195 réponses à ce sujet

[TheButterflyEffect]

The problem with ME3 was a bunch of the main devs threw a hissy over some stupid nonsense and walked out on the project.

If the good guys are devoted don't throw hissies and run off to pick petals off daisies, hopefully it will turn out well.

If your truly devoted to something and really care about it with all your heart, you don't throw a temper tantrum and just abandon it. You stick with it, like a good parent does for their child.

Modifié par TheButterflyEffect, 06 août 2013 - 12:36 .

[Fast Jimmy]

AlanC9 wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Why? Would you not find it exceptionally jarring if instead of being able to remember/know where you woke up this morning, if/when you ate lunch and how you got home from work today, you just had blank gaps in your memory? By contrast, would you not find it unnecessary (or even preferable) if, when someone was telling you about their day, they left those details out? 

The more "active" you are in a role, the more the details matter and the less your mind can abide by gaps in the narrative without feeling there is something missing. 

This metaphor doesn't work for me. Maybe it's because I come to RPGs from PnP? Stuff gets handwaved in PnP all the time.

The very nature of PnP makes it open ended. There is rarely a cohesive story that has a beginning, middle and end for a series of events in PnP.

Even in scripted scenarios and campaigns with defined stories, there is very little big planned choice and consequence type instances where the players can truly affect the game world (again, there are exceptions, but as a general rule of thumb). I just can't imagine a DM outlining all the consequences of your character's impact after the campaign was over... mostly be auss you can take your character on into future ccampaigns. 

[Maria Caliban]

It's true, games can't handle sad or ambiguous endings.

Just look at BioShock: Infinite. The one where hundreds of spirits drown you in the end but then you suddenly wake up. Oh wait, that game was wildly praised for its story.

Okay, what about the Walking Dead where character after character is killed, you get to shoot a terminally ill child in the head, and then the main character dies in the end. Oh wait, that game was wildly praised for its story.

Okay, what about Red Dead Redemption? Oh wait. Another sad ending. Another well-received game.

[Angrywolves]

I don't like sad endings .
I believe the ME fans wanted Shepherd riding off into the galaxy with that special Li at the end and felt cheated when it didn't happen.
Much of a cliche as it is, the fans imo felt Shepherd deserved it and wanted to share it with him/her.
Whether Hudson and Walters accept and understand that I don't know.
Hawke story felt unsatisfying to me as well as incomplete and we hope Bioware doesn't repeat that mistake with DAI.

[Fast Jimmy]

Maria Caliban wrote...

It's true, games can't handle sad or ambiguous endings.

Just look at BioShock: Infinite. The one where hundreds of spirits drown you in the end but then you suddenly wake up. Oh wait, that game was wildly praised for its story.

Okay, what about the Walking Dead where character after character is killed, you get to shoot a terminally ill child in the head, and then the main character dies in the end. Oh wait, that game was wildly praised for its story.

Okay, what about Red Dead Redemption? Oh wait. Another sad ending. Another well-received game.

There was absolutely zero ambiguity to those endings. You know what your characters did, you know what happened to them and you knew their sacrifices were worthwhile. 

Like I said in my response - you can have sad, dark or sorrowful... but you cannot skimp in clarity if you do so. Bioware seems to be making a habit of it with their endings. 

[In Exile]

David7204 wrote...
Do you know what the word 'saccharine' means? It doesn't mean good. It sure as hell doesn't mean 'unambiguously good.'

It means sweet. And you don't get much sweeter than a "big dam heroes" moment with a bit of redemption on the side, with a pinch of realism in the form of faceless mooks dying that no one ever cared about. 

[David7204]

None of those examples have what BioWare games have - Promises of choices that matter, and promises of a powerful, competent, able protagonist whose actions matter. Most of those promises are implicit.

Modifié par David7204, 06 août 2013 - 02:50 .

[In Exile]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
There was absolutely zero ambiguity to those endings. You know what your characters did, you know what happened to them and you knew their sacrifices were worthwhile. 

Bioshock infinite is a multiple-world, dimension-hopping mindscrew. Even piecing that plot toghether is just theorywanking. 

Dishonoured is another game that was ambiguous. 

[David7204]

In Exile wrote...

