27765 réponses à ce sujet

[Ghost43]

IsaacShep wrote...

JamieCOTC wrote...

And a major defender of the auto-dialogue.

I still wonder if they actually believe it was a good design decision or they're just trying to convince themselves and us that it was but in reality time constraints combined with huge amount of variables and replacement characters simply forced them to make cuts on number of dialogue options. Can't tell.

That twitter post reads more like an explanation, rather than an argument, to me. He's not wrong either, though I'm not sure if it was worth it.

I think this thread is very close to getting derailed.

[ElitePinecone]

Ghost43 wrote...

I'm curious how much Omega's price point affected sales for it.

Ditto. I suppose the company had internal projections of sales (I'd guess it's how they set things like the budget, timeframe and price point in the first place) and it'd be interesting to see if those were met. The explanation for the higher price did strike me as a little unconvincing, unless it was because Omega had taken a longer than usual to actually develop.  

[Ghost43]

Yeah, Omega's the one DLC in the series I haven't bought, and likely won't buy. It's a combination of that price point, and it seeming to be less relevant to the series as a whole. Seems kind of disconnected from the main game, story wise, which was fun for Kasumi, but ME2 was very episodic, so it fit right in, especially at 7 dollars. Also, Kasumi is with you for the whole game, and impacts the end mission. If Nyreen had been a permenent squadmate, I might've take the plunge, but as is... ehhh.

Modifié par Ghost43, 10 janvier 2013 - 05:03 .

[shepskisaac]

Ghost43 wrote...

He's not wrong either, though I'm not sure if it was worth it.

Wasn't worth at all. And I'm not against autodialogued characters in general, I'm against suddenly making a character autodialogued in 3rd part of the trilogy. It's just design inconsistiency. Why is my avatar suddenly opening his mouth unprompted and saying/doing things that don't fit him/her after 2 games of NOT doing it?

[Ghost43]

I would say the standard of writing is consistently better than the previous 2, taken aback as I was at the beginning by the amount of AD, but hey, that's just me.

[devSin]

StElmo wrote...

Why do people love patrick weekes so much? Im not being rude I just wanna know - I don't really know the writers on name terms.

I think it's just a combination of him being vocal and known.

John Dombrow is the one who tore it up in ME3, writing Tuchanka and Garrus and Javik (we just don't mention Thessia). But Patrick is not a bad writer, and he's got a novel under his belt now that was pretty well received.

But the DA team has excellent writers, including the two that have been with BioWare from near the start (actually, I think Luke was the first writer ever hired under that title). Mary and Sheryl are made of pure awesome, and Jennifer can write some great stories. I'm not familiar enough with Tonia, but I bet she's swell, and I think Sylvia is going to do great.

chrisutd wrote...

PW's cult status among BSN is attributed largely to his writing of Mordin/genophage arc in Mass 3 - it is a favourite here.

Except that he didn't write it. It's a huge misconception that gets repeated everywhere—John Dombrow wrote Tuchanka (including Sur'Kesh), although Patrick helped to get the dialogue with Mordin right.

Patrick wrote Rannoch (with help from Sylvia—she wrote the side missions and a big chunk of Legion) and Tali (also Grissom Academy and Cronos, along with other various characters and dialogues).

CR121691 wrote...

Also wrote Leviathan.

I believe he said that Cathleen and Jay did a lot of the writing for Leviathan, and I think John was the lead, not Patrick.

ElitePinecone wrote...
Ditto. I suppose the company had internal projections of sales (I'd guess it's how they set things like the budget, timeframe and price point in the first place) and it'd be interesting to see if those were met. The explanation for the higher price did strike me as a little unconvincing, unless it was because Omega had taken a longer than usual to actually develop.

It would be interesting to see, but I know we never will.

The marketplace sales ranking seems to indicate that ME3 DLC may be underperforming (though that list is relative, not absolute, so you have to check yourself if you want to know the actual ranks between all the DLC), but we won't ever truly be able to find out whether they sold well or not (especially with the price differences—they'd only have to sell a single copy of $15 DLC for every 3 copies of $5 DLC for it to have performed identical to the cheaper one).

Though From Ashes probably made all the money they'd ever need to keep producing DLC, it looks like. The 40-60% attach rate (I don't remember the exact number) that Fernando revealed for it is just stupid high (and the numbers don't lie—so-called Day 1 DLC is here to stay).

