1106 réponses à ce sujet

[AlanC9]

Pssst....ME2 isn't television!  But don't worry, the Mass Effect team has made that mistake more than once as well.

True, but that isn't an argument against ME2 unless you're going to make a case for why TV story structures don't work in games. Can you make that case? I'm in no position to see it since ME2's structure worked for me.
 

Companion stories, while enjoyable, as still very much side content in BG2.  As for the other side missions in the game:  Your character is, for at least the first half of the game, essentially a mercenary.  You are trying to earn a large amount of money as the plot coupon to advance the story.  As such it makes sense to take on a number of side missions.  To make money.  Heck DA2 had a similar process in its first act.  Shepard in ME3 was literally spinning his/her wheels.  There was nothing better to do than take care of various daddy issues while The Illusive Man handled all the important work.

True. I was only addressing how little of BG2's content relates to Irenicus and the PC's status. The PCs from the two games have substantially different challenges.

[AlanC9]

I have bigger problem ME3 forced my spacer Shepard to care for the Earth. I don't care about this rock more than thousands other rocks with life I want to save. And dream I didn't like kid, but it's disconnecting for me, not because I don't care for this kid, but because I don't dream at all or don't remember any of my dreams.

A rock where 95+% of the human race lives. Of course, it's OK to think that's not very important if Shepard really doesn't care about humans any more than he cares about turians, asari, etc. and so forth. But really, how many Shepards would have that attitude?

And we can't play a non-dreaming Shepard, true. That's another one of those things that we're stuck with, like Shepard being a soldier.

[Canned Bullets]

An ending with enough variation that it gives us a reason to import all of our save files and play through the final game more than once or twice.

 

Also closure would be nice, something that wouldn't require a DLC ending to give us a sense of closure.

[Il Divo]

 True. I was only addressing how little of BG2's content relates to Irenicus and the PC's status. The PCs from the two games have substantially different challenges.

 

I always thought this was something of weak argument. I don't think "it makes sense" and "it's good writing" always overlap. BG2 could have kept most/all of its side quests without enforcing such a bland plot point.

[Seraphim24]

The ending was the least of ME3's problems.

[straykat]

The ending was the least of ME3's problems.

 

I'm with you there. It got so much press and drama, but if I had any real complaint about the ending, it was Earth. Not the ending itself. And just the lack of my ME2 team.

[Il Divo]

Earth in general as a final mission was pretty weak. If nothing else, I really enjoyed the rest of ME3's environments, but the color scheme on Earth was just really bland grey/brown colors.

[straykat]

Earth in general as a final mission was pretty weak. If nothing else, I really enjoyed the rest of ME3's environments, but the color scheme on Earth was just really bland grey/brown colors.

 

The visuals were bland, but I expected like... something more like the Suicide Mission with big group participation and utilizing my military units. Instead it was quiet and straightforward running and gunning.with a small group... more akin to ME1's end. Not even music either.

[Seboist]

The ending was the least of ME3's problems.

 

Indeed, but to be fair, the plot was already off the rails when they decided to make a second entry that was about solving inane daddy issues and fighting a disposable villain of the week, instead of preparing the galaxy for war and finding a reaper weakness and ending with the reapers at the galactic gates.

 

ME3 did however introduce it's own fair share of derp, like the Cerberus Sith empire and the horrendous intro.

[AlanC9]

I always thought this was something of weak argument. I don't think "it makes sense" and "it's good writing" always overlap. BG2 could have kept most/all of its side quests without enforcing such a bland plot point.

I guess they were trying to come up with an RP reason to do the sidequests, given that the ME2 plot is relatively more urgent than ME1's.

[Iakus]

Meh.  These actually happen.  Look at Michonne from the Walking Dead.  Look at her dreams about her lost child.  I don't know if you've been watching American Sniper one too many times, or what.  But, this actually does happen.

 

EDIT :  I mean, hell dude.   I had one of these about a dog.  A DOG.

I am not gonna comment on the accuracy of dreams.  Certainly not going to claim to be an expert on that.  But that doesn't make the dream sequences in the game good.

[Iakus]

True, but that isn't an argument against ME2 unless you're going to make a case for why TV story structures don't work in games. Can you make that case? I'm in no position to see it since ME2's structure worked for me.
 

TV structures don'[t work in games (or at least, not in games with a choice-based narrative)  because the player plays a far more active role what happens.  That is why for me watching The Walking Dead on tv is a far different experience than playing one of the Telltale games.  No matter how much I may root for Rick, Carol, or Maggie, they aren't my characters.  Not in the way Lee or Clementine felt like they were mine.

 

 

True. I was only addressing how little of BG2's content relates to Irenicus and the PC's status. The PCs from the two games have substantially different challenges.

Except the need to get to Spellhold does tie into these these things.  You need x amount of gold.  You get this by hiring out to solve other people's problems.  How much of this content you need to complete depends on how much money you end up sinking into new gear.   But in the end, you know why you are doing what you are doing.  With ME2 you're just flying around, righting random wrongs because you literally have nothing better to do.

[Il Divo]

That's true, but the counter point is that in this instance knowing why we're doing what we do doesn't really make for a better experience. If the goal was, to a large extent, to simply play through various side quests, Fallout or Skyrim are an option. If Bioware simply had cut out that $20k plot point and let the player decide for himself how much time he'd like to spend "righting random wrongs", how much of the story would really have been affected?

[Iakus]

That's true, but the counter point is that in this instance knowing why we're doing what we do doesn't really make for a better experience. If the goal was, to a large extent, to simply play through various side quests, Fallout or Skyrim are an option. If Bioware simply had cut out that $20k plot point and let the player decide for himself how much time he'd like to spend "righting random wrongs", how much of the story would really have been affected?

It depends on how much the story matters to the player.  Skyrim has it's strengths, but storytelling is not one of them.  If you want to just explore, meet new people, kill them, and take their stuff, then removing that fundraising bit wouldn't make any difference.

 

If telling a good story is important, players may end up going "Why the Hells should I wait, I gotta rescue Imoen/stop Irenicus!" and charge off headlong.  Or at most, may stop to do a side quest or two to upgrade gear a little.  But any significant detour would be rather jarring unless you were playing someone totally unconcerned with what Irenicus wants with you or for rescuing your childhood companion.  

[Il Divo]

It depends on how much the story matters to the player.  Skyrim has it's strengths, but storytelling is not one of them.  If you want to just explore, meet new people, kill them, and take their stuff, then removing that fundraising bit wouldn't make any difference.

 

If telling a good story is important, players may end up going "Why the Hells should I wait, I gotta rescue Imoen/stop Irenicus!" and charge off headlong.  Or at most, may stop to do a side quest or two to upgrade gear a little.  But any significant detour would be rather jarring unless you were playing someone totally unconcerned with what Irenicus wants with you or for rescuing your childhood companion.  

 

 

It's been a while since I played BG2, but I don't remember charging headlong being a possibility? I thought the player was forced to spend a significant amount of time completing side quests simply to get to Spellhold? That was what I was getting at in regard to why raising 20k is still a bad plot point, since someone interested in  a good narrative is instead dealing with Skyrim-esque content at that juncture of wandering around/doing good deeds.
 

[Iakus]

It's been a while since I played BG2, but I don't remember charging headlong being a possibility? I thought the player was forced to spend a significant amount of time completing side quests simply to get to Spellhold? That was what I was getting at in regard to why raising 20k is still a bad plot point, since someone interested in  a good narrative is instead dealing with Skyrim-esque content at that juncture of wandering around/doing good deeds.
 

I see the 20k gold as a valid reason to go wandering about for a while.  You are legitimately trying to to accomplish a greater goal in doing so, in raising the money needed.  Besides which, if you're careful you can get enough money only doing one or two of the major sidequests.  

 

Wheras in Skyrim, you can spend all the time you want taking over all the guilds in the country while dragons burn it down around you.  For no other reason than because you can.

[Il Divo]

I see the 20k gold as a valid reason to go wandering about for a while.  You are legitimately trying to to accomplish a greater goal in doing so, in raising the money needed.  Besides which, if you're careful you can get enough money only doing one or two of the major sidequests.  

 

Wheras in Skyrim, you can spend all the time you want taking over all the guilds in the country while dragons burn it down around you.  For no other reason than because you can.

 

 

I'd say it depends on how long we're wandering around 4. Anything more than an hour, and being honest, I would argue BG2 is side-stepping its goal of providing a good narrative. Remember, we can justify any number of unnecessary side trips on the grounds of "it's necessary". I'd like to go step beyond that and have the game provide narrative relevant to our main quest (Bodhi only pops up at the very end of the 20k as I recall). Planescape: Torment does this extraordinarily well, even while giving the player the option of engaging all manner of diversions. Being honest here, absolute minimum how long does it take you to collect the gold you need? Like I said, it's been a while, so I could be misremembering quite a bit.

[AlanC9]

Well, since you don't want to sell off party equipment, you should be able to do it after two of the big SQs.

[Il Divo]

Well, since you don't want to sell off party equipment, you should be able to do it after two of the big SQs.

 

Thinking about it too, it's not all that different from what KotOR (my favorite Bioware game) does, where "find the star maps" ends up serving as a sort of Macguffin to engage in a whole lot of side content. It's not necessarily that it's bad, but I do appreciate it a lot more when there's a large focus on the central narrative. ​

[Seraphim24]

Indeed, but to be fair, the plot was already off the rails when they decided to make a second entry that was about solving inane daddy issues and fighting a disposable villain of the week, instead of preparing the galaxy for war and finding a reaper weakness and ending with the reapers at the galactic gates.

 

ME3 did however introduce it's own fair share of derp, like the Cerberus Sith empire and the horrendous intro.

 

Agreed ME2 had a lot of problems as well, it's been too long for me to remember the exact moments though such as the precise intro, but in general I remember the Collectors didn't seem to have anything to really do with anything, it was almost like a filler game or something (like filler arcs in other media),  by the time it swung back to the Reapers it was like they had lost all their momentum and were just giant beetles waiting to be slaughtered (or synchronized... or... whatever)

 

I posted somewhere else about the game being dumbed down which was disappointing as well, cheap one shot mechanics insta gibs and some of the fastest health and shield regen I've ever seen in a TPS/FPS.

 

Fail to see how the ending to ME2 was any worse or better than 3's all things considered.

[AlanC9]

ME1 had plenty of derp too. The all-human council was preposterous.

[Seboist]

Agreed ME2 had a lot of problems as well, it's been too long for me to remember the exact moments though such as the precise intro, but in general I remember the Collectors didn't seem to have anything to really do with anything, it was almost like a filler game or something (like filler arcs in other media),  by the time it swung back to the Reapers it was like they had lost all their momentum and were just giant beetles waiting to be slaughtered (or synchronized... or... whatever)

 

I posted somewhere else about the game being dumbed down which was disappointing as well, cheap one shot mechanics insta gibs and some of the fastest health and shield regen I've ever seen in a TPS/FPS.

 

Fail to see how the ending to ME2 was any worse or better than 3's all things considered.

 

Collector plot was just plain bad, i fail to see why they didn't continue using the Geth as the main reaper ally, given that the collectors are just a less compelling organic counterpart to them. Speaking of such, I 'liked" how they treated the revelation of them being created from protheans as some big deal, i mean, who cares? They're just mindless drones that need killing.

 

ME1 had plenty of derp too. The all-human council was preposterous.

 

Not really, a combination of the citadel races being weakened militarily and fear of the reapers to keep them in-line made it semi-believable. Which, given the juvenile nature of politics in the trilogy, is the best one can hope for.

[Il Divo]

Unless the Citadel races lost all 74 of their dreadnoughts (and that's a pretty bad plot point in and of itself), an all human council is a pretty idiotic route to go. Not to mention, the insanity that a group as established as the Asari and Salarians don't have leaders all lined up just given the amount of political experience. "Best one can hope for" is pretty weak in this context, going point for point with Mass Effect 2.

 

 

 

ME1 had plenty of derp too. The all-human council was preposterous.     

 

     ​

Indeed there was. Just the whole concept of sending Shepard after Saren, with his massive army, made no bloody sense.

[AlanC9]

Not really, a combination of the citadel races being weakened militarily and fear of the reapers to keep them in-line made it semi-believable. Which, given the juvenile nature of politics in the trilogy, is the best one can hope for.

We may have different disbelief thresholds. Even if some catastrophe hit NATO and wiped out the top leadership and much of its military strength, there's no path for Italy to become the dominant power in the alliance.

[Seboist]

We may have different disbelief thresholds. Even if some catastrophe hit NATO and wiped out the top leadership and much of its military strength, there's no path for Italy to become the dominant power in the alliance.

 

Italy isn't the second strongest military in this context as humans are in ME, so no.