225 réponses à ce sujet

[Redbelle]

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Redbelle wrote...

DLC I'd buy but not consider essential to the game?

Firewalker
Overlord.
Leviathan
Omega

All the other's I'd peg as DLC I wouldn't buy, or content I consider essential to the trilogy.

Leviathan is pretty crucial to the "Yo Dawg" Reaper motivation they dreamed up the night before deadline. If a person was inclined to accept that as an integral part of the trilogy, Leviathan would be pretty damn central to it. 

While , on one level, I know that Levi is crucial to the story, on the other hand, it's crucial to the story regarding the Catalyst, who was a badly exectued character, and the Reapers, who lost a bit of their Sylar-esque galactic boogieman status when their motivation's were explained to be as a result of a an alien race.

The reason I include Levi is that it bring's new gamplay element's into the fold of how the player interacts with the game. Is much more scary than the Adjuctant's, simple by having creepy mindjacked people roaming one of the gamezones. (Ring for attention. Genius)! And has a brilliant underwater section that is seamlessly integrated with a load screen.

Several thing's Levi did right. It was unsettling. The mindjack of the Leviathan's is much more troubling to see than indoctrination. The effect's on the people they jack is disturbingly sublime yet menacing at the same time. Thanks in equal part to some great camera and sound work, as well as the script.

The CSI scene's were a good effort at breaking ME3 out of it's shooter rut. Since the game has no hacking section's to exercise the grey matter, this section has to suffice. Ultimately it has many flaws in it's execution due to the limitation's of the game engine. However, as a precursor to a redeveloped method of game interface where ,for example, the UI doesn't open a reticle and requires you follow a light or Ping from your Omni-tool, could bring a new gameplay element into the franchise.

Where it went wrong. It didn't really so much as go wrong as it gave the Catalyst more weight in the game. And that's where thing's go wrong because the Catalyst is a badly executed character, with respect to engaging the player.

Think of Deus Ex. You have 3 option's by the games end. And each option has an advocate pointing out the benefit's.

Now imagine that those three advocate's have been merged into one entity and that entity champion's all the option's. Knowing how it actually ends, we can concieve the following:

• Bob Page would be telling you to blow the facility while he was inside it trying to link up with an AI.
• Tracer would be telling you to give control to the Illuminatti while telling you the human condition should be allowed to thrive outside of rules and laws so that they can rebuild a society free of top down administration, and
• Everett would be telling you to seize power with the AI while saying that the Illuminatti can rebuild the insitution's of the world and bring it back from anarchy.

3 perspective's. One character. Mordin could have done it. He looks at all the angles. But the Cat is not Mordin. He's a blank slate of a character. Which bring's me to the fix.

TIM and Anderson should not have died as early as they did.

If the Catalyst had met Shep, TIM and Anderson then Shep could have been the guy listening and challenging POV's while the other 3 advocated Destroy, Control and Synthesis. Suddenly, the Catalyst is free to push his favoured option, without the coming across as someone who want's you to go synth, but also offer's up destroy and control. There would still be an element of the Cat being a open terminal in that he can point out the option's exist if asked about them. But by splitting the choices to be advocated amoung 3 ppl rather than 1 we return to a play state seen in DE that was successful in putting across the option's without creating 'the catalyst is lying, or being deceptive' perception's.

Modifié par Redbelle, 04 mai 2013 - 11:03 .

[Morlath]

MegaIllusiveMan wrote...

Do you think that Mass Effect Universe Side-quests didn't have anything to do with Mass Effect 3(The Recovery of a Cerberus agent data on the Omega Nebula in ME2, for example) and some DLCs, like Liara becoming the Shadow Broker even if you didn't do it, and some minor occurrences, like having more guns or Dr.Gavin Archer appearing, you still being arrested on Earth even if you didn't blew the Alpha relay, introducing the Catalyst, the super gun that defeats Reapers on ME3:

Was because Mass Effect 3 was intended for new players?

Come on, let's see the reviews: Intended for new players
Bla, bla, bla.

So, if it wasn't intended for new players, would you think that the Mass Effect Storyline could go different?

Discuss and please keep it civil.

Edit: Having more guns or Dr Gavin Archer appearing not More guns on Dr.Gavin Archer

I don't know how it was worked out in the offices but I can tell you how it appears for me.

ME1 created this world were decisions matter, side quests (while ended up being same-y in design) attempted to be different enough in their reasoning that each one had its own small story. It made sense for the Allience to get in touch with you when you entered a star system that had issues because  you were the closest unit to respond.

