4309 réponses à ce sujet

[Enmystic]

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

 I have this kind of compilation book created by The Writer's Digest that's called the "Handbook of Novel Writing." It's basically a compilation of articles in their mag by various authors, featuring authors such as Tom Clancy, Joel Rosenberg, and Dean Koontz.
One section is titled, How Fictional Can Fiction Afford to Be? Here's the first paragraph.

Every story you write must be true, at least to some extent. There are, of course, many levels of truth: The story must be true to the human spirit, to the basic realities of life. If it doesn't contain real feelings of love, lonliness, mirth, glory, disappointment, horror, or whatever, it is a lie [italicized in the book] in the worst sense, and wholly unconvincing, no matter how realistic its setting or subject matter.

Oooh, I want that book now.
Anyway that helps prove the point I was getting at.  Of course a story has to contain elements of who we are.  That's how people connect with a story in the first place.  I was talking about "realism" in terms of real life science, setting and whatnot.  Just because ME is science fiction does not mean it has to emulate real life perfectly. 

(I'm using something MovieBob once said here)
I'm just saying that fiction shouldn't be used to bash the science, but at the same time science shouldn't be used to bash the fiction.  It's science fiction, therefore a balance needs to be struck where people can be that hero, but still feel that human connection with Shepard.  I think multiple endings can achieve that because people differ in their perception of Shepard. 

Death is not the only way to get drama.  Drama can be achieved through other means.  Allowing the player the ability to save their squad is not a bad thing as long as it is challenging, it makes sense within the established lore, it doesn't compromise any other ending, and drama is used wisely elsewhere.

Modifié par Enmystic, 12 octobre 2011 - 03:29 .

[JeffZero]

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

The "challenging" part is what has me worried though, considering how challenging (read: not) it was in ME2.

Indeed. I can only stretch "Zaeed, lead the second fire team so far". Besides, getting Zaeed killed every playthrough is terribly boring. I sent Thane this time under my current Shepard's thought pattern of "it's a big risk but he's OK with death".

Argh, meta-gaming.

[nitefyre410]

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

The "challenging" part is what has me worried though, considering how challenging (read: not) it was in ME2.

 

thats because for people like ourselves most of the choices are common sense - so in the end it easy than usually. 

yet there are those the miss the blanetly obivous road signs as for who to pick.  Matter I would  love to see who took the time to read the dossiers before you pick you specialist and  teams. 


Honestly my reasoning is really very simple for the bringing every back alive.  I want to take a team 12-14 highly trained Mercs  Punch Wanna be Space Cthulhu  all after taking and dismantle  TIM's just have the audicity to think that he could use my  Shepard as a pawn.  Just to back the Concuil and drop my shepards report their saying "Oh by the Mission Complete"  turn around leave with my shepards  Qurarin girlfiend(which the laws of the game could very well kill her ANWAY) and walk out... 

Thus cementing my shepards legacy in the hall of Just that DAMN Awesome. 

Modifié par nitefyre410, 12 octobre 2011 - 04:19 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

jamesp81 wrote...
Here's what I want.  The ability to:

1.  Save Earth
2.  Destroy the Reapers permanently
3.  Prevent any races from being completely exterminated
4.  Keep all my crew alive

Anyone who thinks I shouldn't be given a path of choices that results in this can go die in a huge ****ing fire:devil:

That's what I don't want. Anyone who thinks this should be possible can go die in an even bigger fire.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...
NO. WE. CAN'T.

We wan't mutually exclusive things.

Yes, you wanting to force your special kind of ending on everyone else happens to be mutually exclusive with any and all endings you don't want.  Big shock.

Given that you're trying to force your ending and playstyle, don't go acting all high and mighty. You don have a high ground here - neither a moral one nor any other kind for that matter.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Different endings for different people. How about that?

I don't care if it's not realistic or not, because guess what. THE MASS EFFECT GAMES HAVE NEVER BEEN REALISTIC, NOR WILL THEY EVER BE SO.

Also, stop pretending that you know everything about how a war is done just because you've seen a few war movies on TV.

Sci-Fi is never 100% realistic. But it's not a extreeme 0 or 100 situation. ME series as a whole is portraied in a rather realistic/consistent/believable fashion.

Also, there was a war in my country. I was there. So stop talking out of your **** you ignorant dimwit.

