bjdbwea wrote...
Ecael wrote...
The way I see it, EA just says "Make another great game by this release date and we'll publish it for you". I doubt the executives or shareholders have any say in how the game itself plays out.
Yeah... but what's a great game? A good game, or a game that makes the most profit? Obviously the latter in their view. Of course BioWare were told to make changes. More "immediate" with less "stoppages" was the term Mr. Woo used. Dumbing down, I say. Okay, but it went too far this time.
Making money for their shareholders is their job, yes. But that would be more evident in the advertising (like the Saints-Vikings two minute warning Mass Effect 2 ad) and the overall marketing. Once people buy the game and play through it to see whether it's great or not, EA has already made money.
The 95%+ rating on GameRankings is also a major help, but that wasn't EA's responsibility - that was BioWare's.
Ecael wrote...
And even if EA sets a firm release date, I would think that cutting corners to meet that deadline would be evident in the amount of content rather than the quality. Quality of the plot would be irrelevant here unless Drew Karpyshyn needed another year to come up with a story for Mass Effect 2 (and 3).
But it is evident in the amount! Which results in lower quality. Email briefings instead of spoken briefings - less content. No planet exploration - less content. Totally linear side quests (and main quest) without any interaction or choices - less content. No interaction between crew members - less content. Shorter romances, no friendship path - less content. Main story told through several meetings between Shepard and TIM, instead of fully animated cutscenes involving more people and the crew - less content. Enemies with just a few sentences instead of a full role - less content. And so on. The game may have more recorded dialogue, but that happens outside and parallel to the other work a developer has to do. In the usually time consuming parts for RPGs, there are cut corners everywhere, I can only assume to meet a fixed release date. And I actually suspect that the whole story was planned quite differently, but had to be altered due to time constraints.
The Illusive Man does the briefings and not Admiral Hackett - and it's split into several cutscenes which require fine-tuning, instead of just sound files played on Shepard's face.
It's actually more content.
If planets were actually populated with colonies and not a single generic mercenary facility, it would count as more content. Otherwise, being dropped a mile away in the Mako is just a way to add gameplay time - the same way planet-scanning unnecessarily adds time.
Same content.
All the missions combined have around 33,000 lines of spoken dialogue for ME2, compared to 20,000 for ME1. Mark Meer also mentioned that the recording itself took twice the amount of time.
More content.
Joker, EDI, Crewman Donnelly, Crewman Daniels, Kelly Chambers, Mess Sergeant Gardner and the rest have more dialogue combined than the SR-1 crew.
If you would like me to go over the sound files from both games and count them up by lines, minutes or by topics mentioned, I can do so.
More content.The ME1 crew of 6 huddled after every major mission - Feros, Noveria, Virmire and Therum (four times). The ME2 crew of 12 huddled three times with the Crash Landing, Vents Doors Open and Biotic Doors Open. There are more lines from that because of the complexity of the mission and who can die.
More content.
While there are more romances and squadmates, the amount of dialogue from each squadmate is either the same or slightly higher. Liara has around ~207 lines of 1-on-1 dialogue with Shepard on the Normandy when romanced. Thane has ~250 1-on-1 lines and covers more topics than Liara, including the state of the race's homeworld (Rakhana), Jack has around ~205 lines, Jacob has around ~260, and even Samara and Kelly have around ~150 when "fully" romanced, with Morinth's "date" adding another 150 to Samara's. Garrus, Tali and Miranda also range around ~150-160 lines of 1-on-1 dialogue.
In further comparison to Liara's ~207 possible lines when romanced (since people will say that it's not the number, but the topics), Legion and Mordin have 200 lines
each and further the discussion of the geth and the genophage. The only character in ME1 who has actual discussion about a storyline that affects the galaxy is Wrex and the genophage (and Tali, but we didn't know how significant the Geth/Quarians/Admiralty Board would be until Tali's loyalty and Legion's recruitment).
More content.In terms of friendship dialogue? Every squadmate in Mass Effect 2 has a loyalty quest with more dialogue that I didn't even include yet.
More content.
Main missions in both games contain a lot of generic dialogue among squadmates. The difference in Mass Effect 1 and 2 is that the dialogue sentences are structured differently to fit the squadmate's personality - except in the case of Wrex. Wrex's word structure, manner of speech and beliefs are unique compared to Liara, Ashley, Kaidan, Tali and Garrus in ME1 (who sometimes have the same exact lines). Mass Effect 2 has a lot of generic dialogue as well, but squadmates like Mordin, Zaeed, Grunt, Jack, Legion all have different speech mannerisms, and so the script had to be written differently for almost every squadmate.
More content.
In terms of Reaper villains, listen to what Sovereign has to say again and compare that to all of Harbinger's dialogue. Most of Sovereign's lines are just intimidation - like Harbinger, but with a dialogue wheel. Neither geth in ME1 nor Collectors in ME2 talk. Saren Arterius, Matriarch Benezia and The Thorian have less dialogue considering the number of villains you face in the recruitment and loyalty missions - many of them with dialogue wheels of their own. The characterization of certain races (like Krogan) was very much improved, as shown in this thread:
More content.How do I know all this? I'm working on dialogue guides for Mass Effect 1/2 to sift through the 50,000 total lines of dialogue to find lines unique to specific ME1/ME2 squadmates (and how to access them) - and trust me, the amount of GENERIC dialogue in both games is staggering.
You're arguing with the wrong person if you're going to say that BioWare cut corners with the amount of content in this game.
Numbers don't lie, and considering I'm not partial to any aspect of either game, those numbers are justified.
Stop looking at Mass Effect 1 and 2 as separate parts and look at it as two great parts of a awesome book. If you continue to think otherwise, then e-mail Drew Karpyshyn yourself and ask him why he "ruined" Mass Effect as the Lead Writer.
Modifié par Ecael, 30 mai 2010 - 11:57 .
Ce sujet est fermé
Retour en haut
People are calling Bayonetta awesome for the fact that it has mid-boss checkpoints, when Doom freaking had that YEARS ago with quicksave + quickload.