Modifié par devSin, 10 janvier 2013 - 06:06 .

[Grubas]

Also there was his Statement regarding the endings... About Mac and Casey behind closed Doors, and Not taking any Feedback from the writers.

[xsdob]

I am one of the few people who like the autodialouge, because my input in what shepard says is still taken into account, and so I still feel that I am in control of the story. I also like what it allows for, such as a more emotionally expressive character and a more consistent one, so that schizophrenia shepard becomes much harder to do, IMO.

But I do feel they went overboard with it, and could have had a few more places where the player character got to make dialouge decisions, even if just to humor them.

[shepskisaac]

xsdob wrote...

I also like what it allows for, such as a more emotionally expressive character

Which contradicts what you said you liked - having an input. More emotionally expressive character in ME3 equaled forced, pre-defined emotions whether you thought it fit your Shep or not. Which in turn questions how does it make the character more consitient as you said. Because it doesn't. It only makes your Shep more consistient if you role-play an emotional Shep.

And I don't get how no-autodialogue doesn't allow highly emotionally expressive character. Option A - stoic response, option B - emotional response. Problem solved and people can pick what they like, not just watch predefined reaction.

And in the end it still comes down to the fact that we're talking a character that wasn't autodialogued in previous 2 games and is suddenly being handled differently in ME3. If they wanted to try autodialogue, they should've waited till new character in ME4 or DA3, not do it with Shepard.

Modifié par IsaacShep, 10 janvier 2013 - 10:44 .

[drakenashura]

xsdob wrote...

I am one of the few people who like the autodialouge, because my input in what shepard says is still taken into account, and so I still feel that I am in control of the story. I also like what it allows for, such as a more emotionally expressive character and a more consistent one, so that schizophrenia shepard becomes much harder to do, IMO.

But I do feel they went overboard with it, and could have had a few more places where the player character got to make dialouge decisions, even if just to humor them.

I quite enjoyed the auto-dialogue parts of ME3.  For me I felt like it added a bit more depth and immersion to the story and it also acted as a good way of giving characters a life of their own. (by that I mean we got to see their quirks, their humour etc).  I loved a lot of the Comander/EDI stuff because of how funny it was - you just wouldnt get the same effect and flow if you were having to stop/start the conversations all the time.

It was also nice seeing a lot of auto-dialogue between members of your ship as well.  ME1/2 frustrated me purely because your characters never moved around the ship, never interacted with each other etc (which is just silly all things considered).  The auto-dialogue gave a lot more life to the ship and I would hope any future games would keep this up (if not more so).

Same way I like a lot of the auto-dialogue you hear on the citadel etc.  People going about their own lives - it adds depth to the story etc.  You dont need to sit and listen to it, but if your like me its their if you want it.

I would agree that auto-dialogue should be used more carefully though.  As much as I enjoyed it there were times you felt like it took away from conversation options.  Its a tough balance to find.

[shepskisaac]

Autodialogue between non-PC NPCs is not a problem at all. It's positive actually, it only makes the characters feel more alive if say, Garrus & Liara just start talking to each other without having to "force" them to do it. It's a problem though when Shep is involved, has forced emotions on him, forced pre-defined responses.

[xsdob]

IsaacShep wrote...

simfamSP wrote...

I also like what it allows for, such as a more emotionally expressive character

Which contradicts what you said you liked - having an input. More emotionally expressive character in ME3 equaled forced, pre-defined emotions whether you thought it fit your Shep or not. Which in turn questions how does it make the character more consitient as you said. Because it doesn't. It only makes your Shep more consistient if you role-play an emotional Shep.

And I don't get how no-autodialogue doesn't allow highly emotionally expressive character. Option A - stoic response, option B - emotional response. Problem solved and people can pick what they like, not just watch predefined reaction.

And in the end it still comes down to the fact that we're talking a character that wasn't autodialogued in previous 2 games and is suddenly being handled differently in ME3. If they wanted to try autodialogue, they should've waited till new character in ME4 or DA3, not do it with Shepard.

