242 réponses à ce sujet

[FlintlockJazz]

Daeion wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

Daeion wrote...

I understood the story but honestly it simply made me feel like they switched ME and ME2, i.e. ME should have been ME2 and ME2 should have been ME, at least then it would have felt like the story had actually
moved forward.

ME2 was about building your squad, finding out what was happening to human colonies and then stopping it.  The entire time you only face the collectors, agents of the reapers, not the reapers themselves.  This makes a good starting point, especially when you put ME in as the 2nd act.  I think ME fits better as the 2nd act because in neither games does anyone besides shep and his crew believe in the reapers so that part of the story
doesn't really move forward.  However ME has the typical 2nd act betrayals like we see in LOTR Two Towers and Empire Strikes back, in this case Saren betraying the council. 

Also, ME doesn't focus as much on building your team like ME2 does, in ME you have your team except for Liara before you leave the citadel, and the it’s go go go.  Typically the first act of a trilogy is about bringing a group together and possibly losing a few, that’s what ME2 is all about.  The 2nd act takes your original surviving cast and introduces a few new chars but continues to build upon the previous cast.  Now the series hasn’t really continued to develop anyone except for Shep, Garrus, and Tali, but it’s easier to continue development when you only introduce a few new people, not a 90% brand new cast.

Actually, I disagree, the first part is geared up to hook the 'viewer' in, in most media you don't want to spend team building up characters at first, you want to kick it off and then get all the character introductions done later, which is what they did:  ME1 kicks off the plot with a bang and then ME2 starts to bring in the relevant characters and gives the backstory on them to supply the details. 

The first act is never about bringing a group together, that is either done beforehand offscreen or in the background if done in the first act.

How relevant can the characters be if they can all die?  You know that BW is going to do the same thing they did with the ME cast to the ME2 cast, i.e. small cameos.  We've already been told that ME LI's will be back in ME3, hopefully in a better role then they were in ME2 and they are working on new crew members, I don't see the ME2 cast playing pivotal roles.  This is why I say it makes more sense to put ME2 before ME1, because then you can actually focus on growing characters through interactions since you don't need to worry about introducing and killing them off in the same 2nd act.  Are you telling me the ME2 if it had come first wouldn't have been able to hook people in?  Humans are being abducted, you stop it only to find out that you only stopped the puppets and the puppet masters are on their way?

Really? The first act is never about brining a group together?   Lets see, I'm pretty sure Star Wars and LOTR bring their main groups together in the first act.

I mean they don't write the first act purely about bringing them together, it's something that just happens to allow the plot to move on, except LotR which is a hard read for many people for the very reason that it can take a while to get going.  When they focus on group formation it is often after the initial act to draw people in.

As to BW dropping ME2 cast into cameo form for ME3, I guess you never played Baldur's Gate.  They dropped most of the NPCs from Baldur's Gate, relegating most of them to cameos for Baldur's Gate 2, yet in Throne of Bhaal they included the option to have any BG2 NPCs in your party even though any of them could die permanently (such as by being gibbed).  The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

[PMorgan18]

davidt0504 wrote...

haha ironically me2 sometimes reminds me of canterbury tales, obviously not alot but since you bring up literature courses thats what came to mind haha

I love Canterbury Tales.  We read that in my World Lit. class, after I finished it I wanted to know the other stories like the Yeomen and the Sargent.

On topic:
I wished there was 2 side missions for the characters, I liked the loyalty missions more then the main missions because I got to learn more about the characters.

[TheShady]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

I think, with the way ME1 squadmates were treated in ME2, we have good reason to presume they are becoming cameos. Empirically comprehensible.

[walk0nwalls]

malres wrote...

Ok, so let's talk about motivation. I agree to your findings, but not with the conclusion. If the Reapers' motivation is not sufficiently clear, it should be dealt with rather than dropped.
Instead, a number of new characters are introduced, most of which with at least doubtful motivation. Why will aliens join a suicide mission under the flag of an human-extremist organisation to solve a problem which affects exclusively humans?

