320 réponses à ce sujet

[KotorEffect3]

Luc0s wrote...

KotorEffect3 wrote...

Seboist wrote...

KotorEffect3 wrote...

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.

But you take down the SB anyway so what's the problem?  And not all of the LMs were irrelevant to overall arc of the trilogy.

The "problem" is that I have fork over extra cash for something that would have been better if it was properly integrated from the get-go.

And from seeing the spoilers "irrelevent" aptly describes all loyalty missions.

Incorrect and you had better not be posting any damn spoilers here.  I know how you haters operate.

Seboist is actually correct.

Also: Haters gonna hate. 

Let's keep actual spoiler and leak discussion out of the threads.  If people want to talk about spoilers in private then go to town.  And Seboists interpretation is suspect at best since he will most likely try to put a negative spin on anything he may have read.

[Bluko]

 As countless other have already said: "eh".

If you had watched some of the early ME1 trailers it was pretty obvious just how much stuff changes in regards to the story. A lot of this as understandable as missions and gameplay will undoubtedly change during development. Granted I think they should have planned things out a little more concretely as it feels like ME2 was sort of fumbling in the dark to bridge ME1 and ME3. Part of the problem lies with ME1 as a lot of stuff got cut and much of the build-up with Cerberus was lost. ME1 basically made Cerberus out to be an evil band of mercenaries and not much else. Then ME2 tries to paint Cerberus as morally grey faction. But the purpose of this is lost as they are essentially villains again. Which kind of makes Shepard look like a moron. Had Cerberus been more vague in ME1, the fact Cerberus turns on you in ME3 would have had much more impact.

Though what most concerns me is they didn't seem to have an ending planned for this series at all. Look the second you decide to create a story you need to know how it's going to end. Just like if you plan on driving somewhere you need to know your destination. If you just aimlessy drive around your stories no matter the interesting twists and turns will end up being flawed. Granted defeating the Reapers should be obvious as it's kind of dumb to make a game where you ultimately "lose" no matter what.  But the fact they didn't seem to have anything planned for the Reaper's defeat is kind of disappointing. Shepard's clueless nature on how to defeat the Reapers in ME3 really seems to be representing the creator's own lack of direction, rather then the player's. I mean they could have avoided a "Deus Ex Machina" by laying the tid-bits or clues for the Reaper's defeat in ME1 and ME2, and then with ME3 it "all adds up" to lead Shepard to the solution. Unfortunately from what I have peaked of the spoilers this does not really seem to be the case. Granted I think they sort of try to with Marvin Martian, and frankly it could be worse, but it seems rather too convienient in some ways.

Though frankly defeating the Reapers has been pretty implausible given how much effort Bioware has spent making them seem impervious. Really a bunch of God-Machines that have been around for millions of years shouldn't lose to a developing species, unless there was something remarkable about Humans or some other species that gave us an actual advantage. Like being immune to indoctrination. Frankly I'm mostly disappointed in that the Reapers really have just been apparently talking smack this entire time. It seems ME3 is underplaying the Reaper Threat and I'm afraid to say I think this will prevent the series from having any substantial longevity outside of Shepard's grand end-all story. Though on the upside I suppose then it really doesn't matter if future games or whatever are crappy as the story essentially ended with ME3.

Modifié par Bluko, 27 janvier 2012 - 01:51 .

[Genshie]

Bluko wrote...

 As countless other have already said: "eh".

*rant*

And all I can say to you is don't judge before its release. You may have a general idea of how the game will end through the "leaked/unofficial" script but you have no idea on how it will be delivered outside the context of plain text that wasn't even written to be read like a play script or book.

[KotorEffect3]

Genshie wrote...

Bluko wrote...

 As countless other have already said: "eh".

*rant*

And all I can say to you is don't judge before its release. You may have a general idea of how the game will end through the "leaked/unofficial" script but you have no idea on how it will be delivered outside the context of plain text that wasn't even written to be read like a play script or book.

This

[KotorEffect3]

Saphra Deden wrote...

All the people happy with Bioware making it up as they go along don't understand how many problems could have been avoided with planning.

Cerberus would not come out of nowhere in ME2. (In ME1 they were one-note villains with no clear motivation, no personality, and no depth)

The Illusive Man would not come out of nowhere.

The Collectors would not come out of nowhere.

Shepard's death would have meant something.

The Cipher would have meant something.

Balak's attack on Terra-Nova would have meant something.

The Shadow Broker would have meant something.

Retribution would have meant something.

Instead we get plot-holes, lame and pointless twists, random badguys who come and go without leaving an impact, and events that should be significant wind up being wasted.

Bioware should always be willing and able to change what they have planned, but they should have something planned out the outset.

Something beyond: Shepard becomes a Spectre and stops a Reaper.

Something beyond, "Shepard works for a bad guy in ME2."

Something beyond, "Shepard defeats all the Reapers in ME3 and is on trial."

