133 réponses à ce sujet

[jasonontko]

I am going to let out some nerd rage at all those who charge that people who dont like the ME2 story, simply dont understand it.  Au contrair mon amie, I do understand.  Each character vignette is a parrable kinda like Aesop's Fables except in space.  I wont bore the reader with a wall of text explaining each story, surfice to say there is alot going on in each. 

I know full well that ME2 is character based, thats the problem.  Event based stories are where oridanry people are involved in extraordinary events which was ME1. Character based stories are about how extraordinary people deal with ordinary problems which was ME2.  The problem is that saving the galaxy is not an ordinary problem, it quite literaly an existential crisis!.  Why am f******* around trying to find Jacob's farther when all organic life is thretened with extincton?  All of sudden saving the galaxy from the reapers is now an oridnary problem.  No wonder the Turian councilor says 'ah yes "reapers"' why should he take the threat seriously when finding Mordin's assistant is a more urgent problem than the reapers.    You see when you go from event based to character based in your story telling, you end up doing violence to the story to make it probable.

So please if going to criticize the critic, please understand the critcism first. 

PS

This is not a diatribe about loyalty quests or ME2's internal consistency.  This is about trilogy consistency and how poor story coordination between ME1 and ME2 has warped the story arc into an unreconizable shape.   Seriously does any one think that this trology was planned? It looks awfully like they started thinking anout ME2 only after ME1 was done.     

Modifié par jasonontko, 02 mars 2010 - 03:37 .

[Amethyst Deceiver]

[ARK of ILKS]

word.



I agree, if my daughter was kidnapped, I wouldnt go around doing personal favors to the police or FBI. Its stupid.



FBI guy: Hey, I know your daughter was kidnapped (probably raped to death by now) but would you mind going to china and get my laundry? thanks dude, your the best. This will earn you my loyalty and make me work doubely hard to find your missing daughter.



Stupid, just stupid.....

[jasonontko]

Amethyst Deceiver wrote...

 She is not painted in the cornor,  all that has to happen is for the collectors to kill her and then Cerburus can resurrect her out of that cornor. 

[FlyinElk212]

Amethyst Deceiver wrote...

Did it take anyone else like 5 minutes or so to figure out what that picture meant?

.......Anyone?

[Amethyst Deceiver]

Beuller?

[Sigma Tauri]

ARK of ILKS wrote...

word.

I agree, if my daughter was kidnapped, I wouldnt go around doing personal favors to the police or FBI. Its stupid.

FBI guy: Hey, I know your daughter was kidnapped (probably raped to death by now) but would you mind going to china and get my laundry? thanks dude, your the best. This will earn you my loyalty and make me work doubely hard to find your missing daughter.

Stupid, just stupid.....

Saren's looking for the Conduit. Why don't you give advice to a pair of quarreling strangers about what to do with their baby?

Modifié par monkeycamoran, 01 mars 2010 - 04:02 .

[Mr.BlazenGlazen]

Well...you don't need to do the loyalty missions, and end up charging in the collector base and killing everyone off, and still beating the game.

[GenericPlayer2]

I agree with the OP. It would have been appropriate for Bioware to add background news information indicating more colonies are being attacked (minimum effort on their part). That way the player can get the sense that there is a crisis and that he/she needs to go get that IFF instead of helping Jacob find his pervert dad.

[jasonontko]

Mr.BlazenGlazen wrote...

Well...you don't need to do the loyalty missions, and end up charging in the collector base and killing everyone off, and still beating the game.

It not just the loyalty missions my man, its the whole story arc being bent into unrecongnizable shape.

[superimposed]

Giant FTL travelling squid-robots abducting entire colonies with midget bugs and a mutated ancient race...



Yeha, I'll give them some lee-way.

[ARK of ILKS]

monkeycamoran wrote...

ARK of ILKS wrote...

word.

I agree, if my daughter was kidnapped, I wouldnt go around doing personal favors to the police or FBI. Its stupid.

FBI guy: Hey, I know your daughter was kidnapped (probably raped to death by now) but would you mind going to china and get my laundry? thanks dude, your the best. This will earn you my loyalty and make me work doubely hard to find your missing daughter.

Stupid, just stupid.....

Saren's looking for the Conduit. Why don't you give advice to a pair of quarreling strangers about what to do with their baby?

Thats a great idea, and while im at it, Ill go to Chora's Den and sit down to watch some stripper action, or better even... lets go to Pinnacle Station and waste hour after hour running around killing wave after wave of holographic baddies while Saren plans his little fieldtrip to Feros & Noveria.

Oh, he found the second beacon you say. Well, we cant win them all now can we.

This is what I think of consistency in ME:

[jasonontko]

superimposed wrote...

