648 réponses à ce sujet

[dani1138]

ScriptBabe wrote...
I had not considered all those variables, Dani, but that is so true!  And humans were also set up as the new variable that hadn't existed in the galaxy before.  We're genetically more diverse yet still united, etc. etc.  Yes, it's arrogant, but we're humans playing the game so they made us special.  It's not unheard of; Heinlein did it brilliantly in HAVE SPACESUIT WILL TRAVEL.  When Kip and Peewee defend the Earth in a trial before the galactic races it's just wonderful.  And we had united galaxy a fact that leaves old Javik fairly gobsmacked. 

Yeah, human exceptionalism isn't exactly anything new to sci-fi, we do like to tell stories about human ingenuity overcoming massive odds, and Mass Effect (both first and second) felt very much in line with that theme. Then came the third game. I'm guessing Javik must have gotten hold of the theme and thrown it out the airlock when we weren't looking.

chemiclord wrote...

But how do you play that out in an ending though?  Since a 4th game is not on the table? 

Bit of a tangent, but I've started thinking lately that perhaps the best thing for the story would have been to not be so dead set on a Shepard trilogy - expand it to 4 games instead. ME3 had the unenviable task of both starting and finishing a war against an unbeatable enemy, and that's got to be a tough story nut to crack. In this scenario, ME3 could be the game where we discover the Reapers' weakness (maybe through the crucible (ugh...), maybe through something else), allowing the game to finish on a hopeful note, whilst still leaving the enormous task of actually winning the war for a fourth game. Even with a weakness, a war against an enemy as huge and relentless as the Reapers could still prove to be immensely satisfying if done right.

[kobayashi-maru]

I had similar thought about expanding the story, but the more I thought about it I realised the issue wasn't making another game it was how ME2 didn't do a great job of advancing the story. I love ME2 but really what actually happens in it that advances the war preparations. As someone else said if the crucible plans where discovered during the suicide mission on collectors base. Would also have liked to have seen the Batarians more hinting at how they had been indoctrinated at highest level. Arrival was okay but as a link to ME3 which it was stated to be, it just wasn't that important. You could essentially jump from 1 to 3 without really missing any of the main plot ( even Cerberus stuff could be squashed into one mission). Character development would be missed but plot not so much.

[dani1138]

I don't know. I mean, I get the point that ME2 doesn't accomplish all that much in the grand scheme of things and it's a pretty hard point to argue against. But I also love the way taking the direct focus off the Reaper threat enabled us to get a much broader look at the galactic situation as well as the characters. ME2 feels less like one complete story and more like an anthology of lots of smaller, interconnected stories. I love it for that factor and wouldn't trade it for anything.

[kobayashi-maru]

I agree with you I love how the characters are the focus and you get to explore more of the Universe. It also introduces my favourite character Grunt. It's just a strange game in a way, it the second part of trilogy but doesn't feel like it. In ME3 there is no build up, it just happens, the Batarians fall but you only know through codex and maybe two pieces of dialogue. The first third should have been set up, putting all the pieces in place for the Reapers to arrive and knock everything over - to make chess analogy. The Mars mission works without Reapers already arrived, VS gets hurt taken back to Earth and then the attack or something.

The Reapers are just suddenly there on the galaxy map, it lacks build up. Batarians fall should have been a focus at beginning. May have been difficult with the whole take back Earth theme though.

Actually half way through writing this I think your correct maybe ME3 should have all been about setting up the war and getting everything in place. War should have really have been finished in ME4. There is so much that could have been added to allow this. The fall of Batarians, Omega being taken over, a visit to Illium before it falls, Liara's escape from Cerberus which destroys SB ship and even have had the resignation of Anderson from council - if you chose him.

[David7204]

You're criticizing ME 2 for not moving the story forward and suggesting a bunch of ideas that don't move the story forward.

You really cannot have the Reapers invade halfway through a game. It completely changes the tone and setting, and it's really just poor storytelling. They need to invade immediately to establish that tone. I suppose you could break it into very clear acts, but that still wouldn't be good enough.

Modifié par David7204, 26 mars 2013 - 06:13 .

[pprrff]

kobayashi-maru wrote...

I agree with you I love how the characters are the focus and you get to explore more of the Universe. It also introduces my favourite character Grunt. It's just a strange game in a way, it the second part of trilogy but doesn't feel like it. In ME3 there is no build up, it just happens, the Batarians fall but you only know through codex and maybe two pieces of dialogue. The first third should have been set up, putting all the pieces in place for the Reapers to arrive and knock everything over - to make chess analogy. The Mars mission works without Reapers already arrived, VS gets hurt taken back to Earth and then the attack or something.

