413 réponses à ce sujet

[Mcfly616]

 It's a game about disparate cultures faced with crises. Having a game mainly devoted to Mass Effect's greatest thematic conflict rather than it's greatest literal conflict is not only reasonable, but desirable.

 Your own subjective opinion.  Nothing more. I never said if was about 'destroying' Reapers.

 

 

The fact remains that ME2 is nothing more than a collection of different characters with the same exact problems that you're charged with solving. All the while contributing nothing to the fight against the biggest problem the established universe faces. Oh...Whilst adding a plethora of retcons regarding the conflicts between nations. I.e. Legion and Mordin's insights.

 

 

ME2 is a sequel in name only. Obvious within the first half hour of the campaign.

[In Exile]

Is that right? And what 'meta-reason' was that, precisely?

 

As for the ammunition, while I prefer the new system, I never used the infinite ammo because I found cyro rounds inferior to incendiary rounds. The ammunition system clearly did serve a purpose to players such as myself. In any event, it's very common for video games to offer system that have different tiers of difficulty for different approaches, and has often been hailed as a superior alternative to standard difficulty settings.

 

I'm not sure what you're referring to in your question. Assuming it's regarding Shepard's ressurection and death, as I said above, I believe it is so that they could justify a time-skip without the very hardcore among RPG fans arguing that "their" Shepard wouldn't have [done this particular thing] during the timeskip. It's much like how the ammo switch in ME2 wasn't retconned, but justified in the lore. That was my argument. It's entirely supposition, but I think Bioware (for ME) established a pattern. 

[BabyPuncher]

Uh-huh. Right. I think the question is pretty obvious considering your previous post which literally said it was justified for a 'meta-reason.' I'm struggling to see how my asking what that 'meta-reason' is could be confusing.

 

So what exactly is your criteria for a time-skip being a 'meta-reason'? As opposed to a 'narrative reason'?

[Deztyn]

What's a shame is that everything about the Lazarus project and Cerberus recruitment could have been justified if Shepard was a crippled survivor of the first Normandy, and the time-skip was spent with Shepard more or less being hidden from public by a Council and Alliance that saw him as something of an embarassment as a cripple making unwanted noise.
 
So Shepard's in an recovery wing, locked out of sight, the Normandy SR-1 crew goes their separate ways with their careers, and then what do you know but a Human charity organization with a cutting-edge experimental treatments comes forward with a volunteer option to get the jaded and disgruntled Commander Sheaprd back on their feet, literally...

 

It's a great story idea.I love the thought of Shepard actively choosing to work with Cerberus, even if she's not aware of it at the time. And instead of the ridiculous Horizon confrontation, we could have had Spectre Ash or Alenko looking into Cerberus activities and finding their ex boss/lover in the thick of it and having a legitimate grievance. Perhaps even being an active antagonist.
 
But I don't think it would work for this type of game series. Choice, or at least the illusion of choice, is such an integral part of the ME experience. I don't think players would easily accept that their Shepard was sitting idly by in a hospital room for two years, crippled or no.
 
Oh, and Exile stop being a shameless hussy. Dean is mine.

[JeffZero]

They're fighting over you, Dean.

 

Oh, to be _the_Young.

[Mcfly616]

Yes. That is what I literally just said.

 

 

No, they really weren't. As I've said multiple times now, ME 3 is going to start in the same position of the Reapers invading and crushing anything regardless of what happens in ME 2 because this is the kind of story Mass Effect is. This is the kind of enemies the Reapers are. Whatever preparations take place, the Reapers are going to fly in and crush everything because that is their function as a villain.

 You're missing the point. Nobody's saying that more preparation during ME2 would've changed the outcome of the conflict. What they're saying is key plot points (such as the Reaper invasion, their motive, their origins, the solution and resolution) would've been more cohesive if all 3 installments focused on them, exploring them in equal detail, Instead of the middle installment going completely off the reservation on some random tangent (see: stalling pattern, treading water) consequently leaving it to the opening and closing acts to explain the core conflict that brings everything together.

 

Suffice to say, it's a too much to be cramming into two games. And the narrative suffers for it.

[Killroy]

It's the whole "RPG fan control over my character" angle. Bioware - if they did a timeskip ala ME3 - was worried to face the "My Shepard wouldn't [X] during the [Y period]". It's the same reason you see absurd contortions like "thermal clips" to justify switching from ME1's combat to ME2's. And in fact the whole absurd ammo thing in ME1 was designed to justify the non-shooter RPG mechanic.

But why was a time jump necessary at all without the death and rebirth? If you take out that dumb plot device there's no need for a time jump and no reason to join Cerberus.

Do you think that Empire Strikes Back is filler?
ME1 established lore, ME2 explored it. Exploring requires much more attention.

You undermined your own point. Empire is one of the best sequels ever made and one of the very few sequels that's better than it's predecessor. And it's great because it tells it's own story while fleshing out the universe. It's not filler at all. ME2 is pure filler, and it's quite low on substance.

[goishen]

No, it really wasn't.  I would in no way call ME2 not a sequel to ME1 the same way that I would not call The Empire Strikes back a sequel to Star Wars. 

 

ME2 was about you fighting along side Cerberus in a similar way that the Empire struck back in The Empire Strikes Back.  It was about the bad guys winning.  The lesser of two evils.

 

How much?  That's up to you in ME2. 

 

EDIT :  Agreed, it was mostly a character piece, but characters drive the story.  Not the other way around.

[Killroy]

No, it really wasn't.  I would in no way call ME2 not a sequel to ME1 the same way that I would not call The Empire Strikes back a sequel to Star Wars. 
 
ME2 was about you fighting along side Cerberus in a similar way that the Empire struck back in The Empire Back.  It was about the bad guys winning.  The lesser of two evils.
 
How much?  That's up to you in ME2.

...are you drunk?

[goishen]

...are you drunk?

 

 

No.

[Killroy]

No.

Then why are you so drunk?

[JeffZero]

As a reminder, the more disingenuous assertions lobbied at one-another, the faster the moderators will punch this topic into a lockdown, and the slimmer the already-super-slim chance is that we'll get any form of comment whatsoever.

 

I know. I know. We're not getting one regardless. Le sigh.

[Han Shot First]

I wonder if John Dombrow was brought back to replace him. He was with Telltale until April. 

[JeffZero]

I wonder if John Dombrow was brought back to replace him. He was with Telltale until April. 

 

That would indeed be interesting, but -- the blog post was in June, alongside the official unveiling. Did Mr. Dombrow join before or after June, do we know? I feel it'd be incredibly bad for the marketing to have made a post like that knowing full-well Mr. Schlerf was already on the way out, so...

[kalikilic]

afaik ME 2 is proof that they knew how a large part of ME 3 would end because it introduces TIM who becomes an important antagonistic character for several reasons in ME3. Up until starchild showed up the game's narrative cohesion held together very well, with TIM becoming an allusion to Saren thereby placing emphasis on humanity's role in the galaxy in comparison to the role of Turians especially with the history of the First Contact Wars. Without ME 2, you wouldnt have TIM and well, it'd just have to be an entire different game from that point onward.

 

ME 2 also drives home the point of the council's disregard for humanity and its voice. in true Mass Effect style, its up to Shepard to do things on his own terms, because the galaxy at large would not listen to him, exactly like ME 1 imo. ME 2 retconned stuff? ofc, because despite ME 3's endings there was no room for more culture or relations to be explored. and the same can be said for ME 1 which was focused on introducing the main antagonist, the Reapers.

 

So imo, ME 2 is exactly the game you would want it to be, as the 2nd of 3 games in a series. it accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish in a satisfyingly mass-effect manner. the major failures all lie within ME 3. We all know that Javik was never supposed to be DLC and instead was supposed to be tied into the main storyline. the same can be said for the Leviathans who were supposed to be tied into the Dark Energy scripts. But someone took a scissors to ME 3's scripts and snip snip snip.

