648 réponses à ce sujet

[dani1138]

tevix,
Thing is that even if the ME trilogy represents one single story, it's still split up into clearly defined chapters with their own plots, subplots, themes etc. This isn't like Lord of the Rings, where the book was only split into three because of logistical issues. ME2 needs to concentrate mainly on resolving the ME2-specific plot threads that need closing off. Sure, it can open doors and plant seeds, but actually blatantly, openly revealing the means to defeat the Reapers at this relatively early stage would do far too much to deflate tension when if anything, the story should be ramping it up exponentially.

I really do wish that, when the means to defeat the Reapers was discovered, we could all look back on ME1&2 and say "Wow! So that's where they were going with that! Why didn't I see it coming?", but stepping too far in the other direction could easily cause just as much damage as the mess we're stuck with now. Okay, I take that back, nothing could be that messy, but you get the gist...

Reorte wrote...

 The alternative to having a plan is for the Reapers to turn up and everyone running around like headless chickens without the faintest idea about what to do.

Nah there's a nice middle ground in between. I wanted to pull my hair out and scream at those morons at the beginning of ME3, "I ****ing told you! Why didn't you listen?" I hated the fact that nobody seemed to have done the slightest bit of preparation and had almost completely wasted the chance the Protheans had given us.

BUT... Being prepared and putting up a good fight is one thing, but knowing in advance that we already have a way to defeat them before they've even invaded is quite another. It's going way too far in the other direction.

David7204 wrote...

Also, I really didn't care for derelict Reaper mission much at all. There's a bunch of little problems that I could otherwise ignore, but altogether add up to something I don't like. I think I would have scrapped it and found some other way to introduce the IFF and Legion.

Heh, it's one of my favourites, though mainly for its gameplay style, creepy atmosphere and that absolutely superb score by Sam Hulick. I love it's intensity... unless you've got shockwave and take Jack along with you, then it's a wee bit too easy.

Modifié par dani1138, 31 mars 2013 - 11:43 .

[David7204]

There are fair amount of signs throughout ME 2 that preparations are being made. But people don't seem to recognize any effort between 'Doing nothing' and 'Building a gazillion dreadnoughts.'

No government or military in real life would ever spend that kind of money (as in all-out prepartion and construction 24/7) based on the evidence they saw. When it comes right down to it, the only real evidence of the Reaper invasion is that a big ship attacked the Citadel.

What do you suggest they should have done about that issue? 

Modifié par David7204, 31 mars 2013 - 11:47 .

[dani1138]

Preparations, sure, but what do they come down to? As Reorte said, everyone is running around like headless chickens, as if they plain just don't understand what is happening and haven't got the first clue about what the next step should be.

The thanix cannons on the Turian ships is a great step, but I think there really needed to be more of this kind of thing. I was with Joker, I figured the Council was denying everything up front, but making all the preparations they could on the down-low. Nope, turns out they were just sitting around with their air-quote fingers up their butts.

[Reorte]

dani1138 wrote...

Nah there's a nice middle ground in between. I wanted to pull my hair out and scream at those morons at the beginning of ME3, "I ****ing told you! Why didn't you listen?" I hated the fact that nobody seemed to have done the slightest bit of preparation and had almost completely wasted the chance the Protheans had given us.

BUT... Being prepared and putting up a good fight is one thing, but knowing in advance that we already have a way to defeat them before they've even invaded is quite another. It's going way too far in the other direction.

I agree with that, my "discover the solution" was the bare bones minimum plot structure. At the end of 2 though we should have most of the pieces for victory though, even if we don't quite know where they all fit (or that some of them are even pieces). The characters don't need to know that they've got most of it although they should know that they're going in the right direction.

[David7204]

These ships cost billions or trillions of credits apeice. That kind of money doesn't get spent under the radar. What do you suggest they do? What do you think people in real life would do if their taxes were quintupled because the government says there's an annaliation coming? 

Modifié par David7204, 31 mars 2013 - 11:51 .

[dani1138]

Yes, that's exactly how it should have been IMO. We have the pieces but don't even know it yet, and wouldn't necessarily know how to put them together if we did.Then along comes ME3, Reapers invade, and at some point we find the key that makes the whole thing fit together.

[Reorte]

David7204 wrote...

What do you suggest they should have done about that issue? 

