how.  Yes you stop the disappearing colonies, and beat the Collectors, you beat up a baby Reaper, but what does it accomplish?  How did TermiReaper fit into the Reapers' plans for the galaxy?  What did we stop, exactly?  Are we any closer to ultimately stopping the Reapers?  Are the Reapers any closer to an invasion?   Do we even have any clues or leads to follow up on?

 In ME 1, we know we stopped the Reaper invasion from taking place.  At least in the short term.  That story was fully formed.  Stuff was left open for sequels, but It did not depend on ME 2 to bolster its story.

ME 2 doesn't continue well from ME 1, and leaves us (me, at least) without a clear idea of what's going to happen next.  I'm not talking about "Okay, I know what we have to do to defeat the Reapers" or "We're well on the way to uniting the galaxy"  I'm saying "I don't know what plans we just foiled or what meaning any of this had, besides stopping humans form being turned into smoothies"  A good deed, no doubt, but how this affects the overall fate of the galaxy is a wee bit murkier.  

So I hope ME 3 somehow ties this all in.  I hope what the Collectors/Reapers were trying to accomplish gets explained.  I hope the surviving squadmates, which we spent most of the game gathering, somehow fit into the story in some way beyond a lame cameo/email.  Not necessarilly recruitable, just some kind of a meaningful role.  I hope ME 3 makes me go "Aha!  It all makes sense now!"  

But even if all that happens, that just makes ME 3's story that much more incredible.  It doesnt help ME 2's story.  Because ME 2 will be dependant on ME 3 to make sense.  Given that all three games are supposed to be "standalone", ME2's story will always be anemic.

Modifié par iakus, 03 décembre 2010 - 09:18 .

[onelifecrisis]

Tamahome560 wrote...

[ME2] is just a second stage of a 3 stage story

Wrong.

Tamahome560 wrote...

thus <snip> it cannot be judged

Wrong.

Tamahome560 wrote...

It's like reading a book and saying that the beginning was awesome but the middle was meh ... but hey I've never actually even looked at the ending

What exactly is wrong with putting down a book unfinished because the middle was "meh"?

[wizardryforever]

onelifecrisis wrote...

Tamahome560 wrote...

It's like reading a book and saying that the beginning was awesome but the middle was meh ... but hey I've never actually even looked at the ending

What exactly is wrong with putting down a book unfinished because the middle was "meh"?

Wow.  Do you really have to even ask that question?  Judging a book without having finished it is just. . . arrogant I suppose (not really sure of the right word for this).  This is the kind of thing that religious fundamentalists do when they want something banned.  They read/watch/play it until they get to something they don't like, then claim it's disgusting and ruining minds.  They judge it without finishing it, then proclaim its unworthiness to the world.  I believe something similar happened with the infamous Fox news story on ME1.

[Praetor Knight]

wizardryforever wrote...

This is the kind of thing that religious fundamentalists do when they want something banned.  They read/watch/play it until they get to something they don't like, then claim it's disgusting and ruining minds.  They judge it without finishing it, then proclaim its unworthiness to the world.  I believe something similar happened with the infamous Fox news story on ME1.

From my understanding those comments that they make are based on misinformation from hearing stuff "through the grapevine," I'm not sure how many of those individuals actually watched or played the media content they are bashing. Meh.

[wulf3n]

wizardryforever wrote...
They judge it without finishing it, then proclaim its unworthiness to the world.  I believe something similar happened with the infamous Fox news story on ME1.

The sex box scandal was different. The people bagging it on fox never even played it. The main reporter watched about 10 minutes of preview footage, and the "child psychologist expert" they got in hadn't even heard of the game, The actual game critic, got about 10 seconds to say anything. As for the priest who started the whole ball rolling i don't know if he played it or not.

While i agree you can't fully judge something by stopping half way, if the media in question failed to keep your attention during any part of the book then it has failed in what it attempted to do. The idea is to keep the audience entertained throughout the peice.

[Tamahome560]

@wizardryforever



Thank you for explaining why is it bad to judge a something before experiencing all of it, to gain full understanding of it and make a reasonable judgment. When I saw onelifecrisis's response I just couldn't bring myself to explain such as simple concept due to my lack of patience and laziness.



