EDIT: Damn. Well, I'm sure everybody's used to my walls of text by now. Just skip it, guys. I can't help myself.
Hah Yes Reapers wrote...
Would it kill you guys to wait-and-see? How do you know the base isn't going to benefit you in ME3, because you're squad is crapping themselves for giving it to Cerberus? That's because... you gave it to Cerberus. It's not like that's not a big risk, however necessary you may believe it to be.
Especially if you think the game is broken towards paragon decisions, now it goes the other way. This time, the renegade decision nets the cool new toys. It can work to benefit, it may not, but you'll just have to find out. No new content or potential benefits for the paragon decision.
I already found out what I really wanted to know. I don't care about new toys if I have to fight Cerberus the entire final game of the series. The only thing I want is the content rewarding the path I chose.
I don't want Paragons get less content. I don't want Paragons get punishing content, where they're berated for their choices. I don't get a kick out of watching Paragons complaining. Watching a path I didn't choose go to hell fast or being invalidated doesn't make me feel good about myself for choosing a different path. At all. That's not why I chose my path.
I chose it because I think it's right, not because the alternative path gets punished. I chose it
despite all the obvious warnings that this is
not the game-favoured decision. I chose it even though I already had to forego the rewarding content of your teammates congratulating you for finishing the game with destroying the base.
I don't need their misguided congratuations. What do they know about TIM? What can they know? They've never even spoken to him. They aren't even here to fight the Reapers or save humanity - they're here for their petty, selfish reasons. If not for TIM, they'd be wasting their time away until the Reapers arrived, instead of fighting on the frontlines. They don't have any convictions of their own to speak of. They're just subordinates! Who cares what they think?
What can the galaxy know about TIM? How can they presume to judge him? Cerberus is the only one doing anything about the Reapers! Look into the mirror, squadmates. TIM brought back Shepard. Where have you been when Shepard was dead and lost? TIM saved humanity. What were you doing about the missing colonies, about the Reapers? Some of you
knew about the Reapers! TIM saved the galaxy by extracting and sharing the data from that tech. Yes, even if it's destroyed. Yes, despite the Alliance best efforts to interfere with his job.
The galaxy owes TIM its very existence. And what have you done? You're only here because he called you! Because he enabled Shepard to call you. Because he gave Shepard your names! You just follow the strongest leader, nothing else. And you think you can judge TIM's principles and motives? He fights for his own species. You're just being paid, or you like to fight, or you have nothing better to do. Teammates judging TIM - ridiculous.
And I stand by my choice even after we've been told flat out right where exactly this cursed, damned pro-Cerberus path leads to. How many base-destoyers can honestly claim the same?
I don't want Paragons to be punished! I want both Renegade and Paragon paths to be GOOD. "Good", meaning equally satisfying and rewarding both to Paragons and Renegades. Equally tempting. And completely different. After all, the things that Renegades would find rewarding would be unacceptable to Paragons, and so either side wouldn't want what the other side gets.
For me, personally, it's not even about the outcomes of my choices I made in ME2. It's the lack of choice on the matter I care most about in ME3. I'd pay the full price of everybody's disapproval and lack of support and super-hard battles if I could ally with Cerberus. But nope, the game does not allow that.
Now that that main choice is taken away, what does it matter what tone - sarcastic or joking - I choose in a conversation? or what toys I get? Who cares about enemies and weapons and other such gameplay-related stuff? I can shoot my way through the enemy troops with a single plain pistol.
It's not the uncertainty of the choice that bothers me. It's the certainty.
Hah Yes Reapers wrote...
I saved the 'Queen in ME1 not knowing how it played out in 2. I got 0 support for it. One squadmate told me there that I shouldn't kill it, but that's it (the equivalent to one squadmate telling you to keep the base). Even then, you have to hear the dissenting squadmate opinion twice. The council wasn't happy. And back on the ship, even those that don't typically want you to kill it didn't want you to free it either, they said we should've let the council decide.
So I felt pretty uneasy about my decision in the end but stood behind it. In the end, it didn't mean I was wrong, I just had to face some controversy caused by my decision. Big deal. What fun is making the big decisions if they are not allowed to cause controversy and have potential downsides? That's what makes them hard.
