5087 réponses à ce sujet

[edisnooM]

@drayfish

It's kind of funny I don't remember disliking Garrus my first time playing ME1, but when I played it again after a long while I was surprised at how different (and a little annoying) his character seemed to me. He struck me as very rookieish. I still liked him, but he was different than I remembered and also how he was in ME2.

Also his constant insistence that we do whatever it took to get the job done despite my Shepard constantly trying to explain that we were not going to become what we were fighting against.

BTW, father issues seem to almost be a prerequisite to crew the Normandy: Ashley, Wrex, Tali, Garrus, Liara, Jacob, Miranda, Thane (though he was the father), Grunt, Vega, EDI (TIM sort of).


@frypan

A little fanficish perhaps, but still a cool bit of backstory for Tali.



Also on a completely unrelated note, I just finished playing Bastion for the PC, and I have to say it was awesome. The game itself is fun, but the story is good too and the way it unfolds and is narrated was great as well. Finally the ending and the moments leading up to it were pretty incredible too.

If anyone else hasn't played it yet and is interested you can get it as part of the current Humble Bundle by paying more than the average amount which I believe is about $8.50 USD right now. It's on for another 21 1/2 hours I think.


Edit: Good grief. Ok in honour of the discussion of the game last page, Frog's Theme from Chrono Trigger. Here's a link if you don't know it: www.youtube.com/watch 

Modifié par edisnooM, 14 juin 2012 - 01:41 .

[frypan]

@Seijin8

Thanks. did have a question for you - in spite of your experience, was Gygax's book worth reading? I used to love fleshing out his campaigns into something monstrous, and would love to read his insights.

And while I remember, Vilja was a great companion mod for Oblivion. Her and Viconia went everywhere with my character and changed the whole experience. Alas, ME went down the no-mod path - otherwise imagine what could have been done with some of those NPC models and a bit of decent voice acting.

[Seijin8]

@frypan: It was so long ago that I read "Master of the Game" that I honestly cannot say if it was as stupenous as I remember. Probably a lot of it falls under the "no duh" category, but to an early teenage mind, it was very profound. Too profound apparently.

Further - and I say this with a bit of discomfort, for it bodes ill to speak poorly of the dead - knowing what I know now, Gygax may well have been able to write about what it took to be a great gamemaster, but apparently he rarely followed his own advice. The image I have of the man from candid discussions with his peers probably influences the way that I reflect back on his writings.

Take that for whatever you will.

[frypan]

@Seijin8

Thanks I might give it a look just out of respect for the Great Man.

I suspect his wargaming background had an effect on many of the adventures he co-authored. Against the Giants, and The Village of Hommlett, had a very turn based combat feel to them. Not everyone's cup of tea but perfect for my group who were largely wargamers.

Still love those games. Why I try and call myself part of the "core" sometimes.

Modifié par frypan, 14 juin 2012 - 02:31 .

[delta_vee]

Omnibus ahoy!

@frypan

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.

As it stands, in my not-so-humble opinion, is that Mass Effect as a series has been transformed from classic to case study. Whatever the EC holds, I doubt that will change much in the long term. And for that, I weep.

What it does show, though, is that there seems to be a fairly large market for a full-fledged non-post-apoc SF RPG. Gods only know if anyone in the industry is paying attention - perhaps that's what's spurred CD Projekt to start their Cyberpunk game.

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.

Another victim of the insistence on the war narrative, I think. Not enough time nor space to give full attention to the whole sprawling cast. Not enough wiggle room for more than a handful of character pieces or the most cursory of downtime and exploration. I can see why they went the route they did, but I'm not sure it was the best decision in terms of continuing the structure and pacing of previous games.

[Awesome Tali bit]

Technically fanfic, but that's not a strike against. Paratext has its place.

Also, this is why I don't write fiction. I'm crap at conceiving that kind of incidental detail for characters. Between you, CulturalGeekGirl, and Fapmaster5000, I'm feeling awfully insufficient in the fully-fleshed-out-Shepard department.

@CulturalGeekGirl

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.

It seems to me that ME3's failure could be seen as Bioware moving too far towards the JRPG side, narrowing our Shepards and restricting our ability to express ourselves, but failing to replace those losses with anything sufficiently compelling to compensate.

