119 réponses à ce sujet

[Maria Caliban]

I'm sure Joe Abercromie will be pleased to learn he's now a science fiction writer.

[syllogi]

Maria Caliban wrote...

I'm sure Joe Abercromie will be pleased to learn he's now a science fiction writer.

Cannibalism giving people magical powers is a scientific fact.

[Reptilian Rob]

As a Sci-Fi writer and scholar it's a true travesty.

It would be like Stranger In A Strange Land ending with Valentine walking off into the Martian desert while holding a gigantic nuclear bomb that detonates, killing himself and destroying Mars.

No sense was made.

Also, Joe is a FANTASY writer not a Sci Fi writer. Two different genres, one akin to space magic. 

Modifié par Reptilian Rob, 27 mai 2012 - 07:13 .

[OH-UP-THIS!]

covertdrizzt wrote...

ReXspec wrote...

jules_vern18 wrote...

Best line in the article:

"By the time you get to the end of a hundred and fifty hours of gameplay, you shouldn't need things explained. You shouldn't be watching with furrowed brow thinking wha? You shouldn't be thinking at all. You should be feeling it."

This... A MILLION F*CKING TIMES THIS

yes a zillion times

Multiplied by a googleplex

[Garlador]

Very good read. I agree with most of the points.

Bioware, I don't want to CONTROL the story, but I would like to be INVOLVED in my Shepard's story all the way to the end. That player involvement ceased to exist in the finale, and the player involvement in the past was entirely negated.

As a game, there was no payoff. None at all.

[Festilence]

Thank you for posting this OP. An enjoyable, interesting read.

[StElmo]

Festilence wrote...

Thank you for posting this OP. An enjoyable, interesting read.

No problems!

I would also like to add, I think professional writers, even if they write Clone Wars novels, have more credibility then games journalists.

Modifié par StElmo, 27 mai 2012 - 11:18 .

[Obadiah]

Bah! It's not a critique of the story, it's just commentary on Bioware's response to create the EC.

[Destructorlio]

Any discussion of the ending/EC that does not mention IT as a possibility is, in my opinion, flawed.

[saracen16]

Wow. Abercrombie is an idiot. He thinks that the Catalyst is a DXM, when in fact he has already been alluded to from the beginning and from Thessia ("the Reapers are merely servants of the pattern, but not its master"). Put 2 and 2 together and you are introduced to the character, but he is not DXM because he isn't entirely new.

[dreamgazer]

StElmo wrote...

I would also like to add, I think professional writers, even if they write Clone Wars novels, have more credibility then games journalists.

More credibility? Sure. Maybe, depending on the mag and the author. An outside opinion can be more beneficial than the words of biased creators.

Should any ole science-fiction writer be seen as an authority on the correct and incorrect ways to experience and interpret science-fiction, just because they've had work published? No.

[RaenImrahl]

Meh. 

There's some interesting points, and I'm glad the OP linked the article, but it strikes me like going to the dentist for a back ache.  As I've mentioned before, print (or film) and video games are two different media; applying the conventions of one to the other doesn't work. 

Modifié par RaenImrahl, 27 mai 2012 - 11:58 .

[Raynulf]

RaenImrahl wrote...

Meh. 

There's some interesting points, and I'm glad the OP linked the article, but it strikes me like going to the dentist for a back ache.  As I've mentioned before, print (or film) and video games are two different media; applying the conventions of one to the other doesn't work. 

You are, of course, quite correct (Clarification: with regards to conventions of the media, which is what you are referring to): 

In print or film, the audience is a passive observer, whereas in games they are an active participant. This is something relatively new, and the media is largely still finding its feet as an art form - and I appreciate that games are typically more restrictive on the writer in what they can achieve in a climax because the player ultimately needs to play the climax, not see the climax.

It is also part of the issue I have with the ME3 ending: The game felt like it ended with Harbinger's beam. From then on, I was not playing, I was merely triggering the next part of the sequence to observe.

