117 réponses à ce sujet

[fairandbalancedfan]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

fairandbalancedfan wrote...

To me Baldur's Gate 2 was a good game, but i don't think it is close to the status many in this site give it.

What about the original?  I think BG2 was a very good game, but not an all-time classic.  Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, is one of my top 5 games ever.

Never played the original, I should check it out some time. The statement I made should be taken in the context of me being a casual gamer. I buy one or two games a year, and I mostly buy FPS games except in regards to Bioware.

[fairandbalancedfan]

Lucy_Glitter wrote...

I think ME was visually very shiny, but it really lacked in the story department. It looks pretty so everyone is like, "OMFG SHINY" and forget that its pretty... eh. None of the characters did anything for me. At all. I think Garrus was my favourite, but his whole story wasn't really done well, so I gave up on thinking he was awesome.

I liked it because of the Sci fi setting. I think it had a pretty fleshed out universe. if they have better gameplay and a better storyline than the first the game will be good.

[Archdemon Cthulhu]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Archdemon Cthulhu wrote...

While this may be chalked up to subjectivity.  I never felt mislead once by any of the paraphrased dialog choices I was offerred.

 
I don't think there was a single conversation in the game where I felt confident that I knew what any given dialogue option was going to do.

And I believe that fact that you can choose dialog to fit several different personalities and outcomes,

I disagree.  Since you never know what Shepard's going to say or do, you're entirely unable to choose.

The standard shouldn't be "the character didn't act contrary to his personality" but instead "the character did what I wanted".

but it is certainly still an RPG and your choices do matter as they affect other things in the game.

I don't think the choices affecting the game matters.  What matters is the act of making the choices at all, and in Mass Effect the best you could ever do was guess.  The only way to play it like an RPG was to save before every converastion and follow every possible dialogue option to find out what Shepard would do if you chose it, and then go back and do what you wanted now that you knew what it was.

Given three one or two word options on a wheel does not constitute being given choice in dialogue.  There is no way to know what Shepard's actually going to say until after he says it.  There's no way to know what Shepard's going to do until after he does it (and the interrupt system will only make this worse).  That's not choice.  I could just as well be watching a movie rather than playing a game.  There's hardly any actual gameplay in Mass Effect at all.

Ok.  So it comes down to the fact that YOU felt like you didn't know what was going to happen, even though millions of other players felt perfectly fine with the wheel and never had this complaint.  I've played through it multiple times, but even on my first playthrough, I never had a single instance where I clicked a dialog choice and was unhappy with the response or surprised at what Shepherd said.  So you, personally, had some problems figuring out what the brief options on the dialog wheel meant.  I did not.  Not once.  Ever.  Many others did not as well.

So should the RPG title be taken away because you had trouble with a game mechanic which most certainly does support the RPG category?  No.  

That said, you certainly have a right to be upset and perhaps not buy the game if you felt this hurt your experience, but still, I don't see this how that makes Mass Effect not an RPG.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Archdemon Cthulhu wrote...

Ok.  So it comes down to the fact that YOU felt like you didn't know what was going to happen, even though millions of other players felt perfectly fine with the wheel and never had this complaint.  I've played through it multiple times, but even on my first playthrough, I never had a single instance where I clicked a dialog choice and was unhappy with the response or surprised at what Shepherd said.  So you, personally, had some problems figuring out what the brief options on the dialog wheel meant.  I did not.  Not once.  Ever.  Many others did not as well.

You misunderstand.  It's not good enough that you weren't surprised.  Or that you felt Shepard's behaviour was adequate.

It wasn't possible to know what was going to happen.  It wasn't possible for me, and it wasn't possible for anyone.  Shepard would make factual claims that weren't contained within the paraphrased option on the wheel.  Shepard would use declarative sentences when the paraphrase finished with a question mark.

The actions of Shepard weren't knowable.  Whether they bothered you doesn't matter.

I assert that you weren't trying to roleplay Shepard.  You weren't adopting a persona and making decisions on his behalf.  You were just playing a game.  you might have been making dialogue choices for emotional reasons (ostensibly what the game wanted you to do), or meta-gaming to choose either the paragon or renegade options routinely without bothering to care what information Shepard was actually going to convey.

I would need an example to make this more obvious.  There was a particular exchange on the Citadel that really bothered me.  In the first conversation with Udina after meeting Tali, Shepard guesses that something is true that I didn't think was true.  I disagreed entirely with Shepard's blind conjecture, and there was no way I could have known Shepard was about to say something that stupid.

The game didn't seem to think it was stupid.  The NPCs just accepted the assertion as if it was fact (and it turned out it was), but I didn't know it, which means Shepard didn't know it, so I never would have had Shepard say it.

[Sylvius the Mad]

fairandbalancedfan wrote...

Never played the original, I should check it out some time. The statement I made should be taken in the context of me being a casual gamer. I buy one or two games a year, and I mostly buy FPS games except in regards to Bioware.

I prefer BG because the plot unfolds more naturally, the side-quests make more sense within the main plot (you don't actually know what the main plot is for much of the game, so any of the side-quests might be relevant), and I prefered BG's exploration style (you could just wander off to another map even if you'd never heard of it and the game had no reason to belive you wanted to go there - but if you wanted to travel to a town without following main roads, you could do that as you say fit - BG2 and DAO both force paths on you).

I dislike FPS games.  I don't even consider them games.  They're more like tests of skill.

[Archdemon Cthulhu]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Archdemon Cthulhu wrote...

Ok.  So it comes down to the fact that YOU felt like you didn't know what was going to happen, even though millions of other players felt perfectly fine with the wheel and never had this complaint.  I've played through it multiple times, but even on my first playthrough, I never had a single instance where I clicked a dialog choice and was unhappy with the response or surprised at what Shepherd said.  So you, personally, had some problems figuring out what the brief options on the dialog wheel meant.  I did not.  Not once.  Ever.  Many others did not as well.

You misunderstand.  It's not good enough that you weren't surprised.  Or that you felt Shepard's behaviour was adequate.

It wasn't possible to know what was going to happen.  It wasn't possible for me, and it wasn't possible for anyone.  Shepard would make factual claims that weren't contained within the paraphrased option on the wheel.  Shepard would use declarative sentences when the paraphrase finished with a question mark.

The actions of Shepard weren't knowable.  Whether they bothered you doesn't matter.

I assert that you weren't trying to roleplay Shepard.  You weren't adopting a persona and making decisions on his behalf.  You were just playing a game.  you might have been making dialogue choices for emotional reasons (ostensibly what the game wanted you to do), or meta-gaming to choose either the paragon or renegade options routinely without bothering to care what information Shepard was actually going to convey.

I would need an example to make this more obvious.  There was a particular exchange on the Citadel that really bothered me.  In the first conversation with Udina after meeting Tali, Shepard guesses that something is true that I didn't think was true.  I disagreed entirely with Shepard's blind conjecture, and there was no way I could have known Shepard was about to say something that stupid.

The game didn't seem to think it was stupid.  The NPCs just accepted the assertion as if it was fact (and it turned out it was), but I didn't know it, which means Shepard didn't know it, so I never would have had Shepard say it.

I still call bull****.  I definitely was roleplaying, as that's pretty much how I approach these games.  i put them on easy because combat only matters so much to me, and then I think of a character from the start and think about how they would react to situations throughout the game,  

Nonetheless, I had no trouble with the dialog wheel system.  The three word phrases still conveyed a specific emotional reaction to a statement or situation and I always knew which one to pick for my character.  I had no problem deciphering what the outcome was going to be depending on the phrases I picked.  For whatever reason, you did.  