Bioware just doesn't understand their own universe. Arrival is a great example because Arrival was never necessary to justify Shepard being on trial in ME3. Almost everything Shepard did in ME2 was enough to get him throw in irons.

Other than working with cerberus what did Shepard do in ME 2 that would be justified in putting Shepard in irons.  Remember while the council didn't like Shepard working with cerberus they agreed to look the other way and even reinstated his spectre status as long as he kept his business out of citadel space.

[Blacklash93]

Saphra Deden wrote...

All the people happy with Bioware making it up as they go along don't understand how many problems could have been avoided with planning.

Cerberus would not come out of nowhere in ME2. (In ME1 they were one-note villains with no clear motivation, no personality, and no depth)

The Illusive Man would not come out of nowhere.

The Collectors would not come out of nowhere.

Shepard's death would have meant something.

The Cipher would have meant something.

Balak's attack on Terra-Nova would have meant something.

The Shadow Broker would have meant something.

Retribution would have meant something.

Instead we get plot-holes, lame and pointless twists, random badguys who come and go without leaving an impact, and events that should be significant wind up being wasted.

Bioware should always be willing and able to change what they have planned, but they should have something planned out the outset.

Something beyond: Shepard becomes a Spectre and stops a Reaper.

Something beyond, "Shepard works for a bad guy in ME2."

Something beyond, "Shepard defeats all the Reapers in ME3 and is on trial."

Bioware just doesn't understand their own universe. Arrival is a great example because Arrival was never necessary to justify Shepard being on trial in ME3. Almost everything Shepard did in ME2 was enough to get him throw in irons.

Don't understand? That's the logic with you types. "You either agree with me or you're ignorant.".

Cerberus was one-note because they were mysterious and we had a lack of information on them. Bioware took advantage of that in ME2 to develop them more.

Illusive Man and Cerberus as we know it might not exist without this approach to the writing.

The Collectors we're told of in Ascension. They didn't just pop up and it made sense that they weren't mentioned in ME1.

The Lazarus device does not have an excuse. The writers should have been perfectly capable of it meaning someing within ME2.

The Cipher was a plot device needed to understand prothean beacons. It serves no purpose if there are no other beacons to interact with.

Balak's attack was a terrorist plot that had no meaning once it was stopped.

The Shadow Broker DID mean something. You now have the greatest information broker at your side in ME3.

The only thing about Retribution that was of note was the indoctrinated Grayson, but he's dead. No significance. The books are just lore-dumps otherwise.

Pointless twists? I'll give you Shepard's death, but that's it.

Arrival was the final straw for Shepard. It was the the most extreme action he's ever taken to drive home the point that he's working above the law and it will catch up to him.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 27 janvier 2012 - 02:21 .

[Xivai]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

Nizzemancer wrote...

What's wrong with that? When I wrote Fanfiction I did my best work by making it up as I went along then refining it to remove plotholes and such. I only had the start and the goal figured out from the start.

As long as your start and goal were more than "hero is an orphan from this town" and "heroe defeats big bad"...

I'm not trying to say they can't critique film and movies or anything, I'm TRYING to show them how writing is generally done. What happens when writing. Nice try spinning my words though. Some people may have different methods out ther,e but so far it doesn't look like a lot of them share that opinion. For me creatively writing something isn't like constructing something. There's a split, it's why creativity is so hard to teach. You either can do it and train yourself to do it or you can't. It's not something that can generally just be bought or given by someone unless over years of experience.

Even with an establiushed setting, it's never that easy. There's so many revisions, and changes that go in that can undo whole drafts. If gives them a frame work, but it doesn't change how writing is done.

Also there's a flaw in your premesis for an argument. You presume that they make up everything when they stated they make it up as they go along. They aren't some erase wipe board that goes blank when they finish a story. As it gets done they hammer down what they do. You make it sound like this isn't the case, when it is. They make it up as they go, not they write it and then forget as they go.

[Doofe2012]

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. Good storytelling doesn't start with planning out the whole plot and a lot of details beforehand. You start somewhere with some characters and a general idea of where to move in the plot and you let it just happen naturally. Stephen King talked about this extensively in his book, On Writing.

[Sgt Stryker]

Don't forget about EDI.

[ItsFreakinJesus]

I imagine that a lot of people in here who think it's wrong that a lot of the story was made up as they went along don't write.

Anyone who's ever written a story knows that long ass stories, especially trilogies, rely on a skeleton outline. You cover the main plot bumps and things you want to touch on, and everything else is filled in as you go. It's easier to write that way and it means that when you go back and make changes due to realizing that something won't work based on the way your plot roles out, and when you outright think of something better.

[slimgrin]

Of course they've been making it up as they go. The evidence in ME2 is abundant. The real issue is whether they're good at making the story up as they go.

[Labrev]

MAZ77 wrote...

Hah Yes Reapers wrote...

