365 réponses à ce sujet

[Redbelle]

The wall only appears to be immobile. But the wall may well be a front to hide the ones who built it. We may indeed be screaming at a wall. But that's not to say the wall is the only thing around that can hear.

Wait. Wall can't hear. Forget that.

The point is........

Citadel DLC. In talks before Citadel DLC ever became a thing fans were aware of there was discussion about what the game was missing. Things like, who is Vega and what does what we know of him suggest he may act like?

Other things like, ME3 needs more games, what games should there be and why.

In alot of these discussion's things like Vega having a competitive streak, his chin ups in the landing bay, the prospect of challenging Shep to a chin up match.

Towers of Honoi. (That I remember BW saying they were not going to put in the game). Made an appearence in name only as a broken console game. Along with many other games I saw mentioned.

The short of it is, BW will listen and do listen, even if it appears that they are not. And if the fans never say anything then all they do is ensure that BW will never take their views into consideration.

GEtting up and walking away is an option. But it's one that is tantamount to surrender. BW have an element to them of listening to the fans. And that is something fans need to support so BW keeps it going.

Cause as the recent PS4 vs XBOX fight shows, if you give the fans what they want, they will respond favourably. And if they don't give you what they want, then yes, people will walk. And in doing so vote with their wallet which will lead to change.

BW know that they were on a knife edge earlier this year. They got alot of bad press due to the ending's of the ME3 and they will not want to repeat that. They don't exist in a vacuum. They know they made a goof, either from lackof development time to having a nearly entirely new team to develop the game to aceding to gamer feedback without taking a step back and asking how, using their knowledge as a developer, making a game on that feedback would affect the balance of the game.

ME3's backlash and subsequent influx of opinion ought to have given BW a perspective wake up call on what fans really want and how they should respond to those fans in giving them a gaming experience, without a year of bad press to follow.

[chemiclord]

As it pertains to ME3, that wall is most definitely immobile. What you have is what you will get. Forever. It's not changing. Period.

As it pertains to future games... if they haven't "listened" by now, they never will. You're baying at the moon at this point. If you still don't think Bioware "gets it", then nothing more you say will make them.

They've broken up with you. Move on.

[AlanC9]

Redbelle wrote...

Why, oh why, oh why............. does every person who says they like the ending, keep on saying that 'a', as in 'one' happy ending wuld spoil the ending?

I'm not advocating scrapping every ending there is. just that the possible ending's be expanded so that a 100% happy ending is possible.

The standard answer is that  this would make everything worse than the 100% happy ending a mistake. Surely you've seen that posted by now.

[AlanC9]

Redbelle wrote...
It's easier to explain outside the wording of right and wrong. It's about psychology. The mind of a gamer is adapted to certain modals of resolving game play. It actively seeks reward through projecting onto the protag. So to find the thing that is labeled as the enemy, suddenly becoming the comrade and guiding star of your actions is to travel in one direction, and then stop abruptly and move in the opposite direction.

I found this very interesting. But from where I sit it sounds almost like an indictment of gamers for having inflexible minds. I'm sure that was not your intention.

Modifié par AlanC9, 10 juillet 2013 - 11:43 .

[chemiclord]

AlanC9 wrote...

The standard answer is that  this would make everything worse than the 100% happy ending a mistake. Surely you've seen that posted by now.

I personally preface it with... in a perfect world, no... there's nothing INHERENTLY wrong with a happy "golden" ending.  Hell, it's probably the route ME3 SHOULD have taken rather than try to get cute... but that's a decision that can only be made in retrospect.

But when you commit to a "Moral Dilemma", having an available out inherently defeats the dilemma posed.  It no longer becomes a value decision and it becomes a right or wrong decision; where there is a clearly superior conclusion and anything else is by its existence inferior.

[aznjoez]

iakus wrote...

aznjoez wrote...

This. You go up against something as powerful as the reapers and expect a happy ending? If he survived I would have felt this trilogy would just be a futuristic sci-fi rambo. Something better would have been "closure" for your LI, such as mourning and rememberance, but it would mean confirming Shepard's death which they don't exactly want to since they want us to keep "guessing".

