218 réponses à ce sujet

[RatThing]

Of course lead writer is responsible too if he let this happen, but it seems to me Weekes had free rein in writing the Rannoch arc seeing as this pretty much contradicted Walters' ending. So he's the one responsible for that. And I could have done easily without the good bye moments. Characters never were the most important things for me, the universe was.

[prosthetic soul]

Of course lead writer is responsible too if he let this happen, but it seems to me Weekes had free rein in writing the Rannoch arc seeing as this pretty much contradicted Walters' ending. So he's the one responsible for that. And I could have done easily without the good bye moments. Characters never were the most important things for me, the universe was.

Must...resist....lambasting opinion! 

[Taleroth]

Of course lead writer is responsible too if he let this happen, but it seems to me Weekes had free rein in writing the Rannoch arc seeing as this pretty much contradicted Walters' ending. So he's the one responsible for that. And I could have done easily without the good bye moments. Characters never were the most important things for me, the universe was.

Rannoch's hardly the worst thing in there, except in terms of character assassination. If there's major thematic contradictions, that's a problem of supervision. And if you want to talk about moralizing, then look no further than synthesis or EDI.

 

EDI being a complete retread of Rannoch. I don't know who wrote her, but I'd be surprised if it was Weekes.

[RatThing]

Rannoch's hardly the worst thing in there, except in terms of character assassination. If there's major thematic contradictions, that's a problem of supervision. And if you want to talk about moralizing, then look no further than synthesis or EDI.

 

EDI being a complete retread of Rannoch. I don't know who wrote her, but I'd be surprised if it was Weekes.

 

As far as I know it actually was Weekes. Also I `m not claiming to speak for anyone else but me, but for me Rannoch was the worst thing in there. By far actually, and not because of the contradiction.

[Linkenski]

No. Chris Hepler wrote and pretty much butchered all character who were previously written by Chris l'etoile. That includes EDI, but somehow I could see Mac or Casey imposing the "become human" idea on him rather than it being an idea that emerged by itself. Previously either Mac or Casey imposed the idea of Legion having a piece of Shepard's old armor on Chris L'Etoile, and he openly said in a forum post that it never made sense to him.

[dreamgazer]

Where was it stated that Mac or Casey were the ones who forced the armor on Legion?

Also, the road to individuality among the geth started when they were given a difference of opinion in ME2's "schism" retcon. And they've always wanted advanced processing power.

[BioWareM0d13]

He never named the person. He just refers to him/her as 'Higher Paid.' But it was probably referring to one of the leads, which would be Mac or Casey.

 

 

 

Geth are comfortable with what they are. They accept that organics are different, and that their way is not suited for organics (and vice versa). IMO, only an intelligence divorced from emotion could be so completely accepting. Geth are the essence of impartiality. If you pay attention to Legion's dialogue, you'll note it uses "judge" and judgment" quite often. I went out of my way to use that word, since judges in our society are supposed to impartial and unaffected by emotion when they make their decisions.

 

I wanted to treat AI with more respect than the tired Pinocchio "I want to be a Real Boy" cliches of Commander Data. The geth are machines. There's absolutely no reason they should want to be organics. They should be allowed to be strong enough to want to better themselves, not change themselves.

 

A geth wanting emotions would be no less disrespectful a character than a black man who wanted to be white.

 

 

 

 

The truth is that the armor was a decision imposed on me. The concept artists decided to put a hole in the geth. Then, in a moment of whimsy, they spackled a bit Shep's armor over it. Someone who got paid a lot more money than me decided that was really cool and insisted on the hole and the N7 armor. So I said, okay, Legion gets taken down when you meet it, so it can get the hole then, and weld on a piece of Shep's armor when it reactivates to represent its integration with Normandy's crew (when integrating aboard a new geth ship, it would swap memories and runtimes, not physical hardware).

