148 réponses à ce sujet

[ShepnTali]

xsdob wrote...

Why do all vidoes against the endings have to be longer than 20 minutes? There's not much to say about the subject that after 10 minutes does not just become highly repetitive and inconsequential to the argument.

That's just something that really pisses me off, at least throw in something humorus along the way like penn and teller do for their show bull****.

That's pretty much the only complaint I got, everyone else please enjoy the 4 part video college lesson on the endings of a video game.

They cover the game, not just the ending. Whether they're great or not, preffered over a 2 minute 'this sucks lulz'.

[TMA LIVE]

Also, smudboy is aware that the Conduit in ME1 took the mako into the Citadel, despite it's doors being closed, right?

[DarkShadow]

I liked the videos for some parts, especially the part about EMS. However, because of that nitpicking, the videos sound whiny, even if he's not whining. Especially because some of that nitpicky stuff is just missing knowledge by Smudboy.

Still, was worth my time.

[humes spork]

obtuse4ngle wrote...

In media res can work but not quite for this series. ME3 is a game, not a movie or a book. Games work better when the gamer knows more than the character, NEVER the other way around.

[...]

To fix this beginning, all the devs needed to do was add an "Investigate" when you're talking to Anderson or Ash at the beginning, and allow the gamer full control over Shepard for 2 secs before s/he steps into the courtroom.

[...]

I think the point he's trying to make is that there's no reason Shepard's trail should be on Earth. S/he committed crimes in space and the Alliance is headquartered in Arcturus Station. Why is Shepard in Vancouver and not Arcturus Station?

[...]

Cerberus suddenly undergoes a organizational vision change in ME3 and all the writers did was handwave it by saying "oh, the boss's indoctrinated." That was weak.

[...]

I did wonder why Anderson stayed on Earth. What did he think he, tiny human as he is, could do against the giant Reapers?

Also, Shepard presents skepticism at the Crucible at the beginning; yet s/he doesn't challenge it or come up with new ideas based on what s/he has learned about the Reapers throughout the trilogy. So yes, in this aspect, Shepard is stupid. S/he is a high-level military person but s/he can't come up with anything? So that's why there's so many idiots running the Alliance!

Your last point and your first go together. At the beginning of the game, the gamer does know more than Shepard. Shepard's been cooling his heels for months, completely out of the loop as far as the Reapers are concerned. Shepard doesn't know the Reapers have arrived until Anderson mentions it before the meeting. Shepard intuits it based upon Anderson's mentioning of the comm buoys and Alliance stations going dark and the fact he's been called before the committee, but beyond that is completely in the dark as is just about everyone else.

And that speaks precisely to smudboy's criticism here. He knows the Reapers have arrived; Shepard doesn't. He somehow expects Shepard to produce some brilliant plan based upon his knowledge as a gamer. I play P&P RPG's, and in that circle that's known as metagaming, or using player knowledge opposed to character knowledge to make character decisions. And, beyond the Crucible, everything Shepard knows about the Reapers screams the current organic civilizations are doomed, and no degree of planning, diplomacy, or strategy at that point will yield any positive consequence but delay the inevitable; what can anyone seriously expect him to do left to his own devices?

As far as "why Earth?", I cannot say. Probably because the Reapers blow the hell out of Arcturus Station early on, and having the viewpoint character blown to hell in the beginning of the game is a ****ty way to start. Sparing that, the scene is set properly in the context of what is supposed to be occurring in lieu of Reaper interference and that is to what I'm speaking. His criticism is the setting for the opening scene is contextually incorrect when it in fact is, excruciatingly so, and his own arguments do nothing but highlight how contextually correct it actually is!

And, ME2? The question isn't about Cerberus. It's about the nature and competence of the Alliance, which has direct relevance to the beginning of ME3. Cerberus only merits mention here in that they used the Alliance's own incompetence as an inroad to investigating the lost colonies themselves.

Anderson says outright why he's staying. That's not a valid or applicable question, especially if you're going to call individuals out for not developing contingent, ad hoc strategies in the face of the Reaper invasion, for that's exactly what Anderson did and he says so much then and in later conversations.

Modifié par humes spork, 26 avril 2012 - 08:39 .