ME2 reacted to ME1's world and the reactions and moved the story forward.

ME3 was fine how it started (it makes sense for Shepard to be arrested even without the Arrival DLC) but by now it's a much more linear and point-to-point game for the simple fact of what type of story it was telling. This wasn't Shephard chasing an evil Spectre or looking to collect enough people and information together to take on an evil group/species. This was a full-on war with everything revolving around the need to build the Crucible and get as many allies as possible.

Nothing went wrong between ME1, 2 and 3. What people seem to skip over is that the storytelling had to change to suit the story being told.

[Megaton_Hope]

AlanC9 wrote...

NeonFlux117 wrote...
well, I think we can agree that ME3 had zero side quests lol, it had what I think 7 N7 missions and fetch quests=Lame. 

What about Grissom Academy? Ardat-Yakshi Monastery? Tuchanka: Bomb? Rannoch:Admiral Koris? And so on.

I don't consider Tuchanka: Bomb a side quest. If you don't do it, you get penalized 300 EMS.

Admiral Koris you can skip, depending how you plan to resolve that situation. Both Grissom and the Monastery can also be skipped, you don't actually lose anything you've got up to that point.

[Mathias]

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

Modifié par Mdoggy1214, 05 mai 2013 - 08:13 .

[AlanC9]

Megaton_Hope wrote...
I don't consider Tuchanka: Bomb a side quest. If you don't do it, you get penalized 300 EMS.

So something that gives you EMS is a sidequest, something that takes away EMS you already have is not? What's the difference?

Admiral Koris you can skip, depending how you plan to resolve that situation. Both Grissom and the Monastery can also be skipped, you don't actually lose anything you've got up to that point.

So it's a sidequest if good things can come from it if you do it, and nothing bad happens if you don't?

Sounds like the sidequest concept is just bad.

[Megaton_Hope]

It seems to me that if the game will penalize me for not doing an assignment, then it's part of what I'm expected to do to progress. If the game will reward me for doing it but not penalize me for not doing it, then it's a tangent.

[Redbelle]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

While seeing who has been lost from ME1 to ME3 is interesting, I would point out that the concept art work that goes onto informing environment design was better in ME3.

ME1 just let us kick our shoes off and play with those concept's more. Still liked having to suit up and mag walk to the citadel presidium with a Reaper attached to the outside...... being all, tentacle-ley.

And maybe that's a lesson the new people making ME need to take away. Why put the player in a corridor when they can give us a setpiece like a space walk with a Reaper in the path of your destination? It added variety and a sense of epic wonder, liberally mixed with OMGOMGOMG.

Konami give their staff imagination books where they can write down idea's for the games they are working on. BW have a good template to make games. Now perhaps they need to inject more ambitious imagination into giving player's these kinds of event's to deal with.

I'm still a little disapointed they didn't let us blow up a Reaper from the inside. Imagine tackling the setting's and event's to allow a player to do that?

Modifié par Redbelle, 05 mai 2013 - 09:07 .

[NeonFlux117]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

Well, that settles that... Wow. Eye opening. But the biggest departure was Drew. Bar none. 

[Applepie_Svk]

NeonFlux117 wrote...

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

Well, that settles that... Wow. Eye opening. But the biggest departure was Drew. Bar none. 

seems legit... 

[NeonFlux117]

Applepie_Svk wrote...

NeonFlux117 wrote...

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

Well, that settles that... Wow. Eye opening. But the biggest departure was Drew. Bar none. 

seems legit... 

Yep, legit as legit can be..........

[Megaton_Hope]

Redbelle wrote...

I'm still a little disapointed they didn't let us blow up a Reaper from the inside. Imagine tackling the setting's and event's to allow a player to do that?

That's pretty much Legion's recruitment mission.

[AlanC9]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

It seems to me that if the game will penalize me for not doing an assignment, then it's part of what I'm expected to do to progress. If the game will reward me for doing it but not penalize me for not doing it, then it's a tangent.

But either way, doing less quests = less EMS. So this is just psychological.

[Bleachrude]

AlanC9 wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...

Admiral Koris you can skip, depending how you plan to resolve that situation. Both Grissom and the Monastery can also be skipped, you don't actually lose anything you've got up to that point.

So it's a sidequest if good things can come from it if you do it, and nothing bad happens if you don't?

Sounds like the sidequest concept is just bad.

This has always been a problem with sidequests in practically ALL RPGs. I'm not sure where the side quest concept came from (I don't remember this as a tabletop feature) but pretty much RPGs seem to use them to increase their length for no other reason that "it's how RPGs are done".

Modifié par Bleachrude, 05 mai 2013 - 09:41 .

[Megaton_Hope]

AlanC9 wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...

It seems to me that if the game will penalize me for not doing an assignment, then it's part of what I'm expected to do to progress. If the game will reward me for doing it but not penalize me for not doing it, then it's a tangent.

But either way, doing less quests = less EMS. So this is just psychological.

Noooo, if I do the quest, I get +75. If I don't do the quest, I get -300. The difference of 375 EMS is not something I've imagined. That's almost a tenth of what's required to get all the endings.

I mean, yeah, there are other ways to make up that number. Play multiplayer, do five or six other quests, what have you.

[AlanC9]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...

It seems to me that if the game will penalize me for not doing an assignment, then it's part of what I'm expected to do to progress. If the game will reward me for doing it but not penalize me for not doing it, then it's a tangent.

But either way, doing less quests = less EMS. So this is just psychological.

Noooo, if I do the quest, I get +75. If I don't do the quest, I get -300. The difference of 375 EMS is not something I've imagined. That's almost a tenth of what's required to get all the endings.

I mean, yeah, there are other ways to make up that number. Play multiplayer, do five or six other quests, what have you.

You missed the point. What if the quest was +375 EMS if you did it, and +0 if you did not? Same change to your EMS.

[Redbelle]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...

It seems to me that if the game will penalize me for not doing an assignment, then it's part of what I'm expected to do to progress. If the game will reward me for doing it but not penalize me for not doing it, then it's a tangent.

But either way, doing less quests = less EMS. So this is just psychological.

Noooo, if I do the quest, I get +75. If I don't do the quest, I get -300. The difference of 375 EMS is not something I've imagined. That's almost a tenth of what's required to get all the endings.

I mean, yeah, there are other ways to make up that number. Play multiplayer, do five or six other quests, what have you.

Isn't the Tchunka bomb quest, less of a side mission, and a specific part of a larger picture?

In ME1 you were given mission's with no bearing on the main quest. ME3's quest's are all about the Reaper war.

Strictly speaking that would put Citadel DLC down as a side quest, except it's such an epic expansion that it take's on a life of it's own which is less a diversion, and more an immersion.

And maybe that's how a sidequest can be defined. A diversion. Something that doesn't add to the main goal, or have any bearing on the story at hand. Tchunka's bomb had element's of creating a peace agreement for the war effort. And the Ardat Yakshi monestary showed us how the Reapers were making Banchee's. Both seem fairly important to the main storyline.

Seperately, getting your old crew back in the war saddle does not seem to be a side quest either. ME thrive's on it's character's to such a degree that getting a character's back, or killing them off, seem's a pretty big deal. On that front the Rachni mission seem's like a side quest, but saving or losing Grunt, whom Wrex namecheck's later on, seem's a pretty big deal in the player's story.

Or maybe, BW have crafted a game where player's decide for themselves what is important and what is optional, based on their perception's of the character's still at large in ME3.

[Interloper]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

I KNEW IT! Even during the development cycle, you kept hearing about all of these Bioware employees leaving from the company and it just goes to show how Mass Effect transforms from an interesting, Ridley Scott sci-fi epic to a crappy Michael Bay Transformers imitation.

 Oh how I loathe how a focused, dedicated team is gradually exposed to a rampant bureaucracy, and no doubt EA was probably (if not directly) indirectly controlling the nature of production by setting deadlines and forcing rushed development.

[KingZayd]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

NeonFlux117 wrote...
well, I think we can agree that ME3 had zero side quests lol, it had what I think 7 N7 missions and fetch quests=Lame. 

What about Grissom Academy? Ardat-Yakshi Monastery? Tuchanka: Bomb? Rannoch:Admiral Koris? And so on.

I don't consider Tuchanka: Bomb a side quest. If you don't do it, you get penalized 300 EMS.

Admiral Koris you can skip, depending how you plan to resolve that situation. Both Grissom and the Monastery can also be skipped, you don't actually lose anything you've got up to that point.

You typically miss out on things  if you skip side quests. Side quest does not mean "has no impact whatsoever on the game" A side quest is one that is optional and not necessary for you to complete for you to complete the game.

I do find the lack of side quests a little disapointing, but the ones they included (except for those stupid scan quests) were generally of good quality.

[Iakus]

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

Pretty clear indication of why there was a complete tonal and thematic shift across the trilogy.  Did they even try to stay consistant?

[Bleachrude]

Redbelle wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...


But either way, doing less quests = less EMS. So this is just psychological.

Noooo, if I do the quest, I get +75. If I don't do the quest, I get -300. The difference of 375 EMS is not something I've imagined. That's almost a tenth of what's required to get all the endings.

Isn't the Tchunka bomb quest, less of a side mission, and a specific part of a larger picture?


Or maybe, BW have crafted a game where player's decide for themselves what is important and what is optional, based on their perception's of the character's still at large in ME3.

That's a good point...for example, I think one of my favourite side-quests is the ex-cerberus personnel mission with Jacob. Not just because you interact with Jacob (I actually LIKE the fact that Jacob moved on with his life...how he did it I have quibbles with, but I do think LI should be able to break up with the protagonist) but also David Archer.

This is a side mission where the interaction with archer differs based on a previous side mission in the game AND a DLC...I know many don't like it depends on a DLC, but I did and hope to see more side quests like that...

Modifié par Bleachrude, 06 mai 2013 - 12:49 .

[Bleachrude]

iakus wrote...

Mdoggy1214 wrote...

Thought i'd add one more reason to the mix:

Pretty clear indication of why there was a complete tonal and thematic shift across the trilogy.  Did they even try to stay consistant?

Er..given that from the START they didn't have a clear idea, I'm not sure why so many act surprised...

People focus on this but also miss out the fact that there's no guarantee the other option would be superior. Ex: Garrus and Tali were brought back BECAUSE of fan demand.

(As an aside, what exactly does the 4chan.org pic lead to?)

Modifié par Bleachrude, 06 mai 2013 - 12:47 .

[Megaton_Hope]

KingZayd wrote...

You typically miss out on things  if you skip side quests. Side quest does not mean "has no impact whatsoever on the game" A side quest is one that is optional and not necessary for you to complete for you to complete the game.

I do find the lack of side quests a little disapointing, but the ones they included (except for those stupid scan quests) were generally of good quality.

But you don't miss out on something new, you have something old taken away. It's the difference between winning a new hat, and having your hat confiscated.

Redbelle wrote...
Isn't the Tchunka bomb quest, less of a side mission, and a specific part of a larger picture?

In ME1 you were given mission's with no bearing on the main quest. ME3's quest's are all about the Reaper war.

Well, it's one of the three missions you have to do to get the full strength of the Krogans behind you. If Eve dies at the gathering of the clans, they fall into bickering among themselves, and it has the same result for the war effort as if you sabotaged the cure for the Dalatrass. (Effectively negating the benefit of doing Priority Tuchanka, if you were trying to go through with the cure.)

The rescue mission on Rannoch, on the other hand, adds a bit to the chances of declaring peace between the Geth and the Quarians, but is not essential to it. Actually, you have all the background requirements met if you destroyed the Heretics in ME2, Tali was not exiled, and you resolve the conflict between the two using a Paragon or Renegade option.

The Geth server mission, on the other hand, is necessary, the way Tuchanka Bomb is. The game will fundamentally deny you the option of making peace if you haven't done that mission, whatever else you've done.

Certainly it can be played the other way, but you miss out on what you might expect to be able to do, given the way the games normally work.

[Iakus]

Bleachrude wrote...

Er..given that from the START they didn't have a clear idea, I'm not sure why so many act surprised...

People focus on this but also miss out the fact that there's no guarantee the other option would be superior. Ex: Garrus and Tali were brought back BECAUSE of fan demand.

(As an aside, what exactly does the 4chan.org pic lead to?)

Yeah I know, but this only reinforces that not only was there no overall plan, but there was hardly any consistency at all through the series

Sure Garrus and Tali came back due to fan demand.  But the VS got totally trashed as well, so no points there.

the pic compares teh ME1 credits with the ME3 ones, showing how little of the original team made it through the trilogy.  

[Megaton_Hope]

AlanC9 wrote...

You missed the point. What if the quest was +375 EMS if you did it, and +0 if you did not? Same change to your EMS.

Then I would be missing out on something if I don't do it, and it would be a side quest. Rather than a quest that is not listed as a Priority by the developers.

[Bleachrude]

That's not exactly surprising...

You _ARE_ talking about a series that spans at the least, 5 years of work. People are surprised that the same team at the start isn't the same team at the end?

I'm also amused that people are angry at EA for actually putting down timelines...Do remember that it was the lack of time management that GOT Bioware financially into trouble in the 1st place.