Hey, no disagreement there. It would've been nice if the Reapers had been anything more than GREAT UNKNOWN EVIL OF ALL WORLD ™ and honestly, that would've been something worth getting into. Oh well, decisions are what decisions are. If they really want to wrap this one out they're gonna have one hell of a time writing ME3.

As for the motivations of my fellow compatriots, I had to invent a sort of unspoken pact between Shepherd and the crew that 'suicide mission' was purely rhetorical and he wholly intended to get them all out alive.

That I had to invent such a fiction at all points to a flaw in writing, so there we go.

[SurfaceBeneath]

TheShady wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

I think, with the way ME1 squadmates were treated in ME2, we have good reason to presume they are becoming cameos. Empirically comprehensible.

That isn't evidence of anything. ME1 and ME2 are supposed to have very different themes and have mostly seperate casts to handle those themes. ME3 is supposed to bring those two games together. Logically, one would assume that the characters that have been built up in the first two games would play major roles in ME3.

[davidt0504]

[quote]SurfaceBeneath wrote...

[quote]TheShady wrote...

[quote]FlintlockJazz wrote...

The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.
[/quote]
I think, with the way ME1 squadmates were treated in ME2, we have good reason to presume they are becoming cameos. Empirically comprehensible.

[/quote]
your calling something that happened once as emperically comprehensible? thats antithesis of empericism.

[Mondara]

ROFLMAO Soapbox at it's best.....

[Shockwave81]

I understand that this game was always touted as being character driven. I just wish the game's universe was fleshed out as well. Why does there have to be a trade off?

I probably wouldn't have any issues with the game if it was called Mass Effect: The Cerberus Chronicles.

Then I wouldn't have cared about fighting mercenaries and mechs on almost EVERY SINGLE SIDE QUEST instead of the Collectors and Harbinger.

How on earth is stopping a dig site raid as important as uncovering new truths about those that left the site to be 'dug'? How does stopping said raid advance the overall story or flesh out the ME lore? Quite simply, it doesn't, and didn't. It advances the squad's levels, skills, and weaponry instead. 

These side quests are potentially made even more irrelevant considering the treatment (i.e emails or NOTHING) that came about as a result of assignments in ME1. 

Perhaps, in the great scheme of things, foiling the mercenaries' activities etc will make for a more 'stable' galactic community in ME3, which will help when the Reapers finally arrive. I won't hold my inhalations of O2 though.

Modifié par Shockwave81, 18 février 2010 - 08:29 .

[Terraneaux]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

ME3 is supposed to bring those two games together. Logically, one would assume that the characters that have been built up in the first two games would play major roles in ME3.

We have no reason to think this is the case.  What is more likely is a mostly new roster of characters, with a few carrying over, and little to no impact from things like LI's.

[FlintlockJazz]

TheShady wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

I think, with the way ME1 squadmates were treated in ME2, we have good reason to presume they are becoming cameos. Empirically comprehensible.

With the way Shadows of Amn NPCs were treated in Throne of Bhaal we have good reason to presume they are staying squadmates.  Bioware are not making any changes to the game engine or system for ME3, or so they claim, which means that they are going to have to be doing something with their time.

[nitefyre410]

ME 2 = Intro of the ME 3 cast,



Who returns for ME 3 is up to the player ... thats why the underlying challenge of the whole game is to complete the suicide mission and bring everyone home.

[Daeion]

FlintlockJazz wrote...

Daeion wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

Daeion wrote...

I understood the story but honestly it simply made me feel like they switched ME and ME2, i.e. ME should have been ME2 and ME2 should have been ME, at least then it would have felt like the story had actually
moved forward.

ME2 was about building your squad, finding out what was happening to human colonies and then stopping it.  The entire time you only face the collectors, agents of the reapers, not the reapers themselves.  This makes a good starting point, especially when you put ME in as the 2nd act.  I think ME fits better as the 2nd act because in neither games does anyone besides shep and his crew believe in the reapers so that part of the story
doesn't really move forward.  However ME has the typical 2nd act betrayals like we see in LOTR Two Towers and Empire Strikes back, in this case Saren betraying the council. 