Giant FTL travelling squid-robots abducting entire colonies with midget bugs and a mutated ancient race...

Yeha, I'll give them some lee-way.

Ah yes "the improbable story defense".  Since everything else is improbable, I should not expect story continuity.  But since this is suppose to be a story immersion RPG, I have dismissed this claim. 

[enormousmoonboots]

GenericPlayer2 wrote...

I agree with the OP. It would have been appropriate for Bioware to add background news information indicating more colonies are being attacked (minimum effort on their part). That way the player can get the sense that there is a crisis and that he/she needs to go get that IFF instead of helping Jacob find his pervert dad.

Those are there. Listen to your crew, they talk about at least two more colonies (Ferris Fields and...New Calcutta? Second one is probably wrong) disappearing over the course of the game.

[Commander Darmok]

This hurts you.

Modifié par Commander Darmok, 01 mars 2010 - 04:15 .

[ZennExile]

The thread title is magical.

[Chamberboozer]

I'm just glad the loyalty missions made sense in and of themselves. Bioware could have done so much worse than they did, instead we wound up with intriguing missions that are well made for each character.



The OP's complaint makes sense, but I disagree.

[Chamberboozer]

enormousmoonboots wrote...

GenericPlayer2 wrote...

I agree with the OP. It would have been appropriate for Bioware to add background news information indicating more colonies are being attacked (minimum effort on their part). That way the player can get the sense that there is a crisis and that he/she needs to go get that IFF instead of helping Jacob find his pervert dad.

Those are there. Listen to your crew, they talk about at least two more colonies (Ferris Fields and...New Calcutta? Second one is probably wrong) disappearing over the course of the game.

True, but for me that took me out of the story more than it added to it.
If those colonies went missing, why did Shepard need to hear about it while eavesdropping on a conversation instead of being told about it? Logically he should have been the first one to know!

[jasonontko]

Commander Darmok wrote...



This hurts you.

Yes it does, you win Harbinger.  What your little white fire balls could not do, your story arc corruption did.

[tropicalwave]

I can see where you are coming from but there is one thing that is missing from you dissertation. Time. You are not just gathering your team (You NEED Moridin and wouldn't you want someone that important to your mission to be loyal to your cause?) you are gathering the necessary tools to do your mission. Information doesn't just hope in your lap. As for the missing daughter analogy you are looking at it wrong. You are not getting the loyalty of the FBI/Police or any other organization that is trying to find your daughter. In this case those agencies have told you that you knew the risks and that you are on your own.



In that case what do you do? You go out and find your daughter on your own. But you aren't equiped to do it on your so you find the best people to help you out. But alas these people are asking for a favor in return for helping you out. You don't have to do this favor but since you have very little information to go on with your daughter you decide to help them out.



Then you find the information you need to where you daughter is located. You have the choice to go get her but you aren't sure of the loyalty of your team. Do you risk the mission, your life and your daughter's life or do you spend a little more time assuring the loyalty of your team?



I will agree that recruiting the team does take away from the urgency, the desperate nature of the situation, but I am not sure how they could have given us characters we cared about while at the same time going for the big problem. I don't really care for Zaeed, partially because I find nothing redeeming about him. But because I talked to him I'm stuck with him.



I think it would be sweet if you were not forced to recruit anyone but Mordin after the start of the game and as you did a certain amount of quests or your own searching lead you to the location yous needed you could progress wihtout the character missions. I am always for more choices. I did not like that my only information source was TIM. Why couldn't I use Liara for information. Why couldn't I get Anderson to feed me information on the missing colonies. Why didn't I have the option to search them out on my own?

[ZennExile]

Chamberboozer wrote...

I'm just glad the loyalty missions made sense in and of themselves. Bioware could have done so much worse than they did, instead we wound up with intriguing missions that are well made for each character.

The OP's complaint makes sense, but I disagree.

Yeah if this game was like an expansion to ME1 and all it had was the missions, woulda been sweet.  But making a whole new game based on nothing but character side stories wasn't exactly in the spirit of the whole "sequel" concept...

[ZennExile]

tropicalwave wrote...

I can see where you are coming from but there is one thing that is missing from you dissertation. Time. You are not just gathering your team (You NEED Moridin and wouldn't you want someone that important to your mission to be loyal to your cause?) you are gathering the necessary tools to do your mission. Information doesn't just hope in your lap. As for the missing daughter analogy you are looking at it wrong. You are not getting the loyalty of the FBI/Police or any other organization that is trying to find your daughter. In this case those agencies have told you that you knew the risks and that you are on your own.

In that case what do you do? You go out and find your daughter on your own. But you aren't equiped to do it on your so you find the best people to help you out. But alas these people are asking for a favor in return for helping you out. You don't have to do this favor but since you have very little information to go on with your daughter you decide to help them out.

