393 réponses à ce sujet

[PinkysPain]

ElitePinecone wrote...
d) That disobeying a "fan consensus" automatically means financial ruin.

You misunderstand my argument, it doesn't mean financial ruin ... it just means that IF ME4 doesn't sell then EA will put the blame on them. EA is fine with artistic integrity as far as ME3 was concerned, because ME3 sold ... but they are no charity to let the writers make art pour l'art.

So they take a gamble with a prequel, a gamble with their careers ... which is why I think they would really like us to come out and say "bring on a prequel, we love those"  and get some reduced culpability.

[PinkysPain]

ElitePinecone wrote...
What about something entirely new, though?

That's only really possible for players who liked the ME3 ending in my opinion ... time heals all wounds, but if the ME3 ending is frozen in time and the story telling can not move beyond it then there can be no healing.

For someone like me the only way to get a sale for a prequel would be multiplayer, if I'm to buy it for single player the story has to either move beyond the ending or be in an alternate universe.

[ElitePinecone]

FlyingSquirrel wrote...

But didn't the FCW actually not last all that long? I seem to recall hearing or reading an official casualty count that, relatively speaking, seemed pretty low.

If they go the prequel route, the conflicts between human colonists and batarians in the Traverse might be a better flashpoint, and something that would open up more of the galaxy's complicated politics as well. There could be some low-profile "dissident" factions involved - humans who *are* just imperialist bastards intent on grabbing everything they can, or batarian defectors from the Hegemony who have a more cooperative attitude.

Yeah, and there are other issues with the FCW besides its length - humanity didn't know the other races existed, so how could they feature in any meaningful context? Apart from the turians, nobody knows or cares about humans. We'd never travelled through Council space, so exploration and hub worlds are off the cards. How could a ship even escape the planet to go exploring? What's the storyline beyond fighting the turians to a stalemate and then hastily concluding a peace treaty when whathisname's reinforcements turn up? Are there any moral decisions or environments to discover on Shaanxi? 

It seems entirely unsuited to an RPG. I can see that period maybe working as a bland military shooter, but definitely not as the next big Mass Effect game. 

[Wulfram]

For the FCW I could maybe see some sort of story of a secret embassy to the Citadel to get the council to intervene. With perhaps Turian agents trying to stop you getting heard and keep the true story of how the war started under wraps.

But I'm not sure that could make a whole game

And all prequels have big elephant in the room issues with the reapers hovering in the background.

Modifié par Wulfram, 26 novembre 2013 - 07:04 .

[SwobyJ]

ElitePinecone wrote...

AlexMBrennan wrote...

I don't understand why a prequel game automatically means the First Contact War or even anything that's ever been mentioned in the Codex.

Because it's going to be another cover based shooter, and a war conveniently provides the massive number of walking targets you need for that (cf Shepard's body count).

The problem with you "elaborate conspiracy" ideas is that any organisation of that scope (able to field thousands of operatives, ships and heavy armour for the protagonist to blow up) would not have remained secret and would have been mentioned in the history books. Thus you left with wars we know about (i.e. First Conflict war) or a sequel. 

There are multiple private armies and mercenary groups who we didn't even hear about until ME3 (like Cat6!). I don't think it's implausible that Shepard doesn't personally know everything that happened in galactic history for the past 30 years. The universe is an enormous place, after all, particularly if any prequel mostly took place on new planets that Shepard didn't visit or even necessarily knew about. 

(Someone's used this as an example, but why would a person in the Vietnam War know or care about huge battles fought in, say, Arab-Israeli wars of the 1950s? Pretty much all they share is taking place on the same planet. Would an average person's knowledge of Mass Effect's history extend that far, especially when there's a galaxy of news all going on at the same time?)

lol Cat6 'mercs'

Modifié par SwobyJ, 26 novembre 2013 - 09:01 .

[crimzontearz]

Things like series fatigue. The time of year they were released. The developer who made them. How much marketing they received. The quality of the game compared to their predecessor. The state of the global economy when they launched compared to other games. Consumer sentiment. Competing games launched at the same time. The weather. The reasons people buy or don't buy games are myriad.