I've played RPGs where the protagonist fights demons, gods, eldritch abominations, and sith lords.  And managed to walk away.  So yeah, a "happy ending" (if by that you mean "Shepard lives and gets to spend the rest of his.her life helping to rebuild the galaxy) yeah, that should have been on the table.  

There was never going to be a "happy ending" as such.  Hundreds of millions, perhaps upwards of a billion people are dead on Earth alone.  Whole colonies have died.  Palaven and Thessia are rapidly starting to look like Earth.  Whole species may have died out.  Several of Shepard's friends unavoidably die even in the best imports.  

No matter how quickly the relays get up and running agian (and in Destroy it could take decades, if not centuries) the galaxy will never be the same again.

So yeah, all these endings are just an extra kick to the player.

He didn't really die in the beginning of ME2, while he says he did and so do a few other people in the story, if  you look up what cerebus talked about when bringing shepard back and the comic Redemption, Shepard still had important brain functions still intact, so they "cryo'd" him to keep his brain alive. They just reconstructed his body and other organs and put his brain back in. While the "clone" from the citadel DLC didn't fit well lore wise with this.

He didn't "die" (like some characters do in other stories, movies, tv shows), as he was brought back seconds after that scene.

You did see that video about the Lazarus Project at Kronos Base, right?  Shepard was dead.  No brain activity.  

Also everyone doesn't have to follow the same template and forumula for creating "happy endings", a death in a story, or whatever story mechanic. Sometimes people should try something new.

This is called "railroading" and it doesn't sit well with chocie-based rpgs.  If I want to be told a story, I'll play Assassin's Creed, Alan Wake, or The Last of Us.

Been a while since you responded to me but I felt like I had to respond at least. Here is the link to the kronos video logs. 




He was said to be "clinically brain dead". That in science, does not mean that he has zero brain activity.  It just means he has no blood flow and is not breathing. Your brain can still function for seconds and up to a few minutes after "death". A person who got their head cut off back in the old days still had brain functions for a few seconds. 

Here is a wikipedia link on the definition of "clinically brain dead", http://en.wikipedia....Clinically_dead

Also it was mentioned in the comic Redemption, as I have said that he still had brain activity.

You also say that you seen instances where people went up against gods, demons, etc? What about thousands to millions of them at once? The reapers power could be the equal of gods to us. It took a whole navy/armada/army w.e to stop just one, and that was with killing its conscense or w.e when you killed Saren after he was taken over by Soveriegn.

Like some said in the thread, you are being told a story. You have limited choices in the outcomes of the major events in the game. Generally things played out the same. You saved the galaxy the best you could, made the same enemies, etc. 

Not everything has a happy ending. Maybe they wanted to model the story after something more realistic. You don't get everything you want and nothing ever goes exactly as planned.

Modifié par aznjoez, 10 juillet 2013 - 11:52 .

[AlanC9]

chemiclord wrote...
But when you commit to a "Moral Dilemma", having an available out inherently defeats the dilemma posed.  It no longer becomes a value decision and it becomes a right or wrong decision; where there is a clearly superior conclusion and anything else is by its existence inferior.

If we accept Redbelle's argument above - players are conditioned to think of games as puzzle-boxes and need to be able to extract the rat chow - we might end up thinking that moral dilemmas need to be kept out of the endgame, lest they interfere with the delivery of the rat chow. A dilemma earlier doesn't contaminate the whole game since there's more chow coming.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

iakus wrote...

I never said a happy ending was a cure all.  Only that people would likely not have looked at the game with as critical an eye.  It might still be considered a mediocre or bad game.  But there are lots of those, which don't spawn movements like Retake.  Odds are ME3 would have been just another own of those.

Much like what would have happened if Bioware had chosen to address the problem of the Catalyst? Or the lack of choices affecting the ending?