At the very least dig around for information, try to learn everything possible about the Reapers in order to feel that they stand a chance when they do turn up. ME1 doesn't set them up for starting a massive military building programme (the impression we got is that destroying Sovereign bought us a great deal of time), but all we got were a few things like thanix cannons which would've been taken anyway because they look like a useful new technology, not as preparation of any sort.

[David7204]

And they did do that. The Alliance commissioned the Arrival Project and Project Aurora, with the Council and other aliens doubtless spending who knows how much sending various small teams to investigate the Reapers however they can.

[Reorte]

David7204 wrote...

And they did do that. The Alliance commissioned the Arrival Project and Project Aurora, with the Council and other aliens doubtless spending who knows how much sending various small teams to investigate the Reapers however they can.

None of which really impacted the plot though. From a story structure point of view they needed to be things that were of use in ME3. Done well I might've even been able to believe that a few years (the gap between the end of 1 and the start of 3 really could've done with being longer) of studying a blown up Reaper was the edge this cycle had that no previous one did but we appear to have learned very little useful from it.

Modifié par Reorte, 31 mars 2013 - 11:57 .

[David7204]

You're not going to get what you're asking for. You're not going to a super-fleet or super-technology that blows the Reapers away. The Reapers are going to hit the galaxy hard and the allied fleets are going to take heavy losses, period.

I'm afraid you might have been doomed to have been unsatisfied with the amount of prepartions made no matter what. Which is really pretty natural, when I think about it. I think if you're facing an enemy like the Reapers you should be wishing you did more regardless of how much you actually did.

Modifié par David7204, 01 avril 2013 - 12:20 .

[Spartas Husky]

Well, given in the previous games we were under prepared for the near impossible odds and every time we came out on top with most of our balls or quads depending I'd say it was possible given previous events.

As Hackett said, the Omega 4 relay, that was a blind suicide mission in the clearest definition.

[David7204]

I agree.

[ScriptBabe]

Depending upon the model you use there are only three or six basic stories. So yes, at their most basic stories are simple. It's always in the execution, the interesting grace notes you add to those basic tales, the obstructions that our protagonist faces that distinguish between them. And BTW personal insults are not cool, so let's not do that anymore.

I really do think the problem goes way back to game one. The Reapers were magnificent, terrifying villains, but from the moment the writers began to craft the shape of this game there desperately needed to be a discussion of -- okay, Reapers are the problem. How are they defeated? I'm about to sit down and write a proposal for a six volume space opera. I had a plot session with several of my writer buddies, and the major question was how do my heroes counter the threat? Until that was answered none of the other issues -- will my hero get the girl and how? When does the civil war start? What is the final personal victory for my hero -- don't matter a damn bit. I was not about to start writing this long saga without knowing how it all comes out so I can lay in hints, foreshadowing, beginning in book one.

Modifié par ScriptBabe, 01 avril 2013 - 12:37 .

[Archonsg]

ScriptBabe wrote...

Depending upon the model you use there are only three or six basic stories. So yes, at their most basic stories are simple. It's always in the execution, the interesting grace notes you add to those basic tales, the obstructions that our protagonist faces that distinguish between them. And BTW personal insults are not cool, so let's not do that anymore.

I really do think the problem goes way back to game one. The Reapers were magnificent, terrifying villains, but from the moment the writers began to craft the shape of this game there desperately needed to be a discussion of -- okay, Reapers are the problem. How are they defeated? I'm about to sit down and write a proposal for a six volume space opera. I had a plot session with several of my writer buddies, and the major question was how do my heroes counter the threat? Until that was answered none of the other issues -- will my hero get the girl and how? When does the civil war start? What is the final personal victory for my hero -- don't matter a damn bit. I was not about to start writing this long saga without knowing how it all comes out so I can lay in hints, foreshadowing, beginning in book one.

Agreed.
The problem was, in evidence, that they didn't do this.
More likely, they had plans for a trilogy but aren't sure that they *will* actually make a trilogy which hinged on success of sales perhaps, and just how big a success of the pilot title was.

So they made a single stand alone episode that is open to a sequel but hadn't penned or planned for ME2 - ME3.
If they had I doubt that the ending mess is what we would have got.
Leaks aside, Drew was careful to state that the "original" dark energy ending was just one of few possible endings that he came up with, we never got to know what the other endings were.

Modifié par Archonsg, 01 avril 2013 - 01:24 .

[tevix]

Something I learned in school about writing is, that when writing a story, after you develop the base plot, you should always write the ending first.

