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Digiwizzard posted:Except this still doesen't answer anything. If AI's will always effortlessly crush organic life, and will always inevitably choose to do so for some bizarre reason that is contradictory to the character of every non-reaper AI we've encountered, then why do a race of immortal machines feel the need to periodically mow the galaxy down? What purpose does it serve? Why do they need or desire organic life? A lot of people are making the comparison to Gurren Lagann, and its mindblowing how apt that is, and how much better they pull it off in TTGL. They're both stories about incomprehensible enemies that periodically purge the galaxy, only later to be revealed that they're actually ancient civilizations that are trying to protect nature from the inevitably destructive nature of life. The difference that makes Gurren Lagann so successful is that they condense the central struggle into a very easily digestible visual metaphor: spirals. Long before you know anything about the antagonists you're already familiar with the power of spirals, hell, even the plot itself is structured into a gigantic spiral the way it escalates upwards and outwards. When the Anti-Spirals finally explain their intentions, you gain a new perspective on everything that's happened up to that point. Ultimately there's the loving amazing final battle sequence that appropriately uses that metaphor to sum up the series and resolve the situation. ME3 starts to end and they just shrug their shoulders and go, "idk, the singularity?". Without any kind of foreshadowing it just feels abrupt and empty. There's no revelation that shines a new light on the first two games, and there's no real closure on the events that brought Shepard up to the Catalyst.
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| # ¿ Mar 11, 2012 17:27 |
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| # ¿ May 25, 2013 20:43 |
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NmareBfly posted:I mean, you can blow up a nuclear bomb without it actually going off. It might not be pretty, but if it doesn't explode in just the right way you'll get an explosion orders of magnitude less powerful. just because a mass relay CAN explode in a way that destroys the a solar system doesn't mean it always does.
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| # ¿ Mar 11, 2012 17:50 |
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randombattle posted:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_WmeIwUooE Mass Effect 3 is literally Gurren Lagann fan fiction.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 00:42 |
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Mr Fahrenheit posted:I knocked her on her rear end anyway; for her to finally dodge the punch, only to get the Krogan Special afterward made me lose my poo poo. kicked the creepy looking reporter out, too. Who was this chick's VO, and why do I care?
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 01:05 |
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Jefferoo posted:Just saw a games journo on Twitter.  It really cheapens the discourse when you just write off anyone who has a legitimate complaint or criticism like that. Even worse when its coming from someone who should be at least a little bit critical of the industry.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 13:49 |
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TheJoker138 posted:The only game journo's I give a drat about are the Giant Bomb guys, and none of them seem to be saying poo poo about it.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 13:56 |
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TheJoker138 posted:How is he "Hype Machine?" He's the same guy who nearly got lynched by people for giving Zelda a 7 that time, and got fired for doing the same to Kane & Lynch. All due respect to Jeff, GiantBomb owns and its mainly because of him.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 14:06 |
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Zorgbert posted:And to think my only pre-release worry was that this bitch: https://images.nonexiste.net/popula...illing-bioware/ would ruin things.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 14:13 |
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YouTuber posted:The three gameplay mode of Normal, Action, and uh RPG? That is her idea. She has sway within Bioware even if she is not on a particular project.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 14:19 |
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You mean... I-I'm what's wrong with videogames? 
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 14:21 |
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Orgophlax posted:OK, so the gist is that all your emotional investment of 120hrs of game play mean nothing. Zorgbert posted:I just don't understand why someone who doesn't enjoy any of the GAME aspect of a game would go into writing for video games.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 14:23 |
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YouTuber posted:Because it gives the developer an option of neglecting one or many parts of the game. The entire game should be interesting to play not just certain aspect of it. The entire development team needs to be involved in the structure of the game not the story being bolted on haphazardly. Now if you wanted to make the argument that if they're finding that people don't want to play the game part of their video games they should try to find a way to make it more engaging, I would agree entirely. But Mass Effect has broad enough appeal that there's going to be a certain segment of people you will never reach with your third person shooting elements.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 14:28 |
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Jimbot posted:A lot people liked the ending? That's news to me. That poll on the BSN has like 20,000 voters and only 3% of them liked the ending. That's the size of most scientific sample polls.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 15:30 |
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FullLeatherJacket posted:Well, to be honest, I think he does have a point.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 17:01 |
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Mass Effect: Knights of the Old Council
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 17:06 |
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Elotana posted:Why do all the choices have to pay off at the very end? The series doesn't just have one storyline, it has several. The Wrex/Genophage choices you made pay off on Tuchanka. The Geth/Quarian choices you made pay off on Rannoch. One way or another, you resolve those storylines. They're done. It would make zero sense to shoehorn them into the Shep/Reaper ending as well. I don't see the need for 100 different endings based on whatever the gently caress Conrad Verner does. Most RPGs, including the previous ME games, only have two or three main endings with maybe some minor variations. It makes no sense to demand that all the other storylines play into the last cutscene somehow. FullLeatherJacket posted:Well, if you didn't like the actual game, fair enough. Don't buy games made by people who make games you don't like.
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 17:33 |
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Elotana posted:Why is everyone assuming that destruction of the mass relays strands everyone everywhere, or that the Normandy crew is stuck on jungle world forever? Ships in ME have FTL drives that can motor between stars pretty quick, they just require fuel in the absence of a relay. And are we assuming the Normandy just doesn't have a distress beacon for whatever reason? Like half the sidequests in the game revolve around distress beacons! Maybe they're just happy to have crashed on an oxygen world!
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 21:34 |
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Charlie Mopps posted:Haha, it makes sense that the 2 worst parts of the game were written by the same guy. How the hell did he get the lead writing job?
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| # ¿ Mar 12, 2012 22:26 |
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SurreptitiousMuffin posted:The series has been about sacrifice If "sacrifice" is supposed to be the primary theme of Mass Effect, Bioware did a really lovely job of relating that.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 00:21 |
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Fray posted:Which instantly transports you tens of thousands of light years and through solid matter, so how is that not functionally identical to a teleporter?
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 01:08 |
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Zzulu posted:People don't really demand new endings to movies with bad endings do they?  Anime warning, but Anno got death threats for the way Evangelion ended. The series ended with a hallucination and psychoanalysis of the main character, and due to fan demand was followed up by a movie that told ~what really happened~. Interesting parallel with what some people are saying about ME3.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 01:32 |
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Endymion FRS MK1 posted:Seriously, what is it with game journalists making GBS threads on gamers for wanting an ending?
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 09:58 |
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Palleon posted:Isn't that kind of how the normal "AIs take over the planet or wipe out mankind" logic goes? They are programmed with a task, say, eliminate pain in the world, so they decide "the solution is to eliminate sadness". Only humans can be sad, therefore, if all humans are exterminated, there will be no more sadness, problem solved. They should be smarter than that. Everything we've been told indicates that they're doing more than executing a program like "10: kill all humans, 20: goto 10". Am I totally off base here?
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 14:52 |
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WarLocke posted:That's the ME2 retcon. I prefer it from before each Reaper was a big terminator baby riding around in a shrimp shell.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 15:04 |
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Jarmel posted:I'm reading this indoctrination theory on BSN and this is the craziest poo poo I've read in a long time.  for the ~true ending~, then its the sleaziest loving thing ever done to video games. I honestly don't think they were clever enough to go for that plot twist, though.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 15:06 |
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Dan Didio posted:The physical design of it is dumb. The actual idea of a gestalt entity; a cosmic horror created through some utterly barbaric galactic eugenics sequence where entire civilizations are mushed up into brain-paste for a giant, deified representation of their people, to be eternally entombed in a god-bug-starship carapace and perpetuate the cycle is awesome. Stupid, maybe, overwrought definitely. But it fits exactly with Mass Effect. Shoving them all into a gigantic robot human is a useful visual metaphor to get their point across, but reaallllly hokey.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 15:12 |
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Charlie Mopps posted:Forbes wrote another article, in reply on the IGN  Forbes is my new favorite gaming news site.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 15:14 |
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There's nothing wrong with the Reapers being the "good guys", that's not the issue. The real problems are that 1) they spring it on the player far too abruptly and too late in the series, and 2) their motivations make no sense whatsoever. If you want to present the idea that your antagonists are actually ancient protectors of the universe, you need to mentally prepare the player to accept that. Synthetics always inevitably wipe out organics you say? Well foreshadow that, make the Mass Effect series a three pronged war between the humans, the geth, and the Reapers. The dark energy plot doesn't magically fix things either, you still need to foreshadow that threat to make the central premise of the Reaper's argument even remotely believable. quote:ME1 heavily implies they're purely synthetic. Suddenly in ME2 they're techno-organic, after Sovereign has stated that they're better than, above organics and despise them. homeless snail fucked around with this message at Mar 13, 2012 around 15:40 |
| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 15:38 |
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Strange Matter posted:The theme of Mass Effect 3 about difficult decisions, which is why the ending fits into it. Throughout the game you're faced with decisions and the fallout from them, as well as the fallout from decisions you made in the previous game. Destroyed Maelon's data because it was compiled from genetic war crimes? Good for you, now Eve dies. Did you kill Balak in Mass Effect 1? Sorry, now the batarians have no hope of being reunified. ME3 even has you deciding whether the geth or the quarians have the right to exist, and your choice can cost you not only the entire race but also a party member who's been with you from the first game onward.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 15:53 |
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Zzulu posted:Do people really think everyone is stranded in Sol and everywhere else for thousands of years? I mean, unless you chose the Destroy ending, technology is still around everywhere and they have been studying the relays for hundreds of years. With all the species present in the Sol System with all the brightest scientists and engineers there for the crucible it's not hard to imagine that they'd find a good way to travel great distances again
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 16:17 |
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kuddles posted:So they applaud the "idea" of your decisions having consequences, while going online and reading a FAQ to ensure that the decisions they are making turn out to be correct. It's no surprise after Mass Effect 2 - where everyone quickly dissected how you could do everything required to ensure the "suicide" mission went without a hitch
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 17:19 |
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Ambiguatron posted:Some of the proper choices in the suicide mission are vaguely counterintuitive, though. While it makes sense that you want your best fighters holding the rearguard, it would also make sense to send a skilled fighter back with the crew, when instead you should send Mordin or somebody who's weak on the line.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 17:32 |
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Doctor Spaceman posted:Nah, that's not it at all. 
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 17:43 |
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Internet Kraken posted:Why can't it be both of these things? Mass Effect has a lot of themes, and I'd say both sacrifice and triumph against the impossible is a part of it.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 21:18 |
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Disargeria posted:Yes I'm sure they were worried about being too similar to some anime despite the game already being too similar to Freespace 2.
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| # ¿ Mar 13, 2012 22:23 |
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ScotchDK posted:The problem with the dream sequences for me, is that Shepard is supposed to be blank slate for the player to fill. We did not get told in the other games about how Shepard felt, you decided how Shepard felt when asked. You're really touching on the whole core of this thread here. There's apparently a huge gulf between our expectations and Bioware's expectations. Should they compromise their vision to make what we feel would be a better game? When our expectations are based on the first 80 hours of the series and they fail to establish any kind of framework to make their vision acceptable to the player, then yeah, they probably should.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 15:38 |
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Darko posted:Because demanding that an artist change their work to match what you want is stupid, like, elementary school level stupid. But I agree that petitioning to change the ending after the fact is kind of silly, what's done is done. I really don't think Bioware needs to come up with some hackneyed retcon to fix their abortion of an ending, but then again I don't really care either.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 15:47 |
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Charlie Mopps posted:But the petition and the outcry shows what consumers want, so I dont see the problem. Businesses spend huge amounts of money trying to find out what consumers want, now they get it thrown in their faces and we end up with 'game journalists' act like they should defend Bioware's honor or something. Like telling a business what you want to spend money on is somehow a bad thing. I guess I just prefer to tell businesses what I'd rather not spend money on, and right now, that's Bioware. The fact that this ending even shipped is indicative of the disease eating away at that company, and fixing the ending would merely be treating the symptoms. Darko posted:I agree that software dev does get into a bit of a grey area here because it's a mix of product development and art. People get used to asking for interactive tweaks that don't work, and those things being changed. However, this request is specifically based on an artistic element (creative writing) as opposed to a interactive one, that's where the problem lies. It's asking to change the music or the art assets in a finished game because you don't like them and not because of userability; it's unprecedented. homeless snail fucked around with this message at Mar 14, 2012 around 16:22 |
| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 16:18 |
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CaptainCarrot posted:No company with an MMO currently out is going to be working on another one I don't know what all that Shepard stuff you're talking about is, I didn't say anything about that. The galaxy is in the same place no matter how you play the game, though.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 16:37 |
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| # ¿ May 25, 2013 20:43 |
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Preechr posted:He wrote the beginning, the end, and Kai Leng, I think, so, yeah, he's 3 for 3 on terrible parts. edit: Unless he starts writing anime.
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| # ¿ Mar 14, 2012 18:38 |
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