83 réponses à ce sujet

[Iconoclaste]

Lyme Eilserv wrote...

Iconoclaste wrote...

Lyme Eilserv wrote...

Iconoclaste wrote...

Lyme Eilserv wrote...

So you're arguing that the player should detach him/herself from Shepard's emotions? THAT is the very reason many love this franchise, to experience these emotions.

Did you have those dreams? Did you get any bullet? Did you REALLY fall in love with a game character?

Dreams? Bullet? What are you talking about?

The same way someone would feel attachment to a great book or film is perfectly compatible to what is experienced in a great rpg. Even more so in some cases since you get to make many of the decisions.

I'm sorry if you're incapable of that.

Well, I guess I'm lucky not to just dive too deeply into fantasy to keep detached. It is sometimes helpful to remain objective, and try to understand context.

Sad for you if you take a video game so much into you.

And when that context makes little sense, I guess your objectiveness will see you through.

Maybe it doesn't make sense for you, but it still makes sense to others. It made sense for the poster just above your last message. If you opened a thread just to have people agree with you, I wish you good luck.

[Nightwriter]

Katosu wrote...

Nightwriter wrote...

The kid was the best they could do. They wanted to use someone you'd failed to save, and if they'd used a dead companion to haunt you, people would just have complained that their Shepard felt nothing for that character and that they resented BioWare for forcing their Shepard to act like he/she was upset about that squaddie's death.

The kid is a random innocent, a child, and a dead child is something relatively everyone can acknowledge as an example of the horrors of war.

In my opinion a simple fix.

New Game players: 
- They get the child for the 'emotional attatchment / horror scenes'
- Add some voices from anyone that died, as a reminder that there are others who are lost. It might increase intruige and spur the player to play the old games.

Old Players:
- Have the decision of wheather or not this kid is added to the haunting be decided via dialogue. There's multiple times where Shepard's decisions are discussed, and making a choice between 'I was thinking about the lost' or 'I was thinking about the young / Earth' or even 'I'm not bothered, blah blah balls of steel' could easily lead into path A above that you get with being haunted by VentKid, or Path B where you're more powerfully/less powerfully haunted by your old friends / those you've been around.

Dialogue determined dream sequences? I am in support of this, assuming it's doable.

I'm wondering what form the Catalyst would take if the vent kid wasn't everyone's dream character, or if it was possible for players to have multiple dream characters.

[Dutchess]

The child is a symbol of the horrors of the war. It's not necessarily that Shepard cares so much about that particular boy. The "MY Shepard wouldn't care if some stupid brat would have been blown up" rings hollow to me. Since the very first game Shepard is not a completely blank slate. You have some room to develop him/her, but some things you can't change. Shepard has a personality already, and you can't influence it that much. So, apparently, yes, your Shepard did feel something when that shuttle with the child in it exploded. Even your renegade Shepard. Why couldn't a renegade Shepard be rattled when being confronted with something like that? Renegade and ruthless doesn't mean you can't give a crap when you see innocents die, when you see children die. Shepard would not be human if he felt nothing at all at the sight of that.

[Federally]

I still say if they'd of killed Andersen on Earth and revolved the dreams around him they'd of had a winner.

[Traestus]

Man...I laughed out loud when that kid's shuttle got down and shouted "Get Dunked" at my TV.

I think this is where the issue lies, is that the response Shepard has in game to the child is indicative of how BioWare wanted Shepard to feel. He was supposed to feel guilt about leaving Earth and the innocents behind. The problem lies where the player behind the Shepard doesn't feel those same things, since Shepard is more or less a blank slate for the player to inject themselves into or their character into when the expected emotional response doesn't happen it's quite jarring the rest of the way through.

Really no matter what there was a chance those dream sequences would feel hamfisted and forced upon the player. No matter what character they used people would complain because to them that character wasn't important enough for THEIR Shepard to lose sleep over.

I think the issue with the child is that it feels so overtly designed for that emotional response it cheapens the actual effect. Look I know I'm supposed to feel bad about the horrors of war and the innocents dying. But in a game where I'm more or less a walking army of destruction casually strolling through eliminating anything in existence that Shepard deems bad it's hard to turn around and say that a singular child is what Shepard would force him to nightmares.

Then again I might just be heartless, I mean as I said I laughed when that shuttle got shot down.

[Colancio]

Nero Narmeril wrote...

No sense. My Shepard:
- survived Akuze (50 soldiers died here)
- sacrificed Kaidan on Virmire
- saw the liquided colonists in Collector base
- could have casualties in Collector base
- saw dead of Mordin, Thane and Legion

And he has trauma because some random kid got pwned by Reaper? No me gusta.

Same thoughts here.

[Ieldra]

Here's what I hate about the kid and the dreams:

What my Shepard's feeling is MY decision, damn it! What motivates him is MY decsion. What the thinks is MY decision. The game may prescribe my actions, but apart from "Shepard wants to stop the Reapers", what goes on in Shepard's head should be my decision to make.

When the kid died, I felt a mild regret. Nothing more. Since Shepard is my avatar in the ME universe, the dreams came across as the game trying to tell me what I should feel.

[zarnk567]

Ieldra2 wrote...

Here's what I hate about the kid and the dreams:

What my Shepard's feeling is MY decision, damn it! What motivates him is MY decsion. What the thinks is MY decision. The game may prescribe my actions, but apart from "Shepard wants to stop the Reapers", what goes on in Shepard's head should be my decision to make.

When the kid died, I felt a mild regret. Nothing more. Since Shepard is my avatar in the ME universe, the dreams came across as the game trying to tell me what I should feel.

This is what annoyed me about ME3, It felt like alot of time it was not YOUR shepard. Cause Bioware decided to make shepard almost a like a pre-defined protaginist. 

[LadyWench]

Lyme Eilserv wrote...

The introduction of the kid at the beginning of ME3 and subsequent dream scenes was actually the first indication I got that something was wrong with the story. I just don't understand why they would try to shift the emotional focus to a non-character like that instead of relying on your companions. I get that there are things that can upset Shepard, like witnessing a kid die. But to have that as the emotional focus that haunts him throughout the game just doesn't make sense. Shepard has witnessed far, far worse.

What they should have done, was to focus on your companions. Obvious right? Imagine dream sequences in which Garrus is indoctrinated and turns against you, Tali is brutally gunned down by heretic Geth, Liara spiked into a husk etc. I remember how I felt watching cute and perky Kelly being liquified in ME2 once...

When the developers have such amazing characters, why not use them? It would have made me far more emotionally engaged.

Agreed. This is ESPECALLY all more senseless if you have a sole survivor Shep. Having nightmares about your best friends and LI turning against you would have been an awesome mind****! Or even visions of Andersen dying back on Earth to represent guilt about leaving him behind would have made way more sense and been much more emotionally touching than J. Random Deadkid who never shows any emotion evar.

[LadyWench]

Traestus wrote...

Man...I laughed out loud when that kid's shuttle got down and shouted "Get Dunked" at my TV.

I think this is where the issue lies, is that the response Shepard has in game to the child is indicative of how BioWare wanted Shepard to feel. He was supposed to feel guilt about leaving Earth and the innocents behind. The problem lies where the player behind the Shepard doesn't feel those same things, since Shepard is more or less a blank slate for the player to inject themselves into or their character into when the expected emotional response doesn't happen it's quite jarring the rest of the way through.

Really no matter what there was a chance those dream sequences would feel hamfisted and forced upon the player. No matter what character they used people would complain because to them that character wasn't important enough for THEIR Shepard to lose sleep over.

I think the issue with the child is that it feels so overtly designed for that emotional response it cheapens the actual effect. Look I know I'm supposed to feel bad about the horrors of war and the innocents dying. But in a game where I'm more or less a walking army of destruction casually strolling through eliminating anything in existence that Shepard deems bad it's hard to turn around and say that a singular child is what Shepard would force him to nightmares.

Then again I might just be heartless, I mean as I said I laughed when that shuttle got shot down.

Problem is, the child was forced on us (our Shepards) we were manipulated into thinking, "Oh, hey, for some reason Shep cares about this and is REALLY traumatized," I assume with the result they were hoping for being "I'm supposed to feel empathy, oh noes Eaaaaaaaarth!"

But you can't force people to feel that kind of emotional attachment of connection. So OP is right, better to use squadmates in the dreams, where those connections already exist due to careful nurturing and developing of interteam relationships than to force new, anonymous character down player's throats and yelling "LIKE HIM! THIS HURTS YOU!"