Also, ME doesn't focus as much on building your team like ME2 does, in ME you have your team except for Liara before you leave the citadel, and the it’s go go go.  Typically the first act of a trilogy is about bringing a group together and possibly losing a few, that’s what ME2 is all about.  The 2nd act takes your original surviving cast and introduces a few new chars but continues to build upon the previous cast.  Now the series hasn’t really continued to develop anyone except for Shep, Garrus, and Tali, but it’s easier to continue development when you only introduce a few new people, not a 90% brand new cast.

Actually, I disagree, the first part is geared up to hook the 'viewer' in, in most media you don't want to spend team building up characters at first, you want to kick it off and then get all the character introductions done later, which is what they did:  ME1 kicks off the plot with a bang and then ME2 starts to bring in the relevant characters and gives the backstory on them to supply the details. 

The first act is never about bringing a group together, that is either done beforehand offscreen or in the background if done in the first act.

How relevant can the characters be if they can all die?  You know that BW is going to do the same thing they did with the ME cast to the ME2 cast, i.e. small cameos.  We've already been told that ME LI's will be back in ME3, hopefully in a better role then they were in ME2 and they are working on new crew members, I don't see the ME2 cast playing pivotal roles.  This is why I say it makes more sense to put ME2 before ME1, because then you can actually focus on growing characters through interactions since you don't need to worry about introducing and killing them off in the same 2nd act.  Are you telling me the ME2 if it had come first wouldn't have been able to hook people in?  Humans are being abducted, you stop it only to find out that you only stopped the puppets and the puppet masters are on their way?

Really? The first act is never about brining a group together?   Lets see, I'm pretty sure Star Wars and LOTR bring their main groups together in the first act.

I mean they don't write the first act purely about bringing them together, it's something that just happens to allow the plot to move on, except LotR which is a hard read for many people for the very reason that it can take a while to get going.  When they focus on group formation it is often after the initial act to draw people in.

As to BW dropping ME2 cast into cameo form for ME3, I guess you never played Baldur's Gate.  They dropped most of the NPCs from Baldur's Gate, relegating most of them to cameos for Baldur's Gate 2, yet in Throne of Bhaal they included the option to have any BG2 NPCs in your party even though any of them could die permanently (such as by being gibbed).  The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

I'm not saying the first act should be just about bringing together your group and nothing else, but it makes more sense to bring the group together in the first act so you can build from there instead of introducing an almost entirely new main cast with each game.

No, I never played the Baldur's gate series, KOTOR was my first interaction with a BW game.  I really hope the cast of ME2 makes a comeback, even though I still prefer the original cast, however after how poorly they handled ME LI's I don't see BW taking the time to flush out all 16 possible crew members.  I'd love to see them proove me wrong, but I don't think it will happen.

[Daeion]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

TheShady wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

I think, with the way ME1 squadmates were treated in ME2, we have good reason to presume they are becoming cameos. Empirically comprehensible.

That isn't evidence of anything. ME1 and ME2 are supposed to have very different themes and have mostly seperate casts to handle those themes. ME3 is supposed to bring those two games together. Logically, one would assume that the characters that have been built up in the first two games would play major roles in ME3.

We were told that while the ME LI's wouldn't be squad mates that they would still play a mjor role in ME2, I'm sorry but I fail to see how any of them perform a major role.

[malres]

walk0nwalls wrote...

Hey, no disagreement there. It would've been nice if the Reapers had been anything more than GREAT UNKNOWN EVIL OF ALL WORLD ™ and honestly, that would've been something worth getting into. Oh well, decisions are what decisions are. If they really want to wrap this one out they're gonna have one hell of a time writing ME3.

As for the motivations of my fellow compatriots, I had to invent a sort of unspoken pact between Shepherd and the crew that 'suicide mission' was purely rhetorical and he wholly intended to get them all out alive.

That I had to invent such a fiction at all points to a flaw in writing, so there we go.

I absolutely agree.

