5087 réponses à ce sujet

[edisnooM]

@frypan

Ha,

THAT DOES IT, ONE MORE NOISE AND I WILL TURN THIS CYCLE AROUND AND TAKE US BACK TO DARK SPACE

Edit:

Aw, for pity's sake. Uh, the 1812 Overture.

Modifié par edisnooM, 12 juin 2012 - 06:26 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

The Reaper IFF has been bothering me for a while now. I mean, is it really Reaper tech? We just pick it up off of one of the investigation team's consoles, and it's just a little device. Is it capable of indoctrination? If so, why didn't two entire crews, including the AI that would have had constant contact with it over six months, fall victim to it? (I think I just poked a really big hole in IT.)

Finally, and this sticking point as been up in my craw for a while now... what sign do we get that the damned Normandy still has the IFF by the time ME3 starts? And no, Vega's throwaway "anyone hear that hum" line does NOT count!

@Mani Mani

Aw come on! No Pachelbel Canon?! You snob!

Modifié par KitaSaturnyne, 12 juin 2012 - 06:27 .

[edisnooM]

@KitaSaturnyne

Actually hadn't heard that before. Nice piece of music.

And yeah, the IFF isn't really talked about at all, but we aren't given any indication that there was any issues with it.

Also apparently Cerberus was able to replicate it somehow to get through the Omega 4 relay, though how and when I'm not really sure. Maybe they got the info before Shepard ran off with the Normandy.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

KitaSaturnyne wrote...

@drayfish

Was it that the Citadel was the key to the whole mass relay network? That sounds familiar, but I'm not entirely sure. I know it was a mass relay in and of itself, though.

You just gave me an image of Harby frantically trying to hook the Citadel up to an old Dodge F150, likely just after he's picked up his Egg McMuffin. Thank you for that.

I've used my "piece together tweets and foreshadowing" skills on this particular mystery before. It's another fairly simple one: the Keepers are the ones who scurry into those little corridors and run the programs that control the Relays. Right now, the Keepers aren't responding to any of the Reaper's signals or commands, and the Citadel is designed in such a way that it's impossible for a non-Keeper to reach the control room, so the Reapers can't just send in Husks to turn off the Relays. With no easy solution readily available, they've decided to focus on other things instead.

I think I posted a more detailed breakdown earlier in this thread, but I can't find it at the moment.

What bugs me most is how easily this could have been conveyed in game. This is based primarily off a Weekes tweet, but it also fits pretty well with a lot of previous foreshadowing. Heck, I remember it being a popular theory during Mass Effect 2 times.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 12 juin 2012 - 06:52 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

@Mani Mani

It's a beautiful song. It's amazing how each individual part sounds incomplete until you play them all together.

Stupid IFF.

@CulturalGeekGirl

Yeah, that's the thought I had from tonight's conversation. I'm partly ashamed that I didn't figure it out sooner, but some kind of cue from in the game would have been exorbitantly helpful in that regard.

[D24O]

CulturalGeekGirl wrote...

I've used my "piece together tweets and foreshadowing" skills on this particular mystery before. It's another fairly simple one: the Keepers are the ones who scurry into those little corridors and run the programs that control the Relays. Right now, the Keepers aren't responding to any of the Reaper's signals or commands, and the Citadel is designed in such a way that it's impossible for a non-Keeper to reach the control room, so the Reapers can't just send in Husks to turn off the Relays. With no easy solution readily available, they've decided to focus on other things instead.

Couldn't the Catalyst have just plugged himself into the citadel and closed the relays down himself? Him being the one in charge of the reapers, and an AI, you'd think it would be simple for him to even take that elevator down to the control room while no one was looking and shut the relays down.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

frypan wrote...

CultureGeekGirl, can we revisit some ideas you raised earlier on in the below quote? These seem important for gaming in general, and also for the presentation of expanded Universe concepts in ME3, something I believe is in part responsible for the mixed ideas that went into the game.

“Mid-list niche titles are no guarantee either. I spent some time the last couple days hanging out with a few supremely talented devs who have done mid-list niche products that failed or lauched to universal "mehs" If you make a game for a million dollars, and that game doesn't make a million dollars back, you're just as screwed (or more screwed) as if you made a sixty million dollar game that doesn't make sixty million dollars back. Hell, if it's a sixty million dollar game that fails, at least people will have heard of it when you put it on your resume.”

Is this only the case with new IP? I’m just wondering if there is still potential for mid level games based on existing popular IP, if the genre and budget of the game match the core gamers. If for instance, a smaller RPG experience was designed based on older technology like the infinity engine, would it be cheap enough to guarantee sales if only core RPG fans played it?

