Game News What the hell were we thinking?

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: BioWare; Mass Effect 3

<p>OXM had a <a href="http://www.oxm.co.uk/36571/mass-effect-3-to-feature-canned-mass-effect-2-citadel-mission/" target="_blank">brief chat</a> with BioWare's Mac Walters and learned that content originally cut from ME2 will be used in ME3 instead.&nbsp;</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>
<p>"There was a Mass Effect 2 plot that was a kind of callback to the first Mass Effect that was going to be on the Citadel, and we cut it. But now it's made a resurrection in Mass Effect 3, so I'm happy, but I can't say what it is. That's the nice thing about trilogies, sometimes you get a second chance."</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Mass Effect 2's premise and possible endings were a headache to write around, Walters admitted, particularly given the need to prepare the ground for a threequel.</p>
<p>I don't think I'd call it 'trapped'," he explained, when asked how he felt about having to accommodate several possible player decisions at key plot junctures. "They're more hurdles. Sometimes they're hurdles that we've given ourselves, so we kind of smack ourselves in the head and say 'What the hell were we thinking? Why did we do that?'</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>The classic example is 'Hey, let's make the ending of Mass Effect 2 a suicide mission where all your henchmen can possibly die, and Shepard can even die!' Oh right... and then we're gonna do another game after that. What the hell are we gonna do with all those guys?"</p>
</blockquote>
<p>No worries, I'm certain you will find a way to make all these decisions and different outcomes entirely insignificant in ME3.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<p>Spotted at: <a href="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/105895-mass-effect-2s-cut-content-to-resurface-in-mass-effect-3.html">Gamebanshee</a></p>

 

[meh]

No worries, I'm certain you will find a way to make all these decisions and different outcomes entirely insignificant in ME3.

Henchmen who were alive will be alive, while henchmen who died will be cybernetically resurrected.

 

[Spectacle]

"Hello Shepard, I'm (Mordin|Generic_Salarian_Scientist). It is (good to see you again|a pleasure to meet you). Please fetch me 5 space rats for my biological experiments."

 

[Azrael the cat]

"Hello Shepard, I'm (Mordin|Generic_Salarian_Scientist). It is (good to see you again|a pleasure to meet you). Please fetch me 5 space rats for my biological experiments."

Otherwise known as the 'Deus Ex' (the first one) approach to C+C. Which illustrates that such 'fake' choices can still do a really good job of making the player feel like he has control over the game, and that he is playing around in a living world, rather than following a set of pre-planned instructions. Give some genuine freedom in the form of gameplay (emergent gameplay, playing in a world defined by its mechanics rather than finding the 'right' response to each situation), a SMALL amount of real freedom in story/character-interactions (as large-scale story-driven freedom is, and always has been, too difficult to pull off in a computer game - note that I emphasise 'story-driven', rather than 'mechanics-driven' freedom), and then support it with a healthy dose of illusory freedom (fake choices, replacing Paul Denton with random scientist if Paul dies, token one-line acknowledgements of your actions, etc), and that illusory freedom can play a really powerful role in making the smaller amounts of genuine freedom feel effective.

Just like how in Mass Effect such illusory freedoms enhance the emergent gameplay and mechanics-driven player-creativit...oh, I see. Nevermind.

 

[sea]

Wait, so BioWare already realized that their frame story which existed solely to facilitate a dozen companion side-missions was stupid, made no sense, and was impossible to really fit together without a complete rewrite? That the whole story was written backwards from "Shepard can maybe die at the end, but still win" and thus everything else had to be in service of that ending, even if it was nonsensical as hell?

So... why didn't they actually fix that, instead of going ahead with it?

 

[Notorious]

ME 2 made no sense if compared to ME 1. There were almost no ties to the first one and I expect that the third game will also be an independent game with occasional completely pointless recurring characters who scream "Hey Shepard! Remember me?"

 

[Serious_Business]

"Hello Shepard, I'm (Mordin|Generic_Salarian_Scientist). It is (good to see you again|a pleasure to meet you). Please fetch me 5 space rats for my biological experiments."

Otherwise known as the 'Deus Ex' (the first one) approach to C+C.

I don't see why you have to call this C&C, and the rest "freedom in the form of gameplay". You can all toss this under the C&C category. What makes DX a game with C&C is how your character build affects how you play the game and how you solve scenarios depending on that build. It's the way the level design works. This is why DX is a good game, because it tries to be a game first. The rest is just fluff.

Take the Nameless Mod - it has a lot more "C&C" than DX, but it adopts the exact same gameplay. Both games feel pretty much the same ; or rather, the NM feels like a tribute to DX. I didn't think the Nameless Mod was superior because it had a silly branching storyline. Who gives a shit? That's not what DX was about.

The fluff in ME2 is retarded, but retarded works if you don't think too much about it. I've spoken to a lot of people who *feel* like their choices made a difference in ME2, because they're people who don't over-analyse their game experiences. If I try to tell them these choices don't matter, they ask me what other game series made it so that importing your character would make any kind of significant difference in how the writing develop. I can say Wizardry but come on, no one gives a shit about goddamn furies in Wizardry (cue in rage). You do give a shit about the furies in ME though, at least they make you give a shit, because everyone complains about how they're not highbrow enough for their science-fiction pulp novels elite tastes. I guess to really make this shit elite you need some kind of dog-people mixing cocks in the pot, so to speak.

 

[Azrael the cat]

ME 2 made no sense if compared to ME 1. There were almost no ties to the first one and I expect that the third game will also be an independent game with occasional completely pointless recurring characters who scream "Hey Shepard! Remember me?"

I guess what I'm saying is that this aspect of the game really hurts largely because of the ultra-controlled linear TPS mechanics. It's why I've developed a loathing for most TPS games, even though in theory it should just be a slight camera adjustment from first person. But in FP games, they usually apply a different set of in-game 'rules' (though CoC is changing that, adapting to TPS set-pieces rather than the FPS tradition of giving you a box with mechancis to play with). In most FPS games, if I see a box I can jump on it, pick it up, stack it and climb on a series of boxes, etc. In most TPS games I can't even cross a fucking half foot pipe if it happens to be in my way. This started as a means of cheap scare-challenge in early RE games - limit the players ability to move by putting a thingamejig in the way, while allowing the monster to move freely straight over it. But they're still pulling the same fucking gimmick in Dead Space (a TPS which I quite liked, which is a fucknig miracle given my view of the genre), and it's getting inexcusable.

But it's particularly inexcusable in a crpg, because it takes away an important form of freedom: freedom to play with the mechanics in a manner that permits emergent gameplay. I LOVE a good story in games, but that mechanics-freedom (or emergent gameplay) is really the only form of freedom that a game can provide to any substantial extent. Otherwise you end up with a (rather limited) choose your own adventure book, at best, and more often a binary good/evil choice near the end (with a few different quest endings along the way) - and you can't blame them, because making genuine story-freedom would be nigh-impossible. Alpha Protocol came the closest out of any game to achieving that, and it came (a) at the cost of much-needed attention to other parts of the game, and (b) most gamers didn't give a shit about it, as you had to replay it an insane number of times to actually start to realise how much more story-freedom it gave you than any other game (while resenting the fact that the mechanics-freedom was so minimal).

Give the player some genuine mechanics-freedom (i.e. create a world, put in place a set of rules, give the player different builds that allow manipulation of those rules, and leave the player to work out his/her own way through), and all those 'fake choices' and teensy-tiny pieces of story-freedom add up to a satisfying whole. Deus Ex does nothing story-wise other than replace a named character with another random character voicing the exact same dialogue if the named character was dead, as well as adding a handful of one-line dialogues commenting on your actions. In terms of story reactivity it had nothing in the same league as AP's red-shirts v blue-shirts (as much as Skyway might use that as an insult), nor the way that virtually every character in the game can end up either with you or against you in a way that affects gameplay, many determined by multiple variables (christ, how many fucking variables can go into whether Marburg sides with you, or even whether he decides to fight to the death with you instead of disappearing, and I'm pretty sure that Parker has even more variables affecting his choices). But Deus Ex allowed genuine mechanics-freedom, which is what AP largely lacked.

And ME? That lacks mechanics-freedom altogether, and that absence of freedom seems built into its very design foundations. No wonder the lame 'nice to see you again shepard / good to meet you shepard' illusory choices feel so hollow. Illusory choices will be an important part of C+C gaming for a long time to come, and can add tremendously to a game's atmosphere. But they're the fucking garnish, the paint job - not the fucking engine of the C+C process. Trying to sell 'choices with consequences' when they're illusory choices with absolutely zero mechanics-freedom is like selling a car's paint job, but forgetting to include the fucking vehicle itself.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

The classic example is 'Hey, let's make the ending of Mass Effect 2 a suicide mission where all your henchmen can possibly die, and Shepard can even die!' Oh right... and then we're gonna do another game after that. What the hell are we gonna do with all those guys?"

Use the "your choices in one game will affect the next!!11!" system and have them live / die based on your ME2 save? Of course, that would require some effort. Better do the same thing you did with some squadmates in ME2 - even if they survive, have them get involved with something more worthy of their attention than saving the universe.

"Hello, Shepard. I'd help you with the final-showdown-with-the-Reapers thing, but these guns aren't gonna calibrate themselves, you know."

 

[hoopy]

The classic example is 'Hey, let's make the ending of Mass Effect 2 a suicide mission where all your henchmen can possibly die, and Shepard can even die!' Oh right... and then we're gonna do another game after that. What the hell are we gonna do with all those guys?

I knew they didn't think the trilogy through, and this confirms it.

 

[SCO]

"Thinking the trilogy through"? What do you think this is ba... oh wait.

 

[Infinitron]

I guess what I'm saying is that this aspect of the game really hurts largely because of the ultra-controlled linear TPS mechanics. It's why I've developed a loathing for most TPS games, even though in theory it should just be a slight camera adjustment from first person. But in FP games, they usually apply a different set of in-game 'rules' (though CoC is changing that, adapting to TPS set-pieces rather than the FPS tradition of giving you a box with mechancis to play with). In most FPS games, if I see a box I can jump on it, pick it up, stack it and climb on a series of boxes, etc. In most TPS games I can't even cross a fucking half foot pipe if it happens to be in my way. This started as a means of cheap scare-challenge in early RE games - limit the players ability to move by putting a thingamejig in the way, while allowing the monster to move freely straight over it. But they're still pulling the same fucking gimmick in Dead Space (a TPS which I quite liked, which is a fucknig miracle given my view of the genre), and it's getting inexcusable.

Why do TPS games have more limited mechanics? I've a hunch it's because jumping can look extremely silly in third person.

Actually, though, it's probably because the third person view is part of an overall more cinematic experience the game is trying to convey, and people in movies don't jump around on crates and shit.

 

[bhlaab]

The classic example is 'Hey, let's make the ending of Mass Effect 2 a suicide mission where all your henchmen can possibly die, and Shepard can even die!' Oh right... and then we're gonna do another game after that. What the hell are we gonna do with all those guys?"

HOW DID THIS ISSUE NOT COME UP IMMEDIATELY IN THE PITCH MEETING

 

[thesoup]

The classic example is 'Hey, let's make the ending of Mass Effect 2 a suicide mission where all your henchmen can possibly die, and Shepard can even die!' Oh right... and then we're gonna do another game after that. What the hell are we gonna do with all those guys?

I knew they didn't think the trilogy through, and this confirms it.

This is what I keep telling everyone. The first game can stand on its on well enough and the second one feels tacked on, which it was, but when I bring it up, everyone just says "BUT IT'S BEEN PLANNED AS A TRILOGY LOL" because they don't know the difference between 'planned' and 'written'.

 

[Xor]

I gave Bioware more credit than this. I didn't think they'd be so fucking stupid that they'd write each game without considering what they would do for the next one.

 

[Tel Prydain]

I guess what I'm saying is that this aspect of the game really hurts largely because of the ultra-controlled linear TPS mechanics. It's why I've developed a loathing for most TPS games, even though in theory it should just be a slight camera adjustment from first person. But in FP games, they usually apply a different set of in-game 'rules' (though CoC is changing that, adapting to TPS set-pieces rather than the FPS tradition of giving you a box with mechancis to play with). In most FPS games, if I see a box I can jump on it, pick it up, stack it and climb on a series of boxes, etc. In most TPS games I can't even cross a fucking half foot pipe if it happens to be in my way. ...

But it's particularly inexcusable in a crpg, because it takes away an important form of freedom: freedom to play with the mechanics in a manner that permits emergent gameplay...

For all of it's derp, Ultima 9 was both 3rd person and allowed plenty of freedom in it's mechanics.
(http://it-he.org/u9_otwab.htm)

 

[Infinitron]

I gave Bioware more credit than this. I didn't think they'd be so fucking stupid that they'd write each game without considering what they would do for the next one.

Fastest decline of a company since OSI went from Serpent Isle to Pagan in the space of a year.

History repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce.

 

[racofer]

ITT the Codex complains about stupid decisions from a game they supposedly despise.

 

[Overweight Manatee]

ME was never planned as a trilogy and still isn't. When EA says make a game Bioware makes a game. When EA says make a sequel Bioware makes a sequel.

ITT the Codex complains about stupid decisions from a game they supposedly despise.

What makes this particular thread so special that you have to mention that?

 

[racofer]

I'm not sure. Maybe it's because this thread sounds like the tolling of some great bell.

 

[Spectacle]

I gave Bioware more credit than this. I didn't think they'd be so fucking stupid that they'd write each game without considering what they would do for the next one.

I haven't looked at the credits, but I get the feeling the second game was made by a different team than the first, who had a somewhat different idea of what kind of game they wanted to make. The managers who should have enforced continuity didn't care since all they wanted was a rushed game they could slap the Mass Effect title on and sell for $$$

 

[RPGMaster]

Thanks for admitting it Hack. I only wish you would have realized it before you fucked up the series beyond repeair. A braindead monkey could have told you it was a fucking stupid idea if you only asked.

 

[Mozgoëbstvo]

You guys are really out of your scope. This game will only be judged by how many companions Shepard will be able to put his penis into (and don't give me that "there's also femshep" bullshit, we know women don't count for squat in canon).

Not to penalize (get it? ah ah) the player, every character will be romanceable. At the same time. And every sexy cutscene will be specifically tailored for each mix.
Because that's how bioware rolls.

 

[Jaesun]

SHEPERDS!

 

[circ]

I don't think I'd call it 'trapped'," he explained, when asked how he felt about having to accommodate several possible player decisions at key plot junctures. "They're more hurdles. Sometimes they're hurdles that we've given ourselves, so we kind of smack ourselves in the head and say 'What the hell were we thinking? Why did we do that?

C&C ARE HURDLES OH LOL WOW? I don't want to have shit have ramifications even though I advertise it OH GOD NO MAKE IT STOP MOMMY CAN I HAVE CHOCOLATE SUNDAE NOW? Coding. SO CHALLENGINX.