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[Iakus]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

It was at least semiserious.

Why should I play an rpg which tells me "Life sucks.  then you die." or something similar?   That there's no point in striving for something better, when the best you can hope for is "less bad"?  

I don't see any difference between "better" and "less bad." Maybe that's the difference right there?

I didn't mean to imply you should like such games. But if you did like your RPG universes to be as flawed as this universe is, you wouldn't be bothered by these issues. (You'd probably end up in chemiclord's space; IIRC he finds the ending's storytelling awful, but has no problems with the choices themselves)

Yup. I know others feel differently, but for me trying to make an RPG adventure in a world where moral superiority = best results neither makes me feel better or accomplished: if anything, I find it insulting to people who are virtuous in reality because it can trivealize the admirable parts of morality (doing the right thing despite the costs and difficulties) by making it the self-interested and narcistic thing to do (people will love me and everything turns out best if I'm a nice person). At the same time, I find attempts at morality in a grim/jaded setting outright inspirational when people don't succumb to vice despite the difficulty and lack of clarity, but rather work through the difficulty with effort and imperfections.

But then, I've always enjoyed my knights in sour armor more than the shinier sort.

Umm, the Knight in Sour Armor  still tries to do the right thing, even if they have to bend a few rules or go against society to do so.  They do what's right because it's right, not for honor or adulaton.

But in this case, it wasn't a case of no morally superior path to take because  there was no right path to take in the first place.  They were all felt gut-churningly WRONG.  These are paths taken by villains, or by Well-Intentioned Extremists at best.  

[Dean_the_Young]

Sauruz wrote...

@Dean_the_Young: I like to believe western liberalism is about more than just politics.
Compromises must be made to both ensure freedom and the general well-being of the population. But these choices... they're no compromises. They're just means of survival. Stark perversions of those compromises that ensure general well-being. There will never be a law (in a modern western society) that allows any one man to commit genocide, become a self-appointed dictator or to change the very nature of life and man itself (though I suppose there's no law against that, either). And the fact that one single man is supposed to make this decision for the entire galaxy is a mockery of democracy.

Democracy is a mockery of democracy in practice. As far as Shepard's context goes, it's pretty non-mocking: a duly delegated individual, selected by the legitimate authorities as chosen by the elected representatives of Humanity, is put into a position of great responsibility and trust to conduct actions and make decisions on the spot that might have far-reaching consequences.

That's, like, about as legit as delegated responsibility in a democratic society gets.


If you remove context and ignore alternatives (or lack of them), sure. You can make the choices seem worse and unpalatable. Inside our system, however, we have precedents for all of the premise behind the options. We have precedent for destroying enemies who refuse peaceful coexistence, and to continue destroying them until they submit, even if the consequences and means for doing so results in collateral damage and civilian casualties. We have the actual history of the dictator itself to point at for laws enabling or tolerating individuals assuming supreme executive authority in times of crisis or exceptional emergencies. And we certainly have precedence in modern history of Western civilization of mandatory intrusions into the bodily functions of people in the name of public good or public necessity.

Being in a democracy doesn't mean these sorts of actions don't occur in exceptional circumstances... and survival is certain an exceptional circumstance to justify such compromises.

But I suppose this is where the minds divide - sorry for this poor direct translation of a saying we have in our country, but I couldn't find a proper fitting equivalent. Ultimately, it's about how willing one is to bend their morals, and that is something where western countries differ. Great Britain, and America (more obviously) generally tend to embrace Utilitarianism. Some countries tend to be more deontological. For instance, after long discussions, it was actually ruled illegal in Germany to shoot down a plane that has been seized by terrorists - even if that would end up saving more lives. Crazy, huh? Well I am proud to be able to say I live in that same country.

Nothing wrong with that. So long as one doesn't believe deontology is infailable, I don't see anything crazy about it. Unreasonable, at times, and certainly not my own, but not crazy. Not even illegitimate.

The problem deontology runs into is when it holds many different principles as equally valid, and lacks a resolution system for when these occur. In such cases, through no fault of one's own, one is damned if they do and damned if they don't and damned if they make a choice and damned if they don't.  I don't see the point, or virtue, of a system which can damn people for the sin of context. Like Alan likes to say, for deontologists, the world is not only a bad place, but an evil one.


It's interesting you mention your home nation: Germany is certainly an interesting case in which a culture has, for very obvious reasons, adopted particular aspects of deontology that are very, very, very strongly held. Nothing wrong with that, of course: history, cutlure, and a lot of factors apply. It's just interesting.

[Dean_the_Young]

iakus wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

It was at least semiserious.

Why should I play an rpg which tells me "Life sucks.  then you die." or something similar?   That there's no point in striving for something better, when the best you can hope for is "less bad"?  