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.

[...]

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.

You're absolutely right - there is no other game which does this, at the moment. There doesn't even seem to be anyone currently attempting it on the scale of ME. And this whole ending fiasco probably isn't helping things - I imagine quite a few studio heads are becoming rather gunshy about the level of player involvement in their characters, fearing that they too will fail to conclude things in a satisfactory manner.

Maybe, just maybe, if Wasteland 2 does well, we might see enough interest in such games which lack the expensive cinematics and voicework, and there might be an opening for a smaller dev to take a shot.

@Seijin8

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).

I find this disturbingly plausible, especially from the devs which somehow mistook "organics vs synthetics" for the main theme of the game, which thought pervasive autodialogue was an acceptable compromise, which sacrificed narrative coherence for the sake of short-term emotional responses.

@Kita

Your mercy is appreciated. Also, I'm sure I've got a long piece in me somewhere about how WC3 and WC4 could be considered direct ancestors of ME. WC4 even has a dialogue boss battle at the end.

@drayfish

I didn't have quite as extreme a reaction to Garrus in ME1, but it was in the same general area. It wasn't until ME2 that I found myself appreciating him as a character. As a squadmate, though, he had Overload and an assault rifle - a rather compelling combination.

@BigglesFlysAgain

My largest objection to a dark age is that the universe we were fighting to save will be unrecognizable by the time it becomes a galatic-scale civilization again. It seems unnecessarily punitive. It felt like they were destroying the setting for the sake of it.

On Gygax:

I was never a D&D fan. I have a litany of problems with Gygax's approach to mechanics, storytelling and gender. I probably shouldn't comment too much.

[Seijin8]

@frypan. Yes, a lot of his work reads that way, and I suspect the highly structured style of gaming was an enormous influence on him. As such, he often tried to craft larger narrative adventures just as tightly, with varying results. I briefly did work with RPGA affiliates, and those groups often worked well with the structured adventures.

Conversely, my specialty (if it could be called that) was taking the play groups who defied the structured scenarios and intentionally tried to go "off the rails". Game site organizers would just hand me the packet with the attendant loot item cards and a printed adventure, knowing full well I would only use the cards, probably only read the first pages of the adventure, and keep the rowdy guys entertained. Most of these people had already played through the given scenario (and having done so with different DMs, had divergent views of who the various NPCs were), and try to rattle me. So, one time the town really was "slightly off"... Doppleganger invasion!! Another time, the player's perceptions were wrong... reality is breaking! Evil wizard! It was fun to just roll with it and craft something loosely, letting them run free. Sometimes, at the end, the loot wouldn't really be equal to the deeds of the group, so I would start a black market trade with other DMs to trade off batches of useful items for the quirky stuff nobody else wanted. It was a good time.

A lot of my disdain for Gygax and his style is in the need to keep things tightly bound - a necessity for structured play (and most modular adventures), but completely the other side of the fence from me.

[frypan]

@Seijin8

We were lousy roleplayers (and still are) but on the plus side we tended to excel at puzzle or combat based tournaments. I always envied the folks who could immerse themselves in the characters though (and win the roleplaying prizes!).

Gygax's style makes for an interesting parallel with ME3. Too tight in the narrative, little room for customisation and freeform play, yet technically competent. The advantage was that we could flesh Gygax's stuff out if we wanted.

I know one or two people who prefer the idea of ME3's pared down game. One has kids and only wants a shorter experience - when he hears about six hour singleplayer for COD and the like, he say "great."

Once again, this is the issue for those of us wanting a more expansive experience and more depth. Its actually a turn off for some others.

EDIT: @Delta_Vee. Its a topic for another thread, but I'd love to hear your critcisms of Gygax's mechanics. There were plenty of issues and they are not limited to AD&D alone. They seemed to work in Bioware's CRPGs though, and I felt something was lost with the more recent offerings even if ME3 and the like had their own advantages.

Modifié par frypan, 14 juin 2012 - 03:12 .

[CulturalGeekGirl]

BigglesFlysAgain wrote...

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

I don't think the problem is so much the dark age as the lack of mobility. 

I went to PAX East right after finishing ME3 and my brother (who doesn't play games like ME3), asked me what all the fuss about the ending was about. I tried to explain the confusing themes and the death, and he kinda shrugged. I tried to explain the starkid's nonsense, and he said "I guess I don't get it." Finally, I told him about the relays potentially stranding people, and isolating the races of the galaxy. "It's like if the Star Trek universe lost Warp Drive." 

He looked at me in horror.

"Why didn't you just SAY it was because Spock and Kirk can't be friends anymore!" 

And that really is the problem with losing the relays for me. Now, granted, a bunch of our crew is probably still together maybe? I don't know. But if they do get back to their respective homeworlds through ships powered by handwavium, it's still going to take years of travel to go between worlds, especially to somewhere that's as distant as Rannoch. It's not the loss of technology, it's the loss of connectedness.

Right now, I live in California. My family and most of my friends are on the East coast. Because of planes, I can still see East Coast people a dozen times a year: either I go there or they come here. If we suddenly had no planes (with the US's total lack of high speed intercoastal rail), I'd be hard pressed to see anyone from there more than once a year, and I'd probably only see people who lived within 3-4 hours drive of my family.  If we didn't have planes, trains, or cars, I probably wouldn't see them for years; heck, I might never see my family again.

I wouldn't die, necessarily. And maybe I could phone, or write, but it wouldn't be the same. And it'd be really, really sad.

If many of characters we loved didn't have such high stakes related to their respective homes (Wrex and Tali, especially), it might be OK... we can assume they all settled down together and hung out for the rest of their lives. But even if you say "Ok... Wrex and Tali went home, but everyone else just stuck together..." that's fine, except...

Except that it was all the races jostling elbows and having to deal with each other that made things so great. With travel difficult and expensive, most races will probably go back to their homeworlds to rebuild, and we'll largely lose that cultural exchange. The universe will become smaller, more segregated, and less cosmopolitan.

There are ways they could have mitigated this somewhat: had more planets that were explicitly shared by several races, have large refugee populations of different races established on different planets, but they didn't do that. They didn't give us any reason to believe that the galaxy would go out of its way to continue to live and work together in an integrated fashion once the convenience of the relays made it no longer a requirement.

Now, Bioware people have since said that the Relays may be able to be rebuilt or repaired, especially in Control. But when people lament a relay-less universe, it's not just the lack of tech they lament... it's the loss of connectivity, multiculturalism, and freedom provided by travel.

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 14 juin 2012 - 03:22 .

[frypan]

Nice points CultureGeekGirl. This is a more extreme version of the end to Hyperion, where households joined by far gates were suddenly cut off, and a family member in the next room would never be seen again.

On the galactic scale, the number of people separated makes the post war situation an awful one to contemplate. An old Italian guy once shared his story of WW2 with a friend, and how he had bicycled home from the Eastern Front when his unit was left to rot. Took him ages, but he got home to his family eventually and then resettled in Australia.

By contrast, every soldier or ship's crew in the galaxy not already home runs a much worse risk. While societies may survive for the most, so many will never see home and family again, and not just be cut off from their extended group of loved ones.All those who fled the apporach of the reapers also fall into that category.

Maybe its a small price compared to destroying the reapers, but like destruction of the Geth and EDI, its one I dont want to pay.

Modifié par frypan, 14 juin 2012 - 03:38 .

[Seijin8]

@frypan: regarding being lousy roleplayers, the reality is that most people are lousy roleplayers. It isn't any different from acting. Some actors are exceptional (in a small slice of roles), others are broadly capable character actors, but this is a rarity.

To have good roleplaying, you need a game system and game master who can bring that out, as well as a group that wants to. Even a single person in the group who refuses off a portion of the emotional spectrum will be a hindrance to the experience. Its one of the reasons I gravitated toward live-action roleplay. Without a screen, table and dice to hide behind, you really have to express the character and act the part, and simply doing so makes the scene emotionally charged in a way that is hard to reproduce without it. Some of the most bone-chilling moments I have ever experienced were from watching a pair of exceptional roleplayers (who had traveled four hours to be part of our game) acting out a final scene where one had perished. The anguished scream that the living one let out brought the entire 2 acre warehouse gamesight to a standstill. That night, people who had never really "gotten it" before, got it by the example that was set. And our games at that location flourished from that one scene.

In fact, Mass Effect is the only game outside live-action and rare tabletop stories (with people who were also live-action types) that was able to evoke that range of emotions deftly. Real sense of loss on Virmire (didn't care for Ashley, but still felt a failing as commanding officer), triumph after the destruction of Sovereign, revulsion at being brought back by Cerberus, a compromised sense of "lesser evils mentality" at seeing the need to work with TIM, a wide range of interpersonal connections with the SR-2 squadmates (except Jacob, who I never liked), disgust and a rising need for vengeance against the Collectors and Reapers, cautious joy at Tali's affections (wish that'd been available in ME1), etc, etc. It was a powerful and unique arc set by each installment in the series. And while ME3 faltered early and oftent, it didn't break for me until the end.

Modifié par Seijin8, 14 juin 2012 - 03:55 .

[frypan]

@Seijin8

And that is one of those areas that ME3 and the like can actually work better for some of us than live action stuff. I am way too self conscious to ever roleplay to that extent. However computer games allow that outlet in a less awkward way for my types. Certainly it succeeded in the ability to evoke emotion, something rarely seen elsewhere.

I did do some reenacting when I was young thouugh. An accident involving an axe and my head ensured I was never allowed back. Mostly I just talk to such guys now, some of whom are academics involved in experimental archaeology, an interesting if somewhat controversial field. Those guys are fun to talk and quite mad in a great way. Same goes for cosplayers - they are great fun and the work they put into the outfits to be admired.

The big Sci Fi and pop culture expo in Sydney is on this weekend, and I'm looking forward to seeing if anyone has an ME outfit. Also Tricia Helfer and Jennifer Hale are supposed to be there. A newfound fanboyism post ME3 wars with my traditional aloofness from such things. Lucky I will have kids with me - and can use them as an excuse to visit various stalls.

"Oh yes, the kids just love Clone Wars Jennifer, otherwise I wouldnt be here, no way."



EDIT: Lots of positives in my recent posts. Am I at the "acceptance" stage of grief regarding the endings? And can I credit this thread as a cure? Maybe not quite there yet...

Modifié par frypan, 14 juin 2012 - 04:45 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

I just want to put this out there while I'm thinking about it.

So, lots of people don't like Jacob because he's apparently deficient as a character in some way, and that's fine. You're allowed to dislike whoever because reasons. I personally liked him though, and this thought came to me because Vega was just brought up.

Say what you will about Jacob, but at least he had a character arc. He grew up. He started out an uncertain young pup with no clear sense of himself. After his loyalty mission however, he learned a lot more about the man he wanted to be when he realized that his father exemplified a great many things he did NOT wish to become. In ME3, he finally found the direction he needed in his life. He had something to fight for, something worth protecting. Some part of me, we'll call it 'stupidity' for lack of a better term, allows me to accept that, and while I certainly won't be singing his praises from the rooftops anytime soon, I do think he's been unfairly judged.

In contrast, Vega starts out as a rough and tumble action hero wannabe soldier who thinks he can win in battles of wits against Ortega. (Is that his name? The shuttle pilot?) By the end, he's exactly the same character, no growth at all, save for a shiny N7 tattoo.

@delta_vee

I did want to bring up WC3 and 4 in the past, seeing as how the conversation system does seem to be a progenitor to Mass Effect's system of interaction. The purpose of the Wing Commander games though, was much simpler and more focused in terms of its effects on character interaction. I have the feeling BioWare went for a goal that ended up being beyond their abilities, both in scope and in technical expertise.

EDIT: Re: Galactic technological "dark age"

Storywise, there's no reason for it. "Sometimes the solution is worse than the problem."

Modifié par KitaSaturnyne, 14 juin 2012 - 05:24 .

[frypan]

@Kita

My feelings about Jacob are ambivalent. While his character seemed a bit cold, thematically he served a much more potent role than Vega. He humanised Cerberus and served as a foil to Miranda, serving as a plot assist in this regards. He also allowed the player to reflect on the gender issues as raised by his loyalty mission - a small but powerful statement about male fantasies and power.

I suppose Vega served a role in helping new players adjust to the game, but as far as themes and plot goes he did not have such a strong role - in fact his assocation with extended Universe stuff may have had a detrimental effect on those who didnt know about it.

[edisnooM]

@KitaSaturnyne

I've never really understood the intense dislike that some people seem to have for some of the characters. Sure I may like some more than others, but I generally liked all the characters in Mass Effect (the ones you're supposed to like anyway, I'm looking at you Kai Leng), and found them all interesting in their own way.

For Vega, there were times you could tell he was there to introduce some elements to new players, but for the most part I liked him.

His attempts to joke with Javik, him and Garrus swapping stories, his conversation with Tali at the beginning of the Geth Dreadnought mission, and his "hacking" of the Geth AA gun. And at first he did seem to be the generic tank, but after talking with him he seemed to me to be a bit more human, dealing with his past failures and trying to move forward with his life. That was the impression I got anyway.

Modifié par edisnooM, 14 juin 2012 - 05:35 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

@frypan

Well said. How might the extended universe stuff have affected people's perceptions of his character?

@Mani Mani

There is a little bit more to Vega's character than I stated before, but my point was just that he doesn't really go anywhere. There's no closure to his character story, and there's no noticeable progression. He doesn't grow up, or overcome anything on a character level. He just kind of shows up and that's it.

[frypan]

Poor old Vega suffered more from just being there than any real character failings methinks. I wasnt aware he would be in game, so on seeing him my first instinct was "who is this typecast chump?" Not a good start and down there with the introduction of turrent sequences as far as I was concerned. As it turned out though, he wasnt a problem. edisnooM has pointed out the positives to his role even if he was not a thematic focal point.

What seemed missing, and I could be wrong here, is a defining mission to express his character. There was simply no reason to take him on any particular mission as far as I know. The moment he went back in his box he stayed there, in favour of characters I had grown to like. He never really stood a chance there.

[edisnooM]

@KitaSaturnyne

That's true, but he did have the misfortune of being introduced in the final game, where not a lot of time was spent on character development.

Really looking back at ME3, everything seems so rushed. Earth->Mars->Citadel->Palaven's Moon->Surkesh->Tuchanka->Citadel->Rannoch->Citadel->Thessia->Horizon->Cronus Station->Earth.

Now there were side missions as well, and we did have conversations with the crew though we didn't really seem to get the amount of dialogue we got in the previous two games.

Also, besides the boxing match, talking in Shepards room, and on the Citadel, we didn't really get to talk with Vega at all outside of auto-dialogue.


Edit:

@frypan

I think that's probably a good point, he seemed to be mainly put in as a sort of guide for new players, but he did have some spark of potential. A mission all his own, maybe rescueing some old Marine buddies, something to show us a bit more of the character could have made him much better. Most of the reason I can see to take him along currently is for humour, which isn't bad but not exactly the best way to elaborate on a character.

Modifié par edisnooM, 14 juin 2012 - 06:02 .

[frypan]

edisnooM wrote...

I think that's probably a good point, he seemed to be mainly put in as a sort of guide for new players, but he did have some spark of potential. A mission all his own, maybe rescueing some old Marine buddies, something to show us a bit more of the character could have made him much better. Most of the reason I can see to take him along currently is for humour, which isn't bad but not exactly the best way to elaborate on a character.

Thats a good idea. Maybe he needed to express the core themes of the game through such a mission? I'm thinking specifically of something to do with the Reapers and the whole "Take Back Earth" thing that was not fully addressed. Or why not make him central to other ME3 issues? That way he is not competing with the other characters but forging his own place, just as Javik did. 

As one of the humans in the party, make him and the VS essential to a mission about the place of humanity in the galaxy. Perhaps a crisis of allegiances is expressed - humanity vs aliens? This could play out differently depending on whether Ash or Kaiden is with the party, with Vega playing a key role in deciding how humanity relates to the idea of co-operation vs suspicion. Think the Grunt mission and how the sacrifice of the team worked there. In this case though, Vega and his backstory play a role.

I'm a bit vague on the specifics as I'm not very clear on what his backstory was, but there was potential there to make him more than just a grunt, and to play some themes off him. Only main issue I see is duplicaton with some of the other missions.

Modifié par frypan, 14 juin 2012 - 06:47 .

[KitaSaturnyne]

All you really learn about him is that he was a soldier on Horizon around the time the Collectors attacked. His CO was lost (I think), along with a big part of his unit. (The whole unit excepting him?)

You can tell it's been a while since I last played, not that my memory has ever been particularly robust.

[edisnooM]

@frypan

Yeah I'm not too sure what all his history was, I only really know what we find out in game, though apparently there are some comics with him in it and an anime coming out that I believe centres on the Collector attack he mentions in game.

If they hadn't made Cerberus so one dimensionally evil they could have maybe used them somehow with the human squadmates. Or maybe have a mission where we are asked to help one of the other races but at a human cost somehow. Save the Destiny Ascension round 2?

Perhaps as you mentioned Grunts mission, there could be a mission involving Vega's old unit going into certain death and he wants to go with them. Now you could let him, or talk him into seeing the big picture, that you need his help with either something else on that mission, or just for the war in general.

But as you said keeping the mission from overlapping could be an issue.


Edit:

@KitaSaturnyne

Yeah I think that's about right, wasn't sure if his whole unit was wiped out or not but they suffered losses I believe.

That was another reason I sort of liked him, my Shepard was a Sole Survivor (except for Toombs, whatever happened to him?) so in a sort of head canon moment I figured he'd kind of get what Vega was going through. That could also have been an interesting plotline to follow through on.

Modifié par edisnooM, 14 juin 2012 - 07:12 .

[Seijin8]

With Vega, I didn't hate him, but he never got a fair shake, even within the story.

The first mission he is on (Mars), once Liara shows up, its all "get yer arse back in the shuttle". Someone useful with history showed up, just like old times and we don't need the new guy.

As far as Jacob, there isn't anything intrinsically wrong with the character, I just found his Leave it to Beaver morality and straight-arrow demeanor to be fundamentally odd. Compared to any other character aboard the SR-2, I woould have rather talked to any of the others, even Jack (who I also disliked). Miranda was equally dry in conversation, but the camera angles helped me forget about that

[TheShadowWolf911]

who is this man and can i shake his hand?

[CulturalGeekGirl]

The original presentation of Jacob and Miranda's characters was so cold and off-putting that I was sure they put them in just to make me feel trapped and uneasy in the beginning of Mass Effect 2. "I've met four people today. One will only speak to me via hologram, one is a traitor I saw get shot in cold blood, one is the person who shot him... and then there's this guy, who seems fine with it."

This may contribute in part to why Mordin is my favorite character, and Garrus is my second favorite (sometime during ME3 he surpassed Wrex). They were there at the start to save me from the crazy people.

I like both Jacob and Miranda now... I did, after all, contribute to the "Whole team is Jacob" meme back before squad-mates were announced for ME3, based on the idea that a squad composed exclusively of the least popular dude in the galaxy would be better than having no familiar faces at all. Vega didn't even grow on me that much... when he asked me whether he should go for N7, my Shepard diplomatically said "hey, do what you feel is right" rather than actively encouraging him. She just didn't know him that well, and he'd done nothing to impress her so far, so encouraging him in that way felt wrong.

The difference may be that Jacob and Miranda served a narrative purpose that I actually needed and that improved my experience: they were there to clue you in to Cerberus, but I also think their original cold professionalism was likely deliberate, and it had a lovely effect on me. Vega was there to serve a narrative purpose that was not relevant to me, so I was frequently just annoyed by his presence which, based on resources, must have mandated another squadmate's absence. So any time I looked at him, I was pretty much thinking "Why can't you be Grunt? I miss Grunt."

Modifié par CulturalGeekGirl, 14 juin 2012 - 09:06 .

[drayfish]

(Apologies for the thought-salad; today has been a little hectic, but there's been so much great material to respond to here in the thread...)
 
 
@ frypan: That was lovely, frypan. And I'm not one to talk, having recently taken a stab at some myself, but I don't usually find fanfic as elegant as the character portrait you just provided. I thought Tali as Santa was... beautiful. Just beautiful.
 
 
About the exploding Relays (that's right, 'exploding'; 'splosions' are fun things, and I certainly wasn't enjoying the sight of my universe having a tri-coloured coronary): I rather got the sense (and this is based on almost nothing) that the creators were distracted by trying to make a powerful statement of completion at the ending. It seemed that they perhaps neglected to think out the wider ramifications of their choice in all the cathartic excitement of ending the story. I think the decision to force blowing up the relays (whether meta-textual or not) was intended to be read as a definitive symbolic goodbye to the fiction. Like Shepard's death, wiping them out was a way of stating to the fans of the series: this is it.  This is the end. This journey and this narrative is done.
 