Our experience of the ME universe is intense, as evidenced by the reponse to the ending. But is it only so because of the technology in the game, or could our bond with the game carry across to other RPG formats? The big cutscenes, the attractive character models and excellent voice acting have immersed us in the game and play a large part in our experience. If we replace that with character portraits, text dialogue, and more traditional RPG mechanics (a la fallout) with backdrops to represent the landscape of the planets, while keeping the galactic map, would it be cheap enough, and would it garner enough interest?

Shooter apps like the one on offer do not have the same appeal to me as a miniaturised RPG experience, but imagine the chance to play through extra missions this way, and develop stories in a different way addressed purely to the RPG crowd. With the art concepts and attachment to characters already in existence, could a BG2 style game work for both developer and player?

I am not sure how a budget for such a thing would work, but Spiderweb Software seems to tick along nicely in the modern world with such games. Rather than only go for the MMO, online shooter crowd with expanded universes, why not take a step back, in a way, and distill the experience down to core, single player RPG storylines. Something like Fapmaster5000's (say three times to summon) miniature adventures could be played as a MP shooter for some, or in a top down RPG experience on ipad or the like for others.

Just an idea.

EDIT: Possibly something like kickstarter could be used to test the waters for such ideas. Kickstarter projects work for various reasons but attaching a well nown name seems to help. Bioware is certainly that - current situatio n aside. And I'm not specifically advocating Kickstarter for this, only a similar litmus test of the core consumer base.

Man, nobody can ask the easy questions, can they? Oy. Bear in mind that this question is way, way beyond my expertise, so I'm probably about to get a lot of things wrong. All I can do is take all the stories I've heard and try to figure out what they suggest about the world.

My favorite game of all time is Chrono Trigger. I would love to play a bunch of games with similar quality graphics and writing. But when they re-released that game on DS, Square called its sales "disappointing." If frikken Chrono Trigger can't find an audience with modern gamers, I weep for the potential of a new crop of RPGs with text-only dialogue and retro graphics.

That said... that came out several years ago, now. Since then, we have a lot of new possibilities on the scene. Hey! New Baldur's Gate iPad thing I'm sure people will play! Falcom games are getting released on Steam! Indies! Kickstarters! Hope!

I've started and discarded several versions of this post. They all felt like a disjointed series of sad stories, set out before you to crush your dreams, and I don't want to do that.

I am going to tell one sad story, though, to illustrate an important point brought up by that article linked a few pages back: unless they have a runaway miracle success or a wealthy parent company, pretty much every video game company is one failure away from total annihilation. Names and numbers have been changed to protect the innocent.

I know a game studio that was widely regarded as one of the best at what it did. They'd been going strong for years, when they released an utterly magnificent mid-list title they were certain would be a smash hit, only to have it be so unlike any other title on the market that it completely failed to find an audience. It was one of the most enjoyable games I had played in years, but they needed to sell 40,000 units to break even, and they sold only 16,000. The company did nothing wrong, except have faith in really excellent if off-beat title, but they were still forced to sell the studio to a major publisher. Irony of irony? They get hundreds of letters a year begging them to release a sequel to the game whose failure cost them their autonomy. The 16,000 people who did buy the game really, really loved it, you see.


"If for instance, a smaller RPG experience was designed based on older technology like the infinity engine, would it be cheap enough to guarantee sales if only core RPG fans played it?"

This question is flawed and super frustrating. What are "core RPG fans"? Do you mean people who played Baldur's Gate? Or people who play Persona games? How about people who played the Fallout games, but who don't like Bioware stuff?

You can make a game cheap enough that it'll pay for itself if just a niche audience buys it - what you can't do is guarantee that the niche audience you're aiming at will buy it, even if it's a trusted IP. I know well-known sequels to popular games that have sold only 1/2 to 1/3 the copies that the original sold, without rhyme or reason.

That's how it was until Kickstarter, at least. Now you could, theoretically, completely presell your game and pay all the costs up front, guaranteeing a break-even at the very least. Could a company with a big name property kickstart their way to funding a series of sequels? It's very likely, but kickstarter has some huge inherent risks. I wait, cringing, for a title to raise $200,000, only to find out mid-production that they can't finish the game for less than $320,000.

So, to sum up... you can make games inexpensively, but you can't guarantee that even the most inexpensive game with the most impressive pedigree will capture enough of its target audience to actually guarantee success. Kickstarter has opened up some avenues that didn't exist before, and I think it's going to help a huge number of awesome games get made that otherwise would never see the light of day... but it's not going to fix all the problems, and it doesn't guarantee success.

I mean, look at kickstarter's greatest triumph so far: they raised 3 million. Now, that sounds like a lot, but the budget for the average current gen console game is somewhere between $10-30 million dollars. A really, really budget XBLA title that's being made for "practically nothing" is often around a million. Now, is that more than enough to make a great point-and-click adventure game? Sure. But RPGs are more complicated and expensive by a fairly large margin.

How much more expensive? Ah, here is where you've reached the limits of even my guessing and heresay-based powers of estimation. I have no idea what it would cost to create a Baldur's Gate/Planescape/Fallout-grade RPG nowadays. The bigger problem is that I'm not sure anyone really knows what it would cost.

And finally, there's the nightmare of publishing rights to older game IPs. Look at this quote from the Penny-Arcade report article on the Baldur's gate rerelease:

Let’s break down Baldur’s Gate, for those of us who might be unaware of how tricky the issues around older games can become: Bioware owns the rights to the Infinity Engine, which is the tech that runs the game. Wizards of the Coast owns the intellectual property, and Hasbro owns Wizards of the Coast. Atari owns the electronic publishing rights. EA owns Bioware. “There was a lot of detangling,” Oster said. Everyone had to be happy with what they were getting in return for the use of the game, including Beamdog itself. “We feel pretty good [about the deal.] I think in terms of being able to work on Baldur’s Gate, it’s a good deal. If it hits anywhere near where we hope, we’ll do well. Or else we wouldn’t have gone to war for a year to make it happen.”

Maybe all this doesn't really answer your question, because there isn't an answer to your question. Could a modern game company do some cool stuff with smaller-scale games? Probably. Why don't they? It's complicated.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 12 juin 2012 - 04:31 .

[delta_vee]

I think a great many eyes will be on Wasteland 2. Their recently-released design doc is brimming with ambition and fully embracing the various mechanical freedoms allowed by concentrating on text and eschewing fully-voiced cutscenes. It'll be very, very interesting to see how the market responds to the game itself rather than its as-yet-unrealized potential.

@Kita

I used to be able to play Pachelbel's Canon on piano, a long, long time ago. I miss it. (Also, I may be a heretic, but I rather like George Winston's variation. Don't kill me.)

[OMTING52601]

I'll be watching WL2, for sure. I agree, if they manage to pull off what they're suggesting, it would be very, very interesting indeed. I'm not in the target demographic for the game(I don't care for open world), I'm still excited to see the finished product. I think if WL2 succeeds, it will prove making games for a specific group can be just as profitable as making games to 'appeal to a broad section' of players. And after all of this, if WL2 comes through, I'd guess that player base will be super loyal to boot.

[frypan]

Thanks CultureGeekGirl, for answering what must seem like a frivolous set of questions with no easy answer.

What I wanted to hear was “Yes child you will get exactly what you want, even if your demands are unclear, and the terminology you use nebulous at best.” I would have stayed blissfully ignorant and hopeful. Alas no such luck.

The mention of Chrono Trigger is an interesting case in point, as my first question was “why release on DS?” As someone who has recently being eyeing off the ipad version, the issue may have been, in that case, misplaced sense timing and where the market might be, rather than whether the game should be released. But, as you note, the environment has changed somewhat since 2007 and maybe consumers are a bit more likely to look at these projects.

This also addresses the issue of “core fans”. As you note, the term could mean any of the various and wondrous sub genres of RPG and its hybrids out there, as well as the people who play them. I should have been clearer on the term, as it was not so much a reference to individual tastes as the critical mass necessary to generate sales among RPG gamers in general. I define them as “core” in the sense that I’m thinking of traditional pen and paper RPG players and the like, within whom there are a certain number who will often buy games with particular game play mechanics or environments over other genres. Even that is not enough though; plenty of tabletop gamers I know have no interest in computer RPGs.

I guess, trying to define the group numerically or even by classification is very hard. As you point out, the number is simply not easy to discern. Even if you know that x number of people bought the last one, it is very hard to figure what aspect of a game attracted them, and to say for certain they would buy the next one. Add in the complexities of launching new IP, changing tastes and fads and who can say.

Without knowing the numbers, the ME3 apps, comics and books are a case in point. None of these interested me until I was effectively compelled to look at the app to raise my EMS. Although I played the first two games numerous times, none of the other stuff seemed of particular interest. Other players might feel the same in regards to a top down RPG or the like, so even existing IP is no guarantee of the numbers.

Your example explains Bioware’s hunt for every method they can find to draw in new players. We are inundated with advertising and promotional annoyances constantly, which I’d attributed to a simple search for maximised profits, when it is much more risky for groups like Bioware. In spite of all the precedents, throughout this ending debacle I hadn’t really been thinking about the precarious nature of business for these folks.

