310 réponses à ce sujet

[Eluril]

Oh another one of these "golden visions of Mass Effect 1" threads. It's a great trilogy I thought as it went along the tone got darker and more serious. The side conversations in ME3 are particularly well done. The truth is I loved ME1, ME2, and ME3 but ME1 is now my least favorite. Yes it might have been more "subtle" at times but that's because of the substance of the story (in 2 it's a suicide mission, in 3 it's a war story, ME1 has much more of an open ended exploratory feel to it.). ME1 has too many technical problems for me to label it a truly "Great" game. The combat is awkward and there's framerate and texture pop-in everywhere.

Even from a roleplaying perspective I strongly disagree that your choice matter as much in 1 as 2 and 3. In 1 at the end you basically have four endings : Paragon council live, paragon council dies, renegade council lives, and renegade council dies.

What really changes between the four? There's identical cutscenes with identical music and substantively similar conversations. Awesome ending no doubt and better than the ending of 2 and 3, but it's more about presentation than it is substantive superiority.

Modifié par Eluril, 13 juillet 2012 - 03:07 .

[CronoDragoon]

dreman9999 wrote...

jetfire118 wrote...

Seeing the more in depth romance scenes from ME1 did Bio get in trouble? or just lazy with the final romance scene? from ME2-ME3?

....ME3 romance is more indepth then ME1.

Way more in depth. Want to talk about maturity? ME1's scenes center around the physical act of sex. The highlight of ME3's romance scenes were the conversations before and after.

I'm reading a bunch of nostalgia about ME1, which is understandable. I don't see what any of OP's bullet points have to do with the maturity of the story, though.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 13 juillet 2012 - 03:08 .

[Veneke]

Blueprotoss wrote...

Veneke wrote...

I did enjoy the irony of it, yes. On the other hand, I'm not wrong and the 'personal beliefs' to which I believe you refer, are, in fact, facts.

Yet you're still trying to use your opinion as fact, which means you actually missed the irony.

Veneke wrote... 

Good and bad writing are not subjective in the sense you're trying to portray, neither are good gameplay, visuals etc. Good writing conforms to literary norms. In other words it has a beginning, middle, and ending, it adheres to proper character introduction and development, it explains itself... honestly, the list goes on. Bad writing is everything else. Bad writing can be immensely enjoyable and very popular - the Twilight series, for instance - but that does not make it good writing.

The same is true of gameplay, visuals etc. Good visuals are those that match the scene being played out, lip movements are in sync with character voices and conveys to the audience what they should be seeing. Bad visuals would be something like showing a picture of a goat when you're expecting to see a space battle. Yes, that's an extreme example but I'm trying to be as clear as possible.

Edit:

That goat could actually be very funny, now that I think about it... that, however, does not change the fact that it is bad. Unless, of course, its purpose was to be funny making it a satire, but neither Mass Effect, nor the goat, are satires.

Yet you're still using opinion to justify misinformation.  Personally I loathe most of the rap genre and everything Twilight while I won't say they're bad based on how I only like specific artists and how I don't bother watching/reading/hearing Twilight.  Everything is subjective based on our own likes dislikes while its better to discuss things instead of complaining about those same exact things.

No, you have thoroughly missed the point and I fear that you are unable to even grasp the fact that you have missed the point. Whether you like something or not is subjective, on that we agree. Whether something is well-written or not is objective. The terms of reference for what is well-written and what is not may change (depending on genre etc) but it does not prevent something from being badly-written. There's very little opinion in any of this, frankly. If you violate the rules of the genre in which you're writing, what you're writing has been badly written. That isn't opinion, it's a basic fact of literature. If what you're trying to show your audience through cinematics is not understood then your cinematics are bad. If the emotion you're trying to evoke with your music fails to be aroused, then your music is bad. All of this can still be enjoyable, but it is still bad. This is a very simple concept that has, and is, being undermined by foolish notions like 'everybody's opinion on everything is equally valid as anyone else's'. If, at this point, you still think that using a goat for a space battle is a good visual then or if you think that anyone who thinks it's bad is simply holding an opinion, well... I dunno what to say to that.

