123 réponses à ce sujet

[FlyingSquirrel]

I was thinking about this during the Omega section of ME2. There are a number of scenes where my canon idealist Paragon, Selyn Shepard, ends up choosing the Renegade dialogue choice on the grounds that it's actually closer to a Paragon philosophy in the sense of rejecting expediency over principle in dealing with others and using force as a last resort. It seems like Bioware sometimes characterizes Paragon/Renegade as more about being polite vs. confrontational, which IMO sometimes misses the point.

 

Here are a few of my examples -

 

Bring Down the Sky, Charn's appearance after you shut down the torch. The blue-text option has Shepard essentially convince Charn that he'd be better off as an independent criminal instead of following Balak, while the red-text option amounts to, "You can leave or you can take your chances trying to kill us." IMO, a Paragon Shepard shouldn't actively encourage Charn to continue being a slaver, while the Renegade choice isn't actually all that aggressive. It's basically giving Charn's squad amnesty in return for putting down their weapons and helping Shepard get to Balak and try to save the hostages.

 

Tali's request for the geth data in ME1. Giving it to her is considered Paragon and withholding it as Alliance property is considered Renegade. The problem I have here from a Paragon perspective is that Tali makes it clear that the quarians will use the information to attack and destroy the geth, and some of the other dialogue with Tali allows Shepard to question the quarians' actions in the Morning War, so I'm not sure why that POV can't be expressed in this conversation. (Though in this case, I just avoided the Armstrong Nebula mission altogether.)

 

Aria's "Don't f*** with me" speech. There's no top-right option, but the middle is, "I like it, easy to remember," while the bottom right is "Sounds like neither of us likes being jerked around." Selyn Shepard recognizes that she has to tolerate Aria, but finds little to "like" about her or her little regime on Omega. The Renegade choice, to me, doesn't have to be taken as an actual threat so much as just, "I'm not impressed - just give me the information so I can go."

 

After TIM sets you up on the Collector Ship. Agreeing with his tactic is neutral and "He pulls something like that again and the Collectors will be the least of his worries" is Renegade. Maybe this is because there's an implied threat, but I just saw it as Shepard making an angry off-the-cuff remark that wasn't meant literally. And if BW *did* intend the threat to sound literal, then why didn't they create an additional choice to disagree with TIM without an implied threat? (I've never really understood TIM's logic here anyway - he doesn't trust an N7 soldier, his top Lazarus cell operative, and a squad of various mercs, former soldiers, and ex-criminals to be able to pretend to walk into a trap?)

 

Returning to the Normandy after the geth dreadnought in ME3. Agreeing with Gerrel is Paragon and yelling at him is Renegade. Given that the possibilites of geth/quarian peace were implied at least as far back as ME2, Selyn Shepard went out there intending that as her goal all along and didn't trust Gerrel even though he was an ally during Tali's trial. She'd never excuse his nearly wrecking the whole thing just to be polite.

 

If BW is still going to use this system in the future, they either need to stick with one or the other types of contrast *or* allow more choices so that the main character can express the same ideas in different tones. Myself, I don't mind picking up a few stray Renegade points to keep my Shepard in-character in terms of her principles, and frankly there are times she probably *shouldn't* be polite anyway. But it seems counterproductive to what Bioware is actually trying to do with the system.

[Argolas]

Paragon and Renegade simply need to go away. It would be enough to face the choices as for what they are without an underlying pre-interpretation. I personally prefer the "list" of DA:O over the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect. The Dialogue wheel of DA2, however, is rather interesting.

[SwobyJ]

I think you're missing some context, but I'm not sure if I should try to give it to you, as I'm not even sure about the possible context itself. :S It works on a personal level, but yeah, I wish I could help you.

 

Suffice it to say, I think Paragon/Renegade is just fine.

[N0rke]

Paragon and Renegade simply need to go away. It would be enough to face the choices as for what they are without an underlying pre-interpretation. I personally prefer the "list" of DA:O over the dialogue wheel in Mass Effect. The Dialogue wheel of DA2, however, is rather interesting.

I think Paragon/Renegade needs to be reworked to be more like ME1 where neither choice was the 'good' choice. My personal opinion is that starting in 2 and especially in 3 there were a lot of Renegade choices that were just pure evil and made no sense in the context of the story, and a lot of the Renegade dialogue felt that way too, but I digress.