 

 But Higher Paid decided that it would be cooler if Legion were obsessed

with Shepard, and stalking him. That didn't make any sense to me -- to

be obsessed, you have to have emotions. The geth's whole schtick is --
to paraphrase Legion -- "We do not experience (emotions), but we
understand how (they) affect you." All I could do was downplay the
required "obsession" as much as I could.

[BioWareM0d13]

I preferred his ideas about the Reapers:

 

 

 

I had written harder science into EDI's dialogue there. The Reapers were using nanotech disassemblers to perform "destructive analysis" on humans, with the intent of learning how to build a Reaper body that could upload their minds intact. Once this was complete, humans throughout the galaxy would be rounded up to have their personalities and memories forcibly uploaded into the Reaper's memory banks. (You can still hear some suggestions of this in the background chatter during Legion's acquisition mission, which I wrote.) There was nothing about Reapers being techno-organic or partly built out of human corpses -- they were pure tech.

 

It seems all that was cut out or rewritten after I left. What can ya do. /shrug

[dreamgazer]

L'etoile's comments about the geth remain in conflict with what happens on-screen in ME2. 

 

What's the difference between a heretic geth and a hippy geth, or pro-destroy and pro-brainwash geth?

[Rasande]

Nothing in it is worse than Me3 and how it attemtped to rewrite the salarians and quarians into pantomime one dimensional villians and turn "renegade" into "dark side of the force" and "paragon" into "moral righteousness" , so I am not expecting any more regression in that regard from Schlerf.

 

What the hell are you smoking? Salarians and Quarians are the same as always and neither are villains. Renegade is also the same as always, doing what must be done regardless of morality, it's utilitarian and not evil.

If any game in the series gets anywhere close to "dark side of the force", which it dosen't... it's ME2 where Renegade is basically Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, 1 liners and all.

Paragon is pretty much the same aswell except the "interupts" are much worse than in ME2.

[RatThing]

What the hell are you smoking? Salarians and Quarians are the same as always and neither are villains. Renegade is also the same as always, doing what must be done regardless of morality, it's utilitarian and not evil.

If any game in the series gets anywhere close to "dark side of the force", which it dosen't... it's ME2 where Renegade is basically Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, 1 liners and all.

Paragon is pretty much the same aswell except the "interupts" are much worse than in ME2.

 

No, what Quarian Master Race wrote is absolutely right. Best scene to describe what he wrote was the negotiation scene with the Dalatrass. Krogan: " The Krogans saved the Citadel from the Rachni"  Salarian: "And after that they ceased to be useful" ( as if the Krogan rebellion never happened) . Same cringeworthy lines you get from Quarians who support the war. Of course not the whole races were turned into one dimensional villains, but those who held the "unpopular" opinions definitely were.

As for renegade Shepard: Turian soldier "Victus is the new Primarch" -> Renegade Shepard "can I choose someone else?",   Dalatrass "How does curing the genophage benefit my people" ->  Renegade Shepard "What does it matter?"    Renegade Shepard before the Rannoch mission (with Legion/GethVI present) "The Geth aren't alive and I'm going to destroy them"  Renegade Shepard during Rannoch mission to Legion/GethVI "When will you ever going to trust me?"  I could go on and on (and I even didn't play full renegade once). Renegade Shepard wasn't turned into a villain, (s)he was turned into a bloody moron.

 

@ Linkenski, Weekes was mentioned to have written the first part of the Cronos Station including the vids about EDI and it's dialogue (the worst scenes with it), and he also wrote Joker, who interacted most frequently wth it. So it still stands, he was always involved in the worst parts of preachiness in the game (even without EDI). Most likely Hepler had a part in it too, after all he also wrote for Rannoch. Well I'm not too thrilled to have him back as well. And believe me, I do not care who did what to the Pinocchios.

[Rasande]

No, what Quarian Master Race wrote is absolutely right. Best scene to describe what he wrote was the negotiation scene with the Dalatrass. Krogan: " The Krogans saved the Citadel from the Rachni"  Salarian: "And after that they ceased to be useful" ( as if the Krogan rebellion never happened) . Same cringeworthy lines you get from Quarians who support the war. Of course not the whole races were turned into one dimensional villains, but those who held the "unpopular" opinions definitely were.

