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[KiwiQuiche]

Sauruz wrote...

Is it Citadel DLC that is out of place or is it ME3?
I agree that some parts of Citadel DLC were unnecessarily goofy, but if it was set in ME2 or a hypothetical ME3 that doesn't have a hopeless war against the Reapers throughout the entire game, there'd be no problem with it.

Indeed.

ME3 is all about the Reaper war, and how you are loosing so many people and everyone is dying left right and centre. Then the DLC comes along and it's all goofy and lighthearted. It's an incredibly jarring change. It would fit in ME2, which is a build up to the Reaper War. As it is, it's completely out of place and it shows.

I mean, they went to great lengths with the whole "hopeless war" angle, then they give us this...though Citadel is obviously just them trying to curry favour with pissed off fans via fanservice and memes. <_<

[M Hedonist]

Fandango9641 wrote...

Sauruz wrote...

Is it Citadel DLC that is out of place or is it ME3?
I agree that some parts of Citadel DLC were unnecessarily goofy, but if it was set in ME2 or a hypothetical ME3 that doesn't have a hopeless war against the Reapers throughout the entire game, there'd be no problem with it.

Nope, within the context of the ME universe, the tone and presentation of Citadel was uniquely spoofy. For me, and for what it's worth, the rapid fire rate at which the quips, in-jokes and memes were rolled out was totally overwhelming and at complete odds with the overarching fiction (right across the trilogy). Yep, Citadel looked complete garbage from my pov.

Well, I guess it's ultimately a matter of taste.
There were certainly a few moments where I just had to roll my eyes, but generally, I liked the lighthearted tone of it. The only thing I really found to be too immersion-breaking was the toothbrush scene. The idea could have worked, but the way they presented it was just silly.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sauruz wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Sauruz wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Sauruz wrote...

I really hope they will see Citadel DLC's success as a sign people prefer Mass Effect as a fun space adventure with a focus on characters rather than a depressingly grim nihilistic Nietzschean abyss.
Eh, who am I kidding? As long as there's Multiplayer it won't make a difference.

Where's the logic in this? Plenty of series which have multiplayer aren't grim nihilstic Nietzschean abyses.

Hell, ME3 isn't a grim nihilistic Nietzschean abyss, unless you distort the meanings of nihilism and Nietzschean so far away from their roots that the lables aren't worth anything.

What I'm saying is that the next ME will sell regardless of the story if it has Multiplayer.

Ah, I see. That makes sense, I suppose.

And ME3 is that, petty much. You just don't get to really experience it until the end if you've got a perfect import. Otherwise you get to make many more decisions like that - where there's simply no ideal solution and you have to compromise your morals constantly. Your squadmates constantly reminding you that you'll have to sacrifice your morals and honor to win this hopelessly bleak war, doesn't help, either.

What you describe still isn't nihilistic, or particularly Nietschean abysian. Grim, certainly, but grim isn't a synonym for the rest.

"Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism, is the meta-ethical view that morality does not exist as something inherent to objective reality; therefore no action is necessarily preferable to any other." (courtesy to Wikipedia)
It's the whole atmosphere of ME3. It throws you into a hopeless war and constantly makes you aware of the fact that you will have to do amoral things to win it. That morality does not matter in this war.

That morals alone don't win wars is not the same as morality not existing. A bad situation, which the Reaper War is, is not the same as a lack of morality: whether you fight the reapers with or without morals is up to you. The Reapers may be amoral, but the setting isn't.

And if you didn't have a 'perfect' import you're forced to do amoral things all throughout the game. Do you betray the Krogan and uphold the genophage or risk Wreav leading the Krogan onto a bloody path of revenge? Do you kill the Quarians or the Geth? These are the two major conflicts, but there's also a a number of other conflicts that won't allow you to solve them with your morality intact. That is what some call Nietzschean abysses.
If you did have a 'perfect' import, you can try to just shrug all of it off, but sooner or later you will be forced to accept that morality won't win you this war, and the later it is you come to that realization, the harder it hits you.

These are still not an Nietzschean abyss or lack of morality. You remain free to answer them with by finding the available solution most suited for your morality.

That the delimmas have no clear answer is irrelevant: nearly all the choices in the franchise so far have entailed costs or risks associated with them, costs and risks that weigh on people's moralities to different extents. It's why there have been disputes about what is the 'best' choice in nearly all the Big Decisions of late: the Collector Base, the Heretic Geth, the Council, the Rachni.