Everyone has their own opinion and it's fine. I look at Mass Effect as a one big game that has not ended yet.



@iakus hehe I bet you would hate ending of Dreamfall the longest journey if you played it It leaves the player in a massive cliffhanger that with tons and tons of unanswered questions from the game and its predecessor. For me it seemed quiet obvious that the Human-Reaper was meant to be a new Vanguard that would open the citadel relay like Sovereign was supposed to. Since it failed, now the reapers moved on from the plan to open the citadel relay since they don't have means to make a new vanguard. It does end with a cliffhanger. Like the devs said its the Empire Strikes Back of ME trilogy and it's ending further proves that since ESB ends with a cliffhanger too ( Luke, I'm your father).

[Iakus]

Tamahome560 wrote...

@iakus hehe I bet you would hate ending of Dreamfall the longest journey if you played it It leaves the player in a massive cliffhanger that with tons and tons of unanswered questions from the game and its predecessor. For me it seemed quiet obvious that the Human-Reaper was meant to be a new Vanguard that would open the citadel relay like Sovereign was supposed to. Since it failed, now the reapers moved on from the plan to open the citadel relay since they don't have means to make a new vanguard. It does end with a cliffhanger. Like the devs said its the Empire Strikes Back of ME trilogy and it's ending further proves that since ESB ends with a cliffhanger too ( Luke, I'm your father).

I haven't played Dreamfall, so I can't comment on that.  From the sounds of it, yeah I might find it frustrating.

As for the human Reaper:  Yeah I've hear that theory.  But the question then becomes how?  Sovereign had the geth, Saren, and the Conduit.  This Reaper would have none of the above.  Such a plan seems doomed to failure.

It's not so much that the game ended on a cliffhanger, since there is going to be a third game(though like I said, the developers did say that each game is supposed to stand on its own as well).  But the game ended in such a way that I see no point to anything that was accomplished.  Even knowing that we failed to stop something would have been better than just wondering what just happened.  I mean, we're 2/3 of the way through the game before we can even say with certainty that Reapers are in fact involved! 

Modifié par iakus, 03 décembre 2010 - 10:18 .

[Tamahome560]

Yeah full frontal assault on the Citadel would likely not be a good idea. But Sovereign just by himself was ripping apart the citadel fleet and it only got defeated when Shepard destroying his Avatar disrupted Sovereigns shields. Even with the advances in tech it would still be hard to take down a reaper. But then you would ask yourself why bother with Saren, Geth and the Conduit... well reapers are patient and would always look for the best alternatives so using Saren, Geth and the Conduit were to maximize odds of success and I think that Sovereign using Saren spent a lot of time researching what actually went wrong with the keepers to see if there are alternatives to taking a manual control of the citadel.



Though I might just be completely wrong...





Let's hope that ME3 clears up the purpose of the human reaper. What we accomplished in ME2 is that we destroyed another set of pawns of the reapers and messed up another part of their big comeback plan even though we didn't find out what their plan was and how it changed. We also manged to build a strong team and establish (or not establish) allies such as The Geth and The Quarians for the upcoming invasion.



Also the writers acknowledged that what we accomplished seems insignificant. There is one option in a dialog tree with Liara at the end of LotSB where Shepard says that The Collectors were only pawns in a dissatisfied tone and that what the accomplished isn't really great.

[Jaron Oberyn]

Zulu_DFA wrote...

The story of ME2 is inferior because the arcade shooter has no reason to have a story at all.

Therefore, the story, the plot and the lore were neglected/disregared during development.

This has to be about the only thing I agree with this guy over. 

-Polite

[Urazz]

ME2's plot is a little worse than ME1's in my opinion but not by much. I feel ME2 had better characters with more meat to their characters than ME1. Also the dialogue felt much better as well.

[Jaron Oberyn]

Urazz wrote...

ME2's plot is a little worse than ME1's in my opinion but not by much. I feel ME2 had better characters with more meat to their characters than ME1. Also the dialogue felt much better as well.

