836 réponses à ce sujet

[Guanxii]

I was thinking that our choices at the end of ME3 wouldn't affect the decision to travel there but the reason instead. It's been a while since I last played the end and I'm new to the forums and community so please forgive me if I make some mistakes or say something "noobish".
If Shepard's decision allowed the reapers to continue destroying life in the galaxy then maybe there was an "evacuation" of some sort (I've heard little of this "Ark" rumour) and several races worked together to flee the Milky Way. If Shepard's decision saves life in the galaxy then civilization continues to advance and develop greater instellar travel technology that allows us to travel farther than before, taking us to Andromeda which we begin colonizing and exploring.
Either decision would probably be further in the future, 50 years minimum to allow for the story to potentially align with both possibilities.
 
I was disappointed with all the endings though, original and extended ones, lame. But it's not like there'd be a way for a new story to take place in the Milky Way if one of our choices ended with all life being destroyed, there's no way that'd work out.

Not all choices are equally valid. If Garrus dies in ME2 it's because somebody evidently made the wrong choices and their canon no longer reflects the majority making his death effectively non-canon. Why should the series be exiled to Andromeda just because BioWare gave a minority of players the possibility to mess things up royally. Nobody picks low EMS destroy on purpose unless they generally couldn't give 2 shits - in which case f--k 'em for glassing my planet.

[Guanxii]

Is that "non-canon" really? The games still work out pretty well without Garrus.

Is Shepard's ME2 death canon just because it can happen? My view is that an additional game's worth of narrative involving Shepard and Garrus experienced by practically everyone suggests that it isn't.

[Guanxii]

I don't understand. You can't even play ME3 if that happens. That's not like Garrus at all. They did a decent job of accounting for it. Liara and Traynor pick up the slack in some places. He doesn't bring that much to the story specifically. It's mostly just friendship related stuff (which isn't necessarily "canon") and some good dialogue about how bad the war is.... but Shepard doesn't need to be told how bad the war is.

His death was of no consequence but it doesn't make it canon. If some players essentially failed the game you can't hold that against the rest of us and use it as an excuse to relocate the entire series on the basis of an Easter egg cutscene.

[von uber]

The more I think about the dafter it sounds.
Exploring other races home world's and places is what makes the universe work.
Remove illium, thessia and the monastery from the asari and you diminish the race.
Remove the weight of the turian military and ethos behind it then you reduce them.
Take the krogan out of tchunka and you lose their identity.
For example seeing wrex's homeworld underlines the anger and frustration you see in the first game.

Abandoning all of this is very short sighted.

[Guanxii]

I was referring to an earlier point I was addressing by somebody else.

BioWare have made some terrible judgement calls over the years with this series and this is yet another one.

[Guanxii]

My bad then. I've jumped midway into convos twice in the past hour...and ended up confusing matters. I'm gonna refrain.

Don't mention it. I'm as bad as any one for derailing entire threads with my strange tangents. Your point about BioWare shying away from canon is fair and this would be an unfortunate manifestation of this.

BioWare moves in mysterious ways and if this next game succeeds great if not then we might get a proper reboot so win win.

[Redbelle]

As much as the Milky Way holds untold possibilities for future story endevours, I have to say that really.... the place setting of the action doesn't matter as much as what those who are developing the narrative want to portray in the game.

 

Setting matter's only so far as saying this is the environment that you as the player exist within as you take control of the player avatar. It sets the mood and tone and while the Milky Way had unexplored areas, it also has explored areas. Places where you can return to if things get to much. As such, the Milky Ways unexplored regions exist in tandem with a safety net of explored, known regions. As such, experienced ME players will never experience that feeling of not knowing as they already possess information on locations. If you want a galaxy spanning adventure then if things get bad, why not go back to the Citadel? Why not ask for backup? If the game doesn't allow you to ask your superiors for extra help you then have to create reasons for giving or denying that help, to which denial would be the obvious choice as acceptance means developing more in game assets to portrey that help, at which point the point of being an intrepid explorer on the fringe of explored space is cheapened by that in game safety net I mentioned....... And that stops the game being an adventure.

 

To put it simply, you can't be an intrepid explorer when home is a relay away. To create the feel of exploration there has to be risk and home needs to be far enough away that returning back home is to admit defeat. That to head back would be to waste a once in a lifetime opportunity to establish new colonies to prepare for expansion. If Bioware are indeed playing the explorer angle instead of the solider angle as the crux of the character's purpose within the story, then they need that invisible wall to prevent the player who is the explorer from returning to old ME stomping grounds. They actually have to prevent nostalgia from dictating players actions within the game so that they go off to explore new places with, I hope, a cast of races from ME 1-3 to provide that link back to the previous games. All of which is centred on focusing the player on going forward as a frontiersman, a trailblazer. The guy people rely on to clear a landing for the next incursion of colonists. This looks set to be a tale of a man who in ME history will be spoken of in the same vein as Christopher Columbus. The man who discovered new territories to exploit profit on. So with that in mind I'm more than happy to go into another galaxy. But it would be a sad thing indeed if BW did nothing to give us links to the MEU that came before.

[Guanxii]

The more I think about the dafter it sounds.
Exploring other races home world's and places is what makes the universe work.
Remove illium, thessia and the monastery from the asari and you diminish the race.
Remove the weight of the turian military and ethos behind it then you reduce them.
Take the krogan out of tchunka and you lose their identity.
For example seeing wrex's homeworld underlines the anger and frustration you see in the first game.

Abandoning all of this is very short sighted.

It's how I feel too. This fanfare reaction is very strange to me. If G RR Martin suddenly died tomorrow and the next writer of ASOIAF decided to move the series to another galaxy their fan base would get out the flaming torches - even if they were cosplaying at the time.

[ElitePinecone]

Not all choices are equally valid. If Garrus dies in ME2 it's because somebody evidently made the wrong choices and their canon no longer reflects the majority making his death effectively non-canon. Why should the series be exiled to Andromeda just because BioWare gave a minority of players the possibility to mess things up royally. Nobody picks low EMS destroy on purpose unless they generally couldn't give 2 shits - in which case f--k 'em for glassing my planet.

 

This is pretty silly. There are no "non-canon" player choices, except for maybe Shepard's death in the Suicide Mission. Something being relatively unpopular or rare doesn't make it any less valid as a world-state. The majority shouldn't get to decide what is "true" in the setting just because more people chose it.

 

The individual player choices are the canon, period, to the greatest extent that the story will allow it. Bioware have always said that. 

 

In the case of the endings, I'd argue it's even more important to honour the decision, given that it (for better or worse) is going to decide the effective future of the Milky Way, forever. Since ME3 was originally intended to be the chronological endpoint of the series, the way the player's story ends is the way that the galaxy will be, period.

 

And honouring that commitment to the player's choices being canon is more important, IMO, than somebody's desire to play in the same setting again.

 

Throw in a new team that probably want to do new things and the understandable desire to get away from the Milky Way, Shepard and the controversy of the endings, and it's a signpost pointing straight to Andromeda. 

[marcelo caldas]

Agreed. For all we know the next Mass Effect takes place thousands years after the Reaper War and we are going to the Andromeda Galaxy for other reasons other than escaping the Reapers.

Maybe the Citadel Relay plays a role in this since it links directly to dark space thus shortning the distances between the Milky Way and Andromeda.

Its easy to conquer Andromeda, just go there and fire the crucible, even better, fire it from here, the shot is quicker than a supernova anyway or anything else we know.

[marcelo caldas]

It doesn't have to be an elder race. Just spacefaring. So like humans, turians, salarians, elcor, volus, drell, asari, batarians etc etc

I hope at least we finaly get our batarian squadie

[Iakus]

 

To put it simply, you can't be an intrepid explorer when home is a relay away. To create the feel of exploration there has to be risk and home needs to be far enough away that returning back home is to admit defeat. That to head back would be to waste a once in a lifetime opportunity to establish new colonies to prepare for expansion. If Bioware are indeed playing the explorer angle instead of the solider angle as the crux of the character's purpose within the story, then they need that invisible wall to prevent the player who is the explorer from returning to old ME stomping grounds. They actually have to prevent nostalgia from dictating players actions within the game so that they go off to explore new places with, I hope, a cast of races from ME 1-3 to provide that link back to the previous games. All of which is centred on focusing the player on going forward as a frontiersman, a trailblazer. The guy people rely on to clear a landing for the next incursion of colonists. This looks set to be a tale of a man who in ME history will be spoken of in the same vein as Christopher Columbus. The man who discovered new territories to exploit profit on. So with that in mind I'm more than happy to go into another galaxy. But it would be a sad thing indeed if BW did nothing to give us links to the MEU that came before.

Sure you can.  THat's exactly what Earth was doing back in Grissom's tome.  It's frontier-style exploring simply because you never know what you're going to find.

 

Heck look at what happened with the Omega IV Relay.  Look what happened when the relay leading to rachni space was opened.  And that's not even including the fact that not all star systems have relays.

[Guanxii]

This is pretty silly. There are no "non-canon" player choices, except for maybe Shepard's death in the Suicide Mission. Something being relatively unpopular or rare doesn't make it any less valid as a world-state. The majority shouldn't get to decide what is "true" in the setting just because more people chose it.
 
The individual player choices are the canon, period, to the greatest extent that the story will allow it. Bioware have always said that. 
 
In the case of the endings, I'd argue it's even more important to honour the decision, given that it (for better or worse) is going to decide the effective future of the Milky Way, forever. Since ME3 was originally intended to be the chronological endpoint of the series, the way the player's story ends is the way that the galaxy will be, period.
 
And honouring that commitment to the player's choices being canon is more important, IMO, than somebody's desire to play in the same setting again.
 
Throw in a new team that probably want to do new things and the understandable desire to get away from the Milky Way, Shepard and the controversy of the endings, and it's a signpost pointing straight to Andromeda.

It seems BioWare are firmly in your court, however I would argue that the selfish position is wanting your own personal canon to take precedence over the best interests of the series going forwards indefinitely. I don't believe Andromeda is the answer. Do I want to see the series moved to Andromeda so I can have the choices which I hated respected... f--k no.

[Redbelle]

The more I think about the dafter it sounds.
Exploring other races home world's and places is what makes the universe work.
Remove illium, thessia and the monastery from the asari and you diminish the race.
Remove the weight of the turian military and ethos behind it then you reduce them.
Take the krogan out of tchunka and you lose their identity.
For example seeing wrex's homeworld underlines the anger and frustration you see in the first game.

Abandoning all of this is very short sighted.

But Mass Effect 1 never relied on the homeworlds of these people to sell the races. Before we met the political leaders we were introuduced to the seedy underbelly where all the races rubbed shoulders.

 

Also, we've moved on past the issues that plagued the races from ME1 to 3 in some regard. The history is still there but the point of being Shepard was that you resolved the disputes. I'd love to hear a Krogan talk about how the Ghenophage affected his people to being what they are inth epresent but I don't need to hear them bang on about it. It's resolved. it's history now. And unless there is a reason to go on about the Ghenophage I'd prefer the past not to influence the next game unless there is a narrative reason to bring it up.

 

Basically I'd like to see the game move on. Yes I want BW to resolve the game state issues and delve back into the Milky Way but these are the people who threw up walls when people stood up and said how bad the ending was. Looking at the names of the developers involved in ME3 compared to 1 and 2 saw very few recurring names crop up so at this point, the continuity of devs who made the games are gone. So yes, I'd rather see the game move on than see a new production team butcher what's left of the Milky Way MEU.

 

This is as much BW's chance to underline ME 1-3 and say it's done and move onto producing a new vision of ME that I hope will be better managed in terms of continuity if they make sequels. BW have in the past played with their lore outside of the official ME game releases that pretty much serve as the bible of what does and does not exist. Volus with exposed body parts in an ME book? Not according to the games lore where exposure to our relative low pressure will cause their skin to splt open.

 

At this point I feel like we're asking for much and forgetting that BW themselves have undergone a state change. As such it's probably better to leave the Milky Way behind for one game. Maybe even two if they make a sequel. But at some point I too would like to return to the Milky Way in the game world. But given the passage of time between ME3 and now, given the change in personnel who make the game, and given the ending fiasco of ME3, I think BW have taken a wise decision to move to another galaxy. The story of how and why they go is intriguing in itself. And who will go there, even more important. Because at heart, BW games are as much about crafting the person who goes through the adventure as much as the adventure itself. And when those two aspects occur in equal measure, the game rises above what other games offer. And moving to a place where they can focus on making the game they want, instead of focusing on what happened in the past, should allow them to exercise more creativity in the story while allowing the passage of time in game to loosen the shackles of the various game state's ME3 left the galaxy in.

[ElitePinecone]

It seems BioWare are firmly in your court, however I would argue that the selfish position is wanting your will to take precedence over the best interests of the series. If the choices are awful, then making them permanent makes a whole bunch of sense.

 

Who decides the best interests of the series, though? That term is completely subjective.

 

I reckon the series is best served when the player's decisions meaningfully carry over within and between games, and when we get interesting variations and consequences as a result of those choices. That can't happen if Bioware start arbitrarily making stuff canon just because it makes their job easier or lets them do something that they want to do.

 

(Two examples: the rachni and Udina. In both cases, Bioware imposed a canon and ignored player choices because it was easier for them to tell a story a certain way. People who had picked the other choices never got to see any consequences, and players were rightfully annoyed.)

 

Having now encountered the absolute flaming mess that results from not doing forward planning, the last thing I want them to do is say "we're going to downplay or homogenise or ignore the endings of ME3 in order to make a game set in the Milky Way afterwards". If canon is invested with the player's story, they shouldn't have the legitimacy to change it just to make their job easier. 

 

I can understand the people who are attached to the setting and prioritise that above storytelling consistency, but to me it's the other way around - and I suspect that Bioware is more sympathetic to preserving the endings of ME3 as they are now, and moving the setting of the new game to a place where they won't matter. It has the side benefits of giving them a totally blank slate and the room to plan things going forward without any references to what has gone before.

[Nohvarr]

The more I think about the dafter it sounds.
Exploring other races home world's and places is what makes the universe work.
Remove illium, thessia and the monastery from the asari and you diminish the race.
Remove the weight of the turian military and ethos behind it then you reduce them.
Take the krogan out of tchunka and you lose their identity.
For example seeing wrex's homeworld underlines the anger and frustration you see in the first game.

Abandoning all of this is very short sighted.

You already explored a number of Homeworlds for those races, along with colonies heavily influenced by them. Why are we supposed to be excited about retreading old ground?

 

The races seen in the previous Mass Effect are not their planets, I can take an Asari off Thessia and she's still an Asari, same with the Korgan and Turians. When I take those same people to a new Galaxy they are still Asari, Krogan and Turians, but now they will have to apply themselves and their world outlook to new challenges they'd not faced before. This is a chance for those same races to grow in new ways. Krogan now have a hope for their future and plenty of space to expand, Asari will have to deal with the fact that they are NOT the top dogs in their section fo space anymore, the Turians might have to figure out how rebuild their military strength with limited resources, or even question if their previous way of doing things was really as effective as they'd previously thought. It's a chance to see old friends grow in a strange new land.

 

Bioware is not being short sighted, if anything by taking place in a small cluster in a  differnet galaxy they are giving themselves room to expand. This little cluster is the Milky Way transplant, it's an area of space that will be colonized by familiar races, with familiar tech and architexture. However as you expand out you will see truely alien tech, and how (or if) you incorporate it into your new society will dictate it's future.

 

Commander Shepard 'saved' the Milky Way. "The Pathfinder" get's the chart a new course for a fledgling society.

[Kabooooom]

Even if they did use mass effect technology, who says they ever found a relay to Citadel space?

This would be less believable, in my opinion.

The relay network is set up much like a spider web or branching tree that loops back upon itself. Primary relays make the backbone, secondary relays the terminal branches. Some star systems form hub or multi-node systems in which there are multiple relays - Arcturus, Omega, the Serpent Nebula for example. It therefore creates a funneling affect where it is statistically easier to find hub systems and connect to other hub systems than to explore all the terminal branches of the network.

This is the reason why the Citadel was said to have been placed in the network in a way that it would be easy to find. The Reapers wanted it to be found, after all, or thr cycles wouldn't work.

[MrFob]

This is pretty silly. There are no "non-canon" player choices, except for maybe Shepard's death in the Suicide Mission. Something being relatively unpopular or rare doesn't make it any less valid as a world-state. The majority shouldn't get to decide what is "true" in the setting just because more people chose it.

 

The individual player choices are the canon, period, to the greatest extent that the story will allow it. Bioware have always said that. 

 

In the case of the endings, I'd argue it's even more important to honour the decision, given that it (for better or worse) is going to decide the effective future of the Milky Way, forever. Since ME3 was originally intended to be the chronological endpoint of the series, the way the player's story ends is the way that the galaxy will be, period.

 

And honouring that commitment to the player's choices being canon is more important, IMO, than somebody's desire to play in the same setting again.

 

Throw in a new team that probably want to do new things and the understandable desire to get away from the Milky Way, Shepard and the controversy of the endings, and it's a signpost pointing straight to Andromeda. 

 

While I kind of agree in principle, I am fully prepared for this to change at some point in the future. Maybe not the next game and maybe e not the game afterwards but I would not be surprised at all, if at some point, I could very well imagine that we will see an ME product that produces cannon.

 

Why? Because writers change, teams change and mindsets change. The team that we have working on the series now includes a lot of people who came in fresh, as is always the case in the industry. Sooner or later, you will have a leadership there who never was around when that commitment was made and then, all bets are off.

 

Just saying, be prepared for that to happen at some point. I personally could live very well with a cannonized ending for example. As far as I am concerned, it doesn't invalidate the others. For example, I don't think the Orc campaign in Warcraft 2 got diminished by the fact that the humans campaign is cannon (I know, it's kinda old that one).

 

Anyway, I am not asking for a canonized ending, I am just saying, in my estimation, it will probably happen at some point. In fact, there is already a minoir precedent in the novel Retribution, where Drew Karpyshyn said in an email to a fan that this novel just takes place in one specific scenario where Shepard made one specific decision (making Udina councilor in this case). Granted, in this case, we are just talking about one single line in the entire book (and IMO, this could have been easily avoided), so it's a very minor thing but there you have it, even the original creator of ME is flexible when it comes to cannon and the choices.

[Redbelle]

Sure you can.  THat's exactly what Earth was doing back in Grissom's tome.  It's frontier-style exploring simply because you never know what you're going to find.

 

Heck look at what happened with the Omega IV Relay.  Look what happened when the relay leading to rachni space was opened.  And that's not even including the fact that not all star systems have relays.

 

I think your forgetting something important. Back then it was humans vs the Galaxy. Now, it would be the council races vs the galaxy. An explorer would simply see the threat and call for help. Perhaps spend time in situ to monitor the threat, but ultimately, he's got help a relay away.

 

But that's immaterial because the latest annoucement indicates a dsire to begin with a clean game state where the player has no knowledge of factions involved or their politics. Going back to the Milky Way, you know the stories of the races. You know their history and likes and dislkes.... Your already ahead in learning the state of the world and as such a lot of the tension and drama for old ME fans who played the game won't be felt by the player. Maybe new players,  but old ones, Nope.

 

Transitioning to a new setting with different races provides a level playing field for old and new gamers. It gives the new development team a way to bring their vision of ME to bear by putting the player in a situation where expectations are removed in favour of putting the player in a position of having to learn and adapt.

 

It breaks away from ME3's impossible to follow end because you either upset fans by going Red. Upset fans by going Blue. Or upset fans by going Green. It grants the Milky Way time to change so that regardless of ending things can happen off camera to restore the game state to a point where the effects of those choices do not ultimately decide what the galaxy is like. Because coding for all those game states and the variances of the world state would be a huge undertaking for very little payoff to the gamer. Sure you can say it wouldn't be.... but these are the folks who fudged Tali's money shot by not designing her face under that mask on Rannoch. All because they judged the expenditure of development to be to high for the result said expenditure would acheive.

 

Basically if they went to the Milky Way and had Red, Blue and Green gamestates, then they are commiting themselves to continuing those states unless they actively script a way to change those states back to a generic one. That story would be huge and probably involve another Catalyst..... And Mass Effect to me is not about glowing light shows that changes the galaxy through space magic. It's about men and women and aliens with guns and purpose fighting for something that matters to them. And to get right into that, to introduce a character without the baggage of ME3's ending, you either need to go far into the future where it history explains away what Sheperd acheived, or you you can go far away to where Shepard is an unknown. That last one allows recent history to be carried by the characters. A link to the past games therefore still exists. And the devs can tell the story they want, rather than a story they would get shoehorned into telling

[ElitePinecone]

Hm, maybe.

 

But I think that the commitment to player choices being canon (as far as as feasible and practical) is what makes Bioware's games so distinctive, and the choices carrying over between games is practically their strongest selling point. 

 

Plenty of game series offer then discard player choices (looking at you, Deus Ex) but it's only Bioware that have been crazy-brave to take it on and make it work as well as it did, at least for ME and DA. It's not perfect, but this kind of storytelling is something that almost nobody else is doing in videogames.

 

I don't really see why they'd abandon that while it's still working for them. At the very least there's a large audience of people who are super invested in the idea of taking a character or a world between games in a series and watching how they respond to the player's decisions. 

[MrFob]

But Redbelle, the same was the case in principle in ME1. Whenever going to an uncharted world, the next outpost or colony was always just 1-2 relays away. But we never called for help there. Why? Because we were supposed to deal with this stuff. We were already the guys who were sent there (that's why Hackett always calls you with his little problems). I don't see why a new game could not handle uncharted worlds the same way. Especially that, right after the war, resources of the established races would spread very thin and the relay network may be wonky, due to the effects of the crucible.

 

I do think that staying the Milky Way would kind of prohibit a full new start and we would definitely have to deal with the endings in one way or another. We would also not just do exploring but certainly also have top deal with the established races in established territory to some extent (so you'd have a mix of both, just like in ME1). Given that everyone is already talking about how we'd need enough time to go by in Andromeda for an infrastructure to be set up before the game starts, apparently that is what people seem to expect, even in the new galaxy.

 

So, I don't really see a problem with the exploring aspect if we were to stay in this galaxy. The main problem really is to deal with the endings somehow.

 

@ElitePinecone: Yea, I do agree but the question is: Is it really still working for them? If they already have to go to a new galaxy now, just to keep that "feature" (which is then really a non-feature or rather just a burden), how are they going to continue? Are they going to go to a new galaxy every time? They couldn't even really keep thing straight for 3 games and the import feature, for all it's genius did cause massive problems with the story telling. Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that decisions carry over. I am just not sure, how long they can keep it up. And sooner or later, they may want to "return home" even if just for PR purposes.