 

I think it's a matter of how you perceive what a Paragon Shepard to me. I rarely came across dialogue options that I felt were weird for a Paragon Shepard to do, but that's because I perceived my Paragon Shep to be the mediator of the galaxy who tried to find peaceful solutions to everything.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Paragon and renegade points don't matter if you just don't care about them.... Oh but you miss those super duper dialogue options if you don't constantly pick one or the other. So what. "Kill him. You're a killer, Jack. That's what killers do."
 

[N0rke]

Paragon and renegade points don't matter if you just don't care about them.... Oh but you miss those super duper dialogue options if you don't constantly pick one or the other. So what. "Kill him. You're a killer, Jack. That's what killers do."
 

"A bullet in the head solves everything."

[Perpetual Nirvana]

I always thought it was weird that buying those marines a drink in Purgatory was considered Renegade while acting all "superior officer" is the Paragon choice. Especially since letting Vega call you Loco/Lola is Paragon.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 At the end of Mordin's loyalty-mission, the Renegade dialogue option calls him out on a rather racist remark he makes.

 

It goes something like: ~ "I think you're giving the krogan too little credit, or the salarians too much."

 

I don't remember what the Paragon response was because I chose it so rarely in comparison.

[Animositisomina]

I always thought it was weird that buying those marines a drink in Purgatory was considered Renegade while acting all "superior officer" is the Paragon choice. Especially since letting Vega call you Loco/Lola is Paragon.

 

ME3 gets a little confusing with the interrupt system because of the addition of a "Reputation" meter. That scene in particular, you aren't being a Renegade if you buy them drinks, it's actually just points toward your Reputation. It isn't Paragon or Renegade, but because there are only two interrupt "icons", it seems like it is since Reputation interrupts use the same icons.

[von uber]

ME3 vastly improved the situation with repuatation. Having to farm one colour of conversation so you don't end up not being able to do certain actions was very annoying.

[Sir DeLoria]

I don't get why supporting the Quarians, calling Legion/VI out for his BS and denying that the Geth could be living beings is Renegade. The entire Geth/Quarian conflict is a complete gray on grey conflict, both sides have done terrible things and neither side is good but the enture Arc is heavily Paragon biased towards the Geth. Same goes for the question if machines can achieve the same status as living beings, completely grey issue.

[AlanC9]

Maybe Bio doesn't think that's a grey issue.

[fhs33721]

I don't get why supporting the Quarians, calling Legion/VI out for his BS and denying that the Geth could be living beings is Renegade. The entire Geth/Quarian conflict is a complete gray on grey conflict, both sides have done terrible things and neither side is good but the enture Arc is heavily Paragon biased towards the Geth. Same goes for the question if machines can achieve the same status as living beings, completely grey issue.

 

To you (and some other players) maybe, but not to the Bioware-writers. Their sentiment obviously is that sentinent machines can achieve the same status as biological beings. It is clearly not presented as grey issue and your own interpretation doesn't match with how the conflict is presented to us. The writers are clearly of the opinion that pro-Geth is paragon and anti-Geth is renegade.

[Sir DeLoria]

To you (and some other players) maybe, but not to the Bioware-writers. Their sentiment obviously is that sentinent machines can achieve the same status as biological beings. It is clearly not presented as grey issue and your own interpretation doesn't match with how the conflict is presented to us. The writers are clearly of the opinion that pro-Geth is paragon and anti-Geth is renegade.

Which is utter BS, the writers shouldn't force their opinions in such a way on the audience. The AI question is a philosophical question that has been discussed for decades, so it's naturally a grey zoned subject. The presentation of the Geth has changed very, very radically from ME1&2 to ME3. In the first two games, the conflict is obviously shown as grey zoned(with a slight pro-Quarian bias) and all of a sudden rappidly changes and shows the Geth as near flawless, innocent victims and completely ignores all the attrocities they committed in the past.

Patrick Weekes mentioned in an interview, that he did that on purpose, because he knew the Geth were incredibly unsympathetic and that he wanted to radically change their portrayal to garner more cheap empathy.

Good job BW, very consistent writing.

[CronoDragoon]

Which is utter BS, the writers shouldn't force their opinions in such a way on the audience.

 

That is literally what the Paragon/Renegade system does all series, though. It just so happens the author's opinions in this case, or at least the way they present them, changes from in-favor of your preference to against it.

[fhs33721]

Which is utter BS, the writers shouldn't force their opinions in such a way on the audience. The AI question is a philosophical question that has been discussed for decades, so it's naturally a grey zoned subject. The presentation of the Geth has changed very, very radically from ME1&2 to ME3. In the first two games, the conflict is obviously shown as grey zoned(with a slight pro-Quarian bias) and all of a sudden rappidly changes and shows the Geth as near flawless, innocent victims and completely ignores all the attrocities they committed in the past.