Then you find the information you need to where you daughter is located. You have the choice to go get her but you aren't sure of the loyalty of your team. Do you risk the mission, your life and your daughter's life or do you spend a little more time assuring the loyalty of your team?

I will agree that recruiting the team does take away from the urgency, the desperate nature of the situation, but I am not sure how they could have given us characters we cared about while at the same time going for the big problem. I don't really care for Zaeed, partially because I find nothing redeeming about him. But because I talked to him I'm stuck with him.

I think it would be sweet if you were not forced to recruit anyone but Mordin after the start of the game and as you did a certain amount of quests or your own searching lead you to the location yous needed you could progress wihtout the character missions. I am always for more choices. I did not like that my only information source was TIM. Why couldn't I use Liara for information. Why couldn't I get Anderson to feed me information on the missing colonies. Why didn't I have the option to search them out on my own?

No one cares how you justify it.  It doesn't make sense on it's own without you "imagining" how the pieces come together and that can't be overcome with fan fiction.

[jasonontko]

tropicalwave wrote...

I can see where you are coming from but there is one thing that is missing from you dissertation. Time. You are not just gathering your team (You NEED Moridin and wouldn't you want someone that important to your mission to be loyal to your cause?) you are gathering the necessary tools to do your mission. Information doesn't just hope in your lap. As for the missing daughter analogy you are looking at it wrong. You are not getting the loyalty of the FBI/Police or any other organization that is trying to find your daughter. In this case those agencies have told you that you knew the risks and that you are on your own.

In that case what do you do? You go out and find your daughter on your own. But you aren't equiped to do it on your so you find the best people to help you out. But alas these people are asking for a favor in return for helping you out. You don't have to do this favor but since you have very little information to go on with your daughter you decide to help them out.

Then you find the information you need to where you daughter is located. You have the choice to go get her but you aren't sure of the loyalty of your team. Do you risk the mission, your life and your daughter's life or do you spend a little more time assuring the loyalty of your team?

I will agree that recruiting the team does take away from the urgency, the desperate nature of the situation, but I am not sure how they could have given us characters we cared about while at the same time going for the big problem. I don't really care for Zaeed, partially because I find nothing redeeming about him. But because I talked to him I'm stuck with him.

I think it would be sweet if you were not forced to recruit anyone but Mordin after the start of the game and as you did a certain amount of quests or your own searching lead you to the location yous needed you could progress wihtout the character missions. I am always for more choices. I did not like that my only information source was TIM. Why couldn't I use Liara for information. Why couldn't I get Anderson to feed me information on the missing colonies. Why didn't I have the option to search them out on my own?

This hurts you.

Sorry Harbinger this response hurts me more than you. 

[reepneep]

ARK of ILKS wrote...

monkeycamoran wrote...

ARK of ILKS wrote...

word.

I agree, if my daughter was kidnapped, I wouldnt go around doing personal favors to the police or FBI. Its stupid.

FBI guy: Hey, I know your daughter was kidnapped (probably raped to death by now) but would you mind going to china and get my laundry? thanks dude, your the best. This will earn you my loyalty and make me work doubely hard to find your missing daughter.

Stupid, just stupid.....

Saren's looking for the Conduit. Why don't you give advice to a pair of quarreling strangers about what to do with their baby?

Thats a great idea, and while im at it, Ill go to Chora's Den and sit down to watch some stripper action, or better even... lets go to Pinnacle Station and waste hour after hour running around killing wave after wave of holographic baddies while Saren plans his little fieldtrip to Feros & Noveria.

Oh, he found the second beacon you say. Well, we cant win them all now can we.

This is what I think of consistency in ME:

Or sitting on your ass playing poker with a rodian in a remote space station while the big bad conquors the galaxy.

Inconsistency is the natural consequence of development teams moving from a couple dozen people to several hundered people.  More stuff means more writers means more stuff gets overlooked.

Sidequests are sidequests.  Assuming the plot elements have time pressure,  side quests don't make sense in any RPG.  In ME2, they're bigger, better developed and more integrated with the main plotline.  They're the single biggest source of character interaction with your flunkies, instead of just conversations on the Normandy.  They're just a more noticeable, much bigger part of the game in ME2, so instead of just ignoring them as the elephant in the room, they feel they have to **** about them.

Coincidentally, they're as skippable as ever.

[ZennExile]

reepneep wrote...

 In ME2, they're bigger, better developed and more integrated with the main plotline. 

You had me until you dropped this big ole "Superman 64" on the thread...  The character sidequests replaced any semblence of an actual plot.  They were far from well developed.  And they most certainly did not integrate well with the main plot.  Unless Jacob's dad was pimpin his white hoes to the reapers....