I don't see any difference between "better" and "less bad." Maybe that's the difference right there?

I didn't mean to imply you should like such games. But if you did like your RPG universes to be as flawed as this universe is, you wouldn't be bothered by these issues. (You'd probably end up in chemiclord's space; IIRC he finds the ending's storytelling awful, but has no problems with the choices themselves)

Yup. I know others feel differently, but for me trying to make an RPG adventure in a world where moral superiority = best results neither makes me feel better or accomplished: if anything, I find it insulting to people who are virtuous in reality because it can trivealize the admirable parts of morality (doing the right thing despite the costs and difficulties) by making it the self-interested and narcistic thing to do (people will love me and everything turns out best if I'm a nice person). At the same time, I find attempts at morality in a grim/jaded setting outright inspirational when people don't succumb to vice despite the difficulty and lack of clarity, but rather work through the difficulty with effort and imperfections.

But then, I've always enjoyed my knights in sour armor more than the shinier sort.

Umm, the Knight in Sour Armor  still tries to do the right thing, even if they have to bend a few rules or go against society to do so.  They do what's right because it's right, not for honor or adulaton.

Er, yes. Hence the distinction. I find Knight in Shining Armor tropes (such as ME1 and ME2's paragon style) to be frequently vain and self-interested in design and execution.

But in this case, it wasn't a case of no morally superior path to take because  there was no right path to take in the first place.  They were all felt gut-churningly WRONG.  These are paths taken by villains, or by Well-Intentioned Extremists at best.  

This is the absolutist in you speaking. I don't share that viewpoint, and I don't buy it.

Extremists and villains are defined by their choice of actions when alternatives exist. They are, by their definitions, people who don't take routes available by non-villains and non-extremists. If no moderate alternatives exist, you don't need to be an extremist to make such a choice.

[Dean_the_Young]

jstme wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...
I really don't want to turn this into a debate about the ethical 'value' of each solution Alan, but it's actually kind of my point that the game is set up in such a way as to reward the logic of those who would sacrifice the Geth to save Shep but punish those who would instead reject the Catalysts irrational, racist mandate in making a choice that actually respects basic, fundamental freedoms. Sucks dude.

Sometimes the universe sucks, yep.

I prefer my RPG universes to be just as flawed as the one I'm actually living in. YMMV.

You did not like ME1 or ME2? 

Is it a matter of not liking them, or prefering a more flawed setting?

[Uncle Jo]

RiouHotaru wrote...

See, there's the argument about Javik being "important" that continues to baffle me.  He isn't important.  Casey twitted that he wasn't integral or crticial to the story.  And he wasn't.  And no, being a Prothean doesn't by default make him important.  He adds to depth to existing lore, sure, but NOTHING he says detracts from the experience should you not have him.

So adding depth to the lore and giving the point of view from a member of the race of the last cycle, who delayed the Reaper invasion doesn't change the game experience? For you, not for me. And he IS important. Narratively. More than any other new character.

Also, as for Leviathan, that they did it after the EC doesn't make it a retro-active justification.  Likely Leviathan was, on a drawing board, a DLC whose premise was "Explain the origin of the Reapers", but at the time, they weren't sure exactly HOW to do that.  Once the EC let them expand on the Catalyst's dialog and by extension, the origin of the Catalyst, they had a foundation from which to build on with Leviathan.

By definition a retro-active justification explanation (it's the right word). The EC was never planned to begin with. The brat was so out of place and so little exposed, considering his crucial role, that two DLCs were necessary to give him a minimum of background and don't let the player totally in the dark. And even then, he's still the most controversial character of the series.

And to be honest, even if Leviathan IS a retroactive justification, it's not a bad one.  I quite enjoyed the idea of a previous race of arrogant jerks whose actions caused everyone after them to suffer the consequences.  But then science-fiction IS my favorite genre of fiction.

It's a terrible one. Preventing conflicts between synthetics and organics by creating a super-synthetic is one of the most stupid ideas I've ever heard.

Okay, science IS your favourite genre of fiction. And...?

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 21 avril 2013 - 10:18 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Uncle Jo wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

The Prothean is as tangential as the rest, really. Exotic, but not really a plot driver. The moment he goes 'I don't know anything about the Crucible', his relevance to the main plot ends.

As a squadmate, the only one of those characters who really applies would be Vega... but Vega arguably serves a better role as a introductory character/foil for the Commander than Javik does. Besides serving a role as an exposition excuse ('let's tell Vega, and remind the players, about the state of the galaxy'), relatively-inexperienced Vega serves as a means to show off Shepard as an authority figure in a way that the old cast doesn't really reflect and Javik really doesn't warrant.

