1470 réponses à ce sujet

[jstme]

Robosexual wrote...

Megaton_Hope wrote...

-snip-

What would you consider is an objectively bad story and how would you go about proving it?

Easy.
Objectively bad story is the story that has no willing readers.
Decent story with objectively bad ending needs EC.  

[Megaton_Hope]

Robosexual wrote...

Which isn't a case of "elegantly dispoving " something. It's great to say things, to make bold claims and point out the effects of those claims, but if you can't back them up then they hold no weight.

But if we're ending it here that's fine.

Regarding elegant disproof. You are familiar with Highlander 2, right? Would you consider it to be a good story, yourself? Or would you say that it *might* be a good story, depending on a person's particular tastes?

Because what I'm getting at there is that there are stories, mostly in film, video games, and certain fairly trashy genres of literature, which are so obscenely bad that it's hard to imagine a reasonable person consuming them for the story alone. Of course, the absolute worst stories are told in pornography, as a flimsy pretext for the sex. Mostly older pornos though, a lot of newer stuff doesn't even care about stories.

[In Exile]

Robosexual wrote...
You could try, but then you would come up against obstacles such as films which aren't very coherent, or develop into farce (due to being a comedy or perhaps because of an unreliable narrator) which are acclaimed, such as Brazil or Airplane.

But a farcial movie isn't necessarily incoherent. More importantly, marginal cases that are hard to classify don't turn rules subjective. For example, google penumbra-core. This is a concept in legal theory, but it really applies generally to any rule that isn't purely mathematical.

Basically, there's always going to be a core set of instances that fit well within a definition, and some that lie outside. But that doesn't mean that the rule is suddenly subjective. 

The traditional example is "no vehicles in the park". Obviously this excludes cars, and presumably it doesn't apply to bycicles. But what if the car is an ambulance? What if we're talking about a motorized bicycle (which just for the record is  a thing). 

Well-developed characters would also come across things such as characters with very little to no developement (like The Joker) or characters which very little is known about.

But that would just mean that the characters aren't well-development. You could still say that a story is objectively better or worse than another one even if the story isn't flawless. 

If it was objectively bad then this wouldn't be the case. You wouldn't argue about whether or not this or that is good or bad, as they would simply be bad, no question about it.

I really don't think you're using objectivity in a way that has any meaning. Like I said: by your standard, all of our laws are subjective. But that's ignoring that there are degerees. 

Modifié par In Exile, 19 mai 2013 - 01:10 .

[Clayless]

Megaton_Hope wrote...

Robosexual wrote...

Which isn't a case of "elegantly dispoving " something. It's great to say things, to make bold claims and point out the effects of those claims, but if you can't back them up then they hold no weight.

But if we're ending it here that's fine.

Regarding elegant disproof. You are familiar with Highlander 2, right? Would you consider it to be a good story, yourself? Or would you say that it *might* be a good story, depending on a person's particular tastes?

Because what I'm getting at there is that there are stories, mostly in film, video games, and certain fairly trashy genres of literature, which are so obscenely bad that it's hard to imagine a reasonable person consuming them for the story alone. Of course, the absolute worst stories are told in pornography, as a flimsy pretext for the sex. Mostly older pornos though, a lot of newer stuff doesn't even care about stories.

While I haven't seen any of the Highlander films, could say without a shadow of a doubt it's subjectively good or bad, and not objectively.

Saying that it's objectively bad wouldn't be the case. It doesn't matter how bad you perceive it, it wont change from subjective to objective based on opinion.

[MattFini]

Robosexual wrote...

While I haven't seen any of the Highlander films, could say without a shadow of a doubt it's subjectively good or bad, and not objectively.

Saying that it's objectively bad wouldn't be the case. It doesn't matter how bad you perceive it, it wont change from subjective to objective based on opinion.

It's true. Actually, if someone had seen HIGHLANDER 2 first, they might not have much issue with it at all. 

[Megaton_Hope]

MattFini wrote...
It's true. Actually, if someone had seen HIGHLANDER 2 first, they might not have much issue with it at all.

I rather doubt that one, the internal logic of the film doesn't even hang together. Katana wants to punish MacLeod and Ramirez for rebellion, so he sends them to Earth in a process he knows will make them immortal, for example. MacLeod has grown old and must soon die, hundreds of years later, and Katana decides to send assassins after him, which rejuvenates him and renders him immortal again. Ramirez, who within the film universe has died, comes to life all of a sudden with no explanation. Et cetera.

Somebody who'd seen Highlander 2 first probably just wouldn't like Highlander.

[FlamingBoy]

Well Highlander was a bloody good movie.

That said the series did not really base it self on coherency like mass effect hence there was a lesser expectation of highlander to follow the logic.

Hence the expectation of mass effect to follow the rules it created for it self was expected by the audience to be followed. They did not follow it and their was a backlash (like none I have ever seen, it was impressive)

[Bleachrude]

Getting back to the topic at hand...

One thing I suspect they will have learned is that they can't have companions be killable and have them be major companions for the sequel.