Patrick Weekes mentioned in an interview, that he did that on purpose, because he knew the Geth were incredibly unsympathetic and that he wanted to radically change their portrayal to garner more cheap empathy.

Good job BW, very consistent writing.

All the major choices can be broken down to some sort of philosophical question. And in each one of them the writers force their opinions and ideologies (which mostly seem to be in sync with modern western morality) on the audience with the Renegade/Paragon system. Why do you cherry pick that particular story arc. It is no worse than all the others in this regard.

 

Also while I agree that the Geth were changed to be more sympathetic in ME3, the paragon dialouge has always been in favor of the Geth even back in ME1. So it's not like the writers came up with that only in ME3. So I'm not sure if it was really presented as a grey zone in earlier games as you suggest.

[TurianRebel212]

Choosing Destroy. Painted as rouge and renegade, but clearly it's the "right" thing too do.

 

Letting Aria mind rape Derpy dude from Omega (name to long and Russian to write), guy totally deserved it, I find it a good thing too do in terms of both a moralistic and justice perspectvie.

[CosmicGnosis]

Weekes has also expressed agreement with sabotaging the Genophage cure if Wreav is the leader. That's not necessarily "Paragon".

[jtav]

They won't (P/R is too entrenched in the series) but I'd like for ME4 to follow DA2's lead. Tone was usually separate from moral choice, with the same marker for all. Hawke would even justify her choice according to the dominant tone. And I can think of good justifications along the P/R spectrum for a lot of big choices.

[fhs33721]

Choosing Destroy. Painted as rouge and renegade, but clearly it's the "right" thing too do.

 

Letting Aria mind rape Derpy dude from Omega (name to long and Russian to write), guy totally deserved it, I find it a good thing too do in terms of both a moralistic and justice perspectvie.

I don't think the ending choices are linked to the Paragon/Renegade system. Personally I think that destroy is just red because explosions (as in bowing up reapers) are fiery and red. Control might be blue because it is basically TIMs color (his eyes) and Synthesis is green because it is somehow supposed to create a new form of life (green is in western culture after all a color attributed with life). That is how I interpret the colors in the end. I might misinterpret it though.

 

If you are talking about Oleg Petrovsky then yes he probably deserved death. Still killig a surrendering, defenseless foe doesn't really go well with current western morality (or the jedi way ^^) and is quite unprofessional. Therefore it is not a Paragon option. The system doesn't fail in this instance.

[jtav]

The Petrovsky choice is absolutely in line with P/R. You're showing mercy and telling Aria she can't sadistically mind rape and murder a prisoner. Come on now.

[Bob from Accounting]

Which is utter BS, the writers shouldn't force their opinions in such a way on the audience.

 

That's just nonsense. No story ever has or ever will 'force' its opinions on anyone. It says more about you than it does about a story if you see yourself as 'forced' to believe something because a story says so.

[Kingthlayer]

To you (and some other players) maybe, but not to the Bioware-writers. Their sentiment obviously is that sentinent machines can achieve the same status as biological beings. It is clearly not presented as grey issue and your own interpretation doesn't match with how the conflict is presented to us. The writers are clearly of the opinion that pro-Geth is paragon and anti-Geth is renegade.

 

And that is one of the main reasons that the next game should not have Renegade and Paragon.  They're relics of ages that should have never existed.  I don't need an arbitrarily written system to tell me if I'm the good guy or the bad guy.

 

It's like the Genophage cure, I cured the Krogan as a Renegade because I considered Wrex a friend and because the Krogan look cool.  It sure as hell wasn't Paragon.

 

The worst though is saving the council in Masss Effect 1, I didn't sacrifice them because I'm anti-alien and want human superiority, I focused on Sovereign because he was a threat that had to be ended and if I shouldn't throw ships away at Geth because the council fleet couldn't handle them.

[Bob from Accounting]

And that is one of the main reasons that the next game should not have Renegade and Paragon.  They're relics of ages that should have never existed.  I don't need an arbitrarily written system to tell me if I'm the good guy or the bad guy.

 

I don't know why you imagine that removing the Paragon and Renegade system will mean the story no longer 'tells' you if you're the good guy or bad guy. I can pretty much assure you such 'messages' will still be in place and be as strong as ever, morality system or no.

[von uber]

The funny thing about people who sacriffice the council is that there are also 10,000 people on board that ship, so it is not just about saving them.