111 réponses à ce sujet

[Chardonney]

I don't drink coffee or alcohol, so I have no experience with being drunk or needing a caffeine fix to wake up. 

 

But who cares, right?

 

I've never been drunk in my life, either, but I could never give up coffee. But yeah, you're right, who cares.

[Dean_the_Young]

The concept of smaller scale stories of a protagonist getting caught up in events bigger than his or herself compared to the heroes journey epic that the Shepard trilogy encompassed. 

 

Totally for it. In fact, I want changing protagonists, which each protagonist building on what the other did but coming from a different direction.

 

 

I've mentioned a few times that I find Shepard irrelevant for the Shepard trilogy. ME2 could have been Cerberus Operative Taylor recruiting everyone who mattered, and ME3 could have been the story of Alliance Marine Vega being Hackett's gopher and going from VS padawan to Hero of the Galaxy while dealing with the PTSD of Earth and Collectors or ****.

 

But what I've never really said was that these could build a pretty cool theme- started in ME1- about being 'the face' of Humanity. It's something ME2 kinda-sorta touched on with Cerberus- not just 'Cerberus is Humanity', but that it was capable of both selflessness and selfishness and lots of self-interest.

 

In ME1, Shepard the Spectre was the 'Public Face' of Humanity. Public, and unaccountable, this was what everyone would think Humanity was like in public if they got sanctioned power.

 

But In ME2, Cerberus Operative Taylor would be 'The Face in the Dark.' Shepard was officially unaccountable, but still restrained (or not) by public expectations. ME2's a better example of 'what would you actually do if you thought you could get away with it in secret?' A lot of the Choices are things no one could really track back to you, or few people would ever know- the 'secret test of character' thing- and that goes with the Collector Base most of all. Whether Cerberus Operative Taylor kept it or blew it up, C.O. Taylor would be the counterpoint/foil to Shepard: the 'secret face' to Shepard's 'public face.' Maybe they're the same (Paragon-Paragon). Maybe they're different. (Publicly an *******/Renegade, secretly Paragon.)

 

Come ME3, we'd get our third 'face of humanity'- 'what are you like when the going gets touch, in the face of the apocalypse?' I think Javik was a great foil for Paragon Shepards, and think that his extremism (any advantage against the Reapers) would have made a great foil for the typical Paragonism of the earlier games ('I won't let fear control me'). They're both doomed viewpoints, in a sense: morality won't defeat the Reapers, but neither did Javik's/Prothean hyper-Renegadism- so you have a long-shot project and you have to decide how you'll approach it. In the face of the end, what is Humanity really like?

 

 

And come ME3 and PC Vega, the P/R Shepard and P/R Taylor would have effects and **** to help shape how the story goes.

[Dean_the_Young]

I don't drink coffee or alcohol, so I have no experience with being drunk or needing a caffeine fix to wake up. 

 

But who cares, right?

 

It's like being really dehydrated, and overheated, and a bit sick.

 

Which, to be fair, I am.

[Vespervin]

I care.

 

Anyway... I've been drunk many times, many nights have been forgotten, woken up in other towns, etc. Those days are behind me now. Now I only drink when I want to unwind a bit and play some video-games with mi spouse. I've never been a big coffee fan.

[BabyPuncher]

Oh, also, people who become salty over the idea that certain people are excluded from fiction are either slow or delusional. Since every or so overwhelmingly close to every fiction creator in existence excludes certain people, and 95%+ of them exclude a whole hell of a lot of people. The same groups of people, by the way. BioWare certainly does. They merely turn their head and look the other way while they do it, which is apparently enough to fool the majority of people in believing they actually support or have any intention of supporting 'equality' for everyone.

[KaiserShep]

Oh, also, people who become salty over the idea that certain people are excluded from fiction are either slow or delusional. Since every or so overwhelmingly close to every fiction creator in existence excludes certain people, and 95%+ of them exclude a whole hell of a lot of people.BioWare certainly does. They merely turn their head and look the other way while they do it, which is apparently enough to fool the vast majority of people.

You could use a drink, broseph. Lighten the frak up.

[Dean_the_Young]

Fair enough. Have fun crushing his arguments.

 

Like a drunk gorilla in a china shop!

 

That wouldn't be the story at all, because that's never been the issue. The issue is not the conclusion that transgendered people are coming to about themselves. That's long been resolved. I'm sure they're very confident in how they feel and what they want to be.

The issue is how the rest of the world is obligated to respond to it. Revealing that people can come to a conclusion about themselves that goes against expectations is not saying anything significant because nobody has disputed that in the first place.

 

What significance is LARPing supposed to have?

 

A lot of TGs aren't confident- which is kind of a bit part of the whole social issue, and why some people 'retreat' to claiming it even when they aren't (or, at least, not to the degree of others).

 

That sort of uncertainty- and facing against outside pressures- would make great RP fodder. Imagine if, instead of mostly sycophants who always agreed with you, sympathetic characters actually tried pushing the PC in different directions without coming off as scizophrenic terrorists or PTSD victims?

 

I do like me DA non-sycophantic companions, but they don't do pressure on the PC very well.

 

I'd like a colony established enough to be a bustling city, and in that city I want a Milky Way museum with a holo-guide like Orlando Jones in the Time Machine movie. Extra points if we can take the LI there and annoy NPC's with some heavy-handed PDA.

 

I want mutliple (minor) hubs, and the option to have civilian-NPC love interests in different hubs.

 

A lover in every port, as it were.

[Dean_the_Young]

Bioware should only have a default white male protagonist and spend the saved money on improving the implementation of micro transactions.

 

Excellent idea!

 

Afterwards, they can return home to sodomize woodland creatures and burn pandas for warmth as an all-natural renewable energy source.

 

(Pandas do breed, right?)

[Dean_the_Young]

I've never been drunk in my life, either, but I could never give up coffee. But yeah, you're right, who cares.

 

You know, this is a very excellent point.

 

How is human civilization supposed to work in Andromedea without coffee?

 

Oh, the humanity!

[KaiserShep]

Our PC should be able to drink coffee. There's mugs all over the Normandy and Shepard never once uses one. And for our good friend Julia, the ability to smoke.

[Chardonney]

You know, this is a very excellent point.

 

How is human civilization supposed to work in Andromedea without coffee?

 

Oh, the humanity!

 

Hydroponics.

[Dean_the_Young]

Our PC should be able to drink coffee. There's mugs all over the Normandy and Shepard never once uses one. And for our good friend Julia, the ability to smoke.

 

Given that caffiene is just carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen, I just had a crazy-awesome idea of Andromedea having a colony world which exists only to mine crystilized dcaffiene.

 

Kinda like Quesh, in SWTOR, only our 'addrenals' is the missing secret ingredient for coffee.

 

 

But really- can you imagine fighting a bloody battle to the death over (or in) a cavern lined with caffiene crystals?

[Dean_the_Young]

Hydroponics.

 

We don't take that space magic here!

[BabyPuncher]

Imagine if, instead of mostly sycophants who always agreed with you, sympathetic characters actually tried pushing the PC in different directions without coming off as scizophrenic terrorists or PTSD victims?

 

If their reasoning is moronic, they're not going to be sympathetic for very long. And that's where BioWare's stance that transgendered people are entitled to any and every right and privilege of their desired gender would undoubtebly fall.

 

I'm sure you're familiar with the argument that liberal transgender acceptance logically demands gender abolitionism.

 

And squadmates 'putting pressure' on the player character is going to very quickly have players wondering why their character hasn't kicked this idiot to the curb already.

[Dean_the_Young]

If their reasoning is moronic, they're not going to be sympathetic for very long. And that's where BioWare's stance that transgendered people are entitled to any and every right and privilege of their desired gender would undoubtebly fall.

 

I'm sure you're familiar with the argument that liberal transgender acceptance logically demands gender abolitionism.

 

I thought we'd already moved past this point to the broader, less trolly point?
 

 

 

And squadmates 'putting pressure' on the player character is going to very quickly have players wondering why their character hasn't kicked this idiot to the curb already.

 

And this is why I'm all for RPG choices and differences being more about 'reasonable people disagreeing' rather than 'uber-radical/incompatible stances by extremists.'

 

Instead of 'mage verse templars', I'd love to delve into a debate about what 'magic should serve man, not rule him' should mean in practice. There's a lot of ways to argue it- and even the Tevinter rational (magic for the greater good) has merit, even if it's execution is blatantly flawed and hypocritical as a rationalization for power grabs. Hopefully the new College vs Circle dynamic will get us closer to 'reasonable disagreements.'

 

Some people are thin skinned enough that they take any questioning as treason, true. And I say **** them. Let's get some good moral delimmas by having two good, but ultimately incompatible, options, rather than 'well from my perspective you're evil!' stuff.

[dragonflight288]

Excellent idea!

 

Afterwards, they can return home to sodomize woodland creatures and burn pandas for warmth as an all-natural renewable energy source.

 

(Pandas do breed, right?)

 

(I've always thought that they sat there and chewed on leaves and bamboo mostly...

 

or practice Kung-Fu Panda-style.)

[RandomSyhn]

This is the kind of thread I like to see!

 

What do you think about instead of us dealing with the overambitious scientists who've woken an unspeakable evil, why not us being part of the scientists that have awoken an unspeakable evil? I personally would like to see a plot where we try and rectify our own mistakes.

[Dean_the_Young]

(I've always thought that they sat there and chewed on leaves and bamboo mostly...

 

or practice Kung-Fu Panda-style.)

 

Pandas kill more resteraunters than any other animal.

 

You know a Panda is in a resteraunt when it eats, shoots, and leaves.

[dragonflight288]

You know, this is a very excellent point.

 

How is human civilization supposed to work in Andromedea without coffee?

 

Oh, the humanity!

 

....how would they make coffee without coffee beans? Grow them in an agriculture part of the Ark?

[BabyPuncher]

I thought we'd already moved past this point to the broader, less trolly point?

 

Oh, did you or someone else say something insightful that I missed? I certainly didn't see anything. I'd prefer you didn't take the tedious approach of designing this sort of topic 'trolling' instead of giving a response. I would appreciate one.

 

 

 

And this is why I'm all for RPG choices and differences being more about 'reasonable people disagreeing' rather than 'uber-radical/incompatible stances by extremists.'

 

Instead of 'mage verse templars', I'd love to delve into a debate about what 'magic should serve man, not rule him' should mean in practice. There's a lot of ways to argue it- and even the Tevinter rational (magic for the greater good) has merit, even if it's execution is blatantly flawed and hypocritical as a rationalization for power grabs. Hopefully the new College vs Circle dynamic will get us closer to 'reasonable disagreements.'

 

Some people are thin skinned enough that they take any questioning as treason, true. And I say **** them. Let's get some good moral delimmas by having two good, but ultimately incompatible, options, rather than 'well from my perspective you're evil!' stuff.

 

Okay. And then what?

 

You have two people, they give arguments for whatever they're trying to argue, the player decides and...then what happens?

[Dean_the_Young]

This is the kind of thread I like to see!

 

What do you think about instead of us dealing with the overambitious scientists who've woken an unspeakable evil, why not us being part of the scientists that have awoken an unspeakable evil? I personally would like to see a plot where we try and rectify our own mistakes.

 

That's a cool idea. Of course, it'd be hard to admit it if it were truly unspeakable.

 

I've always wanted to play some sort of post-apocalyptic setting in which we, the dashing enlightened civilized archeologists exploring a lost civilization end up dismissing the superstitious locals and blowing up the entrance to Yucca Mountain or something. 'No honored dead are buried here' indeed.

 

I mean, when you think of how archeologists handled things in history, we'd be total asshats in ignorring the warnings of our predecessors. And it'd work well as a theme on balancing the expansion of knowledge with the arrogance of 'we're not only totally capable of handling the consequences, but the only ones whose opinion mattered.' Because clearly we're the civilized people, and there's no reason to believe others who say we don't need to know something.

 

 

Of course, a general issue with the idea of 'fix your mistakes' is you tend to get railroaded into making the mistake in the first place. That pisses a lot of people off.

[Il Divo]

Mass Effect Noir Game. Basically, completely in the style of the first half of Lair of the Shadow Broker or even Halo 3: ODST.

[Dean_the_Young]

 

Oh, did you or someone else say something insightful that I missed? I certainly didn't see anything. I'd prefer you didn't take the tedious approach of designing this sort of topic 'trolling' in instead of giving a response. I would appreciate one.

 

Noted.

 

 

 

Okay. And then what?

 

You have two people, they give arguments for whatever they're trying to argue, the player decides and...then what happens?

 

 

If you do it right, a guilty conscience that comes with going against a reasonable argument you just happen to disagree with.

 

A bit better than the current method of 'gah, you support paranoid rapists!' 'no, you support insane mind-rape!'

 

 

More seriously- players have already indicated that they get really involved with sympathetic/supportive characters. In ME, though, most of these characters were walkovers- and the few who weren't, players would bend over backwards to not trigger them getting angry/leaving the player over their critical issue.

 

Use that sort of attachment to apply peer pressure- of the non-hystiercal/extremist sort- on players. It'd give a new sort of tension to the Big Decisions, even if (especially if) the only negative consequence was a chastisement and verbal rap on the knuckles.

[RandomSyhn]

... Of course, a general issue with the idea of 'fix your mistakes' is you tend to get railroaded into making the mistake in the first place. That pisses a lot of people off.

 

The idea of colonization of planets brings me ideas of the British Empire with their spreading "Enlightenment" the parallels could be really interesting.

 

I'm not sure how to avoid the railroading unless there is a damned if you do damned don't scenario. I do think though there can be choice in the "fix" through the paragon fix and the renegade steamroll.

[BabyPuncher]

Uh-huh. Right. And where does exactly does this leave the thematically critical resolution of those big decisions?