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[DiebytheSword]

Saphra Deden wrote...
Their plan worked for tens of millions of years, perhaps longer.

That makes them complacent not pragmatic.  Though I largely agree with your acessment that their hubris is warranted.

I'd dare say the key to victory has always lain and currently resides, in that blinding hubris that they and their creators posess.

[vonSlash]

AdmiralCheez wrote...

Seboist wrote...

The problem with that would be that it would shatter the biodrones' belief that this company has this great writing ability and knows what it's doing.

You know, when the authors of a series admit that they had no idea what the hell they were doing, it just makes me like the series more.  It gives it personality, makes it more relatable as a creative work, and shows that those behind it have the balls to admit that hey, they should have had a more detailed outline in some places and thought harder about the thing that seemed really cool at the time.

That would be true if they could manage to keep some sort of general overlying coherent focus throughout the writing, instead of unpredictably and for no credible reason changing stuff just to make it cool. (Don't misunderstand, no team of writers can create a perfectly focused and plausible story, and the occasional retcon-for-coolness is to be expected in any game series. My issue is that Bioware does it far too frequently and with far too little explanation.) Examples:

Thermal Clips: Added in ME2 for gameplay reasons, arguably to appeal to a wider fan base. Worked out fine from a gameplay perspective, in my opinion, but the least they could have done would be to write a believeable Codex entry as to why this change was made, as opposed to the half-assed and logically inconsistent entry we received about geth and with no mention of how everyone in the galaxy bought new guns within a year of the start of ME2.

EDI: Introduced in ME2 as the shipboard AI, and in my opinion, a great character. However, I'd really like to hear why they thought that giving ME3's EDI a body that looks like a metal scuplture of Miranda is consistent with the character and character relationships that they established in ME2.

Cerberus: It goes from a rogue black-ops organization in ME1 to a small, clandestine, pro-human-dominance militant group committed to fighting the Reapers in ME2, to a massive, publicly active army of (*spoiler*) indoctrinated Reaper slaves trying to kill Sheard and anyone else who helps save humanity. Would it have killed Bioware to just have picked one of the three visions of Cerberus and stuck with it? One could also make similar claims about the change in TIM's character between ME2 and ME3.

"Choices matter" claim: When Bioware first released ME1, they claimed that it was special because it would be a trilogy in which the player's decisions would meaningfully impact the game universe from game to game. Unfortunately, this didn't really turn out to be true, since the only differences between a Paragon/Renegade or cooperative/human-centric playthrough are superficial dialogue additions. I can only interpret this as laziness (for not wanting to plan/create multiple practical outcomes to anything), and I can't accept laziness as the hallmark of great writing.

Paragon/Renegade: As anyone who's read any leaked material for ME3 knows, Paragon and Renagade outcomes are no longer treated as equal, with Paragons getting the "better", more preferential outcomes in most, (if not all) situations in ME3. Take the statements that TIM (a HIGHlY renegade character) makes to Paragon Shepard near the end of ME3, and compare them to the same statements he has for Renegade Shepard. See the issue? What makes this relevant to the discussion is that, in previous games, Paragon and Renegade options were treated (mostly) fairly by the writers and neither one was intrinsically associated with a "better" outcome than the other, so we know that Bioware's writers are capable of creating a story that doesn't punish players for adopting a specific morality (an admirable trait for a game that is supposed to be about player choice). So why did they change this laudable duality for ME3?

To me, these are some of the more relevant examples of where it would have been easy for Bioware to maintain consistancy between ME1, ME2, and ME3. We can only conclude that they were either too lazy or too reluctant to do so, which doesn't strike me as something praiseworthy or particularly indicative of creativity or personality, especially when the alternative solutions to these situations that I outlined would have been more creative and more unique than what Bioware has actually implemented?

[Heimdall]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

Uhh, not quite. A pragmatic race of machines would probably have had a more reliable plan than a backup Alpha Relay in case something went wrong with the Keepers. Something dependent entirely on their capabilities, rather than anyone else's.

Ex: The ability to activate the Citadel Relay from their side of dark space.

Their plan worked for tens of millions of years, perhaps longer.

Even when it failed it only delayed them a little bit.

I don't think they are worried and I don't blame them.

The odds are not good for us, not good at all.

Now you see why Sovereign wasn't worried about Shepard.

[Il Divo]

DiebytheSword wrote...

Saphra Deden wrote...
Their plan worked for tens of millions of years, perhaps longer.

That makes them complacent not pragmatic.  Though I largely agree with your acessment that their hubris is warranted.

I'd dare say the key to victory has always lain and currently resides, in that blinding hubris that they and their creators posess.

To give context, this is my argument as well. The Reapers are certainly deadly, but up until this point they have shown more arrogance than they have pragmatism.

[Reptilian Rob]

MFW nobody in this thread realizes what EA and Bioware are actually doing with the Mass Effect 3 DLC marketing.

Plebeians.

[Ghost Lightning]

Seboist wrote...