The Reapers are just suddenly there on the galaxy map, it lacks build up. Batarians fall should have been a focus at beginning. May have been difficult with the whole take back Earth theme though.

Actually half way through writing this I think your correct maybe ME3 should have all been about setting up the war and getting everything in place. War should have really have been finished in ME4. There is so much that could have been added to allow this. The fall of Batarians, Omega being taken over, a visit to Illium before it falls, Liara's escape from Cerberus which destroys SB ship and even have had the resignation of Anderson from council - if you chose him.

The story worked fine as it is I feel. I mean the crucible is questionable, but if the ending followed all the story line that came before, and the crucible worked exactly as we had been promised, it would have been serviceable. Take away the choices at the end, forget the catalyst or the origin of the reaper. Just deploy it and sit back to watch the cutscene. Done and done.

Deal with the origin of Reaper and the Crucible in another game. ME4 should begin anew with new character and backstory, and the new protagonist can focus more on the reapers without having to carry around the baggages of ME1-3/

[David7204]

No. If there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler.

The story needs to keep introducing information and challenges until the very end. The Crucible (or any other weapon or whatever) cannot work as planned.

[pprrff]

Plan as in "Crucible can end the war, we will build it and use it, and it ends the war." I don't think that's anymore of a spoiler than usual.

The twist and turns happens in the details, like Kai Leng coming to Thessia and kicking your ass. My point was that Crucible should be something that ends the war (destroy them, teleport them away, kills their CPUs), so just let it be so. The philosophical lessons about AI vs Organics should be more subtle than just telling it to your face by the catalyst.

Modifié par pprrff, 26 mars 2013 - 06:41 .

[Fawx9]

David7204 wrote...

No. If there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler.

The story needs to keep introducing information and challenges until the very end. The Crucible (or any other weapon or whatever) cannot work as planned.

Not if the plan turns into a Xanatos Gambit. Allowing you fail but also win. 

[David7204]

I don't think you understand what a Xanatos Gambit is. It's a plan where you win no matter what. No matter what happens, it's to the benefit of the planner somehow.

[someguy1231]

David7204 wrote...

No. If there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler.

The story needs to keep introducing information and challenges until the very end. The Crucible (or any other weapon or whatever) cannot work as planned.

So a story must have some kind of twist in order to be a good story? Did you attend the M. Night Shyamalan School of Writing?

Personally, I'll take a "things go according to plan" story over a story with bunch of contrived "twists for the sake of twists" anyday.

Modifié par someguy1231, 26 mars 2013 - 07:25 .

[David7204]

Did you miss the part where I said "If there is a plan..."? Apparently so.

Always, you seem to have a very poor grasp of what things "Not going to plan" entails. It does NOT mean there has to be a 'twist.', per se.  It means exactly what I said - that the story needs to introduce new information or challenges right up until the very end.

For example, consider Lord of the Rings. The plan is to get inside Mount Doom, throw the Ring in, and get out. Things don't go to plan. Frodo is seduced by the ring. I wouldn't call that a 'twist,' exactly, but it's absolutely a challenge the heroes have to overcome. 

Alternatively, you can have a plan go perfectly and simple not reveal it to the audience. A lot of heist films and such do this. But that doesn't work for video games.

Modifié par David7204, 26 mars 2013 - 07:30 .

[Reorte]

David7204 wrote...

No. If there is a plan, things cannot go according to it. If they do, the plan becomes a spoiler.

The story needs to keep introducing information and challenges until the very end. The Crucible (or any other weapon or whatever) cannot work as planned.

Information and challenges don't have to impact the overall plan, just affect the path to it. Lord of the Rings didn't fail because Frodo ended up doing exactly what he set out to do.

[kobayashi-maru]

David7204 wrote...

You're criticizing ME 2 for not moving the story forward and suggesting a bunch of ideas that don't move the story forward.

You really cannot have the Reapers invade halfway through a game. It completely changes the tone and setting, and it's really just poor storytelling. They need to invade immediately to establish that tone. I suppose you could break it into very clear acts, but that still wouldn't be good enough.

Yes but the invasion of Earth is so sudden and without context, with a codex entry saying oh by the way the Batarians fell first because there where people indoctrinated at highest level of Government. And by the way that choice you made about Anderson, we changed it and explained it via codex. Maybe a mid game invasion wouldn't work but using the Codex to tell the story was aggravating on occasion. All the ME2 hubs yeah they all attacked but you only know that by highlighting planet on Galaxy map and reading entry. They even killed characters via twitter, that's not good storytelling.

The protheans fought for Centuries against the Reapers and in ME3 despite messing up there plans by the events in ME1, protecting Citadel it pretty much all over within a few months. This is shown by the galaxy map before final mission, Reapers are everywhere. 

[someguy1231]

David7204 wrote...

Did you miss the part where I said "If there is a plan..."? Apparently so.

Actually, I didn't miss it. But that is irrelevant to me. You're suggesting that some type of story (one with a "plan", in this case) must have a twist in order to be good, and I think that's utter BS. Twists are inherently neither good or bad. It all depends on execution. And if an author uses some kind of storytelling technique simply because they think they need to, then it's almost always executed poorly.

David7204 wrote...
Always, you seem to have a very poor grasp of what things "Not going to plan" entails. It does NOT mean there has to be a 'twist.', per se.  It means exactly what I said - that the story needs to introduce new information or challenges right up until the very end.

You know, I might have been offended by you insulting my intelligence if I hadn't come to expect it so often from you.

David7204 wrote...
For example, consider Lord of the Rings. The plan is to get inside Mount Doom, throw the Ring in, and get out. Things don't go to plan. Frodo is seduced by the ring. I wouldn't call that a 'twist,' exactly, but it's absolutely a challenge the heroes have to overcome. 

Except we're told from the beginning that the Ring can easily corrupt its holder, so the audience wasn't exactly surprised by that. If anything, you citing LotR just reinforced my point that an "all according to plan" story is better than one with a bunch of contrived twists. The "plan", as you say, is to "get inside Mount Doom, throw the Ring in, and get out." And guess what? That's exactly what happens! Sure they didn't expect Gollum to intervene, but he still inadvertently caused their plan to go off as they expected.

[ScriptBabe]

There was a lovely moment of set up in Return of the King. Frodo and Sam are climbing Mt. Doom. Gollum attacks them. Frodo throws him off and says "Begone and trouble me no more! If you touch me ever again, you shall be cast yourself into the fire of Doom." Which completely removed the curse of coincidence from the climax.

[edisnooM]

Also Gandalf says way back in Fellowship:

"My heart tells me that he has some part to play yet, for good or ill, before the end; and when that comes, the pity of Bilbo may rule the fate of many - yours not least.”

which nicely foreshadowed the climax as well. Writing skill, Tolkien certainly had it.

[Archonsg]

To be fair, the game is *incomplete*.
If you played as a Renegade or Renegon, everything minus the Catalyst nonsense made sense.
Conversations kept asking you, if you are willing to kill millions to save billions. And in essence you did.
Assuming you didn't play with the intent to "win" the game with Shepard's integrity intact.

It's the paragon path, that suffers.
As the disconnect of the Paragon's Theme is much more pronounced.

[ScriptBabe]

I played as pretty much paragon with just a touch of renegade, so I assumed my Shepard was an emotional and psychological wreck after it was all over. That's certainly what I explored when I decided I had to write an ending I could tolerate.

[AlanC9]

kobayashi-maru wrote...

Yes but the invasion of Earth is so sudden and without context, with a codex entry saying oh by the way the Batarians fell first because there where people indoctrinated at highest level of Government. And by the way that choice you made about Anderson, we changed it and explained it via codex. Maybe a mid game invasion wouldn't work but using the Codex to tell the story was aggravating on occasion.

I didn't see any necessity to show the Reapers clobbering the batarians.Shepard didn't see that happen, so getting the news from Hackett, news broadcasts, and Codex entries worked fine for me. 

I suppose something should have been added into the prelude dialogue about what happened with Anderson on the Council.

Modifié par AlanC9, 27 mars 2013 - 06:55 .

[AlanC9]

Archonsg wrote...

To be fair, the game is *incomplete*.
If you played as a Renegade or Renegon, everything minus the Catalyst nonsense made sense.
Conversations kept asking you, if you are willing to kill millions to save billions. And in essence you did.
Assuming you didn't play with the intent to "win" the game with Shepard's integrity intact.

So a Paragon is not willing to kill millions to save billions?

Either your Shep was just mouthing platitudes there or she really believed what she was saying. If she really believed what she was saying, there's Refuse. If she was just mouthing platitudes, then the ME universe is calling her on her b.s.

3DandBeyond reminded me that there's a similar situation with the VS during the coup if you can't make the dialogue check. In a Normandy convo Shepard even gets to say she wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger. The difference is that during the coup one of the squadmates will bail Shepard out if she's too weak to do what must be done.

Modifié par AlanC9, 27 mars 2013 - 06:55 .

[Kenshen]

AlanC9 wrote...

3DandBeyond reminded me that there's a similar situation with the VS during the coup if you can't make the dialogue check. In a Normandy convo Shepard even gets to say she wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger. The difference is that during the coup one of the squadmates will bail Shepard out if she's too weak to do what must be done.

I wouldn't say weak but more indecisive.  This is why the boss doesn't make friends with those under him/her.  Jolee comes to mind as someone who would fall into this situation.

[Archonsg]

@alanc9

You misunderstood me.
My post was point out that the writers wrote a course of events that would only favor a more renegade style of play.

If you wanted to play as a Paragon, you will find that it is less than satisfying in comparison.

It boils down to just not having options available, or rather options that favorably reward the player for taking the high road, the Paragon's path.

[drayfish]

AlanC9 wrote...

Archonsg wrote...

To be fair, the game is *incomplete*.
If you played as a Renegade or Renegon, everything minus the Catalyst nonsense made sense.
Conversations kept asking you, if you are willing to kill millions to save billions. And in essence you did.
Assuming you didn't play with the intent to "win" the game with Shepard's integrity intact.

So a Paragon is not willing to kill millions to save billions?

Either your Shep was just mouthing platitudes there or she really believed what she was saying. If she really believed what she was saying, there's Refuse. If she was just mouthing platitudes, then the ME universe is calling her on her b.s.

3DandBeyond reminded me that there's a similar situation with the VS during the coup if you can't make the dialogue check. In a Normandy convo Shepard even gets to say she wouldn't have been able to pull the trigger. The difference is that during the coup one of the squadmates will bail Shepard out if she's too weak to do what must be done.

That sure is some fantastic passive-aggressive goading.  But calling people's Shepard's cowards because they are not willing to embrace the Reaper's nihilism, even though their zealot leader truly-ruly promises that slaughtering your own people will be worth it, seems a little ridiculous.

If I can risk paraphrasing for Archongs, I believe the point was that a Renegade player might well already subscribe to such tactics in order to secure what you call 'the greater good'.  A Paragon need not so swiftly (and happily) compromise the lives and rights of others because it is more expedient.  Calling someone 'weak' because they have faith in others, and do not subscribe to such relativism, is a disappointingly reductive act.

(And all of this is leaving aside the fact that there is little to no reason to trust anything that you are being told here – all of this relies upon the word of the genocidal enemy who wants you to fulfil his universe remaking wet dream for him, damn the cost.)

But this point (or many others like it) has been made to you several times already.


EDIT: Although it would appear that Archongs has already replied...

Modifié par drayfish, 27 mars 2013 - 08:52 .

[Archonsg]

@drayfish

Thanks.
That is more or less the gist of it.
I am at the moment playing my third run, a Renegon Engineer, who would choose humans over aliens, organics over synthetics and is decidedly ruthless.

*Role Playing* him, getting into this character's headspace, I have no trouble accepting some of the more "difficult" choices because in truth, they *aren't* for him.

Rachni Queen? Kill it with acid. Its an effing dangerous bug.
Wrex? Shoot him. He pulled a gun on me *first*.
Council? Dead.
Collector's Base, gave it to Cerberus with my blessings.
Mordin, shot him in the back. No loose ends.
Krogans betrayed, I get my shock troops, the Genophage will deal with what the reapers don't kill. No possibility of a Krogan rebellion. Period.
Legion? Shot till dead.
EDI, if Joker wants to fall in love with an advanced blow up sex doll, that's his business but I broke that relationship up and it's still just a damn robot.

That is me *role playing my character*, which is expected of a RPG, as opposed to an adventure game with role playing elements.
In which, you play a character whose role, morals and thought processes are already predetermined by the writer.

I have 5 renegade/renegon Shepards, I just have more Paragons/Paragades and prefer to take the "high road" in games that I play. I can role play as a better or worse person, anything other than what I am in actual life.

That is *if* given the choice.
ME3 did not.

Modifié par Archonsg, 27 mars 2013 - 10:00 .