[SurfaceBeneath]

Daeion wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

TheShady wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

I think, with the way ME1 squadmates were treated in ME2, we have good reason to presume they are becoming cameos. Empirically comprehensible.

That isn't evidence of anything. ME1 and ME2 are supposed to have very different themes and have mostly seperate casts to handle those themes. ME3 is supposed to bring those two games together. Logically, one would assume that the characters that have been built up in the first two games would play major roles in ME3.

We were told that while the ME LI's wouldn't be squad mates that they would still play a mjor role in ME2, I'm sorry but I fail to see how any of them perform a major role.

You don't think that Wrex leading the Krogan people is not a major role? Nor Ash/Kaiden investigating the Collectors for the Alliance? Or Liara hunting down the Shadow Broker?

They're all doing major roles. Maybe those roles don't revolve around Shepard, but they'd feel like cheaper characters as a whole if they couldn't get out of the bed every morning unless Shepard was there to tell them to.

[malres]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

Daeion wrote...

We were told that while the ME LI's wouldn't be squad mates that they would still play a mjor role in ME2, I'm sorry but I fail to see how any of them perform a major role.

You don't think that Wrex leading the Krogan people is not a major role? Nor Ash/Kaiden investigating the Collectors for the Alliance? Or Liara hunting down the Shadow Broker?

They're all doing major roles. Maybe those roles don't revolve around Shepard, but they'd feel like cheaper characters as a whole if they couldn't get out of the bed every morning unless Shepard was there to tell them to.

I appreciate and respect your opinion, and of course you are free to voice such a statement. But you are wrong. It is a fact that neither Wrex (who is not a LI anyway) nor Liara nor Ashley/Kaidan play a major role in ME2 in any way, shape or form, no matter how you twist it.
Hell, Ashley/Kaidan have about the screentime of Niftu Cal or Conrad Verner. Liara doesn't have much more, and her tasks for the player are probably the side missions least connected to the main plot. Compare it to Aria or Kelly Chambers: They can maybe be called major characters, but appear and talk and guide Shepard much more than any of the aforementioned old crewmembers.

Modifié par malres, 18 février 2010 - 04:46 .

[facialstrokage]

Let me set the record straight. For those who think there is no story progression. You're wrong. Just plain wrong. The point isn't whether or not you like the story. It's that there is a story and it goes forward. If I have am an author to a novel and I add one word to it, it's story progression, because it's my story, and I added to it. Hence, it's story progression. You may not like it, you may think it's completely irrelevant, but it's story progression nonetheless. Why? Because the author wrote it. ME2 is story progression because it adds to the canonical history of the series. Compare it with anything you like, Star Wars, Halo, Matrix, whatever. It doesn't matter. You prefer other stories to ME, but you can't say ME doesn't have story progression.

[malres]

facialstrokage wrote...

Let me set the record straight. For those who think there is no story progression. You're wrong. Just plain wrong. The point isn't whether or not you like the story. It's that there is a story and it goes forward. If I have am an author to a novel and I add one word to it, it's story progression, because it's my story, and I added to it. Hence, it's story progression. You may not like it, you may think it's completely irrelevant, but it's story progression nonetheless. Why? Because the author wrote it. ME2 is story progression because it adds to the canonical history of the series. Compare it with anything you like, Star Wars, Halo, Matrix, whatever. It doesn't matter. You prefer other stories to ME, but you can't say ME doesn't have story progression.

Me (reading previous post): "The arguments can't become more skewed."
God (grinning): "Oh, a challenge!"
You: *writing a post*

The main story arc happening in the background is not your story, even if you could make Shepard turn his back on it and not participate in it (which you can't).

Modifié par malres, 18 février 2010 - 04:25 .

[Nautica773]

facialstrokage wrote...

Let me set the record straight. For those who think there is no story progression. You're wrong. Just plain wrong. The point isn't whether or not you like the story. It's that there is a story and it goes forward. If I have am an author to a novel and I add one word to it, it's story progression, because it's my story, and I added to it. Hence, it's story progression.