[Iakus]

Bleachrude wrote...

Getting back to the topic at hand...

One thing I suspect they will have learned is that they can't have companions be killable and have them be major companions for the sequel.

That's definitely one thing.

Others are or should be:

You can only push moral compromise so far.

Space magic can't fix everything.

Some people actually like "good" endings

[chemiclord]

iakus wrote...

Bleachrude wrote...

Getting back to the topic at hand...

One thing I suspect they will have learned is that they can't have companions be killable and have them be major companions for the sequel.

That's definitely one thing.

Others are or should be:

You can only push moral compromise so far.

Space magic can't fix everything.

Some people actually like "good" endings

All of those things really tie into one large-scale lesson they need to learn:

Figure out what you want your series to do and say BEFORE you start to do it and say it.

[Bleachrude]

And again, I'll point out that ME1 did have hard choices (the Virmire choice) and was advertised as a RPG where you can't save everyone....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEwsfZbO7KU

Now...if you want to argue that ME2 betrayed this...THEN you have an argument....

[Megaton_Hope]

They definitely ought to take some lessons about deaths in the main cast that I have control over in future games, as that produced the most awkward narrative problems with game 2 and game 3.

[Iakus]

chemiclord wrote...

iakus wrote...

Bleachrude wrote...

Getting back to the topic at hand...

One thing I suspect they will have learned is that they can't have companions be killable and have them be major companions for the sequel.

That's definitely one thing.

Others are or should be:

You can only push moral compromise so far.

Space magic can't fix everything.

Some people actually like "good" endings

All of those things really tie into one large-scale lesson they need to learn:

Figure out what you want your series to do and say BEFORE you start to do it and say it.

This I can agree with.

[Iakus]

Bleachrude wrote...

And again, I'll point out that ME1 did have hard choices (the Virmire choice) and was advertised as a RPG where you can't save everyone....https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEwsfZbO7KU

Now...if you want to argue that ME2 betrayed this...THEN you have an argument....

Which shows it is not the concept of sacrifice itself that's the problem.  But that doesn't mean ME3's ending didn't have problems.

[Malckeor]

4stringwizard wrote...

angol fear wrote...

So we'll have only happy endings, no more logical endings? The writing in video game is not really high and we'll come back to that kind of writing. But I understand they need to sell games.

If you think the ending of ME3 was logical, you're insane.  If you think the writing quality was even close to "high", you're even more insane. 

This. It's not the fact that the endings were bittersweet that disappointed me; it's that the Starchild himself came out of nowhere and presented flawed logic. "Without us to stop it, synthetics would destroy all organics." This line makes me cringe like crazy every time I hear it, and there were more things about the endings that were just as bad if not worse. WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

Games like Bioshock, Heavy Rain, Bastion, Amnesia, Metro 2033/Last Light, and Halo (inb4 hate), however, have shown me that storytelling in games is more alive than it's ever been. Dwelling on Bioware's screw-ups isn't worth it in my eyes, as there are even better story-driven games out there. It took me a while, but I'm over Bioware. I'm done buying games from them. Dragon Age II, SWTOR, and Mass Effect 3. Three strikes; they're out.

Modifié par Malckeor, 21 mai 2013 - 03:54 .

[Bleachrude]

chemiclord wrote...

iakus wrote...

Bleachrude wrote...

Getting back to the topic at hand...

One thing I suspect they will have learned is that they can't have companions be killable and have them be major companions for the sequel.

That's definitely one thing.

Others are or should be:

You can only push moral compromise so far.

Space magic can't fix everything.

Some people actually like "good" endings

All of those things really tie into one large-scale lesson they need to learn:

Figure out what you want your series to do and say BEFORE you start to do it and say it.

I actually disagree with this...

People tend to forget that the "unclear" vision they had for ME is WHY we have the Drell, Mordin Solus, the heretical split between the geth, Tali appearing in the 2nd and 3rd game....

You can't just look at the bad of the haphazard way ME was constructed without acknowledging the good.

I always find it weird that people assume that you would STILL get the same elements of the trilogy they liked if the games 2 and 3 had been plotted out extensively since the beginning of ME1. Such games would HAVE to ignore fan feedback from the previous games.

Another thing I hoped they learned from the experiment is that it is not worth it to have that many decision points carrying over to the next game as too many means they don't get fleshed out enough for fans. Take ME1 for example, people consider it to have the strongest story of the trilogy but that's helped by the fact that it doesn't have to account for ANYTHING in its playthrough. You could kill or save the colonists of Zhu's hope but in the actual game, other than extra XP for saving them, it had no affect on the storyline of ME1. Yet many were disappointed with the small cameo/snippet this decision garnered in the subsequent games.

Of course fans forget that both ME2 and ME3 also had to deal with at least 4 major (major) decision points - the council, wrex, virmire and the rachni.

Quite frankly, most fans don't seem to appreciate just what ME tried to do with its save imports....is there ANY game in the history of videogames that had to handle the number of flags that ME2 did to say nothing of ME3?

