3411 réponses à ce sujet

[Elhanan]

Well, my point was mostly that we can't sacrifice core gameplay mechanics for an optional feature.
 
I'm not against BioWare taking a look at an optional toggle. More skeptical that it would be cost effective.
 
Of course even being a programmer and probably one of the most knowledgeable community posters when it comes to the underlying code of Mass Effect 3, I'm still not about to pretend that I know exactly how things operate at BioWare.
 
It's entirely possible that I'm wrong and this sort of thing would be cost effective for the target market that it would bring in.

I appreciate your insights to the topic; at least they are reasoned and civil.

And my point is that if the Toggle makes it, nothing considered core material was lost as it is all Gold; optional settings or not.

[KaiserShep]

Those students were clearly in their mid- to late-thirties. They were taking night classes...

Prangley's a super-senior. Got left back several times. 

[Quarian Master Race]

An observation is now an insult?
It's not an observation on the toggle. It's a personal attack and irrelevant to the toggle debate and didn't add anything to the debate but an outlet for your aggression.

This feature is not logistically feasible
This isn't true. You should take your own advice and go back and read.

Unrustle your jimmies. If you don't want to be called out for lacking reading comprehension than you shouldn't outright ignore posts from people better informed than you that happen to render your nonsense assertions null, nor should you quote other posters out of contex to build strawmen.

No, that the feature is logistically unfeasible is unequivocally true given the resource requirements and the market. That you can't be bothered to read any of the nearly two dozen posts by BioWare employees, software specialists and others in this very thread stating as much does not make your ill informed incredulity at the notion a valid argument. You should take my advice and go back to English comp class.

[N7M]

A few things to consider here: games have tried in the past to appeal to multiple demographics. Sometimes it works, but this can also have mixed results. The essential "jack of all trades, master of none" type scenario, but much worse. In Bioware's case, they've said in the past they're after the Skyrim demographic. I enjoyed DA:I, but wasn't exactly happy with the more exploration-like parts of the game. And I'm kinda skeptical of Bioware being able to implement Avatar: the Last Airbender and Breaking Bad in the same game, just as an example.
 
That aside, it's also not as simple to design that sort of game even with a toggle. The Mass Effect trilogy for example allows the player to commit genocide, on multiple occasions. I rank that as being a greater concern than any amount of nudity/language could ever hope to compete with. How for example do you create a version of ME3 suitable for children and adults that lets players deal with the kinds of moral scenarios which Bioware is known for?
 
Lastly, and here I'm a bit less confident, but it's not 100% clear that creating E10 settings would really let Bioware reach a larger demographic. In many cases, kids are already playing M rated games without parental supervision. We'd need more info on how much attention parents actually pay to the media their kids consume. Otherwise, you're really reaching the same market, but now with a bigger resource sink.

 
The Mass Effect trilogy for example allows the player to commit genocide, on multiple occasions. I rank that as being a greater concern than any amount of nudity/language could ever hope to compete with. How for example do you create a version of ME3 suitable for children and adults that lets players deal with the kinds of moral scenarios which Bioware is known for?
 
The nearest I can answer, at the moment, is with a comparison with the Star Wars movie franchise. It's an imperfect comparison since player agency doesn't come into the passive experience of movie watching beyond viewers averting their senses.
In Star Wars there is mass murder with the destruction of Alderaan. This scene, while portraying a terrible atrocity, doesn't automatically permit the addition of gore, excessive swearing and nude sex scenes due to it's moral implications nor should it. These conundrums of ethics are one of the great things about Mass Effect and the agency of game play within it. It is an experience that should be allowed for as many people as possible. 
 
Lastly, and here I'm a bit less confident, but it's not 100% clear that creating E10 settings would really let Bioware reach a larger demographic. In many cases, kids are already playing M rated games without parental supervision. We'd need more info on how much attention parents actually pay to the media their kids consume. Otherwise, you're really reaching the same market, but now with a bigger resource sink.
 

I'm not particular confident this will draw new players in numbers either. However, the draw of new players, which may or not ameliorate costs is only part of the issue. With technological developments the game is going to change and the industry it resides in will as well. It is my hope that Mass Effect will not forget it's roots and many different players while developing into new areas. Content control for player experience is one of those areas that has potential to achieve this, IMO.  

[pdusen]

Perhaps not, but hopefully will be applied in future titles. But if this is a certainty, I am puzzled why others are vocally opposed to the idea.