[frozngecko]

I've been following him since his ME2 criticisms...I'm just glad people are seeing his vids now.

[TMA LIVE]

About why didn't we use the conduit on Ilos, I admit, the game should explain why.

Though I actually know a possible reason why. The Conduit on Ilos was built to send things to the Citadel when it was in the Serpent Neb. Now the Citadel is at Earth.

Now I don't really know how Relays work, but I think if you move a Relay to a different system completely, it might mess with the Conduit's ability to send you there. I only know the Mu Relay still sent you to right place despite a Super Nova moving it, but unlike the Mu Relay, it wasn't moved to a completely different part of the galaxy. Double especially when the Citadel is the place we're being sent to, not the place we're being launched from. And the place we're being sent to ain't where it was.

Modifié par TMA LIVE, 26 avril 2012 - 08:55 .

[Fixers0]

Opsrbest wrote...

TMA LIVE wrote...

About why didn't we use the conduit on Ilos, I admit, the game should explain why.

Because it's explained in the conversation with Anderson on the Citadel in ME2.

No that was actually just about Vigil, there was no mention of the conduit.

Besides it was an optional dialogue option (back when we had them) that is easily skipped as such i don't see this as a strong argument to such an question.

Modifié par Fixers0, 26 avril 2012 - 08:53 .

[Tleining]

Opsrbest wrote...
Ah yes, smudboy.

First rule of criticism or critique: Don't make the same continuity issues that you percieve in the game that can be used to invalidate your arguement by lack of knowledge on what is occuring or what the visual or writen media provides.

Other then that he provides some very rather large portions of the heaping "Why Bioware Why!!!?????!!!" within his videos. It is odd thought that most often the conclusion to all his presentings end in non sequitur to every statement he makes. It is kind of disappointing to hear him talk in those videos and present his arguments so profiecently and yet end them so horribly.

It makes one wonder why he wouldn't fact check his own arguements.

if you would actually give examples of what you are talking about, people could respond.
I for one like the vids and currently have no idea what you are talking about.

[dekkerd]

Using an import to criticize what a new gamer would see is a mistake. The batarians never come up if you start a new character or never play arrival.

[frozngecko]

dekkerd wrote...

Using an import to criticize what a new gamer would see is a mistake. The batarians never come up if you start a new character or never play arrival.

But that's the point....his critique shows how difficult it would be for a new player to enter this late into the game. What is a Mass Relay? What are the Reapers?

Even imports have to wonder how the Batarians got hit...since Arrival never mentions it at all.

Modifié par frozngecko, 26 avril 2012 - 09:14 .

[Sajuro]

So Smudboy is still trying to be plinkette?

[dekkerd]

frozngecko wrote...

dekkerd wrote...

Using an import to criticize what a new gamer would see is a mistake. The batarians never come up if you start a new character or never play arrival.

But that's the point....his critique shows how difficult it would be for a new player to enter this late into the game. What is a Mass Relay? What are the Reapers?

Even imports have to wonder how the Batarians got hit...since Arrival never mentions it at all.

He directly points to Andersons line about the destruction of the relay in arrival for the "what's a relay?" bit. That line isn't in a new game. He says instead " the s*** you've done" 

I'm saying of you're going to nitpick on on how a new player will view the game, use the right footage for it. 

[Sebby]

The sad thing is that smudboy only scratches the surface of why ME3's story is horrid. There's no mention that Arrival was made entirely pointless since it happens regardless if Shepard did it or not (Hackett sends in Marines instead), Overlord being pointless or how the Quarian admirals are either turned into caricatures(Gerrel) or mannequins stripped of established motivation like Xen no longer wanting to control the Geth.

[Tleining]

Opsrbest wrote...

Heavy Weapons and the Cain killing a Reaper. The AA cannon isn't a Reaper.

For quick example.

Considering that we have no idea what the Hades Cannon alone looks like and we are destroying a Reaper-like-thing, that's open to interpretation.
I for one think that that IS a Reaper.

[dekkerd]

Seboist wrote...

The sad thing is that smudboy only scratches the surface of why ME3's story is horrid. There's no mention that Arrival was made entirely pointless since it happens regardless if Shepard did it or not (Hackett sends in Marines instead), Overlord being pointless or how the Quarian admirals are either turned into caricatures(Gerrel) or mannequins stripped of established motivation like Xen no longer wanting to control the Geth.

I wouldn't say pointless. David and his brother appear if you did overlord, was assets drop if the marines did arrival. I'd rather a trial as a consequence of arrival though. 

[humes spork]

dekkerd wrote...

He directly points to Andersons line about the destruction of the relay in arrival for the "what's a relay?" bit. That line isn't in a new game. He says instead " the s*** you've done" 

I'm saying of you're going to nitpick on on how a new player will view the game, use the right footage for it. 

You mean like when he starts going off on about how the distress beacon on the downed gunship should be alerting Reapers to Shepard's and Anderson's presence and the Reapers should be reacting, while footage of the Reapers dropping the hammer on Shepard and Anderson after activating the distress beacon plays on screen?

It takes a very selective memory and very selective attention span to think this guy has a point about over half the **** he says.

Modifié par humes spork, 26 avril 2012 - 10:05 .

[obtuse4ngle]

humes spork wrote...
Your last point and your first go together. At the beginning of the game, the gamer does know more than Shepard. Shepard's been cooling his heels for months, completely out of the loop as far as the Reapers are concerned. Shepard doesn't know the Reapers have arrived until Anderson mentions it before the meeting. Shepard intuits it based upon Anderson's mentioning of the comm buoys and Alliance stations going dark and the fact he's been called before the committee, but beyond that is completely in the dark as is just about everyone else.

So is the gamer. The gamer may or may not have watched any advertising before playing the game. Now unless there's a cutscene at the beginning before the gamer gains control of Shepard that explicitly says that the Reapers have arrived, then the gamer has only implicit (or zero) knowledge of this invasion. In this case, Shepard knows about the Reapers, he knows why he's on Earth, he knows who Anderson/Vega/Ash is--and the gamer does not. That's what I mean about Shepard knowing more about the setting than the gamer does.

humes spork wrote...
And that speaks precisely to smudboy's criticism here. He knows the Reapers have arrived; Shepard doesn't. He somehow expects Shepard to produce some brilliant plan based upon his knowledge as a gamer. I play P&P RPG's, and in that circle that's known as metagaming, or using player knowledge opposed to character knowledge to make character decisions.

Ignore metagaming for a moment. Both Shepard and the gamer intuits the Reapers' arrival at the same time. However, the gamer may not know what the hell a Reaper is, so there's no reason to feel threatened until the defense committee gets attacked. Based only on the fact that the Reapers just attacked, the gamer has a reason to counter-attack.

Smudboy is implying that the writers are making too many assumptions on the gamer.

humes spork wrote...
And, beyond the Crucible, everything Shepard knows about the Reapers screams the current organic civilizations are doomed, and no degree of planning, diplomacy, or strategy at that point will yield any positive consequence but delay the inevitable; what can anyone seriously expect him to do left to his own devices?

Shepard might not believe that they can win, but s/he is still willing to fight back. If you're fighting a losing battle, are you going to put some effort into making plans that might not even work? Shepard has no idea what the Crucible does or if it'll even work. Relying on it for anything is ridiculously stupid. Why not focus on equipping your army with the best weapons you can? Why not put your scientists to work building better equipment? Well, you don't know if the Crucible works at all, so how is it a better plan?

Now after Shepard fights and kills a Reaper on Rannoch, s/he could've alerted the Alliance about that. "Hey, the Reaper's shields are down around the laser when it fires. That's a weak point. Let's trying to hit them there." However, either Shepard never mentions this, or the Alliance doesn't think to use that information to come up with a better plan than bum-rushing the Conduit that the Reapers could most likely turn off at anytime.

humes spork wrote...
As far as "why Earth?", I cannot say. Probably because the Reapers blow the hell out of Arcturus Station early on, and having the viewpoint character blown to hell in the beginning of the game is a ****ty way to start. Sparing that, the scene is set properly in the context of what is supposed to be occurring in lieu of Reaper interference and that is to what I'm speaking. His criticism is the setting for the opening scene is contextually incorrect when it in fact is, excruciatingly so, and his own arguments do nothing but highlight how contextually correct it actually is!

I don't understand what you're trying to say. His criticism is contextually incorrect because the scence is supposed to be contextually incorrect? He's criticizing the plot. Contextually, the setting is an important part of plot.

Shepard has been in Alliance custody for 6 months. The Reapers haven't been attacking for 6 months. Therefore, nobody would've known what would happen to Arcturus Station. Shepard should've been on Arcturus Station. Or some other Alliance base. Just not on Earth. The Alliance has no authority on Earth.

And nobody wants Shepard blown to hell. The invasion could've started on Arcturus Station with Shepard running for the Normandy.

humes spork wrote...
And, ME2? The question isn't about Cerberus. It's about the nature and competence of the Alliance, which has direct relevance to the beginning of ME3. Cerberus only merits mention here in that they used the Alliance's own incompetence as an inroad to investigating the lost colonies themselves.

Ok, maybe I was confused about where that was in the video. (I watched that about a week ago.) If we're talking about the competence, like Cerberus, the Alliance undergo fluctuating degrees of competence throughout the series. It's inconsistent.

humes spork wrote...
Anderson says outright why he's staying. That's not a valid or applicable question, especially if you're going to call individuals out for not developing contingent, ad hoc strategies in the face of the Reaper invasion, for that's exactly what Anderson did and he says so much then and in later conversations.

Anderson says "You see those men. They need a leader." or something like that. Where are you leading them, Anderson? Why are you leading them anywhere when there's big giant robot monsters all over the planet? How is that outright stating anything? Until you can clarify better, my question is still legit: What is Anderson doing?

dekkerd wrote...

He directly points to Andersons line
about the destruction of the relay in arrival for the "what's a relay?"
bit. That line isn't in a new game. He says instead " the s*** you've
done" 

I'm saying of you're going to nitpick on on how a new player will view the game, use the right footage for it. 

It's definitely something smudboy overlooked. (Or maybe he just didn't play a new game and assumed that the footage is in all games.) Like this one ...

humes spork wrote...

You mean like when he starts going off on about how the distress beacon on the downed gunship should be alerting Reapers to Shepard's and Anderson's presence and the Reapers should be reacting, while footage of the Reapers dropping the hammer on Shepard and Anderson after activating the distress beacon plays on screen?

It takes a very selective memory and very selective attention span to think this guy has a point about over half the **** he says.

But I wouldn't expect anyone to pick apart the whole game and get everything right. There are other points he makes throughout that are irrelevant as well, but overall, I think he did a good job.

Modifié par obtuse4ngle, 26 avril 2012 - 10:24 .

[humes spork]

obtuse4ngle wrote...

So is the gamer..Both Shepard and the gamer intuits the Reapers' arrival at the same time. However, the gamer may not know what the hell a Reaper is, so there's no reason to feel threatened until the defense committee gets attacked. Based only on the fact that the Reapers just attacked, the gamer has a reason to counter-attack.

[...]

Smudboy is implying that the writers are making too many assumptions on the gamer.

[...]

Shepard might not believe that they can win, but s/he is still willing to fight back. If you're fighting a losing battle, are you going to put some effort into making plans that might not even work? Shepard has no idea what the Crucible does or if it'll even work. Relying on it for anything is ridiculously stupid. Why not focus on equipping your army with the best weapons you can? Why not put your scientists to work building better equipment? Well, you don't know if the Crucible works at all, so how is it a better plan?

[...]

Now after Shepard fights and kills a Reaper on Rannoch, s/he could've alerted the Alliance about that. "Hey, the Reaper's shields are down around the laser when it fires. That's a weak point. Let's trying to hit them there." However, either Shepard never mentions this, or the Alliance doesn't think to use that information to come up with a better plan than bum-rushing the Conduit that the Reapers could most likely turn off at anytime.

[...]

I don't understand what you're trying to say. His criticism is contextually incorrect because the scence is supposed to be contextually incorrect? He's criticizing the plot. Contextually, the setting is an important part of plot.

[...]

Shepard has been in Alliance custody for 6 months. The Reapers haven't been attacking for 6 months. Therefore, nobody would've known what would happen to Arcturus Station. Shepard should've been on Arcturus Station. Or some other Alliance base. Just not on Earth. The Alliance has no authority on Earth.

[...]

Anderson says "You see those men. They need a leader." or something like that. Where are you leading them, Anderson? Why are you leading them anywhere when there's big giant robot monsters all over the planet? How is that outright stating anything? Until you can clarify better, my question is still legit: What is Anderson doing?

There is a cutscene that explicitly says what's going on. It's right there in the prologue text, complete with context from the preceding cutscene that occurs between character creation and the first time you see Shepard on Earth.

The assumption the writers make is that gamers can read, think for themselves, and assess circumstances based upon context. Apparently not.

A plan that is guaranteed to fail is inherently worse than a plan that merely has the chance to fail. Build better equipment? Better-train and -equip your militaries? That's what Shepard was trying to get people to do since ME1. They didn't.

And, come up with a plan like hitting the Reaper Destroyer's "eye" with thanix missiles? That information didn't just poof straight from the ether. In fact, there was a dialogue in the game wherein EDI was analyzing combat data for Reaper weaknesses, informs Shepard it is doing so, and Shepard tells it that anything it figures out gets forwarded straight to the Alliance. There's a dialogue in which Traynor mentions the turians are analyzing combat data for Reaper weaknesses and Shepard informs her to disseminate any yielded intelligence. There's one with Garrus about that exact topic, too.

Just because there's no cutscene that shows Shepard telling Hackett personally Reapers have weaknesses, does not mean that transfer of information does not occur and it is supported explicitly later in the game that transfer occurred. Again, the assumption writers make is that gamers have stuff between their ears and use it, and again apparently not.

No, I'm saying his arguments are invalid. The scene is contextually appropriate, especially answering the very allegations he makes in that video. The context of the scene is correct, and he's out his ass on the point(s).

Let's pretend for a second the opening was on Arcturus Station. In addition to the "questions" we already "get", we get: "What is Arcturus Station? Where is Arcturus Station? Why are we here? Why am I not on Earth? Where is Earth? Do these Reaper guys attack Earth too? What happens to Earth?". That's off the top of my head, given time I'm sure I could suss out more. You're, well he, is arguing that for the sake of lore the beginning should occur in a setting that evokes more questions of the scene about which his chief complaint is that it evokes too many questions already. Moreover, it fails to convey the threat, either in scope or to Earth in particular.

You want to talk about a continuity and consistency problem, there's one for the damn record books.

And, Anderson? Try the QEC conversation later as well, when he says he's organizing and forming a resistance against the Reapers on Earth to buy time for Shepard. As far as on Earth, you see what happens to the "defense committee" who in the context of the scene are obviously very high-ranking military officials in charge of Earth's defense get blasted. You can infer that people like Anderson are going to be necessary to lead.

And, it's above and beyond (very much so) picking apart the game and getting everything right. He's constructing a strawman of the game. His criticism of the opening scene alone speaks for itself: he takes the scene entirely out of context, uses things that only someone who's played the previous games and DLC and who already knows the score in the first place would recognize and identify, points out those things as something by which a new player (who wouldn't notice) would be confused, and all to argue it's not in the context in which it should be -- and is, but for his own imagination.

Modifié par humes spork, 26 avril 2012 - 11:08 .

[TMA LIVE]

Tleining wrote...

Opsrbest wrote...

Heavy Weapons and the Cain killing a Reaper. The AA cannon isn't a Reaper.

For quick example.

Considering that we have no idea what the Hades Cannon alone looks like and we are destroying a Reaper-like-thing, that's open to interpretation.
I for one think that that IS a Reaper.

Well, we are shooting the canon, not the Reaper. And shooting the missle, as Kaidan says, down it's throat.

[Costin_Razvan]

But then we have a scene later in the game where Shepard shoots two Thanix Missiles at a Spider Reaper pretty much down it's throat and it doesn't do as much damage as the bloody Cain does to the Cannon.

I think Smudboy's point about it was that Bioware didn't bother explaining what the cannons are, how they work and so on and the same can be applied to Thanix Missiles.