[Asrayl]

I'm inclined to agree with the "Shepard is a trained soldier." crowd. He's seen, and experienced so much, so much tragedy, so much loss, one kid sending him over the edge like that is, in my opinion, a ridiculous and tacked-on effort to try and establish something for those of us "just joining the story in progress". It would have worked just as well, and perhaps even better if the casualty had been Anderson instead, trying to cover Shepard as he got on the Normandy for an escape. A close comrade, something of a mentor, and someone Shepard is likely to almost universally look up to, as a soldier and as a person.

Just about any squad mate could have been sacrificed for the purpose, and while it may or may not have had the same emotional impact, it would have at least felt more relevant. People might be pissed off that Ashley/Kaiden (whoever survived the first) died, but at least they'd have felt -something- other than confused. It also would have served to spare us having to put up with someone constantly whining and questioning everything we do like we're some kind of clone/spy/saboteur while we're risking our backside saving the galaxy. (I consider this a plus.)

It's a shame, BioWare didn't seem to hire any external editors to look at the story objectively and ask "Double-ewe tee eff?"

[Traestus]

LadyWench wrote...


Problem is, the child was forced on us (our Shepards) we were manipulated into thinking, "Oh, hey, for some reason Shep cares about this and is REALLY traumatized," I assume with the result they were hoping for being "I'm supposed to feel empathy, oh noes Eaaaaaaaarth!"

But you can't force people to feel that kind of emotional attachment of connection. So OP is right, better to use squadmates in the dreams, where those connections already exist due to careful nurturing and developing of interteam relationships than to force new, anonymous character down player's throats and yelling "LIKE HIM! THIS HURTS YOU!"

Oh I agree with you, I guess my post didn't accurately reflect that. I just see no way BioWare could win using such a overt sequence to ellicit an emotional reponse given that they really didn't seem to want to put a lot of divergent content in the game. It would have made much more sense to have those nightmare sequences reflect the consequences of the players choice, but since BioWare clearly didn't want/didn't have the budget/didn't have the time to craft nightmare sequences individual to each player it made more sense to introduce a character they knew would A.) Die and B.) Be present in every game of ME3. 

Granted that's speaking from a pure design perspective and not from will this make the best story perspective.

[Nightwriter]

They've done this before.

We're forced to care about the Terminus colonies.
We're forced to be angry about Eden Prime.
We're forced to be outraged about David Archer's treatment, even if we later decide to send him back to Cerberus.
We're forced to be overwhelmed by events in ME1 and have a little cry next to the lockers.

To some degree they need to pin down some canon things Shepard does care about, and that Shepard does feel, or he'll never emote.

Personally, I thought Shepard really came alive as a character in ME3.

[LadyWench]

Nightwriter wrote...

They've done this before.

We're forced to care about the Terminus colonies.
We're forced to be angry about Eden Prime.
We're forced to be outraged about David Archer's treatment, even if we later decide to send him back to Cerberus.
We're forced to be overwhelmed by events in ME1 and have a little cry next to the lockers.

To some degree they need to pin down some canon things Shepard does care about, and that Shepard does feel, or he'll never emote.

Personally, I thought Shepard really came alive as a character in ME3.

To be fair, I really WAS outraged about David Archer, lol. Difference between build up in a good story (his character and the unfair treatment he was going to suffer at the hands of his brother who supposedly wanted to care for him was introduced through the programming flashbacks) with an emotional plea to be saved versus suddenly having David show up in a duct, refuse help, then get blasted due to his own refusal to accept assistance five minutes later.

 Similar things could be said of the other examples you gave. More story-building, less random opening cutscene forced to careness.

Yes, you are right, story and Shep's character development can't continue unless it is cannon that he/she DOES care about certain things, but this was not skillfully done in this case.

Modifié par LadyWench, 19 avril 2012 - 02:07 .

[Silhouett3]

Here's an alternative to the "child represents those at earth" thing:

In Dragon Age Origins they repeatedly used the characters from the players choice of origin, ie the cousin of city elf, the father of human noble, childhood friend of dalish elf and so on. In ME we had this too, spacer Shep had mom Hannah Shepard under Hackett's command, earth born Shep had old gang friends, colonist Shep had that suicidal friend.
Instead of dreams with that unknown child, why not use flashbacks about them or nightmares in which they are killed by reapers. Or better replace them with the child completely. 
Using characters from origin stories would not make a problem whatever path Shep has walked since. They meant to have impact on that specific Shep. Not some random child Shep sees at the start of ME3.

BTW has anymore mentioned indoctrination yet  

[paul165]

I would go along with killing Anderson at the end of the prologue because mostly people do care about Anderson and the new guys will get he is important from the 'that and your good word' dialogue. Plus if anyone can do anything with Casper's dialogue Keith David could.

[Orumon]

The Invisible Commando wrote...

That's what gets me about this whole game. Some of it was brilliant and then some of it was awful and lazy. It's like you have a whole writing team not on the same page. The end was written with no input from the other writers.

Why is it that everyone writes down how I feel about the issue before I even find the page?!

Anyway, seriously the above poster is right.

[yllamana]

The scene with the kid just felt so cheap to me. It's like... want instant pathos? Why not kill a child! The moment fell totally flat because it felt so artificial and engineered.

There was so much else going on in the story that had emotional impact that I don't even know what the kid was there for. To remind us about Earth, a place we've never even seen in the series before and probably has less going for it emotionally than the Citadel? Heck, I would've been fine with Earth being left out of the story entirely, or getting a passing mention. I don't feel like it was done justice anyway.

[OchreJelly]

I don't really think the child and the dreams were a bad device per se, but just rather akwardly handled. I'd have much preferred they focused more on established characters from the games and Shep's backstory in the dreams (not just voices, but as the main focus.)

The kid could still be there, in the end in the final sequence of the dreams but I felt much more attached to hearing Legion and Mordin and the rest in whispers than watching a poorly animated kid running away. :L

[fchopin]

I believe the dream kid was more like a psychological dream person signifying Shepard’s emotions of guilt for all the killings he or she did as well of all the friends that died and the thought of what would happen if he or she failed to stop the reapers. Similar to the death ritual of Thane.

[sushismygen]

I hate the stupid kid in the vent. I hate it even more in the stupid dreams. I guess the dreams sequences were supposed to be some kind of artistic insight to Shepard's mind and feelings...The concept failed miserably! Why should I feel guilty about some random kid that spawned in my life few minutes before the attack? And I absolutely loathe the damn brat in the ending!!! There is simply no emount of DLC content that can justify the presence of this...this abomination! 

Let's be honest...if you were bullied in school by some random band of idiots the whole first and second grade and then in the third you finaly got some friends on your side to take them down, you want to go after the random band of idiots...not their toddler brother!

Modifié par sushismygen, 19 avril 2012 - 03:13 .

[Orumon]

Traestus wrote...

Man...I laughed out loud when that kid's shuttle got down and shouted "Get Dunked" at my TV.

I think this is where the issue lies, is that the response Shepard has in game to the child is indicative of how BioWare wanted Shepard to feel. He was supposed to feel guilt about leaving Earth and the innocents behind. The problem lies where the player behind the Shepard doesn't feel those same things, since Shepard is more or less a blank slate for the player to inject themselves into or their character into when the expected emotional response doesn't happen it's quite jarring the rest of the way through.

Really no matter what there was a chance those dream sequences would feel hamfisted and forced upon the player. No matter what character they used people would complain because to them that character wasn't important enough for THEIR Shepard to lose sleep over.

I think the issue with the child is that it feels so overtly designed for that emotional response it cheapens the actual effect. Look I know I'm supposed to feel bad about the horrors of war and the innocents dying. But in a game where I'm more or less a walking army of destruction casually strolling through eliminating anything in existence that Shepard deems bad it's hard to turn around and say that a singular child is what Shepard would force him to nightmares.

Then again I might just be heartless, I mean as I said I laughed when that shuttle got shot down.

I'd call you a monster, but I laughed too. It was so obvious they were making it to create 'emotional' attachment that I couldn't credit the writers here.

[Cadence of the Planes]

Nero Narmeril wrote...

No sense. My Shepard:
- survived Akuze (50 soldiers died here)
- sacrificed Kaidan on Virmire
- saw the liquided colonists in Collector base
- could have casualties in Collector base
- saw dead of Mordin, Thane and Legion

And he has trauma because some random kid got pwned by Reaper? No me gusta.

Not necessarily "Trauma" as you say - he simply cared about the kid.

Evil bastards care about people too, even if they killed someone as awesome as Mordin.

Besides, the kid is more than a kid - (and no, I'm not talking about him being a starchild) - he is a symbol for humanity. Shepard as the ultimate renegade will do anything to save humanity, no matter the cost.

I think that makes sense.

Modifié par Cadence of the Planes, 19 avril 2012 - 03:19 .