Again, what is the basis for this statement, beyond a dislike of the lack of happy ending. Retake was a diverse movement, not a happy ending crowd movement? The basis for this seems to be an assumption that happy endings are at the unspoken top of people's priority lists.

 And I still hold that it was largely to avoid the "crybaby" label.  That and what was desired was alternatives, not forced happy endings.

And I still hold that if you want to make that claim, you need something to back it up more than "because I said so". It indicates one very important feature: these fans were not interested in a happy ending, otherwise if it had such a priority they would have said "give us a happy ending Bioware". If you're interested in Bioware implementing a certain feature, it makes little sense to tell them "Hey, we don't want that feature". What this means is that in a best case scenario, a happy ending meant nothing to those fans.

I should know, I was one of those letting Bioware know Shepard dying wasn't the start of my criticisms.

Hey if Bioware can claim secret numbers, I can "speculate" on my own 

Plus there was at least one major poll done fairly early on.  On a German site, I believe.  There was a lot of buzz about it.  Even Bioware took an interest and spread the news about it.  It showed pretty solidly that player did want the option for a happy ending.

Of course, when the results were released, it also showed the endings we got were pretty universally reviled.  That was when Bioware suddenly said their data was wrong, irrelevant and "dismissed that claim"... 

I certainly would love to see the numbers on said poll. Now, said poll would also need to indicate where on the list of priorities said happy endings would rank.

Now think how badly it would have been if Spider-Man died doing something horricially stupid, Or Wolverine, or Neo (oh, wait)

Probably be about where it was now, the same exact levels of mediocrity.

Actually, come to think of it, Neo did die, and we still don't have a "Retake Neo" movement, nor do I think the movies would have been received any better with him surviving. The prime criticisms directed at Revolutions had little to do with death of the protagonist. Specifically, how many "Retake Jean Grey" movements are there? Or "Retake Harry Osborne" Movements? They were bad movies, plain and simple, living and dying by the strength of (or lack of) in their narratives.

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 11 juillet 2013 - 12:31 .

[Erez Kristal]

csm4267 wrote...

Mass Effect 3 did have a good ending. Unfortunately too many people here just can't see it, because their emotions have been in a knot for the last year. One guy went into great detail explaining why the ending was actually good.

I suppose people wanted an ending where they choose to destroy the Reapers, but nothing bad happens. No one gets stranded in the Sol system (relays explode). Everyone goes home. Shepard doesn't have to sacrifice the Geth or synthetics to defeat the Reapers. Even though it was said that the theme of the game was victory through sacrifice.

Or, another thing was they spent 200 hours and 5 years playing these games so it had to have a good ending. It couldn't end with a punch to the gut ending.

Hate to say it, when you read a book, watch a movie, or play a video game for 5 years, you go into it knowing there is a chance you may be disappointed with how it turns out.

Just because someone spent that amount of time playing the game that they feel like they are owed a good ending.

Most people cant see it? we are inferior therefor we do not compehend it? i hate to break it to you. but i understand everything that happened it the game just fine.

I will break it for you to understand it better since you ignored the first post of this thread.
The problem of the game, is the bad railroading of shepard. if we were immeresd in an interested and captivating journey where our decisions brought us to the best possibile option against an impossibile odds. then it would be a good ending. but in the bottom line. bioware cheated us from making our decisions in this game. thus leading to a universe deep in the mud when the reapers invaded.
this results in us feeling helpless, knowning that no matter what we do bioware will beat us down once we get up, take over shepard so we wont be able to win. thats cheating.

If they cheated us in gameplay, they should have brought us a decent conclusion. but since the didnt. we decide to rant  about it. 

[Erez Kristal]

Redbelle wrote...


The story of ME is written by the player. It is a canvas whereby you are given combination's of paint to use. The paint and brush strokes may be premade, but my Shepard is different than your Shepard. And while it my Shepard is built out of the block BW provided, BW had no control over the block I used to build my character, or choose my path.

