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Mass Effect Legendary Edition remaster trilogy

Sykar

Arcane
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Dec 2, 2014
Messages
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Turn right after Alpha Centauri
Why does Zaeed, a man whose loyalty mission is so fucked up, you can leave him to die, have strong opinions on torture? Why does Archangel, a man who killed a drug dealer by applying drugs to his eyes, have strong opinions on torture? Why does Samara, a character who was using, let's say enhanced interrogation tactics, in the first few seconds we've seen her, have any opinion on torture?
That's incidental, by the way, torture specifically isn't a big deal to me. The companions react to everything else the same way too. See the first video.

Are you seriously trying to make sense of one of the most retarded games Bioware ever diarrhead out?
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamer.com/you-can-dis...ions-improved-mako-handling-if-you-like-pain/

You can disable Mass Effect Legendary Edition's improved Mako handling if you 'like pain'
In case you really want to ice skate uphill for some reason.

While Mass Effect Legendary Edition is primarily a remaster, the first game in the series in particular is also getting some gameplay overhauls. As BioWare detailed earlier this year, the contentious Mako is one of the things being altered. The infamously bouncy vehicle will have weightier physics and be less prone to sliding, as well as having a boost, shields that recharge faster, and the ability to touch lava without an instant game over. The XP penalty for kills while in the Mako is also going away.

Not everyone hated the Mako, however, as BioWare knows. Project director Mac Walters and environment director Kevin Meek told PC Gamer earlier today that there will be an option to go back to a floaty version of the Big Trak-inspired truck. "For those people out there who do like pain, we've left the option to leave it back kind of closer to the original controls as well if you want," said Meek.

"You'll never get consensus," said Walters, "whether some people love it, or some people hate it. We're making a big point of it often in marketing, but it's a lighter touch than I think some people might think. And the optional control scheme is optional, so you can drop back and forth."

The new Mako will also have improved camera controls for more accurate aiming at low angles, something Walters was glad to finally be able to fix. "The close aim, that's a big one," he said. "We actually forget to talk about that. Anything that was within probably 20 meters of you was almost impossible to track and hit. And then also things in the distance that were at a different altitude than you were just like, 'It says I'm aiming there but I'm shooting down here? What is going on?' Fixing some of that too makes it a little bit more fun."

"Playing the Mako today versus playing the Mako back in the original, especially on PC, it's like night and day," said Meek. "I don't want to thrash my keyboard and mouse after every encounter with the thresher maw or trying to climb a mountain."

To help you get over that mountain, the Legendary Edition's Mako will come equipped with a boost button, separate from the jump jets that set off its lowrider bounce. "Whether or not you loved how the Mako moved around, I don't think anyone loved almost making it over that hill," said Meek, "then pressing their jump jets buttons and falling back on their back and just never being able to go up."

You'll be able to read our full interview with Walters and Meek next week. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is due out on May 14.
 

Lacrymas

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Pathfinder: Wrath
Why does Zaeed, a man whose loyalty mission is so fucked up, you can leave him to die, have strong opinions on torture? Why does Archangel, a man who killed a drug dealer by applying drugs to his eyes, have strong opinions on torture? Why does Samara, a character who was using, let's say enhanced interrogation tactics, in the first few seconds we've seen her, have any opinion on torture?
That's incidental, by the way, torture specifically isn't a big deal to me. The companions react to everything else the same way too. See the first video.

Are you seriously trying to make sense of one of the most retarded games Bioware ever diarrhead out?
Seeing as how this is probably the most analyzed video game series in existence, he isn't the only one. I personally don't have such an emotional attachment or even intellectual curiosity concerning it, so I can't relate. I suppose it's interesting to know why exactly it failed as a narrative, but I've always thought that was obvious and didn't need terabytes of pixels dedicated to it.
 

Morpheus Kitami

Liturgist
Joined
May 14, 2020
Messages
2,476
I like to cite those two videos when I argue that Mass Effect 2 sucks.
Wasn't the point of stuff like this that companions would say a more "paragon" or "renegade" opinion depending on which two were brought along? I know that was the case in the original. Not defending it, its decline any way you cut it.
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
Sure, but only when the context allows for such. Being in a military organization in which you are virtually required to trust your companions 100% doesn't really foster such things.
We're talking about ME2, brah. It's the game where evil companions would fit the most. There was Morinth, but they barely wrote anything for her (and then they unceremoniously killed her off in ME3).
But none of them are "fuck yeah! Let's torture the homeless! wohoooooo!". Well, except maybe Morinth, but you get what you deserve with her - you get killed by having sex.
Hopefully this is a poor attempt at trolling and you aren't struggling this much to be creative.

Even a shitty writer who can't come up with ideas beyond "torture good vs. torture bad" should be able to recognize indifference as door number 3. So yeah, right there you've got 3x as many opinions as those expressed in the AAA game.

But let's say someone stopped for a few seconds and thought about it a little. Why not have the Geth character say something like "records indicate this prisoner burned a family to death"? No judgement expressed by the machine, but some additional context that creates a little depth to the situation. Maybe the player or some companions think the punishment fits the crime.

Maybe one of the diverse alien cultures that make up the squad comes from a society where torture is normal.

Maybe one of them comments on the technique being used instead of the morality of it.

And so on.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
It really doesn't come down to creativity. You can always imagine different opinions about a situation, that doesn't mean all are equally valid or desirable in the eyes of the author. Not to mention some of the opinions expressed don't condemn torture in of itself, Legion and Garrus say it just leads to false information. This is a pragmatic approach, not a moralistic one. Bioware didn't want any of the crew members to openly or implicitly support torture. That doesn't make them bad authors (the narrative being sloppy and incoherent makes them that), it makes them people with an opinion. Having Legion implicitly justifying that torture would be weird and counter to the heroic image of the military/crew members Bioware are trying to portray (which is a whole other can of worms in of itself).
 

J1M

Arcane
Joined
May 14, 2008
Messages
14,616
It really doesn't come down to creativity. You can always imagine different opinions about a situation, that doesn't mean all are equally valid or desirable in the eyes of the author. Not to mention some of the opinions expressed don't condemn torture in of itself, Legion and Garrus say it just leads to false information. This is a pragmatic approach, not a moralistic one. Bioware didn't want any of the crew members to openly or implicitly support torture. That doesn't make them bad authors (the narrative being sloppy and incoherent makes them that), it makes them people with an opinion. Having Legion implicitly justifying that torture would be weird and counter to the heroic image of the military/crew members Bioware are trying to portray (which is a whole other can of worms in of itself).
It is extremely disingenuous to suggest that Bioware has any sort of integrity regarding the authorship of that product. Sidelining the guy who did the world building or the debacle of ME3's ending are enough to dismiss any romantic notions about that.

What actually happened here is that the writers were given a spreadsheet with a long list of lines that needed to be written and one of them was labelled as "companion responds to brutal torture of prisoner". The writers filled it out, and each of them felt smug about putting the "smart fact" about torture giving unreliable testimony in the voice line.
 

Semiurge

Cipher
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Apr 11, 2020
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Location
Asp Hole
There aren't many different opinions on this kind of beating, though. Would you like a crew member who says "yeah, let him suffer, regardless of context, I'm lovin' it"?
Yes.

We need more evil companions in RPGs, dammit.

tumblr_nhbno4ocgl1u5tqdno3_1280.jpg
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,236
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.pcgamer.com/mass-effect-legendary-edition-used-mods-as-a-benchmark-for-its-improvements/

Mass Effect Legendary Edition used mods as a benchmark for its improvements
They had to be calibrated, of course.

Head over to NexusMods and you'll find mods for each game in the Mass Effect trilogy. Over a thousand of them, with some of the most popular the graphical overhauls A Lot of Textures and A Lot of Videos. BioWare is aware of these mods, and while working on Mass Effect Legendary Edition, used them as a benchmark.

"We actually early on looked at some of those," project director Mac Walters told me, "and said, 'OK, well, this is our minimum bar and from here we have to then go bigger, right?' Obviously they have limited access as a modder to the assets that are in there. We have full access to them."

Environment director Kevin Meek concurred, mentioning while he was initially sceptical of AI upscaling mods, when he looked closer he was impressed. "They're getting these great results with the A Lot of Texture mods and those other up-res ones," he said, "so that actually started us down that kind of the path with some confidence. We knew we could go in and hit base-level AI up-res on all the textures and receive the same amount of visual upgrade or even more than the mods because we have a lot of advantages they don't have. We get to work on the uncompressed source, full-resolution textures. Whereas what they have, it's been crunched down, it's been compressed, it's put onto a disc, and then they up-res off that."

BioWare looked at mods that aren't about improving graphics as well. "There's a lot of really popular mods about adding different types of hairs to Shephard," Meek said, "people who are really popular into wanting some new casual outfits as you're walking around. Things like that, they kind of helped give us again a bit more confidence. Yeah, it is worth it to spend a little bit of time to create some new hair options and some new clothing options."

Other popular mods reinstate cut content and work with unused dialogue to, for instance, add same-sex romances to Mass Effect 2. While the Legendary Edition isn't going that far, will modders still have access to unused assets to recreate those mods? "I don't think any content has explicitly been removed from the depot that we have," Walters said, though he wasn't able to 100% confirm mods like these will be possible. "Hopefully they'll still be able to have access to do all that," he said. "That'd be the hope."

BioWare wants to see the Legendary Edition altered just as eagerly as the original games, and has spoken privately to some modders about what's important to them and how they can work together. "Mods have an advantage," Meek said, "where they don't have to be constrained about certification requirements, and size-on-disc issues, and any ripple effects that come from pushing some effects too far or not far enough, or whatever."

You'll be able to read our full interview with Walters and Meek this week. Mass Effect Legendary Edition is due out on May 14.
 

Togukawa

Savant
Patron
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Jul 27, 2016
Messages
309
The great big added value of Bioware compared to modders: "we have access to the uncompressed textures."
 

mkultra

Augur
Joined
Feb 27, 2012
Messages
469
The great big added value of Bioware compared to modders: "we have access to the uncompressed textures."

well, whoever is making a mod and using upscaled original textures isn't a mod worth downloading anyways because very little effort was put into it. it's not even legal to share mods with original textures since you are not the copyright holder. if you do it correctly you do your own textures and you make them in higher resolution.
 

Hace El Oso

Arcane
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Messages
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Bogotá
Not to mention some of the opinions expressed don't condemn torture in of itself, Legion and Garrus say it just leads to false information. This is a pragmatic approach, not a moralistic one.

And inaccurate, which casts doubt on their credentials as commandos. That’s bad character writing. They’re supposed to be high-speed, blooded professionals. But it’s ‘too real’ for a silly space adventure.
 

Lacrymas

Arcane
Joined
Sep 23, 2015
Messages
17,948
Pathfinder: Wrath
Not to mention some of the opinions expressed don't condemn torture in of itself, Legion and Garrus say it just leads to false information. This is a pragmatic approach, not a moralistic one.

And inaccurate, which casts doubt on their credentials as commandos.
If this implies torture works as a way to get reliable information, that's not supported by evidence at all.
 

Nano

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,648
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
I like to cite those two videos when I argue that Mass Effect 2 sucks.



12 companions. One opinion on everything to share between them, with only minor differences in how they say it.

I'll say one thing, these videos make me appreciate how much more effort the Dragon Age team puts into their characters. This kind of shit never happens even in the worst DA game.
 

Dishonoredbr

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 13, 2019
Messages
2,095
This kind of shit never happens even in the worst DA game.

I always remembers Dorian's opinion on slavery or Bull about the Qun (or even if i hate her , Sera about.. everything Elven related) , not only they're all pretty interesting but i bet their opinions don't go well with most players view of world. I think that's important to a party based game or any game with a group. Sounds like a ''Duh'' take but Mass Effect's companion clearly prove that might not be.. They're just too ''clean'' most of the time.
 

Tyrr

Liturgist
Joined
Jun 25, 2020
Messages
2,257
Unlike the inquisitor virgin, Chad Shepard doesn't care about the opinions of this crew.
 

Volourn

Pretty Princess
Pretty Princess Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Mar 10, 2003
Messages
24,924
"Not to say that torture is good (or necessarily inherently bad), but a good writer should be able to create characters with different perspectives of it."

SJWs are not anti torture. I guarantee you if Trump was tortured they would love it.


You know hwo they go on, and on about how evil plice are and how it is wrong for police to shoot unarmed people?

Well, that got thrown out the window when the police killed an unarmed woman simply because she had a different opinion them. Not only that they got MAD that the police didn't kill MORE people. LMAO
 

Nano

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Mar 6, 2016
Messages
4,648
Grab the Codex by the pussy Strap Yourselves In
My bad, those links were terrible
The fuck was up with those links, anyway?

Anyway, yes, the remaster looks awful visually, but we knew that already. And of course the Biodrones are downvoting it, lol. Triggered by all forms of negativity.
 

jackofshadows

Magister
Joined
Oct 21, 2019
Messages
4,491
Lighting seem overdone in most cases, yeah. Some lipsync looks screwed, don't remember it being that bad playing ME1. Combat looks better but not by much. Overall it looks like poorly modded ME1 so far. Nothing unexpected.
 

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