366 réponses à ce sujet

[ZennExile]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

The cinematic interupts are fluff and mean nothing in this context.  Availible content and the feeling that there is "no right or wrong" answer was the point.  The actual points have nothing to do with in.  In ME1 you could take renegade missions even if you were a paragon.  In ME2 you are either on the paragon path or on the renegade path.  There is no grey area.  Random meaningless triggers for a couple points of Paragon or Renegade mean nothing.  They have no meaningful effect on the experience.  None of them are more than fluff and NONE of them change the course of play.  They are simply there for free points if you want them.

Mass Effect is not just a technology the universe is based around.  It's an ideology based on the freedom of choice.  ME2 takes a massive leap away from that ideology and in effect away from the IP itself.

And I survived but my house didn't.  She started a fire in the middle of my bed and made sure to do it in the middle of the day when everyone was at work.  There was nothing left but the fridge.  I ate my cold pizza out of a blackened charred fridge surrounded by what was the rest of my life.   The real journey started when the insurance check arrived. 

None of this makes any sense... The Paragade choices you made in ME1 were every bit as shallow as they are in ME2. The only difference is ME2 offers you more flexibility and are generally more hilarious.

It doesn't make sense because you don't understand.  Instead of trying to guess and use your imagination to repair your misunderstanding you could ask but you don't.  This implies to me that you are trolling for the sole purpose of being disruptive and have no intention of continuing any kind of rational conversation.  Cool Story though and have fun trolling.

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

shaneho78 wrote...

I think ME2 is meant to cater to a broad spectrum of gamers, some who are instantly turned off by RPG but will give a decent shooter a try. Insisting that ME2 should cater only to hardcore RPG gamers like yourself is a little too self absorbed. ME2 is striving for a new level of realism (not carrying 100 unseen items) and urgency (not switching 20 inventory items from implants, boots and helmets around all squad members everytime you meet a different class of enemies). The fact that they revamped the whole combat system is further proof of that. It is meant to be a movie-game experience.

They did not need to reach a "broad spectrum of gamers"; ME1's fanbase was more than enough. The result is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none quasi-RPG shooter.

[SurfaceBeneath]

ZennExile wrote...
ME2 and DA:O are the first two from Bioware that don't have a strong nuetral mechanic.  Most of the previous stories are built around the idea that being good and being evil are both part of the experience and both necissary.  You have the choice to become good or evil, but you also have the choice to follow a balanced path.  That really isn't an option in ME2. 

ME2 is also the first game by Bioware that doesn't seem to have a full evil story arc in the game yet either.  It's like they took the Paragon Story Arc and finished it then ran out of time.  So instead of building the Renegade Story Arc they attached it to the Paragon story arc just ignored any nuetral story arc.  In most previous Bioware titles your choices made a difference in the actual game you played.  If you followed one side or the other your experience was changed but you had freedom to flip flop back and forth if you saw reason to.  In ME2 you have two choices and both result in the exact same thing.  It's really just like the story was half finished and they fired the guy who wrote it only to pick the story back up again with interns.

Renegade =/= evil. And again, it's the exact same as in the first game. Oh, and neither KOTOR nor Jade Empire had neutral mechanics at all, you were punished for not taking a side. Baldur's Gate and DA:O are to date the only Bioware games that actually do not punish neutrality.

[SurfaceBeneath]

ZennExile wrote..
It doesn't make sense because you don't understand.  Instead of trying to guess and use your imagination to repair your misunderstanding you could ask but you don't.  This implies to me that you are trolling for the sole purpose of being disruptive and have no intention of continuing any kind of rational conversation.  Cool Story though and have fun trolling.

No it doesn't make sense because you sound like you're talking about a game that doesn't exist. Give me an example of the kind of moral decisions you're talking about that you can do in ME1 that you can't also do in ME2.

[ZennExile]

In case this was unclear your misunderstandings are not my consern and I don't care to continue a conversation with someone who would rather imagine facts than examine evidence.



Cool Story =/= care what you have to say.

[Bibdy]

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...

They did not need to reach a "broad spectrum of gamers"; ME1's fanbase was more than enough. The result is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none quasi-RPG shooter.