Ghost Lightning wrote...

Seboist wrote...

No choice?! Gears of War has entire alternate paths to choose from based on choice which is a tangible consequence instead of throwway dialogue that amounts to nothing. Blazblue's story mode also has tangible consequence due to having a real branching narrative that results in alternate opponents based on player choice.

The real kicker is that these two franchises aren't even RPGs sold on the basis of player choice and they blow ME out of the water.

I really hope you're joking. 

Oh I am, let me continue with it.

Metal Gear Solid 3 also blows ME out of the water when it comes to player choice as well like how Snake can choose to destroy a parked attack helicopter near the beginning to prevent it from pestering him later on(it causes enemies to patrol in floating platforms instead) or how he can choose to bomb ammo/food storage sheds to weaken enemy patrols. Both at the cost of alerting enemies of course.

Red Dead Remption's honor meter is another example of tangible consequence based on player choice that demolishes ME's P/R system that only amounts in throwaway dialogue or getting a red explosion instead of a blue one.

Very funny indeed.

1) Kinda like like how in ME2 when you can choose to weaken the Ymir mech and gunship on Garrus's recruit mission? "Choices" in situations like this are negligable. It has no bearing on the plot or the game on a whole outside of that specific instance. The same is true for the ME2 example.

2) A fine choice, but no. The "honor meter" in RDR that amounts to getting better prices in stores does not "demolish" the choice/consequence system in ME that has effects in an entirely different game's possible story points (ME1-ME2-ME3). 

Maybe I'm missing the punchline...

Modifié par Ghost Lightning, 27 janvier 2012 - 05:50 .

[vonSlash]

Reptilian Rob wrote...

MFW nobody in this thread realizes what EA and Bioware are actually doing with the Mass Effect 3 DLC marketing.

Plebeians.

As far as I understood it, we were talking about the inconsistencies between ME1, ME2, and ME3 due to Bioware not planning ahead, not how EA execs get aroused by the thought of more ME3 pre-orders.

ME3 DLC isn't really a big issue in this thead, afaik.

[Ice Cold J]

Seboist wrote...

Ice Cold J wrote...

Seboist wrote...

It was obvious BW was just making **** up as they go along and didn't know what they were doing otherwise Cerberus,the Shadow Broker and the Collectors would have received more development in ME1 or LOTSB would have been part of ME2's main story instead of a bunch of irrelevant daddy issues.

Huh?

The "loyalty missions". Apparently trying to find some guy's lost father(Jacob) is more important than taking down the Shadow Broker who's collaborating with a Reaper proxy.

I get what you mean, but they HAD to write that into the sotry for the sake of the game development.

I wouldn't get on the writers for what the developer OR publisher did.

[Il Divo]

Ghost Lightning wrote...

1) Kinda like like how in ME2 when you can choose to weaken the Ymir mech and gunship on Garrus's recruit mission? "Choices" in situations like this are negligable. It has no bearing on the plot or the game on a whole outside of that specific instance. The same is true for the ME2 example.

2) A fine choice, but no. The "honor meter" in RDR that amounts to getting better prices in stores does not "demolish" the choice/consequence system in ME that has effects in an entirely different game's possible story points (ME1-ME2-ME3). 

Maybe I'm missing the punchline...

No, you've pretty much got it right. Gears of War is limited to "I want to go right or left". Red Dead Redemption also has its own limitations. Mass Effect offers a great combination of gameplay, narrative, and dialogue choices in order to establish Shepard's character, and the presentation of these elements is far better. Killing a Civilian in RDR doesn't even compare to killing/saving the Rachni Queen or choosing whether to keep the genophage data.

[Blacklash93]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Blacklash93 wrote...

Stories are a very pure form of art. So is painting. They can be done in many ways while building such constructs has its limitations.

How about a statue? Not so easy to change your mind once the work has begun.

Probably even more comparable, 'cause once it's out it's out.

You can take a look back and seek to refine certain features you envisioned. You can decide it's something else completley early on. The thing is though once you're done and you have to stick with the aspect you made, there's no going back.

Think of each installment as an aspect of the statue. Seperate installments can complement each other and the greater whole. But what matters is that they come together to make something attractive.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 27 janvier 2012 - 05:54 .

[DiebytheSword]

Saphra Deden wrote...

DiebytheSword wrote...

I'd dare say the key to victory has always lain and currently resides, in that blinding hubris that they and their creators posess.

Yeah, maybe. It's too bad ME2 wasted our time instead of delving into the Reaper's origins and teasing us with a possible weakness or something.

I can agree to that as a fair point, far too little was done with the Reaper threat proper in ME2.  Perhaps we'll be pleasantly surprised and some additional information about the situation in ME2 will materialize in ME3.  I won't hold my breath and I'm relatively positive about ME3, so I'm sure that you aren't going to hold out for that at all.

[Blacklash93]

Saphra Deden wrote...
When you announce a trilogy of games that all carry the ability to import your choices into each successive game, and you say that these choices will make a difference, then you'd better plan it out ahead of time.