As for renegade Shepard: Turian soldier "Victus is the new Primarch" -> Renegade Shepard "can I choose someone else?",   Dalatrass "How does curing the genophage benefit my people" ->  Renegade Shepard "What does it matter?"    Renegade Shepard before the Rannoch mission (with Legion/GethVI present) "The Geth aren't alive and I'm going to destroy them"  Renegade Shepard during Rannoch mission to Legion/GethVI "When will you ever going to trust me?"  I could go on and on (and I even didn't play full renegade once). Renegade Shepard wasn't turned into a villain, (s)he was turned into a bloody moron.

 

Nonsense, nothing of this is exclusive to ME3. Stupid choices and cringe worthy lines are absolutely littered through the entire series, if anything ME3 has less of them. Shepard is still the same same Shepard but emotes more, besides, just listing the conversation options themsevels dosen't really tell you anything more than the jist of it.

And i still don't see the argument for "one dimensional villans", they aren't even villains, they're doing whatever they think is best for their people at the time, often out of fear and desperation which makes then not always act rationally, just beacuse they are acting like idiots dosen't make them one dimensional.

 

Seriously, sometimes i wonder if it's just that people have grown up with the series and what was once awsome is now lame, or if the ending just soured everything so something that wouldn't have otherwise bothered them get cast in a negative light.

I just finnished playing through all three games in a row, the writing is consistent through the entire series.

[RatThing]

Nonsense, nothing of this is exclusive to ME3. Stupid choices and cringe worthy lines are absolutely littered through the entire series, if anything ME3 has less of them. Shepard is still the same same Shepard but emotes more, besides, just listing the conversation options themsevels dosen't really tell you anything more than the jist of it.

And i still don't see the argument for "one dimensional villans", they aren't even villains, they're doing whatever they think is best for their people at the time, often out of fear and desperation which makes then not always act rationally, just beacuse they are acting like idiots dosen't make them one dimensional.

 

Seriously, sometimes i wonder if it's just that people have grown up with the series and what was once awsome is now lame, or if the ending just soured everything so something that wouldn't have otherwise bothered them get cast in a negative light.

I just finnished playing through all three games in a row, the writing is consistent through the entire series.

 

Well either you haven't been paying attention playing the games or you trying to have a debate for the sake of having a debate. The line I quotet should be all you need as an argument because the intention of this one is crystal clear. The Dalatrass should be portrayed as someone who sees Krogans as things to use and dispose once, well they ceased to be useless. The decision to create and impose the genophage, which was previously described as a last resort in the Krogan rebellion, should be painted as a heartless and solely egoistic decision. Hence no matter what dialogue option you choose, you always end up chastising her. If that doesn't make an one dimensional villain then I don't know what does.

Same thing happens with the Quarians. Why do you think Gerrel is the one who almost kills Shepard (and doesn't even try to smooth waves after that) while Koris, the big hero, sacrifices himself to destroy the planetary defense cannon? Why do you think you can punch Gerrel (right thing to do according to Weekes) and lambast Xen but not once you can object Koris directly. Ever played with Xen instead of Tali on the Geth Dreadnought? One of your squadmates will always comment on how crazy and unstable she is. (With her they even tried to take it further afaik. Wanted to write a quest with her doing some spooky AI research on the Citadel where at the end you were supposed to either arrest or kill her.) Cut it out dude, it's crystal clear where they were going with this.

Shepards stupid quotes? Not as nearly as frequently in the other games and almost exclusively renegade quotes. Consistent over all 3 games? Don't even let me get started on this, I`d need a whole week to write down all the inconsistencies. Ask ME2 Geth fans or the Cerberus supporters how consistent they think the games were.