That made an absolute ****ing ton of money...sorry, but in the real world, people make products that sell. Video game prices are pretty static, so the only way to make more money from a single product is to make it more appealing to more people. There is no 'this fanbase is enough' in the real world. More is better.

The end result of this line of thinking is going to be a planet filled with medium-brown-skinned humans playing Generic Fantasy Series 4 Part iii. A scary proposition, but that won't happen in our life-time, so just roll with it.

Modifié par Bibdy, 17 février 2010 - 04:56 .

[SurfaceBeneath]

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...
They did not need to reach a "broad spectrum of gamers"; ME1's fanbase was more than enough. The result is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none quasi-RPG shooter.

All of the changes made in ME2 are a result of suggestions made on the ME1 forums.

What they did was further combine the RPG and Shooter genres into a single genre defining game. From all critical accounts it's been a tremendous success. Appealing to a more shooter oriented crowd certainly doesn't hurt the games sales (and my extension the future of more Mass Effect games) either.

Modifié par SurfaceBeneath, 17 février 2010 - 04:57 .

[SurfaceBeneath]

ZennExile wrote...

In case this was unclear your misunderstandings are not my consern and I don't care to continue a conversation with someone who would rather imagine facts than examine evidence.

Cool Story =/= care what you have to say.

Oh got it. You can't actually justify any of the bullsh** you just tried to sell so you're backing out.

I'm trying to find a snappy jpg for you but I just can't find anything that pathetic.

[MassEffect762]

I do enjoy watching you too go at it(I've seen it play out with other "duos" all week long), it shows just how polarizing ME2 can be.



But I'm tired and I got to wake up early for work tomorrow, good night.

[Dr. Peter Venkman]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...
They did not need to reach a "broad spectrum of gamers"; ME1's fanbase was more than enough. The result is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none quasi-RPG shooter.

All of the changes made in ME2 are a result of suggestions made on the ME1 forums.

What they did was further combine the RPG and Shooter genres into a single genre defining game. From all critical accounts it's been a tremendous success. Appealing to a more shooter oriented crowd certainly doesn't hurt the games sales (and my extension the future of more Mass Effect games).

It did not hurt game sales however it nullified many of the original RPG elements from ME 1. I like shooters and I like RPGs, however ME2 is pulled in both directions. There is a huge jump in gameplay type from ME 1 to ME 2. I don't think ME 2 was a great followup to the setup that was presented in ME 1.

[Nozybidaj]

I liked a lot of the streamlined game play.  I'm going back to play ME1 and I am absolutely hating the inventory and driving the Mako (always did, ME2 didn't cause that, it just is what it is).  The combat feels tighter in ME2, though it isn't as bad as some make it out to be in ME1.

The streamlined story tends to be the problem for me.  ME1 just feels like a more epic and cinematic experience.  It's like comparing watching a Star Wars movie (ME1) to watching a Star Trek TV show (ME2).  Both are nice in their own way.  ME2 just feels too episodic and a little bit corny to me.  They go so over boad with the "dark and amped up" it just makes it feel like it is targeting a different age group.  ME1 takes a more serious and mature approach to the story telling.

I think both fit the game for what they were trying to do.  ME1 was supposed to be more of an epic space opera where as ME2 is more focused on gunfire and explosions and chicks with large breasts.  I think they pulled that off fairly well.  I obviously have my issues with certain aspects of that execution but it is more in things that were left out rather than what is actually there.  The stuff that is there I think reached their goals.

[Rilke21]

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...

They did not need to reach a "broad spectrum of gamers"; ME1's fanbase was more than enough. The result is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none quasi-RPG shooter.

This.

There's no way ME2 would have had such a successful launch if the first game hadn't been so popular. I think one of the problems here is that ME1 was initially developed for consoles and was only later ported to the PC (easily the best port I've ever played, btw.) Because ME2 was developed for PC and console at the same time, PC gamers who were expecting at least as much depth as the original could only be disappointed.

(That said, Chrono Trigger had more role playing depth than ME2, so it's hardly an excuse.)