 

Because you are so vocally in favor of it. That's obvious. When you keep repeating one thing over and over, those who disagree will do the same.

[The Heretic of Time]

Unrustle your jimmies. If you don't want to be called out for lacking reading comprehension than you shouldn't outright ignore posts from people better informed than you that happen to render your nonsense assertions null, nor should you quote other posters out of contex to build strawmen.

No, that the feature is logistically unfeasible is unequivocally true given the resource requirements and the market. That you can't be bothered to read any of the nearly two dozen posts by BioWare employees, software specialists and others in this very thread stating as much does not make your ill informed incredulity at the notion a valid argument. You should take my advice and go back to English comp class.

 

 

[Elhanan]

Because you are so vocally in favor of it. That's obvious. When you keep repeating one thing over and over, those who disagree will do the same.

They have been invited to Ignore my posts; have certainly done so for many of them. Also seems a tad narrow-minded, but have younger siblings, so am used to this past behavior from youth.

[pdusen]

They have been invited to Ignore my posts; have certainly done so for many of them. Also seems a tad narrow-minded, but have younger siblings, so am used to this past behavior from youth.

 

I'm guessing that the condescending attitude just makes people want to argue with you more.

[Elhanan]

I'm guessing that the condescending attitude just makes people want to argue with you more.

Yes; it is difficult to be right all the time....

[Lady Artifice]

If someone was willing to pay me, if the original content was still there for people to enjoy if they so choose, and it wasn't more trouble than it was worth, absolutely.

 

My goal would be to make a product as many people as possible can enjoy.  Not wrap myself in "artistic integrity"

 

Note the "more trouble than it's worth" is still a valid point

 

You still seem to me to be looking at this exclusively from the angle of someone talking about a video game they intend to play, so I'm not sure I think we're on the same page. If you wrote a script or a novel, or created a painting, and they asked you to make an alternate version with aspects removed--keeping in mind that your end game had always been to make something that was both complete and revised to its' ideal state--you'd be cool with that request? 

 

If so, fine. It's certainly not my place to impose my perception of integrity on how other people treat their own work, but I still think that request would be disrespectful in the first place. 

 

I'm not sure why artistic integrity is in quotation marks. If it's not something you believe in, we're going to get nowhere with this discussion even faster than I thought we would. 

 

Another way to look at this: all writers are sell outs, to varying extents. Unless you're writing a book, where all you need is a paper and pencil, anyone making a film/tv series/anime runs into this problem. Viewership is important and these medium tends to be expensive. This is why something like Hannibal, despite great reviews, is getting canceled while Walking Dead is still ongoing. Personally, I would be surprised if any writer didn't at least consider the role which viewership plays, given that they have to be able to sell their ideas to an audience to keep their writing afloat. Games are art, but they are also a consumer product.

 

 

It goes both ways. All of those things are consumer products, including books. I'm under no illusion about the need to appeal to an audience for the sake of success, but again, I'm not dealing in absolutes here. Your other way of looking at it seems too starkly black and white to me. As far as I'm concerned, selling out is a matter of degrees and where a writer draws the line between writing what they want to write and what they're told to write. 

 

I believe the goal of any artist, writer, director, whatever, should be to deliver as precise a work as possible. All of the unnecessary fluff should already be removed when they deliver their final product. Therefore, everything left should be somehow important to the story or the characterization. Which would mean that the removal of anything would then damage the story or the characterization. 

 

A writer can also be assigned a task without being a sell out, but if they're sacrificing quality in order to complete that task, then they're also sacrificing integrity. 

[Lady Artifice]

How is that different from a writer being asked to provide a different take because the cinematic designers can't animate it or it won't work in the level / area for which it was designated? Anyone who writes for a visual medium is already limited by set / props / wardrobe / etc. design considerations, what is feasible and affordable wrt fx, etc.

Oh, and intended rating and other content concerns. A writer might want to include scenes that would get an AO rating, but get told to tone it down. Or it might not be dark enough or racy enough, and they are told to spice it up.

 

I think it's different because "we can't do it," is inherently different from "we don't want you to do it." 

 

My perspective and my objection has more to do with this concept of an alternate optional version, the toggle mechanic itself, than it has with the general concept of self censorship or editing. I think there are situations where "spicing it up" or "toning it down" might be necessary, but this suggestion--insofar as dialogue goes--would entail the writers creating two versions of their own work. Aside from all the immediate pitfalls of editing and sequencing that, that would mean that the quality would be effected in one way or another, because the work should be fully revised by the time they're finished. There shouldn't be any leeway left for them to cut things out. It might be they're taking away essentials from the censored version, or they're leaving inessentials in the uncensored, or a bit of both. Or they decide a lot of it is too much work and they just constantly censor themselves to minimize the coding that will be necessary later on. 

