The Angry One wrote...
LinksOcarina wrote...
As for the neutrality, name me one piece of dialouge that is neutral about the reapers. And I mean in the whole trilogy. Or even better, name me a piece of dialouge that can be seen as neutral for the major events of the game; the loyalty missions of Mass Effect 2 as an example, which pretty much tie into the ally gathering in Mass Effect 3 in a number of ways at times. The sad truth is, the important events in Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 never had neutral options to them. So yeah, that bit is lost in role-playing, but that bit also makes no sense in the narrative that is presented. So to say it was abused in Mass Effect 3 is honestly somewhat disengenuous to me, because it makes sense because of the part of the story you are in.
Won't argue everything, but will focus on this. I'll name one.
The Council decision in ME1.
- Save the Ascension
- Focus on Sovereign
- Let the Council die
Major decision. Reaper related. Affects the galaxy.
Option 1 saves them. Option 2 and 3 leads to the same outcome - it kills them. However, option 2 is that of the pragmatist, whereas 3 is that of the renegade.
It's important for roleplay. It's the difference between someone focused solely on the threat at hand, and someone who wants to see the arrogant jerks die.
As for past history, that is all conjecture on Maxis's part, and while you are correct that past events can happen again, but it does not mean it will happen. As I said numerous times, BioWare as a name brand and as a company has GROWN under EA over the past five years. Only one studio is currently suffering layoffs, and they have five studios up and running I believe, each working on a different project, incudling Mass Effect 3.
So I am doubting past events will occur this time.
Yeah. Maxis grew too. Spore was one of the most anticipated games of it's time. Then it became a revolting joke, and Maxis a company nobody took seriously again. All due to EA.
That example though is the same thing as the ending to Mass Effect 3, since the outcome is the same with one difference being who is still standing. And as to the point of neutrality being important for role-playing, one can say its the neutral option, but in reality that is the renegade option to me, wheras the third option should never have existed.
And since it leads to the same conclusion, the only difference is how you, the player, feels in selecting an option. As important as that is, it doesn't help when a narrative is being told in-game like this. If the game had real role-playing to it, there would have been two more options at least; abandoning the citadel because you thought it was lost, or joining up with Saren because you thought he was right. But role-playing sadly is supposed to be unpredictable, which is why any RPG game made on a PC or console will never be as varied or thrilling as table-top stuff.
ETA: It is also why games like Skyrim are more popular than story-based light RPGs like Mass Effect 3, Skyrim has the open ended experience where you can do what you want without much consequence, but also with little narrative or pathos to care either. The power fantasy mentality of full control, vs the story-driven mentality with some control is hard to reconcile sometimes. So I agree, it can be a detrimient, but it also doesn't mean its necessary either. It again comes to balance issues too, and considering Mass effect 3 and the story it was trying to tell, having neutrality as an option every time would be difficult to implement since the battle lines were drawn already.
As for Maxis...Spore originally had a realistic look to it, but the teams at Maxis wanted to make it more "cutesy" at points, It also had 8 phaes of life including an underwater phase that was cut, and changed down to only 5 phases with simplified gameplay elements, and numerous other features were also involved, including the Sporepedia, which is the only feature I think they got right in the game personally. All of this was in-house at Maxis and Will Wright's decision-making. The only thing EA did was delay the game three times, as far as we know. The rest of spores' problems were due to Maxis, not EA.
Modifié par LinksOcarina, 23 mai 2012 - 06:36 .
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