[SNascimento]

Replaying ME1 remember me how much improvement ME2 was over its predecessor.

[10K]

I agree. ME1 created a universe that was rich in story and introduce me to awesome characters I will never forget. ME2 did the samething, expanding that universe even further, plus giving us even more interesting characters. ME3 was fun. but it just failed and all those aspects of its predecessors delivered. And at the end of the day, it just felt like a shooting simulator.

Modifié par mosesarose, 13 juillet 2012 - 03:15 .

[Blueprotoss]

Veneke wrote...

No, you have thoroughly missed the point and I fear that you are unable to even grasp the fact that you have missed the point. Whether you like something or not is subjective, on that we agree. Whether something is well-written or not is objective. The terms of reference for what is well-written and what is not may change (depending on genre etc) but it does not prevent something from being badly-written. There's very little opinion in any of this, frankly. If you violate the rules of the genre in which you're writing, what you're writing has been badly written. That isn't opinion, it's a basic fact of literature. If what you're trying to show your audience through cinematics is not understood then your cinematics are bad. If the emotion you're trying to evoke with your music fails to be aroused, then your music is bad. All of this can still be enjoyable, but it is still bad. This is a very simple concept that has, and is, being undermined by foolish notions like 'everybody's opinion on everything is equally valid as anyone else's'. If, at this point, you still think that using a goat for a space battle is a good visual then or if you think that anyone who thinks it's bad is simply holding an opinion, well... I dunno what to say to that.

 Again you're still using opinion to justify misinformation.  Personally I loathe most of the rap genre and everything Twilight while I won't say they're bad based on how I only like specific artists and how I don't bother watching/reading/hearing Twilight.  Everything is subjective based on our own likes dislikes while its better to discuss things instead of complaining about those same exact things.

mosesarose wrote...

I agree. ME1 created a universe that was rich in story and introduce me to awesome characters I will never forget. ME2 did the samething, expanding that universe even further, plus giving us even more interesting characters. ME3 was fun. but it just failed and all those aspects of its predecessors dehlivered. And at the end of the day, it just felt like a shooting simulator.

It sounds like you're sad that the trilogy is over no matter what happened while you're forgetting about DLC.  Btw ME has been an Action RPG since the beginning of ME1 until the end of ME3, but that subgenre is ever changing just like the RPG genre as a whole. 

Modifié par Blueprotoss, 13 juillet 2012 - 03:39 .

[Demadrio]

ME1 did what any good science fiction must do: It set up the ground rules for its 'verse and (almost always) stuck to them. The exposition tended to make sense story-wise — i.e. you learned about the different worlds and races by exploration, consulting the galaxy map, or talking with people who would know (asking ambassadors about their race's history & culture, for example).

There was also a sense of verisimilitude in this future. Everyone wore armor on missions; you could modify or upgrade that armor and see their damage protection and shield strength reflected in those changes. Military and security personnel with hair long enough to get in their faces tied it back. Remote bases out among the uncharted worlds were usually prefabricated models.

ME2 and 3 played fast and loose with the rules set down by ME1, and frequently disregarded ME1's verisimilitude for convenience, "coolness", or fan service. They made a lot of the settings more generic (ooh, a nightclub! ooh, a ghost town! ooh, a war zone!) and focused the visuals on impressive details rather than artistic variety. They also went for a more modern-day look to many interiors rather than the futuristic style of ME1 (as befit a game designed as a tribute to 80's sci-fi).

And Benezia's outfit was a clear parody for her voice actor — Marina Sirtis never even got a proper Starfleet uniform until halfway through the 6th season of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Until then, it was All Cleavage All The Time. (If I could figure out how to add pictures I would. Just look up "Counselor Troi" and you'll see what I mean.)

[simonrana]

ME1 feels pretty dated and clunky after ME2 and ME3, but yes there is still something brilliant about it that the sequels didn't have - it created a galaxy that felt huge and diverse and really realistic (in sci-fi terms at least). The little touches like having to go through the depressuring chamber when you got off the Normandy, all the characters having proper full-on hardsuits, all added a sense of believability to the ME world.