Which brings us back to the issue of the EC. I would love to have been a fly on the wall for the meetings over that, as based on what you’ve said, they would have been operating with the knowledge of a vociferous outcry, but little manner of figuring either short or long terms effects. Must have been an exceptionally hard one to decide.

Kickstarter might provide some answers to the general gaming trend but not all, so it will be interesting to see what eventuates there. What if the only sales made are those that come from the up front payers? Same goes for something like the EC, as download numbers alone may not be an indicator of initial dissatisfied gamers. Like BSN polls used to determine who disliked the ending, a massed push by a particular group is not automatically indicative of the general market.

There have been other threads on this issue, but there seems no way to verify the situation pre-release as things stand. Maybe something like Steam or GOG could provide some interesting statistics, or origin and xbox live in the case of BIoware games. I guess for the moment I’ll have to continue dreaming of that ME isometric RPG with high quality graphics, quality writing, and excellent turn based mechanics

Modifié par frypan, 13 juin 2012 - 05:11 .

[edisnooM]

@frypan

I have to say though the DS version of Chrono Trigger is highly enjoyable. Though I do like the DS and Chrono Trigger so my opinion may be slightly biased.

Also I don't know about the iOS version, but for the DS version they updated some of the translations from the original SNES version, added in a extra little bit after the end, and they put in the cutscenes from the PSX version. There was also some sort of monster training thing that I never really tried out.

Modifié par edisnooM, 13 juin 2012 - 05:45 .

[frypan]

@edisnooM

The game sure comes highly recommended, and I'm not putting down the DS which is a good little handheld. In fact the release of Zelda on 3DS shows what can be done ith the right game at the right time.

Reckon I'll give it a try on iOS, and will see if it has those features you mentioned.

[delta_vee]

@frypan

That "core RPG" demographic is so slippery and ill-defined as to be meaningless. It may (or may not) surprise you, but I for one am not among them. My formative games were the trifecta of Doom, Wing Commander, and above all X-Com (with honorable mention to TIE Fighter, Descent, Civilization II, Command & Conquer, and Full Throttle). I spent far more time reading tabletop RPGs than playing them (I spent much longer playing 40K instead). Turn-based isometric is far from engraved into my gaming heart; anything less than X-Com seems...lacking. Open worlds don't necessarily hold the appeal for me which they do for others; Minecraft is the first to grip me for more than a few scant hours. And fantasy, both high and low, more often than not bores me to tears (except Dark Souls, of course - drink!).

That elusive demographic has also, I believe, never really been Mass Effect's primary (or at least exclusive) audience. I personally played it for the SF setting which (for once) wasn't post-apocalyptic, for the mix of shooting and story ("guns and conversation", as Rock, Paper, Shotgun terms it), and for my best friend's father's voicework (he's a theatre prof in Edmonton, and voiced an Elcor in ME1). The first two, at least, I think are more common attractions than conventional wisdom suggests. And neither experience is common enough in the usual stable of "old-school" RPGs to provide much of a comparison.

Modifié par delta_vee, 13 juin 2012 - 06:22 .

[frypan]

@Delta_Vee

I was actually thinking of some of your earlier comments when writing, particularly your disinterest in the general fantasy genre (except our one notable exception). I really need to abandon the term "core".

But its not fair! I want to be a core RPG gamer. I want to be part of some sort of old school society, secretly waiting for....something, or just moaning about better days.

That falls down on analysis though. I dont even play most fantasy RPGs now as they are simply action games with pointy eared models and the like. Most of my choices these days come down to the experience and gameplay, whether that be strategy titles like Civ, atmospheric shooters, or hybrids like the recent Resident Evil games. I cant even seem to classify myself in retrospect - only my impression of who I want to be as a gamer.

Actually even the isometric rpgs were few and not in vogue for too long overall, at least compared to the total gaming output of the 1990s and early 2000s. Maybe they had such an effect on me, and still do, that I have placed them and the experience of playing them as part of a greater movement than they actually were.

I hope that the ME series doesnt end up the same way, a brief experiment with an excellent Sci Fi RPG, and character based gaming, that ends up as a bunch of indistinguishable shooter clones. Indications so far are not good, the parts of ME3 that were removed or implemented in a problem way were the best bits in the first two games.

Might still have something to shake that cane at and moan about in years to come, even if the "movement" in this case is just one game trilogy.

Modifié par frypan, 13 juin 2012 - 07:00 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

I, too, drool over the idea of lower budget, interestingly niche Mass Effect games. Don't get me started on my idea for Spectre Academy, where you are a young recruit vying for Spectre status under the watchful eye of professor Vakarian. You train and go on missions of course, but your downtime is focused on building relationships with other recruits in your class, trying to figure out who is your biggest competition and who you might potentially join up with to form a crew in the future... but nevermind my weird daydreams. The reason I came up with that nonsense is that it's one with known appeal (kids love Persona) and it focuses on the thing I like best about Mass Effect: conversations.

They're not just any conversations, though. Plenty of games have navigable dialogue trees. Bioware has somehow managed to transform wading through exposition into a tool for asking yourself what kind of person you are... or rather, what kind of a person Shepard is.

Bioware has done something really magnificent with Mass Effect (and, to a lesser extent, DA:O. But let's stick with Mass Effect for now.) They've seamlessly merged the identity-building gameplay of a Western RPG like Fallout or the Elder Scrolls with the character-relationship-building gameplay of a JRPG like Chrono Trigger or Persona. Shepard was the first time I felt like I was really creating a character... a character, like I would when writing a story. I don't know if I'm articulating this properly. Eventually, I knew what kind of vids she liked to watch (favorite movie? Roman Holiday), what kind of music she liked to listen to (Turian amateur experimental and Salarian spy-punk), what kind of books she liked to read (classic Sci-Fi). These weren't my personal preferences, they were hers.

This is also, I think, why people responded so powerfully to the choice of LIs. Very different kinds of people would fall for different characters, and Shepard's personality changes significantly depending who she's with.

After choosing Garrus in ME3, I did reload an old save to see what that lunch with Kaidan would be like if I wasn't there to tell him it was over. And well... Kaidan-mancing Shepard does not act entirely like my Shepard. This relates to why so few people romanced Jacob: flirting with Jacob lead Shepard to exhibit a number of personality quirks that a huge number of players felt was out-of-character for their particular version of Shepard... so they never did it. I now know that I will never "reconnect" with Kaidan on any future version of Jane. I might romance him on other characters, ones who have a personality more similar to the one I saw on display during that date, but seeing Shepard's reactions there made my decision to stay with Garrus seem even more natural and in-character.

Where was I? Oh yes; I was trying to say that LIs are very important for the "building an inner life for Shepard" and "developing a personality" aspect of the gameplay, not just because of what who Shepard chooses to flirt with says about her, but also because these are some of the few scenes where different Shepards display really distinct personality traits. In ME2, Jacob-romancing Shepard is lusty and deeply flirtatious. Thane-romancing Shepard is serious and compassionate. Garrus-romancing Shepard is relaxed and full of jokes.

What bothers me most is how Bioware doesn't seem to know or care what they've done here, with Shepard and the crew. They don't seem to realize how the interactions with the squad define and distinguish Shepard. Without responsibilities and relationships with the crew, Shepard would just be a directionless avatar of impulse and id, the same way that most people's Dovahkiins seem to end up.

Before Mass Effect, I heavily favored JRPGs over WRPGs. While it was fun to roll up a Fallout PC who could talk the main boss into killing himself, my favorite narrative hook has always been character development and interpersonal relationships, and JRPGs were the most efficient delivery system for that... plus I preferred their art style and varied battle systems. Before Mass Effect, only two games out of my top ten were western-made (Portal and Fallout).

This is why I put my head in my hands any time someone says "it's just a game. Move on. Play this other game instead." There is no other game that does this to me. There is no other game that dances this line so very beautifully. There is no other game I know that allows you to develop a unique main character through their interface with other characters, all of whom have their own personal character arcs. That isn't a thing that's done anywhere else.

Ok ok, except DA:O, and maybe Jade Empire (I need to play that again). But I feel like they lost that balance with Hawke in DA2. Hawke felt more like a pre-written character... and even worse, one I didn't particularly like... which makes me realize what a truly amazing achievement Shepard was.

And this is why, as much as I'd like my Spectre academy, I really don't have a lot of hope for any new creative entries into the Mass Effect canon. They don't seem to understand the magic they made, and they may or may not have any idea how to recreate it. Unless the EC is something widely different than what we've been lead to expect, or unless some other piece of future content in some way has some noticeable effect on the ending, I don't have any reason to believe that they care about that remarkably unique and moving blend of relationship building, personality investment, or character development they somehow managed to achieve.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 13 juin 2012 - 08:00 .

[Seijin8]

@CulturalGeekGirl: No need to apologize for the "rambly" nature of your posts. I've happily read pages of your rambly, and learned a lot from it.

I had not previously correlated the character-driven RPG style with JRPGs, but of course, you are right. I guess it was rare for me to feel any connection to the often anime/manga-styled JRPG characters - all men dark and brooding, out for vengeance or on a quest to find themselves, and most all the women some hybrid girly-girl and Xena warrior princess. Irritating.

To highlight a few things you have said over the past few thread pages, you mentioned that the dark secret of gaming is that nobody knows how it works, and that BW may not realize how or why Shepard is a character people get deeply invested in... to use a personal anecdote, I used to do a lot of tabletop RPGs, frequently as DM/GM/Storyteller/whatever. People seemed to really like the games, many of which were only loosely scripted and very reactive to their chosen paths.

As I matured, I sought information on how to get better at this craft and came upon "Master of the Game" by the late Gary Gygax. I read and re-read this tome of previously unknown information and learned all about the gaming milieu.

And within a few short weeks, nobody wanted to play in my games anymore. In striving to understand the science behind the art, my art broke. Recognizing the underlying thematic elements caused me to emphasize them or regard them differently, and the off-the-cuff game style which I had been good at suffered from understanding why it worked.

So, I wonder if this isn't part of what has happened with BioWare. In "learning" what worked in their series, they overreached and totally missed the point, honing the art at the expense of the secondary elements that transcended simple script and became something magical (not space magical, just... regular... magic... whateverthehellitis).

Since DA2 and ME3, it seems that BioWare's previous unerring ability to drive plot through exceptional character interactions has suffered. I wonder if this isn't the result of some internal change in the way they view their works?

Just specu-- .... pondering.

Modifié par Seijin8, 13 juin 2012 - 08:11 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

@delta_vee

I was going to destroy you for the Pachelbel Canon thing, but then you mentioned that you grew up on Wing Commander. Consider yourself amongst the living for a while longer.

[CulturalGeekGirl]

Seijin8 wrote...

@CulturalGeekGirl: No need to apologize for the "rambly" nature of your posts. I've happily read pages of your rambly, and learned a lot from it.

I had not previously correlated the character-driven RPG style with JRPGs, but of course, you are right. I guess it was rare for me to feel any connection to the often anime/manga-styled JRPG characters - all men dark and brooding, out for vengeance or on a quest to find themselves, and most all the women some hybrid girly-girl and Xena warrior princess. Irritating.

Wrong era of JRPGs, then. One of the reasons I love Legion so much is that sometimes he reminds me of Robo. And the friendship between Robo and Lucca was unbelievably moving the first time I experienced it... I'm crying just thinking about it.

And then there's Koudelka, which stars a Gypsy spirit medium, a privledged young adventurer , and a catholic priest. While exploring a mansion beset by lovecraftian horrors, they quote Byron and argue philosophy. (Sadly, it does have literally the worst battle system I've ever encountered.)

Or there's Suikoden II, with its story of two best friends torn apart by war, allying themselves with opposing armies, the changing allegiances revealing who they really are.

Yes, there are a lot of friendly cat girls in there too. But I identified with the friendly catgirls, and the Lady knights, and the cheerful magicians.

But I didn't often identify with the heroes. Now bear in mind that most of my favorite JRPGs don't have the broody, vengeful hero - they have the classic open-hearted, brave, determined, Link-style hero... which is not a bad place to start. Chrono fits that bill, as does Toan (Dark Cloud), Ryu (Breath of fire: Dragon Quarter), Ari (Okage: Shadow King) and a lot of the other usual suspects who crossed my SNES, PS1, or PS2 screen. There were also the loveable and kind-hearted rogues, who I liked a bit better: Locke (FF6), Zidane (FF9), Yuri (Shadow Hearts).

Still, mostly fairly generic. Rarely female. Primarily empty vessels of either optimism and bravery, street-rat-with-a-heart-of-gold-charm, or... yes... darkly brooding vengeance broods. I can't think of a single JRPG where the main character was my favorite character... except maybe the original Xenosaga, before the sequels destroyed the main character's personality forever (Oh, a bespectacled female scientist obsessed with her work whose almost parental relationship with the military robot she created leads her to neglect most other aspects of her life... we can't have that. Lose the glasses, put her in something midriff-baring, and make her an idiot. GO!).

Ahem, sorry. Rant. That's sort of my point, though... the main guy (and sometimes the main girl) are often not designed to be compelling characters in their own right... they're just meant to be a vaguely sympathetic window through which the player experiences the rest of the cast and the story.

I could go on about how some find that kind of avatar empowering, but I really need to go to sleep and I'm not sure I can form coherent thoughts on that subject at this hour.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 13 juin 2012 - 09:10 .

[frypan]

Nicely put about the romance aspects of the game CultureGeekGirl.

Might I add a bit about Bioware's rich friendships, and not just those of ME. Aveline of DA2 was one of the few standout aspects of the game and a high point for me. The friendships of Alistair, and ultimately Morrigan in DAO were also powerfully done, Alistair's banter in particular reminding me of some good friends.