I didn't express myself correctly. When I said "important", I meant the narrative input about the Protheans, who were at the core of the story when it came to the Reapers and/or the delayed invasion. Not his relevance to the plot. I never expected that much.

Shortly after the Crucible found conveniently on Mars, a living instruction book for the super-weapon is also found conveniently ? That would have been way too much. Even by BW standards.

Meh. Bioware standards are the ones that killed off Shepard just to justify a time skip and new crew, or gave us Tali's data file on the Citadel before we even got back from Eden Prime.

And when it comes to Vega and even if I see your point, I'd rather have had [random Alliance marine] as warden who takes me to Anderson, without a word, than seeing my Shep talking casually to a guy I've never seen before and who took the place of Grunt. On the other way around Vega makes, as you said, a very good introductory character for people who never played ME. Problem is I don't belong to them.

Sure... and I don't belong to any of the shipping clubs for romances, or a lot of the Paragon choice supporters. Can we agree that games are justified in making characters for roles that don't apply to us?

I mean, if I had my way most party companions would be relatively stoic, emotionally balanced, and generally sour knights who worked for reasonably competent authority figures for crises that were relatively easy to resolve. That wouldn't be much of a story.

I still have your comment about doing the Grissom academy with Jack dead. I've tried it recently and you were right, it works way better. I'd add the new Council, which seems less stupid than the older one, the Cerberus scientists without Jacob. ME3 was indeed the best place to start the trilogy.

Now there's a thought.

I realize you mean it differently, but now I'm wondering how the ME trilogy might have flowed had it been in reverse: Humanity comes to the galactic scene just in time for the big huge galactic war, and the rest of the series is about dealing with the aftermath of a galactic order struggling to rebuild itself after being torn to pieces.

It'd be anti-climatic, in a way, but interesting: the post-war period can often be just as fascinating as the war time.

There were a few other ideas thrown around. Javik might have been kidnapped by Kai Leng, involved in the death of the Virmire Survivor's SPECTRE partner to drive divisions with Shepard, or just a stand-in for Vendetta VI.

That's completely new to me. Never heard it before. Thanks for sharing.

No problemo.

[Dean_the_Young]

Uncle Jo wrote...

RiouHotaru wrote...

See, there's the argument about Javik being "important" that continues to baffle me.  He isn't important.  Casey twitted that he wasn't integral or crticial to the story.  And he wasn't.  And no, being a Prothean doesn't by default make him important.  He adds to depth to existing lore, sure, but NOTHING he says detracts from the experience should you not have him.

So adding depth to the lore and giving the point of view from a member of the race of the last cycle, who delayed the Reaper invasion doesn't change the game experience? For you, not for me. And he IS important. Narratively. More than any other new character.

I think it would be important to define what narratively means. Javik changes my experience and perspective, certainly, but I don't feel he changes the narrative: the same events happen for the same reasons in the same order. I just miss out on some amusingly grim quips.

Also, as for Leviathan, that they did it after the EC doesn't make it a retro-active justification.  Likely Leviathan was, on a drawing board, a DLC whose premise was "Explain the origin of the Reapers", but at the time, they weren't sure exactly HOW to do that.  Once the EC let them expand on the Catalyst's dialog and by extension, the origin of the Catalyst, they had a foundation from which to build on with Leviathan.

By definition a retro-active justification explanation (it's the right word). The EC was never planned to begin with. The brat was so out of place and so little exposed, considering his crucial role, that two DLCs were necessary to give him a minimum of background and don't let the player totally in the dark. And even then, he's still the most controversial character of the series.

I think his point is more about that the means of the DLC, not the goals, weren't planned. Instead of chasing mythical sea beasts, for example, we could have been following an STG conspiracy of sorts.

And to be honest, even if Leviathan IS a retroactive justification, it's not a bad one.  I quite enjoyed the idea of a previous race of arrogant jerks whose actions caused everyone after them to suffer the consequences.  But then science-fiction IS my favorite genre of fiction.

It's a terrible one. Preventing conflicts between synthetics and organics by creating a super-synthetic is one of the most stupid ideas I've ever heard.

Sort of like preventing disease by injecting deases into you? Helping organisms grow by hacking off their extremities? Hiring criminals to improve security?

[In Exile]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Then it's a grim setting. The idea that stories, or the world, need to give you options that provide solutions that nicely correlate to your preferred morality is quaint, but unrealistic and unreasonable unless you are the one who dictates the premise of the world.

But having read your posts on this and the ME2 forum, it seems to me that a great deal of why you find the ME3 endings to be satisfactory is that they validate your moral outlook, for the same reasons that you found ME2s treatment of renegade choices frustrating.