Why? When you do it like that you are forced to write the rest of the story so that it clicks. If you wait until the end to write the end, you've lost focus with the main overall arc, and just come up with an easy out deus ex machina to solve the problem.

They knew ME3 was a trilogy from the start. They should have been spending more time making sure that the reaper story arc stayed consistant from beginning to end. They didn't they threw it all together at the last minute.

@David

No no, you're not getting off that easily. I will say it again, you kept saying the solution to the reaper problem can't be found in ME2 because that would eliminate the "how the hell do we do this" factor. It wouldn't. Knowing what you have to do and doing are two different things.

If people started ME3 already knowing about the crucible, the game would seem much less contrived than if a deus ex win button was discovered within one hour of the third game.

The third game is supposed to about the final climactic struggle to implement your plans, nearly failing at every step.

Heck even Halo got this right for crying out loud. At the end of the second game you learn that the ultimate key to the halo system is on earth. So you start the third game knowing what you need to do, but not how you're going to do it.

This is where ME2 & 3 failed. ME2 failed to do anything for the reaper arc. ME3 dropped the magic I win button in at the beginning of the game. You go from virtually no progress to automatic I win in a very jarring fashion.

[David7204]

I don't care if it's better than ME 3. It's still not good enough. I can do better.

Also, there are plenty of famous writers who routinely wrote or write on the fly. Ray Bradbury, Issac Asimov, Stephen King, Dougles Adams, J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Pratchett...Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes people plan the ending right from the beginning and it still sucks.

[Trollgunner]

Finally some life on BSN. I tought entire BSN went down with "WE LOVE CITADEL" orgasmic screams.
I don't agree that this game is fanbase's mistake. It's EA's and Bioware's mistake. Both of them did something to destroy the game with one fine stroke. I'm still dissapointed with how they were building climax for 3 games and then say "No, wait." trow you out and leave you speechless while you sit in corridor with your pants down. There are 2 things though, that they achieved.
First is non-stopping attendance to BSN for about a year.
Second....well, I hope they will get this, is situation where 3,5 men will buy their game.

Modifié par Trollgunner, 01 avril 2013 - 02:51 .

[tevix]

@David

You can do better you say? Please, enlighten us.

[David7204]

I don't know, exactly. But I know what I'm willing to accept from myself and what I'm not.

Modifié par David7204, 01 avril 2013 - 03:17 .

[tevix]

@David

That doesn't even make sense....

I give you a quickly thought out excessively simplistic draft with no attempt to improve upon it and you've apparently deemed it as not having any possibility of success. Then you tell me that you can do better. Then you give a cryptic response like that.

Man, you'd make a great PR guy.

[David7204]

I said nothing remotely like that. I'm sure your plan would be decent, just not outstanding. It has elements I don't like, and I don't have a solution to those problems just yet, but neither am I satisfied with accepting them. That's all there is to it.

Modifié par David7204, 01 avril 2013 - 03:29 .

[JPN17]

I don't think the fanbase made any mistakes. Casey and Mac wrote a ridiculous nonsensical ending. They were apparently too egotistical or too oblivious or both to think that most people wouldn't hate it. The blame ultimately falls on them for failing to write a coherent ending for the trilogy.

[Iakus]

David7204 wrote...

I said nothing remotely like that. I'm sure your plan would be decent, just not outstanding. It has elements I don't like, and I don't have a solution to those problems just yet, but neither am I satisfied with accepting them. That's all there is to it.

Ummm...

David7204 wrote...

I don't care if it's better than ME 3. It's still not good enough. I can do better.

Modifié par iakus, 01 avril 2013 - 03:32 .

[David7204]

Is this about what I said in the Allers thread? It's not the same. I'm not insisting that there's a solution that's straightaway evident and obvious.

[Iakus]

David7204 wrote...

And they did do that. The Alliance commissioned the Arrival Project and Project Aurora, with the Council and other aliens doubtless spending who knows how much sending various small teams to investigate the Reapers however they can.

Both the Object Rho Project and Task Force Aurora are dlc.  There is no evidence the Council did anything about the Reapers at all beyond "dismissing this claim"   We know from Garrus that the turians did nothing beyond his small task force to prepare for the Reapers

Preparing for, or at least investigating the Reapers would have been a great way to spend ME2, with ME3 applying what you have learned, with all sort so monkey wrenches being tossed in by red herrings, indoctrinated agents, Reaper attacks, etc (pretty sure a reaper destroyer was not part of the plan in curing the genophage, after all)