This shows an incredible naivety towards the writing process. An author can write quite a lot that doesn't progress a story (say, describing a character's meal or their hair). A definite article on its own does not a story make. Unless, of course, you're a fan of this literary classic:

This an one the to a for many that no some.

Modifié par Nautica773, 18 février 2010 - 04:37 .

[FlintlockJazz]

malres wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

Daeion wrote...

We were told that while the ME LI's wouldn't be squad mates that they would still play a mjor role in ME2, I'm sorry but I fail to see how any of them perform a major role.

You don't think that Wrex leading the Krogan people is not a major role? Nor Ash/Kaiden investigating the Collectors for the Alliance? Or Liara hunting down the Shadow Broker?

They're all doing major roles. Maybe those roles don't revolve around Shepard, but they'd feel like cheaper characters as a whole if they couldn't get out of the bed every morning unless Shepard was there to tell them to.

I appreciate and respect your opinion, and of course you are free to voice such a statement. But you are wrong. It is a fact that neither Wrex (who is not a LI anyway) nor Liara nor Ashley/Kaidan play a major role in ME2 in any way, shape or form, no matter how you twist it.
Hell, Ashley/Kaidan have about the screentime of Niftu Cal or Conrad Verner. Liara doesn't have much more, and her tasks for the player are probably the side missions least connected to the main plot. Compare it to Aria or Kelly Chambers: They can maybe be called major characters, but appear and talk and guide Shepard much more than any of the aforementioned old crewmembers.

As far as we know, they are not important roles and side missions, but for all we know they could actually be important if taken into context with whatever happens in ME3, especially the shadow broker who seems to be getting set up for a greater role.  Then again, they might not, and BioWare are currently using the money we used to buy ME2 to wipe their backsides with, in which case I'd have to have serious words with them regarding the greater efficiency of using the money to buy toilet paper over using the money itself as such.

[TheShady]

davidt0504 wrote...

TheShady wrote...

FlintlockJazz wrote...

The whole point of "Does your character survive?" seems to be to see who you can keep for ME3, and since Bioware have not announced one way or another as to whether characters will be joinable in ME3 we don't know that they will be reduced to cameos, and presumptions don't really hold much weight.

I think, with the way ME1 squadmates were treated in ME2, we have good reason to presume they are becoming cameos. Empirically comprehensible.

your calling something that happened once as emperically comprehensible? thats antithesis of empericism.

100% of the cases.

[SurfaceBeneath]

malres wrote...
I appreciate and respect your opinion, and of course you are free to voice such a statement. But you are wrong. It is a fact that neither Wrex (who is not a LI anyway) nor Liara nor Ashley/Kaidan play a major role in ME2 in any way, shape or form, no matter how you twist it.
Hell, Ashley/Kaidan have about the screentime of Niftu Cal or Conrad Verner. Liara doesn't have much more, and her tasks for the player are probably the side missions least connected to the main plot. Compare it to Aria or Kelly Chambers: They can maybe be called major characters, but appear and talk and guide Shepard much more than any of the aforementioned old crewmembers.

Alright, consider this:

ME 2 needs to bridge events from the first game in to the third. For those characters to have a proper effect in the third game, they must build up their own personal story arcs away from Shepard. Wrex cannot lead the Krogan people if he's slumming about with Shepard through space. Nor can Shepard really help Wrex in the arena of Krogan politics. Ash/Kaiden cannot serve the Alliance in investigating Cerberus while crewing a Cerberus ship. The Alliance, we learn, essentially considers Shepard rogue at best and a traitor at worst. Liara cannot chase the Shadow Broker down while she tags along to fight the collectors. And the way she does this, the slow gathering of information, would not be something Shepard can much assist with.

Consider that none of these arcs are finished by the end of ME2, and are in fact works in progress. We can assume that when we pick up in Me3, these characters and their arcs will have matured to a point in which Shepard can assist them. However, at this point, their respective arcs require that they not be done with Shepard.

Modifié par SurfaceBeneath, 18 février 2010 - 05:06 .

