253 réponses à ce sujet

[BloodyMares]

I agree with you to a large degree, though there is the fact that we're a completely alien force trespassing on the Andromeda system with alarming numbers.  They'd have to be wary of these newcomers from another galaxy, trying to feel out our motives and judge the character of those they send as delegates on their behalf.  Therefore, it's likely that any member of an Andromedan race would communicate the details of an encounter with Ryder as far and wide as they could.  Depending on their status and technological sophistication, this may just influence your reception in a city, or it may affect how members of that race perceive you throughout the galaxy. 

 

Similarly with the Lacteal (those from the Milky Way) races.  At this point, we're a tightly knit community with numbers approximating (presumably) that of a major city.  Ryder, as a Pathfinder, would presumably be something of a minor celebrity among this group.  And when all a cloistered group has the ability to do is worry, speculate about their future, and dream of where they'll live, it stands to reason they'd take an interest in the efforts of the Pathfinders.  This means that any interaction with Ryder would likely enter the rumor mill and not emerge until it was pulverized to an atomic level.  And that says nothing of any military or quasi-military organization we belong to as part of the Ark Initiative.  After all, we're not Spectres this time; we are answerable for our actions (should they be found out).

 

All of which is to say, the fate of some pyjak-loving dillhole we chase to a backwater moon and execute without any witnesses?  That shouldn't affect how others perceive us.  But the way we greet the farmer whose field we land in?  The way we deal with subordinates in our organization?  How the lone human conducts herself in a bar, on a planet, in a galaxy that's never seen a human before?  That should have echos, because people are definitely going to talk.

I don't see how Ryder is a celebrity. We can't know that for now because we know nothing about Ryder at this point. If she is a celebrity (daughter of some famous person or has a reputation for her knowledge/skills etc) then I agree but if she's just a soldier/scientist then I don't see how people should care about her actions alone. They would only perceive her as some random lacteal and if she causes havoc against andromedians then all lacteals would have a bad reputation because of her but if she does some nice things then this speaks about her as an individual (this is how the stereotypes work).

Let's take Wrex for example. In ME1 he is kind of a minor infamous celebrity for his clan. But to us (Shepard and every other species) he is a krogan first, individual later and all krogan (Wrex included) have a reputation of brutish thugs. Shepard--and by extention, Normandy crew--can learn that Wrex is not like the other krogan. But the word about Wrex doesn't really spread beyond Normandy (location), Clan Urdnot (group) and Mercenaries (group). Shepard doesn't sit on the extranet posting how it was cool to meet Wrex and how he is different from other krogan. In ME2 Wrex becomes a huge celebrity on Tuchanka and now the word about him spreads on Tuchanka (planet) but he doesn't really change the reputation of other krogan. In ME1, ME2 and ME3, despite his actions, his reputation is of a brutish thug to all the other races. Nobody cares about Wrex as an individual except Shepard's crew and some krogan.

The same thing can be said about Ryder. Nobody in Andromeda would care about her as a person initially. Her personality only matters to some lacteals and some other groups that she interacts with.

[Shechinah]

I presented a while ago something I thought could be interesting: basically, the protagonist has an order that they might disagree with and so might disobey if they choose to. In some situations, the protagonist has the additionally option of disguising their disobedience or tell the truth. Depending on the order, obedience or disobedience can result in different outcomes.

 

The risk to disobedience is that it can result in problems later on. A few examples would be that their superiors might not believe their word about something later on or refuse to entrust them with information that they would otherwise have recieved as a courtsey. In the case of the latter, it might mean that players has to make some decisions without all of the information.

[Kali073]

Personally, I think something like a universal morality is impossible. Morality is something fluid that changes based on time period, culture, upbringing and personal experiences. It is, ultimately, a social construct. We made it, and we redefine what it is from time to time. That is why it can be ambiguous. What was morally upstanding hundreds of years ago could be considered wrong today and vice versa. Even now, if you present an action some will see it as good, others as neutral and some as evil.

