285 réponses à ce sujet

[Blueprotoss]

iakus wrote...

And none of those are "tragic heroes"  Maybe heroes in dark or tragic tales.  But that's not the same thing.  This is a concept thousands of years old.

You should take another look at Maximus in Gladiator, Robin Hood in Robin Hood, Ripley in Alien, Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus, and Creasy from Man on Fire because are tragic heroes whether they live or die.

iakus wrote...

Because this is a game that touted player agency.  Players help shape the course of their Shepard's story.  If you paint the character into a corner by DM Fiat rather than as a conssequence of the player's actions, that's called "railroading"  Most rpg players don't like that.

Thats a straw-mann because the Creator always have more power then the reader, watcher, or player while this happens a lot in games especially when you look at RPGs and Open World.

iakus wrote...

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_6yQwHJ4tU

1:10-2:50  



1:15-3:15

These are how you end things if you send in a properly prepared Shepard.

Bioware, you did this twice before.  Why not again?

This is nothing new because some people complained after ME1, ME2, and DA before ME3.  Either way whether whats good or bad is still opinion. 

Modifié par Blueprotoss, 21 août 2012 - 09:28 .

[geceka]

KENNY4753 wrote...

That reminds me next time I get pulled over and the cop asks me why I was speeding I'll say artistic integridy.
Artistic Integridy is the answer for all the worlds questions

It's really tiresome how the quote from BW about artistic integrity is almost always taken entirely out of context, just to make fun of it.

Their reference to "artistic integrity" was not made to explain *why the endings are they way they are*! It referred to their unwillingness to *rewrite/retcon* the endings in the EC, because, well, they wanted to preserve their original plot. That's the kind of integrity they meant.

And sorry, whether you like them or not, releasing entirely new endings based on feedback would have been the worst thing they could've done. A writer should never be the slave of their audience, that's just ridiculous, like a child getting stories read to them by their dad – "...and the shining knight rides in on his beautiful black horse..." – "but dad, I really want that knight's horse to be white" – "ah, yes, my little son, now I remember it actually was white" – "yay, dad!". An iterative refinement process has many places, but not as a public workflow for the main narrative of Mass Effect.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

And what happens in ME3? Conrad becomes the hero and finds love. :facepalm: Shepard? "I'm Commander Shepard and this is my favorite pile of rubble on the Citadel."

[geceka]

iakus wrote...

Because this is a game that touted player agency.  Players help shape the course of their Shepard's story.  If you paint the character into a corner by DM Fiat rather than as a conssequence of the player's actions, that's called "railroading"  Most rpg players don't like that.

As you correctly state, players only "shape" the course of their Shepard's story, but they never directed it. ME has always been a pre-planned, directed story with a limited set of branches based on player choice. If such a branching story has no logical nodes at which branches can intertwine, resolve or diverge, the story ultimately disappears or denegerates into a group of separate episodes without any chohesion.

Also, player choice is, to my mind, actually the best argument *against* having an all-perfect "Disney" ending, because by its mere presence, it would naturally devalue every other choice by making it "just a choice", something the player can try because they want to see what happens, but ultimately being entirely meaningless, because there would be no reason *not* to choose the Disney ending, other than metagaming. The way it is now, all endings end the Reaper threat, but none of them is a "best" ending – each has consequences and more nebulous implications that make them hard or impossible to compare, very different from the obvious "light side" and "dark side" endings I actually expected.

[Iakus]

[quote]Blueprotoss wrote...

[quote]iakus wrote...

And none of those are "tragic heroes"  Maybe heroes in dark or tragic tales.  But that's not the same thing.  This is a concept thousands of years old.[/quote]You should take another look at Maximus in Gladiator, Robin Hood in Robin Hood, Ripley in Alien, Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus, and Creasy from Man on Fire because are tragic heroes whether they live or die.[/quote]

Then please list the personal flaws these characters had that proved to be their ultimate undoing.

Tell me Shgeoard's, for that matter.

[quote]iakus wrote...