[Mak89]

I love how everyone feels so betrayed. They got rid of ****ty ****ty ****ty inventory, overheating, and mako. My deal is why they didn't make a new and better mako. There's no inventory with hundreds of useless and pointless items that we have to turn into omni-gel! It's not an RPG! WAAAA!!! WAAAAA!!!! WAAAA!!! There's no ammo for 2 seconds till I get more right after I kill this guy! WAAAAA!!!!!! WAAAAAA!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! Okay, I'm done now.

[ZennExile]

Bibdy wrote...

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...

They did not need to reach a "broad spectrum of gamers"; ME1's fanbase was more than enough. The result is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none quasi-RPG shooter.

That made an absolute ****ing ton of money...sorry, but in the real world, people make products that sell. Video game prices are pretty static, so the only way to make more money from a single product is to make it more appealing to more people. There is no 'this fanbase is enough' in the real world. More is better.

Unfortunately in the real world ME1 had a much larger fan base than ME2 has and it accomplished this with far less marketing.  Bioware would have made more money had they created a true sequel that addressed the minor conserns with the original with innovation.  They would have appealed to a much larger audience.

Here's how addition and subtraction work:

Original Fanbase = Millions
Old Mecahnics fixed = Original fanbase+ New Fanbase

New game = New Fanbase
New Fanbase = Millions
New Mechanics = New Fanbase...

Get this idea?  If they would have made ME2 a true seqel to ME1 and simply "improved" the weak mechanics in the game rather than "amputate" them, they would have had more customers and made more money by actually appealing to more people.  The approach they took resulted in New Customers at the cost of old customers instead of adding to the total?  You get it?

Original + New > New
X + Y > X

Math?  

[SurfaceBeneath]

Dr. Peter Venkman wrote...
It did not hurt game sales however it nullified many of the original RPG elements from ME 1. I like shooters and I like RPGs, however ME2 is pulled in both directions. There is a huge jump in gameplay type from ME 1 to ME 2. I don't think ME 2 was a great followup to the setup that was presented in ME 1.

I respectfully disagree sir.

[Rilke21]

Mak89 wrote...

I love how everyone feels so betrayed. They got rid of ****ty ****ty ****ty inventory, overheating, and mako. My deal is why they didn't make a new and better mako. There's no inventory with hundreds of useless and pointless items that we have to turn into omni-gel! It's not an RPG! WAAAA!!! WAAAAA!!!! WAAAA!!! There's no ammo for 2 seconds till I get more right after I kill this guy! WAAAAA!!!!!! WAAAAAA!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! Okay, I'm done now.

Surface, this is what I was talking about

[Harcken]

I actually liked the armor and weapon system if only they payed more attention to it and added a lot more "lootable" armor pieces, as well as a ton more buyable armor/weapon mods (upgrades, w/e you want to call them) to merchants. I also wish they added a statistics screen so I know which weapon I should use. I still have no idea which one of my shotguns is the best, all the descriptions sound the same. Story-wise, also agree, I loved the personal loyalty missions, but they didn't find the right balance between loyalty missions and main story missions.

As for the combat system, the FPS and the "shooter" feel of it make it an improvement for me, but I agree, some of the magic was lost from the first one. I did find myself only sticking ammo at the start, then spamming one power for the rest of the game as I sat and sniped behind crates, it got fairly old after awhile; however, I'd still rank it above the original Mass Effect's combat.

[shaneho78]

ZennExile wrote...

Here's how addition and subtraction work:

Original Fanbase = Millions
Old Mecahnics fixed = Original fanbase+ New Fanbase

New game = New Fanbase
New Fanbase = Millions
New Mechanics = New Fanbase...

Get this idea?  If they would have made ME2 a true seqel to ME1 and simply "improved" the weak mechanics in the game rather than "amputate" them, they would have had more customers and made more money by actually appealing to more people.  The approach they took resulted in New Customers at the cost of old customers instead of adding to the total?  You get it?

Original + New > New
X + Y > X

Math?  

That is assuming all old gamers think like you but then even you bought ME2 right?

[Nozybidaj]

Rilke21 wrote...

Mak89 wrote...

I love how everyone feels so betrayed. They got rid of ****ty ****ty ****ty inventory, overheating, and mako. My deal is why they didn't make a new and better mako. There's no inventory with hundreds of useless and pointless items that we have to turn into omni-gel! It's not an RPG! WAAAA!!! WAAAAA!!!! WAAAA!!! There's no ammo for 2 seconds till I get more right after I kill this guy! WAAAAA!!!!!! WAAAAAA!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! Okay, I'm done now.

Surface, this is what I was talking about

Well BW wanted to pull in the shooter crowd.  They got what they wanted.

[Mak89]

Rilke21 wrote...

Mak89 wrote...

I love how everyone feels so betrayed. They got rid of ****ty ****ty ****ty inventory, overheating, and mako. My deal is why they didn't make a new and better mako. There's no inventory with hundreds of useless and pointless items that we have to turn into omni-gel! It's not an RPG! WAAAA!!! WAAAAA!!!! WAAAA!!! There's no ammo for 2 seconds till I get more right after I kill this guy! WAAAAA!!!!!! WAAAAAA!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! Okay, I'm done now.

Surface, this is what I was talking about

What do you mean by that?

[SurfaceBeneath]

Nozybidaj wrote...
I think both fit the game for what they were trying to do.  ME1 was supposed to be more of an epic space opera where as ME2 is more focused on gunfire and explosions and chicks with large breasts.

I would say that ME1 set up the ME universe as well as the plot of the Reapers, while ME2 was exploring that all. You said how you didn't like how the game felt so episodic in a lot of ways, and I agree it was VERY episodic, but there is no better way to really explore the intricacies of the ME universe with all its varied locations and inhabitants than by breaking away from an overarching storyline for a few anthological excursions to really hammer the setting together.

The analogy between Star Wars and Star Trek is a fitting one in this example. Star Wars does feel a hell of a lot more "epic" than Star Trek. But Star Trek always has been a more intellectually stimulating and contextual show that really explored human relations with science and other races (and by extension, humanity's relationship with itself). It was a much more personal game.

[SurfaceBeneath]

Rilke21 wrote...

Mak89 wrote...

I love how everyone feels so betrayed. They got rid of ****ty ****ty ****ty inventory, overheating, and mako. My deal is why they didn't make a new and better mako. There's no inventory with hundreds of useless and pointless items that we have to turn into omni-gel! It's not an RPG! WAAAA!!! WAAAAA!!!! WAAAA!!! There's no ammo for 2 seconds till I get more right after I kill this guy! WAAAAA!!!!!! WAAAAAA!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! Okay, I'm done now.

Surface, this is what I was talking about

I don't know... I find that kind of enthusiasm quite invigorating!

Every fanbase has it's.... unmentionables. Need I remind you that the Tali thread is nearly 1000 pages long?

[InTransit]

Gaudion wrote...

Rilke21 wrote...

Killing enemies no longer provides experience. Neither does exploring the world, searching out codex entries, picking obscure dialogue options, finding rare items, interacting with your squad, or any of the other little details that sets an RPG apart from a shooter. For the most part, these details have been streamlined into the abyss. Where they’ve survived, there’s no longer an incentive to find them.

Keep in mind that Mass Effect, like most Bioware RPG's, is supposed to be a game of immersion. To that effect, I'm actually glad that they removed the XP-gathering effect from everything save killing enemies. With all the data-gathering and a lot of the sidequesting in ME1, Shepherd felt like a bit of a do-gooder busybody, which really ate into the concept of a detached and/or renegade Shepherd since you were punished for not doing with a lack of XP.

In the original Mass Effect, your character gets to choose from a list of 13 abilities. (This isn’t much compared to the 78 spells that mages can pick from in Dragon Age, but it’s not a bad selection.) Any of these powers can be unleashed on your enemies at any time, though once you’ve used a power you have to wait for it to recharge before you can use it again. In Mass Effect 2, you get to pick from 4 abilities. (Make that two if you’re playing as a soldier, since choosing your ammo hardly counts as a skill.) Using any of these powers makes the rest unusable until all of them recharge. Since only one or two of these powers is of any use in the first place, the chances are good that you’ll max out one skill and then spam it for the entire game. In effect, where the first game lets you use 13 powers in combat, the second lets you use 1. (I’d make a snarky comment about this exciting new development in tactical complexity, but I think you get the picture.)

Without NGP abilities, my ME1 Sentinel has access to 11 powers if you count Unity and First Aid. A lot of them seem redundant and useless, and the only reason some ever get used in the first place is because others are on cooldown.

In ME2, there are fewer abilities, but they actually matter. And with clear-cut differences in enemy defenses, if you're only mindlessly spamming one then you're either an idiot or playing on one of the easier difficulties where you have that luxery.

The inventory is a pretty essential part of any RPG, and not just because it’s fun to hit the I-key and play dress-up with your characters. The reason inventories are important is because loot management sets RPGs apart from their mindless shooter brethren.  In Mass Effect 2 you’ll occasionally find new items (maybe five or six, but only if you blow 10 bucks on the DLC.) But because there’s no inventory there’s virtually no way to distinguish which gun does more damage, or which armor offers more protection. The only noticeable differences between the weapons in Mass Effect 2 are clip size and accuracy, but since each gun is about as effective as the other guns, you might as well just keep one for the entire game.

... Which makes the game more of a shooter and less of a turn-based SNES RPG. Power-leveling and better gear is not the answer to every problem. The game asks you to approach combat tactically with what you have instead of coming back ten levels higher with an upgraded inventory. Again, something you might not notice on lower difficulties.

Mass Effect’s inventory went down the garburator, and half of the depth and fun of an RPG went with it. Most of you remember Diablo 2, a fairly simple game that was infinitely replayable because of the sheer depth of its item system. (Certain nerds have devoted the last 10 years of their lives to finding the next cool Diablo item. I in no way condone this behaviour, but it does say a lot about the importance of a decent item system.) My point is that much of the replayability of an RPG comes from finding new items, customizing your character with them, and enjoying how much of a badass you can become. When you take items and experience out of an RPG, you take away the incentive to develop your character. You take away half the incentive to play the game at all.

I'm beginning to think the greater issue at large is that you simply want Mass Effect to be something it's not. Where exactly other than your personal preferences is it mandated that inventory be a consumate feature of the RPG experience?

What makes up the other half of a great RPG? You guessed it...the story! And here is where Mass Effect 2 really fails to shine. Do you remember in Alien 3 when the survivors from the last movie are killed off in the first 20 seconds? It’s a plot device that writers fall back on when they’re either very strapped for time, or they just aren’t sure how to continue their last story.

The first Mass Effect introduced a brilliant new Sci-Fi universe that rivals Star Wars in its scope and creativity. In contrast, Mass Effect 2 starts off by blowing up the Normandy, killing or scattering the crew, and then magically bringing Shepard back from the dead. The rest of the story is pretty simple: Shepard rebuilds the crew, gains their loyalty (?), and then blows up a base. Game over, man. (We’re told a number of times that the crew is on a suicide mission. Unfortunately repeating “suicide mission” over and over  doesn’t make this story any more compelling.) Mass Effect 2 gleans what little narrative magic it has from riding on the coattails of its predecessor. Nothing new is added, and a lot is taken away. (To be fair, there’s one big exception here: the surprising development with the Geth is a very nice touch! If only the game’s ending made a shred of sense...)

The definition of stupidity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting different results. I'm not saying this to call you stupid, but it's a poignant example and spurs the obvious question: We've known Shepherd dies in the opening and that the game is a suicide mission long since the game was in developement. So... why did you play this game looking for something else.

Mass Effect 2 promised to incorporate the decisions you made in the first game into the story of the second. And it does. (In the form of trite little emails that Shepard receives from the forgettable NPCs of Mass Effect 1.) Remember Samesh Batia? Well you’ll be reminded. Or how about that Asari who got stuck in the Thorian? Yeah, you’ll get to do a pointless little quest for her, and then she’ll even flirt with you! Unfortunately, because there’s no reward for slogging through the dull side-quest dialogues, only true perfectionists will bother with the side-quests at all. The beauty of any good story is in the details. But when the details are thrown in as filler, and the story is nowhere to be found, they just detract from the whole experience.

Details and story from the first game are incorporated, you're not happy about it. This is just arguing for the sake of arguing. I'm assuming what you really want is for this to buttonhook back to your initial arguments about the inventory and gear, which has nothing at all to do with story or details from the first game.

Mass Effect 2 is not much of an RPG. So why does it deserve the praise that people have been throwing at it? The answer is that the game looks like a movie. (If you ignore the side quests and the left-half of the dialogue wheel, it even plays like a movie.) But the cinematic quality of the second game is nothing new to the Mass Effect series. And when you combine bare-bones plot with uninspired side-quests and depth-free combat, Mass Effect 2 just plays like a gutted version of the original. Lip service has been paid to what made the original Mass Effect great (the voice acting is mostly excellent and the combat is still good for the occasional adrenaline rush), but much of the substance of the origional has been removed. We’re left with a decent third-person shooter that is by no means a bad game. It’s just not what I expected from BioWare.

RPG's have been called such and gotten away with a lot worse. FFX was as much of a movie as you're claiming ME to be, and FFXII had a less cohesive story and far less character developement than an FPS that doesn't even claim to be an RPG. Any given Zelda game has fewer gear upgrades than ME2. (And no, sub-items don't count. 75% of their use was solving puzzles in dungeons, with the remaining 25% being used to defeat enemies in puzzle-like ways. There wasn't much to improve on simply swording things.)

That said, I’m writing this to remind BioWare of what makes a game great, and of what Mass Effect 2 is sadly lacking. For the real fans out there, maybe we’ll have better luck next time.

This thread has been the opinion of one person based solely on personal preference. Which you're entitled to, but much of it is your wishing Mass Effect 2 into a vanilla RPG which it is clearly not meant to be, in which case the simplest solution would be for you to go play something else so the constituency with a broader scope can enjoy something less the usual fair.

Calling yourself a "true fan" while the rest of us are, I assume, beer-ponging frat boys who only stop to play video games between courting slam pieces at the weekend social bar crawls was not exactly the best way to end this either.

I know I'm Johnny Come Lately on this but seriously.... bravo!

[ZennExile]

shaneho78 wrote...

ZennExile wrote...

Here's how addition and subtraction work:

Original Fanbase = Millions
Old Mecahnics fixed = Original fanbase+ New Fanbase

New game = New Fanbase
New Fanbase = Millions
New Mechanics = New Fanbase...

Get this idea?  If they would have made ME2 a true seqel to ME1 and simply "improved" the weak mechanics in the game rather than "amputate" them, they would have had more customers and made more money by actually appealing to more people.  The approach they took resulted in New Customers at the cost of old customers instead of adding to the total?  You get it?

Original + New > New
X + Y > X

Math?  

That is assuming all old gamers think like you but then even you bought ME2 right?

Unfortunately I took the blind approach to ME2 and rather than pay attention to development or reviews just waited for release and bought it based soley on the fact that it was the sequel to ME1.

If I would have known it was a Gears of War mod I would have just rented it from gamefly to set up a quick import for ME3 and hoped for real innovation in ME3.

Modifié par ZennExile, 17 février 2010 - 05:13 .

[Mak89]

Nozybidaj wrote...

Rilke21 wrote...

Mak89 wrote...

I love how everyone feels so betrayed. They got rid of ****ty ****ty ****ty inventory, overheating, and mako. My deal is why they didn't make a new and better mako. There's no inventory with hundreds of useless and pointless items that we have to turn into omni-gel! It's not an RPG! WAAAA!!! WAAAAA!!!! WAAAA!!! There's no ammo for 2 seconds till I get more right after I kill this guy! WAAAAA!!!!!! WAAAAAA!!!! WAAAAAAA!!!! Okay, I'm done now.

Surface, this is what I was talking about

Well BW wanted to pull in the shooter crowd.  They got what they wanted.

I'm not a shooter fan. Besides ME1 was a shooter/RPG. I'm not fully behind a lot of the changes, but you can't tell me that ME1 didn't have these problems. Instead of fixing them they got rid of them. Not exactly what I would have done, but the results are clear. This is still a killer game. I'm not gonna let a lack of RPG aspects or things that could have been better get in the way of an amazing gaming experience.