648 réponses à ce sujet

[tevix]

@David

Your ability to dodge arguments is astonishing.

No, what iakus is what you said, just a few posts ago. That you would deny something that you said not long ago is just....

Whatisthisidonteven.

Please, tell me what about my initial idea you don't like. I'd be happy to address your concerns.

[Bleachrude]

iakus wrote...

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)

I...actually agree with this.

I like both Me2 and Me3 (more than ME1 and yes, I like that too) but it kind of forced too much on ME3's plate...

Take priority rannoch and priority tuchanka...both are well liked by many people and it's helped by the fact that ME2 continued from ME1 in expanding those specific storylines.

What ME2's side missions/main missions should've been about gathering resources/evidence/plans for the eventual reapers...

Of course, we as fans can complain about this to Bioware even though ME2 was widely hailed as game of the year in many a website/publication. Part of its strength WAS ignoring the reapers IMO.

[David7204]

tevix wrote...

@David

Your ability to dodge arguments is astonishing.

No, what iakus is what you said, just a few posts ago. That you would deny something that you said not long ago is just....

Whatisthisidonteven.

Please, tell me what about my initial idea you don't like. I'd be happy to address your concerns.

What the hell are you even talking about? I'm not dodging a damn thing. I don't like your plan of introducing the Crucible or whatever in ME 2 because it reduces the tension and conflict in the story, but I don't have a solution I'm satisfied with. It's that simple. How is that 'dodging' anything?

[tevix]

Actually, in the very early storyboards presented to GI magazine, a sovereign-sized ship was supposed to be part of the arc.

I forget the exact wording, but it had to do with the reaper dropping down as a column of krogan tanks approached their objective. Something would happen, and a then nameless thresher maw came most of the way out of the ground and tried to wrap around it and drag it underground. It did, but moments later reaper lasers came blasting out of the ground, the reaper emerged, and shepard was left wondering how to deal with it.

Again, that was VERY early storboard stuff, but an interesting tidbit I think.

[tevix]

@David

Nevermind.

Why do you think a solution being identified in ME2, even at the end, reduces the tension of the story?

[David7204]

Because it makes it obvious to players how the story is almost certainly going to end.

[tevix]

You could make the same argument against the crucible being dropped in at the very beginning of ME3.

You see these machines absolutely obliterate earth's defenses, and begin to flatten your city. Even the best pilot in the fleet can only run. You get this emotional beginning where the reapers seem utterly unstoppable in their destruction.

Then 30 minutes later you find out about the magic I win button that is the crucible and you go "Oh, well...now I know I'm going to win. What was the point of that intro?"

Emotional whiplash, in a sense. The story needs to begin and flow with one concept or another, that it starts with one and immediately switches to another I find of poor design.

Let's say you know about the crucible at the end of ME2. You begin ME3 seeing all this same destruction, and you get angry. You think to yourself "Enjoy it while you can you bast----. Were putting a stop to it this time."

All throughout the game you could encounter the same arc, and your anger builds. The more you see the more psyched up by the end when the crucible finally arrives with an army of dreadnoughts. Very climactic, IMO.

Additionally, the more you go through the game, the more you begin to wonder how much more the galaxy can take before the crucible is ready. You know you have the tool to win, but you look around and begin to wonder what will be left. At this rate, by the time it's ready, will there even be anything left to defend it with? Will there be anything left even worth defending?

It's consistant, it builds on itself, and it provides a proper emotional climax.

[David7204]

I'm not claiming the introduction of the Crucible in ME 3 is any good at all either. It isn't. Honestly, I would really prefer to scrap the Crucible entirely.

[tevix]

@David

Would you prefer conventional victory? I personally never liked the idea. The reapers may not be invulnerable, but they might as well be between their power and how many there are.

That you could win just by massing a fleet never seemed right. A reaper can oneshot a dreadnought, but takes the power of four dreadnoughts to take down.

[David7204]

Yes, I would absolutely prefer conventional victory for a 'perfect' playthough, which I would definitely want to set up as the most satisfying and rewarding ME 3 experience. I think it could be done, and done well. I think an outstanding conventional victory ending would be a perfect validation of all the themes of unity, friendship, courage, etc. found throughout the series. However, that's only going to be an option for 'perfect' or 'near perfect' playthoughs, so it's necessary to have some kind of unconventional solution as well.

Modifié par David7204, 01 avril 2013 - 04:37 .

[tevix]

@David

Then you and I are at an impasse. I never liked the idea of winning just by shooting reapers, and you do. Nowhere else to go with it at this point.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

I'm still a bit miffed about the whole "Well I guess I'll periodically kill the organics with my synthetics to prevent them from being killed by synthetics" angle Glow boy went with.


Almost any other motive would have been better.

[tevix]

@Cheescake

One does wonder how mac and hudson didn't see the failure of logic in that.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

tevix wrote...

@Cheescake

One does wonder how mac and hudson didn't see the failure of logic in that.

Hmm........