If delimmas like these destroy your morality, then your morality system was rusty in the first place: conflict resolution between moral principles (Thou Shall Not Kill, for example, versus Thou Shalt Not Let Others Harm You) is the responsibility of the individual, not the setting. Just because deontological ethics (absolute principles matter most) clash with teleological biases (consequences matter most) doesn't mean there's a lack of morality or ethics: it just means you have to resolve the conflict between them when they arise. That's the root of what a moral delimma is: a conflict of moral inclinations.

[Peranor]

Sauruz wrote...

I really hope they will see Citadel DLC's success as a sign people prefer Mass Effect as a fun space adventure with a focus on characters rather than a depressingly grim nihilistic Nietzschean abyss.
Eh, who am I kidding? As long as there's Multiplayer it won't make a difference.

You're probably right

[Dean_the_Young]

KiwiQuiche wrote...

Sauruz wrote...

Is it Citadel DLC that is out of place or is it ME3?
I agree that some parts of Citadel DLC were unnecessarily goofy, but if it was set in ME2 or a hypothetical ME3 that doesn't have a hopeless war against the Reapers throughout the entire game, there'd be no problem with it.

Indeed.

ME3 is all about the Reaper war, and how you are loosing so many people and everyone is dying left right and centre. Then the DLC comes along and it's all goofy and lighthearted. It's an incredibly jarring change. It would fit in ME2, which is a build up to the Reaper War. As it is, it's completely out of place and it shows.

I mean, they went to great lengths with the whole "hopeless war" angle, then they give us this...though Citadel is obviously just them trying to curry favour with pissed off fans via fanservice and memes. <_<

Why is it obviously 'just' currying favor? Why are other explanations or motives ruled out: that this is the last DLC of the entire trilogy, that this is the final creative content with the characters, that this is a pice never intended to be a cart of the first or core playthrough?

Why 'just' something worth a <_

[KiwiQuiche]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

KiwiQuiche wrote...

Sauruz wrote...

Is it Citadel DLC that is out of place or is it ME3?
I agree that some parts of Citadel DLC were unnecessarily goofy, but if it was set in ME2 or a hypothetical ME3 that doesn't have a hopeless war against the Reapers throughout the entire game, there'd be no problem with it.

Indeed.

ME3 is all about the Reaper war, and how you are loosing so many people and everyone is dying left right and centre. Then the DLC comes along and it's all goofy and lighthearted. It's an incredibly jarring change. It would fit in ME2, which is a build up to the Reaper War. As it is, it's completely out of place and it shows.

I mean, they went to great lengths with the whole "hopeless war" angle, then they give us this...though Citadel is obviously just them trying to curry favour with pissed off fans via fanservice and memes. <_<

Why is it obviously 'just' currying favor? Why are other explanations or motives ruled out: that this is the last DLC of the entire trilogy, that this is the final creative content with the characters, that this is a pice never intended to be a cart of the first or core playthrough?

Why 'just' something worth a <_

Because the original game is still utter crap and no amount of cheese is going to change that?

[Dean_the_Young]

KiwiQuiche wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

KiwiQuiche wrote...

Sauruz wrote...

Is it Citadel DLC that is out of place or is it ME3?
I agree that some parts of Citadel DLC were unnecessarily goofy, but if it was set in ME2 or a hypothetical ME3 that doesn't have a hopeless war against the Reapers throughout the entire game, there'd be no problem with it.

Indeed.

ME3 is all about the Reaper war, and how you are loosing so many people and everyone is dying left right and centre. Then the DLC comes along and it's all goofy and lighthearted. It's an incredibly jarring change. It would fit in ME2, which is a build up to the Reaper War. As it is, it's completely out of place and it shows.

I mean, they went to great lengths with the whole "hopeless war" angle, then they give us this...though Citadel is obviously just them trying to curry favour with pissed off fans via fanservice and memes. <_<

Why is it obviously 'just' currying favor? Why are other explanations or motives ruled out: that this is the last DLC of the entire trilogy, that this is the final creative content with the characters, that this is a pice never intended to be a cart of the first or core playthrough?

Why 'just' something worth a <_

Because the original game is still utter crap and no amount of cheese is going to change that?

ME3 can still be utter crap and no amount of cheese going to change that, and still the Citadel DLC be crafted by Devs as a fond farewell to the trilogy and the fans. They aren't mutually compatible, even if one accepts your charge.

That's not a logical connection or justification for your suggestion, nor does that rule out other motivations.

[Felya87]

the only problem of Citadel was not being post-ending.

If it was post, ending, with little variations of dialogue, could have been great
if Shep died in the ending, the few casual references to the war could be there, and be tell as a memory of the LI, or tell by the Grandfather at the end.(tell me another story of Shepard!)

If Shep lives..well, it was a great adventure post hospital.

[Rafficus III]

I wonder what could have been put in the EC if there wasn't the 2gb limits. I wish Bioware would have figured that one out earlier. Regardless, I'm glad they show signs that they're learning.

[Dean_the_Young]

Fandango9641 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
That's not a logical connection or justification for your suggestion, nor does that rule out other motivations.

Again, Citadel was pure fan service. It’s Bioware fawning to and flattering their toady demographic. It’s a circle jerk.

And again, I'll give you the same challenge I gave Kiwi: justify that that claim. Provide proof that supports your claim and invalidates other explanations. You can make as many claims based on self-evidence as you like, but they don't become any more substantial just by repeating them.

It's fine to be skeptical of Bioware claims, if you're that far into it, but it doesn't change the nature of supporting efforts. If you believe the stated reason is wrong, you should have evidence to support such a belief. And if you have your own alternative belief, you should have evidence to prove the alternative.

[M Hedonist]

In the Quarian/Geth conflict, you knowingly decide which race you want to extinguish - without a perfect import. There is no morally good way to solve that conflict, unless you simply deny that the Geth have a right to live.
I can see how these conflicts are similar to past ones, but they have never been quite this grim. The fact that everything we do also helps the war effort, meaning everything we do has an underlying utilitarian goal and those we 'save' are getting sent into a war against an enemy that cannot be beaten and will likely suffer large casualties, also puts a different note on everything. Whereas in past conflicts, we (more or less) just happened to stumble upon them and were free to decide as we wanted to. The urgency of the war clouds every decision in the game.
But it's not just those things - again, it's the entire atmosphere. Whenever the war is brought up in dialogue, you're assured again and again that you will have to do amoral things in this war. In ME2, you're similarly confronted by TIM, and you always get the option to argue against him. In ME3, it's your allies and friends who confront you. They put their trust in you to do everything it takes to win the war. It's difficult to find anyone in ME3 who encourages you not to do that, but I believe the only who does is Samara - but she's such a sidelined character it's not even really noticeable.

[Dean_the_Young]

Fandango9641 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
That's not a logical connection or justification for your suggestion, nor does that rule out other motivations.

Again, Citadel was pure fan service. It’s Bioware fawning to and flattering their toady demographic. It’s a circle jerk.

And again, I'll give you the same challenge I gave Kiwi: justify that that claim.

Citadel is fan service that sacrifices good storytelling - it's a goofy wink-fest designed to satiate those who care more about hanging out with their imaginary friends than they do narrative coherence. In short, it's poop.

Repeating a claim is not justifying it, Fandango. All you've done is open yourself up to more unsupported positions: now you need to support that it's only designed to satiate one particularly condemnable consumer group rather than, well, all the other potential ones that could enjoy the Citadel DLC as it is.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sauruz wrote...

In the Quarian/Geth conflict, you knowingly decide which race you want to extinguish - without a perfect import. There is no morally good way to solve that conflict, unless you simply deny that the Geth have a right to live.

There are plenty of morally good ways to solve that conflict... if your morality is structured in such a way to resolve deontological and teleological clashes. After all, you are not the reason these these two races are at odds, and you are not the reason why you've come to be able to make this choice. You are not even the one who will extinguish another race: that denial of responsibility of others is just egocentricism. You are simply a person who, while witnessing two groups with incompatible intents, has the ability to interfere with the efforts of one.

Which one do you choose? That's up to what your morality tells you. You could side with the Geth because you believe they are innocent, or because they are the victims, or simply because you don't feel you should intervene, and so let the consequence of Legion/Geth VI acting unimpeded play out. And if any of those, or any other motivation, is morally worse than the alternative, then the alternative is morally right even if it's not nice.

It's called choosing the best of bad options, and being able to determine and decide such is a key aspect of both morality and responsibility.

I can see how these conflicts are similar to past ones, but they have never been quite this grim. The fact that everything we do also helps the war effort, meaning everything we do has an underlying utilitarian goal and those we 'save' are getting sent into a war against an enemy that cannot be beaten and will likely suffer large casualties, also puts a different note on everything. Whereas in past conflicts, we (more or less) just happened to stumble upon them and were free to decide as we wanted to. The urgency of the war clouds every decision in the game.
But it's not just those things - again, it's the entire atmosphere. Whenever the war is brought up in dialogue, you're assured again and again that you will have to do amoral things in this war. In ME2, you're similarly confronted by TIM, and you always get the option to argue against him. In ME3, it's your allies and friends who confront you. They put their trust in you to do everything it takes to win the war. It's difficult to find anyone in ME3 who encourages you not to do that, but I believe the only who does is Samara - but she's such a sidelined character it's not even really noticeable.

Which makes the setting... grim.

Not nihilistic, not the N-abyss, not an amoral abandonment of ethics. It just makes it a grim situation in dark times as you struggle to get through them. Nothing more, nothing less: the world not offering you a way out of your own moral contradictions is not the same as a setting which does not care about morality.

[Dean_the_Young]

Fandango9641 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
That's not a logical connection or justification for your suggestion, nor does that rule out other motivations.

Again, Citadel was pure fan service. It’s Bioware fawning to and flattering their toady demographic. It’s a circle jerk.

And again, I'll give you the same challenge I gave Kiwi: justify that that claim.

Citadel is fan service that sacrifices good storytelling - it's a goofy wink-fest designed to satiate those who care more about hanging out with their imaginary friends than they do narrative coherence. In short, it's poop.

Repeating a claim is not justifying it, Fandango. All you've done is open yourself up to more unsupported positions: now you need to support that it's only designed to satiate one particularly condemnable consumer group rather than, well, all the other potential ones that could enjoy the Citadel DLC as it is.

Fair enough Dean, what else then but to leave it to those with half a brain to decide for themselves whether Citadel is bizarre, fan-serving, parody or whatever it is you're claiming it to be.

You could start by realizing that even people with a full brain have different tastes and priorities than you. Simply realizing that alternative views exist would be a start: accepting that they can be legitimate on their own grounds would be better, but I won't push you that far yet. We'll save the legitimacy of half-brained people for later as well.

Instead, we could look at other demographics. We could consider fans of insider-joke comedy despite not feeling imaginary friendships. We could see people who value narrative coherence, but also appreciate the meta-angle of the Last DLC. We could consider less story-minded players who enjoyed the expanded content and replayability aspects of the new hub. 

In short, you could start by listing people who might enjoy the Citadel DLC without simultaneously straw-manning mockable viewpoints onto them.

[M Hedonist]

Ach. Alright, ME3's just a very, very grimdark game. I'll still say a nihilist would have more fun with the game than anyone else.
Would you at least agree that the endings could be considered nihilistic from a western point of view, since holding on to western principles (freedom, right of self-determination, etc) gets a large majority (if not the entirety) of the galaxy wiped out?

[raph13140]

need one more dlc : harbinger's execution . :-P

[Forsythia]

I must say, I am really happy how they dealt with the multiplayer DLC. It's quite annoying being kicked from a game, just because you don't have a certain payed mappack. Making it free removes that problem.

Modifié par Forsythia, 21 avril 2013 - 03:45 .

[Eterna]

Sauruz wrote...

I really hope they will see Citadel DLC's success as a sign people prefer Mass Effect as a fun space adventure with a focus on characters rather than a depressingly grim nihilistic Nietzschean abyss.
Eh, who am I kidding? As long as there's Multiplayer it won't make a difference.

Why not both? I like both. 

[AlanC9]

Sauruz wrote...

Ach. Alright, ME3's just a very, very grimdark game. I'll still say a nihilist would have more fun with the game than anyone else.
Would you at least agree that the endings could be considered nihilistic from a western point of view, since holding on to western principles (freedom, right of self-determination, etc) gets a large majority (if not the entirety) of the galaxy wiped out?

I don't think "western"is a sufficient description there. But there are thinkers in that tradition who might conceivably agree. Here's one. Part VII is pretty much on point if you're not up for the whole thing.

Other thinkers in the western tradition disagree on various grounds. Like so. 

One objection is that a moral system that, say, evaluates all uses of the Crucible as evil, and not using it as being evil too, is either a bad system or no system at all. Having a bunch of fundamental principles that are all sacred and having no way to choose between them guarantees that there are situations where your system will generate guilt, but not guidance.

Modifié par AlanC9, 21 avril 2013 - 04:07 .