Aww... metaphors are fun!

But I think the C&C thing has a lot more to do with the realities of development and less to do with planning it out ahead of time.

[Il Divo]

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

I agree, they gave too many choices that should have drastically different outcomes, then realized they couldn't create all of those outcomes in a two year development cycle.

And much as I love it, we come to the ultimate pitfall of the Mass Effect series. How does Bioware keep a relatively linear narrative, while allowing choices and consequences to mean something across a three game series? It's an extremely ambitious (and some might argue insurmountable) goal.

[vonSlash]

Il Divo wrote...

EternalAmbiguity wrote...

I agree, they gave too many choices that should have drastically different outcomes, then realized they couldn't create all of those outcomes in a two year development cycle.

And much as I love it, we come to the ultimate pitfall of the Mass Effect series. How does Bioware keep a relatively linear narrative, while allowing choices and consequences to mean something across a three game series? It's an extremely ambitious (and some might argue insurmountable) goal.

It is indeed a bit too much on our part to expect drastically different outcomes for each decision, considering the limited resources and time they have to produce the games.

However, I think we could justifiably have expected more variance than they gave us.

[Il Divo]

vonSlash wrote...

However, I think we could justifiably have expected more variance than they gave us.

No doubts there.

[Il Divo]

Saphra Deden wrote...

Il Divo wrote...

And much as I love it, we come to the ultimate pitfall of the Mass Effect series. How does Bioware keep a relatively linear narrative, while allowing choices and consequences to mean something across a three game series? It's an extremely ambitious (and some might argue insurmountable) goal.

They shouldn't have implemented such drastic choices.

Like, for example, at the end of ME1 the Council could live or die regardless of your choice and instead of deciding their fate you will decide the political climate in the next game.

Or the Collector base is destroyed regardless of what you try to do (Collector General destroys it in a last ditch effort to kill Shepard and/or rob him of critical intel/technology).

Kind of a cop-out, but we do need to be realistic here.

I saw a really interesting topic on the DA boards on how long (realistically) Bioware could keep the import function going, before they had to give up on the franchise and I think it's even more applicable here.

What you're suggesting probably would have worked better. Before Mass Effect, your typical Bioware game would always save the big ass decisions + consequences for the ending, which made your character feel important, while allowing the developers to avoid writing out drastically different storylines. The best scenario would have been for Bioware to hold off on the huge decisions until ME3, an approach which (unfortunately) ME1 and 2 chose not to follow. The end result should be interesting.

Modifié par Il Divo, 27 janvier 2012 - 06:10 .

[MrFob]

Looking apon the last couple of pages of this thread, I enter this discussion very hesitantly but there is just one point I don't get:

How is this news? They said from the very beginning - I think it was even before release (at least the PC release) of ME1 - that they had a general outline and some ideas on where they were going but the details would be made up as they went along. This is a very normal thing to do for projects of such magnitude. I think the only comparable instance where someone actually made a plan for everything up front was Babylon 5 (and that got screwed up as well, ironically... note: I mean the plan, not the series which was great)

But anyway,

Il Divo wrote...

vonSlash wrote...

However, I think we could justifiably have expected more variance than they gave us.

No doubts there.

Now here, it is going to be very interesting to see how ME3 will play out. I don't begrudge BW for keeping everything rather tied together in ME2, knowing that they'd still have to make yet another game. Now however, I hope they went the extra step and broadened the variety of the consequences a little more. This will be a very interesting topic to discuss once we've all had our share of ME3 and some idea of what the different paths look like and how distinct they are.

[vonSlash]

MrFob wrote...

Looking apon the last couple of pages of this thread, I enter this discussion very hesitantly but there is just one point I don't get:

How is this news? They said from the very beginning - I think it was even before release (at least the PC release) of ME1 - that they had a general outline and some ideas on where they were going but the details would be made up as they went along. This is a very normal thing to do for projects of such magnitude. I think the only comparable instance where someone actually made a plan for everything up front was Babylon 5 (and that got screwed up as well, ironically... note: I mean the plan, not the series which was great)

But anyway,

Il Divo wrote...

vonSlash wrote...

However, I think we could justifiably have expected more variance than they gave us.

No doubts there.

Now here, it is going to be very interesting to see how ME3 will play out. I don't begrudge BW for keeping everything rather tied together in ME2, knowing that they'd still have to make yet another game. Now however, I hope they went the extra step and broadened the variety of the consequences a little more. This will be a very interesting topic to discuss once we've all had our share of ME3 and some idea of what the different paths look like and how distinct they are.

I agree that I'd like to see more variance in decision impact in ME3, and I think that we might actually get that, at least to an extent, since ME3 can't be imported into anything else. However, when you consider the potential fate of your squadmates in ME2's suicide mission, as well as noting how that (and that alone) really limited what roles they could play in ME3, I'd hesitate before claiming that "everything in ME2 was rather tied-together" as far as decision consequence is concerned.