288 réponses à ce sujet

[mauro2222]

Seboist wrote...

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Seboist wrote...

Cthulhu42 wrote...

I would think that the incredibly inconsistent portrayals of things like Cerberus and the geth from game to game would have made this obvious to most people.

And with Liara changing personas more often than a main character in a "Persona" game.

Oh, yes, from naive archeologist to ruthless information broker.  Not a jarring shift at all.

There was already a jarring shift in ME1. She goes from being a socially inept archeologist bookworm hermit that doesn't even comprehend humor(lol) and has no sign of any combat training to some badass Asari commando that's fit to be in a special forces squad composed of battle hardened military veterans like Shepard, Wrex,Garrus and both the human squadmates. 

Just give them time, let's see what kind of new set of abilities is going to pull of her ass.

Modifié par mauro2222, 08 juillet 2012 - 10:20 .

[tanisha__unknown]

J.K. Rowling would disagree. She planned the overall plot of the Harry potter series, seven books, and that was likely more than the events in the ME series.

[Renmiri1]

Sarevok Synder wrote...

Well it was always pretty obvious that Starbrat was a last minute ass pull. I mean seriously. was there ever any doubt?

None whatsoever

[ld1449]

comrade gando wrote...

ld1449 wrote...

comrade gando wrote...

thank baby jesus he's not writing the DLC for the game. maybe the more sensible writers can repair the damage he has done through DLC.

Lol with the ending as is? It'll be like repairing the plumbing while the roof of the house burns.

for the sake of the series they HAVE to do something. it's one disgrace of an ending reserved only for the most mediocre of sci fi games. completely tarnishes the experience right at the very end. they have to fix it.

I agree. And I'm sure that many of the inteligent writers with real integrity on that team do as well. Unfortunately its not in their hands. They've been handed crap and now have to make a sculpture out of the pile while their bosses count cash and try to figure out if its cheaper to ignore us or give into us one more time.

This is why its important for the people who still do not agree with the ending even after the extended cut to keep posting here, keep making petitions, drives surveys and anything else they can think of to get the message across. They should know that we WANT to keep this universe in our minds as one of the best and that we want to keep supporting the game as a whole and that we care about this universe as much as they do, if not more because we get to experience it on a purely emotional level, not a technical one as the writer needs to (when they actually plan their **** out<_<)

I am 100% sure that most of the writing team probably saw the original endings and were just as pissed as we were. It takes A LOT of anger to say on the internet just how much a co-worker, one you've worked with for years and have known for longer most likely, has screwed up. And I'm sure Mr. Weekes feelings were not limited to himself but were infact feelings shared by most if not the entirety of the writing team.

A friend of mine who is a programer told me it would be impossible to fully retcon the starchild. To him, the EC ultimately proved that the coding was in place for most of the game to carry some measure of the decisions that you made (which is why the Starchild's dialogue changes based on your EMS and wether your are Paragon or Renegade) Otherwise it would have been buggy as hell and would have needed a lot more than the three months they used to make it seem legit. Completely retconning him out of existance could have caused more complications (game breaking ones) than they would have solved.

In light of this Casey and Mac's BS about how they couldn't write that story is basically the truth, They LITTERALLY CANT and they just couldn't up and come out and explain all this about the coding because then that would have basically proven their carelessness (and stupidity) that the company has been trying to deny up and down since day one.

I'm still angry that they tried to Pass off the EC as so much hard work when it wasn't fully compressed to its real size (1.2-1.3 gigs) and I'm still irritated that the starchild hologram was not replaced with harbinger (which it could have been since all they would need is to put "another skin" over existing coding)

But hey, like I said I'm pretty sure most of the authors think its crap. But its ultimately up to their bosses which is why people still need to get on here and complain as loudly as possible and express that they want to keep buying DLC but only as long as this is fixed.