 

And to make it clear, I'm not an ending or ME3 hater. For me ME3 was strangely the best and worst game at the same time. Best, because it finally received a gripping main story and because of the atmosphere in some scenes (and gameplay). Worst, because of the things I wrote. So I'm not bashing the game completely but I will point out the things I considered bad. 

[Vazgen]

ME1 gave use some of the most moronic lines in the trilogy.

"I thought the asari needed other species to reproduce"

"They tried the same with us"

"Crap, a popup"

...

And not only Shepard's

"There is still one outstanding issue. Commander Shepard's vision." *facepalm*

 

Regarding the lines you brought.

Primarch Victus

IIRC it's not "Can I choose someone else" but "Can we trust him" when Shepard actually speaks. I don't remember the paraphrase

Dalatrass

"What does it matter?" is actually quite a smart option. Dalatrass refusing to help war effort is much more stupid. As Shepard says "Palaven is burning right now, Earth is burning right now". Salarian reluctance to join the war is short-sighted and stupid. To us, players, though. We've seen what the Reapers are capable of. Salarians didn't. They hope they can hide away and wait till the war is over, hiding is one of the core characteristics of their race. 

Rannoch mission

The line presents itself only when you choose to investigate why Legion/Geth VI is conflicted about destroying the Reaper base. It shows you the Reaper upgrade effects and then Shepard states his opinion. You can agree with that being an indication of life or disagree. If you disagree, Legion/Geth VI starts arguing and you can interrupt it with something similar to the line you brought. IIRC it was this "Let me be clear. I'll destroy anyone, anything that is allied with the Reapers" for Geth VI and "Geth aren't alive. They are machines, machines that were hacked by the Reapers. And they have to be destroyed" to which Legion answers "We know". Point is, if you think they are alive, you won't choose the renegade response claiming otherwise and will never get that Renegade interrupt.

Trust line

Agreed, it's actually pretty stupid lol

 

What I'm trying to say, is that there are a lot of stupid lines in the trilogy (ME2 has the largest share of them IMO). ME3 does not particularly stand out in that regard

[RatThing]

@ Vazgen As for the first one, I'm very sure I heard "can I choose someone else" here (You don't forget such a stupid response). However, now that I think about it, it may depend on how you played your Shepard before. To clarify, for my last ME3 playthrough I've downloaded a saved game from the internet where almost everyone who could get killed, got killed. ( I wanted to see the game without all those characters.) The Shepard in this save has been described as the greatest douchebag. Well, that just shows where going full renegade will get you.  

"What does it matter", sorry, is an extraordinary stupid line. You won't convince me otherwise. The things you describe, Shepard lets her see that in the Paragon response. "How long do you think you can stand alone against the Reapers?" In the renegade response however Shepard acts as if the reaper war doesn't affect the Salarians. It sounds like "I don't care how it benefits you, we need it and that's reason enough to give it to us". If you want something from her that she is reluctant to give you it's just common sence to show her the benefits for her people (which is of course fighting the Reaper threat).

3rd, I guess we have an agreement, and I like to point out that you don't need to investigate. Pick the first renegade response and Shepard still says he`ll destroy the Geth. I still think the 3rd game has the worst lines and most importandly, they're all exclusively renegade. Can someone actually name an undisputed stupid paragon line or thing to do?  

[Rasande]

Well either you haven't been paying attention playing the games or you trying to have a debate for the sake of having a debate. The line I quotet should be all you need as an argument because the intention of this one is crystal clear. The Dalatrass should be portrayed as someone who sees Krogans as things to use and dispose once, well they ceased to be useless. The decision to create and impose the genophage, which was previously described as a last resort in the Krogan rebellion, should be painted as a heartless and solely egoistic decision. Hence no matter what dialogue option you choose, you always end up chastising her. If that doesn't make an one dimensional villain then I don't know what does.