Of course ME was my story. It was every gamers story. Read the back of the blurb on the game and it tells you 'you' must save the galaxy. It's a story, that is given to the player. And the player must then take ownership of that IP and enjoy it to it's greatest potential. You don't ring up BW and ask permission to play their game. You play it when it is convienient for you. It's played on your time to your level of ability. to your satisfaction. It's a game that has been released into the public domain.

It's yours! And if BW owned to the degree you insinuate, they could take it back.

They can't though. And they won't. because they can't. Which means they won't.

As for my expectation's. I don't think they were to high. All I expected was a shooter with RPG element's and good character's I could roll up to and talk to whenever the fancy took me.

I expected to be a force for good in the galaxy and I expected to be fighting the Reaper's to throw them back from wheren'ce they came.

I expected that with two games behind them, the overwhelming Reaper invasion would have it's nose blunted but still be a struggle against the odds.

I expected ME3 to play out in a manner like every other against all odds video game. Because when it comes right down to it. The theme of fighting the good fight against insurmountable odds is a stalwart of gaming nirvana. The character's and settings change. The stakes are different and the issues at the heart of the narrative change, but ultimately video games come down to a simple distinction.

It's Man vs Game. And man alway's wins. It's like a gambling den where you never bet against the house.

So to be given a game where you don't reeeeeeally win, is like the house manager going through his taking's and finding he's broken even.

It's not the point of why we're here.

We play games and we play to win. So for a developer to put in an ending where we don't win.........

If that's what they want to do then they should make cinema movies. Because if they wish to reject decades of gaming pschology under some idea that with one game they can change the fundamental nature of their audience, then they have broken an unspoken covenent with gamer's.

We play for fun, we play to win. We really like doing both at the same time AND have our mind blown in the process.

But you need to get the first two right first. If you ditch them and focus solely on the third, your not making a video game.

spoken like a true gamer.

chemiclord wrote...

  They think people like you are an impossible to please minority.  They've stopped listening.

You are screaming at a wall to move. At some point, your only option is to walk away and not look back.

What make you think they arent listening? 
Its their product, everyone who ever created anything is very sensetive to criticism, dont believe them if they try to tell you otherwise. 

criticism is measured by its volume and durability. the more it have, the more effective it gets.

Modifié par erezike, 11 juillet 2013 - 04:49 .

[chemiclord]

erezike wrote...

What make you think they arent listening? 
Its their product, everyone who ever created anything is very sensetive to criticism, dont believe them if they try to tell you otherwise. 

criticism is measured by its volume and durability. the more it have, the more effective it gets.

The fact that they openly stated they were not going to change the ending and only clarify and add some sense of closure?  I think it's pretty clear they weren't going to listen to anything that pertained to that score.  And they certainly aren't listening to "change the ending" now.

[AlanC9]

That doesn't mean that they're not listening, just that they're not obeying. You remember the bit about God answering all prayers, right? A lot of times the answer is "no."

[Redbelle]

AlanC9 wrote...

Redbelle wrote...
It's easier to explain outside the wording of right and wrong. It's about psychology. The mind of a gamer is adapted to certain modals of resolving game play. It actively seeks reward through projecting onto the protag. So to find the thing that is labeled as the enemy, suddenly becoming the comrade and guiding star of your actions is to travel in one direction, and then stop abruptly and move in the opposite direction.

I found this very interesting. But from where I sit it sounds almost like an indictment of gamers for having inflexible minds. I'm sure that was not your intention.

True. The gamer is highly adaptable. But the games they play, while different in content, character and narrative, all follow variation's of the same rule.

If it's a driving sim, Rank high enough to advance.

If it's a shooter. Kill everyone not on your team.

If it's a sport sim. Scores more points than the other opponent.

The basic premise I'm touting is that gaming has evolved a certain way over the years. And these are recognised by the gamer on an unconcious level. Gamers do go into games with an expectation because they have been conditioned by games over the years to expect a certain kind of outcome. And as much as ME3 was a good shooter, it never hit the lofty high brow realm of the Deus Ex franchise in terms of content, that it's end game could support an unemotional intellectural end game state.

ME3 was chiefly a shooter whose execution heavily implied that the end game would be 'kill everyone not on your team'.

So to have an ending where you kill the Reapers and some of your team,

Or do not kill the Reapers

These two final outcomes fly in the face of established player expectation and the traditional win condition of what a shooters end game is.

On the one hand, it's good to see BW pushing the boat out and trying to deliver something unique. But in doing so they abandoned gaming tradition, rather than put a new spin on it.

That's the problem. They tried to reinvent the end game without thinking how their new end game would be recieved by gamers who have grown up with a simple understanding of what boxes an end game should tick.

ME3 was never cerberal enough to support the direction they finally went. ME3 has a simple premise.

Man with gun kills everything that tries to kill man...................... (and has a chat every now and then < The spin on the first premise that emerged from BW's RPG heritage)

No conspriracy, no investigation of hidden plot's or motivations. Everything is handed to the player leaving the player free to focus on surviving to push ahead to the next phase of the game.

Modifié par Redbelle, 11 juillet 2013 - 10:30 .

[Erez Kristal]

chemiclord wrote...


The fact that they openly stated they were not going to change the ending and only clarify and add some sense of closure?  I think it's pretty clear they weren't going to listen to anything that pertained to that score.  And they certainly aren't listening to "change the ending" now.

If you mean that they never planned to change me3 after its release. then yeah they didnt, the game is the even worst with the extended cut.
But just because they didnt improve me3 doesnt mean they arent listening.
They are writing their notes and are trying to do better for the next game.
With enough support they could event remake me3. the problem of the retake movement was that they were think too small. they expected bioware to do a lot of work for little pay and also produce the impossibile since it wasnt realistic to solve the mess of me3 in one short ending dlc.

You can see that they are listening with the dlcs they released, they are trying to carter to fans taste. all of their dlcs in me3 are fan service.

[Iakus]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

Much like what would have happened if Bioware had chosen to address the problem of the Catalyst? Or the lack of choices affecting the ending?

Again, what is the basis for this statement, beyond a dislike of the lack of happy ending. Retake was a diverse movement, not a happy ending crowd movement? The basis for this seems to be an assumption that happy endings are at the unspoken top of people's priority lists.

Given the Catalyst and lack of choice at the end are big parts of why the endings are depressing to begin with...

But yes, I have no evidence besides my own gut felineg.  I could claim to have secret files that verify it, but I won't 

I certainly would love to see the numbers on said poll. Now, said poll would also need to indicate where on the list of priorities said happy endings would rank.

Wish granted

Furthermore, the lack of uniqueness of the individual endings disappoints many fans of the Mass Effect series. The endings are hardly distinguishable, at most only in regard to some cut-scenes and colors. The missing happy ending is not even the biggest reason for criticism. However, an absolute majority of 70% thinks that a happy ending should at least be offered as an option. Maybe an option that has special requirements in the game (a particular playtime, character import, etc.), which would be rewarded with a happy ending. This, without any doubt, would make many players happy. Overall, 90% voted for a happy ending in our survey. An impressive and thought-provoking number. 

Actually, come to think of it, Neo did die, and we still don't have a "Retake Neo" movement, nor do I think the movies would have been received any better with him surviving. The prime criticisms directed at Revolutions had little to do with death of the protagonist. Specifically, how many "Retake Jean Grey" movements are there? Or "Retake Harry Osborne" Movements? They were bad movies, plain and simple, living and dying by the strength of (or lack of) in their narratives. 

Matrix Revolutions just shows that like I said, a happy ending is not a cure-all.  Some things are simply too broken to fix.  And yet, game writers and producers still try to model stuff after them for some reason.

As for Jean Grey, she's died and been ressurected so many times over the decades, she's practically achieved undead status.  Death is only a temporary condition, a chance for Cyclops to date other women for a while.

[AlanC9]

Redbelle wrote...
The basic premise I'm touting is that gaming has evolved a certain way over the years. And these are recognised by the gamer on an unconcious level. Gamers do go into games with an expectation because they have been conditioned by games over the years to expect a certain kind of outcome. And as much as ME3 was a good shooter, it never hit the lofty high brow realm of the Deus Ex franchise in terms of content, that it's end game could support an unemotional intellectural end game state.

(snip)

That's the problem. They tried to reinvent the end game without thinking how their new end game would be recieved by gamers who have grown up with a simple understanding of what boxes an end game should tick.

This is almost a testable hypothesis, you know. We'd need access to players' gaming history to do it. FWIW, I'm a data point in favor of it. My foundational gaming experiences are PnP RPGs, which don't have victory conditions per se, and historical wargames, where victory conditions are based on what was possible, rather than what was desirable.

[Laforgus]

Redbelle wrote...

Laforgus wrote...

Redbelle wrote...

Laforgus wrote...

But a good ending exist!

Destroy The Reapers

I don't deem, destroying EDI as good.

Nor the Geth. I managed to get them and Quarians to bond the first playthrough. That's decisions from ME1 to 3 ticking all the right boxes.

And then to destroy the Reapers I had to destroy them too.

Nope. Not good at all.

But the best of a bunch of lousy options. I just don't like what I was left with.

We are talking about good ending, not Fairy Tales. You cant save everyone my friend! 

I'll see your fairy tale and raise you a video game.

(And I find it hard to establish your connection to good endings and fairy tales when fairy tales can be happy disney affiars or Brothers grim stories).

Lets start with your finale sentence. You cannot save everyone. This is true. You cannot save Thane.

Everybody else can be saved from death. Even Mordin (If you kill Wrex). Rather than be a fairy tale, the game poses a challenge. Get the outcome you desire.

You can work to save all of your former ME2 crew. The Virmire survivor. The whole lot of the Normandy crew with the exception of those who died in the SR1 crash. You can even save Kelly Chambers.

Yet, you seem to think that gamers should not strive to reach these targets, shrug shoulders with a C'est le vie?

Ok, not fair. These are reachable goals. We knew after a month or so after the games release that we could save everyone with two exceptions. Thane and Mordin/Wrex.

So why at the end did the goal post change......... actually that's not right. The goal posts came out and were replaced with a tennis net. We were made to play an entirely different type of game with different rules and different possible outcomes.

I'm not saying that the game as it stands is entirely without merit

I'm saying that in the future of developments from Bioware, they should stick to their guns and play a straight game where the outcome lies in parallel with the game being played.

If you can save the people you have fought for, then they should carry that through to it's logical conclusion and develop an ending, along with the other endings, where you can save everyone.

It's not about being a fairy tale ending. It's about, as a gamer, playing a video game, having a goal to reach for.

As for the destroy ending........... I still have that down as my head canon ending because it achieve's my goal of destroying the Reapers. But in destroying my allies it's not an ideal ending. So as a gamer I see no reason why I shouldn't dip back in for another go at acheiving a better result..........

But I can't. Because the desirable outcome I wish to work for isn't available for me to game my way towards.

And that's why destroy is the best of a bad bunch for me.

You may be right  in what you think of a ending, and i defend your right and will fight with you to defend it. But remember that ME was made to have multiple endings, and the choice everyone decides is the right one.

There are many gamers that chooses Control as their good ending, other Synthesys and they are right on it, i am not a fan of playing marthyr, i get the job done and survived. Even the Sword Team and every planet that fought with the reapers sustained heavy casualties, many lives were lost thats is a sign that we were prepared to accept any lost at the end of the history.

I replayed ME1 Virmine mission over and over to see if i was doing something wrong, but in the end i knew i couldn't save both, and from there the game was telling you that you can't simply save everyone, even if you choose to.

ME2 happy ending was what created all this mess, making the player thinks that he can save everyone and have a nice day drinking tea with everyone. that was a mistake.

But again, everyone choose their endings, and for everyone they are good endings. Even going as far as closing eyes and head cannon something hat wasn't even in the game itself.

The happy ending is up to every player hearth.


peace!

[Reorte]

chemiclord wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

The standard answer is that  this would make everything worse than the 100% happy ending a mistake. Surely you've seen that posted by now.

I personally preface it with... in a perfect world, no... there's nothing INHERENTLY wrong with a happy "golden" ending.  Hell, it's probably the route ME3 SHOULD have taken rather than try to get cute... but that's a decision that can only be made in retrospect.

But when you commit to a "Moral Dilemma", having an available out inherently defeats the dilemma posed.  It no longer becomes a value decision and it becomes a right or wrong decision; where there is a clearly superior conclusion and anything else is by its existence inferior.

Well,  yes. That's why it's worth making the effort to avoid getting into a mess that means you end up with a moral dilemma to deal with. Without that then you've just got bad crap happening regardless and it seems like getting pissed on merely for the sake of someone not wanting everything to be too good. If you can't do better no matter what choice you make then why bother chosing at all?

Of course it's not helped one bit in ME3 by appearing really badly forced and therefore screaming "We're having this in here because we want to pretend that it's all deep and meaningful, so it's going there whether it belongs or not!" instead of flowing naturally out of the story.

Having an out only fails if it's as contrived and unconvincing as the dilemma was, and if you end up in a bad situation it has a lot more impact if you know you could've avoided it but you screwed up (and that sort of emotional impact is where a game has a huge advantage as a storytelling medium).

[AlanC9]

Reorte wrote...

chemiclord wrote...

But when you commit to a "Moral Dilemma", having an available out inherently defeats the dilemma posed.  It no longer becomes a value decision and it becomes a right or wrong decision; where there is a clearly superior conclusion and anything else is by its existence inferior.

Well,  yes. That's why it's worth making the effort to avoid getting into a mess that means you end up with a moral dilemma to deal with. Without that then you've just got bad crap happening regardless and it seems like getting pissed on merely for the sake of someone not wanting everything to be too good. If you can't do better no matter what choice you make then why bother chosing at all?

I'm a little unclear on  what the italed sentence means. Are you saying that writers should avoid moral dilemmas altogether, avoid them unless there's an escape hatch, avoid them if it's the endgame, or something else?

[BaladasDemnevanni]

Reorte wrote...

Well,  yes. That's why it's worth making the effort to avoid getting into a mess that means you end up with a moral dilemma to deal with. Without that then you've just got bad crap happening regardless and it seems like getting pissed on merely for the sake of someone not wanting everything to be too good. If you can't do better no matter what choice you make then why bother chosing at all?

This strikes me as taking your ball and going home. Does this mean if you can't get out of any particular scenario perfectly that it's better to lay down and die?

Hell, if a game tells me that I only have time to save my LI or a town full of people, that still means I did something useful at the end of the day.

Having an out only fails if it's as contrived and unconvincing as the dilemma was, and if you end up in a bad situation it has a lot more impact if you know you could've avoided it but you screwed up (and that sort of emotional impact is where a game has a huge advantage as a storytelling medium).

The only games I've played where this was done effectively have been Dark Souls, Heavy Rain, and State of Decay and those were all because I couldn't rely on a reload function to take back my choices.

Modifié par BaladasDemnevanni, 11 juillet 2013 - 10:01 .

[chemiclord]

Reorte wrote...

Having an out only fails if it's as contrived and unconvincing as the dilemma was, and if you end up in a bad situation it has a lot more impact if you know you could've avoided it but you screwed up (and that sort of emotional impact is where a game has a huge advantage as a storytelling medium).

I would beg to differ.  An out can also fail if the out itself is contrived and unconvincing.  For example, I was not sold in the SLIGHTEST with the peace resolution between the geth and the quarians.  There is NO reason that Gerrel would stand down just because Shepard berated him for two minutes.  And even IF Gerrel had been sold, here's what would have really happened.

Gerrel: All right.  Cease fire.