Mac: So I'm thinking we have the Catalyst kill organics so they won't be killed by synthetics.

Hudson: Whoa it's like a troll inside of a troll...Trollception!

Mac: Brilliant I know.

Hudson: So where did you get that idea?

Mac: Oh...it just came to me...

Harbinger: Muahahahahahaaaa!!!

[ZLurps]

Reorte wrote...

ZLurps wrote...

What would create such tone?

I recall playing some game where in the end it turned out protagonist was fooled from the begin with, and antagonists were used him to track down all possible pockets of resistance. Everyone protagonist knew was killed before he was shot to death or something. It was cyber punk FPS and plot was pretty dark, but I still don't think anyone expected it to end like that.

Even not my main problem with ME3 isn't the ending, it still felt worse than ending of that old cyper punk fps.

I think old RPG, Arcanun had one ending where protagonist and everyone with him/her got stuck in other dimension, but I don't recall for sure if it really was like that. I just have faint memory like there were been some built up for that and that it actually worked. Anyway, IIRC it could be seen as sacrifice of freedom.

I've not played too many other games to be honest but a tone of not epic hero is a starter. One of the few I have played is The Witcher and I expect that things won't end up too brightly in that - from the start it was clear that things were a mess and going downhill.

Yep, it worked in Witcher. I bought the sequel but never get too far in it, just lost interest so I don't if there is such ending in it.
Doesn't Bastila die in KotOR unless player were like 100% paragon? If so it could be seen as sacrifice of loved one at the expense of certain freedom. Mona Sax dies in Max Payne 2 on first playthrough but there is an ending where she lives available if game is played on higher difficulty levels after first play through. Then Max Payne 2 is noir to begin with. Fallout 3 doesn't IMO count because it was really, really stupid and was retconned in FO3:Broken Steel add-on.

Can't think of anything else. My problem is pretty much the same as yours. I have played ME series, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegans, Deus Ex: HR and StarCraft 2 during past years and that's it. I even stopped buying games because I have years old games still in plastic.

So KotOR might be exception, but everything else IMO indicates that this sort of thing should be established from the start to make sort of thing BW tried in ME3 to work for audience.

I'm going to speculate about few problems regarding ME3 and endings in other post. There might be some general interest to that sort of thing.

[drayfish]

Grand Admiral Cheesecake wrote...

tevix wrote...

@Cheescake

One does wonder how mac and hudson didn't see the failure of logic in that.

Hmm........

Mac: So I'm thinking we have the Catalyst kill organics so they won't be killed by synthetics.

Hudson: Whoa it's like a troll inside of a troll...Trollception!

Mac: Brilliant I know.

Hudson: So where did you get that idea?

Mac: Oh...it just came to me...

Harbinger: [/i][i]Muahahahahahaaaa!!!

CATALYST:

'So help me, Organics and Synthetics - if you two don't stop fighting in the back seat there, then I will turn this car around and no one will be going to Disneyland.


...Also, I'll obliterate you, and scatter everything you love into ash.'

[tevix]

@Drayfish

Harbinger to catalyst: "They will stop throwing gum at each other...

...or they will be annihilated."

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

tevix wrote...

@Drayfish

Harbinger to catalyst: "They will stop throwing gum at each other...

...or they will be annihilated."

Harbinger: We are the harbinger of your destruction....eat your vegetables. Also you may watch Blasto saves Santa.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

I totally just had the mental image of Harbinger and Glow Boy getting their own wacky parenting sitcom.

[drayfish]

tevix wrote...

@Drayfish

Harbinger to catalyst: "They will stop throwing gum at each other...

...or they will be annihilated."

SYNTHETICS:  'What?  No.  It's cool.  We can just stop.'

CATALYST:  'It is inevitable.  It is a cycle that has continued for countless generations...'

ORGANICS:  'Nah, it's fine.  We'll just throw it in the trash.  See?'

CATALYST:  'I was created eons ago to solve a problem.  To bring order to the chaos.'

SYNTHETICS:  'Well, we're pretty good now, so no need to bother yourself -'

CATALYST:  'To prevent organics from creating a wad of chewed up gum so powerful that it would destroy them both...'

ORGANICS:  'Right...  Um, can we talk to your mother or something?'

SYNTHETICS:  'Yeah, you are really freaking us out, kid.'

ORGANICS:  'No wonder no one invites you to come play outside.'

CATALYST: (*sniff*)  '...The Citadel is part of me.'

[ZLurps]

ScriptBabe wrote...

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.

There is sort of special place, sort of exploration where making things up as you go can be used, though mile age may wary in even that scenario.

Years ago I was writing small inserts for on-going thing. We were under staffed and I wanted some room to have more time to focus on other content. So I came up with this idea of comedic character which had certain features I got from real life. I thought I put this character through certain situations and thought that it might be fun just to see where it goes, it was just 2-4 minutes per episode and I could write content for many weeks in advance, what could possibly go wrong?