That said, it's not invalid to imply that Bioware maybe should relook at how they phrase things so gamers have a more specific understanding of what is going to happen, since it is apparently not always clear to all exactly what's going to happen.  I do not refute that it is a valid complaint about the implementation of the system, but I still think saying it makes the game not an RPG is absolutely absurd.

Clearly, neither of us will convince the other though since our experiences with the game differed so greatly.  So there probably isn't much to gain from continuing this debate.

[fairandbalancedfan]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

I dislike FPS games.  I don't even consider them games.  They're more like tests of skill.

That's one of the reasons I like FPS's. it's a test of my reflex skills. And I usually play LAN or co op. But I never, ever play on Xbox Live. It contains immature kids who have recently hit puberty, chanting the word ni**er as some sort of holy mantra for their cult.

But I play all types of games, as long as they provide entertainment and have some semblance of a good storyline. I don't see the point of throwing away cash at a game that doesn't make me go back to that game 2 or 3 months later. Games are expensive around here.

[Gorath Alpha]

fairandbalancedfan wrote...

I liked it because of the Sci fi setting. I think it had a pretty fleshed out universe. if they have better gameplay and a better storyline than the first the game will be good.

I have enjoyed Science Fiction and quite a lot of Space Fantasy (Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon, Star Trek, and Star Wars are Space Fantasy - no real science in any of them), since I learned to read the Sunday funnies on the living room floor as an elementary school child.  I've seen way too little of either in computer gaming. 

Mass Effect was seriously ruined for me by the nature of the invasive Root Level DRM.  I used a bare Hdd with nothing but the OS and the drivers to test the game, and didn't find it compelling enough to reserve any PC to its play, exclusively, and wiped that drive clean to be totally certain I'd killed the entire DRM. 

Gorath
-

[Seagloom]

Throw another vote into the "didn't like Mass Effect" hat. I thought it was BioWare's weakest showing. Then again I enjoyed Jade Empire immensely and that game garners substantial criticism. As already indicated numerous times, Mass Effect barely felt like an RPG to me. I'm in agreement with Sylvius the Mad in that the dialogue wheel was unpredictable. Perhaps not always, but often.

The first time that really struck me was when I chose a dialogue option to insult Saren when you accuse him before the Council, and Shepard threatens to kill him. I was like... "seriously? In front of all these human-phobic authorities Shepard?" Sometimes Shepard would overreact to ridiculous heights over what seemed an innocuous wheel pick. At other times I could pick one of two answers and still get the same dialogue from Shepard even though initial choices seemed completely different at a glance.

There was very little character interaction. It was lighter than Jade Empire, and that's saying something considering how shallow party interaction was in that game. Everyone in your group updated their dialogue only when the main storyline progressed; or when they liked you enough to toss a personal quest your way, if relevant. It made Mass Effect feel very lonely as I would explore world after world with no new companion dialogue. Had there been, it may have made planet exploration bearable...

Speaking of planet exploration: this was far and away the worst approach I have seen BioWare take to side quests ever. Bad as I feel the job boards are in Dragon Age, these take the cake and devour it with gusto. They were extremely, painfully, aggrivatingly *boring*. The personified example of filler content in a video game I would point to if asked for one.

The main plot was not very interesting either. I found it far too trite and predictable and aside from a few high drama moments, it did little to move me. By the end I was glad to just have it all over with.

The shooting was the one thing about Mass Effect that did not bother me. It was no true FPS, but I found it adequate and entertaining. It was functional enough to feel fun. Not unlike Bloodlines' shooting; that while simplistic, was amusing enough once your vamp character had enough skill in using firearms.

It is the only BioWare game I have played through once. I simply could not bear another run and decided seeing the differences between renegade and paragon were not worth my time.

Modifié par Seagloom, 11 décembre 2009 - 11:59 .

[Panderfringe]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

fairandbalancedfan wrote...

To me Baldur's Gate 2 was a good game, but i don't think it is close to the status many in this site give it.

