657 réponses à ce sujet

[Kabooooom]

The ME2 example is a good example of a moral dilemma that had no bite. It was instant gratification without any word from a storytelling perspective. I'd like BioWare to use that as a template, yet weave that process into impacting decisions later on in the game to lead to unexpected consequences.

I don't really see what's "morally ambiguous" as ME1-3 provides you plenty of reasons why the genophage has had a detrimental and negative impact on all krogans. They were diminished from a proud people into self-interested mercenaries and fighting over scraps. You can argue whether krogans might try to conquer the galaxy again, but without a doubt the galaxy committed a horrible sin against the krogans, especially since they defeated the rachni.

Mordin presents the (compelling) evidence to the alternative in ME2. Also, BS - the Krogan were hardly innocent victims. They went on to ravage the galaxy nearly as bad as the Rachni, and they ignored any laws or leeway they were given out of convenience, including trashing entire garden worlds within a generation, given to them as payment for the Rachni Wars. And the worst part was, all of this was mediated solely by their biology - they are an r-selected, aggressive species.

As Mordin points out, every alternative was explored, every simulation ran resulted in a repeat of the Krogan Rebellions. The genophage was their only option. Was it an ethical choice? No. But the universe isnt all sunshine, puppies, and Disney princesses. Sometimes grown ups have to make tough choices, kids.

[Quarian Master Race]

Mordin presents the (compelling) evidence to the alternative in ME2. Also, BS - the Krogan were hardly innocent victims. They went on to ravage the galaxy nearly as bad as the Rachni, and they ignored any laws or leeway they were given out of convenience, including trashing entire garden worlds within a generation, given to them as payment for the Rachni Wars. And the worst part was, all of this was mediated solely by their biology - they are an r-selected, aggressive species.

As Mordin points out, every alternative was explored, every simulation ran resulted in a repeat of the Krogan Rebellions. The genophage was their only option. Was it an ethical choice? No. But the universe isnt all sunshine, puppies, and Disney princesses. Sometimes grown ups have to make tough choices, kids.

Yeah, the genophage arc is actually a decent example in theory. Its only problem was the utter whitewash in favour of the krogan that was ME3's portrayal, which resulted in 92% of players curing it, even though most players even had Wreav as the krogan dictator in their playthrough gallavanting about talking expansionist plans and flaying krogan enemies alive.

[Revan Reborn]

It sounds pretty morally ambiguous to me, especially when you consider that the galaxy might not exactly be in a good place to deal with the situation at the end of ME3 if it gets out of hand. It will also be interesting to see how they handle this in Andromeda. If the genophage doesn't exist and there are at least a few breeding krogan that get there, then they will quite quickly have the potential to become the dominant milky way species over there.

Again, it's largely subjective due to the fact that forced sterilization (something Nazi Germany did to many of it's own people) would be perceived by some to be far more evil and a war, as a result, being morally justified. I'd like to hear BioWare's thoughts, but I'd be surprised if the genophage was ever intended to be a morally ambiguous choice. The consequences of it were quite severe and every game provided more and more evidence why it was so bad and why it should be undone. If the effects of it were so drastic and clear, I might see the validity in this argument more.

 

*sigh* What can I write? Of course making decisons is meant to be fun, and supposed to make you think what to choose, and not just clicking some answer to get to the next battle. But a decision on some morale dilemma without consequences shown and felt later are kinda pointless...

 

And that will be the main problem for any writer I guess. Not one myself though, but I can only assume how difficult it might be to not only create "morale dilemmas" in a story, but letting us decide in very different ways, AND adressing these very different decisions later with very different outcomes. And maybe to make it worse those different outcomes should of course be adressed in alter games as well - I can only imagine that a writer like, dunno, George Martin?, would run amok if he had to write his books in that form.

 

Save the Wildlings? Go to page 588 and see how they aid the armies of Westeros defeat the White Wanderes.

Or doom them beyond The Wall? Resume reading on page 1297 ... And see the armies of the dead march deep into the lands to the south unchallenged ...^^ 

 

Just to be clear: I am all for decision-making and all that but .. I think it would be advisable for gamers not always expect too much of this, and keep expectations real. All these choices have to be incorporated into a coherent story - which wasn't the trilogies strongest points lately

Well without consequences, good or bad, what is the point of choices at all?