Oh dear, there were quite a few other things that went awry and it started to influence my work with character. So when I had penned arch for month or two, I reviewed it I realised I were come up with something really realistic, but it was only fun in very superficial sense. Character had obvious issues to the point of personality disorder, kind that wasn't funny at all and everybody who knew what to look would spot it right away. I could have salvaged it, but some aspects of things can be really draining to deal with, so I shelved it and needed to do much more work because I needed to come up with something anyway. So much for saving time. :-P

So what I learned, exploring something by just seeing where it goes can be good for your skills but on production material, never. I haven't wrote fiction for years now, but even for little fan project we have put most focus to point where players discoveries culminate.


It's not that always that easy. Things don't work out always work out like that and in ME series they obviously didn't

Quote from Drew Karpyshyn from recent interview.
"The ME team did go in a different direction than I expected once I left, but that’s not very surprising. Even though we planned much of the ME trilogy out, it was all broad strokes – we had to leave things flexible enough for us to adapt and change depending on how everything evolved."

Broad strokes... Most games made are planned sequels in mind. You have a studio, there are people who need to eat. So instead of making stand alones and taking a risk if you can even find a publisher to fund production and going through that cycle with every title, studios look for better deals. Something that keeps them on bread many years when they are working on sequels.

Creating a brand, like ME can also be very valuable property. I guess that when Riccitello was selling his whatever it was where also BW belong, he was probably using the angle that potential of Mass Effect (series, even there was just ME at that point) was worth XX millions alone.

To get back to those Broad Strokes. When studio creates new IP, they can't be sure how well it's going to do on the market. It may go well, good, it may also flop. So maybe investing a lot of time on planning a sequel that may or may not happen doesn't always look like a good idea. There was very good story regarding this on Gama Sutra few years ago. I don't recall the title, but it was about game that didn't sold that well but had cult following. Fans kept asking questions about planned sequel that never materialised, and it turned out that planned sequel was just one sentence on margin of design document.

How broad strokes BW's plans for sequels were? Even if they had, where they needed to give? I guess we will never get to know. I'm not trying to either defend or blame BW here but why things like multimillion dollar studio working without clear vision how things are going to fold up in the end happens.

Modifié par ZLurps, 01 avril 2013 - 10:50 .

[TheRealJayDee]

drayfish wrote...

SYNTHETICS:  'What?  No.  It's cool.  We can just stop.'

CATALYST:  'It is inevitable.  It is a cycle that has continued for countless generations...'

ORGANICS:  'Nah, it's fine.  We'll just throw it in the trash.  See?'

CATALYST:  'I was created eons ago to solve a problem.  To bring order to the chaos.'

SYNTHETICS:  'Well, we're pretty good now, so no need to bother yourself -'

CATALYST:  'To prevent organics from creating a wad of chewed up gum so powerful that it would destroy them both...'

ORGANICS:  'Right...  Um, can we talk to your mother or something?'

SYNTHETICS:  'Yeah, you are really freaking us out, kid.'

ORGANICS:  'No wonder no one invites you to come play outside.'

CATALYST: (*sniff*)  '...The Citadel is part of me.'

Okay, I'm feeling genuinely sad for the Catalyst now...

[dani1138]

Grand Admiral Cheesecake wrote...

I'm still a bit miffed about the whole "Well I guess I'll periodically kill the organics with my synthetics to prevent them from being killed by synthetics" angle Glow boy went with.


Almost any other motive would have been better.

I read the Catalyst to be the very tech singularity he thinks he's protecting the galaxy from, so in that way the irony of the whole situation could have worked quite well - in a different story. How anyone thought foisting this idea on us in the final 10 minutes of the game was a great idea is utterly beyond me.

It's the Leviathans' logic that gets me. "Our thralls built synthetics which destroyed them, so rather than telling them to 'Hey, knock that off' (them being our THRALLS and all), we built our own synthetic which destroyed us. Oh the hubris!'

[dani1138]

ZLurps wrote...

How broad strokes BW's plans for sequels were? Even if they had, where they needed to give? I guess we will never get to know. I'm not trying to either defend or blame BW here but why things like multimillion dollar studio working without clear vision how things are going to fold up in the end happens.

I'm guessing from the final product that those strokes were very broad. As in: Reapers invade > Find allies > Sort out Genophage > End Quarian/Geth Conflict > Final Confrontation > ? > Profit.

[huntrrz]

dani1138 wrote...

It's the Leviathans' logic that gets me. "Our thralls built synthetics which destroyed them, so rather than telling them to 'Hey, knock that off' (them being our THRALLS and all), we built our own synthetic which destroyed us. Oh the hubris!'

I'm reminded of Larry Niven's "World of Ptaves".  An ancient race that could telepathically dominate other species (and each other if they weren't careful) enslaved the galaxy.  As a result, they became dependent on their thralls and became complacent and stupid.  One of their more intelligent slave races developed species they used as biological weapons and wiped them out.

So, I'm thinking that in similar fashion the Leviathan developed into sloppy thinking and programmed their AI clumsily.  They and the galaxy paid the price.