What about the original?  I think BG2 was a very good game, but not an all-time classic.  Baldur's Gate, on the other hand, is one of my top 5 games ever.

BG1 was a shadow of the game BG2 was. Trying to play it now, it seems so amateurish and juvenile.

Seagloom wrote...

Throw another vote into the "didn't
like Mass Effect" hat. I thought it was BioWare's weakest showing. Then
again I enjoyed Jade Empire immensely and that game garners substantial
criticism.

I think we can safely assume your opinion has been thoroughly invalidated.

(kidding, kidding. Though seriously, you liked JE better than ME?)

Modifié par Panderfringe, 11 décembre 2009 - 02:04 .

[Rubbish Hero]

I hate Mass Effect, it feels like it attempts too hard to be mature.

Modifié par Rubbish Hero, 11 décembre 2009 - 04:34 .

[IAGTTBleed]

Forget about the story, characters, and RPG trappings. It was a shooter at heart and not a very good one.



I uninstalled it after about seven hours.



(Please don't hate me Bioware, I still love you!)

[Jonp382]

Panderfringe wrote...

(kidding, kidding. Though seriously, you liked JE better than ME?)

I did. Combat was bad in JE imo, but the rest was totally superior.

[Beerfish]

IAGTTBleed wrote...

Forget about the story, characters, and RPG trappings. It was a shooter at heart and not a very good one.

I uninstalled it after about seven hours.

(Please don't hate me Bioware, I still love you!)

Eh?  Yeah if you forget about the story, chracters and all else it is a shooter.

However it did have a decent story and some good characters.  Just because combat is shooter combat it doesn't mean you can throw the rest of the game out the window.

Did it have class choices and advancement choices?  Yes
Did it have joinable npcs who had some background story?  Yes
Did it have a series of choices throughout the game?  Yes
Did it have some big choices at the end?  Yes

Why would you not uninstall any other game after 7 hours?  Heck if you play Da for 7 hours it has poor rpg and no npc character development.

Modifié par Beerfish, 11 décembre 2009 - 05:28 .

[IAGTTBleed]

I was enjoying the story and characters. That's why I played it for 7 hours or so. But the shoot em up part of the game really ruined it for me. Just my opinion dude.

[Angie Long]

Your certainly not the only one, especially among Bioware fans (at least those who were around before ME, probably because they tend to be RPG fans as well). For me it was a bit too much of a shooter, despite having a decent story (though a lot of the option all reulted in the same thing). And they could have worked on the party members more, a few of them had a lot of potential but it was cut short. ME2 may be hit or miss, on the one hand it's likely they'll improve character relationships and sidequests, but on the other it looks like they might focus even more on the shooter aspect. I hope they take some of tips from the DA folks, since their developments overlapped. I'll wait to see what other people say about it, I don't need those preorder bonuses that bad.

From what I've seen, most of the ME fans must not come to the OT because most people here really don't like it.

I played ME halfway through and was distinctly "meh" about it. Then for some reason or another I picked it up again several months later and simply could NOT put it down. I loved it! Not sure what happened there, actually.

It did seem better when I played it after a break as well, wierd . Maybe it was the bugs they fixed that made it easier to get into.

Modifié par Angie Long, 12 décembre 2009 - 03:50 .

[kahramoh]

I loved the universe and the sci-fi setting, but the story seemed a bit lacking. Most of the characters lacked much development, and I hated how some of the dialog "options" still had you saying the same things.



That said, it was a fun game.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Jonp382 wrote...

Panderfringe wrote...

(kidding, kidding. Though seriously, you liked JE better than ME?)

I did. Combat was bad in JE imo, but the rest was totally superior.

I also preferred JE to ME, mostly because of the dialogue system and lack of PC voice-over.

Archdemon Cthulhu wrote...

Nonetheless, I had no trouble with the dialog wheel system.  The three word phrases still conveyed a specific emotional reaction to a statement or situation and I always knew which one to pick for my character.

 
There's the problem.

I don't make emotional decisions.  My characters don't make emotional decisions.  We make reasoned decisions, and Mass Effect absolutely prevented that.

I had no problem deciphering what the outcome was going to be depending on the phrases I picked.

That you guessed and were right is not evidence that you knew.

This is exactly how empathy works.  People think they can detect each other's emotions, but they're wrong about that.  Even though when asked to describe others' emotional states, people are often correct.  But that's because people are mostly all the same and their projection of their own emotional reaction onto others looks like a mirror of emotions rather than just a projection.

[KyoZ]

Hmm I liked Mass Effect, didn't enjoy it as much as previous Bioware games however. It was pretty short, and in all honesty, I wasn't that attatched to any of the party members either.

[Archdemon Cthulhu]

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

Jonp382 wrote...

Panderfringe wrote...

(kidding, kidding. Though seriously, you liked JE better than ME?)

I did. Combat was bad in JE imo, but the rest was totally superior.

I also preferred JE to ME, mostly because of the dialogue system and lack of PC voice-over.

Archdemon Cthulhu wrote...

Nonetheless, I had no trouble with the dialog wheel system.  The three word phrases still conveyed a specific emotional reaction to a statement or situation and I always knew which one to pick for my character.

 
There's the problem.

I don't make emotional decisions.  My characters don't make emotional decisions.  We make reasoned decisions, and Mass Effect absolutely prevented that.

I had no problem deciphering what the outcome was going to be depending on the phrases I picked.

That you guessed and were right is not evidence that you knew.

This is exactly how empathy works.  People think they can detect each other's emotions, but they're wrong about that.  Even though when asked to describe others' emotional states, people are often correct.  But that's because people are mostly all the same and their projection of their own emotional reaction onto others looks like a mirror of emotions rather than just a projection.

I highly doubt that every decision you make in life is unaffected by emotions and highly reasoned.  I would doubt that you are in fact a human being if that were the case.

But like I said, whatever.  I never said you had to like the game or dialog system.  I even understand why you don't with your explanation, and it's definitely valid.  I just find your argument that it makes it not an RPG nonsensical.

Agree to disagree.  

On the topic of Jade Empire:  Loved that game as well, the writing was terrific as usual.  My only complaint was the relatively shallow combat, even compared to something like mass effect, which at least had biotics.  The pure action combat was a little too simplistic.  If I wanted an action-adventure game, I'd play Zelda, but for an RPg the combat has to be a little deeper than that.  Still, excellent game, played through it three times.

[Seagloom]

Panderfringe wrote...

Seagloom wrote...

Throw another vote into the "didn't
like Mass Effect" hat. I thought it was BioWare's weakest showing. Then
again I enjoyed Jade Empire immensely and that game garners substantial
criticism.

I think we can safely assume your opinion has been thoroughly invalidated.

(kidding, kidding. Though seriously, you liked JE better than ME?)

Much more so. Once again, I finished Mass Effect a single time. I completed Jade Empire at least twenty. Certainly more, but I stopped keeping track after that point. For those three months after its Xbox release I lived, breathed, and slept JE.

Yes, its take on beat em' up action games was as shallow as Mass Effect's was on shooters. However, everything else was superior. As Sylvius pointed out, it had a voiceless protagonist. I consider this a huge plus. Its music was superior. The art direction was vibrant and varied, and I found JE's universe more intriguing despite basically being a wuxia/chinese mythology hodge podge.

All the party members brimmed with personality. They were each amusing and useful in their own way. Their stories were all either humorous, interesting, or moving. Even the Black Whirlwind, a token comic relief character, had a dramatic plot arc that elevated him into more than a running gag.

JE also had real side quests. There were several once you reached the Imperial City. Some of them were good enough that I remember them fondly still; such as ousting the foreigner from the Scholar's Garden or Aishi the Mournful Blade's tale. Yes, Jade Empire wasn't as long as Mass Effect; but that was only because it wasn't crammed with filler content. None of those quests felt like a chore.