 

That said, the example of "like being hit by a bus" is wrongly worded for a moral problem. Being hit by a bus is generally not a choice, it is usually something done to them so there is no choice to be done (the exception being suicides or people trying to push someone else out of the bus' path). A better situation would take into account the bus driver. Did they hit that person because they had been inattentive and not noticed them (the higher the speed, the more time/meters, you need to come to a complete stop even if you step on the breaks), were they driving while drunk/sleep deprived, did something distract them, did they hit that person deliberately? Even if they hit a person and hurt or killed them, their reason and circumstance can lessen their legal punishment even though the result was the same.

 

I don't think there's a need to worry though. There will still be good, neutral and evil choices - it just won't be as clearly labelled as before.

[dreamgazer]

Wow, the heel-digging here is absolutely fascinating to watch.
 
Of course morality can be ambiguous.  It's a sliding scale. 
 
Case One:
-Is stealing wrong?  Yes. 
-Is letting someone starve to death wrong?  Obviously. 
-Is eating meat wrong?  Debatable. 
-Is stealing a chicken to feed a starving child wrong?  Well...
---It is stealing, which is wrong. 
---It is sacrificing an animal for food, which some would see as wrong. 
---It isn't letting a person die because of your lack of intervention.
-So, in a situation where these are your only options, which moral imperatives would you break?  Do you feel more strongly that stealing is wrong, that meat is murder, or that letting someone die through neglect is evil?
 
Case Two:
-Is murder wrong?  Yes.
-Is allowing death through inaction wrong?  Yes.
-Is a single life worth as much as multiple lives?  Maybe.
-Are different lives worth more than others?  Maybe.
-Scenario: A vehicle is stalled on the train tracks with a train barreling down upon it.  You are driving a commercial truck, easily able to push the vehicle out of the way, but there's a car between you and the trapped vehicle.  You can push the first vehicle off the tracks, but in doing so you put the second vehicle in the same peril.  You don't have time to push both vehicles.
-Do you:
---Sacrifice the person in the first car?
---Save the person in the first car and sacrifice the person in the second car?
-Have your answer?  Now, what if:
---The vehicle on the tracks has three people and the second vehicle has only one?
---The vehicle on the tracks is a school bus full of children?
---The vehicle on the tracks is nursing home shuttle full of the elderly and the second vehicle is a school bus full of children?
 
Have fun providing the unerringly moral answer!

I was going for something a little less blunt and more "everyday" with my example than theft or murder, but you realized the point splendidly, Go-Go.

[Sylvius the Mad]

No one? Well I don't know it just seems odd to me, is all.

Generally when a group of people "loses" we kind of throw it all in the trash because you know they aren't worth anything anymore, except as fantasies for people who want to fantasize, I guess.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

And why would we automatically throw away every Roman idea? That their government eventually collapsed tells us nothing about the quality of any specific one of their ideas.

Personally, I'm not much of a Roman. They weren't much for skepticism, and the best skeptics came long after Rome was gone.

[FlyingSquirrel]

You've missed GRRM's point, which is that human's are not morally perfect beings. If you read his work and your take away is that people are shitty and awful to each other - congrats: that's the very thing he wants to convey.

 

I haven't ever seen Game of Thrones, but the problem I have with this is that popular fiction and storytelling don't exist in a vacuum - they can influence our attitudes towards real-life situations, and I worry that stories told from an excessively cynical point of view can lead to more cynicism in real life. This is part of why I've become increasingly disenchanted with The Walking Dead lately. Yes, it's "just a story," but civilizations can and do collapse without the help of any zombies, and I certainly hope we wouldn't all act like the characters on TWD if that day comes.

[AlanC9]

Yeah, that's kind of the point of TWD.The zombies are bad, but the real enemies are human.

[In Exile]

Well your presumptions were all wrong. It should always be (legally of course, due process, something something) to "murder" someone who murders. (we call it the death penalty)

Like if someone is a hardened Nazi from WW2 going about Nazi policies or whatever it should (I'm just speaking in pure hypotheticals) legal to kill them or steal from them, etc. Honestly someone that goes that far forfeits all their rights to all sorts of things.

So I don't really need to get to the rest of your questions.

That's insane. The whole reason we have a justice system is so that individuals are not the personal arbiters of life and death.