ME continued this, introducing the characters in ME1 but really developing them in ME2. Characters like Jack and Wrex really shone as initially cold types who eventually became close. Garrus was fleshed out, and other potential LIs actually worked better for some of us as friends - ie Miranda came to be the hard headed pragmatist to my Shepherds more wooly headed paragon.

These had the luxury of existing in games that had all the advantages of JRPGs, but with the benefit that more of the player could be reflected in the character. Very well done, but maybe too much so. By the time ME3 came along, the standards were set pretty high, and some of those relationships struggled, at times at least, to gain the same level of resonance.

[drayfish]

@ CulturalGeekGirl: loved your post, and that marvellous discussion of the fun-house mirror of character those dialogue exchanges offer. I know precisely what you mean – even outside of the love interests, which of course profoundly inform each of my Shepards – I've always enjoyed the way that friendships likewise fluctuate dependent upon what character you're playing. And sweet jittery Christmas I want to play Spectre Academy. Every single thing about that sounds like pure spun gold. (Although, is it wrong that I am seeing everyone in school uniforms? And look: the hanar up the back is having trouble with his necktie. Bless him.)
 
Probably the best example of that dramatic shift in character you spoke of for me came in my first play through of ME1.  (I'm going to be tossed in a sack and beaten for saying this, but...) I found that I didn't really warm up to Garrus. At all. You might even say I almost actively hated him. That Shepard, Kate (oh, poor tragic, broken-nosed Kate; something I accidentally did with her facial structure made her look like a career-ended boxer) she didn't care for him. He was whiny. And she kind of resented bringing him along. 
 
Kate was a no-nonsense hardened soldier. She'd seen some ferocious things in her time that had scarred her, that had left an indelible mark on her soul, but she shut all that maudlin crap down; didn't let it overwhelm her. In fact, it was through the lens of that (entirely unhealthy) decision to suppress her pain that she related to her squad. She admired the hell out of Tali (plucky young kid, heading out into a cold galaxy alone); she warmed to Ashley right away (sure she believed in some stupid crap about human pride, but her heart was in the right place); Liara was a beautiful but dangerous space-case that needed to be kept at arm's length; and Wrex - goddamn Wrex was the most loveable character she'd ever met. Every time she wandered past him on the way to unload the mounds of arsenal scrounged up planet-side from her Tardis-style pockets she would nod to that beautiful bastard and think: hell, maybe I was a Krogan in another life, because I get this guy.

...But Garrus? 
 
Garrus seemed like a loose cannon waiting to unload on someone. Wet behind the complete-lack-of-ears.  A small fish from the Citadel's small pond: glorified security guard at the universe's cleanest duty free store. And what the hell was with all that obsessing about his father? We're investigating some dangerous stuff here, dude. We've got no time to babysit your daddy-issues. Kate took Garrus on almost no missions; talked to him only grudgingly, and dealt him out the weakest gear, because he couldn't be trusted to see any action. Sure she felt touched when he eventually told her she'd been an inspiration for him - but that was just all the more proof that he had needed to be a passenger on the ride. This kid was still too green, and thankfully she'd managed to get him through it all without his flipping out or dying on her watch.
 
Since that time, however, with every other Shepard I've rolled out, Garrus has been one of my right hand soldiers. For Tess (my primary Shepard) he was her best friend – and given the multitude of exceptional characters in this universe to pick from, that is saying something. They were confidants, supports. They knew each other like siblings. (She even took the shot when they were up on the Citadel catwalks – he would have known she was just blowing smoke up his ass if she missed.)
 
And yet, despite all this, when I returned to Kate once more in playing through Mass Effect 2, even after fighting affectionately and tenaciously beside him through the personas of several other Shepards who all trusted him implicitly with their lives, I still remember seeing Garrus peel off his Archangel helmet and this time feeling Kate sigh, shake her head and murmur (so deeply under her breath that amazingly Bioware didn't record the line): 'Goddamn it!  This guy again...'
 
And rather than feeling like I'd failed somehow, I laughed. All that time and experience and here he was again, a kid; still so green in the eyes of a jaded veteran.

Modifié par drayfish, 13 juin 2012 - 02:48 .

[Mako SOLDIER]

Referring to the OP, I really do hope that this thread keeps receiving enough interest and input to keep it on the first page of the forum. If they haven't done so already, someone at Bioware needs to read this and pass it along to whoever was responsible for the ending(s). It makes the whole fiasco seem that much harder to believe, as it's very difficult to see any of the original post as anything other than just plain, incontrovertible common sense.

[frypan]

@Drayfish

I had the same reaction to Garrus as well, and only really warmed to him after his reach/flexibility story. He was one character who benefited from a bit of fleshing out in ME3.

What is funny is thinking about the characters and how we add to their back story by association. I do this with Tali, probably because she reminds me of someone I know. This is not stuff that I do much of in game, it only really occurs to me now. However it is all part of how I see her on reflection.

See, what nobody else knows is that Tali is a slob. This is a dreadful sin on the migrant fleet, where the loss of gravity could potentially spell disaster if stuff is left lying around, so at great effort Tali manages to keep her work environs clean and shipshape.

But her personal quarters, ah, there is a reason we never see them in game. Nobody is allowed there, and the room is her terrible little secret. Breathing masks, expensive hand crafted suits, broken omni tools and the like lie scattered around waiting to trip up the unwary.

But this is part of her character in other ways. Tali is a tinkerer, and likes playing with equipment in her spare time, dropping such things when duty calls, or she gets bored. Like any good Quarian, she is curious about how things work and loves making new tech out of old or broken equipment. This leads to the second major thing that folks don’t know about Tali.

Tali makes toys and other trinkets. All sorts of little ships, dolls and games are scattered among the detritus of her quarters. Quarians don’t waste space on manufacturing such things, so individuals make do as they can. She tends not to keep them herself, but freely gives them away as possessions are not something she cares for so much. Most of the Normandy crew have, at one time or another received something from her. Garrus has a toy gun, EDI received a little locket with space for a holo picture, and most of the old crew left with something or other tucked into their duffle bags.

Shepherd is the exception, Tali is a bit in awe of Shepherd and even if romanced, feels none of her things are good enough.

This all relates to her final secret. See Tali loves kids, and that includes all kids. For some reason, she is a natural with them, and they instinctively like her too. Whether she is making Dark Lord noises through her breathing apparatus, or chasing them down corridors and through ducts, she is a natural at play and making them laugh. While there is not much time for this during the missions of mass effect, she can be guaranteed to make contact with the citadel orphans. She also tends to drop off a swag of toys each time she visits – Shepherd is blissfully unaware that to many of the citadel children, the sight of the Normandy docking is like Santa’s sleigh arriving.

The one thing she doesn’t do is make toy robots, for obvious reasons. However, at the end of ME3 those who romance her will find a tiny Geth doll, kitted out in a set of broken N7 armour, sitting by their bed.

EDIT: Hmm, not sure if this is entering fanfic territory. Is that bad?

Modifié par frypan, 13 juin 2012 - 11:42 .

[BigglesFlysAgain]

One thing I have been thinking about is about the potential of a technological "dark age" caused by some of the endings. At first it would lead to widespread chaos and lot of people would die ( who have not been slain by the reapers already) I assume communities would either collapse and die out, or find a way to survive using simpler technology, eventually things would stabilise after a lot of strife.

I hate the endings and their implications, but maybe we should consider the reason we hate the idea of a "dark age", we as Sci-Fi fans and geeks are at least partially attracted to mass effect by the advanced technology and the space travel, take the "mass effect" out of mass effect and it looses some of its attraction to us. Technology today keeps people alive longer, and prevents some people dieing in some horrific ways, it does many things it did not do 100 years before, yet people are not necessarily "happier" people, I don't want to get into the causes of happiness and unhappiness, but you can't deny that technology has not built a utopian society yet. It has stopped people dieing in many ways, but also brought a few new ones too. The same applies to the mass effect universe, tech has improved, but human (and alien?) nature is the same.There is still conflict, hatred, and vice. The dark age would be very hard for the first few generations, but eventually as the tech they once had faded in to story and myth, people will just get on with their lives as best they can.

I am not defending the idea of a dark age, but I am just playing devils advocate and trying to think why the idea is so repulsive to us, and obviously for what I said to happen some people would have to survive the endings

Modifié par BigglesFlysAgain, 14 juin 2012 - 12:33 .

[Seijin8]

@frypan: Thanks for that. Your images of Tali are really touching and add something to the character, especially the Normandy as Santa's sleigh. And yeah, its a bit fanfic, but presented like this, there is nothing wrong with that.

[Seijin8]

@BigglesFlysAgain: Overall, I think there is some merit to your assessment. One thing I might nitpick though is the notion of happiness as a metric for technological success. Happiness (as a part of the human condition) has nothing to do with resources. The most unhappy people I know are fabulously wealthy.

EDIT:  Obviously, this goes beyond basic survival needs.  If those aren't met, then yes, unhappiness is resulting from starvation, lack of shelter, etc.

Modifié par Seijin8, 14 juin 2012 - 01:26 .