David7204 wrote...
Do you know what the word 'saccharine' means? It doesn't mean good. It sure as hell doesn't mean 'unambiguously good.'

It means sweet. And you don't get much sweeter than a "big dam heroes" moment with a bit of redemption on the side, with a pinch of realism in the form of faceless mooks dying that no one ever cared about. 

It means sweet on the surface, but with a bitter or metallic unpleasent aftertaste. Like the chemical it comes from.

[Iakus]

Angrywolves wrote...

I don't like sad endings .
I believe the ME fans wanted Shepherd riding off into the galaxy with that special Li at the end and felt cheated when it didn't happen.
Much of a cliche as it is, the fans imo felt Shepherd deserved it and wanted to share it with him/her.
Whether Hudson and Walters accept and understand that I don't know.

Especially when you spend five years and three games trying to ensure something like that happens.  Sadly, that kind of ending wasn't considered "artistic"

Hawke story felt unsatisfying to me as well as incomplete and we hope Bioware doesn't repeat that mistake with DAI.

incomplete, yes.  But it's stil far more satisfying than what ME3 gave us.

[Angrywolves]

True.
And promises are meaningless if broken......

[AlanC9]

In Exile wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
There was absolutely zero ambiguity to those endings. You know what your characters did, you know what happened to them and you knew their sacrifices were worthwhile. 

Bioshock infinite is a multiple-world, dimension-hopping mindscrew. Even piecing that plot toghether is just theorywanking. 

Dishonoured is another game that was ambiguous. 

We need a usable definition of "ambiguity" before continuing with this.

[David7204]

A story that refuses to portray the action within itself with a meaningful message.

Modifié par David7204, 06 août 2013 - 03:42 .

[CitizenThom]

As to ME3... I can only speak for myself... I didn't need a happy ending. I didn't expect a happy ending, although I hoped after Tchanka. But, two things, even on the first playthrough, just seemed poorly written.

First, that in the span of minutes, the Illusive Man crossed the galaxy, and subdued the entire Citadel, all of it's security forces and all of it's many refugees, which included a number of mercenaries and hardened criminals. That was worse than Kai Leng's cutscene magic at Thessia.

Second, the starchild's logic failed, failed some more, and then contradicted itself. And Sheppard never had a single dialogue option to say, 'Duuuuude, Geth and Quarians are at peace.'

I expected Mission Earth to be a truly suicidal mission. I didn't expect it to end with a whimper and a string of contradicting and faulty logic.

Maria Caliban wrote...

It's true, games can't handle sad or ambiguous endings.

Okay, what about Red Dead Redemption? Oh wait. Another sad ending. Another well-received game.

Red Dead Redemption ended with revenge. That's not a sad ending in my book, dark perhaps, but not sad.

Modifié par CitizenThom, 06 août 2013 - 04:12 .

[Twisted Path]

An ending that isn't slapped together at the last minute is always nice. That's the impression I got from the endings of both Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2.

A good non-Bioware example would be the ending of Neverwinter Nights 2, where they couldn't even get a professional voice actor to read the epilogue and it just seems to be read by some guy from the office.

[Das Tentakel]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
Why? Would you not find it exceptionally jarring if instead of being able to remember/know where you woke up this morning, if/when you ate lunch and how you got home from work today, you just had blank gaps in your memory? By contrast, would you not find it unnecessary (or even preferable) if, when someone was telling you about their day, they left those details out? 

The more "active" you are in a role, the more the details matter and the less your mind can abide by gaps in the narrative without feeling there is something missing. 

This metaphor doesn't work for me. Maybe it's because I come to RPGs from PnP? Stuff gets handwaved in PnP all the time.

The very nature of PnP makes it open ended. There is rarely a cohesive story that has a beginning, middle and end for a series of events in PnP.

Even in scripted scenarios and campaigns with defined stories, there is very little big planned choice and consequence type instances where the players can truly affect the game world (again, there are exceptions, but as a general rule of thumb). I just can't imagine a DM outlining all the consequences of your character's impact after the campaign was over... mostly be auss you can take your character on into future ccampaigns. 

You can, but only if the DM / DM's have already decided and made it clear that the characters are made for a single adventure or mini-campaign only. Me and my co-DM ended one with a classic epilog what happened with the characters after the end of a Cthulhu mini-campaign (. But I agree that's more difficult with more open-ended adventures.
You can then certainly do heroic deaths and horrific epilogues to your heart's content (insert evil chuckle)

[xnode]

Read the whole thread, but this is like discussing how you save people in an rpg but only save them to steal everything they own and it never bothers anyone.

"that barrel of potions you don't need that right? I just saved your family, while im at it I will take all these items off your shelf , chests and oh is that your daughter? She's cute"

Seriously, if you want to get nit picky on things this is a game mechanic (as the one you are all discussing) that is just part of RPG interactive entertainment no matter the format. There are limits to how you can interact with a game and make that game viable to produce in a value that people will enjoy. Having a main plot that doesn't lead to some heroic end no one would want to play. Well ok, maybe some here would actually like a game like that, personally I know I wouldn't and I am sure I can find a ton more that would like to be heroic vs being another "guard" or whatever.

In the end we play RPG's for our own reasons, but the basics always stay the same, why? For the majority of players ( and I have no issues saying majority ) would prefer to be heroes of epic nature fixing the world from destruction or saving the princess from the evil wizard. We play these games to "get away to another world" where we are the top dog, where we make a difference.

Now how we as individual determine what we like is just like this discussion, but I don't think there is one right answer to this thread or any like it. So far I have enjoyed DA story lines and the pacing in ME was "ok" to me, nothing spectacular, ME3 on a replay did make me not want to do dlc things due to the pacing of the main story and even at a point where I looked on the forums to see when would be the right time to do them where it doesn't kill the story. But taking shore leave when the universe was ending seemed a bit "crazy", however I was happily surprised and had a blast with that DLC, probably one of the best DLC I have played to date.

In the scheme of pacing, I always believed having a place of your own in a game and building up adds to a flow of the narrative. Not only this but it adds to your investment into the world you are part of. Not to mention all the fun stuff a developer could do with having a stronghold of your own. In this, I believe the pacing of the new DA will be fun. I also believe the open world aspect leads to a vastly better game in the long run. For developers going the Open World aspect have to think and design around the idea that a player can go "anywhere" They want to go. This changes story and design hugely and also lends to what most of you are talking about in pacing. You choose your path, you choose your pace.

Sure there might be a huge war going on (there was in skyrim btw) and while you could see it around you at times and you could effect it, you didn't have the pressure. The dragon main quest line had an urgency but also made you know you need time and training to be a true dragonborn. To which this was inserted as "you need to grow up some" and giving you that imaginary time allowance taking the pressure off. In the new dragon age, my guess is atm with the fortification you will own/run whatever along with the open world aspect. I have no doubt we will be required to build/recruit and more which will add to the "yeah get this done as soon as you can, but for now investigate abc". So a skyrim pacing is what I am guessing at.

No matter the outcome, I never thought I would be exicted to play another DA, while I enjoyed DAO a ton (Witcher 1,2 . Skyrim then DAO ME2,3 in that order) DA2 while I am running a replay atm, has it's moments (Love the combat thou and some story lines) there are something's that left me feeling "meh" and those things from repeated locations and more (just view past threads) really didn't keep me interested and I thought I would never DA again.

With the open world aspect thou (which we will see tons of repeated locations but if you think about it you never notice in an open world environment, or I should say doesn't bother you as much as a blank stone door just closed at one location and opened at another ) along with the keep, I am definitely interested now to see where they go with the DA franchise.

PS. I hope they add more vocals to their music in the new DA btw #2 wasn't as good as #1.

[Plaintiff]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
There was absolutely zero ambiguity to those endings. You know what your characters did, you know what happened to them and you knew their sacrifices were worthwhile.

That's all highly disputable. Bioshock Infinite especially is loaded with ambiguity, a lot of questions are left unanswered, and whether or not a protagonist's sacrifice is worthwhile is totally subjective.

[Fast Jimmy]

Plaintiff wrote...

Fast Jimmy wrote...
There was absolutely zero ambiguity to those endings. You know what your characters did, you know what happened to them and you knew their sacrifices were worthwhile.

That's all highly disputable. Bioshock Infinite especially is loaded with ambiguity, a lot of questions are left unanswered, and whether or not a protagonist's sacrifice is worthwhile is totally subjective.