When I've written stories, it does tend to go like this. You have a general idea in your head where things are going to go, how it's starting and how you plan to end it and most of the key points along the way.

But as you go, you change lots of things. You throw out stuff you had planned, and then pick up and expand on things you weren't planning to.

This is nothing to get all that worked up about, really.

Nothing you write has anything to do with "making it up as they go along"; what you describe is the normal process of developing a story.

Mapping out a trilogy in advance is the same as developing a story for a stand-alone-game.

The only difference is, in stand-alone games you don't have to care about how to tie together loose ends in a sequel. But in a trilogy, this problem will arise, that's why mapping it out in advance is necessary.

I don't get it. If you have a story with a start and end in mind, but no clear middle between any of it, what is all that in-between writing if not "made up" - ?

In the end, that's probably all they mean by what they're saying here, which as you said, is the normal process of developing a story.

At this point I'd hardly call ME2 "stand alone" given how greatly it draws out of ME1, and should doubt ME3 will be different.

[Blacklash93]

I give up. I could keep arguing, but I'm not. I'm not writing volumes of arguments over a fictional universe like Saph.

I like Mass Effect. It had its flaws and holes even since the beginning, like any complex in-depth story with hundreds of lore entries, but it's a good sci-fi series with an interesting premise that I've continued to enjoy.

And if that weren't the case and I disagreed with or didn't enjoy the general direction Bioware was taking, I'd leave. Maybe write them a cohesive letter about why I abandoned the IP on the forums or something (so they could improve in the future), but I'd leave because I'd know then once my arguments have been stated that there's nothing I can do except whine about something I can't change.

Modifié par Blacklash93, 27 janvier 2012 - 03:44 .

[implodinggoat]

SAGEHONOR wrote...

executive producer Casey Hudson--

When asked about how the story has been developed over the game’s life he replied, “With ME1 and 2 we kind of cast some lines out into the next game that we knew we would have to think of something with. We didn’t know what exactly, how it would happen, but we knew what we had to do.”

Essentially, while there were ‘things’ that had to happen, the ‘how’ and ‘who’ of it all came along late in the process says Hudson.

Well that explains how Liara ended up being the Shadowbroker.

Late in the process they had a plot device from ME1 (The Shadow Broker)  that they didn't know what to do with in ME2 and a character from ME1 (Liara) that they didn't know what to do with in ME2 so they jammed the two together.

That's the best explanation I can think of for Liara's bizarre character evolution,  although it did produce one awesome piece of DLC.

[AlanC9]

slimgrin wrote...

Of course they've been making it up as they go. The evidence in ME2 is abundant. The real issue is whether they're good at making the story up as they go.

Agreed. But did anyone really think that they weren't making it up as they go?

[implodinggoat]

slimgrin wrote...

Of course they've been making it up as they go. The evidence in ME2 is abundant. The real issue is whether they're good at making the story up as they go.

I'd say they had some really good ideas in ME2; but their execution of those ideas was lacking.

Take the Illusive Man for example.   He's a really great villain; but there are a lot of better ways that they could have introduced him then by having Shepard play the part of his puppet for the entirity of ME2.

Having him be an unlikely ally who both aids and manipulates you on occassion fit the character well; but having him be the one who chooses the missions and orders Shepard where to go made Shepard feel like a powerless wimp in his/her own game.

The Collector's are an even better example.   The concept of the Protheans being repurposed into soulless pawns by the Reapers is a good idea that would have been a wonderful and dramatic means of revealing more about the past conflict between the Reapers and the Protheans.

But there's no lead in to the revelation that the Collector's were Prothean, you're just suddenly told what they are on the Collector Cruiser and then play the rest of the game without the plot line being expanded on.   The Collectors could have acted as a great means for really exploring what the Reapers are, how they operate, and what they did to the Protheans and those that came before the Protheans; but instead they're just a dangling plot line.

Modifié par implodinggoat, 27 janvier 2012 - 03:54 .

[seirhart]

you do know that liara can be the shadow broker and a squadmate at the same time, its not that difficult just have edi link up to the shadow broker base where ever they are at the time to get the info they need.

[AlanC9]

implodinggoat wrote...
  The Collectors could have acted as a great means for really exploring what the Reapers are, how they operate, and what they did to the Protheans and those that came before the Protheans; but instead they're just a dangling plot line.

I don't quite follow this. By the end of ME2 we know what the Reapers did to the Protheans, which is the same thing they did to the pre-Protheans who became the Keepers. We know how the Reapers operate by the end of ME1. That leaves what the Reapers are, which is pretty clear from the end of ME2 as well.

Hey, what's the capitalization rule? Should it be "Reaper" or "reaper"? Isn't "reaper" a race rather than an organization with a proper name?

[TheShadowWolf911]

i feel as though making up the story as you go along can be both a good and a bad thing.

Good as you can put some ideas in most wouldn't normally thinkg of, bad as in you could come up with something better later and its too late to change it.