As a player, this is frustrating. As an analogy: if you had played through DA:O (all 70+ hours of it) and paused for a quick break and your friend ducked into the room and finished the game for you - then deleted all your saves so you couldn't.

Of course, this is just IMHO.

Modifié par Raynulf, 28 mai 2012 - 12:45 .

[Garlador]

RaenImrahl wrote...

Meh. 

There's some interesting points, and I'm glad the OP linked the article, but it strikes me like going to the dentist for a back ache.  As I've mentioned before, print (or film) and video games are two different media; applying the conventions of one to the other doesn't work. 

Not necessarily.

The narrative structure of a good story has endured through every single possible medium, from oral stories to written word to movies, television, and even MUSIC follows the templates, tempos, and beats of good storytelling.

And, make no mistake, Mass Effect is a story-driven game which, until the very end, did a fairly remarkable job of following the templates established by prior narrative masterpieces throughout centuries of literary endeavors.

No matter the medium that it takes place in, a good story still follows these transcendent rules of narrative flow, and Mass Effect 3, ESPECIALLY in its player-indifferent ending, cast aside all these rules and regulations to instead commit narrative sin after narrative sin.

There is no proper climax. There is no proper resolution. There is merely confusion. New characters introduced in the final few minutes, new twists thrown in at the last second, new conflicts brought to the front in the final moments, and even the grand finale peters out without context, explanation, or any sort of structural, narrative sense.

This is a game, yes, but even GAMES have their rules of proper storytelling, and Mass Effect 3 DID NOT DO THEM.

Modifié par Garlador, 28 mai 2012 - 12:27 .

[clos]

The article is full of great advice. Best read I've had in weeks regarding the crappiness of the ending. They hit on a lot of terrible points that not only include the ending but TIM's role in the entire game changing and others. Thumbs up on the article find, lately I haven't bothered to read anything because I'm waiting on EC to see if they kill the dying horse with a headshot or they manage to raise the franchise from death Lazarus-style.

All up to Bioware at this point.

[robarcool]

Lovely. It shows the point that many people don't like the ending because it's half baked without any sort of explanations, no closure, no happy ending choice and last, full of logical leaps.

[Reptilian Rob]

Raynulf wrote...

RaenImrahl wrote...

Meh. 

There's some interesting points, and I'm glad the OP linked the article, but it strikes me like going to the dentist for a back ache.  As I've mentioned before, print (or film) and video games are two different media; applying the conventions of one to the other doesn't work. 

You are, of course, quite correct (Clarification: with regards to conventions of the media, which is what you are referring to): 

In print or film, the audience is a passive observer, whereas in games they are an active participant. This is something relatively new, and the media is largely still finding its feet as an art form - and I appreciate that games are typically more restrictive on the writer in what they can achieve in a climax because the player ultimately needs to play the climax, not see the climax.

It is also part of the issue I have with the ME3 ending: The game felt like it ended with Harbinger's beam. From then on, I was not playing, I was merely triggering the next part of the sequence to observe.

As a player, this is frustrating. As an analogy: if you had played through DA:O (all 70+ hours of it) and paused for a quick break and your friend ducked into the room and finished the game for you - then deleted all your saves so you couldn't.

Of course, this is just IMHO.

This man has masterful tier knowledge of how storytelling works in our medium. 

Bravo. 

[Raynulf]

Dominus Solanum wrote...

Garlador wrote...

Not necessarily.

The narrative structure of a good story has endured through every single possible medium, from oral stories to written word to movies, television, and even MUSIC follows the templates, tempos, and beats of good storytelling.

And, make no mistake, Mass Effect is a story-driven game which, until the very end, did a fairly remarkable job of following the templates established by prior narrative masterpieces throughout centuries of literary endeavors.

No matter the medium that it takes place in, a good story still follows these transcendent rules of narrative flow, and Mass Effect 3, ESPECIALLY in its player-indifferent ending, cast aside all these rules and regulations to instead commit narrative sin after narrative sin.

There is no proper climax. There is no proper resolution. There is merely confusion. New characters introduced in the final few minutes, new twists thrown in at the last second, new conflicts brought to the front in the final moments, and even the grand finale peters out without context, explanation, or any sort of structural, narrative sense.