Now imagine that throughout the game, everybody always offers their unwelcome opinion on the subject of just how evil the rachni are. Everybody has heard about the rachni, and about their bloody history, and about how they nearly destroyed the galaxy. And the rachni are the most evil thing in the galaxy, that's something that everybody agrees on. Especially your fellow humans. And your own people will condemn you for working with rachni, and will call you a traitor.
You're a little taken aback by this, because in ME1, you only fought the rachni episodically, and nobody even heard of them, and they're not particularly operating in the open, and they're a really small force, and most of those missions were secret and small, so it's a mystery how every passer-by is aware of them. But now, the things have changed. Everybody thinks that rachni are the real threat. Nobody even mentions the Reapers.
You don't get to witness any large-scale atrocities committed by the rachni to justify that overwhelming condemnation - in the present, anyway, they certainly near massacred the galaxy in the past - and if their soldiers start killing randomly, it's because they've been too far removed from the queen, but apparently, either the Council launched a huge anti-rachni campaign to divert the attention from the real threat to a different target - or the rachni are just naturally evil, and they don't
really have to act to show it.
Besides, they use those asari as puppets for themselves. And the asari are pretty content about it, while being mind-controlled in that creepy way. That's evil.
Now imagine that destroying rachni queen is the crowning ending moment of the second game in the trilogy. You know that the game that comes next will be the conclusion of the series. The queen is crucial to the war with the Reapers. The fate of the entire galaxy is hinging on your choice. The entire game culminates in you deciding what to do with the queen.
When your Shepard looks at the queen, he says things like "I'm going to blow this creature sky-high," without you having any choice about it. And if you choose a certain path, your Shepard will say about the queen, "this is an abomination."
If you destroy her, the star turns blue. If you let her go, the star turns red.
When you're choosing what to do with her, some teammates will advise for it, the others will advise against it. But if you choose to destroy her, the enitre ship will congratulate you, even those who were against it before. And if you choose to let her go, everybody will be apprehensive.
Some will express their fear that she will unleash the rachni vengeance upon the galaxy, just like the rachni did before. Some will say that the rachni were already influenced by the Reapers before, so what makes you think they won't be now? Some will say that you're spitting on the graves of those who fought the rachni and saved the galaxy with their lives. Others yet will claim that she was lying to you to save her life all along, and that you're a naive fool for being so trusting. Others yet will say "it's rachni, don't you know what they are? the leopard can't change its spots."
Nobody's even neutral. Not a single person will be at peace with your decision. Nobody will think that saving the queen would be beneficial. Everyone will say that you're taking too big risk, that you're being immoral, that you're placing your trust in the wrong place. That you're making the wrong choice.
Now. Are you still going to let the queen go? Or are you unwilling to take that BIG RISK?
Don't you see how you're influenced by the game? Your choices are being spoon-fed to you, you're pushed into the "right" path by the game reward-punish system, you yielded to peer pressure, to the opinion of the majority, and you don't even notice!
If base-destroyers would've been able to think for themselves and would've resisted the game's influence at least a little, then fandom wouldn't have been so overwhelmingly screwed in the favour of anti-Cerberus path, and we wouldn't have found ourselves with pro-Cerberus path being completely cut out in favour of the majority who always choose an easy way. They simply wouldn't have risked the fallout.
And we would've had a better game for it. Maybe a game with some real choices. Morally grey choices, even. So yeah, I hold the grudge against base-destroyers and Cerberus haters for dragging us all down and providing the devs with an easy way out.
And the Council is never happy about anything. They will always find a way to berate you for something. They don't need anyone to threaten their asari dominance. Your Shepard should've figured out that by now.
Modifié par laecraft, 22 septembre 2011 - 02:16 .
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making Cerberus less of a "lol epic fail" organization. As someone who destroyed it, I think it's no fun that I got no heat for my decision past TIM post-mission debrief.
<3:blink:
Damn...why must it never be. Speaking of the long prison sentence - I think that part might actually happen. But not the wild sex with TIM afterwards, alas.