Because this is a game that touted player agency.  Players help shape the course of their Shepard's story.  If you paint the character into a corner by DM Fiat rather than as a conssequence of the player's actions, that's called "railroading"  Most rpg players don't like that.[/quote]Thats a straw-mann because the Creator always have more power then the reader, watcher, or player while this happens a lot in games especially when you look at RPGs and Open World.[/quote]

Not a straw man, because Bioware has managed several times before to deliver multiple endings to a story that satisfied their players.  Including Dragon Age:  Origins, which allows the player to sacrifice their Warden to save Ferelden.

[quote]
]This is nothing new because some people complained after ME1, ME2, and DA before ME3.  Either way whether whats good or bad is still opinion. 

[/quote]

Multiple.  Endings.  Everyone (at at least, more people) win.

Modifié par iakus, 21 août 2012 - 09:50 .

[Grub Killer8016]

Because of the rEApers.

[Iakus]

geceka wrote...
As you correctly state, players only "shape" the course of their Shepard's story, but they never directed it. ME has always been a pre-planned, directed story with a limited set of branches based on player choice. If such a branching story has no logical nodes at which branches can intertwine, resolve or diverge, the story ultimately disappears or denegerates into a group of separate episodes without any chohesion.

Also, player choice is, to my mind, actually the best argument *against* having an all-perfect "Disney" ending, because by its mere presence, it would naturally devalue every other choice by making it "just a choice", something the player can try because they want to see what happens, but ultimately being entirely meaningless, because there would be no reason *not* to choose the Disney ending, other than metagaming. The way it is now, all endings end the Reaper threat, but none of them is a "best" ending – each has consequences and more nebulous implications that make them hard or impossible to compare, very different from the obvious "light side" and "dark side" endings I actually expected.

I'm really growing to hate "Disney ending" accusations.  EC already gave us the "Disney ending" it's called Synthesis.


Yes, all endings end the Reaper threat.  But all the endings, in addition to their "imperfect" answers, demand Shepard's death.  It doesn;t matter what chocies you made in the trilogy.  It doesn't matter which ending you choose.  It doesn't matter how high your EMS is.  It doesn't matter how you played Shep.  Shepard.  Is.  Going.  To.  Die.  One ending hints otherwise.  But it's admitted to be an ambiguous "ray of hope"  Not a real ending.

Where's the agency in that?  What's the point?  Why should I create Shepards with friends and loved ones when in the end, Shepard's fate is to die in a Red, Blue, or Green explosion.  Or just stand there and die?  

Now every single scene in ME3 where Shepard spends time with a current or former companion feels bitter to me.  Because Shepard has so much to live for, and Bioware decreed it shall never happen.

 As Harbinger putting it "You fight against inevitability.  Dust struggling against cosmic winds"

If this is "art" I'll take entertainment, thanks.

[Blueprotoss]

iakus wrote...

Then please list the personal flaws these characters had that proved to be their ultimate undoing.

Maximus was a loyal family man, general, and citizen while they also led to his end.  Robin Hood is Robin Hood.  Ripley was a mother and died as a mother.  Elizabeth is another mother figure while her end could be similar to Ripley.  Creasy a lonely soldier that became father for the girl he protected and he died to save her.

iakus wrote...

Tell me Shgeoard's, for that matter.

Play the ME series because he/she wasn't free from tragedy in one way or another since birth to death.
 

iakus wrote...

Not a straw man, because Bioware has managed several times before to deliver multiple endings to a story that satisfied their players.  Including Dragon Age:  Origins, which allows the player to sacrifice their Warden to save Ferelden.

Yet that still is a straw-mann especialy when you're talking about DA based on how the endings of Bioware games are complained about from a small uproar.

iakus wrote... 

Multiple.  Endings.  Everyone (at at least, more people) win.

Yet there are multiple endings while everyone won't get what they want no matter what happens.

[The Night Mammoth]

Blueprotoss wrote...

iakus wrote...

Then please list the personal flaws these characters had that proved to be their ultimate undoing.

Maximus was a loyal family man, general, and citizen while they also led to his end.

He asked for flaws. 

Robin Hood is Robin Hood.  

Isn't that an earth-shattering argument? 

Ripley was a mother and died as a mother.

She never died as a mother. 

iakus wrote...

Tell me Shgeoard's, for that matter.

Play the ME series because he/she wasn't free from tragedy in one way or another since birth to death.

Mine was. At least in terms of flaws and tragedies that constitute a basis for an appropriatley tragic death. 
 

iakus wrote...
Yet that still is a straw-mann especialy when you're talking about DA based on how the endings of Bioware games are complained about from a small uproar.

That's not a strawman. Advocating player choice when the game and genre are based around it, and because the creator has a good track record of providing it even within the same series is entirely to the point. 

iakus wrote... 

Multiple.  Endings.  Everyone (at at least, more people) win.

Yet there are multiple endings while everyone won't get what they want no matter what happens.

Shepard always dies unless you choose destroy, which is the point. 

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 21 août 2012 - 10:14 .

[Blueprotoss]

iakus wrote...

I'm really growing to hate "Disney ending" accusations.  EC already gave us the "Disney ending" it's called Synthesis.

Synthesis is far from a 
"Disney ending"  especially when conflict is a part of nature.

iakus wrote... 

Yes, all endings end the Reaper threat.  But all the endings, in addition to their "imperfect" answers, demand Shepard's death.  It doesn;t matter what chocies you made in the trilogy.  It doesn't matter which ending you choose.  It doesn't matter how high your EMS is.  It doesn't matter how you played Shep.  Shepard.  Is.  Going.  To.  Die.  One ending hints otherwise.  But it's admitted to be an ambiguous "ray of hope"  Not a real ending.

There is no such thing as perfection and EMS is always a factor.

iakus wrote... 

Where's the agency in that?  What's the point?  Why should I create Shepards with friends and loved ones when in the end, Shepard's fate is to die in a Red, Blue, or Green explosion.  Or just stand there and die?

Because ME is Bioware's story not our story.

iakus wrote... 

Now every single scene in ME3 where Shepard spends time with a current or former companion feels bitter to me.  Because Shepard has so much to live for, and Bioware decreed it shall never happen.

Yet Shepard decided to save billions of lives even if he/she died in the process.

iakus wrote... 

 As Harbinger putting it "You fight against inevitability.  Dust struggling against cosmic winds"

If this is "art" I'll take entertainment, thanks.

Art is evereything which means art can be entertainment.

[Iakus]

[quote]Blueprotoss wrote...

[quote]iakus wrote...

Then please list the personal flaws these characters had that proved to be their ultimate undoing.[/quote]Maximus was a loyal family man, general, and citizen while they also led to his end.  Robin Hood is Robin Hood.  Ripley was a mother and died as a mother.  Elizabeth is another mother figure while her end could be similar to Ripley.  Creasy a lonely soldier that became father for the girl he protected and he died to save her.[/quote]

Please reread.  What personal flaws did they have that led to their ultimate downfall?


[quote]iakus wrote...
Yet that still is a straw-mann especialy when you're talking about DA based on how the endings of Bioware games are complained about from a small uproar.[/quote]

The Dragon Age endings are held up as a model of how to make an Ultimate Sacrifice just as meaningful as an ending where the protagonist survives

[quote]iakus wrote... 

Multiple.  Endings.  Everyone (at at least, more people) win.[/quote]Yet there are multiple endings while everyone won't get what they want no matter what happens.
[/quote]

When the multiple endings all have the same outcome for the protagonist, how "multiple" is it exactly?

[Blueprotoss]

The Night Mammoth wrote...


He asked for flaws.

Those are flaws since his strengths were turned into weaknesses.

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Isn't that an earth-shattering argument? 

If you don't know what Robin Hood is then thats your problem based on the thousands of adaptations that share the same basic plot.

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

She never died as a mother.

Alien 3 says otherwise especially when she gave "birth" to a Queen.

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Mine was. At least in terms of flaws and tragedies that constitute a basis for an appropriatley tragic death.

Mine too while I'm not surprised.
 

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

That's not a strawman. Advocating player choice when the game and genre are based around it, and because the creator has a good track record of providing it even within the same series is entirely to the point.

It is because player choice doesn't override creator choice.

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Shepard always dies, which is the point.

A high EMS Destroy says otherwise.

[AresKeith]

Blueprotoss wrote...

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Shepard always dies, which is the point.

A high EMS Destroy says otherwise.

I like how you cut his comment to make yourself sound right

[Blueprotoss]

iakus wrote...

Please reread.  What personal flaws did they have that led to their ultimate downfall?

Tragic characters don't aways die based  on their personal flaws.

iakus wrote...

The Dragon Age endings are held up as a model of how to make an Ultimate Sacrifice just as meaningful as an ending where the protagonist survives

ME3 is an Ultimate Sacrifice more so then DA especially when Evil is never dead.

iakus wrote... 

When the multiple endings all have the same outcome for the protagonist, how "multiple" is it exactly?

I see you're taking the "multiple" in multiple endings ot of context.

Modifié par Blueprotoss, 21 août 2012 - 10:25 .

[Blueprotoss]

AresKeith wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Shepard always dies, which is the point.

A high EMS Destroy says otherwise.

I like how you cut his comment to make yourself sound right

I didn't alter his quote while I see you'll do anything to lie.

[Iakus]

[quote]Blueprotoss wrote...

Shepard always dies, which is the point.[/quote]A high EMS Destroy says otherwise.
[/quote]

Destroy+ (Not the same thing as High EMS Destroy) hints otherwise.

[Iakus]

[quote]Blueprotoss wrote...

[quote]iakus wrote...

Please reread.  What personal flaws did they have that led to their ultimate downfall?[/quote]Tragic characters don't aways die based  on their personal flaws.[/quote]

Yes they do. It's the very definition of "tragic hero"  That's what makes them tragic.

Go ahead.  Look it up.  I'll wait.

[quote]iakus wrote...

The Dragon Age endings are held up as a model of how to make an Ultimate Sacrifice just as meaningful as an ending where the protagonist survives[/quote]ME3 is an Ultimate Sacrifice more so then DA especially when Evil is never dead.[/quote]

Yeah, all the possible endings in ME3 are Ultimate Sacrifice, whether the player wills it or not.

However, the player has actual options in DAO


[quote]I see you're taking the "multiple" in multiple endings ot of context.[/quote]

Elaborate.

Modifié par iakus, 21 août 2012 - 10:31 .

[AresKeith]

Blueprotoss wrote...

AresKeith wrote...

Blueprotoss wrote...

The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Shepard always dies, which is the point.

A high EMS Destroy says otherwise.

I like how you cut his comment to make yourself sound right

I didn't alter his quote while I see you'll do anything to lie.

oh really, here's his originally comment

The Night Mammoth wrote...

Shepard always dies unless you choose destroy, which is the point.

[The Night Mammoth]

[quote]Blueprotoss wrote...

[quote]The Night Mammoth wrote...


He asked for flaws.[/quote]Those are flaws since his strengths were turned into weaknesses.[/quote]

How are they flaws? 

[quote][quote]The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Isn't that an earth-shattering argument? 
[/quote]If you don't know what Robin Hood is then thats your problem based on the thousands of adaptations that share the same basic plot.[/quote]

I know Robin Hood well enough. It's not my fault you seem incapable of articulating any sort of supporting argument. 

[quote][quote]The Night Mammoth wrote... 

She never died as a mother.[/quote]Alien 3 says otherwise especially when she gave "birth" to a Queen.[/quote]

Other than the fact that she dies as a host more than a mother, how is this character aspect a flaw?


[quote][quote]The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Mine was. At least in terms of flaws and tragedies that constitute a basis for an appropriatley tragic death.[/quote]Mine too while I'm not surprised.[/quote]

So you admit it's perfectly possible to forge a character that runs completely against a typically tragic storyline. 
 
[quote][quote]The Night Mammoth wrote... 

