1331 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

Somehow I don't think the Ideal man would question himself.

[The Flying Grey Warden]

David7204 wrote...

Somehow I don't think the Ideal man would question himself.

Somehow I think the ideal man would be someone whose questioned themselves enough that they're now comfortable with themselves being questioned.

An ideal anything is something I doubt would be easily shaken with a simple questioning.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

David7204 wrote...

Somehow I don't think the Ideal man would question himself.

Maybe not over his own confidence or capability to progress. Otherwise, I'd say the ideal man isn't objective, and he would be questioning his knowledge and his understanding of the universe. I'd be saying the man who makes no question of himself or his philosophy or his knowledge is th man who knows little about any of those.

[David7204]

It's not. Not at all. That's not the issue. The issue is a character being placed at the thematic center of the story when it's not appropriate. And being the player's least liked squadmate sure as hell does not make it appropriate.

I love EDI. But when someone made a suggestion that EDI is there to speak to Shepard for the final choice, I said no. Regardless of how much I like her, it gives her too much thematic weight.

Modifié par David7204, 01 novembre 2013 - 10:50 .

[hoorayforicecream]

Ragabul the Ontarah wrote...

Having a dominant trait doesn't mean it's your *only* trait, nor does it mean that you don't have individualized reactions to whatever you perceive your dominant trait to be.  If this weren't the case, all mages or all black people or all "mothers" or anybody with a "master status" would be completely homogenous.  The fact that a mother finds her identify as "mother" more important than anything else doesn't mean she has no opinions on anything else and never thinks about anything else.  She is only forced into the master status of "mother" constantly when her kids are interjected into the story over and over again.  Find a reliable babysitter for her and send her on a trip to Vegas, and you will get other traits besides "mother" to manifest.   

On a personal note, I'll just add that I find such characters extremely boring and predictable.  I know everything I need to know about a mother bear as soon as you utter the phrase "mother bear."  What incentive is there to explore more?

Just because you know the "what" doesn't mean you know the "how". The presentation and the nuance matter. For example, there's a well-known genre in anime called "magical girl", where young women are granted mystical powers, become super heroes, and use them to fight demons and evil. It's a very established trope, with dozens of examples. However, the particulars vary a lot, causing some to be better than others in different ways. One of them in particular painted an extremely dark version - the magical girl gains her powers by making a bargain with a cute magical creature, and over the course of the story, discovers that the bargain she made was actually Faustian, and the evil witches she has been killing were all former magical girls that made similar bargains, and that she will eventually become one as well. The symbolism and imagery used to illustrate this was there from the beginning, but it starts off extremely subtle and grows as the story progresses. This is a far cry from the more simplistic love and justice of Sailor Moon, the prototypical example of the genre, despite the general story framework and genre being the same.

Just because you know the theme or main drive doesn't necessarily mean you should dismiss the way it is presented or handled. Just because someone is pro-mage doesn't mean that you know all you need to know. Someone who is pro-mage because he was born a mage and lived in the circle is very different from someone who is pro-mage because he's been possessed and then de-possessed and believes he can cleanse all mages from attracting demons in the fade once and for all, who is very different from someone who is a former templar that discovers he had magical powers himself and had to decide for himself what it really was all about. Context matters in how interesting a character is. At least, it does to me.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

David7204 wrote...

It's not. Not at all. That's not the issue. The issue is a character being placed at the thematic center of the story when it's not appropriate. And being the player's least liked squadmate sure as hell does not make it appropriate.

I love EDI. But when someone made a suggestion that EDI is there to speak to Shepard for the final choice, I said no. Regardless of how much I like it, it gives her too much thematic weight.

Well how do you think I feel about Liara being placed at the center of several important parts of the story? Or Tali? Or EDI? Or Garrus?

Ideally, the game could let us choose which characters could be focused on.

As for squadmate deaths, I support some deaths to be sudden and random. I'm fine with putting Liara in a position she's ill-suited to and having her die. It's much like the SM mechanic, only for the final mission. And having her die at the end 'because I goofed'. 

[Fast Jimmy]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Sylvius the Mad wrote...

A moral realist, EA?

I guess.

It isn't adopted from a particular philosopher, just my own thoughts on the matter.

You may have figured out, but I loathe the mindset that anything and everything is subjective. That's anarchy in a pretty dress.

I think you can take an absolutist approach to the law, which is the judicial system that governs human interactions. But I'm not sure you can apply the same logic to morality in general.

There are loopholes to laws, by their very nature. Assuming a strict moral approach prevents anarchy as you say, yes... but it also allows an almost legalist approach to doing things that harm others or creates other problems, but which people can clearly say "this is moral and right, so I can keep on doing it."

[Fast Jimmy]

StreetMagic wrote...

I want survival to depend on performance (i.e. success at gameplay basically). Not on arbritrary sacrificial themes and authorial whims. People don't die because it plays into some "theme". Usually death is either senseless (and there's not much to say about that) or just because you suck. And with games, it should mostly be about the latter.

Would you want a gameplay death to result in a thematic, story death as well? Such that there is no reload screen when HP reaches zero, but rather a final conclusion?

Or would you want the story to keep moving on without the character's "true" death, where they are knocked out or swooned and consequences and story flow out from that as well?

Or do you just want the character to never truly die at all, since dying would just result in a "Game Over - Continue?" screen?

[David7204]

You're not using logic, Entropy. Even if the player character was 'not the center of the story' (which is very shoddy to begin with and not something I want to go into), that doesn't mean that Mr. Least-liked-companion is any more the center.

If some random peasant the player had never seen before came out of nowhere and did something that changed the entire course the of conflict at the climax, that would be very unwelcome. This is really no different. If the story is about Peasent #1425, it should be about Peasent #1425 consistently and not suddenly shine a light on him at the climax. Likewise, if the story is about Javik or EDI (which it would be by giving them such an essential role at the most important moment), it needs to be about them consistently. It's very thematically inappropriate to have such huge shifts at the climax.

Modifié par David7204, 01 novembre 2013 - 11:02 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

David7204 wrote...

It's not. Not at all. That's not the issue. The issue is a character being placed at the thematic center of the story when it's not appropriate. And being the player's least liked squadmate sure as hell does not make it appropriate.

I love EDI. But when someone made a suggestion that EDI is there to speak to Shepard for the final choice, I said no. Regardless of how much I like her, it gives her too much thematic weight.

That's only the case if you soley believe the protaganist is all there is to the story, not everyone will draw that same conclusion looking at the narrative. Mass Effect can be just as easily about anything else depending on perspective say synthetics and organics, or unity and teamwork and in both these cases EDI could be very appropriate to make her the thematic center.

Loghain's sacrifice at the end of DA:O can play much the same role, the Grey Warden was certainly instrumental in uniting the various factions but s/he's not fighting alone at the end, not by a long shot, hell you can even summon allied armies to help you fight both the mooks and the final boss. The spot light doesn't always have to be glued to the protaganist, and indeed it's not in DA:O we get scene specifically depicting Loghain's actions entirely devoid of whatever the Warden is doing at the moment, whether it's his decion to retreat from Ostagar or him addressing the landsmeet afterwards.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 01 novembre 2013 - 11:06 .

[David7204]

No. That's ridiculous.

Mass Effect is not about Jacob. No amount of perspective can make it about Jacob. And thus having Jacob show up and save everything at the climax for some reason is absurd.

[David7204]

If the protagonist is not the character who faces the climax of the story, he shouldn't be the protagonist.

[MassivelyEffective0730]

David7204 wrote...

If the protagonist is not the character who faces the climax of the story, he shouldn't be the protagonist.

This totally happens in Dragon Age. And it is one of the better endings of the game because of it.

I'm going to ask that you frame your statements with "in my opinion."