Honestly, in my opinion Jade Empre was KotOR-lite. Realtime, simpler combat instead of dice ruled; shorter length and less interaction with party members. It felt like a BioWare RPG with action elements rather than a shooter with BioWare trappings.

I would buy a sequel in a heartbeat.

Modifié par Seagloom, 11 décembre 2009 - 09:12 .

[Sylvius the Mad]

Seagloom wrote...

As Sylvius pointed out, it had a voiceless protagonist. I consider this a huge plus.

The voiceless protagonist solves a bunch of roleplaying problems.  The wheel in ME was only a problem because the actual words and actions used by Shepard were made explicit in the cinematic dialogue scenes.

Without the PC being voiced, those scenes (if they existed at all) would have to leave Shepard's actual words implicit, thus reducing ME's dialogue to a cimple keyword system, not unlike the classic Ultima games or the Elder Scrolls series.

That would have been fine.  I wouldn't have minded the dialogue wheel at all if the PC hadn't been voiced.  Then ME would have been an RPG, and a pretty good one.

I have asked for the ability to mute the PC's voice in ME2.  That would at least solve part of the problem (the writing still wouldn't really accommodate a voiceleess protagonist, since I'd need to see the written line I didn't choose in order to understand the context of NPC reponses, but at least I wouldn't have to be saying exactly those words).

RPGs live and die by their implicit content.  Explicit content carries far too high an opportunity cost.

Modifié par Sylvius the Mad, 12 décembre 2009 - 06:57 .

[Seagloom]

I partly agree. In general I prefer a voiceless character. Where I differ is that I dislike the Elder Scrolls approach of clicking a keyword. It makes for better role-playing, but also makes dialogue itself feel more impersonal; and as a result, less engaging. It's the same problem I have with fully voiced protagonists reached from another direction.

What I like about a voiceless protagonist is a writer can show me what my options are and there is no confusion as to what my choice makes the avatar on screen say to an NPC. It is also where I see some of the most memorable lines in a game. That's one reason I enjoy BioWare titles. Until Mass Effect their approach to dialogue struck a middle ground between the wide open role-playing of a sandbox game and a less interactive linear story. I much rather have an approach similar to say, Bloodlines than Oblivion.

Mass Effect's interactions robbed me of that because half the time I wasn't sure what Shepard was actually going to say. That, or Shepard overplayed her hand by saying something wildly confrontational and idiotic when the dialogue wheel implied something subtler. Maybe it wouldn't have been as bad if they had taken a cue from Wing Commander 3; where one could at least infer Blair's emotional state by hearing him voice the selected response cue. I realize WC3 was less an RPG than Mass Effect, but they used similar approaches to dialogue and in my opinion the former handled it slightly better. Not that I prefer the whole dialogue preview method of ME and WC3 to begin with.

About the only advantage I saw in a fully voiced protagonist was everyone referring to Shepard by surname instead of a catch-all nick such as Bhaalspawn, Grey Warden, Padawan, or another equally vague term. It may liven up cut scenes when a protagonist chimes in, but the loss in role-playing potential makes it too big a trade off.

Given a choice though, I would take an Ultima/Elder Scrolls method over Mass Effect's style as then it would feel more like an RPG than an interactive novel.

Modifié par Seagloom, 12 décembre 2009 - 05:29 .

[Rodro Lliv]

Has not played it yet. The limited activations killed my interest in it. I know they fixed that later, but I had other things to play by then.



Maybe when the whole trilogy is out, if they sell a pack with all the stuff, I will give it a chance.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Beerfish wrote...

Did it have class choices and advancement choices?  Yes
Did it have joinable npcs who had some background story?  Yes
Did it have a series of choices throughout the game?  No
Did it have some big choices at the end?  Not really

I've added my opinions in bold.