Seriously? ME1's characters had more depth and interaction than ME2's. ME2 you have 2-3 dialogue options and that's it. in ME1, you have dialogue on the ship, plus full squad interaction and banter while exploring. 

-Polite

[Bourne Endeavor]

Tamahome560 wrote...

I would not judge ME2's story as a separate story. It's just a second stage of a 3 stage story thus it is not fully developed yet so it cannot be judged until we see the final act of it. It's like reading a book and saying that the beginning was awesome but the middle was meh ... but hey I've never actually even looked at the ending and the last chapters to see if the middle was meaningful. It's not like a middle of a book is usually more of a lead up to the climax ....

Such is not a valid way to determine a good storyline. A sequel should be capable of standing upon its own plot without being muddled with inconsistencies in the context. A sequel should flow akin to a snowball rolling down a mountain side, gradually gaining ahead way, expanding from its initial roll. If ME2 did not have a continuation, the main story would be significantly underwhelming. In all honesty, it would not have required much additional work to provide a convincing structure, which was both plausible and engaging.

What if the loyalty/recruitment missions intertwined with the main story? We save Tali from the Collectors, not the Geth? This instantaneously attaches the Collectors to the secondary portion of the story. Granted, such was a rough explain. Were I given leeway to rearrange the story, I would have established a persona separate from Harbinger for the Reapers, wherein Shepard is essentially euthanizing what remains of the Prothens. The Collector General would be targeting Shepard in an attempt not only to do the aforementioned, but to garner his attention and thus prevent them from doing Harbinger's will.

What solely lacked in ME2 was the Collectors had no defining characteristics outside of vaguely eluded traits we barely witnessed. They were not compelling nor tragic. They were simply an annoyance we shot down. Even the revealing of their origin was nigh irrelevant.

Mass Effect 3 may answer the multitude of queries. That will not alter the fact ME2 would be practically entirely dependent on ME3 to make sense. In the end, ME2 seems to be an exceptionally well developed expansion.

Urazz wrote...

ME2's plot is a little worse than ME1's in
my opinion but not by much. I feel ME2 had better characters with more
meat to their characters than ME1. Also the dialogue felt much better
as well.

While I agree in a generalized sense. Many characters suffered from, well to put this eloquently "Can it what for a bit? I am in the middle of some calibrations." The loyalty quests fleshed out their characters, however beyond this we were frequently stonewalled. There are some exceptions, although not many.

Modifié par Bourne Endeavor, 04 décembre 2010 - 01:45 .

[onelifecrisis]

wizardryforever wrote...

onelifecrisis wrote...

Tamahome560 wrote...

It's like reading a book and saying that the beginning was awesome but the middle was meh ... but hey I've never actually even looked at the ending

What exactly is wrong with putting down a book unfinished because the middle was "meh"?

Wow.  Do you really have to even ask that question?  Judging a book without having finished it is just. . . arrogant I suppose (not really sure of the right word for this).  This is the kind of thing that religious fundamentalists do when they want something banned.

Whao! Hold on a minute! You're comparing me to fundamentalist!? I'm talking about putting a book down, not banning it FFS.

And yes, I really have to ask that question. You think a person should force themselves through a piece of entertainment long after it has stopped entertaining them? Why?

[onelifecrisis]

Tamahome560 wrote...

@wizardryforever

Thank you for explaining why is it bad to judge a something before experiencing all of it, to gain full understanding of it and make a reasonable judgment. When I saw onelifecrisis's response I just couldn't bring myself to explain such as simple concept due to my lack of patience and laziness.

He didn't explain anything, and neither have you. We are talking about fiction in which characters take actions based on their current knowledge of the situation. If those actions and decisions don't make any sense then the fiction is badly written, regardless of what follows. The only exception would be a case where the player/reader is intentionally kept in the dark about something, but even in this scenario any characters that are also in the dark (which in ME would include Shepard and most of his team) should notice that something isn't adding up and act accordingly (e.g. by asking why a character took such a bizarre course of action) otherwise, once again, the fiction is badly written regardless of what follows.

[Iakus]

Bourne Endeavor wrote...