Same thing happens with the Quarians. Why do you think Gerrel is the one who almost kills Shepard (and doesn't even try to smooth waves after that) while Koris, the big hero, sacrifices himself to destroy the planetary defense cannon? Why do you think you can punch Gerrel (right thing to do according to Weekes) and lambast Xen but not once you can object Koris directly. Ever played with Xen instead of Tali on the Geth Dreadnought? One of your squadmates will always comment on how crazy and unstable she is. (With her they even tried to take it further afaik. Wanted to write a quest with her doing some spooky AI research on the Citadel where at the end you were supposed to either arrest or kill her.) Cut it out dude, it's crystal clear where they were going with this.

Shepards stupid quotes? Not as nearly as frequently in the other games and almost exclusively renegade quotes. Consistent over all 3 games? Don't even let me get started on this, I`d need a whole week to write down all the inconsistencies. Ask ME2 Geth fans or the Cerberus supporters how consistent they think the games were.

 

And to make it clear, I'm not an ending or ME3 hater. For me ME3 was strangely the best and worst game at the same time. Best, because it finally received a gripping main story and because of the atmosphere in some scenes (and gameplay). Worst, because of the things I wrote. So I'm not bashing the game completely but I will point out the things I considered bad. 

 

I'm not arguing for the sake of arguing, or defending ME3 from a "hater" or any other childish crap, i just respectfully disagree with you.. and i think it's unfair to single out and chastice ME3 for something that's been prevalent through the entire series. The quality of the writing has been consistent, i should've made that clear. And there are loads of really dumb options that make no sense(mostly renegade) through out the entire series. Most that come to mind are from ME1, Feros have my least favorite ones.

 

And i'm still don't think any of the characters you mentioned are one dimensional or flat out vilains(i mean, Saren, Reapers,TIM etc are villians, just beacuse some characters have an agenda that dosen't align with Shepards dosen't make them a villain), they have very good reasons for doing what they are doing. But yes if anything, the writing is manipuliative, they are there to make your decisions harder by influencing your optionon of the Quarians and the Geth plus add some depth to the faction/species. This is also nothing new, they are the same characters that they were in ME2 and abit trite.

 

Neither do 2 characters vilinize and entire species, Gerrel is desperate and is abit of a typical army guy, shoot first ask questions later cliché, he's obsessed with taking back his homeworld and sees a chance to wipe out the Geth and goes for it, not beacuse "**** Shepard".

And it's not like his actions are condoned by the others. Displaying the Quarians as flawed and fractured like every one else rather than some poor down trodden vagabonds you need to save acually gives them depth rather than make them one dimensional villains.

If they didn't show their negatives, and were just some underdog fighting for their home, then they would be more one dimensional than anything.

 

The Delatrass supports the genophage and thinks the Krogan are a threat to the galaxy and using them to wipe out the reapers is reapeating history, so no, i don't think she's one dimensional. No she dosen't take the reaper threat seriously(first one in the series to do that!*cough*), yes she's a typical clishé politian that first and foremost looks after her own but she isn't one dimensional.

I have absolutely no trouble seeing why she takes the stance she does, regardless how short sighted and needlesly stubborn i think it is.

 

I'm not saying the writing is stellar, all i'm saying is it's on par with the other games and i don't think Salarians and Quarians are presented as either vilains or one dimensional. 

[Linkenski]

@ Linkenski, Weekes was mentioned to have written the first part of the Cronos Station including the vids about EDI and it's dialogue (the worst scenes with it), and he also wrote Joker, who interacted most frequently wth it. So it still stands, he was always involved in the worst parts of preachiness in the game (even without EDI). Most likely Hepler had a part in it too, after all he also wrote for Rannoch. Well I'm not too thrilled to have him back as well. And believe me, I do not care who did what to the Pinocchios.

well, it's no secret that he does the whole pinnochio thing because he did it with Cole in Inquisition too. But Hepler said on a panel two years ago that he was the writer for EDI, Thane and Legion.

But nonetheless, I do agree that those video logs were the worst part of Chronos Station. It felt super contrived and forced. I just don't want to undermine the fact that it was Weekes who wrote Mordin, Iron Bull and more. Some of my favorite characters that add depth to their franchise are mainly made by him, and he's been on Mass Effect since the first game.