[chemiclord]

Bleachrude wrote...

I actually disagree with this...

People tend to forget that the "unclear" vision they had for ME is WHY we have the Drell, Mordin Solus, the heretical split between the geth, Tali appearing in the 2nd and 3rd game....

You can't just look at the bad of the haphazard way ME was constructed without acknowledging the good.

I always find it weird that people assume that you would STILL get the same elements of the trilogy they liked if the games 2 and 3 had been plotted out extensively since the beginning of ME1. Such games would HAVE to ignore fan feedback from the previous games.

Another thing I hoped they learned from the experiment is that it is not worth it to have that many decision points carrying over to the next game as too many means they don't get fleshed out enough for fans. Take ME1 for example, people consider it to have the strongest story of the trilogy but that's helped by the fact that it doesn't have to account for ANYTHING in its playthrough. You could kill or save the colonists of Zhu's hope but in the actual game, other than extra XP for saving them, it had no affect on the storyline of ME1. Yet many were disappointed with the small cameo/snippet this decision garnered in the subsequent games.

Of course fans forget that both ME2 and ME3 also had to deal with at least 4 major (major) decision points - the council, wrex, virmire and the rachni.

Quite frankly, most fans don't seem to appreciate just what ME tried to do with its save imports....is there ANY game in the history of videogames that had to handle the number of flags that ME2 did to say nothing of ME3?

There's a difference between laying out a framework and setting everything in stone before you begin writing.

There's nothing against letting a story "grow" as you go along.  You can still get experiments like those you listed within a framework of a story.  What the framework does is give you an end point for your team to build to, it lays out the message you want to deliver so that you aren't left trying to draw in a hundred threads all at the end because you had no idea where you were going.

That way you aren't trying to shoehorn in a "war between synthetics and organics is inevitable" theme when other writers on your team had spent the better part of two games doing their damnedest to seemingly REFUTE that.

Nor is it necessarily impossible to wing it and make something extraordinary... but that requires an exceptional skill with details and the ability to "improvise" as you go so that everything remains coherent.  I think it's pretty conclusive that the team that handled ME3 did NOT have those skills.

[Bleachrude]

But I think checiclord, what makes ME so interesting is the fact that it DOESN'T have a consistent vision...

I mean, take a look at out world and if somehow you made it into a story, there literally is no consistent idea that you can take from it...which is one of the reasons why I always thought the ME universe felt so real to so many peple.

It's not like Star Wars where everything comes down to the light and dark side of the Force.

[chemiclord]

Bleachrude wrote...

But I think checiclord, what makes ME so interesting is the fact that it DOESN'T have a consistent vision...

I mean, take a look at out world and if somehow you made it into a story, there literally is no consistent idea that you can take from it...which is one of the reasons why I always thought the ME universe felt so real to so many peple.

Well, it's the major reason the ending was a steaming pile of mismatched themes, inconsistent narrative, and disjointed vision.  When you're driving through a forest at top speed with no idea where you're going, the chances you're going to crash into a tree eventually is pretty damn high.

[TheRealJayDee]

Bleachrude wrote...

Quite frankly, most fans don't seem to appreciate just what ME tried to do with its save imports....is there ANY game in the history of videogames that had to handle the number of flags that ME2 did to say nothing of ME3?

I was completely psyched about the concept of the save imports, both in Dragon Age and in Mass Effect. After DA2 and the ME trilogy I have to say that I'm still appreciative of what they tried to do with the imports, but I don't really feel like it worked that well. Some decisions would simply need to result in a more widely branching narrative to really feel like they made an impact, and since Bioware has a straight "we won't make larger amounts of content only a part of our players will experience" policy that won't happen anytime soon.

And I even have to agree with that line of thinking if I take into consideration Bioware's focus on giving the players a highly cinematic experience - more cinematic games need more resources, and since more diverging cinematically presented storylines would require even more resources and time it only makes sense not do this.

So to me it seems that since the "import your saves"/"your choices matter" approach doesn't really mesh with the "cinematic experience" approach Bioware has some options:
1.) convince EA to get the resources and time for a cinematically presented yet truly branching narrative
2.) reduce the cost-intensive cinematic style (maybe ditch the voiced protagonist etc)
3.) ditch the save import feature between games completely
4.) continue to work with and probably improve the formula they used so far

Option 1 ain't gonna happen and probably isn't what BW wants to do anyways. Option 2 is something they definitely don't want. Option 3 would imo enhance the chance of getting more variety within the individual games' narrative, since each game at least wouldn't have to account for any other. Option 4 is what's going to happen.

If they try something like the ME trilogy again they'd definitely need to have a better overall plan from the start, and for Dragon Age it's wait and see for me atm. All in all it's still a great feature in theory, and I'd say it's absolutely not impossible that it'll be truly great in practice as well someday.

Kudos for the hard work that was put into giving us what we got so far, which I have to admit is still pretty impressive!  

[chemiclord]

I can guarantee you that a "choices matter" narrative would be FAR more resource intensive over the course of three games than a cinematic experience.