125 réponses à ce sujet

[a.m.p]

Noelemahc wrote...

Added Tali's LI resolution.

Had a crazy idea. Would you folks, after this thread is done for, be interested in a "Fixing the BEGINNING on a shoestring budget"? I've thought up a rewrite of the Earth-That-Was along the lines of Candlekeep to both further the connection of an imported Shepard to his past exploits AND to provide a non-import Shepard with more exposure and exposition on the universe he has just entered foolishly for the first time.

Yes please. With an actual trial instead of three idiots in uniforms sitting in a court room for no reason? Very much so.

Read Tali. Tali is very much Tali, nothing to add really.

As for technical issues with rebuilding and eventually getting to Rannoch, you might be interested in this and this. Done by MyChemicalBromance who is a much bigger nerd than I can ever hope to become.

[Noelemahc]

With an actual trial instead of three idiots in uniforms sitting in a court room for no reason? Very much so.

And run-ins with Parasini, Toombs, an Escape-From-New-York-style dramatic retelling of Shepard's adventures from a biased perspective (with the option to introduce corrections) as a character history generator for no-imports.

Seriously, every game designer class should incorporate Escape from NY and the PC version of Twilight 2000 (whose character generator was more interesting than the game itself -- you basically WROTE THE BIOGRAPHY of every character right down to when, if at all, he/she dropped out of high school to become a drug peddler, or maybe a firefighter) into their mandatory curriculum.

It would still culminate in the scenes in the final game, except that it would be a real trial and not a "sure, you were here for trial, but tell us how much we suck instead" that we got.

Done by MyChemicalBromance who is a much bigger nerd than I can ever hope to become.

Read his threads already, even replied in one. I think I'm in love.

Read Tali. Tali is very much Tali, nothing to add really.

"Тали такая Тали" XD

Modifié par Noelemahc, 24 avril 2012 - 04:43 .

[a.m.p]

Noelemahc wrote...
And run-ins with Parasini, Toombs, an Escape-From-New-York-style dramatic retelling of Shepard's adventures from a biased perspective (with the option to introduce corrections) as a character history generator for no-imports.

*Getting ready for an even longer wait.* <- worth it.

"Тали такая Тали" XD

Yep.

If you're interested, I've finally fixed up my map. Had to move the asari a few thousand light years away and Omega is finally where it should have been to begin with (that's what you get for staring at the screen for too long). Also lost Arcturus (sort of).

Since I'm in an astrographical mood, I have to ask: so where exactly is the planet Normandy?

[Noelemahc]

Since I'm in an astrographical mood, I have to ask: so where exactly is the planet Normandy?

Added to the talk with Hackett. QEC works, so Normandy can communicate. They don't know where they are, but what they can do is send over star charts. And with that you go the Stargate method - analyze the sky, see if you can find any landmarks, see where that puts you. Narrows space down. I was dumb enough to forget to write it in the moment I've thought of it.

Modifié par Noelemahc, 24 avril 2012 - 07:54 .

[a.m.p]

Noelemahc wrote...

Since I'm in an astrographical mood, I have to ask: so where exactly is the planet Normandy?

Added to the talk with Hackett. QEC works, so Normandy can communicate. They don't know where they are, but what they can do is send over star charts. And with that you go the Stargate method - analyze the sky, see if you can find any landmarks, see where that puts you. Narrows space down. I was dumb enough to forget to write it in the moment I've thought of it.

I got that. I'm asking the numbers. How far? Because the nearest relay (Arcturus) was just a laughable 36,7 ly away.

[Oldbones2]

Such a quality ending would invalidate the tragic stupidity of Bioware's original vision.

[Noelemahc]

I got that. I'm asking the numbers. How far? Because the nearest relay (Arcturus) was just a laughable 36,7 ly away.