I guess ME3 might just be a showcase of rushed writing then. I guess any Bioware game would disappoint like ME3 if it were on a 1.5 year dev cycle.

[RatThing]

Rasande, I did say that not the whole races got turned into villains. The one individuals who vocally supported the Genophage or the Rannoch war did and I think that is what QMR meant too. You say they had good reasons? I think so too. Why don't they mention them? Why doesn't the Dalatrass mention the Krogan rebellion or Xen/Gerrel the 99,9% genocide? Because those would be good points to support their view and you weren`t supposed to agree with them. Instead they don't give you arguments for their cause at all, just automatically assume they're right in a disdainful manner so they would appear condescending. This is standard villain or strawman writing.

In the earlier games you always had one companion to represent one view on the issue, like Wrex and Mordin on the Genophage. Both gave good arguments for their point of view. Now Mordin (just like Tali) changed sides, joining the glorious Paragon team. What is renegade left with? Yes, some bias was always prevalent in the games before (Mordins loyalty mission) but they went completely overboard with it in the last game.

And to clarify, with "villain" I don't mean they're the antagonists. It's more like the writer points his finger at them saying "you are supposed to hate those guys and disagree with them because they are wrong". Maybe strawman is a better term, idk.  

[Vazgen]

@ Vazgen As for the first one, I'm very sure I heard "can I choose someone else" here (You don't forget such a stupid response). However, now that I think about it, it may depend on how you played your Shepard before. To clarify, for my last ME3 playthrough I've downloaded a saved game from the internet where almost everyone who could get killed, got killed. ( I wanted to see the game without all those characters.) The Shepard in this save has been described as the greatest douchebag. Well, that just shows where going full renegade will get you.  

"What does it matter", sorry, is an extraordinary stupid line. You won't convince me otherwise. The things you describe, Shepard lets her see that in the Paragon response. "How long do you think you can stand alone against the Reapers?" In the renegade response however Shepard acts as if the reaper war doesn't affect the Salarians. It sounds like "I don't care how it benefits you, we need it and that's reason enough to give it to us". If you want something from her that she is reluctant to give you it's just common sence to show her the benefits for her people (which is of course fighting the Reaper threat).

3rd, I guess we have an agreement, and I like to point out that you don't need to investigate. Pick the first renegade response and Shepard still says he`ll destroy the Geth. I still think the 3rd game has the worst lines and most importandly, they're all exclusively renegade. Can someone actually name an undisputed stupid paragon line or thing to do?  

For Dalatrass, I think that line shows renegade Shepard quite well, at least a renegade Shepard the way I view him. Such Shepard will be short-tempered and forceful, he won't care about others so long as he can get what he wants. Everyone understands that the cure is needed to fight the Reapers, and Shepard gets pissed off because Dalatrass opposes it. In my mind, Renegade Shepard is quite a bad diplomat The full dialogue is this:

Shepard: "Palaven is burning right now. Earth is burning right now. If it takes a cure to cement this alliance, then that's what I'm doing."

Victus: "He's right. The hard truth is we don't have a choice. Give Wrex what he wants."

Shepard: "Or none of us will survive long enough to know who was right or wrong."

 

The truth is, Salarian support can't even come close to the krogan. So if he has to choose between the krogan and salarians, krogans are the only logical choice. Even war assets reflect that. You can get maximum 328 war assets from salarians. Maximal krogan support is 800!

 

The Renegade response for killing the geth is this: "Take it out from orbit. The geth should be easy to clean up afterward." It's pretty smart for a guy who usually prefers attacking the enemy head-on

 

Regarding stupid paragon lines, does "Nobody messes with my girl!" count? You get that if you take paragon options with Liara and then talk to Aethyta. Very awkward if you romance, say, Jack

I have a thread for such lines, if you know more post them there, I'd like to have as smart Shepard as possible