39 réponses à ce sujet

[Morty Smith]

Due to the lack of reading some Players are willing to utilize in modern games, may I suggest using hand puppets to demo the information to the new Commander....

 

Agreed, the silent protagonist should return.

[Eleonora]

I liked getting the emails. They're a good way to fake interaction with characters and provide info and limited backstory without being necessary. I don't like it when they're used as a replacement for in-game content though (like killing off certain characters that didn't appear in-game because of time/resource limits etc). Though I do - in a way - appreciate them at least taking the time to write emails for those characters instead of forgetting and dropping their arcs from the games completely (I'm looking at you, Shiala).

I wouldn't say no to video- or audiomessages either (or perhaps even pictures added to mails? Imagine getting spam-pics like Morlan's "enhancement" mail. On second thought, maybe not ), but I don't think it's worth spending too many resources on it.

In general, more emails are always better imo. Unless they're supposedly written by a pathetic cyberninja whose writing style never evolved past kindergarten. That thing was an abomination.

[Lonely Heart Poet]

I like e-mails a lot, and as I mentioned here before, would like to have an option to reply (or flip my table if Kai Leng is the sender - loved the tension!).
I like to read a lot, I read almost every article from the codex. It is an rpg thing for me.

[fraggle]

I like e-mails a lot, and as I mentioned here before, would like to have an option to reply (or flip my table if Kai Leng is the sender - loved the tension!).
I like to read a lot, I read almost every article from the codex. It is an rpg thing for me.

 

I would love to reply, too, or even send emails myself, and that this would change a few minor things, maybe in dialogue.

Like... imagine you would've had the option to email the VS you're alive

[Wulfram]

emails are better than nothing, and given resource issues nothing is probably what we'd get if we didn't have emails.

Also, I don't think there's any likelyhood of written communication dying out. We could pretty easily replace emails with audio messages nowadays, but we don't.

[Majestic Jazz]

Due to the lack of reading some Players are willing to utilize in modern games, may I suggest using hand puppets to demo the information to the new Commander....

ME was in the 22nd Century. You mean to tell me they cant do video or voice messages? How many times in Star Wars or Star Trek do you see people ONLY usinv email as a way of distant communication.

[KaiserShep]

ME was in the 22nd Century. You mean to tell me they cant do video or voice messages? How many times in Star Wars or Star Trek do you see people ONLY usinv email as a way of distant communication.

If each message was an actual video/audio sequence, that would be quite a lot of recording. I think that vidmail should be limited to only key characters. Stuff like Reegar and Wong's deaths should've been news on the Citadel. I'm also convinced that vidmail recording would get kind of tiresome if they were all that way. I can read each message faster than some VO could speak a paragraph. Also, I don't want to hear Hackett's voice all the time. Sometimes just being able to read a report or brief is nice.

[MrFob]

Other than the silly post-Thessia email from Kai Leng, the only time I ever really see complaints about the message box is for the ANN stuff, like Reegar and Wong's deaths that amount to a message blurb.

 

Oh, you wish Wong would have gotten an email. Is it is, she was killed off via BioWare's twitter channel. Doesn't get more dismissive than that.

In fact, we re-surrected her in a mod by adding an email, saying that she survived that event.

But otherwise, I agree with you, the emails were used ok for the most part in ME2/3. There was just the occasional downer, as you say with the likes of Reegar, Rana Thenoptis or Shiala and Feros. Would have been nice to have small missions there but I could very well imagine that those missions may have been planned bur ended up cut and replaced with emails because that was the best they could do. Not great but understandable.

 

 

Of course this is just a simple and cost efficient way for writers to add background information. I think the alternatives are to either have that or not have that, not to have that or have interactive or cut scenes instead   . All of them were optional, weren't they?

 

I think I once had an ending mod installed for ME:3 that also added a lot of emails that tried to fill plot holes. 

 

For example there was an email explaining how Liara covertly distributed her after-reaper-probes (like the one that is shown in the refusal ending) all over the galaxy in the hope that at least some would go undetected. 

 

You could add all of your ending ideas this way, too  . Some of the scientists working on the crucible could send emails that develop the background of the crucible, for example. 

 

"Shepard, we just discovered something strange about the crucible that you should know about..."

 

Haha, that Liara email was written by me as part of MEHEM to explain the low EMS ending,

But yea, for modders, the emails are one of the few tools that we have to add content without having to rely on new voice overs or re-using exisiting lines. So it's a great tool for us (though of course, still a bit cheap in presentation).

That said, the devs of course have all the tools, so if they can implement information in a cooler way than text messages, I'd appreciate that.

[Fiery Phoenix]

I was fine with the emails? How were they overused?

They were overused because it got to the point where they were basically replacing content. This was especially evident in ME2. I have nothing against them per se, but I'd rather they be used reasonably.

[AllianceGrunt]

If each message was an actual video/audio sequence, that would be quite a lot of recording. I think that vidmail should be limited to only key characters. Stuff like Reegar and Wong's deaths should've been news on the Citadel. I'm also convinced that vidmail recording would get kind of tiresome if they were all that way. I can read each message faster than some VO could speak a paragraph. Also, I don't want to hear Hackett's voice all the time. Sometimes just being able to read a report or brief is nice.

 

I'd agree, it must be saved for the more important parts of the story having a 50+ vidmails would be very tiresome. 

[Lady Artifice]

I like the emails, but I would prefer that they not use them to reveal any character deaths.

[Larry-3]

Do all of our messages need to be emails? Some of them should be voice messages.

[Fiery Phoenix]

Do all of our messages need to be emails? Some of them should be voice messages.

Even better: video messages. (See: Thane in Citadel.)

[Elhanan]

ME was in the 22nd Century. You mean to tell me they cant do video or voice messages? How many times in Star Wars or Star Trek do you see people ONLY usinv email as a way of distant communication.

If folks have become too lazy to read, the future will not have a Space program....

[Lonely Heart Poet]

emails are better than nothing, and given resource issues nothing is probably what we'd get if we didn't have emails.

Also, I don't think there's any likelyhood of written communication dying out. We could pretty easily replace emails with audio messages nowadays, but we don't.

A good point. There was a time when mobile business thought that text messages were dying and everyone would change to audio/videomail. It did not happen, on the contrary, text platforms like messenger, WhatsApp and other text-based apps grew in popularity.