That's not a strawman. Advocating player choice when the game and genre are based around it, and because the creator has a good track record of providing it even within the same series is entirely to the point.[/quote]It is because player choice doesn't override creator choice.[/quote]

It's not a f*cking strawman. You just have an opposing argument to a completely legitimate point. Creator choice can override player choice, but it shouldn't in this situation. BioWare aren't infallible. They can make, and have made, mistakes. 

You're almost on the verge of saying I should just accept whatever BioWare do just because they created Mass Effect. 

Eh no. 

[quote][quote]The Night Mammoth wrote... 

Shepard always dies, which is the point.[/quote]A high EMS Destroy says otherwise.
[/quote]

I corrected myself before you posted. 

Yes, that's true, although I would make the point that you're stuck if Destroy is abhorrent to you. 

[Broskey Demands]

Shepard had to die because he killed his savior, Marauder Shields.

[Reorte]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

Are you guys trying to argue with blueprotoss? You know that he never listens to reason, right?

There's twisted entertainment in watching someone make a complete fool of themselves.

[Reorte]

geceka wrote...

And sorry, whether you like them or not, releasing entirely new endings based on feedback would have been the worst thing they could've done. A writer should never be the slave of their audience, that's just ridiculous, like a child getting stories read to them by their dad – "...and the shining knight rides in on his beautiful black horse..." – "but dad, I really want that knight's horse to be white" – "ah, yes, my little son, now I remember it actually was white" – "yay, dad!". An iterative refinement process has many places, but not as a public workflow for the main narrative of Mass Effect.

Completely and utterly wrong because it's treating something blindly as black and white. Like everything, there's a time and place for it and you can never say you should never do this or always do that under any circumstances because it's simply not true. In this case it assumes that the author is incapable of making a complete mess of things and producing a better work if they listen to feedback and correct it. It's true of someone building a house, it's true of someone writing a story and it's also true, of course, that it doesn't always make things better. But to refuse to ever change at all is just being pig-headed and prideful. There's a whole continuum between that and being a slave to your audience. If your dad had ended his story in a graphically gruesome battle for example, completely unsuitable for the audience, it would be far better changed when his son hates it. Or if the knight had come charging in on a rhinoceros.

[Iakus]

Reorte wrote...

geceka wrote...

And sorry, whether you like them or not, releasing entirely new endings based on feedback would have been the worst thing they could've done. A writer should never be the slave of their audience, that's just ridiculous, like a child getting stories read to them by their dad – "...and the shining knight rides in on his beautiful black horse..." – "but dad, I really want that knight's horse to be white" – "ah, yes, my little son, now I remember it actually was white" – "yay, dad!". An iterative refinement process has many places, but not as a public workflow for the main narrative of Mass Effect.

Completely and utterly wrong because it's treating something blindly as black and white. Like everything, there's a time and place for it and you can never say you should never do this or always do that under any circumstances because it's simply not true. In this case it assumes that the author is incapable of making a complete mess of things and producing a better work if they listen to feedback and correct it. It's true of someone building a house, it's true of someone writing a story and it's also true, of course, that it doesn't always make things better. But to refuse to ever change at all is just being pig-headed and prideful. There's a whole continuum between that and being a slave to your audience. If your dad had ended his story in a graphically gruesome battle for example, completely unsuitable for the audience, it would be far better changed when his son hates it. Or if the knight had come charging in on a rhinoceros.

Not just that, but the breath-scene easter egg could have been "expanded" to provide more "clarity and closure" to a surviving Shepard.  It was already there.  It wouldn't be much, but it would have been something.  Enough, perhaps to salvage the game for some.

But alas, while Bioware bent over backwards to show us a galaxy of shiny happy people with Synthesis, and no  the relays didn't really explode, we still have to headcanon any ending that didjn't invovle Shepard burnig to a crisp.

[leapingmonkeys]

Because they thought their audience was a bunch of whiny teenagers who live in perpetual angst that the world is not "perfect".

Because they wanted to kill off the series and move on to something else.

Because the drank their own marketing hype koolaid that the ME series was somehow more artful than a video game...

Because they forgot that this was an RPG which is all about wish fulfilment and that the player is supposed to feel empowered by an RPG instead of taken on a ride to someone else's idea of what the game should be.