I'm not saying that their being a prequel couldn't be a significant factor in poor sales. It may very well be. I'm saying we don't know if it was, and we can't know from the simplistic observation that a lot of prequels happened to perform badly. Their status as a prequel game has no causal link with poor sales until you go out and make that connection through surveying a bunch of people and finding out why they acted the way they did, and even then judging causation is very problematic. Looking at two points of data and assuming a connection between them is not sufficient to prove that one thing caused another.

I'm not trying to advance other reasons for some prequels being commercial failures, I'm trying to make you understand that this is not a debate that we can have with the information that's available. Concluding that because some prequels did bady, it was their "prequelness" that caused them to perform badly might be right - but we won't know until someone does research, and in the meantime it's irresponsible and premature to make that into a theory about all prequel games. More fundamentally, it's misinterpreting the logic of how things are related

You are giving me examples, not proof. A financial person at EA, you and I both know, will look at the data and unless another common denominator can be found to explain WHY all those seemingly sure shot titles fell short BESIDES being prequels/spin off he/she will can the idea of a prequel (and I would thank them with the gift of delicious homemade food and a thank you card) . You may argue causality vs correlation but you are doing so on a purely conceptual level, I want a concrete answer, which you DO NOT have.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

dorktainian wrote...

spinachdiaper wrote...

Sounds like Babylon 5 style Vorlons VS Shadows story arch waiting to happen

and that.......could only be a good thing.

Sooo... how's the 'pucker feeling, old boy? lolz.

[FlyingSquirrel]

AlexMBrennan wrote...
The problem with you "elaborate conspiracy" ideas is that any organisation of that scope (able to field thousands of operatives, ships and heavy armour for the protagonist to blow up) would not have remained secret and would have been mentioned in the history books. Thus you left with wars we know about (i.e. First Conflict war) or a sequel. 

Well, Jacob and Miranda apparently foiled an elaborate conspiracy without most people ever hearing about it. Just give it an X-Files type ending where there isn't any real proof and the powers that be hush it up when it's all over. Much of what happens in the first two games only gets reported in incomplete or elliptical form to the general public - I didn't get the impression that most people learned the whole story about what happened on Feros or Noveria, for example, or that the Collectors were behind all the colony attacks.

essarr71 wrote...
While I agree with your stance, the funny thing is I feel like a prequel would work if it actually brought shepard back. Playing shep to bridge the time between the origin choice and becoming the XO on the normandy. We know theres a relationship already established between Anderson and Shep, so you can explore that.

We spent most of ME2 fighting endless merc groups - can do the same with some batarian terrorists or rogue military branch. Youd have to have a new hub that wasn't the citadel, of course, and you wouldnt be on the Normandy. But I think theres enough there for a game if they went prequel.

That might be interesting, especially if the game opened with a few scenes from Shepard's teenage years as Earthborn, Colonist, or Spacer and then the first actual mission is either Elysium, Akuze, or Torfan. DA:O did something similar with its choices of protagonist background if I'm not mistaken. The main drawback I can see (aside from BW being intent on putting Shepard to rest) is that some of the ME1 dialogue choices can make it sound as though Shepard has barely even met any non-humans before, and major non-human characters is one of ME's big selling points for me.

[AlanC9]

crimzontearz wrote...
You are giving me examples, not proof. A financial person at EA, you and I both know, will look at the data and unless another common denominator can be found to explain WHY all those seemingly sure shot titles fell short BESIDES being prequels/spin off he/she will can the idea of a prequel (and I would thank them with the gift of delicious homemade food and a thank you card) . You may argue causality vs correlation but you are doing so on a purely conceptual level, I want a concrete answer, which you DO NOT have.

Well, this is generating a testable prediction.If EA thinks this way, no prequel.

[crimzontearz]

And thank god for that Alan

[LisuPL]

Great, now another good thing we would surely be glad to hear is that BioWare was not taking a possibility of a prequel into consideration, ever.

Sequel BioWare!

For any...and all...

Modifié par LisuPL, 27 novembre 2013 - 12:13 .

[ElitePinecone]

crimzontearz wrote...

A financial person at EA, you and I both know, will look at the data and unless another common denominator can be found ....

How on earth could you possibly know that? Why do you assume they'd even care about the financial success of prequels instead of looking at the financial success of, say, RPGs, or sci-fi games, or 'AAA games released in March'? You're artificially raising the importance of a game's prequel status because of a fixation that this alone determines profitability. 

Again: we do not know that there is a causal relationship between a game being a prequel and underperforming, let alone that it was the prequal status that was the most important factor. Claiming many times that one exists does not make it true. The absence of a clear alternate explanation, equally, *does not* mean a relationship exists just because you say it does. Until someone goes out and does research, making any kind of predictions is, frankly, useless, misguided and stupid.

I don't know what an EA analyst would do. You don't know what they would do. That's the point: we simply do not have access to the kind of data that they use to make decisions. Making predictions on the basis of no evidence is just absurd.

[SC0TTYD00]

Just dropped in because I heard something. What I have is a bit vague but it sounded logical. I havent been on here for ages.

Apparently the story of the new game is similar to how humans made their way into the galaxy. Remember how we opened up the Charon relay and then the first contact war kicked off.

Some other new unknown alien race apparently does the same thing. Joins the galactic community, starts invading and then it all kicks off. So we're fighting a similar war from the other point of view.

Speculation from everyone? Sounds cool to me.

[crimzontearz]

How on earth could you possibly know that? Why do you assume they'd even care about the financial success of prequels instead of looking at the financial success of, say, RPGs, or sci-fi games, or 'AAA games released in March'? You're artificially raising the importance of a game's prequel status because of a fixation that this alone determines profitability.

Again: we do not know that there is a causal relationship between a game being a prequel and underperforming, let alone that it was the prequal status that was the most important factor. Claiming many times that one exists does not make it true. The absence of a clear alternate explanation, equally, *does not* mean a relationship exists just because you say it does. Until someone goes out and does research, making any kind of predictions is, frankly, useless, misguided and stupid.

I don't know what an EA analyst would do. You don't know what they would do. That's the point: we simply do not have access to the kind of data that they use to make decisions. Making predictions on the basis of no evidence is just absurd.

Again speculation and examples on your part and no concrete underlining explanation.

The game I mentioned spanned years, came from.different franchises, were of different genres and at different points of the franchises courses....the ONLY common factor is that they were all prequels

And you can bet your butt that the one thing the EA Analyst will do is MINIMIZE THE RISKS....so far prequel = risk....sure, not a certainty of failure but a RISK, which EA tries to avoid like the plague

[SilJeff]

CronoDragoon wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

You haven't read enough iakus posts. 

At least we're done with the "endings raped me" people.

And we're done with the people (who I kinda feel sorry for btw) who compared Mass Effect's journey and ending to dying after jumping off a cliff

Modifié par SilJeff, 27 novembre 2013 - 02:58 .

[EatChildren]

Morocco Mole wrote...

I find the idea that people were "crushed" by the endings really, really funny

It's a figure of speech. You know that. 

[ElitePinecone]

crimzontearz wrote...

The game I mentioned spanned years, came from.different franchises, were of different genres and at different points of the franchises courses....the ONLY common factor is that they were all prequels

Repeat ten times; correlation does not imply causation. 

You're picking a bunch of examples and assuming that because one attribute occurs alongside another, one caused the other. On top of that, you're not even looking at every prequel or reboot that came out recently - you've selected a bunch of cases that fit the pattern you're imagining exists. 

That is statistically crap. It's a fallacy, frankly, and to present it as a serious argument for why prequels are bad is nonsense. 

I'll say this again: without going out and researching why people buy particular games, there is no evidence that a game being a prequel *causes* poor sales by itself. Do that research, interpret the findings correctly, and you might be able to develop a theory which would actually stand up to serious examination. 

[Sion1138]

Prequels and reboots aren't comparable. With a prequel you know how it all ends, with a reboot you do not.

And that's the fundamental issue, knowing how it all ends. But it's not just that, it's not that simple. It is in fact the proximity and nature of known events that is the real issue.

Take Knights of the Old Republic, that was a great prequel, right?

Well, yes. But the fact is that it was set 4000 years prior to known events. The whole Empire situation is so remote in relation to this time period that it doesn't even come to mind.

That's why KotOR worked and why a Mass Effect prequel won't.

[Sion1138]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Repeat ten times; correlation does not imply causation. 

In this case it does. At the very least it is a contributing factor.

There are arguments outside of mere sales statistics, that can be made to substantiate this.

[EatChildren]

Whatever the reasons, the decision to make it a prequel or sequel (or midquel) would have been made quite some time ago, and I for one would prefer BioWare's writing team make decisions based on what they think will make for the most interesting, well constructed narrative and not what fans want. It's important to listen to fans, but a good artist should construct what they feel most passionate about, and if it's good enough by its own merits the fans should enjoy it anyway.

Sion1138 wrote...

That's why KotOR worked and why a Mass Effect prequel won't.

This I agree with and it's partially why I don't want a prequel. The fan in me would take a prequel story, and know a good story can be told, but since I'm of the belief the series would most benefit from having as few shackles as possible I feel the Mass Effect prequel window is very, very small and restricted. 

Modifié par EatChildren, 27 novembre 2013 - 10:54 .

[Sion1138]

EatChildren wrote...

...but a good artist should construct what they feel most passionate about...

In this case, that's a double edged sword.

You don't have to listen to the fans, but to the work you are building on.

It's like a foundation and you really ought not to build a house to the side of it.

Modifié par Sion1138, 27 novembre 2013 - 11:11 .

[crimzontearz]

Repeat ten times; correlation does not imply causation.

You're picking a bunch of examples and assuming that because one attribute occurs alongside another, one caused the other. On top of that, you're not even looking at every prequel or reboot that came out recently - you've selected a bunch of cases that fit the pattern you're imagining exists.

That is statistically crap. It's a fallacy, frankly, and to present it as a serious argument for why prequels are bad is nonsense.

I'll say this again: without going out and researching why people buy particular games, there is no evidence that a game being a prequel *causes* poor sales by itself. Do that research, interpret the findings correctly, and you might be able to develop a theory which would actually stand up to serious examination

repeat ten times, "I have no better explanation and the numbers are against me)

[Probe Away]

SC0TTYD00 wrote...

Just dropped in because I heard something. What I have is a bit vague but it sounded logical. I havent been on here for ages.

Apparently the story of the new game is similar to how humans made their way into the galaxy. Remember how we opened up the Charon relay and then the first contact war kicked off.

Some other new unknown alien race apparently does the same thing. Joins the galactic community, starts invading and then it all kicks off. So we're fighting a similar war from the other point of view.

Speculation from everyone? Sounds cool to me.

This sounds both cool and plausible. And better than discussing correlation vs causation in the context of a prequel...

[ElitePinecone]

Look, I know you're ignorant about statistics, but for the last time: there *is* no better explanation. There's no explanation at all without better data, that's the point. "Explanation" requires a cause and effect, which you fundamentally cannot have by just stating that two things happen to occur together. We *cannot* attribute lower sales to any one reason without finding out the circumstances of each case.

This is probably the most misunderstood concept in statistics, and it certainly isn't going to go away because you keep asserting the existence of something that we cannot prove with the information we have.

Look at it this way: prequels might indeed generally mean lower sales. Or lower sales might be a product of many factors that are individual to each game. Lower sales might even be a product of things we can't even measure, and which require sitting down and talking to customers about why they purchase games. I don't know, and neither do you. Proving that something *causes* something else is a very different proposition than proving that things happen to occur together.

You're fundamentally misunderstanding the difference between observing two things and proving that one causes the other. It's a fairly common occurrence in people who don't have much knowledge of statistics, but that doesn't make you any less incorrect at the end of the day.

[essarr71]

Are you suggesting that these outside influences only apply to prequels, Pinecone?