[Golden Owl]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

jamesp81 wrote...
Here's what I want.  The ability to:

1.  Save Earth
2.  Destroy the Reapers permanently
3.  Prevent any races from being completely exterminated
4.  Keep all my crew alive

Anyone who thinks I shouldn't be given a path of choices that results in this can go die in a huge ****ing fire:devil:

That's what I don't want. Anyone who thinks this should be possible can go die in an even bigger fire.

That's what I do want....

[Lotion Soronarr]

Athayniel wrote...

The only thing being asked for is the chance to save squadmates. Not to prevent the deaths of millions, not to prevent the genocide of entire species or the loss of planets or fleets. Only giving Shepard the chance of keeping his squad alive. How does that take away hard choices?

Choosing between any squadmate and an entire species is a meaningless choice. There is no choice. There is no catharsis, there is no lesson to be learned, there is no realism either. It is not realistic to pit the fate of an entire species on the choice of whether a single person is saved or not. To do so is just monumentally bad writing.

So tell me, how is being given the chance to keep the squad intact while the galaxy as a whole is already burning not 'realistic'? Especially since the more squadmates Shepard loses, the harder the missions will inevitably become. And emember, Shepard confronting reapers on foot is entirely unrealistic. Shepard's mission is not to fight the reapers, but to defeat them.

It's not realistic because there isn't a single front-line squad I know of that did't have casualties..in any war.. Ever.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Athayniel wrote...

@IndigoWolfe: Virmire wasn't a choice. It was a popularity contest. Pitting a squaddie against an entire species is also not a choice. I would never argue in favour of not sacrificing the squaddie. That doesn't change the fact that it's a non-choice. There is no player agency in that except to paint your Shepard as an utterly heartless creature. That's not interesting or compelling narrative.

No, it is a choice. You just dont' like the choice and don't want to make it. That's a big difference.

[Undertone]

Either way there's an unsolvable problem between the two different sides (save all squad mates vs. some squad mates should die roughly) that basically Bioware will simply have to choose and ultimately we have no saying I suppose.

Those of us that argue deaths of squad mates are necessity for different reasons negate the ending that the other sides want.

What the other side doesn't realize is that you are also negating our choice as well - your argument is let me have an ending where I can save everyone and you guys do whatever you want and have your "drama" etc. Well that on it's own negates our desire for this so called "drama" because if I know there's an ending in which everyone can be saved then it is the player's fault or rather poor choice picks that results in that - not the low odds, not some bad luck, not pressure put by the Reapers, not because of the war. If we are given a choice in this it would be purely our own decision making that results in the death or living of squad mates. To me that is inherently wrong - as I said multiple times Shepard isn't a god and can't control every variable. The battlefield is a constantly changing situation and we are fighting against extremely low odds. That I can control everything and decide who dies and lives would be extremely unsatisfying. All squad mates deaths incurred from this then are result from Shepard being an idiot (or the player making bad choices which makes it even worse because it makes a canon for what are the right choices in the previous games) or out of spite (because Shepard simply doesn't like someone) which is extremely retarded and illogical considering you need every resources/skills to win against the Reapers regardless if you don't like somebody or not. This kind of complete control over who can die or not is simply unrealistic and immersion braking, because regardless that Mass Effect is a science fiction, in the setting of this game the protagonist isn't some kind of a sorcerer but a simple ordinary man with good skills with the right crew and somewhat luck on his side.

[Lotion Soronarr]

I find it funny that people say deaths (any deaths apparently) are contrieved...contrievance is bad.

But at the same time Sheppards improbable sucess is NOT contrieved?

Hypocrites. Either contrievance is bad or it's not. Quit cherry-picking.

If it's not, the the issue never was contrievance of event X to begin with.

Modifié par Lotion Soronnar, 12 octobre 2011 - 07:58 .

[Undertone]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Athayniel wrote...

@IndigoWolfe: Virmire wasn't a choice. It was a popularity contest. Pitting a squaddie against an entire species is also not a choice. I would never argue in favour of not sacrificing the squaddie. That doesn't change the fact that it's a non-choice. There is no player agency in that except to paint your Shepard as an utterly heartless creature. That's not interesting or compelling narrative.

No, it is a choice. You just dont' like the choice and don't want to make it. That's a big difference.

Virmire was a choice. Just because you picked the person you liked, doesn't mean everyone did. I leave Ashley to die every single time (except on one playthrough where I experiment to see differences or for fun, mess around purposes) because simply Kaidan is so much more useful then a common soldier, since he is a biotic. A powerful one as well. 

[Biotic Sage]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

I find it funny that people any deaths apparently) are contrieved...contrievance is bad.

But at the same time Sheppards improbable sucess is NOT contrieved?

Hypocrites. Either contrievance is bad or it's not. Quit cherry-picking.

If it's not, the the issue never was contrievance of event X to begin with.

Cherry-picking is exactly what that is.  Straight up hypocrisy without a doubt.  Really people?  Shepard has visions from an ancient beacon, AND becomes the first human spectre, AND saves the galaxy, AND decides the fate of an entire species, AND gets brought back from the dead, AND saves every single human colony, AND saves the galaxy again............but a squadmate's death that you can't prevent is contrived?  Good lord.  You can argue "escapism" all you want, but the "contrived" argument is a huuuge joke.

That Shepard gets around by the way

Modifié par Biotic Sage, 12 octobre 2011 - 06:55 .

[Biotic Sage]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Discounting the sibling getting killed by the ogre right off the start, I got through both DA games without anyone getting killed. Why should ME be any different?

Because it's the climactic event of the entire Mass Effect universe.  The events of DA2 were not on the same level for the Thedas universe.  That's why I'm fine with everybody being able to survive ME2.

Modifié par Biotic Sage, 12 octobre 2011 - 07:06 .

[Lotion Soronarr]

Undertone wrote...

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Athayniel wrote...

@IndigoWolfe: Virmire wasn't a choice. It was a popularity contest. Pitting a squaddie against an entire species is also not a choice. I would never argue in favour of not sacrificing the squaddie. That doesn't change the fact that it's a non-choice. There is no player agency in that except to paint your Shepard as an utterly heartless creature. That's not interesting or compelling narrative.

No, it is a choice. You just dont' like the choice and don't want to make it. That's a big difference.

Virmire was a choice. Just because you picked the person you liked, doesn't mean everyone did. I leave Ashley to die every single time (except on one playthrough where I experiment to see differences or for fun, mess around purposes) because simply Kaidan is so much more useful then a common soldier, since he is a biotic. A powerful one as well. 

Well, I can't stop you for making stupid choices for all the wrong reasons.

I always go after the one I leave with the nuke.
The nuke is mission-critical. The deversion team is not.

IF you boil down any choice to "like or dislike" than ALL choices are stupid. The CB choice becomes a "do I like TIM"? The Rachnii choice becomes "Do I liek Rachnii"?

If the prime reasoning behind your choices if how much you like person/race X, then your'e doing it wrong.

[Lotion Soronarr]

Enmystic wrote...

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

 I have this kind of compilation book created by The Writer's Digest that's called the "Handbook of Novel Writing." It's basically a compilation of articles in their mag by various authors, featuring authors such as Tom Clancy, Joel Rosenberg, and Dean Koontz.
One section is titled, How Fictional Can Fiction Afford to Be? Here's the first paragraph.

Every story you write must be true, at least to some extent. There are, of course, many levels of truth: The story must be true to the human spirit, to the basic realities of life. If it doesn't contain real feelings of love, lonliness, mirth, glory, disappointment, horror, or whatever, it is a lie [italicized in the book] in the worst sense, and wholly unconvincing, no matter how realistic its setting or subject matter.

Oooh, I want that book now.
Anyway that helps prove the point I was getting at.  Of course a story has to contain elements of who we are.  That's how people connect with a story in the first place.  I was talking about "realism" in terms of real life science, setting and whatnot.  Just because ME is science fiction does not mean it has to emulate real life perfectly. 

(I'm using something MovieBob once said here)
I'm just saying that fiction shouldn't be used to bash the science, but at the same time science shouldn't be used to bash the fiction.  It's science fiction, therefore a balance needs to be struck where people can be that hero, but still feel that human connection with Shepard.  I think multiple endings can achieve that because people differ in their perception of Shepard. 

Death is not the only way to get drama.  Drama can be achieved through other means.  Allowing the player the ability to save their squad is not a bad thing as long as it is challenging, it makes sense within the established lore, it doesn't compromise any other ending, and drama is used wisely elsewhere.

Important part.

People use the word realism a lot.
Yet there's more words than that. Believabiltiy. Versimilitude. Consistency. Immersion. "True to life". etc.. I cna go on.

Not a single squadmate dying feels cheap...artificial. Fake. Unbelievable. Incompatable with the the setting and story.

[Athayniel]

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

I just have to say to Athayniel, have you ever written  a book, or read one? If you look at the characters, they aren't killed off for the sake of "drama," to try to pull emotion from the reader. They die because...it's the natural order of things. People die. Books strive to be "realistic," and that's something that should happen in games that want to be something more than merely entertaining.

And, another thing. Perhaps "realistic" is the wrong word. A better phrase might be that it's a "universal truth." There are things that are "universal truths" that come up often in classics and many other books. It seems like Mass Effect is trying to be something more than merely entertaining, so it would help the series if it follows those "universal truths."

It's a universal truth that to save a teammate you have to sacrifice an entire species? O_o Yes I'm being a bit facetious. But only because in the sort of fiction Mass Effect would come from people die for exactly those reasons. They die for the sake of drama and to ellicit an emotional response. Look at Obi Wan's death. The only thing it accomplished was to make Luke really depressed. In fact if Obi Wan hadn't come back as a Jedi ghost Luke never would have completed his Jedi training because he'd never have found Yoda. Obi Wan dying was George Lucas playing the tropes to the hilt.

I can't think of a single squadmate whose character arc would be well served by their death. Not a single one. How would it serve the natural order of things to kill off Jacob? Or Kasumi? Or even Ashley? If you suggest Tali dying to save Legion or vice versa so there can be peace between the quarians and the geth I'll facepalm. Such an overused cliche.

Death isn't a casual thing to be tossing about in a story. I have far more respect for it than you can imagine. And in interactive fiction where the rules are not the same as books and movies, there is space for the story to be crafted by the player without reducing its impact. There is space for the bloodbath ending and the sunshine and bunnies ending. That is he beauty of it.

[Athayniel]

JeffZero wrote...

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

The "challenging" part is what has me worried though, considering how challenging (read: not) it was in ME2.

Indeed. I can only stretch "Zaeed, lead the second fire team so far". Besides, getting Zaeed killed every playthrough is terribly boring. I sent Thane this time under my current Shepard's thought pattern of "it's a big risk but he's OK with death".

Argh, meta-gaming.

What if they hadn't stressed so heavily during the course of the game that the Normandy needed to be upgraded and that the squaddies needed to have their head in the game, instead perhaps stressing that Shepard was working against the clock? Would it not have then made a lot of sense to take all the various 'We don't have time for that.' choices instead of doing the Loyalty Missions. How many people would you lose in the SM if everyone was disloyal? Even if you picked the correct squaddie for each job. It can be argued that BioWare spoiled the possible drama inherent in the SM by beating you over the head with their warnings.

[Athayniel]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Athayniel wrote...

The only thing being asked for is the chance to save squadmates. Not to prevent the deaths of millions, not to prevent the genocide of entire species or the loss of planets or fleets. Only giving Shepard the chance of keeping his squad alive. How does that take away hard choices?

Choosing between any squadmate and an entire species is a meaningless choice. There is no choice. There is no catharsis, there is no lesson to be learned, there is no realism either. It is not realistic to pit the fate of an entire species on the choice of whether a single person is saved or not. To do so is just monumentally bad writing.

So tell me, how is being given the chance to keep the squad intact while the galaxy as a whole is already burning not 'realistic'? Especially since the more squadmates Shepard loses, the harder the missions will inevitably become. And emember, Shepard confronting reapers on foot is entirely unrealistic. Shepard's mission is not to fight the reapers, but to defeat them.

It's not realistic because there isn't a single front-line squad I know of that did't have casualties..in any war.. Ever.

Except they're not a front-line squad. They're running around the galaxy gathering support and pursuing the MacGuffin. The front-line is the reapers. Shepard's squad going up against the reapers is suicide. No Commander would do it. I've said this before. It's *not* Shepard's job to fight the reapers. Shepard's job is to defeat them.

[Athayniel]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Athayniel wrote...

@IndigoWolfe: Virmire wasn't a choice. It was a popularity contest. Pitting a squaddie against an entire species is also not a choice. I would never argue in favour of not sacrificing the squaddie. That doesn't change the fact that it's a non-choice. There is no player agency in that except to paint your Shepard as an utterly heartless creature. That's not interesting or compelling narrative.

No, it is a choice. You just dont' like the choice and don't want to make it. That's a big difference.

No, it's the false dichotomy. It's the trope where you're given two choices and told there are no other options. It's bad storytelling because there is always a third choice.