This is a game, yes, but even GAMES have their rules of proper storytelling, and Mass Effect 3 DID NOT DO THEM.

Had to chime in to fully agree with this. No matter what kind of media it is, a story is still a story. Book, film, game, the delivery might change (in a game's case the delivery is sometimes player determined) but it still remains a story at the end of the day. You can mutate it into a different medium and still have the important parts carry the same weight and impact. The ending to ME3 would have been just as bad if it were a graphic novel or a movie or a book.

Saying 'it was a game therefore no conventional rules apply' is a pretty lazy way out.

This might come across as nitpicky but...

RaenImrahl was refering to media conventions - as in, the conventions of what should be done and how in the video game media as opposed to film or print, as they are distinctly different. Narrative techniques that work in some do not in others, and while print and film (arguably derived from theatre) are very established media, video games are new territory.

In this regard: No, an author (print) should not be considered a 'learned' source in regards to video game convention of narrative techniques.

That said, that is in reference to narrative technique, not genre conventions or story structure, the latter of which is what Garlador was referring to (and I agree with).

In these regards: The authors the article is quoting are indeed relevant. The conventions of the sci-fi genre apply (e.g. "Is it good science?") regardless of media, as do the conventions of story structure. What changes between film, print and game is not the definition of science fiction nor the principles of how stories are structured*, but rather, how these stories are conveyed to the audience/player.

*And stories have been told with the same fundamental structure for millennia among civilisations across the globe, because it's based in how we (as humans) think and feel. 

[StElmo]

Obadiah wrote...

Bah! It's not a critique of the story, it's just commentary on Bioware's response to create the EC.

Read it all, there are two pages.

[lillitheris]

hoodaticus wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Can you just summerize it for us?

You mean reprint the article in cuneiform, the written language of the ancient Summerians?

It should be possible; cuneiform is part of the UTF32 encoding, and this is an international site.  But I don't think it works if they use UTF16.

Nothing to do with anything, but cuneiform is part of Unicode. Unicode can be encoded to bits in various different ways, the big ones being UTF-8, UTF-16 and UTF-32.

[StElmo]

RaenImrahl wrote...

Meh. 

There's some interesting points, and I'm glad the OP linked the article, but it strikes me like going to the dentist for a back ache.  As I've mentioned before, print (or film) and video games are two different media; applying the conventions of one to the other doesn't work. 

Have you heard of Shakespeare? He didn't write films you know, but funnily enough, theory from his plays are applied to films.

All narrative has overarching and underlying principles.

[StElmo]

dreamgazer wrote...

StElmo wrote...

I would also like to add, I think professional writers, even if they write Clone Wars novels, have more credibility then games journalists.

More credibility? Sure. Maybe, depending on the mag and the author. An outside opinion can be more beneficial than the words of biased creators.

Should any ole science-fiction writer be seen as an authority on the correct and incorrect ways to experience and interpret science-fiction, just because they've had work published? No.

just IMHO, not trying to be an objective ivory tower god here, lol. Just my opinion, based on what I have witnessed from games media recently.

[mauro2222]

hoodaticus wrote...

David7204 wrote...

Can you just summerize it for us?

You mean reprint the article in cuneiform, the written language of the ancient Summerians?

It should be possible; cuneiform is part of the UTF32 encoding, and this is an international site.  But I don't think it works if they use UTF16.

I've spent 15 min laughing with this comment, hahaha

[StElmo]

clos wrote...

The article is full of great advice. Best read I've had in weeks regarding the crappiness of the ending. They hit on a lot of terrible points that not only include the ending but TIM's role in the entire game changing and others. Thumbs up on the article find, lately I haven't bothered to read anything because I'm waiting on EC to see if they kill the dying horse with a headshot or they manage to raise the franchise from death Lazarus-style.

All up to Bioware at this point.

haha, I just googled Mass Effect 3 and hit "news" and found it, sometimes it's a nice little thing to do I find