[TheShady]

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

Alright, consider this:

ME 2 needs to bridge events from the first game in to the third. For those characters to have a proper effect in the third game, they must build up their own personal story arcs away from Shepard. Wrex cannot lead the Krogan people if he's slumming about with Shepard through space. Nor can Shepard really help Wrex in the arena of Krogan politics. Ash/Kaiden cannot serve the Alliance in investigating Cerberus while crewing a Cerberus ship. The Alliance, we learn, essentially considers Shepard rogue at best and a traitor at worst. Liara cannot chase the Shadow Broker down while she tags along to fight the collectors. And the way she does this, the slow gathering of information, would not be something Shepard can much assist with.

Ok, that's a good point. However, no one's saying they have to be crewmembers. They could have been characters of weight equal to TIM.

[Terraneaux]

TheShady wrote...

SurfaceBeneath wrote...

Alright, consider this:

ME 2 needs to bridge events from the first game in to the third. For those characters to have a proper effect in the third game, they must build up their own personal story arcs away from Shepard. Wrex cannot lead the Krogan people if he's slumming about with Shepard through space. Nor can Shepard really help Wrex in the arena of Krogan politics. Ash/Kaiden cannot serve the Alliance in investigating Cerberus while crewing a Cerberus ship. The Alliance, we learn, essentially considers Shepard rogue at best and a traitor at worst. Liara cannot chase the Shadow Broker down while she tags along to fight the collectors. And the way she does this, the slow gathering of information, would not be something Shepard can much assist with.

Ok, that's a good point. However, no one's saying they have to be crewmembers. They could have been characters of weight equal to TIM.

And it's always better to *show* that story rather than have it happen off screen, which is what happened (except kinda with Wrex, we see some of what's going on and get to help him a bit).  Right now I have no idea what Ashley and/or Kaiden are doing, besides being irrationally antagonistic towards my Shep.

[facialstrokage]

malres wrote...

facialstrokage wrote...

Let
me set the record straight. For those who think there is no story
progression. You're wrong. Just plain wrong. The point isn't whether or
not you like the story. It's that there is a story and it goes forward.
If I have am an author to a novel and I add one word to it, it's story
progression, because it's my story, and I added to it. Hence, it's story
progression. You may not like it, you may think it's completely
irrelevant, but it's story progression nonetheless. Why? Because the
author wrote it. ME2 is story progression because it adds to the
canonical history of the series. Compare it with anything you like, Star
Wars, Halo, Matrix, whatever. It doesn't matter. You prefer other
stories to ME, but you can't say ME doesn't have story
progression.

Me (reading previous post): "The arguments
can't become more skewed."
God (grinning): "Oh, a challenge!"
You:
*writing a post*

The main story arc happening in the background
is not your story, even if you could make Shepard turn his back on it
and not participate in it (which you can't).

What??? This is got nothing to do with me. The author thing was an analogy. Bioware is the author. Hence wherever they decided to go is story progression in ME.

Nautica773 wrote...

facialstrokage wrote...

Let me set the record straight. For those who think there is no story progression. You're wrong. Just plain wrong. The point isn't whether or not you like the story. It's that there is a story and it goes forward. If I have am an author to a novel and I add one word to it, it's story progression, because it's my story, and I added to it. Hence, it's story progression.

This shows an incredible naivety towards the writing process. An author can write quite a lot that doesn't progress a story (say, describing a character's meal or their hair). A definite article on its own does not a story make. Unless, of course, you're a fan of this literary classic:

This an one the to a for many that no some.

I can agree with your general outline, but

1) as a reader, how do you know for sure those descriptions don't have significance and contribute to story progression, especially if you're only 2/3 the way through?
2) In the case of ME2, I think the whole collectors thing is more than just description.

I'll concede that context, settings, etc do not progress the story themselves. But I still believe that they are essential for story progression. So they catalize the story, in other words. I mean, as long as we're talking about Bioware and not Ron L Hubbard, I think anything that goes into ME will augment the story, either directly or indirectly.