And I don't think they meant it in a cruel or aggressive way; more an earnest, we promised you that this would be the end of our story and we want to indicate that as faithfully as we can. (...No doubt there was also a hint of: there's no way they're going to see this coming; no one will expect us to pull this trigger.)  But overall I think their hearts were in the right place (again: based on nothing); they just wanted to signify that no matter what happens afterward, or what games get released in the future, it will all be dramatically different, not simply Mass Effect 3.5: The Re-Reapening.
 
...But again, in all the purging they perhaps forgot that you don't have to raze Hogwarts to the ground for Harry Potter to conclude. Bending doesn't get wiped from the world in Avatar: The Last Airbender (...and of course I'm not talking about the film.  Never.  Never the film.) Sure the Delorean gets crushed to pieces, but then a freaking Time Train appears (don't question the logic; never get off the suspension of belief boat in Back to the Future...) As CulturalGeekGirl said so elegantly, it's not just the objects that they destroyed, it's the connection, freedom and promise that those objects symbolise. And with nothing suggested in narrative to fill that void (leaving 'speculation' to work triple-time in order to gloss over mass starvation, bloodthirsty civil fracturing and social chaos), the universe feels considerably more hollow and cold for their being gone. 
 
 
And I agree about Jacob. He's a fun character to poke at, because although I do quite like him, compared to many of the other characters he's relatively flavourless. Wrex has the sarcasm; Garrus has the cynicism; Mordin has the verbal ticks, and a crunchy shell of pragmatism around a gooey secretly-hopeful centre; and Jacob has sit-ups? 
 
Like frypan, I remember his loyalty mission acutely. Indeed, that's one of the moments in the narrative of all three games that has haunted me the most. It's a compellingly grotesque moment in the story, and in a way I really like that it plays off a character who appears to be so superficially bland. Jacob's father twisted that planet into an amoral nightmare by being too cowardly to make a stand; he allowed a makeshift civilisation to inch ever further into ruination and horror because he was willing to compromise all of his convictions by degrees until the man that he had been was no longer recognisable, and all that remained was the ghoulish shell of who he once was. That premise really struck me when glimpsed through the eyes of a character who, to this point, was himself all too willing to be dragged along in the wake of Cerberus, or the Alliance, or Shepard. Jacob was a figure who, like his father had once, seemed to be heading down the path of incrementally compromising his agency, surrendering his morals to the will of others; and this glimpse into his own possible future – should he continue on down such a road – had the potential to be revelatory...
 
Consequentially, I think I would have liked to have seen more variation in his character after these events – I was expecting it to break him open in intriguing, dynamic ways in Mass Effect 2, but it never really happened. He agreed to get a drink with me when 'it' was all over, but I didn't want him to anesthetise himself with alcohol; I wanted him to feel something, to express something at last. To get angry, or stupid, or funny as hell – just something to indicate that he wasn't going to be the same reliable wallpaper figure he had been in the first half of the game. But, as you say KitaSaturnyne, perhaps that was what the baby and the new romance were meant to indicate in Mass Effect 3. He finally stood for something, chose to lay down some solid foundations in his life rather than be swept up in the force of another's purpose – so by necessity it had to be elsewhere from Shepard.
 
 
I'd also like to add that part of my issue with Vega was that I never got to meet him. I know that sounds really dumb, but it kind of bothered me that Shepard met and seemingly formed an opinion of this guy in the intervening time between Mass Effect 2 and 3 (perhaps, as edisnooM suggested, a product of the narrative's rushed pacing). I warmed up to him somewhat later, but for a time I did bristle slightly that Shepard began the game chatting away with him like a jolly old chum, having already established a relationship that I wasn't yet privy to. (Dear me, I sound like jealous friend... Is avatar separation anxiety a thing? I may need to see a therapist.)
 

Modifié par drayfish, 15 juin 2012 - 12:11 .

[Seijin8]

There are many therapists for such things found in Korea (or so I understand).