There was an elaborate, in-depth analysis of "it was all just a dream" for ME3's ending wih Indoctrination Theory. 

If your ending was so unclear, so out of left field and so lacking in proper detail that the idea that you were weaving a conspiracy for the player to unravel rather than trying to tell a legitimate story ISN'T overly ambiguous, then I don't know what would be. 

[Kidd]

Angrywolves wrote...

I don't like sad endings .
I believe the ME fans wanted Shepherd riding off into the galaxy with that special Li at the end and felt cheated when it didn't happen.
Much of a cliche as it is, the fans imo felt Shepherd deserved it and wanted to share it with him/her.

Am I weird for not caring much about Shepard's dying in itself? To me it was fitting for her character arc. But damn, I felt horrible that Liara was left alone without any explanation of why Shepard didn't come home. All she'd know was that now she was part-robot and the Reapers stopped attacking the moment that happened.

Did I just admit to feeling terrible over my waifu's misery? Damn.

[Plaintiff]

Fast Jimmy wrote...
There was an elaborate, in-depth analysis of "it was all just a dream" for ME3's ending wih Indoctrination Theory.

And? There's an in-depth analysis of the Pokemon anime that hypothesises that the entire series is a coma fantasy. I don't really understand what your point is here.

If your ending was so unclear, so out of left field and so lacking in proper detail that the idea that you were weaving a conspiracy for the player to unravel rather than trying to tell a legitimate story ISN'T overly ambiguous, then I don't know what would be.

Being able to build wild theories based on very thin evidence is not the same situation as Bioshock Infinite, where literally nothing is explained adequately at all. I'm not particularly fond of ME3's ending, but I don't think anybody can reasonably take the stance that it was anything other than how it is explicitly presented.

[Fast Jimmy]

Being able to build wild theories based on very thin evidence is not the same situation as Bioshock Infinite, where literally nothing is explained adequately at all. I'm not particularly fond of ME3's ending, but I don't think anybody can reasonably take the stance that it was anything other than how it is explicitly presented.

And, yet, there was a 3,000 page thread of people arguing that very thing until it was locked and deleted by Evil Chris.

[Plaintiff]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Being able to build wild theories based on very thin evidence is not the same situation as Bioshock Infinite, where literally nothing is explained adequately at all. I'm not particularly fond of ME3's ending, but I don't think anybody can reasonably take the stance that it was anything other than how it is explicitly presented.

And, yet, there was a 3,000 page thread of people arguing that very thing until it was locked and deleted by Evil Chris.

Well, note the qualifier 'reasonably'.

[LinksOcarina]

Fast Jimmy wrote...

Being able to build wild theories based on very thin evidence is not the same situation as Bioshock Infinite, where literally nothing is explained adequately at all. I'm not particularly fond of ME3's ending, but I don't think anybody can reasonably take the stance that it was anything other than how it is explicitly presented.

And, yet, there was a 3,000 page thread of people arguing that very thing until it was locked and deleted by Evil Chris.

Knee jerk reactions were most of it though, along with crusading trolls and a passionate minority/majority dichotomy.

Honestly, there is no difference between BioShock Infinite or Mass Effect 3 in terms of how it ended. We either have smarter fans, or more vocal ones that are willing to complain about the ending and point out issues, merits, and so forth, instead of taking it at face value like many did with Ken Levines game.

[Fast Jimmy]

Ha! That's an interesting leap in logic.

Or maybe that the concepts of alternate realities, time jumping and dimensional shifts opens itself up more to esoteric thinking than does "shoot the aliens robots until their dead" until the last ten minutes of a three part video game series...?

EDIT: Regardless, you KNOW your character dies in BI. You KNOW it is for a good reason - to stop Comstock from ever existing. You KNOW that the tone of multiple realities and branching timelines is a major theme because it is the focal point of 90% of the game's content. 

ME3 had to kill Shepherd via Twitter. It had to release an Extended Cut ending to explain why the decisions you made were even worth it. And the theme of organics vs. synthetics, while reoccuring in sub-plots, was always given with the caveat that peaceful cohabitation was entirely possible, not that such a relationship inevitably led to the destruction of all life. 

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 06 août 2013 - 03:46 .