I do much better working with some constraints that just getting free reign, and I liked ME3's dialouge much more than ME1's wooden delivery 24/7 cause we can't know what emotions the players want to express. I prefer a shepard who does some of the thinking, that way I feel he's alive and not a robot wearing a shepard skin suit who can't ever show any thinking outside of what someone else tells him to do. I like being a guide for shepard, not controlling all aspects, but chiming in to pick dialouge and actions for him sometimes, and letting him do his own thing in others.

When you have all the dialouge options open, it removes the ability of the VA to give actual feelings behind his lines, because you need to make sure something isn't conveyed in the preformance that might go against what the player wanted. Every line must be neutral or shouted, with no real actual sense of personality behind them.

Personally I feel DA2 did it best, where the options you picked slowly molded and affected hawkes tone of voice when talking, and gave a much better sense of continuity in the character.

Like I said, ME3 went overboard with the autodialouge, but that doesn't make autodialouge the freaking antichrist of rpg's or video games. It makes the story feel more, alive I guess would be the word, much more like viewing an actual story than a series of exposition points.

That's just my take on it, and I know it's not a sentiment that most others feel similarly about. So, I guess all that can be said is I feel this way, you feel that way, let's just leave it at that and not get into a fight.

Modifié par xsdob, 10 janvier 2013 - 07:53 .

[Grubas]

Well then give him the choice to show emotions. This game is supposed to be about choices,
if i feel like crying for my LI then give me the choice to do so, but dont force me to care.

When this series started the devs promised to only lay a basic frame for shepards character, they promised to leave the finetuning to the player.
Now im forced into emotions... am I watching a movie or something?

This is like forcing Shepard to have a LI at all cost, evenso some prefered a non-romance playthrough. And not any LI, but a specific LI. Shutting of all other romanceoptions. 
And then the devs come up: "We found that letting the player choose would create to many variables, despite what we said before, we decided to cut down on the workload." But this is what makes this series stand out. 

Modifié par Grubas, 10 janvier 2013 - 08:18 .

[xsdob]

Why is watching an interactive movie a bad thing? That sounds like something that should have been strived for, a film in which the person is immersed to the highest levels, with quality actors and situations giving oppurtunities for the players to react to certain scenarios.

You know what, never mind. I don't want to get into this, not here and not now, and especially not with the chance of this thread getting locked.

Let's all just forget this whole thing and move on now that the tweets are coming in again.

[Nerevar-as]

The best emotional moment from Shepard was in the cabin reunion in LotSB, and we were the ones deciding how s/he felt. There were also some other moments during ME1 & 2. In 3 we are told what Shepard feels, we have a lot less input.

I can´t help thinking that in making things easier for themselves, devs have forgotten to take into account what people liked in previous games, not just what they didn´t.

[AnubisOnly]

Well said Nerevar-as, but this is looong OT now...

[TheWerdna]

StElmo wrote...

Savber100 wrote...

Dragon Age: Inquistion just got a lot more interesting with Patrick Weekes' inclusion while Mass Effect 3 a lot less so. ;P

Why do people love patrick weekes so much? Im not being rude I just wanna know - I don't really know the writers on name terms.



DA team would do pretty well already, so another writer won't hurt, but I think DA2 showed very good writing skills, even if the game itself was rushed.

He wrote Mordin and Tali in ME2 and ME3 (who are both popular and well written charatcers), and I beleive (though I may be wrong on this) wrote Garrus during ME2 (but not in ME3)

He also wrote the Rannoch plotline (aka, one of the the two actually awesome parts of ME3), helped with and did a bit of the Genophage plot (mostly due to being Mordin's writer), wrote the Chronos Base mission up the "Shepard, you are in my chair" line (everything after that was Walters), and wrote Lair of the Shadow Broker.

[shepskisaac]

quoting error

[Veganterror]

This thread is completely derailed now. Can we try and get it back on track?

[ZeCollectorDestroya]

The best emotional scene is nothing.

My Shepard wouldn't give a **** about anything.

[Oni Changas]

Why do people love patrick weekes so much? Im not being rude I just wanna know - I don't really know the writers on name terms.

Aside from the aforementioned writing, he was also practically the only member of the SP team that spoke with fans plainly and directly AND the infamous Penny Arcade post during the deepest part of The Sh*tstorm. Then there's the old "Patrick Weekes is the deadliest SOB in space!" thread.