(Second in command draws his weapon and point it at the Admiral)

SiC: You are clearly no longer fit to command if your resolve is swayed by some human who knows nothing of our struggle.  I am assuming the bridge.  All ships, keep firing.

The out as presented didn't work for me, because it paints Shepard as this somehow superhuman charisma that can sway minds with nothing but a sharp word.  It deifies rather than humanizes, and I find that absurd.  Why would the quarians feel at all compelled to listen to this outsider?  Who does this human think he is?

There were plenty of other ways that your choices could have been used to sway the outcome.  Perhaps if you saved Koris HE could speak up.  Or Raan.  Or if you did enough of the other things, Tali would have enough support among her people to sway the rank and file.

To bring the point back around... I'm not sure any "out" to the final ending choice, given the gravity of the dilemma presented, could have been convincing.  It would have been such an 11th hour asspull that I would not have been able to think it as flowing naturally from the narrative.

Modifié par chemiclord, 11 juillet 2013 - 11:24 .

[DeinonSlayer]

chemiclord wrote...

Reorte wrote...

Having an out only fails if it's as contrived and unconvincing as the dilemma was, and if you end up in a bad situation it has a lot more impact if you know you could've avoided it but you screwed up (and that sort of emotional impact is where a game has a huge advantage as a storytelling medium).

I would beg to differ.  An out can also fail if the out itself is contrived and unconvincing.  For example, I was not sold in the SLIGHTEST with the peace resolution between the geth and the quarians.  There is NO reason that Gerrel would stand down just because Shepard berated him for two minutes.  And even IF Gerrel had been sold, here's what would have really happened.

Gerrel: All right.  Cease fire.

(Second in command draws his weapon and point it at the Admiral)

SiC: You are clearly no longer fit to command if your resolve is swayed by some human who knows nothing of our struggle.  I am assuming the bridge.  All ships, keep firing.

The out as presented didn't work for me, because it paints Shepard as this somehow superhuman charisma that can sway minds with nothing but a sharp word.  It deifies rather than humanizes, and I find that absurd.  Why would the quarians feel at all compelled to listen to this outsider?  Who does this human think he is?

There were plenty of other ways that your choices could have been used to sway the outcome.  Perhaps if you saved Koris HE could speak up.  Or Raan.  Or if you did enough of the other things, Tali would have enough support among her people to sway the rank and file.

To bring the point back around... I'm not sure any "out", given the gravity of the dilemma presented, could have been convincing.  It would have been such an 11th hour asspull that I would not have been able to think it as flowing naturally from the narrative.

Agh, I wish we could still PM people. I wrote an alternate scenario you might have been interested in, but I don't want to hijack the thread.

Anyway, yeah. This just contributes to peoples' expectation to be able to upper-left-blue their way out of absolutely anything. If there were more rock-and-a-hard-place choices, people would temper their expectations and examine their options more closely.

Modifié par DeinonSlayer, 11 juillet 2013 - 11:01 .

[AlanC9]

chemiclord wrote...

 Why would the quarians feel at all compelled to listen to this outsider?  Who does this human think he is?

Well, Shepard could have threatened them with extermination if they didn't stand down-- let Legion upgrade the geth, and then the quarians either believe Shepard's bluffing or they don't.

[BaladasDemnevanni]

AlanC9 wrote...

chemiclord wrote...

 Why would the quarians feel at all compelled to listen to this outsider?  Who does this human think he is?

Well, Shepard could have threatened them with extermination if they didn't stand down-- let Legion upgrade the geth, and then the quarians either believe Shepard's bluffing or they don't.

Isn't that exactly what he does?

[Iakus]

BaladasDemnevanni wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

chemiclord wrote...

 Why would the quarians feel at all compelled to listen to this outsider?  Who does this human think he is?

Well, Shepard could have threatened them with extermination if they didn't stand down-- let Legion upgrade the geth, and then the quarians either believe Shepard's bluffing or they don't.

Isn't that exactly what he does?

In the renegade version, yes.   He tells the quarians if they keep fighting, he'll stand aside and let the geth annihilate them.