[Dean_the_Young]

I haven't ever seen Game of Thrones, but the problem I have with this is that popular fiction and storytelling don't exist in a vacuum - they can influence our attitudes towards real-life situations, and I worry that stories told from an excessively cynical point of view can lead to more cynicism in real life. This is part of why I've become increasingly disenchanted with The Walking Dead lately. Yes, it's "just a story," but civilizations can and do collapse without the help of any zombies, and I certainly hope we wouldn't all act like the characters on TWD if that day comes.

 

Fortunately, 'monkey see, monkey do' has repeatedly failed pretty much every vigorous study of human psychology since, well, the last great moral panic of the effects that -insert media here- has on the minds of our impressionable young children.

 

Strangely, seeing fiction with the evils of the world hasn't made the evils of the world more common.

[Dean_the_Young]

And he has to be a despicable person to earnestly just represent that without comment or fighting back, it amounts to enforcement and support of the concept.

 

Like if I just make a character and just have them kill everything in a video game for no reason, that's effectively acknowledging it as valid, or comprehensible or something.

 

Not everyone is like his characters.

 

The reality is if the White Walkers win that would almost arguably be positive for the world he created, which is.... really.... really messed up.

 

I realize she crazed out yesterday, but I'm more interested why she doesn't condemn the audience as well as the author.

 

If mean, if you get down to it, even the most benevolent savior fiction revolves around saving someone from something. If depiction is endorsement, then pretty much all fiction is voyeurism on human (and non-human) suffering: drama, after all, comes from having a problem, and if we consider making imaginary bad people a flaw then putting imaginary people through suffering for out own amusement has got to be worse.

 

If we wanted to remove all bad things from fiction because the fictional existence somehow causes the real-world instances, we'd have to take away everyone who has problems as well. Can't be getting our enjoyment over making fictional people suffer, after all. Which would leave... not much, honestly

 

And this ladies and gentlemen is why the bsn is mocked. People have been asking for years for Bioware to remove this crappy system, they are and now people are coming out oft he wood work to defend it. This is the Mako all over again.

 

Are they? Dropping P/R, I mean?

 

The thread presupposes it, but reading the OP (and having glanced over the interview itself) I don't actually recall anything saying the system was being removed. Merely that the divide would be more gray.

 

Removing the system entirely could do that, but so could just mitigating Paragon and Renegade into less polar extremes. If Paragon goes from 'always right' to 'idealistic/optimistic' to Renegade's 'pragmatic/cynical', you'd do the same thing.

[Absafraginlootly]

I'm pleased. I don't like the paragon/renegade system. I don't like how it forces every dialogue to have each option, I don't like how it tells you which are the good/bad instead of letting you decide (or choose what your character thinks), and I don't like how it encourages you to always pick the same icon by giving incentives like special options instead of choosing conversation by conversation.


If MEA has no paragon/renegade and no DA2 personality system. And does have emotion icons and a variety of dialogue/choices I will be a happy woman.

[KaiserShep]

I haven't ever seen Game of Thrones, but the problem I have with this is that popular fiction and storytelling don't exist in a vacuum - they can influence our attitudes towards real-life situations, and I worry that stories told from an excessively cynical point of view can lead to more cynicism in real life. This is part of why I've become increasingly disenchanted with The Walking Dead lately. Yes, it's "just a story," but civilizations can and do collapse without the help of any zombies, and I certainly hope we wouldn't all act like the characters on TWD if that day comes.

 

I'm rather confident that real life has a far worse spectacle to show us than any fiction ever could. I'm not counting the Death Star only because it's physically impossible for us to wipe out an entire planet's worth of civilizations from orbit….for now.

[BloodyMares]

If MEA has no paragon/renegade and no DA2 personality system. And does have emotion icons and a variety of dialogue/choices I will be a happy woman.

As much as I like the idea, it is unlikely to be in Andromeda. From the interviews I picked up that dialogue wheel will stay basically the same, just without blue/red options. Which basically means that the protagonist will either sound monotonous or they will have sudden and unexpected emotional outbursts like Shepard did. 

[Shechinah]

Are they? Dropping P/R, I mean?
 
The thread presupposes it, but reading the OP (and having glanced over the interview itself) I don't actually recall anything saying the system was being removed. Merely that the divide would be more gray.
 
Removing the system entirely could do that, but so could just mitigating Paragon and Renegade into less polar extremes. If Paragon goes from 'always right' to 'idealistic/optimistic' to Renegade's 'pragmatic/cynical', you'd do the same thing.

 
I do not think it has not been confirmed as of yet. I think a number of people assume it is either removed or very different based on Mac Walters' quotes from the articles; 

 

“I think in general, with all this sophistication of games or engaging in any kind of entertainment right now, [gamers are] looking for more of those shades of grey”  - Mac Walters. 
 
"I think now we’re moving away from that. We’ve been looking for other ways to engage more of those shades of grey; less about it being obviously being right or wrong and more about giving people a sense of choice.” - Mac Walters.

 
Source: http://gamerant.com/...ystem/undefined

[In Exile]

Fortunately, 'monkey see, monkey do' has repeatedly failed pretty much every vigorous study of human psychology since, well, the last great moral panic of the effects that -insert media here- has on the minds of our impressionable young children.

Strangely, seeing fiction with the evils of the world hasn't made the evils of the world more common.

While it's totally true there's no evidence that people get influenced in that way, technically, monkey see, monkey do is a well-known phenomenon - by way of mirror neurons. Where monkey see is in many ways the equivalent of money do.

[Absafraginlootly]

As much as I like the idea, it is unlikely to be in Andromeda. From the interviews I picked up that dialogue wheel will stay basically the same, just without blue/red options. Which basically means that the protagonist will either sound monotonous or they will have sudden and unexpected emotional outbursts like Shepard did. 

 

If dragon age can acquire a dialogue wheel like mass effect then I don't see why mass effect cannot acquire emotion icons for it's paraphrases like dragon age. They very much improve on the paraphrases ability to convey what the following dialogue will be.

[Omeganian]

So what, are we getting the Torment: Tides of Numenera 5 Tide system?

[The Twilight God]

I think they are going for a more SWTOR route where you have those extremes, but you aren't limited on your options because you don't have X amount of paragon/renegade points. Also, there will be no blue and red. Instead you just have the two extremes and the middle ground, but they aren't necessarily automatically going to result in the best/favored outcome. So maybe, given your particular past choices, the middle option will get the best results and the "nice guy" option results in disaster.

[Xanphal]

What I would love to see is a system that learns your personality type and changes as the game goes on based on that. For example; if I have a tendency to pick 'peaceful' or 'good' options then slowly over the course of the game 'jerk/evil' options become phased out and I get more variety's of 'peaceful' options to choose from. Likewise, if I have a tendency towards 'jerk' or 'evil' options, then my game presents me with more varieties of these and phases out the 'peaceful/good' options. Or, like DA2, if I pick sarcasm to damn near everything my guy gets more of those. This way all of my characters are going to feel like individuals; and on re-plays i'm going to see options I never saw before as I explore different reactions to things that happen.

And yes, I know there are people out there who would go through picking extreme good, then extreme evil just to see what the system does. ...cause I know I would. I would hope it would see you're being a dick and phase out all your grey options so you're left with nothing but your extreme good and extreme evil options. Nothing wrong with a little Chaotic good/evil lol

[Seraphim24]

That's insane. The whole reason we have a justice system is so that individuals are not the personal arbiters of life and death.

 

Then why is that the sole purpose of the "justice system" in all western demoracies (and many European states, etc?) And pretty much all Eastern... just like everywhere it's always the same thing.

 

Due Process, etc, all these things are just saying "you can't do anything when I am a terrible person," that's all it all is.

 

It doesn't proscribe the acts of anyone other than the recipient. So they can totally be personal arbiters of life and death, and essentially are in America.

 

The "US Constitution" put limits on the populace and constrains "their rights" gave free reign to a slaveholding, landowning, super white supremacist class of extremists.

 

The irony with all the conspiratorial anti-US talk or whatever you see sometimes there's nothing conspiratorial about it, it's right there in the Constitution.

 

One serious issue is coercion such as Compulsory Education where they impose those values on everyone within. For those reasons people can hate on US as much as they want I don't care they deserve it as long as that institution exists.

 

GRRM is the type that support such a system, or does, currently, and consequently I'd call him feces, vomit, spew, stain, I don't care, any day of the week, every month, until that thing is gone.

[Seraphim24]

Consequently, I see a "no universal morality" or "systems to protect rights of X or defend against Y" as explicitly a non-morality.

 

Like, it doesn't matter if you can't convince every single thing of your universal morality, the point is you are on a moral compass whether you like it or not, and pretending there isn't one just puts you at the bottom of the pile.

[AlanC9]

Then why is that the sole purpose of the "justice system" in all western demoracies (and many European states, etc?) And pretty much all Eastern... just like everywhere it's always the same thing.

What's the "that" in this passage? Individuals being the personal arbiters of justice? That'd be nonsense.
 

Due Process, etc, all these things are just saying "you can't do anything when I am a terrible person," that's all it all is.

This makes no sense. I don't mean that it's a bad idea; can't get that far yet. I mean that it literally makes no sense. For starters, who's the "I" and who's the "you," and why does the "I" think himself to be a terrible person?
 

The "US Constitution" put limits on the populace and constrains "their rights" gave free reign to a slaveholding, landowning, super white supremacist class of extremists.

This is just silly. Even if you believe that the FFs were a "slaveholding, landowning, super white supremacist class of extremists," the Constitution didn't give them free reign, because they already had free reign.

Are you actively trying to sound like one of the cartoon SJWs that the Gamergate clowns are always ranting about?
 

One serious issue is coercion such as Compulsory Education where they impose those values on everyone within. For those reasons people can hate on US as much as they want I don't care they deserve it as long as that institution exists.

All early education is compulsory. State, parents.... what's the difference?
 

GRRM is the type that support such a system, or does, currently, and consequently I'd call him feces, vomit, spew, stain, I don't care, any day of the week, every month, until that thing is gone.

Even by your standards this is a bit of a non-sequitur. How'd you get there?

[AlanC9]

Consequently, I see a "no universal morality" or "systems to protect rights of X or defend against Y" as explicitly a non-morality.

What's wrong with "systems to protect rights of X or defend against Y"? You're not being very clear here.
 

Like, it doesn't matter if you can't convince every single thing of your universal morality, the point is you are on a moral compass whether you like it or not, and pretending there isn't one just puts you at the bottom of the pile.

Why should anyone else care what your moral compass says? Or at what level of the pile you think he's on?

[Seraphim24]

^ You can ignore people's opinions or thoughts/desires if you want, but it's going to work worst for you

 

GRRM made lots of money, whatever, no one told him what he is, and he has never procreated (even though he's straight), so he's a biological failure and evolution will select him out. Hitler had a powerful army, he didn't have to listen to anyone, same story, even though straight biological failure, evolution selects all of these people out. Corporate executives, authority leaders, whoever, all of them suffer because they said "I don't have to listen to you" when someone was saying it for their benefit.

 

He's supported by artificial power infrastructures that prevent him or others from caring about what I have to say, true, but they are the ones who lose most of all from that, not me. Sure, i have to tolerate their nonsense, and it's effects, I listen to interviews with "leaders" who are pathetic and dribble on and waste my time. It's annoying, but the greatest victims of all the artificial power infrastructures are the ones who created them.

 

 

At any rate, the only reason people should be able to create "moralities" is as far as they are able to extend them, so if people agree with them consensually, then they are valid for those people who all agree to them, but since "consent" and "agreement" is artificial or manufactured in most instances we have a broken world.

[Seraphim24]

Like Patriarchy has suffered the most due to being able to reject wishes to change, and the ascendance of Patriarchy.

 

Like I say "You all have no self-esteem and are fit only for the slave class, move rocks, humble lives like shepards and with rags for clothes."

 

They go "Oh but we have all this money blah blah don't care about you"

 

They would be happier though, in that position, embracing their innermost slave desires and the partners who agree to consensually live with them. It's for their benefit as much as mine I say they are "trash, sub-human, etc" All of them, go back to ignoring or not caring what I have to say, fine, whatever.

 

All these tri-billionaires are so shamed they have such strong submissive desires, afraid what people will think, I'm not afraid of what they are, afraid of the never-ending consequences of them refusing to acknowledge what they are yes perhaps, those are the consequences which have killed people and claimed many lives.

 

And the women are often ashamed of how they make them that way, all of them living in shame because it's like a circus. It's not anyone's business anyway.

 

Or I get the "No one has to listen to you" go back to living a lie, I don't care.