306 réponses à ce sujet

[dreamgazer]

Mass Effect's soul died with the departure of Chris L'Etoile.

Then the hacks that took over writing for ME3 fully stomped on its corpse with its hackneyed writing.

 

Really? Because the writers of ME3 actually saved us from some of the really poor writing that Drew Karpyshyn had lined up for the series. 

 

At any rate, the "hackneyed" writing of ME3 was certainly better than the "Adventures of Captain Cyborg Space Therapist" side-mission that was ME2. 

[dreamgazer]

If there are serious people here who thought DAI was even remotely a good game, we have major problems on our hands.

 

Then you have major problems on your hands. 

[AlanC9]

And frankly, the icons aren't always clear, either. Depending on the context and the paraphrase, a red fist could mean that the character would express anger toward the party with whom they are speaking (suck it up, whiner), or anger toward some other party who wronged them (I'm on your side and we must right this wrong). 

I don't recall a situation where that resulted in ambiguity for me. But you could say that me knowing where the writers are going with stuff likely has something to do with that, sure.

I don't remember what the Inquisitor said at that point, but I don't think it was that. And if the actual line was refusal to consider Solas's POV, the paraphrase should have said so. In this context, I don't see the difference.Is there something you're trying to accomplish here, other than disagreement about the ambiguity of some of the paraphrases?

According to some helpful folks on Reddit who laid out the dialogue tree, the spoken line was a refusal to debate -- something to the effect that Solas has got some prepared rhetoric for any possible objection, so the Inquisitor won't even engage on the issue anymore. Which is close enough for my purposes; if I'm picking that line at all it's because I don't want to have the rational debate or agreement promised by the other options, so this was clearly the best fit.

As for what I'm trying to accomplish here, if we want to discuss interpreting paraphrases, then we should discuss the actual paraphrases rather than mis-remembered versions of them, shouldn't we?

[Pasquale1234]

As for what I'm trying to accomplish here, if we want to discuss interpreting paraphrases, then we should discuss the actual paraphrases rather than mis-remembered versions of them, shouldn't we?

I already listed several other possible meanings here:
 

"I don't buy it" would be adequate for a dismissal, and its meaning would be clear.

A couple of other phrases that could replace "I'm not arguing":
"You're singing to the choir" if you want to indicate that you won't argue because you concur.
"I'll think about what you said" if you don't want to agree or disagree.

"I'm not arguing" is a terribly bad paraphrase.

Maybe you can explain how "I'm not arguing" would be a meaningful difference from "I'm not arguing this" in a paraphrase.

Also, I'm not sure what your real goal is with this discussion. I casually mentioned a paraphrase that I found misleading at the time, but don't remember much of the detail surrounding it - and don't really care enough to research it.

Do you disagree with my assertion that paraphrases should accurately, unambiguously represent what the character will say?

[Onuris22]

If there are serious people here who thought DAI was even remotely a good game, we have major problems on our hands.

 

DA:I was better than DA2, but then it took a kind of dive after DA:O gameplay wise in my book. The story gets a bit wonky here and there, but the characters and the world building is still pretty awesome. So, kind of a mixed bag.

 

Really? Because the writers of ME3 actually saved us from some of the really poor writing that Drew Karpyshyn had lined up for the series. 

 

At any rate, the "hackneyed" writing of ME3 was certainly better than the "Adventures of Captain Cyborg Space Therapist" side-mission that was ME2. 

 

I loved ME3, even up to the ending. Then again, I kind of looked at the ending and knew that no matter what they did in game it probably couldn't pay off or make a nod to every decision or there'd have been tons of different versions of ME3 and taken 10 years to finish. The ending didn't bother me, I'm a fan of the indoctrination theory and I think Bioware is fine with having that sit out there for people themselves to decide....which is rather fitting.

[Iakus]

Really? Because the writers of ME3 actually saved us from some of the really poor writing that Drew Karpyshyn had lined up for the series. 

 

Out of the frying pan...

[Iakus]

If there are serious people here who thought DAI was even remotely a good game, we have major problems on our hands.

DAI had its share of problems, I'm not shy about saying that.  It wasn't a great game.  But it was an okay one.  Many orders of magnitude better than ME3.  

[Pasquale1234]

Re: Solas, see above. There's a difference between not controlling his reaction (how he interprets some combination of affect, tone and wording) and the poorly drafted literal line (who could mean many things, and whose scope of possible meaning is different than the equivalently stated line, however said). 
 
I don't see why your system, however, solves the issue. If the full line is written later by a different writer, we have the same problem - only in this case we are just bound by whatever the interpretation of the second writer is of the first line. And these lines, again, aren't written in the abstract - they're written as part of the conversation. What you're suggesting would produce nonsense.

The process could result in paraphrases that better represent what the character will actually say. As near as I can tell, the current process treats paraphrases as a secondary effort, which all but guarantees that an already overworked staff will devote less time and attention to them.

If a paraphrase first process would produce nonsense, that only means that the relationship between the paraphrases and spoken dialogue is seriously flawed.

That said, I don't expect it could be done that way due to project scheduling considerations. The dialogue needs to be written, edited, approved, etc. so it can be recorded and made available to level designers. Paraphrase text can be coded into the game in later stages. On that note, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if some of the paraphrases were originally temporary placeholder text that ended up not being replaced due to time constraints.

[Sylvius the Mad]

Re: Solas, see above. There's a difference between not controlling his reaction (how he interprets some combination of affect, tone and wording) and the poorly drafted literal line (who could mean many things, and whose scope of possible meaning is different than the equivalently stated line, however said).

I don't see why your system, however, solves the issue. If the full line is written later by a different writer, we have the same problem - only in this case we are just bound by whatever the interpretation of the second writer is of the first line. And these lines, again, aren't written in the abstract - they're written as part of the conversation. What you're suggesting would produce nonsense.

I would argue that the current system produces nonsense.

My objective here is to get the writers to approach each line from the same perspective the play has. The player doesn't know what the consequences are going to be, so it's important that the writers not take that into account when writing the line. I'm doing that by denying them that knowledge.

That the lines are part of a conversation is the problem. The player can only see the conversation in hindsight, so each lines place in the conversation needs not to be relevant when chposing whether to select it.

[CronoDragoon]

I'm with you on that. 

 

Also, dont expect threads like yours to be taken seriously in these forums, people here makes fun of everything (for some reason I can't comprehend). Join the discussion at NeoGAF for better feedback.

 

Btw, love your channel, since indoctrination theory interview

 

This thread would be closed within minutes on NeoGAF.

[Sylvius the Mad]

But why would it be a good choice for a written line at all? If it's ambiguous as written, then it's a bad line. The problem doesn't go away without VO - it just makes it completely unpredictable what effect picking the line will have in-game.

Just Iike a real world conversation. That's my objective.

I can understand the argument that one wants freedom to imagine the actual voice. I appreciate than in your view the lack of VO allows you to pretend like the dialogue isn't written as a sensible conversation but rather as a disconnected interaction where the NPC reacts to some imagined meaning in their head. The problem with this line of reasoning is that spoken language isn't as ambiguous as written language with respect to things like affect. There's an informational assymetry.

I completely disagree. The written language is much clearer and more precise. The lack of explicit punctuation alone is enough to render the spoken language the weaker of the two.

Think of it this way - the fact the line isn't voiced allows you to imagine delivery. It doesn't allow you to actually imagine it's said using different words.

Why not? That's how keyword dialogue systems worked. Morrowind. Ultima IV.

The full line options are just more precise, but that doesn't mean we can't imagine a different line as long as that line has the same literal meaning.

The problem with the paraphrase is that we don't get to know what the literal meaning is, so we're basically going in blind.

To put it a different way, there are lots of different ways I can say the same line. But that set isn't identical to all of the ways the line I say a certain way can be interpreted, once I say it a certain way.

The problem of being completely surprised about the way a line is delivered doesn't go away once you account for VO, or remove it.

Yes it does. It transfers the surprise to our reaction to the NPC response, which is exactly where the surprise should be.

Some of us are more attuned to this issue - that's why the paraphrase is less of an issue. It's not that the paraphrase isn't bad - it's that the written line isn't better. What you experience as a unique disconnect is to me the same kind of disconnect I had with a silent PC, except now I have the benefit of a consistent tone and voice to at least understand the interaction.

Why would we expect the interaction to be understandable? Is the interaction even a thing?

[Sylvius the Mad]

But even if you DO care what your character actually says, the line you're picking is really ambiguous as to its meaning.

Being ambiguous is often exactly what I want. If I want to avoid providing information, an ambiguous line is perfect for that.

It's a line whose meaning derives substantially from its delivery.

That's a great argument against having a voiced protagonist.

Though I would argue as plainly written its arguably a dismissal.

If it's only arguably the thing that we need to understand it to be in order to accurately predict the spoken line, that's a problem.

The paraphrase needs to be unequivocally that thing, and be unequivocally not anything else.

We should be able to tell, based on the paraphrase, exactly what literal meaning of the line is, and exactly what it is not. There should be a 0% chance that we could correctly understand the paraphrase and still be surprised by any aspect of the literal content of the line.

That's what the silent protagonist and full text options gave us, and I will not be happy with the voice+paraphrase until it does the same.

[Kabooooom]

Simply stated, a lot of what you have indicated is "Heavily Hinted" is all HUGE conjecture about what the story may possible could be.

Instead of having the fan base try to pick about nonsense, give us what God of War 4 did, give us what Detroit Human Being did. Understand what Mass Effect really is and give us that need, not tangentially from interviews that Mac Walters gives.

This trailer should have you concerned

Lol, what "mass effect really is"? I've been playing Mass Effect since the first game, been around these forums for ages, and I'm not about to tell you what I think is the "soul of mass effect" or whatever. Because that's incredibly subjective. And super arrogant. And hugely douchey.

But I can tell you that in my opinion, that trailer exuded what to me is the soul of Mass Effect. And I am not concerned in the slightest.

[AlanC9]

Maybe you can explain how "I'm not arguing" would be a meaningful difference from "I'm not arguing this" in a paraphrase.

I'd read them the same way I would if they were normal speech. "I'm not arguing" would mean that there's no real dispute -- what the speaker was just doing wasn't actually an argument. "I'm not arguing this" means that there is a dispute -- the "this" is really there -- but the speaker doesn't care to participate in exploring that dispute any further.

Note that "I'm not arguing " is harder to interpret -- I wouldn't have a high degree of confidence in that interpretation -- but that's OK since it wasn't a real paraphrase anyway.
 

Also, I'm not sure what your real goal is with this discussion. I casually mentioned a paraphrase that I found misleading at the time, but don't remember much of the detail surrounding it - and don't really care enough to research it.

Because in order to discuss how paraphrases can be done better, we need to be clear about exactly how and when they fail, don't we?

[Cheviot]

This thread would be closed within minutes on NeoGAF.

Nah, one of the mods would give it a snarky title, like they did about that one thread where that one guy had a very strange idea of what a "pure" RPG is.

[Fredward]

Do people really get tattoos and name their kids after ME characters?

[Monk]

Follow with me: fan…

[Shechinah]

Do people really get tattoos and name their kids after ME characters?

 

Yeah, it is not unusual to get tattoed with things you like from books, films or games to my knowledge. The naming of children might be down to simply liking the name. I do not think Tali or Mordin would be seen as an unusual name where I'm from though I think a number of people would mistake it for a foreign name so to speak.

 

[Pasquale1234]

I'd read them the same way I would if they were normal speech. "I'm not arguing" would mean that there's no real dispute -- what the speaker was just doing wasn't actually an argument. "I'm not arguing this" means that there is a dispute -- the "this" is really there -- but the speaker doesn't care to participate in exploring that dispute any further.

If you want to go down the path of implication, then "I'm not arguing" could have an implied "this". And I think you're doing that by assuming that "I'm not arguing this" implies that something else is under dispute. Either phrase can also mean that the speaker's convictions are such that they're not willing to consider any other point of view.

And it might be relevant in a real life, real time conversation where other issues could come up. In this particular context, there was one specific topic under discussion.

As a paraphrase, either one should not have the speaker take a specific position on a topic. If the speaker is to state a position, that should be clearly indicated in the paraphrase.
 

Because in order to discuss how paraphrases can be done better, we need to be clear about exactly how and when they fail, don't we?

I've mentioned a couple of paraphrases that I found ambiguous / misleading at the time in my first play of the game. There is no amount of discussion that's going to change that.

If you'd like to start a conversation about how paraphrases could be improved, I might suggest starting a different thread about it. It's off-topic for this one.

[pdusen]

If there are serious people here who thought DAI was even remotely a good game, we have major problems on our hands.

 

Uh... there are a huge number of people who think that way; even here, where everyone hates everything.

[Spectr61]

Really? Because the writers of ME3 actually saved us from some of the really poor writing that Drew Karpyshyn had lined up for the series. 
 
At any rate, the "hackneyed" writing of ME3 was certainly better than the "Adventures of Captain Cyborg Space Therapist" side-mission that was ME2.

Yes, really.

Some obviously don't care for ME2, but then again, it is consistently ranked in the top ten, if not number 1 overall, on "best games of all time" lists. Example;

http://www.pcgamer.c...mer-top-100/11/

[AlanC9]

Do people really get tattoos and name their kids after ME characters?

I've seen both, though never IRL.

[AlanC9]

If you want to go down the path of implication, then "I'm not arguing" could have an implied "this".

And I think you're doing that by assuming that "I'm not arguing this" implies that something else is under dispute. Either phrase can also mean that the speaker's convictions are such that they're not willing to consider any other point of view.

Why do you keep bringing up "I'm not arguing"? Nobody ever used that paraphrase, so analyzing its merits isn't really useful.

The italed is the wrong question anyway. The question to ask is whether "I'm not arguing this" can mean that the speaker is willing to engage in the debate. The problem only appears if it doesn't

As for what I was assuming, well, I was reading it as one of those stock conversational phrases, along the lines of "we are not having this conversation," and so forth. I don't think about those things; I haven't had to.

I'm just looking for an explanation of why my interpretations work better than yours. I'm not really comfortable with thinking that it's because I'm, say, smarter, more empathetic, or luckier than you; besides being unsatisfying and unbelievable, these aren't useful hypotheses.

I've mentioned a couple of paraphrases that I found ambiguous / misleading at the time in my first play of the game. There is no amount of discussion that's going to change that.If you'd like to start a conversation about how paraphrases could be improved, I might suggest starting a different thread about it. It's off-topic for this one.

Hey, I'm just killing time until the OP tries to explain what the hell the "soul of Mass Effect" is supposed to mean.

[Cyonan]

Do people really get tattoos and name their kids after ME characters?

 

What will happen with the naming sometimes is that people saw the name from some video game and happened to like it but it's still a good name.

 

Calling a kid Jeff after Joker isn't exactly a terrible thing because Jeff is a perfectly normal name.

 

Calling them EDI might be weird, though.

[Addictress]

No

 

No

 

Stop. We need to iron this out.

 

If people think DA:I was better than DA2, and better than ME3, Bioware will listen to that, and Andromeda will be crap.

 

This cannot happen. It will be ruinous. 

 

Inquisition is the first game in which I laughed. And then I blushed with sickening embarrassment, and turned off my PC, and went out to get some fresh air, because I felt nauseous.

 

* horrible story

* horrible, cheesy villain

* completely lacking animations and interactions with environment

* b-grade dialogue. Laughably bad dialogue.

* laughably bad voice acting from the inquisitor

* lackluster character development told and not shown

* relying on dialogue boxes and prompts for major things happening which should've been interactive quests

* random fetch quests. No cut scenes or close-ups 

* poorly designed quests and levels, scaling all out of whack, becoming OP within the first third of the game such that the remaining levels aren't difficult enough

* reduced tactics. Like, no tactics! Tactics are gone!!! Bye!!

* choices don't matter. They matter less than in ME3. It even distills literally everything into points and numbers (influence, etc), which people loathed about ME3 (war assets)

* lack of immersion

* horrible costume design and limited, like, failed Val Royeaux design. Completely pooing on the world image built up over the past two games.

 

 no