[Dean_the_Young]

AlanC9 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
The Prothean is as tangential as the rest, really. Exotic, but not really a plot driver. The moment he goes 'I don't know anything about the Crucible', his relevance to the main plot ends.

I can confirm that. I've had no exposure to Javik except for one YouTube clip, and this hasn't stopped me from following any of the arguments about the plot.

Fun fact: I actually played my first playthrough of ME3 before I got Javik, so I played it both with and sans the Prothean. I've even done it with the DLC installed, but not doing the recruitment.

[In Exile]

AlanC9 wrote...
Sometimes the universe sucks, yep.

I prefer my RPG universes to be just as flawed as the one I'm actually living in. YMMV.

The problem is that ME1-ME2 were, basically, typical Bioware Universes. The ending is thematically inconsistent with Bioware's hero-worship, which (via paragon ME3 choices) continues all the way through to the end-game, where you can (basically) save everyone important (i.e., that the player likes). 

The other thing is that the actual theme of the ending - the whole AI genocide cycle - comes right out of the blue, which is also unsatisfactory. 

So for a great deal of players, you get a morally dissonant ending which, beyond the moral issue, is asking you to do something morally abhorent to avoid an end which (at that point) the game basically hasn't gotten the player to believe. 

Instead of casting the ending as: 

"To beat the reapers, you must choose between 3 hard and difficult choices"

You got:

"To prevent the eternal genocide of organics by artificial intelligence that organics create, help the reapers by picking 1 of 3 hard and difficult choices ..." 

[Iakus]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

iakus wrote...

Umm, the Knight in Sour Armor  still tries to do the right thing, even if they have to bend a few rules or go against society to do so.  They do what's right because it's right, not for honor or adulaton.

Er, yes. Hence the distinction. I find Knight in Shining Armor tropes (such as ME1 and ME2's paragon style) to be frequently vain and self-interested in design and execution.

How does the presentation of the protagonist change the choices they are faced with?  Or what the player thinks?

Extremists and villains are defined by their choice of actions when alternatives exist. They are, by their definitions, people who don't take routes available by non-villains and non-extremists. If no moderate alternatives exist, you don't need to be an extremist to make such a choice.

It does, however, make the situation extremely unfun to a lot of people, as Bioware (hopefully) learned.

[Peranor]

spirosz wrote...

iakus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...
I really don't want to turn this into a debate about the ethical 'value' of each solution Alan, but it's actually kind of my point that the game is set up in such a way as to reward the logic of those who would sacrifice the Geth to save Shep but punish those who would instead reject the Catalysts irrational, racist mandate in making a choice that actually respects basic, fundamental freedoms. Sucks dude.

Sometimes the universe sucks, yep.

I prefer my RPG universes to be just as flawed as the one I'm actually living in. YMMV.

If I wanted that, why would I play an rpg?  I could just read the newspaper and have just as much fun

Maybe it's not about what you want, but what Bioware wanted to express.   Not saying it's what I[/b] prefer, but they can't please everyone and shouldn't try to. 

It is of course impossible to please everyone. But since Bioware is a company whose very existence is dependent upon them making a profit. I would like to think that it is in their own best interest to at least try and please as many people as possible.
If they want to be the starving artists that can put out whatever they fancy for their own sake, and not give a thought to what others might think, they should leave the business right now. Because they will never be satisfied with their own work as long as they have a market to please.

[Dean_the_Young]

In Exile wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Then it's a grim setting. The idea that stories, or the world, need to give you options that provide solutions that nicely correlate to your preferred morality is quaint, but unrealistic and unreasonable unless you are the one who dictates the premise of the world.

But having read your posts on this and the ME2 forum, it seems to me that a great deal of why you find the ME3 endings to be satisfactory is that they validate your moral outlook, for the same reasons that you found ME2s treatment of renegade choices frustrating.

Validate? I'm not sure that's a good term: I don't feel justified or vindicated from them, and I'll freely admit that I would have done things differently myself if I'd had my druthers. I'd have changed a lot of ME3, from the endings on down.

It'd probably be better to say that my moral outlook does not create an obsticle to my enjoyment of such a scenario. Other things do (the role of the Illusive Man, and deliberate ambiguity of the nature/depiction of the Catalyst, Synthesis), but not my morality. Because I do not hold to absolutist morality by and large, the idea of having a gauntlet of bad choices is not a deal breaker. I don't find the idea of a no-good solution as an immersion breaker either because, well, I've had a number of those already... and that's actually part of what I enjoy in RPGs.

This is a bit different from my complaints about the handling of Renegade choices and carry-over in ME2, which comes from both a sense of perverse symmetry (it could be Paragon and ultra-Paragon, and I'd still want narrative balance) and my own take on what the setting of the games is (a generally grim/grimy setting in which the general Paragon Shepard is the exception, not the norm, to the setting's rules).

[Dean_the_Young]

iakus wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

iakus wrote...

Umm, the Knight in Sour Armor  still tries to do the right thing, even if they have to bend a few rules or go against society to do so.  They do what's right because it's right, not for honor or adulaton.

Er, yes. Hence the distinction. I find Knight in Shining Armor tropes (such as ME1 and ME2's paragon style) to be frequently vain and self-interested in design and execution.

How does the presentation of the protagonist change the choices they are faced with?  Or what the player thinks?

Are you talking abstract, or actual research on how presentation affects decision making? I'm afraid I'm not sure what your question, argument, or intent with this line of conversation is.

I enjoy Knights in Sour Armor because, in having to bend rules or go against societal norms for a 'best' result, they tend to have to make compromises with teleological morality in the name of doing the right thing. For me, that's pretty compatible with the endings, and since even my most Paragon playthroughs tend towards that it works for me.

Extremists and villains are defined by their choice of actions when alternatives exist. They are, by their definitions, people who don't take routes available by non-villains and non-extremists. If no moderate alternatives exist, you don't need to be an extremist to make such a choice.

It does, however, make the situation extremely unfun to a lot of people, as Bioware (hopefully) learned.

Sure. Now, what we hope they learned is probably going to differ from us, since I prefer RPG's that don't slot themselves into teleological ethical worldviews. I don't even think it was an actual change for the Mass Effect series, and for obvious reasons I'd rather not see them change to something they're at best mediocre at giving (straight up good/bad choices) and stick to what they have had better effects with (non-teleological convenient delimmas).

So, if we're going to go with lessons learned, I hope Bioware doesn't let people mislead themselves about how teleological a setting is, especially when it isn't. Dragon Age doesn't have this problem, and Mass Effect could easily have avoided it had they tried delivering consequences of note either in the same game or in the carryover of ME2. Then people wouldn't perceive no longer kicking the issue down the road for a tone shift.

[In Exile]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Validate? I'm not sure that's a good term: I don't feel justified or vindicated from them, and I'll freely admit that I would have done things differently myself if I'd had my druthers. I'd have changed a lot of ME3, from the endings on down. 

I use the word validate because it sounds to me like much of your defence of the design essentially originates from your own view on morality, and the fact that the game seems to line up with it. I can provide quotes, if you like.

Because I do not hold to absolutist morality by and large, the idea of having a gauntlet of bad choices is not a deal breaker. I don't find the idea of a no-good solution as an immersion breaker either because, well, I've had a number of those already... and that's actually part of what I enjoy in RPGs.

I don't want to derail the thread by debating morality; it just seems to me that a large part of the reason why you defend ME3 is that it is consontant with what you believe. 

This is a bit different from my complaints about the handling of Renegade choices and carry-over in ME2, which comes from both a sense of perverse symmetry (it could be Paragon and ultra-Paragon, and I'd still want narrative balance) and my own take on what the setting of the games is (a generally grim/grimy setting in which the general Paragon Shepard is the exception, not the norm, to the setting's rules).

But your complaints about narrative balance boiled down, really, to the fact that you don't think that paragon choices are "punished" for the choices that they should be punished for. Which is the same thing that players are complaining about re: ME3s ending, except in the opposite direction. 

And regarded the bolded and underlined, that's what I mean re: the game validating your view.

[chemiclord]

anorling wrote...

It is of course impossible to please everyone. But since Bioware is a company whose very existence is dependent upon them making a profit. I would like to think that it is in their own best interest to at least try and please as many people as possible.
If they want to be the starving artists that can put out whatever they fancy for their own sake, and not give a thought to what others might think, they should leave the business right now. Because they will never be satisfied with their own work as long as they have a market to please.

I would argue is not even particularly plausible to try and cater to "as many people as possible."  Such an audience is an always moving target, and I don't if there is any two individuals (much less any significant minority) who can ever agree on what the best game for them would entail.  Even "can't miss stories" (those specifically formulated for mass appeal), can flop in spectacular fashion.

As a writer, the only thing you can do is tell the story you want to tell, and let the chips fall where they may.  Sometimes it's going to work... sometimes it's going to fail.

[In Exile]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
So, if we're going to go with lessons learned, I hope Bioware doesn't let people mislead themselves about how teleological a setting is, especially when it isn't. Dragon Age doesn't have this problem, and Mass Effect could easily have avoided it had they tried delivering consequences of note either in the same game or in the carryover of ME2. Then people wouldn't perceive no longer kicking the issue down the road for a tone shift.

But ME3 never kicks the can down the road - there is absolutely no choice in ME3 that does not have a paragon happy ending. Every single choice, it ends well for paragons. The only slight consequence that you can identify is the unknown consequence of Wrex/Eve/Genophage cure, and the fact that you have to choose between Grunt's Company/Rachni Queen. 

It's only the ending that's a tone shift, and then really (IMO), because of the arbitrary nature of the conflict that the catalyst presents and then the out of the blue fact that the destroy option just so happens to magically kill Edi and the Geth. 

[Taboo]

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.

No game has yet been made that matches that description. The ending have shown to be anything  BUT Nietzchean or really Nihilist.

One might decide choices themselves nihilist but the after effects are NOT.

The endings are romanticized.

The man you're looking for is Georg Hegel:

https://encrypted-tb...eklVBlv_5OwehnA

[Uncle Jo]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Meh. Bioware standards are the ones that killed off Shepard just to justify a time skip and new crew, or gave us Tali's data file on the Citadel before we even got back from Eden Prime.

Hard to write a story when you don't know how it ends.

Sure... and I don't belong to any of the shipping clubs for romances, or a lot of the Paragon choice supporters. Can we agree that games are justified in making characters for roles that don't apply to us?

I mean, if I had my way most party companions would be relatively stoic, emotionally balanced, and generally sour knights who worked for reasonably competent authority figures for crises that were relatively easy to resolve. That wouldn't be much of a story.

Sure. I still don't see the point of creating a new character, when the precedent installment did a hard work to make 12 of them and even forgot the plot on the way. Ah yes, all of them can die. Well done.

Now there's a thought.

I realize you mean it differently, but now I'm wondering how the ME trilogy might have flowed had it been in reverse: Humanity comes to the galactic scene just in time for the big huge galactic war, and the rest of the series is about dealing with the aftermath of a galactic order struggling to rebuild itself after being torn to pieces.

It'd be anti-climatic, in a way, but interesting: the post-war period can often be just as fascinating as the war time.

I don't know. It depends on how you can introduce them without being too contrived and what part they'd have to play in the war. I sincerely got tired of the "humans saviors of the galaxy". I was never fond of the whole Take Earth Back story.

If there is one thing I liked in the first ME, it's that humans were a race among others and searching for their place in the galaxy. The newbies who knows nothing.

The Reapers could have been decent antagonists if BW knew what to do with them in the first place. They always stayed in the background along the three games and BW waited until the very last moment to deal with them seriously. And in what way...

I was also very interested by the post-war period. With the Yahg, the Krogans and the Leviathans, a discredited Asari Republic and Salarian Union, an exhausted Turian Hierarchy and the growing power and prestige of the Humans, the whole galactic politic and military balance has been changed for ever. The time of uncertainty and formidable opportunities. There are ingredients to make a remarkable story.

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 21 avril 2013 - 11:40 .

[Dean_the_Young]

In Exile wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Validate? I'm not sure that's a good term: I don't feel justified or vindicated from them, and I'll freely admit that I would have done things differently myself if I'd had my druthers. I'd have changed a lot of ME3, from the endings on down. 

I use the word validate because it sounds to me like much of your defence of the design essentially originates from your own view on morality, and the fact that the game seems to line up with it. I can provide quotes, if you like.

Context would be appropriate as well. When I bring morality into an argument, it's generally in response to someone else bringing up the topic as well. When iakus says that it's a scene ruined because there are no moral options, I can disagree on the grounds of a differing moral world-view that doesn't accept such a charge and, as a consequence, allows me to enjoy it.

When people bring up other avenues of argument, I generally respond to those in kind. Nothing particularly uncommon about it: I'm a contrarian by nature (I said boo when people said Yeah about ME2's suicide mission), for both reasons of differing world-views and simple habit.

Because I do not hold to absolutist morality by and large, the idea of having a gauntlet of bad choices is not a deal breaker. I don't find the idea of a no-good solution as an immersion breaker either because, well, I've had a number of those already... and that's actually part of what I enjoy in RPGs.

I don't want to derail the thread by debating morality; it just seems to me that a large part of the reason why you defend ME3 is that it is consontant with what you believe.

Nah, not really. A large part of the reason I defend ME3 is because I think a lot of the attacks on it are misguided, weak, or simply wrong. I was the same in the Collector Base threads, when people were making wild accusations about how the entire base would indoctrinate everyone and Cerberus would go on to make Reapers out of Humanity because -x-.

So when someone like Iakus says that the ending was horrible because it was morally unacceptable, I counter by pointing out that other moralities would accept it. That's about as for as the moral angle goes.

This is a bit different from my complaints about the handling of Renegade choices and carry-over in ME2, which comes from both a sense of perverse symmetry (it could be Paragon and ultra-Paragon, and I'd still want narrative balance) and my own take on what the setting of the games is (a generally grim/grimy setting in which the general Paragon Shepard is the exception, not the norm, to the setting's rules).