[NedPepper]

Talking about this from a writing perspective, don't give me the whole "every great writer plans out every little plot point and then writes it." It's just not true. You CAN try and do it, but 9 times out of 10, the story will take a life of its own and change anyway. One of the biggest missteps I know about some writers is the obsessive need to over plot before they actually sit down to write. You often times end up trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

It's good to know where you're going, exactly as Mac said. You put those stakes in the ground, and then give yourself plenty of wiggle room. It's like writers who try and force the theme into a story where it doesn't really fit. If you tell the story, the theme takes care of itself.

That being said, thematically, ME3 seems very much the opposite of what Mac is saying. It seems like they had a theme they HAD to stick to and it ended up feeling a little heavy handed and forced. They tried to manipulate the story to fit their defined theme, and the result was an uneven experience. Then again, I don't know what it's like to write by committee, and that's pretty much how video games and even TV and films are made. And to be honest, the whole cliche of too many cooks in the kitchen applies to a lot of bad films, shows and games. But you also can get brilliant work out of this writing style as sucessful games and TV shows have shown. Bioware have done it themselves. But I digress.

[M0keys]

"Maybe this isn't how a lot of writers do it, but even if I don't have the entire story in my head from the get-go, I generally have a fundamental beginning, middle, and end in my brain before I even dare writing my stories for real. These things do develop and change over time as characters dictate better courses for the plot, but I have to have the bones in the right order to have a proper skeleton. It all fills out from there. Seat of your pants, multi-person writing leads to a lot of bad conclusions. LOST, Battlestar Galactica, ME3, etc... Absolutely zero endings planned from conception or even partially through, and they end up writing some gobbledy ****** because they didn't have time to connect themes and characters to a solid, thoroughly-developed ending concept. LOST appealed to some people, I suppose, but the others are drastic offenders.

That's just my take, though. But seriously, have some idea. People expect coherence. And if you're on a deadline, you have so little time to screw around and still come out with a good conclusion." -Grub

Modifié par M0keys, 08 juillet 2012 - 10:42 .

[xsdob]

I fear this will start an anti-writing style trend with gamers, like when the creators used art as a defense suddenly there came a resurgence of the conservative dismissal of games as art, but from gamers.

Calm down, and at least consider that writing things as they go is not inherently evil, just like games being art is not evil either.

[Ryzaki]

Seboist wrote...

Cthulhu42 wrote...

I would think that the incredibly inconsistent portrayals of things like Cerberus and the geth from game to game would have made this obvious to most people.

And with Liara changing personas more often than a main character in a "Persona" game.

As a lover of Persona this made me laugh. Hard.

[Grimwick]

xsdob wrote...

I fear this will start an anti-writing style trend with gamers, like when the creators used art as a defense suddenly there came a resurgence of the conservative dismissal of games as art, but from gamers.

Calm down, and at least consider that writing things as they go is not inherently evil, just like games being art is not evil either.

Well no. I believe they [the more mature games] are a form of art as any narrative is. the problem lies in using that as a defence when they are selling a product. If you design a product for sale then you have to abide by that fact. You can't turn around and say deal with it if the majority think what they bought is trash and what they were advertised is gold.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

mauro2222 wrote...

Seboist wrote...

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Seboist wrote...

Cthulhu42 wrote...

I would think that the incredibly inconsistent portrayals of things like Cerberus and the geth from game to game would have made this obvious to most people.

And with Liara changing personas more often than a main character in a "Persona" game.

Oh, yes, from naive archeologist to ruthless information broker.  Not a jarring shift at all.

There was already a jarring shift in ME1. She goes from being a socially inept archeologist bookworm hermit that doesn't even comprehend humor(lol) and has no sign of any combat training to some badass Asari commando that's fit to be in a special forces squad composed of battle hardened military veterans like Shepard, Wrex,Garrus and both the human squadmates. 

Just give them time, let's see what kind of new set of abilities is going to pull of her ass.

Killing your mother in self defense would have a profound impact on a person. Sorry to disagree with you. People seem to just brush this off and think that a person should just go back to business as usual. She got a lot of OJT with Shepard going after Sovereign, and you do a mission like that, you're never the same afterward. She saw horrors that most people who are "bookworms" never see.

She's highly intelligent and she saw there's more to life than just art and culture. That stuff became a hobby. She needed to earn a living, and she wanted to get to the bottom of this reaper business. That led to the Shadow Broker, Collectors, and Cerberus.

And remember she is 1/4 Krogan.

But haters gotta hate.

People do change in real life too.

[savionen]

xsdob wrote...

I fear this will start an anti-writing style trend with gamers, like when the creators used art as a defense suddenly there came a resurgence of the conservative dismissal of games as art, but from gamers.

Calm down, and at least consider that writing things as they go is not inherently evil, just like games being art is not evil either.

It is however, an inherently bad strategy for quality writing.

[Jadebaby]

this makes me sick

[macrocarl]

It'd be weird if they planned it out 100% from the beginning any way. You got to see what you have and then make choices of what to include to wrap it up. There's so many choices in the 1st 2 games it makes sense to see what you got and then work it out from there. I do that as a painter. I throw in a bunch of stuff and then decide what to keep. It's not the only way to do something but by doing so you aren't forced to just execute a plan. When you just go through the motions it can be stifling and rigid feeling. As an artist I have lots of creative friends, some are writers and they create stories and poems in the same way.
About Star Wars, planning for 9 movies (yuck) is not a really great idea. I mean look at the new ones. They are terrible and boring.

[ld1449]

Jade8aby88 wrote...

this makes me sick

I know you feel this!

[CDRSkyShepard]

Oh, it's very blatantly obvious they had no idea how they were going to write the entire metaplot.

The mere fact the Crucible exists is proof of that. They had no idea how they were going to have Shepard defeat the Reapers, so they gave us a Solution-In-A-Box.

Also, there are many neglected, hanging plot threads at the end of the story. They didn't wrap up everything nicely. By contrast, JK Rowling wrapped up pretty much everything in the Harry Potter story at the end of Deathly Hallows, and no plot detail goes unrecognized and unwoven into the tapestry of the greater story arc. It is widely known that she had parts of that book written before she even released books 4, 5, and 6.

Another thing to consider is how weakly ME3's metaplot is connected to ME2's. We still have no idea what relevance the human proto-Reaper or the Collectors' sole focus on humans before the Reapers even arrived had to the entire trilogy. That makes ME2 seem like nothing more than a distraction from the rest of the story. The proto-Reaper, the nature of the Collectors' existence, the dark energy stuff...all of ME2 gave me, at least, the sense that it was one big foreshadowing story. Yet, none of this was addressed in ME3.

Then we have three ending choices that very closely resemble those of another game. Looks like BioWare was not only running out of time, but ideas, as well.

Modifié par CDRSkyShepard, 08 juillet 2012 - 11:05 .

[Atakuma]

Well yeah, This should have been obvious after ME2.

[M0keys]

CDRSkyShepard wrote...

Oh, it's very blatantly obvious they had no idea how they were going to write the entire metaplot.

The mere fact the Crucible exists is proof of that. They had no idea how they were going to have Shepard defeat the Reapers, so they gave us a Solution-In-A-Box.

how could they not know? it's whatever you want it to be

it's a "choose your own adventure" story, so let players choose how they want to beat the reapers.. be creative

do they get talked down? do they get blown away? who knows, might as well explore possibilities and make it fun to play

[CDRSkyShepard]

xsdob wrote...

I fear this will start an anti-writing style trend with gamers, like when the creators used art as a defense suddenly there came a resurgence of the conservative dismissal of games as art, but from gamers.

Calm down, and at least consider that writing things as they go is not inherently evil, just like games being art is not evil either.

But it is lazy.

Winging it in writing shows lack of forethought to how you want your story to go. That's why you always do a pre-write before even beginning to pen your story. You determine what plot points will occur, when, and how they forward your story to its conclusion. Have a conclusion thought out early on, so that you can lead everything up to it.

Sure, having a super-rigid structure and idea is not ideal - one should always be flexible to incorporate new ideas into the work if inspiration strikes. However, that doesn't mean you shouldn't at least have some idea of where you're going...otherwise you're going to meander off into something that might not make sense for the rest of the story, somewhere you might not have meant to go. That isn't a terrible thing, either, necessarily...but it is bad when you completely lose sight of the original vision because of it.

[Ticonderoga117]

M0keys wrote...

CDRSkyShepard wrote...

Oh, it's very blatantly obvious they had no idea how they were going to write the entire metaplot.

The mere fact the Crucible exists is proof of that. They had no idea how they were going to have Shepard defeat the Reapers, so they gave us a Solution-In-A-Box.

how could they not know? it's whatever you want it to be

it's a "choose your own adventure" story, so let players choose how they want to beat the reapers.. be creative

do they get talked down? do they get blown away? who knows, might as well explore possibilities and make it fun to play

But that would mean they would actually have to, like, work at it.

[CDRSkyShepard]

M0keys wrote...

CDRSkyShepard wrote...

Oh, it's very blatantly obvious they had no idea how they were going to write the entire metaplot.

The mere fact the Crucible exists is proof of that. They had no idea how they were going to have Shepard defeat the Reapers, so they gave us a Solution-In-A-Box.

how could they not know? it's whatever you want it to be

it's a "choose your own adventure" story, so let players choose how they want to beat the reapers.. be creative

do they get talked down? do they get blown away? who knows, might as well explore possibilities and make it fun to play

Ah yes, they should let players choose how to defeat the Reapers, but they don't. You have to use the Crucible. There is no option for a supervirus, or conventional war, or something else.

They gave us a miracle device that would defeat the Reapers once we figured out how to use it. Turns out there's a few ways you can use it, but it's still the same superweapon approach.

[djarlaks10]

Jinx1720 wrote...

J.K. Rowling would disagree. She planned the overall plot of the Harry potter series, seven books, and that was likely more than the events in the ME series.

And George Martin would disagree with her. Personally, I would take A Song of Ice and Fire over Harry Potter any day of week.
Actually, there are several ways to write a story with no way being the absolute best. You just write the way it's most suitable for you, so this news is no big deal.

[M0keys]

djarlaks10 wrote...

Jinx1720 wrote...

J.K. Rowling would disagree. She planned the overall plot of the Harry potter series, seven books, and that was likely more than the events in the ME series.

And George Martin would disagree with her. Personally, I would take A Song of Ice and Fire over Harry Potter any day of week.
Actually, there are several ways to write a story with no way being the absolute best. You just write the way it's most suitable for you, so this news is no big deal.

george martin still basically knows where he wants to go though doesn't he? doesn't have it all planned out but he does have an intention, and a point

[NedPepper]

Mastone wrote...

Biotic Sage wrote...

Vox Draco wrote...

That's not surprising at all. I am not a professional writer, but I doubt that you have a full story in your mind that long from the start. A story often grows as you tell it, things that seemed logical at first become less logical when they are written and spoken by the characters and so forth...but that only counts for details.

The initial conflict and how it should be solved? That should have been there all along...

But the best proof it was never planned in detail how the trilogy would go is simply Mass Effect 2...a mostly pointless plot that didn't push the story arc that much forward, introduced a somewhat new enemy and tons of new characters I hardly cared for...

Its like Star Wars. Lucas always claimed he had the full story in his mind for 9 movies, but I doubt it was fleshed out in his head. I think the version of the prequels he had thirty years ago might have been way better because it probably didn't focus too much on tiny kids and selling toys to them, but I enter the realm of speculation, it is dark and evil here, I should go

Very much agree, I think you were writing your post at the same time I was writing mine.  The OP is trying to point to this interview as a disgusting skeleton in Bioware's closet or smear on their credibility, whereas I just see it as, "Yeah, it makes sense they focused in on one installment at a time."  I doubt very much that anybody who has written a multiple installment series had it entirely planned out from the start.

I agree with Vox Draco on ME2 not being that interesting and is seriously lacking in the storytelling category, I think the same of ME3, ME 1 still is king.
With regards to not planning a story I think you ( Biotic Sage)are wrong;
Lucas didn't plan ( or somewhat plan) his story so it sucked, JK Rowling planned hers and whattayaknow the story was good, Tolkien planned LOTR 1 to 3 ( in the main lines) and whattayaknow..it was good.
Saying not having some form of planning when telling a story is a good thing sounds ridiculous to me, sure leave stuff open to develop itself, but make sure you have a solid framework to work on( and stick to it)
Also setting your priorities straight is important too, focus on storytelling ...or multiplayer, focus on RPG elements and gameplay or on polishing graphics, streamlining action elements,  focus on ME2+3....or invest in KOTOR online etc etc.
Bioware failed on most accounts and I hope they are licking their wounds and come back humble and not with the same disdain for their customers as they have done recently

Stephen King does not plot ahead.  Ever.  He believes that writing is a kind magic.  Are you saying he's never written a great book?  I'd bring up George Martin, but most people would say that he's currently ruining his story.  But he also believes stories tell themselves.  And if you don't allow for organic change, you can end up LOSING your story.

Did JK Rowling plot every little detail.  Every character arc, every little decision?  A lot of writers write an outline, especially for a big story, (although again, many writers will tell you they throw their outline away after the first book, because the story begins to organically evolve when it is put onto the page), but it's not like it's the ONLY way to write.  And even if JK Rowling told you she planned EVERYTHING before hand, I'd actually say she's lying or exaggerating greatly.  (The horcrux thing?  From the very beginning?  I dunno about that.) 

I do believe her when she says she knew her ending.  For some writers, they see the ending and the beginning, a start and a destination, and go from there.  That's not unheard of.  And I've heard JK Rowling describe the process of writing Harry Potter as this.

And Tolkien had a very methodical brain.  He had maps and ideas and it all feels preordained.  But it's also why some of his characters are absolutely lifeless.  Name the dwarves in The Hobbit and list their detailed personalities and character traits and flaws.  .  If you can do it, I'd be impressed. Tolkien preferred archetypes over characters  And there are times where Tolkien's writing is a dry as sand and overly expository.  Same way Michael Crichton liked the science and plot over any attempts of character. (He even admitted he didn't know how to write characters.)

Point, there is no one way, and all writing styles have flaws. 

[CDRSkyShepard]

Again, I say having an idea of where you're going is what makes a nice, wrapped-up story. If you solely let the wind guide you, you will eventually lose your way. That's not really a good thing in story telling, because you want to tell a story, not ramble...it's a story with a beginning, middle, and end...not a meandering journey without any definable end.

It's always imperative to be flexible to incorporate new ideas, though. Even if you decide to completely change the outcome of your story, you still have the foresight to do so...you don't write yourself into a corner, so to speak.

[djarlaks10]

M0keys wrote...

djarlaks10 wrote...

Jinx1720 wrote...

J.K. Rowling would disagree. She planned the overall plot of the Harry potter series, seven books, and that was likely more than the events in the ME series.

And George Martin would disagree with her. Personally, I would take A Song of Ice and Fire over Harry Potter any day of week.
Actually, there are several ways to write a story with no way being the absolute best. You just write the way it's most suitable for you, so this news is no big deal.

george martin still basically knows where he wants to go though doesn't he? doesn't have it all planned out but he does have an intention, and a point

Since it took him so long to release the 5th book even though he had the manucript of it right after releasing the 4th I doubt he knows how will the story end or anything. I bet his plans have changed many times during the process of writing (if I'm not mistaken, he originally intended asoiaf to be a trilogy, and look what it is now)
And as for Rowling, even I could have figured the overall plot out. I have enjoyed Harry Potter back in the days, but it had a really predictable story and there would be no way that Harry would have lost or even died (the same goes to Ron and the girl whose name I cannot spell correctly lol)