 

I'd place my bets on the last one. 

 

 

So does translation and cultural context, but these works are translated into multiple languages and consumed in a wide variety of different cultures.

Then there's the "final filter", which no author can escape. Every consumer of any work is going to view it from their own perspective and through their own personal filters.

 

In the case of translation going wrong, I'd say the same thing that I said to Dragonflight's "skipped chapter" example. While the difficult translation would be unfortunate, the creator would not be complicit in corrupting their own work as they would be in the case of this toggle. 

[Fizzie Panda]

Interesting idea, I may not be one of those people who would use such a mechanism, but I do see its merit.

[Il Divo]

 
The Mass Effect trilogy for example allows the player to commit genocide, on multiple occasions. I rank that as being a greater concern than any amount of nudity/language could ever hope to compete with. How for example do you create a version of ME3 suitable for children and adults that lets players deal with the kinds of moral scenarios which Bioware is known for?
 
The nearest I can answer, at the moment, is with a comparison with the Star Wars movie franchise. It's an imperfect comparison since player agency doesn't come into the passive experience of movie watching beyond viewers averting their senses.
In Star Wars there is mass murder with the destruction of Alderaan. This scene, while portraying a terrible atrocity, doesn't automatically permit the addition of gore, excessive swearing and nude sex scenes due to it's moral implications nor should it. These conundrums of ethics are one of the great things about Mass Effect and the agency of game play within it. It is an experience that should be allowed for as many people as possible. 
 

 

Even ignoring the active vs passive medium debate, honestly I'd be more concerned with my kid dealing with death in a story than I would be with him hearing an F-bomb, which is bound to happen sooner or later.

 

But in Star Wars' case, it also doesn't deal with Alderaan's destruction to any satisfying extent. It's a quick "Oh hey, billions of people just died"..... and now back to the story. Mass Effect is designed for the player to deal with consequences of choosing to exterminate an entire group of people, amongst other issues. That goes far beyond the scope of what any toggle could ever achieve. Again, we're operating from a premise of genocidal robots here.  

[Smashmouth]

Language adds to character, I mean...who wants to hear Aria say "Don't mess with Aria!" As far as nudity, i'm fine with romance/love scenes, but Jack fighting with no shirt on was a bit strange. 

[Il Divo]

 

 

It goes both ways. All of those things are consumer products, including books. I'm under no illusion about the need to appeal to an audience for the sake of success, but again, I'm not dealing in absolutes here. Your other way of looking at it seems too starkly black and white to me. As far as I'm concerned, selling out is a matter of degrees and where a writer draws the line between writing what they want to write and what they're told to write. 

 

I believe the goal of any artist, writer, director, whatever, should be to deliver as precise a work as possible. All of the unnecessary fluff should already be removed when they deliver their final product. Therefore, everything left should be somehow important to the story or the characterization. Which would mean that the removal of anything would then damage the story or the characterization. 

 

A writer can also be assigned a task without being a sell out, but if they're sacrificing quality in order to complete that task, then they're also sacrificing integrity. 

 

Keep in mind: my opening line was that there are varying extents of selling out.

 

None of the things suggested on these forums need to be either implemented, or even looked into. I don't believe for a second this language filter has a shot, as an example. I just think it's odd to say that consumers shouldn't tell the developers what they want, when the companies making these products are themselves trying to figure out what consumers want. Not to mention, every Bioware game on here has a feedback & suggestion forum attached.

 

"Vote with your wallet" is a great approach to consumerism, but isn't all that helpful if we're not articulating why. It's far more useful to tell Bioware why you are or aren't buying a product, then forcing them to fumble in the dark.

[KaiserShep]

If someone was willing to pay me, if the original content was still there for people to enjoy if they so choose, and it wasn't more trouble than it was worth, absolutely.

 

My goal would be to make a product as many people as possible can enjoy.  Not wrap myself in "artistic integrity"

 

Note the "more trouble than it's worth" is still a valid point

 

Not for nothing, but considering that the only reason to really bother with this sort of thing is so that said content can be free of restrictions on a certain medium (e.g. radio edits), then artistic integrity might hold a bit more weight here than you suppose, especially since a lot of them will probably just buy it anyway, and those turned away would likely be negligible, unless the quakers have taken over or something. My response would be to jump in the lake, though in more diplomatic wording. 