But your complaints about narrative balance boiled down, really, to the fact that you don't think that paragon choices are "punished" for the choices that they should be punished for. Which is the same thing that players are complaining about re: ME3s ending, except in the opposite direction.

For me at least, it was never about individual choices as much as the general pattern of the choices. In my sense of morality system design, any equivalent morality systems should have equivalent content and results: otherwise they aren't being treated equally. To me, that means that none should always be 'best', but rather both should have wins and losses. While I do favor Renegade pragmatism in general, I really can't think of a single choice where I felt 'this choice must be a loss for the Pragons to be reasonable': it was always more about 'somewhere in there there should be unintended consequences.' At the same time, though, I've always felt there should be times when Paragon idealism should come out ahead. I also can't recall feeling that Renegades were punished: shafted, certainly, the unequal equals, but 'punished' was rhetoric more often used by Seboist and others. I can't swear I never used the term, but it wasn't a common feeling back then.

While this grievance does come to benefit my favored morality in the context of Mass Effect, it's actually a principle I hold even in other contexts and settings, even if the moralities are both deontological or both teleological. One of my greatest complaints about Fallout: Vegas, for example, a game I love like few others, is the imbalance between the factional alignments of the Legion and NCR. I generally approve of Skyrim's factional divide because both factions are functionally and ethically equal in terms of role, potential virtues, and potential vices.

And regarded the bolded and underlined, that's what I mean re: the game validating your view.

Then I'm not sure what you mean by validating, because that's now what validation typically means.

[AlanC9]

jstme wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Sometimes the universe sucks, yep.

I prefer my RPG universes to be just as flawed as the one I'm actually living in. YMMV.

You did not like ME1 or ME2? 

I liked them fine. I think there are things they could have done better, but that's true of every game ever.

[Dean_the_Young]

In Exile wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
So, if we're going to go with lessons learned, I hope Bioware doesn't let people mislead themselves about how teleological a setting is, especially when it isn't. Dragon Age doesn't have this problem, and Mass Effect could easily have avoided it had they tried delivering consequences of note either in the same game or in the carryover of ME2. Then people wouldn't perceive no longer kicking the issue down the road for a tone shift.

But ME3 never kicks the can down the road - there is absolutely no choice in ME3 that does not have a paragon happy ending. Every single choice, it ends well for paragons. The only slight consequence that you can identify is the unknown consequence of Wrex/Eve/Genophage cure, and the fact that you have to choose between Grunt's Company/Rachni Queen.

I'd disagree and point at the Genophage cure, but then my views on that scenario don't correspond to yours. You might feel optimistic at Wrex/Eve/Genophage Cure, but for me the 'slight consequence' of uncertainty was an immensly powerful anxiety and pessimism at a collapse of Wrex's breeding regime and cultural reforms.

When it comes to Paragons, as opposed to player-imports, the only major point of ME3 that I can think of that really favors them is, well, Rannoch. Assuming you count the Legion choice of ME2. Otherwise, pretty much all the import-characters make their scenarios better... but that's a consequence of the companions, not the morality system at play. Otherwise, Paragon and Renegade imports were largely equivalent in effect, when they mattered.

But, like I said to Iakus, I'd be happy if Bioware stopped giving free outs in series where they want to give Hard Choices. Not going to argue that they over-compensated for the role of ME2 squadmates.

It's only the ending that's a tone shift, and then really (IMO), because of the arbitrary nature of the conflict that the catalyst presents and then the out of the blue fact that the destroy option just so happens to magically kill Edi and the Geth.

I find plenty of the other Big Decisions in the franchise equally, if not more, arbitrary, and the deaths of all synthetics seems far more reasonable to me (super-EMP) than, say, the nature of the choice of colonists or not on Feros. Or the Collector Base decision. Or, a personal favorite, the Rachni Queen decision in ME1, when the queen is already stuck in a cage. That's not to mention such setups as the ME1 Council decision, or ME2's Overlord depiction.

Maybe (well, ok, certainly) I have different expectations on the quality of choices and setup. By and large, Mass Effect's choices have been so varied, I can't bring myself to get up in arms about any of them.

[Dean_the_Young]

Uncle Jo wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Meh. Bioware standards are the ones that killed off Shepard just to justify a time skip and new crew, or gave us Tali's data file on the Citadel before we even got back from Eden Prime.

Hard to write a story when you don't know how it ends.

Oh, it's easy to write. It's just hard to write well, a complication Bioware ran into.

Hindsite is 20-20, but there's a difference between blindspots and, well, blindness. Why did Shepard have to die, when being horribly mained, marginalized in recovery, and repaired by a Cerberus front company could have covered the same roles?

Sure... and I don't belong to any of the shipping clubs for romances, or a lot of the Paragon choice supporters. Can we agree that games are justified in making characters for roles that don't apply to us?

I mean, if I had my way most party companions would be relatively stoic, emotionally balanced, and generally sour knights who worked for reasonably competent authority figures for crises that were relatively easy to resolve. That wouldn't be much of a story.

Sure. I still don't see the point of creating a new character,
when the precedent installment did a hard work to make 12 of them and
even forgot the plot on the way. Ah yes, all of them can die. Well done.

Indeed. If there's one part besides the endings of the ME trilogy that will never be done again, I'm guessing it's the ME2 companions.

Vega, by virtue of lack of pre-planning, exists to be a reliable, living, narrative foil rather than relying on some zombies.

Now there's a thought.

I realize you mean it differently, but now I'm wondering how the ME trilogy might have flowed had it been in reverse: Humanity comes to the galactic scene just in time for the big huge galactic war, and the rest of the series is about dealing with the aftermath of a galactic order struggling to rebuild itself after being torn to pieces.

It'd be anti-climatic, in a way, but interesting: the post-war period can often be just as fascinating as the war time.

I don't know. It depends on how you can introduce them without being too contrived and what part they'd have to play in the war. I sincerely got tired of the "humans saviors of the galaxy". I was never fond of the whole Take Earth Back story.

If there is one thing I liked in the first ME, it's that humans were a race among others and searching for their place in the galaxy. The newbies who knows nothing.

This is me talking off the top of my head, but I could see
it being cast in terms of the Mars Archive being the crux of it.
Humanity finds the Archive, builds a space navy and uplifts because they know something killed off the Protheans, and crosses a few inactive relays to find a galaxy at war.

The Council, realizing the real significance of the Prothean Cache on Mars, gets the Crucible-like device and beats the Reapers, with Humans playing a valued but non-dominant role. Humanity hasn't saved teh galaxy, per see, but by virtue of being not devastated by the Reapers it emerges as a rising power.

Cue ME2, whether it's ME1 redux or a more 'lawlessness pervades the post-war galaxy' of ME2.

The Reapers could have been decent antagonists if BW knew what to do with them in the first place. They always stayed in the background along the three games and BW waited until the very last moment to deal with them seriously. And in what way...

Given the nature of naval warfare and technology in the ME universe, they were pretty much doomed to be underwhelming and/or incompetent in practice. If they weren't overwhelmingly powerful, they'd be pitiful losers. Still were, in many respects.

I was also very interested by the post-war period. With the Yahg, the Krogans and the Leviathans, a discredited Asari Republic and Salarian Union, an exhausted Turian Hierarchy and the growing power and prestige of the Humans, the whole galactic politic and military balance has been changed for ever. The time of uncertainty and formidable opportunities. There are ingredients to make a remarkable story.

If you go into my story corner in my sig, you could see something... well, not similar, but definitely inspired, in my musings of a post-Destroy Trilogy of galactic reunification.

[Epic777]

Uncle Jo wrote...

I was also very interested by the post-war period. With the Yahg, the Krogans and the Leviathans, a discredited Asari Republic and Salarian Union, an exhausted Turian Hierarchy and the growing power and prestige of the Humans, the whole galactic politic and military balance has been changed for ever. The time of uncertainty and formidable opportunities. There are ingredients to make a remarkable story.

This so much

[Uncle Jo]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

I think it would be important to define what narratively means. Javik changes my experience and perspective, certainly, but I don't feel he changes the narrative: the same events happen for the same reasons in the same order. I just miss out on some amusingly grim quips.

Hard to keep up with you.

Sure the presence or absence of Javik doesn't change a thing to the story. Just how the story feels or flows if I can put it like that. At least partially. For me, but I might be wrong, it is also a part of the narrative, maybe less about the content and more about the form.

I think his point is more about that the means of the DLC, not the goals, weren't planned. Instead of chasing mythical sea beasts, for example, we could have been following an STG conspiracy of sorts.

I get this. But he started his first answer with "Also, as for Leviathan, that they did it after the EC doesn't make it a retro-active justification". So he supposed that I merely based on the chronology to make my assumption.

Sort of like preventing disease by injecting deases into you? Helping organisms grow by hacking off their extremities? Hiring criminals to improve security?

More like trying to cure a dangerous illness by injecting its deadly variant. Or lawning the grass with a flamethrower. Or hiring a thief and giving them the safe's access code, a gun and the key of the exit door. What could possibly go wrong?

Preserving life at all costs. Yeah, by liquefying people and store them in warships. Very clever, indeed.

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 21 avril 2013 - 11:30 .