Such is not a valid way to determine a good storyline. A sequel should be capable of standing upon its own plot without being muddled with inconsistencies in the context. A sequel should flow akin to a snowball rolling down a mountain side, gradually gaining ahead way, expanding from its initial roll. If ME2 did not have a continuation, the main story would be significantly underwhelming. In all honesty, it would not have required much additional work to provide a convincing structure, which was both plausible and engaging.

Indeed.

Put another way  What if ME 2 got the same treatment in ME 3 that ME1 got in ME 2?  How well would the game's story stand then?

What if the loyalty/recruitment missions intertwined with the main story? We save Tali from the Collectors, not the Geth? This instantaneously attaches the Collectors to the secondary portion of the story. Granted, such was a rough explain. Were I given leeway to rearrange the story, I would have established a persona separate from Harbinger for the Reapers, wherein Shepard is essentially euthanizing what remains of the Prothens. The Collector General would be targeting Shepard in an attempt not only to do the aforementioned, but to garner his attention and thus prevent them from doing Harbinger's will.

Collectors:  the Darth Maul of Mass Effect.

While I agree in a generalized sense. Many characters suffered from, well to put this eloquently "Can it what for a bit? I am in the middle of some calibrations." The loyalty quests fleshed out their characters, however beyond this we were frequently stonewalled. There are some exceptions, although not many.

Within their own stories, the characters really came to life.  But once you've done their conversations on teh ship, and their personal missions, where does the personality go?  Unless you're romancing them, they're just trophies on a wall.  Or windup toys that have run down. 

This is one thing I really liked about LOTSB:  the dossiers on your squad.  The stuff in there was incredible.  It added more depth to the characters than anything else outside their personal missions.  I wish I'd seen the stuff in those files in-game.  I'd have been much happier with the overall game to have that stuff scattered about.

Modifié par iakus, 04 décembre 2010 - 04:10 .

[wizardryforever]

onelifecrisis wrote...

wizardryforever wrote...

onelifecrisis wrote...

Tamahome560 wrote...

It's like reading a book and saying that the beginning was awesome but the middle was meh ... but hey I've never actually even looked at the ending

What exactly is wrong with putting down a book unfinished because the middle was "meh"?

Wow.  Do you really have to even ask that question?  Judging a book without having finished it is just. . . arrogant I suppose (not really sure of the right word for this).  This is the kind of thing that religious fundamentalists do when they want something banned.

Whao! Hold on a minute! You're comparing me to fundamentalist!? I'm talking about putting a book down, not banning it FFS.

And yes, I really have to ask that question. You think a person should force themselves through a piece of entertainment long after it has stopped entertaining them? Why?

I never said that you should force yourself through something you don't like for the sake of finishing it.  I said that you should not judge it until you've experienced all it has to offer.  And you should definitely not claim that the whole thing sucks when you haven't even seen the whole thing.

For example, if I said that I hated the Star Wars prequels, but then said that I only actually watched Episode 1, would you take me seriously?  I wouldn't take me seriously, I'd think I was a troll who should shut up already.  I guess the difference between not liking something halfway through and trolling would be that the troll comes on to a forum to complain that they didn't like the story that they never finished, and so the whole thing must suck.

There's nothing wrong with deciding that something isn't to your tastes partway through, just don't claim that the whole thing sucks when you didn't actually see it all.  Claim that it wasn't to your tastes, so you stopped watching/reading/playing.

[onelifecrisis]

wizardryforever wrote...

For example, if I said that I hated the Star Wars prequels, but then said that I only actually watched Episode 1, would you take me seriously?

The relevant question is: if you watched episode 1 and said that you hated episode 1, would I take you seriously? The answer is yes I would.

wizardryforever wrote...

There's nothing wrong with deciding that something isn't to your tastes partway through, just don't claim that the whole thing sucks when you didn't actually see it all.  Claim that it wasn't to your tastes, so you stopped watching/reading/playing.

Did someone claim that the whole trilogy, including ME3, was rubiish? If so I missed it. Some people (myself included) are saying that the plot of ME2 is rubbish. Tamahome560 said that we can't make that judgment until after ME3, and I disagreed. See my previous post for an example of why.

Modifié par onelifecrisis, 04 décembre 2010 - 05:43 .