 

We don't need to have a lot huge and sweeping moral dilemmas that entirely change the entirety of the game world forever. What I'm referring to is much smaller, and while likely to still have impact, not nearly as divisive in terms of making a storytelling disaster for the writers.

 

Ultimately, this is why choice is an illusion and not actually true player agency at all. We are playing in BioWare's story. Our freedom to choose is entirely dependent on the parameters they set up. That being said, if BioWare was to future proof a trilogy, have a basic outline of all major events and choices, they could easily avoid the headache of trying to provide truly different scenarios. The reason ME1-3 suffered from a choice-driven perspective was due to lack of planning and the ad hoc approach the writers took to writing the story as it came, rather than looking ahead to see how things would end.

[Cyberstrike nTo]

This is true.

 

"BSN. There is no greater hive of scum and villainy. We must be cautious." - Obi-Wan Kenobi

 

Irrespective of that, I would gain a lot of respect for BioWare and their storytelling if they began treating us like intelligent consumers.

 

You say it's the "PC Police" (and whatever that nonsensical crap that stupid line means today). 

I say it's respect, for all human beings. 

[Revan Reborn]

Mordin presents the (compelling) evidence to the alternative in ME2. Also, BS - the Krogan were hardly innocent victims. They went on to ravage the galaxy nearly as bad as the Rachni, and they ignored any laws or leeway they were given out of convenience, including trashing entire garden worlds within a generation, given to them as payment for the Rachni Wars. And the worst part was, all of this was mediated solely by their biology - they are an r-selected, aggressive species.

As Mordin points out, every alternative was explored, every simulation ran resulted in a repeat of the Krogan Rebellions. The genophage was their only option. Was it an ethical choice? No. But the universe isnt all sunshine, puppies, and Disney princesses. Sometimes grown ups have to make tough choices, kids.

Incorrect. The krogans were victims all along. My rationale for this is because they would have never made a campaign to conquer the galaxy had the salarians not given them the technology of interstellar travel. It was the salarians, who were desperate to benefit off the krogans as well as have a solution to the rachni, that uplifted the krogans before they were ready. Mordin even admits this and entirely suggests that the salarians are entirely at fault and the genophage was the salarian solution for their initial mistake.

 

Again, however you try to justify it, sterilization, and by consequence, genocide of millions of unborn children is an incredibly evil act, no matter the irrational justification for such severe actions. I'm all for moral dilemmas, but the genophage, in my opinion, was a terrible example of such a dilemma. It was abundantly clear the genophage went too far and that it's justification did not outweigh the harm.

[Revan Reborn]

You say political correctness whatever that is/ 

I say respect.as human beings. 

What does BioWare treating its fans as intelligent individuals have to do with being politically correct? To the contrary, I think BioWare's political correctness has gone to an extreme and actually undermined their games, but that's a discussion for another thread.

[wright1978]

 
Just to be clear: I am all for decision-making and all that but .. I think it would be advisable for gamers not always expect too much of this, and keep expectations real. All these choices have to be incorporated into a coherent story - which wasn't the trilogies strongest points lately

i think they did a pretty good job of incorporating choices and creating a personalised feel to the imported world. Personally I had no issue that this had to be at times just cosmetic. Where they failed in me3 IMO was taking away choice over player control of the protagonist rather than story choice representation. Agree that issue is expectations as to how far the illusion can go or a desire for there to be no illusion.

[Sylvius the Mad]

If you understand your own moral positions, there is no such thing as a moral dilemma.

[Il Divo]

Sure, there should be consequences for making a given choice.  But they should be consequences that make sense in a given context, not "You chose wrong" (or "SO BE IT!!!")

Wouldn't have it any other way   

 

Of the many ending flaws, I'm not sure this is one of them. Each ending does have positives and negatives attached to them; that's the basic idea behind the OP, not having a clear cut right or wrong solution to the problem. 

 

Unless we're throwing in Refuse (which really shouldn't count since it was all around ridiculous), ME3's ending issues aren't really related to telling the player "you chose wrong". Even with Synthesis as the highest EMS option, there are still other mitigating factors/benefits to Destroy and Control. 

[abaris]

What does BioWare treating its fans as intelligent individuals have to do with being politically correct? To the contrary, I think BioWare's political correctness has gone to an extreme and actually undermined their games, but that's a discussion for another thread.

 

What you all seem to miss, and what I tried to pint out previously. Realizing choices, moral or not, costs a lot of resources. That's the only reason why we get mostly cosmetic choices. Let's stay on planet earth for a while. It isn't about an ambitious writer adding a lot of choices because he takes the consumers for intelligent beings. It's about cold currency and possible revenue. Even more so, since the development cycle would grow extensively, the more choices are added.

 

And if moral choices are there, but basically meaningless - as most of them are in the ME series - what would you say then?

[Sylvius the Mad]

Mordin presents the (compelling) evidence to the alternative in ME2. Also, BS - the Krogan were hardly innocent victims. They went on to ravage the galaxy nearly as bad as the Rachni, and they ignored any laws or leeway they were given out of convenience, including trashing entire garden worlds within a generation, given to them as payment for the Rachni Wars. And the worst part was, all of this was mediated solely by their biology - they are an r-selected, aggressive species.

As Mordin points out, every alternative was explored, every simulation ran resulted in a repeat of the Krogan Rebellions. The genophage was their only option. Was it an ethical choice? No. But the universe isnt all sunshine, puppies, and Disney princesses. Sometimes grown ups have to make tough choices, kids.

If it wasn't an ethical option, but it was the only option aside from letting the Krogan kill everyone, that then requires either that the ethical option was to let everyone get killed, or that ethics has no relevance to the question.

[Il Divo]

What you all seem to miss, and what I tried to pint out previously. Realizing choices, moral or not, costs a lot of resources. That's the only reason why we get mostly cosmetic choices. Let's stay on planet earth for a while. It isn't about an ambitious writer adding a lot of choices because he takes the consumers for intelligent beings. It's about cold currency and possible revenue. Even more so, since the development cycle would grow extensively, the more choices are added.

 

And if moral choices are there, but basically meaningless - as most of them are in the ME series - what would you say then?

 

Other people mentioned this solution, but this is solvable by having a smaller scale story. You can have decisions that could be consequential for your character, companions, or even an entire planet if you have a local setting. 

 

The problem is that Bioware seems to be a huge fan of taking it to the next level, with world-shattering narratives where we change the fundamental premise of the setting. If you go Neverwinter Nights onward, until ME2/DA:A Bioware had never actually done any real sequel story-lines to their dramatic game-changing choices. It's their making sequels, keeping the import, and keeping world-shattering decisions that's giving them so much trouble, in various combinations. 

[abaris]

Other people mentioned this solution, but this is solvable by having a smaller scale story. You can have decisions that could be consequential for your character, companions, or even an entire planet. 

 

How, without actually programming the possible forks, thereby investing time, resources and money? That's what I'm talking about. A crowd funded indie producer might try their hand at something like that, but in the case of Bioware, daddy would cry out because he doesn't get his green uppers in time.

[MrFob]

Of the many ending flaws, I'm not sure this is one of them. Each ending does have positives and negatives attached to them; that's the basic idea behind the OP, not having a clear cut right or wrong solution to the problem.

Unless we're throwing in Refuse (which really shouldn't count since it was all around ridiculous), ME3's ending issues aren't really related to telling the player "you chose wrong". Even with Synthesis as the highest EMS option, there are still other mitigating factors/benefits to Destroy and Control.

I agree with this. The ending options were all three morally ambiguous, again, you can see this simply by looking at the discussions about them. One of the main issues (of the Extended Cut) is that in the epilogues the downsides of these options are basically not addressed at all, rendering their moral ambiguity and the message that should have been implied with that not only meaningless but downright grotesque. But yea, the options themselves leave plenty of room to discuss the surrounding ethics.

[Revan Reborn]

What you all seem to miss, and what I tried to pint out previously. Realizing choices, moral or not, costs a lot of resources. That's the only reason why we get mostly cosmetic choices. Let's stay on planet earth for a while. It isn't about an ambitious writer adding a lot of choices because he takes the consumers for intelligent beings. It's about cold currency and possible revenue. Even more so, since the development cycle would grow extensively, the more choices are added.

 

And if moral choices are there, but basically meaningless - as most of them are in the ME series - what would you say then?

I think you are confused. I'm not stating every single choice in the game needs to reflect my actions. What I'm asking for is choices that are actually difficult and can have some impact on the future. They don't need to be major game changing decisions. This is not a matter of resources or money. It's simply a matter of how you structure the narrative and how the writers plan for future installments. Money is not an issue.

 

I don't think anybody is arguing whether to destroy a planet or save it and expect BioWare to have two distinct story branches of which one maintains that planet's relevance and the other doesn't.

[abaris]

It's simply a matter of how you structure the narrative and how the writers plan for future installments. Money is not an issue.

 

 

 

And you don't see the contradiction there? How - if we assume we're talking about a series - are they to plan for all the possible choices you made, without investing time, money and resources? That wouldn't have been invested if they simply took the same road they've taken with ME3. Which is, all your previous choices end up as being cosmetic.

[Il Divo]

How, without actually programming the possible forks, thereby investing time, resources and money? That's what I'm talking about. A crowd funded indie producer might try their hand at something like that, but in the case of Bioware, daddy would cry out because he doesn't get his green uppers in time.

 

Because we're not going back to the same exact setting in the after-math. Let's look at ME1. It's at the bottom of my "Bioware games" list, but in terms of providing choices to deal with, branching paths, etc, you could do much worse considering ME1 by itself. 

Yes, there is a cost to implementing any kind of choice or alternate scenario into a single game, but that's something which Bioware has been doing since KotOR onward (with reasonable success, depending on your perspective). The most common criticism which I've seen regarding the Mass Effect import has been about how utterly irrelevant choices in past games have been, not so much in regards to the choices offered in the current game; ME1-3 all offered their own theoretically world-altering choices with consequences. 

 

^That's the key issue here. In terms of individual games, even with the costs, Bioware was able to implement some degree of choice, which typically ended with a dramatic, world-shattering ending. It's only with sequel-based narratives that they're dealing with their typical level of "choice", while having to account for past variations too. It becomes exponentially more expensive if you want to do it justice. If you have a narrative that occurs in a very minor part of the Mass Effect universe, you can pretty much ignore having to take it into account if you just move your next game to a completely different planet. 

[abaris]

I support the thought, but I know it won't happen. Not with an AAA title and that mother company.

[Revan Reborn]

And you don't see the contradiction there? How - if we assume we're talking about a series - are they to plan for all the possible choices you made, without investing time, money and resources? That wouldn't have been invested if they simply took the same road they've taken with ME3. Which is, all your previous choices end up as being cosmetic.

They aren't planning for "all possible choices." They are covering the main plot, events, and how the story will end. Within that framework as they get closer to developing the story for the next game, they can work out choice-driven impact and try to avoid taking away player agency. It is actually likely BioWare would save money rather than waste more if they were to organize how they write their stories better and smarter rather than just going from one project to the next and running into issues later.

[abaris]

It is actually likely BioWare would save money rather than waste more if they were to organize how they write their stories better and smarter rather than just going from one project to the next and running into issues later.

 

And you do think that could happen? They're there to rake in money in as short a time possible. To sell to as many consumers and audiences possible. Perish the thought of video games being art for arts sake. Everyone taking that approach will be and has been swallowed by the sharks.

 

They're going from project to project because they're told to do so. By the ones calling the shots.

[Revan Reborn]

And you do think that could happen? They're there to rake in money in as short a time possible. To sell to as many consumers and audiences possible. Perish the thought of video games being art for arts sake. Everyone taking that approach will be and has been swallowed by the sharks.

 

They're going from project to project because they're told to do so. By the ones calling the shots.

BioWare has full discretion to develop games as they like. The only mandate EA gives them is required multiplayer. Otherwise, how BioWare uses the money it is given and to what extent is entirely up to BioWare. If they are planning to do another trilogy arc anyway, it makes sense to invest in that future plan early to lead to a massive build up and peak at the end. The Lord of the Rings is a perfect example of a trilogy that got better with each film due to proper planning and knowing how each film was going to be depicted before filming.

 

Again, contrary to popular belief, BioWare is in control of how it makes its games, not EA. It is up to BioWare to properly account for a trilogy infastructure and to write intelligently, rather than haphazardly, to avoid inconsistencies in plot that we saw not only with the trilogy arc in Mass Effect, but also the stand alone games in the Dragon Age franchise. People love to hate on BioWare for retconning decisions in ME due to the trilogy format. However, they seem to forget you had the choice to kill Leliana in DAO, yet Gaider retconned this and made her a required advisor in DAI because "reasons."

 

The trilogy format isn't the issue at all. It is proper planning and knowing where the heck the story is going before you get there. These kinds of issues can be avoided.

[Vox Draco]

i think they did a pretty good job of incorporating choices and creating a personalised feel to the imported world. Personally I had no issue that this had to be at times just cosmetic. Where they failed in me3 IMO was taking away choice over player control of the protagonist rather than story choice representation. Agree that issue is expectations as to how far the illusion can go or a desire for there to be no illusion.

 

Well, in a "perfect" world with a "perfect" ME-trilogy Bioware would have had what Revan Reborn dreams of: The time, money, security to make ME1 and 2 setting up the choices, and have ME3 "only" as the wrapping-up-title that is all about combining the various choices we made prior. Like "saved the Rachni-Queen, and cured the Genophage? Congratz, the Reapers are done for - endless shocktroops taking their forces down while the Rachni-Queen's troops prove to be immune to the Indoctrination etc" - "destroyed the Cerberus Base and the human Reaper-Body out of fear it would be misused? Too bad, could have avoided many losses on human side in the war etc"

 

But I don't see that coming anytime soon, it is simply too risky to plan so far ahead, the suits controlling the money would be too afraid of barring out newcomers to the series etc

 

Other people mentioned this solution, but this is solvable by having a smaller scale story. You can have decisions that could be consequential for your character, companions, or even an entire planet if you have a local setting. 

 

The problem is that Bioware seems to be a huge fan of taking it to the next level, with world-shattering narratives where we change the fundamental premise of the setting. If you go Neverwinter Nights onward, until ME2/DA:A Bioware had never actually done any real sequel story-lines to their dramatic game-changing choices. It's their making sequels, keeping the import, and keeping world-shattering decisions that's giving them so much trouble, in various combinations. 

 

I agree here. If morale dilemmas and choices etc - concentrate them mostly on our main char and his/her development. Not altering the state of the galaxy in some dramatic way, but defining how your character will be remembered in the end of the game...did he save those natives on that backwater-planet? Did he kill that fanatic that only wanted to prevent his people from being contaminated by outworlders? Serious but "little" things...

 

Also, I am still pretty Bioware will avoid many of the problems mentioned before by simply using the Dragon Age template: Stand-Alone big titles each, with a new protagonist. And instead of new areas of Thedas to explore and justify why old choices don't need to be taken into consideration much, Andromeda will probably just skip in time every new game ...

[teh DRUMPf!!]

 Yes, but they need to do it very differently.

 

 

I think we need to have less "[kill] -or- [ally]"-choices where the ramifications are either content or no content. We need to have more [support X]-or-[support Y] where the ramifications play out differently, but the content will be there either way. And, as MrFob said in his recent thread, the option to capture rather than just kill or release also is something they should go for IMO.

[von uber]

Personally I think the only reason the genophage and quarantine decision are morally ambiguous is in part Bioware forgetting their own lore and a tremendous amount of retconning to try and make us have adequate feeelllzzzz to one side over the other.

It's clear by ME3 Bioware are in favour of both the cure and the Geth; problem is that they forget the whole load of backstory they wrote which stops it being as clear cut as I'd suspect they'd like - because as we know, ME3 is the best place to start.

[Iakus]

I agree with this. The ending options were all three morally ambiguous, again, you can see this simply by looking at the discussions about them. One of the main issues (of the Extended Cut) is that in the epilogues the downsides of these options are basically not addressed at all, rendering their moral ambiguity and the message that should have been implied with that not only meaningless but downright grotesque. But yea, the options themselves leave plenty of room to discuss the surrounding ethics.

I would say that to a lot of people they weren't morally ambiguous so much as three different flavors colors of evil

 

After all, who could forget this little meme: