It's getting late here... But, here goes...
Heretic_Hanar wrote...
The only characters that die in ME3 as a result to your choices are characters that already played their part and didn't have anything more of signifance to add after the death of the character. Eve dies after she did her part in curing the genophage. Mordin dies after he cured the genophage (or before, if you kill him). Regardless, they die at the end of their personal story arc. Whether these characters live or die, their story arc was already over anyway. It's not like any of those deaths seriously cripples Shepards war effort.
In the end, it all burns down to arbitrary numberical values called "War Assets". That's not what I'd call "serious repercussions". It does not change the story, it does not take the story into a new and interesting direction, it does not hinder of help Shepard at all, not in gameplay and not in story either.
That's true. But while taking all your previous choices into account and shaping your individual and personal experience, Mass Effect 3 also had a plot to drive forward and considering it is the final installment of Shep's trilogy, I can understand it turned out to be very linear, also concerning the treatment of the characters who played their part and were killed off or didn't reappear up to a certain point in the game. But what about their involvement in their respective mission? The decisions you made back in the previous games mattered in the character's respective mission although the mission itself played out the same. Maybe you didn't care whether Eve or Mordin died or not (Mordin doesn't
have to die, btw), but I sure did and so did many others. Sure, whether Eve, Grunt, Jack and all the other characters live or die didn't influence the overall plot at all, but their respective quest and considering their quest was concluded then, that's good for me; I didn't ask for anything more.
But then again, I get the feeling that the "choice and consequences" mechanics served utterly different purposes in The Witcher and Mass Effect (though this is just speculation on my part since I'm trying to second-guess the developers' intents here - something that I deemed rather dangerous in a previous post):
While in The Witcher, the "choice and consequence" system is supposed to open up new paths to the player and experience the game from a different angle, I don't think it's what counts in ME: The plot ME tells is still the same, as well as the pacing is, but with the amount of choices you have to make and all the characters you deal with, I think the whole "choice and consequence" mechanic rather serves the purpose of personalizing the game to your taste and giving you a really unique experience. You have so many options and opportunities to individualize "your Shepard", his/ her attitude, the way he/ she treats characters and solves or doesn't solve things, etc. (Is it the same with the protagonist of The Witcher or not as personalized?) It's much less about giving you another perspective on the story/ the plot, but rather giving you the chance to experience "your" story with "your" Shepard - and no matter how many times you play it, you can be almost sure that no one did things the exact same way you did. I think that there's a completely different approach behind the "choice and consequence" mechanic in both games, despite them seeming similar on the surface; and players have a different incentive to play each games for that mechanic. The Witcher is smaller in scope and relies on quality, as you put it, Mass Effect sure goes for quantity, but that doesn't exclude quality as the decisions you have to make there are really difficult, despite the fact they ultimately lead to the same result, more or less. But that exact amount of ways to personalize your game is what makes Mass Effect so appealing to me, and many others, especially because it has a strong focus on its characters, rather than the plot, and the narrative is very emotional. Even the tiniest little detail is taken into account and while it doesn't affect the plot (because it's not
supposed to), you still have the feeling that what you did and said, mattered because e.g. characters react differently to you and it fits "your" personal Shepard's story - even though it does not affect the plot.
Like I said, I just see two different approaches behind the same mechanic.
Heretic_Hanar wrote...
While I can at least respect BioWare for the technical hurdles that they managed to jump through, I find it rather dissapointing that this technical masterpiece falls flat on its face in the art direction. [...]
I agree that what BioWare tried to do is amazing from a technical
standpoint, but they completely ruined it in the writing department.
Why does Mass Effect fall flat in the art direction? I'm not sure I understand what you define as "art" here.
And why did BioWare ruin it in the writing department?
- Sure, a lot of the things in Mass Effect were incoherent and poorly written, e.g. the involvement of the Collectors in the ME2 or the horrible, horrible MacGuffin in ME3 called the Crucible or the Red Herring that the fight against the Reapers turned out to be in the last ten minutes. I mean, seriously, you don't introduce a new central conflict in literally the last few minutes of a game and then tell your audience to replace their emotional attachment to their crew and the other characters whose life is at stake with an emotional attachment to organic life. Hell, they even abandoned their own established lore in favour of three pseudo-scientific and implausible choices. But those are things that closely revolve around the Crucible and the Catalyst, both things that tie an anchor around the ending's (and much of ME3's) neck and make it lose credibility due to a huuuge lack of narrative coherence.
But, aside from that (which is much, way too much, I must admit), I think that especially the characters and Shep's relationship with them and each other was extremely well written and established. While storytelling per se (as in telling an interesting, complex plot) isn't exactly BioWare's strongest suit, much of it was packed in very well written dialog and the relationships you had with the characters. For example, ME3's plot was anything but complex. All you basically did was try to recruit as many species and individual assets as possible, but the gripping and emotional narrative made it still very compelling to me, despite me knowing that the plot doesn't offer all that much of substance. Not that I'm stupid or anything, but Mass Effect didn't
need to be overly complicated. Other stories got that covered already. So, Mass Effect managed to wrap an actually very simple plot into an intricate and elaborate setting and an emotional and gripping narrative with great focus on its characters, which made it all the more compelling for me (I love character-driven narratives). And despite the actual plot being very simple, I don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. Simple works for reason. (And it all went down the toilet with the Catalyst... but yeah.) The story iself isn't new, but imo, it's still very well told and written (aside from the things I mentioned).
Heretic_Hanar wrote...
I think what BioWare should have done (and what CD Projekt RED, the developers of The Witcher actually did), is not focus on quantity (tons of choices carried over in the save-import), but on quality instead (a few choices that actually have a significance impact on the game). That would probably have made the Mass Effect trilogy significantly better, at least story-wise.
See above.
Modifié par dea_ex_machina, 14 janvier 2013 - 10:33 .
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I don't care who's right or not. I enjoy a good conversation... and it helps me practicing my English which is not my mother tongue.
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