Then they decided to go for full on style at the expense of the substance. Don't get me wrong, the style was damn good, but I really missed the substance. A shame really...

[dreman9999]

CronoDragoon wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

jetfire118 wrote...

Seeing the more in depth romance scenes from ME1 did Bio get in trouble? or just lazy with the final romance scene? from ME2-ME3?

....ME3 romance is more indepth then ME1.

Way more in depth. Want to talk about maturity? ME1's scenes center around the physical act of sex. The highlight of ME3's romance scenes were the conversations before and after.

I'm reading a bunch of nostalgia about ME1, which is understandable. I don't see what any of OP's bullet points have to do with the maturity of the story, though.

Romance is not just the sex scene. How about everything before that sex scene? There was barely any depth unlike in ME3 or 2.
Your taking about the sex scene not romance. What about the romance femshep version of Garrus date, or being romance with tali in the rennoch missions, or being romanced with Liara in ME3?

[dreman9999]

simonrana wrote...

ME1 feels pretty dated and clunky after ME2 and ME3, but yes there is still something brilliant about it that the sequels didn't have - it created a galaxy that felt huge and diverse and really realistic (in sci-fi terms at least). The little touches like having to go through the depressuring chamber when you got off the Normandy, all the characters having proper full-on hardsuits, all added a sense of believability to the ME world.

Then they decided to go for full on style at the expense of the substance. Don't get me wrong, the style was damn good, but I really missed the substance. A shame really...

I agree that the suit being taken out was a bad idea but much was just about taking the fluff out.That substance you talked abiut really is just annoying herdals to jump over. Add they truely expanded the ME universe in ME2. me1 WAS TOO HUMAN CENTRIC.

[dreman9999]

mosesarose wrote...

I agree. ME1 created a universe that was rich in story and introduce me to awesome characters I will never forget. ME2 did the samething, expanding that universe even further, plus giving us even more interesting characters. ME3 was fun. but it just failed and all those aspects of its predecessors delivered. And at the end of the day, it just felt like a shooting simulator.

How did ME3 fail at that? It's job was to close out the series.

[Dutchess]

ME really did not have as much dialogue options as you may believe. Upon starting a new game and picking different options, I had an awful lot of "woah, Shepard says exactly the same as with the other choice". The autodialogue in ME3 was simply more honest and did not bother with letting you choose between three options that would result in the exact same line coming out of Shepard's mouth.

[Baa Baa]

yup agreed

[Kamfrenchie]

Veneke wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

Veneke wrote...

I did enjoy the irony of it, yes. On the other hand, I'm not wrong and the 'personal beliefs' to which I believe you refer, are, in fact, facts.

Yet you're still trying to use your opinion as fact, which means you actually missed the irony.

Veneke wrote... 

Good and bad writing are not subjective in the sense you're trying to portray, neither are good gameplay, visuals etc. Good writing conforms to literary norms. In other words it has a beginning, middle, and ending, it adheres to proper character introduction and development, it explains itself... honestly, the list goes on. Bad writing is everything else. Bad writing can be immensely enjoyable and very popular - the Twilight series, for instance - but that does not make it good writing.

The same is true of gameplay, visuals etc. Good visuals are those that match the scene being played out, lip movements are in sync with character voices and conveys to the audience what they should be seeing. Bad visuals would be something like showing a picture of a goat when you're expecting to see a space battle. Yes, that's an extreme example but I'm trying to be as clear as possible.

Edit:

That goat could actually be very funny, now that I think about it... that, however, does not change the fact that it is bad. Unless, of course, its purpose was to be funny making it a satire, but neither Mass Effect, nor the goat, are satires.

Yet you're still using opinion to justify misinformation.  Personally I loathe most of the rap genre and everything Twilight while I won't say they're bad based on how I only like specific artists and how I don't bother watching/reading/hearing Twilight.  Everything is subjective based on our own likes dislikes while its better to discuss things instead of complaining about those same exact things.

No, you have thoroughly missed the point and I fear that you are unable to even grasp the fact that you have missed the point. Whether you like something or not is subjective, on that we agree. Whether something is well-written or not is objective. The terms of reference for what is well-written and what is not may change (depending on genre etc) but it does not prevent something from being badly-written. There's very little opinion in any of this, frankly. If you violate the rules of the genre in which you're writing, what you're writing has been badly written. That isn't opinion, it's a basic fact of literature. If what you're trying to show your audience through cinematics is not understood then your cinematics are bad. If the emotion you're trying to evoke with your music fails to be aroused, then your music is bad. All of this can still be enjoyable, but it is still bad. This is a very simple concept that has, and is, being undermined by foolish notions like 'everybody's opinion on everything is equally valid as anyone else's'. If, at this point, you still think that using a goat for a space battle is a good visual then or if you think that anyone who thinks it's bad is simply holding an opinion, well... I dunno what to say to that.

Do not argue with Blue Protoss, it's an exercise in futility, he is immune to concept such as objectivity or logic, he says everyting is opinion, ignore points and whatnot, and also thinks the endings are good without justifications.

He's been "trolling" a while on vids like MrBtongue's about the ending, and there is just about no way to convince him.

He considers everything he says to be fact, everything other says to be opinion.


ME2 an 3 had mature moments, but also many silly ones.
A lot of the conflict and hard decision comes down from the fact the characters or the plot is kinda stupid or really big stretch.

The quarian-geth war relies on the fact that none of th quarians are willing o overthrow their stupid admiral an givethe geth a chance while the galaxy is being destroyed around them.



The genophage question is also a big stretch. Honestly how can he salarians argue about it when they have no choice. That's like refusing to jump to the side to avoid a car coming toward you beause you could break your leg in th process.

Almost everyone feels incompetent to me in me3, hackett included, C-sec too etc.

And yes TIM an cerberus are out of character in ME3

And shepar believing in the reapers in not abig stretch after the vison

Modifié par Kamfrenchie, 13 juillet 2012 - 04:14 .

[CronoDragoon]

dreman9999 wrote...

CronoDragoon wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

jetfire118 wrote...

Seeing the more in depth romance scenes from ME1 did Bio get in trouble? or just lazy with the final romance scene? from ME2-ME3?

....ME3 romance is more indepth then ME1.

Way more in depth. Want to talk about maturity? ME1's scenes center around the physical act of sex. The highlight of ME3's romance scenes were the conversations before and after.

I'm reading a bunch of nostalgia about ME1, which is understandable. I don't see what any of OP's bullet points have to do with the maturity of the story, though.

Romance is not just the sex scene. How about everything before that sex scene? There was barely any depth unlike in ME3 or 2.
Your taking about the sex scene not romance. What about the romance femshep version of Garrus date, or being romance with tali in the rennoch missions, or being romanced with Liara in ME3?

Dude, I'm agreeing with you. I'm pointing out that the "sex" scenes in ME3 center around the intimate conversations they have, whereas in ME1 it's just a short nude scene with little before or after to give it depth.


Even the Liara ME3 romance scene has lengthy convos before and after.

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 13 juillet 2012 - 04:15 .

[MaleQuariansFTW]

I think EA taking over did affect it, but it didn't stop me from enjoying and loving ME2 and 3.

I don't think it's fair to judge all games against each other, or 2 and 3 against 1 because each game is very different and has it's own advantages/disadvantages.

[ZLurps]

Veneke wrote...

...snip...

Anyone who disagrees with the fundamental concepts behind your OP has deluded themselves, was not paying attention or simply doesn't care about the shift. That may be a bit harsh, but it's undeniable that there were thematic changes, stylistic changes, unusual character developments etc across the three games. It's such a simple fact that I'm surprised every time I come by these boards to see arguments that suggest there was no shift. I wager these people don't understand the concept of a thematic or stylistic shift, but I digress.