 

then they sewed on starchild and the rest is history.

[Rahmiel]

Does anyone have any knowledge of lead writers leaving 10-18 months before the release of a title and that title coming out being amazing?  I'm just curious.  All I can think about is how Destiny turned out when they lost their lead writer and the story.. well, the game launched without a story, basically.  People will claim there is one, but I played the game, beat it, and I don't understand what it could possibly be.  I feel like the entire game was just the opening cinematic and setup.

 

So, this being a bioware game where I expect a great story.. I'm.. I'm really anxious as to what this departure could mean, and how/if it will impact the development of the game.  Is he even gone?  Are the lead writer's duties mostly done at this point of development so he's moving out and someone else can just slip in and rubber stamp what needs to be done?  Are there still big decisions to be handled?  Is there going to be a rewrite/gutting of the story and then hodge-podged together?!

 

So many questions.. so much worry.

 

On the other hand.. I'm still very curious about ME:A and what the combat system will be like.

 

Edit:  I heard this from a teacher a long time ago and my experience in life tells me it's true.  The key to life, is consistency.  If you're not consistent, then people get confused, lost, things will seem contrived, people are perceived as fake.. etc.  Everything, needs consistency.  So I hope whoever is lead writer, they can instill and maintain consistency throughout the story they're telling (whether it's ME:A, or a new ME trilogy, etc.)

[KaiserShep]

Does anyone have any knowledge of lead writers leaving 10-18 months before the release of a title and that title coming out being amazing?  I'm just curious.  All I can think about is how Destiny turned out when they lost their lead writer and the story.. well, the game launched without a story, basically.  People will claim there is one, but I played the game, beat it, and I don't understand what it could possibly be.  I feel like the entire game was just the opening cinematic and setup.

 

Man, the thought of Mass Effect turning out like Destiny. Ominous alien factions and robots that are essentially less-funny Daleks that have motivations on par with a Marvin the Martian episode. 

[marcelo caldas]

Well, the Crucible is about the worst piece of writing BioWare has ever crapped out...so...

^^this^^

[JeffZero]

For what it's worth, I highly doubt this'll go the way of Destiny. Andromeda has several writers, all of whom are contributing a great deal to its script, and more importantly, BioWare isn't going to go as story-light as Destiny. It just... isn't. A changed story this late in production could be troubling, but just uprooting the darn thing wholesale and shipping without one? It wouldn't fly critically, not for a BioWare title, and bad reviews will upset sales, and so forth.

[Drone223]

afaik ME 2 is proof that they knew how a large part of ME 3 would end because it introduces TIM who becomes an important antagonistic character for several reasons in ME3. Up until starchild showed up the game's narrative cohesion held together very well, with TIM becoming an allusion to Saren thereby placing emphasis on humanity's role in the galaxy in comparison to the role of Turians especially with the history of the First Contact Wars. Without ME 2, you wouldnt have TIM and well, it'd just have to be an entire different game from that point onward.

ME 2 also drives home the point of the council's disregard for humanity and its voice. in true Mass Effect style, its up to Shepard to do things on his own terms, because the galaxy at large would not listen to him, exactly like ME 1 imo. ME 2 retconned stuff? ofc, because despite ME 3's endings there was no room for more culture or relations to be explored. and the same can be said for ME 1 which was focused on introducing the main antagonist, the Reapers.

So imo, ME 2 is exactly the game you would want it to be, as the 2nd of 3 games in a series. it accomplished what it was supposed to accomplish in a satisfyingly mass-effect manner. the major failures all lie within ME 3. We all know that Javik was never supposed to be DLC and instead was supposed to be tied into the main storyline. the same can be said for the Leviathans who were supposed to be tied into the Dark Energy scripts. But someone took a scissors to ME 3's scripts and snip snip snip.

then they sewed on starchild and the rest is history.

ME2 does nothing to progress the plot people can basically play ME1 and ME3 without playing ME2 and there wouldn't much of a difference had they imported Shepard from ME2 into ME3. Nothing is achieved by stopping the collectors and Shepard is in the same position as he/she was at the end of ME1 with the galaxy unprepeard for the reapers.

[Jaquio]

Lots of people in this thread have said (quite rightly) that ME2 does not advance the main plot.

 

But I think it's important to note that this could just as easily be viewed as the fault of ME3 rather than ME2.  It was the writers of ME3 who chose to abandon what happened in ME2.  The ME3 writers could have, for example, made the Collector Base decision at the end of ME2 absolutely crucial to the plot of ME3.  Then ME2 would have been a plot advancing entry to the series.

 

Instead of saying X is better than Y because of the disjointed narrative, I think it's better that we all admit that constant changes in writing teams led to an overall story arc that was clearly not organized as well as it should have been, and it affected how each of the games flowed into one another.

 

Which is worrisome given the point of this thread.

[KaiserShep]

Lots of people in this thread have said (quite rightly) that ME2 does not advance the main plot.

 

But I think it's important to note that this could just as easily be viewed as the fault of ME3 rather than ME2.  It was the writers of ME3 who chose to abandon what happened in ME2.  The ME3 writers could have, for example, made the Collector Base decision at the end of ME2 absolutely crucial to the plot of ME3.  Then ME2 would have been a plot advancing entry to the series.

 

 

Problem is, this decision would, or at least should, result in two totally different storylines for ME3. Like, you keep the base, then you get whatever advanced tech at your disposal and whatever information it contains and you get to use it against the reapers somehow, and with the destroy option, you get nothing. The missions in ME3 would have to reflect this somehow while still giving meaningful content for both outcomes. 

[Killroy]

Lots of people in this thread have said (quite rightly) that ME2 does not advance the main plot.
 
But I think it's important to note that this could just as easily be viewed as the fault of ME3 rather than ME2.  It was the writers of ME3 who chose to abandon what happened in ME2.  The ME3 writers could have, for example, made the Collector Base decision at the end of ME2 absolutely crucial to the plot of ME3.  Then ME2 would have been a plot advancing entry to the series.

Blaming ME3 for ME2 being pointless makes absolutely no sense. ME2 accomplished nothing. Trying to hinge ME3's plot on what ME2 did would be like trying to hang your coat on a wall of glass.

[Vapaa]

But a lot of the problems with ME3 don't have anything to do with ME2. The Reapers suddenly invading and oblierating everyone and everything is entirely an issue that arises in ME3.

Disagree, ME1 ends with Shepard saying that the reaper threat is out there, ME1's job was to introduce the Reapers and establish the threat, but ME2 did nothing to adress that, which left ME3 with the job of finding a way the resolve the confilt then resolving the conflict.

Finding a way to end the confilct should've ben ME2's job not the first half-hour of ME3.

The endings fly out of nowhere, and that's a different problem, and really the problem I was focusing on.

The endings are a totally different animal, in fact I tend to forget them; they're so laughably criticizable that it's not funny anymore.

Bioware can't decide on what theme ME3 is supposed to have

I agree, but the finale of a trilogy inevitably bears the weight of what the two previous entries did...or didn't do which is ME3's problem, it had to adress the main plot line that was completely disregarded by ME2.

Look at the genophage arc: it was introduced in ME1, expanded in ME2 then concluded in ME3. That was the natural progression on a narrative that spans the whole trilogy, same (more clumsily) with the Geth-Quarian conflict...ironically, the main narrative didn't get the crucial middle part

[Dean_the_Young]

They're fighting over you, Dean.

 

And why shouldn't they? I am, after all, the BSNer most nominated to be a Bioware love interest.

 

 

 

Oh, to be _the_Young.

 

 

It is an amazing feat that only two people in the world have managed.