No idea =) My astronomical knowledge is limited to identifying stars in the sky and knowing that Andromeda is really cool to look at. My assumption is that it should be between Charon and Arcturus, because this is not Farscape and subspace wormholes do not exist in the MEverse, so a collapsing FTL tunnel would only dump you into "normal" space along your route, not halfway across the next galaxy over. I'm thinking that with the relays collapsing, Joker couldn't've gone beyond the first, maybe second relay out from Sol, so it's only a matter of looking at where the chainlinks go.

For dramatic effect, however, it should be beyond what is reachable from Earth via conventional FTL, just because. After all, it's a human-breathable planet, and last I heard, we don't have any of those nearby.

Such a quality ending would invalidate the tragic stupidity of Bioware's original vision.

Thank you, thank you =) Much appreciated =)

Modifié par Noelemahc, 24 avril 2012 - 08:27 .

[Abraham_uk]

I'm impressed with your English.

Wow you really wrote a whole essay about what you'd like to see in the extended cut.
I only read the opening post so far. I will read the rest and give you further feedback. But I do agree with your idea of making the Extended Cut about making current endings more paletable.

I'd like an epilogue that tells me more about what happens next. What happens to my squadmates. Seeing Shepard's funeral. (Shepard breathes but lets face it, he/she still dies). What happened to the different races?

That's what I like to see.

[a.m.p]

Noelemahc wrote...

I got that. I'm asking the numbers. How far? Because the nearest relay (Arcturus) was just a laughable 36,7 ly away.

No idea =) My astronomical knowledge is limited to identifying stars in the sky and knowing that Andromeda is really cool to look at. My assumption is that it should be between Charon and Arcturus, because this is not Farscape and subspace wormholes do not exist in the MEverse, so a collapsing FTL tunnel would only dump you into "normal" space along your route, not halfway across the next galaxy over. I'm thinking that with the relays collapsing, Joker couldn't've gone beyond the first, maybe second relay out from Sol, so it's only a matter of looking at where the chainlinks go.

For dramatic effect, however, it should be beyond what is reachable from Earth via conventional FTL, just because. After all, it's a human-breathable planet, and last I heard, we don't have any of those nearby.

That's what I'm thinking too. Arcturus links to a number of places, some, I assume, pretty far. Two relay jumps are enough to get you into a dramatic situation.

[a.m.p]

Read Jacob.
My Femshep strongly approves.
And who'd have thought Jacob's so-called romance can be turned into something believable with an actual meaning.
Who's next?

Modifié par a.m.p, 25 avril 2012 - 11:16 .

[Noelemahc]

I'm glad you like =)

Joker (yes, Joker!), then loveless Shepard, by then I hope to have completed my current FemShep/Kaidan playthrough to write that one out. For now I am squeeing with delight at hearing him say "s#$%", because it's a rare occurence in ME3. Whyyyy did they have to censor the swearwords back up?

In the interim, I want to separate all the bits I already wrote into individual posts for easy one-click navigation, and provide each with an image of the person you're talking to and maybe small icons for Para/Rene options. I tried coloured text, but the formatting keeps resetting if I use more than five instances of colour in a single post =( Why the DA2 emotion icons and ME Para/Rene/SPECTRE icons and the game logos aren't forum smileys is beyond me, it's such a simple yet important element for any game dev forum =(

I'd like an epilogue that tells me more about what happens next. What happens to my squadmates. Seeing Shepard's funeral. (Shepard breathes but lets face it, he/she still dies). What happened to the different races?

To quote from my PM to your PM for the benefit of other readers:

I have had ideas for a funeral, yes, but I was afraid of making it too drawn-out. The idea was to show that while the world will continue without Shepard, the loss of him/her is a large strike to the universe, because common sense is now in even shorter supply =) I will try to expand the "Shepard died" endings after I'm done with the "Shepard lives!" ones.

The fates of the races... that's for them to decide. My starting point is that the budget for the proposition be abysmally small, maybe too small for even having voiced dialogue. This both enforces a stricter writing style (and even then, I had to cut what I originally wrote for Tali in half!) and suggests I keep all the conclusions brief - so I try to limit them to the characters. The races will be fine, they're cooperating, building the alternate FTL drives... After that, it's ME4 territory, and that big a fanfic I'm not ready to write yet =)

Modifié par Noelemahc, 25 avril 2012 - 11:22 .

[Beepuu]

wtf wall of text hits you critical

/push for the effort.

[oxdarkfirexo]

Seriously dude, this is amazing, though I do find that for a budget ending and epilogue its getting a bit big, not that I'm complaining. Though I think out of all the LI epilogues you've done Tali's is by far the best one. I'm looking forward to seeing what else you've got in store.

[Naerivar]

This is totally awesome. I have started writing my own ending (starting from the moment the fleet arrives in SOL), but it's just a single story (so rather fanfiction than a game-script), featuring cutscenes of the fight, rather than Shep's POV.

Anyway, this is awesome, I hope you'll add more (especially interested in Liara's LI conversation, shameless hint). The level of detail in here is enormous and I don't even want to know how many hours you spend on this.

I hope you continue your work.

[Trebor1969]

PeaceMack wrote...

Those are some pretty thorough suggestions. If I were doing it on a shoestring budget, I'd just end it after the Anderson sequence. Shep struggles forward, presses a button, and the screen fades to white. Hackett crackles in the radio background...some cheering. Queue epilogue (or not). It's still not great, but it removes a lot of the bad parts.

My though also!

[Noelemahc]

The level of detail in here is enormous and I don't even want to know how many hours you spend on this.

I'll tell you anyway: about an hour of actual writing down, about a day or two of mental percolation before that (fine, Jacob and Tali took longer, because Tali kept growing into a fix fic and Jacob kept getting sidetracked into a shouting match). I'm bored out of my skull at work, it's that simple =) Also because all of my Shepards had different romances and therefore I need LOTS of closure myself. I'm selfish like that.

My though also!

And I won't be surprised if that's what BioWare eventually uses. My task, however, is to keep as much of the original ending as possible, however much I may dislike it =)

Anyway, this is awesome, I hope you'll add more (especially interested in Liara's LI conversation, shameless hint).

I hope the final holocall snippet of her gave you a hint of what's to come =) Unless your life somehow missed out on watching Farscape, in which case I highly recommend it - not just because it's one of the obvious inspirations for Mass Effect, but also because it's a frelling awesome sci-fi series (and a source of meaningful, easy-to-use yet uncensorable swearwords). Oh, and Claudia Black's in it (she voices Daro'Xen and Aethyta and Morrigan, yay!), and she's a total babe =)

Seriously dude, this is amazing, though I do find that for a budget ending and epilogue its getting a bit big, not that I'm complaining. Though I think out of all the LI epilogues you've done Tali's is by far the best one.

It's only big overall, the actual screentime of a single run-through should be low, plus there's lots of recycling (I'm already out of ideas how to make the Hackett-leaving-scene-as-LI-comes-in unrepeatable) and the potential for turning it into a silent movie allow to cut corners... I hope.

The idea was to make the hospital scene work like the final hospital scene in MGS4 with Raiden and Rose. It's cathartic as heck, works without sound and did I mention how cathartic it is? Everyone might hate Raiden, but MGS4 does a lot to redeem him in the public eye.

And as for Tali, she's my "main" Shepard's LI, so I couldn't fail myself =)

EDIT: Some tweaks to the "final" holocalls. Expanded some exchanges, fixed some typos, removed one glaring mistake, bumped up the VA budget by a few kilodollars, I think. Oops.

Modifié par Noelemahc, 25 avril 2012 - 02:14 .

[Naerivar]

Anyway, this is awesome, I hope you'll add more (especially interested in Liara's LI conversation, shameless hint).

I hope the final holocall snippet of her gave you a hint of what's to come =) Unless your life somehow missed out on watching Farscape, in which case I highly recommend it - not just because it's one of the obvious inspirations for Mass Effect, but also because it's a frelling awesome sci-fi series (and a source of meaningful, easy-to-use yet uncensorable swearwords). Oh, and Claudia Black's in it (she voices Daro'Xen and Aethyta and Morrigan, yay!), and she's a total babe =)

I haven't actually seen farscape. However, a link to its page was already sitting in my favourite list as a reminder to start watching it sometime ;-)

I didn't know Claudia Black also voiced Aethyta.

I personally found a lot of similarities between Revelation space (books) and ME. Although the book is far more realistic (right until the end actually, hmmm)

[Orumon]

Who's next on the list?

[Noelemahc]

Joker. Who is up as of this moment. I will be expanding that one a bit later, though.

Time to split up the posts before I find out what the size limit is... the hard way.

[a.m.p]

Also, wanted to note something about the cheerfulness of the final part. It is maybe a bit too cheerful for my taste, but it's not inappropriate at that particular moment. These are the people who won the war and they are getting their commander back. And they are almost done with the new FTL drive.

My own attempt at making peace with the destroy ending and producing closure out of thin air was revolving around Shepard getting out of the hospital and having to face that 'brave new world' in person (we have a forum here very unhappy with the destruction of the relays, imagine the reaction of the people in the universe). So I was constanly derailed by various unpleasant large-scale social and technological implications that significantly darkened the mood.

Also. I'm definitely putting Farscape as #1 thing to watch next. I have no idea why I haven't already watched it.

Edit: oh, Joker's up. going to read Joker.

Edit2: Read Joker. Nice little nod to the 'Joker  Y U no LI?' crowd.

Modifié par a.m.p, 25 avril 2012 - 04:37 .

[Noelemahc]

My own attempt at making peace with the destroy ending and producing closure out of thin air was revolving around Shepard getting out of the hospital and having to face that 'brave new world' in person (we have a forum here very unhappy with the destruction of the relays, imagine the reaction of the people in the universe).

Hmm, good point. I'll add bits to reflect that next time I polish the Final Section. There's a lot of ways to show how messed up the world is now.

Also. I'm definitely putting Farscape as #1 thing to watch next. I have no idea why I haven't already watched it.

The hard part is figuring out what to watch after it. It's too awesome =(
I settled for the original Battlestar Galactica for now. Am enjoying it far more than the remake. The fact that the Cylons sound more or less precisely like Legion doesn't help =)

Edit2: Read Joker. Nice little nod to the 'Joker Y U no LI?' crowd.

Yeah, I'm going to expand that a bit to make it less date-sim-like and add a discussion about Tiptree, Joker's obvious loose end ™. Have you noticed that EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER has at least one?

[pottman]

Still don't like it, Geth must live. Need an unrealistic happy ending in all of this.

Modifié par pottman, 25 avril 2012 - 05:14 .

[a.m.p]

pottman wrote...

Still don't like it, Geth must live. Need an unrealistic happy ending in all of this.

For that there is the fourth option: "Dear ancient AI wannabe god. Go. To. Hell."

Noelemahc wrote...
Yeah,
I'm going to expand that a bit to make it less date-sim-like and add a
discussion about Tiptree, Joker's obvious loose end ™. Have you
noticed that EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER has at least one?

Yep. And that's great.

I totally missed the hospital conversation the first time through, kept running by not paying much attention. Had to go back and listen to the whole thing, and damn that's not an easy thing to listen to.

[Orumon]

Just curious, what WOULD happen when the citadel was destroyed? Would the reapers die with their master, or would they suddenly go crazy as every being who made them up rebelled against what was done to them without the evil AI cracking the whip?

[Spectre Impersonator]

Didn't read it but I have no doubt that it's much better than what we have now and would satisfy more fans than clinging to artistic integrity would.