[Il Divo]

Not for nothing, but considering that the only reason to really bother with this sort of thing is so that said content can be free of restrictions on a certain medium (e.g. radio edits), then artistic integrity might hold a bit more weight here than you suppose, especially since a lot of them will probably just buy it anyway, and those turned away would likely be negligible, unless the quakers have taken over or something. My response would be to jump in the lake, though in more diplomatic wording. 

 

He did mention that a feature could be"more trouble than it's worth". It's like a game of tug of war: you have what the writer wants to make on one end and you have what consumers want made on the other.

[Lady Artifice]

Keep in mind: my opening line was that there are varying extents of selling out.

 

None of the things suggested on these forums need to be either implemented, or even looked into. I don't believe for a second this language filter has a shot, as an example. I just think it's odd to say that consumers shouldn't tell the developers what they want, when the companies making these products are themselves trying to figure out what consumers want. Not to mention, every Bioware game on here has a feedback & suggestion forum attached.

 

"Vote with your wallet" is a great approach to consumerism, but isn't all that helpful if we're not articulating why. It's far more useful to tell Bioware why you are or aren't buying a product, then forcing them to fumble in the dark.

 

I don't take issue with feedback or suggestions being offered. I offer it myself all the time. It's this specific suggestion, the toggle itself, that I take issue with. I oppose it for all the reasons I've said. I think it disregards artistic integrity, and I think it's oblivious to the problems that a alternate version of one story would pose for the Devs. 

[KaiserShep]

He did mention that a feature could be"more trouble than it's worth". It's like a game of tug of war: you have what the writer wants to make on one end and you have what consumers want made on the other.

Well sure, and this reminds me now of the Extended Cut, which was basically just a big downloadable pacifier, though how well it really served to that end is debatable. 

[Battlebloodmage]

He did mention that a feature could be"more trouble than it's worth". It's like a game of tug of war: you have what the writer wants to make on one end and you have what a tiny few consumers want made on the other.

Fixed

[Il Divo]

I don't take issue with feedback or suggestions being offered. I offer it myself all the time. It's this specific suggestion, the toggle itself, that I take issue with. I oppose it for all the reasons I've said. I think it disregards artistic integrity, and I think it's oblivious to the problems that a alternate version of one story would pose for the Devs. 

 

Okay, but what makes this toggle unique compared to the million other requests we get every day?

 

I don't know your posting history, but I'm curious what are your stances on:

 

1) The Mass Effect 3 Retake Movement. People asked for Shepard to be given an explicit happy ending, less space magic, and other stuff.

2) People asking for Cullen as a same sex romance in DA:I.

3) People asking for player-sexual romances.

4) People asking for Liara to have a greater role in ME3.

5) People asking for Liara to have a lesser role in ME3.

6) People asking for DA2's art style to be revamped.

 

 

This would give me a better idea of your stance on this issue. It's not clear what's considered a violation of "artistic integrity". You could defend every single aspect of their work on those grounds, even the gameplay systems.

[Il Divo]

Well sure, and this reminds me now of the Extended Cut, which was basically just a big downloadable pacifier, though how well it really served to that end is debatable. 

 

Haha, I'm definitely with you on that one.

 

Fixed

 

That doesn't really go against my point, although you're right. Which way the rope pulls depends on how many fans you have supporting the feature. This is why we have an ME3 extended cut, but are unlikely ever to have a language filter (thankfully).
 

[KaiserShep]

Haha, I'm definitely with you on that one.

 

I will admit though: it actually worked on me, though I didn't suffer the brunt of the assault of the original ending like fans who were with the series since its release.

 

 

[Il Divo]

I will admit though: it actually worked on me, though I didn't suffer the brunt of the assault of the original ending like fans who were with the series since its release.

 

Damn, I would have given anything to trade places with you at the time. 5 years on the hype train definitely didn't help as ending satisfaction goes. I don't think the endings will ever be remembered happily, but I feel like newer Mass Effect fans will have it a bit easier since they can kill the whole series in one shot.
 

[KaiserShep]

Yeah, by the time I joined in the fun, the entire series was available on PS3, as well as all of the DLC's. 

 

If I was on the hype train along with everyone else, I'd probably be all: