The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

"I'm at the bar, I've bought this woman two drinks and complimented her outfit but she still won't come back to my place and lick my asshole. I don't understand what I am doing wrong."

 

Bioware does not write characters. They write archetypes. Cute younger girl with a crush? Tali/Merril. Troubled cute boy? Thane/the male elves from DA1 DA2. Ice queen who eventually warms up to you(r cock)? Miranda/Morrigan. And so on, and so on.

What you said about a romance having to feel natural and part of the game instead of tacked on and not really doing anything reminds me of Yahtzee's story on why he romanced Anders in DA2: Because it felt natural. Here's his take:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/art...n/8768-Roleplaying-Homosexual-in-Dragon-Age-2

 

Jaesun now that the incline has finally arrived full force, can we finally retardo this popamole shit threads?

 

We can't do that; there's still DA3 to provide us with pages and pages of lulz.

 

yeah, retardo this shit, been a long time since i played a game as fun as M&M 10. barely starting tho, it can still be shit.

 

Eh, keep it around for lulz value.

 

Damn Toaster from New Vegas Old World blues had moce personality than any Bioware character.

 

Once upon a time I heard all these rumors raving about Bioware games (except the codex of course), and when I finally played one it was bland as fuck. So yes, agreed with the toaster.

 

Ok, who posted that?

 

Why are you so hopeful that this is a troll? This is average BSN.

 

Yeah, considering that was written before the extended cut came out, that's exactly what you'd expect from a delusional fanboy. I only wish I could see the look on his face when the "definitive edition" that came out showed him it was all intended to be shit all along, no indoctrination, just lazy writers phoning it in.

 

Actually, there were still a bunch of IT whackjobs like that spewing the same shit after the EC and even claiming that had more "clues" in it.

 

Didn't one of the writers do an interview, where he said that they had actually played around with the idea of Shepherd being indoctrinated, and that they'd written test drafts incorporating the idea, but then ditched it? Even that actually undercuts the whole EC thing, in that it illustrates how Bioware would have actually done a 'shephard is indoctrinated' arc - i.e. with a generic mid-game that's bland enough to be remapped onto whatever interpretation they want ('shall we say that all this just happened in Shephard's head?' 'maybe, I'll raise it with Bob and Sarah at the design meeting - no rush, it isn't like we have to change any of the content'). The idea that Bioware would drop subtle hints throughout the game is just delusional.

If they were doing IT, it would be like KoTOR (notice how little of KoTOR they'd have to change if they had decided to ditch the 'you are Revan' twist?) - a couple of totally unsubtle cinematics punctuating 'plot chapters', a few genuinely subtle hints in dialogue (changing 1 line of dialogue is an acceptable and expected cost, so there's much more room for it), and then a 'big reveal' before you find out the truth and get your action-hero ending.

It's not even just a Bioware thing. The kind of 'hidden clue' storyline the IT fans want is almost universally rejected by designers. The only exception I can think of is the team that did Pathologic and The Void (Troika's liked their 'unanswered mysteries', e.g. the half-ogre quest in Arcanum and Bloodlines' suggestions that there's something unusual about the PC's bloodline, but they're far less central to the plot and in Bloodlines it seems likely it's the left-overs of a partly implemented story component that was cut for budget reasons). Crpg designers are already worried that they'll have worked for ages on a particular mechanic/class/quest only for 90% of the gamers to overlook it. In any plot-oriented AAA game, they're expecting their writers to communicate the material to the player - withholding key information even after the game has finished (like making Shephard indoctrinated, but only telling the player through a series of subtle clues and an ending that maybe 10% of the fanbase will interpret 'correctly') is the last thing they'd permit.

Edit: Now if only game writers could learn how to write narratives that organically create tension, instead of relying on withholding information to create a false mystery, throughout the rest of the game. Out of the last 10 games you played, how many relied on hiding the true stakes/motivations from you for most of the game? Waaayyy too many. (by 'withholding information', I don't mean having to discover whodunnit, and working out the agendas of different characters, when you're solving a murder. I'm talking about withholding the fact that you're solving a fucking muder to start with.)

 

Humping dry, you say...

You don't *write* archetypes. You can merely recycle them.

 

Yes.

Thing is, facts and sense don't factor into the IT. It's delusional biodrone grasping at straws in a feeble hope for a "get out of bad endings" free card. The current remnants of IT have even moved the goal post to ME4 or 5 for the "reveal" (LOL).

 

The IT is true, they didnt aknowledge it because it woulda meant legal problems. Stupid as it sounds, if it had been true then the game would have not been complete and the story arc would have not been finished, meaning they sold an incomplete product meaning shit woulda gotten bad.
Extended cut was there to subvert it, an ass pull to leave the sheep content, but they wrote themselves into a corner.

 

The IT made sense at first because the ending was so fucking horrible and did not make any sense at all. Any alternative sounded more credible than what we actually got.

But the EC put the whole thing to bed, Bioware doubled down in their "ORGANICS AND MACHINES MUST ALWAYS FIGHT, LALALALALALA" mindset and much of the IT no longer held up to scrutiny. I remember a big part of that theory was that there were trees stood around in the final push to the portal in London, to resemble the forest from Shepard's dreams, therefore the whole thing was imaginary. But after playing it again, those trees were just normal trees that can be found anywhere and no part of it was anything like Shepard's dream.

Thinking about it, I'm not sure why anyone could give Bioware credit for putting as much thought into one of their games as the IT demands. They've always been hacks and lazy writers, I don't think they've ever subverted a cliche or defied genre expectations.

 

Already explained it in my post. Plus its not "clever", i thought about it when i first played that shitty dlc from me2 and im not that smart.

 

the ending to mass effect 3 overshadowed how crap the entire game actually was

 

The real indoctrination is the widespread delusion that the Mass Effect trilogy was the pinnacle of video game storytelling and that the ending was the only thing wrong with it.

 

The real indoctrination is the widespread codexian delusion that the mass effect trilogy was the downfall of RPGs and that there werent good elements in the first and second game only because Bioware did it.

 

That's...not what I said. A game can be okay or even great without being 'the pinnacle of video game storytelling and role-playing'.

 

Yeah but i see polar opposites and people not being fair a lot around here too, as a matter of fact i see more biowhore idiots saying that ME3 blew goats than i see codexers acknowledging that more than a few bits of them were actually good.
Plus it fit so nicely i just couldnt resist.