Auto dialogue improves the writing? lol? star child was well written? lol?
The Dialogue wheel in Mass Effect gave the player the ability (or atleast the appearance of) to steer the narrative, and interact with NPC's that i had never seen in a game, with a high amount of decisions and variables dependent upon where you decided to take the dialogue.
It was innovative, it was what made the game different from anything else, and it was what made the game great. This was improved exponentially with the release of Mass Effect 2 and all those prior choices/relationships carried over, giving a level of immersion in a game thats arguably never been done before. Just
seeing the causality of your choices come to life was amazing, expanding upon the innovation of the previous game and improving it with paragon/renegade interrupts.
Giving the player a more visceral level of interaction in combination with the highly detailed/complex dialogue wheel was f*cking genius. This type of player agency was beyond any other game attempting to do something similar.
In Mass Effect 3,
the combination of Auto Dialogue, and Dissipation of choice on the dialogue wheel, limited that immersion, and limited the direct connection the player had with the narrative that was previously present with Mass Effect 1 and 2.
Were there predetermined storylines previously in 1 and 2? Yes, absolutely, but
injecting the player directly into the process of the story gave us the semblence of ad-libbing. The objectives were set-in-stone in some circumstances, but the way the player had the ability to flesh out the context of the situation was completely in our control. Auto dialogue, and lack of player interaction via the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect 3, took the illusion of player control out of the process, causing a disconnect and halting the suspenison of disbelief. Killing the innovation of the first 2 games ability to fully immerse the player.
Was the greater part of the plot of the Mass Effect: trilogy linear? Yes. There was a set beginning, and a set (bad)ending. This was predtermined, by the fact that it was a story, stories begin and they end. The difference with Mass Effect's story was that
the player had direct control of the syntax of the narrative. In games saints row or GTA, the player is put in a "sandbox" where they can go just about any where and do just about anything code permitting.
In Mass Effect the narrative was the sandbox.
Some objectives were set, but the player had
direct control of the process of how to go about reaching them, as well as the interaction with variables(NPCs) involved in the journey to the objectives, and actually completing them. Mass Effect 3 took away our ability to control the process, not just with missions (which is forgivable given the repaer invasion) but most importantly with interaction with other characters.
We were no longer playing the role, we were now an observer. The sandbox was gone, and replaced with a maze. Instead of deciding to go up, down, left or right, we were now pulled along a set path, with set syntax, and given only the occasional choice to go left or right.
Essentialy the player was demoted from driver to backseat-driver.
This was a terrible degeneration of what was an innovative, and incredibly immersive gameplay mechanic. In Mass Effect 3 the dialogue wheel devolved into a bland unoriginal shell of its former self (when it was even present). To say that the dialogue wheel's downgrade and the increase in auto-dialogue some how improved the writing or the narrative, is a naive fallacy.
Edit for format.
Modifié par TookYoCookies, 25 avril 2012 - 02:25 .
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Hopefully my paragon playthrough will fit this newer nicer shepard more.
