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[Dean_the_Young]

StreetMagic wrote...

chris2365 wrote...

This is where things get complicated. You see, we can debate day and night what should've been included in the space of something else. Does feature X deserve to be in over feature Y? Does character A deserve a squadmate spot over character B? Ultimately, it's Bioware's decision, and while it's easy for us to debate, Bioware may have other motives besides money or time, like technical challenges. We lack context to say for certain, though there are some things we can quite surely say could've been improved.

I just want them to include things that play up some of ME's major themes. It's lame when they include things merely to cater to fanbases. I don't see why Tali was needed either - I especially don't see why she's "specially" placed at the final room during Priority Earth, right up there with Anderson and EDI and the Prothean. Are the Quarians really that important? I mean.. I'm trying to read into the symbolism here. She was cool in ME1 against Geth, but I had no idea.

In that last case, you're probably reading a bit too much into it. Or even misinterpreting the criteria entirely: EDI is a significant plot character, but Javik is about as tangental as you can get. Javik, while interesting, is only surpassed by Garrus in plot irrelevance: even Vega serves more narrative role (Shepard's guard in detention, the new player proxy. the veteran foil, capturing the EDI bot).

I don't know what sort of criteria they used, past 'this is a good place to throw them', but ascending importance probably wasn't it for the final level.

As for the game as a whole? Popularity power of a legacy character. Tali and Garrus mark the consistent trilogy characters by being companion options in all three games, which has a value besides just pandering.

[Dean_the_Young]

dreamgazer wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Supposedly Tali fans got butthurt that she wasn't going to be a squadmate and so BioWare changed their minds and made her one relatively late in development


at least thats how I heard it

Not sure if fan demand played a role in his drive, but I know Weekes led the charge for her inclusion.

Heh. Being popular with the creator never hurt a character.

Might annoy the fanbase here and there, but rarely the character.

[Dean_the_Young]

spirosz wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Romance content, as far as I'm concerned, deserves to be a good ways down the totem pole of priorities. But then, I don't buy into them for the most part either vis-a-vis the main game.

I believe this to be true, but I think the problem encoutered with the series is the amount of companions that could be romanced, which is the problem, instead of focusing on developing a romance that could potential intertwine itself within the story itself, which would bring my quality (IMO), like in KOTOR, with Bastila.  

I've always held a suspicion that the purest form of an RPG for some people isn't D&D, but rather dating sims.

More seriously, the problem I'd identify with the series was the need for reoccuring LI content due to a reoccuring protagonist. Since we had the same Shepard we needed the previous LI's to be maintained over the games, even though each game introduced its own. Even though if we had new player characters for each iteration, we could avoid the problem without needing to change the main plots or character casts. (With minor changes to character dialogue, we could even justify the exact same casts for new characters.)

I don't think the number of companions is a problem on the basis of what I suspect the design intent for those romances was: small pockets of side content, rather than major content drivers. Whereas the UST between M!Revan and Bastila is central to the bond and character arc, the romances of ME were always accessory. Not just to the plot, but also to the character arcs themselves: they (should) be complete character arcs regardless of being paramores, and so they were never intended to be much. It's just that people wanted more.

Which is understandable, if not indulgable. Indulging? Can not be indulged.

[Dean_the_Young]

StreetMagic wrote...

The "main game" is a bit up for grabs though, with these titles. Half of it just dialogue and doing random assh*le and/or heroic things for strangers, offering kind words of sympathy, or telling them they suck at their jobs. Romance plays into this dialogue heavy "main game". The other side is combat.

Like I said: purest form of RPG is a dating sim.

I wonder how many Bioware devs have ever played one...

LagoonaLahaana wrote...

Seboist wrote...

spirosz wrote...

Seboist wrote...
That's how we got moronic things like the Tali/Garrus romances 

How is that moronic? 

You
don't see anything odd with a human having physical sexual contact with
an alien with such a weak immunity that she has to be in a suit all the
time and the only negative mirariously being some coughs? Or sex with a
bone lizard with a clawhammer with no issues whatsoever(that's on top
of the ridiculousness of this "romance" starting off as a casual fling)?

 I
wonder why BW made Garrus so awkward with shep and made the romance
feel like a casual fling. It seems even they were uncomfortable with
Garrus as a LI, not so much with Tali who can actually die from contact
with anyone on the ships breath.

Because the truth is horrifying.

[TheChris92]

AlanC9 wrote...

I'm just replaying ME2 now, and there's an awful lot of dialogues that might as well have been autodialogue. I have to use the wheel, sure, but all I'm deciding is what order to hear the Investigate options in. Better than the outright fake wheel interactions in ME1, though.

I don't believe anyone has ever denied this, but it's the illusion that makes it all worthwhile. In Mass Effect 1 we had the illusion of choice, we always felt completely in control of Shepard which I appreciated. In ME2 it was stripped down a bit to auto-dialogue a lot of times, but it was still there every now and then. It's same thing with choices. Ultimately we have to admit to ourselves that we don't really 'decide' how the story goes but we tell ourselves we do through the illusion the game provides. ME3 gave up on agency in trade for what some might call a coherent narrative or something crazy like that..

[AlanC9]

Gave up on the illusion of agency, you mean?

[Dean_the_Young]

Was it that expensive, though? IIRC, it was just some balloons: probably cheaper than a lot of the standard expenditures, and a lot more notable.

Of course, I don't think anyone's made a compelling case that financial restrictions, as opposed to financial considerations, were a limiting factor. Not wanting to delay the release of ME3 twice is not the same thing as ME3's developers not being able to afford what they needed. Releasing some copies of ME3 on space baloons is a few thousand dollars at most. Delaying production of the game is easily millions of dollars: completely different magnitudes of expense.

Moreover, would ME3 have made enough additional money from another extension to justify it? A computer engineer in a video game company can be 10,000 per month per person. Putting the entire Mass Effect team on the development cycle for another six months could have raised the employee costs alone by millions, and for... what exactly? It's not like the ending choices and consequences were chosen for a lack of time.

Not clear how cutting multiplayer would have helped either: if anything, MP would have subsidized the main game by bringing in a larger budget for mechanics that would be used wholesale in the base game. Cutting multiplayer also means cutting the multiplayer budget, which wouldn't be allocated for the game otherwise, and allows... what improvements? Are all those multiplayer story writers going to create new romance dialogue?

[RatThing]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

 Javik, while interesting, is only surpassed by Garrus in plot irrelevance: even Vega serves more narrative role

Javik played a very importand role in the game. He is the cynic of the team, his cold and grim attitude supports the plot very well. He also brings more insight into the prothean culture (important theme in the game) and about cycles in the past (supports the Reaper plot). Plus he is the only character with an anti-synthetic mindset who is not a straw man like Xen or Gerrel. His speech about the differences of organics and synthetics is the only thing that makes the Rannoch arc a little palatable for me, I never miss it (and again, it is relevant for another important theme in the game).  So I'd say, on the contrary, he is one of the character with major plot relevance.

As for the op, the Dev has a point. I mean, people ask for more character interaction in the main game and there really is enough of that. Every past squadmate gets an appearance, no matter how little he can contribute to the plot, you get tons of romance options, tons of dialogues and background stories with no relevance, all those Citadel encounters that I like to skip. On the other hand the story and some major themes already came short. The crucible got poorly introduced, no confrontation with Harbinger and they even had to make an extra DLC to explain the background of the Reapers (and that's only what I missed in the main storyline). If they had to add more Citadel DLC like character interactions in the main game (shirtless Garrus, helmetless Tali and what not) I'd be afraid what would have been left of the plot. People complained that ME2 barely had a plot (and rightly so), so the ME3 approach to find a middle way between story and character interaction had to be the right way (whether it worked out is for you to decide).

Modifié par RatThing, 26 janvier 2014 - 10:42 .

[TheChris92]

AlanC9 wrote...

Gave up on the illusion of agency, you mean?

Yes.

[Dominus]

Gave up on the illusion of agency, you mean?

With ME3, Yeah. It was the most combat-focused of the 3, and at least didn't dissapoint on that end.

We can always ask for more mission variety, more RPG systems, etc., but in the end it comes down to time and budget, and while it is possible to make design errors or think that ''oh, this can be easy to add'', we lack context.

Welcome to game development. Unless we're going by a Valve timetable, things are inevitably going to get cut or are otherwise unobtainable from gamer feedback.

[RiouHotaru]

TheChris92 wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

I'm just replaying ME2 now, and there's an awful lot of dialogues that might as well have been autodialogue. I have to use the wheel, sure, but all I'm deciding is what order to hear the Investigate options in. Better than the outright fake wheel interactions in ME1, though.

I don't believe anyone has ever denied this, but it's the illusion that makes it all worthwhile. In Mass Effect 1 we had the illusion of choice, we always felt completely in control of Shepard which I appreciated. In ME2 it was stripped down a bit to auto-dialogue a lot of times, but it was still there every now and then. It's same thing with choices. Ultimately we have to admit to ourselves that we don't really 'decide' how the story goes but we tell ourselves we do through the illusion the game provides. ME3 gave up on agency in trade for what some might call a coherent narrative or something crazy like that..

ME1's illusion was so easily shattered I find it personally a little hard to believe people defend it sometimes.  I mean, all it takes is a second playthough or even just a reload of a save and suddenly you realize just how little your input matters.  The tone of the dialog wheel is meaningless.  And the number of fake-wheel options is staggering.

ME2, took away almost all the fake-wheel, but instead gave us "Dialog Wheel Disconnect", wherein what is on the wheel in NO way matches what is spoken by Shepard, and again, some of those were appalling.

ME3 took away the illusion entirely, but made each dialog option distinct and different.  No longer is there a waffling in tone or intent, the messages, while few in choice, are very separate from one another.  And yes, there is more auto-dialog.  But in my personal opinion?

I'd have it be automatic, then have dialog that either has no meaning (fake-wheel), or which has a false meaning (dialog wheel disconnect).  If if removes the illusion, well, by not having the illusion, there's nothing to break, so I won't feel like I'm being tricked by what I don't have.

[wright1978]

AlanC9 wrote...

I'm just replaying ME2 now, and there's an awful lot of dialogues that might as well have been autodialogue. I have to use the wheel, sure, but all I'm deciding is what order to hear the Investigate options in. Better than the outright fake wheel interactions in ME1, though.

Even in the case of investigates it is my choice which order or heaven forbid that i decide not to go down one of those investigate options. The percentage shift away from choice dialogue to auto-dialogue was so large in ME3 in comparison with its predecessor that it punctured player agency, birthing a new character called auto-Shep.

[TheChris92]

RiouHotaru wrote...
ME1's illusion was so easily shattered I find it personally a little hard to believe people defend it sometimes.  I mean, all it takes is a second playthough or even just a reload of a save and suddenly you realize just how little your input matters.  The tone of the dialog wheel is meaningless.  And the number of fake-wheel options is staggering.

Are you talking about the fact that each of the three responses inevitably lead to the same outcome? If so then yes -- But at best it'll spawn different responses from the characters, which at least gives small amount of comfort to those who feel like they are in control of the conversation. No, all of these few responses certainly doesn't warrant a second playthrough alone. In the case of ME1 -- Paragon & Renegade responses weren't vital to persuading a character to stop doing what they are doing. At some points, they were, but the fact that they weren't necessary also provided agency to me as a player at least. Once I've played through the game once and play it again, I can easily pick a response to make the conversation flow much better instead of having it suddenly freeze mid-conversation.

ME2, took away almost all the fake-wheel, but instead gave us "Dialog Wheel Disconnect", wherein what is on the wheel in NO way matches what is spoken by Shepard, and again, some of those were appalling.

The fake wheel? Wat? Is it paraphrasing you find to be a problem then? Feel free to elaborate. That issue has existed throughout all 3 games and while being annoying it certainly was less annoying in the first game. You're free to disagree with that if that happens to be your issue with the wheel.

ME3 took away the illusion entirely, but made each dialog option distinct and different.  No longer is there a waffling in tone or intent, the messages, while few in choice, are very separate from one another.  And yes, there is more auto-dialog.  But in my personal opinion?

I'd have it be automatic, then have dialog that either has no meaning (fake-wheel), or which has a false meaning (dialog wheel disconnect).  If if removes the illusion, well, by not having the illusion, there's nothing to break, so I won't feel like I'm being tricked by what I don't have.

In my personal opinion I'd prefer something that takes priority on agency over anything else when it's an RPG we are talking about. In ME3, the character of Shepard, disconnected from what I perceived this character to be like. I wasn't in control of the situation anymore, and when I was, it was boiled down to having the game pause for a few minutes to stretch its arms and have you choose to continue the auto-dialogue by selecting either Renegade or Paragon. That's my experience with that game. 

[Mr.House]

No Chris, he's talking about alot of times no matter what you picked in the wheel, Shepard said the exact same dialog.

[Seboist]

I remember how there was very little difference in the charm and intimidate options for the Tali vs Legion dispute. Shep said the same thing regardless.

[Nightwriter]

Yeah I can totally see where the author is coming from.

It's just that as a fan I often find it hard to distinguish "wanted to do X but couldn't" from "just didn't care about X". And if something I'm invested in gets neglected enough times I admit pessimism gets the better of me.

Example: it just didn't seem like the writing leadership was very interested in the consistency of Mass Effect's overarching story. They seemed to just want to reimagine their world with each successive game and have fun with it, with not much foresight or reflection or thought to continuity.

Is this because they just didn't give it the thought I wanted/elected to make it up as they went along -- or am I selling them short and they wanted to do the things I wanted but somehow couldn't because of development constraints? These are the kinds of things I feel pretty in the dark about.

Modifié par Nightwriter, 26 janvier 2014 - 02:27 .

[Dean_the_Young]

Yeah, StreetMagic, that's a bridge too far. Anything will be symbolically irrational if you force a symbolism of your own creation on it. We could do the same for companion color schemes, placement on the Normandy, amount of armor, or anything else we wanted. After a point, it just becomes misrepresentation.

Take the Human/Turian relations- that not a plot role of Garrus and his relationship with Shepard, and hasn't been since... oh, ME1, and even then Garrus identified far more as 'the C-SEC cop' than as 'the token Turian.' The representative of Human-Turian ties in ME3 is Primarch Victus. Garrus is used as a lore device to look at the Turians, but he does not drive, shape, dictate, or otherwise influence the Human-Turian diplomatic relationship. Play a game without him, and you'll be amazed how little an influence he plays on, well, anything.

Similar for Javik. None of the games have been 'about' the Protheans: the Protheans might have had a role in the backstory, but they weren't the focus or drivers of the plot, or a central focus. The same applies to Javik, who provides an interesting and different viewpoint compared to other companions, but otherwise stopped being tied to the main plots of the game sometime after the 'do you know the Crucible' was answered with 'no.'

Garrus and Javik might have been hella interesting... but their plot role is hardly hella important. Best demonstrated by how little changes with them gone. The most important themes of ME3 that are missing without them are minor ones: Garrus is the communicator of the conventional defeat of the galaxy, and Javik is the anti-synthetic. Useful, and valuable... but not plot critical.

[TheChris92]

Mr.House wrote...

No Chris, he's talking about alot of times no matter what you picked in the wheel, Shepard said the exact same dialog.

That's not how he worded it though. 

"Dialog Wheel Disconnect", wherein what is on the wheel in NO way matches what is spoken by Shepard,

I understood this as a complaint about what Shepard says, does not match up to the respective response you choose in the wheel itself. In other words -- Paraphrasing being misleading. If that wasn't what he was talking about then he needs elaborate himself. But I do get the problem about the middle option sometimes being exactly the same as, say the upper right option. Something I wish they would have worked with a bit further in the sequels.

Modifié par TheChris92, 26 janvier 2014 - 03:30 .

[Br3admax]

Nah, man, Javik is hella important. We wouldn't know about the backstories of a lot of races without him being there. His revelation of asari being made as a race of strippers turned saviors was humorous, and definitely needed for many a online arguments about asari as the dominant race of the galaxy.

Modifié par Br3ad, 26 janvier 2014 - 03:28 .