Something I have been wondering if some of the inspiration behind ME1 didn't from 70's scifi but older things. I find Geth and Reaper nanomachines reminding me of Stanislaw Lem's novel en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invincible

And I like to think that Drew didn't name on of the characters of ME: Ascension as Lemm by accident but well, there's no way of knowing for sure.

Drew also paid attention to detail, like Indoctrination. Who knows where he got inspirtation for that, sonars driving whales mad? Propaganda film? Can't know, but concept have it's roots firmly in real world, when QEC really is problematic if you look deeper behind it. Not that QEC doesn't serve the story well or I have issue that it's used.

There are lot of diffent kind of products in scifi genre. I don't say books are better or worse, but maybe people in general don't read that much anymore.

[AbsoluteApril]

SergeantSnookie wrote...
 I don't hate the newer entries by any means, but they didn't leave the same impression ME1 did.

same here.

[LinksOcarina]

dreman9999 wrote...

Naerivar wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

Naerivar wrote...

dreman9999 wrote...

You call a story about stopping machines from killing every one a story that's not generic?

There are 7 billion people on this planet, chances are your life is generic as well. In fact, since there aren't 7 billion games about stopping machines from killing everyone, I'd say your life is more generic than Mass Effect. yet you still live it. Do I sense hypocritism?

That would be my general arguement about this topic.

So you admit it fails.

No, I'm stating the op statement is biased and faulty.

Of course the OP statement is biased and faulty.

But to be fair, almost everyones opinion on here is biased in some way. Otherwise that makes us all experts in philosophy, design, psychology, creative writing, art, history and directing, which is far from the truth. 

Modifié par LinksOcarina, 13 juillet 2012 - 05:30 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

renjility wrote...

ME really did not have as much dialogue options as you may believe. Upon starting a new game and picking different options, I had an awful lot of "woah, Shepard says exactly the same as with the other choice". The autodialogue in ME3 was simply more honest and did not bother with letting you choose between three options that would result in the exact same line coming out of Shepard's mouth.

ME2 did it the best of the three.

To an extent. There were a good number of times in ME2 that there were only two dialogue options, and Lair of the Shadow Broker was an admitted experiment by Bioware to get even fewer dialogue wheels. Tap that with most people's near-pure P/R approach (encouraged by the mechanics of the persuasion system), and the player willingness to utilize fewer options was conceivable from ME2.


The biggest part of the dialogue, however, was the often under-realized cost-benefit of the flow of conversations. Like ME1, ME2 conversations were nearly entirely static: two people standing still, with little movement. There was camera motion, but little character motion during a conversation: you can't insert a dialogue request during a motion for pretty obvious reasons. ME3 gave us conversations with a lot more character movement, which was good, but the cost of it was fewer opportunities to insert a wheel.

[FoxholeHunter]

SNascimento wrote...

Replaying ME1 remember me how much improvement ME2 was over its predecessor.

QFT

ME1 is good but it has some horrible design faults and just isn't as fun to play.

ME2>ME3>ME1

[10K]

dreman9999 wrote...

mosesarose wrote...

I agree. ME1 created a universe that was rich in story and introduce me to awesome characters I will never forget. ME2 did the samething, expanding that universe even further, plus giving us even more interesting characters. ME3 was fun. but it just failed and all those aspects of its predecessors delivered. And at the end of the day, it just felt like a shooting simulator.

How did ME3 fail at that? It's job was to close out the series.

Well let see. First, most of the story arcs were dull especially anything to do with rannoch. It was basically get to point a to b and kill everything that cross your path. In ME1 and 2 there was at least some sort of destraction, something else going on in the wakes of your mission. For example in  ME2 finding the cure for the plague, there were small stories going on within the main mission like helping the batarian plague victim, finding out the blue suns were extorting people while the whole plague thing is going on. And the same can be said about ME 1 with all the small side quest you can pick up in the hub worlds while in the middle of your main quest.

ME 3 had non of this, not even a descent hub world, or side quest for that matter. And as far as making the characters interesting, ME3 failed. most of the coversations you had with your crewmates were a bunch of auto-dialogue that the player watched shepard have. There was no type of interaction, which made the entire experiance feel boring. So yeah I do believe ME3 failed in these aspects. The best thing it had going for it was the combat, and even then it felt boring as you progressed through the game. 

 

Modifié par mosesarose, 13 juillet 2012 - 06:05 .

[3DandBeyond]

Baronesa wrote...

Those are strong words and good points.

The thematic shift is evident.

I have to add a few things here

3) The Reapers adhere in no way to the invasion plan establish in earlier games.

According to the info we got on previous games: First attack on the Citadel to take the Governing body. Then close the Relays network for the races of that cycle, isolating them on their solar systems and cutting inter galactic communication. Use the information stored on the Citadel to KNOW where to go and attack. Overwhelm the races of the cycle and destroy/harvest them. This took centuries for the last cycle.

What we see in ME3: Due to actions on ME, the Citadel trap is not used. The Relays network is active for us (Why is it still active AFTER they took the Citadel? Wouldn't it have been easier for them to simply cut everyone from the Relays?) We have a united galaxy, something that has NEVER happened before on any other cycle. And for some reason the Reapers know exactly where all the inhabited planets are... without even accessing the Citadel records. Remember that on the last cycle they didn't invaded Ilos because Ilos was DELETED from the Citadel records.

Quite true-I wondered why the relays weren't shut down as well.  Also, if you go back now the whole thing that doesn't make sense about the citadel (part of the star kid) is that the signal could be stopped at all.  And why the kid couldn't restart it or since he controlled the reapers, why didn't he just tell them to get moving since he must be able to communicate with them?

What's really (not so) interesting is if you go and play ME3 without an imported save.  It has no real impact on the game at all other than certain relationships are not yet in existence, certain dialogue does not open up, but you get the same basic game, same endings, and so on.

What backs this all up is that the Bioware head marketer, a guy named Silverman said this game is a great entry point into the ME series, thus rendering meaningless the 3 that follows the name.  No marketer would say that without good reason because he's the guy that's really working to get your money and he should be telling you to buy 1, 2, and 3 for the best experience.  In fact, he thought that even if you'd played the earlier games you would have forgotten all about them because they were released almost 8 years ago in 2007-yes, he said that and he's the guy trying to make sure it makes money.  He also said some really intellectual things like that at the end you will be so busy fighting and shooting and stuff that you won't care one bit about any romances or such because you are in the middle of saving the galaxy.  I think a disk was left out of my game because I never got that ending.

They used twitter to begin to try and retcon things and when they released the first set of endings and people said the relays were destroyed so the galaxy would be pretty messed up, the devs actually said they couldn't understand why people thought that.  We thought that because it was said in at least 2 places in the game.  So they used twitter to retcon that and said the explosions weren't big.  But, they ignored a codex entry, "Desperate Measures" that said a rupture of a relay would ruin all terrestrial worlds in a system.

Supposedly they have a big bible of ME lore, but I think someone's dog ate it or someone took it into the bathroom to read and now no one wants to touch it (Seinfeld episode reference) because it is so obvious they don't even know or remember things from the other games.

[AbsoluteApril]

renjility wrote...

ME really did not have as much dialogue options as you may believe. Upon starting a new game and picking different options, I had an awful lot of "woah, Shepard says exactly the same as with the other choice". The autodialogue in ME3 was simply more honest and did not bother with letting you choose between three options that would result in the exact same line coming out of Shepard's mouth.

I would much rather have the option of my Shepard saying a Paragon "Yes" or a Renegade "Um, I don't know" and get the same response from the NCP than have 10 minutes of autodialogue. At least I'd feel like a part of the conversation, even if it is just the illusion of having an impact on the conversation.
 
The "static" standing while I make the choice never bothered me personally.. I'm reading the lines to choose, not staring at Shepard thinking 'what a derp just standing there'.

In ME3 there were plenty of times my renegade shep would say something like "it was a shame she died' but heck no, that Shepard wouldn't care.. the autodialogue pulled my Shepards out of character.

Modifié par AbsoluteApril, 13 juillet 2012 - 06:00 .