The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

[racofer]

 

[Jick Magger]

And I've read enough comics, watched enough movies and television, and played enough games to firmly believe that a professional company can screw up that badly, if you give them enough incentive.

Really, at this point I'm just content with agreeing to disagree. I've already wasted too much energy on Mass Effect fucking 3.

 

[Lhynn]

And I've read enough comics, watched enough movies and television, and played enough games to firmly believe that a professional company can screw up that badly, if you give them enough incentive.

Really, at this point I'm just content with agreeing to disagree. I've already wasted too much energy on Mass Effect fucking 3.

We both know we would have ended up wasting it in equally worthless shit
Plus i kinda enjoy arguing, it is certainly a good exercise to prepare for real arguments.

 

[Space Satan]

Ian S. Frazier ‏@tibermoon Feb 9
The best part of working on the next #MassEffect is having an excuse to keep studying and replaying the trilogy for research.

You have a masochistic tendencies, tibermoon. You should post more at Codex - will fit here right in.

Spent the entire weekend at a cabin doing nothing but play #BaldursGateEE NON-STOP

Yet this gives me hope.

 

[Akratus]

@Arkatus i dont care for it, i just got time to kill. And even if you thought i did becaue im wasting my time here, how is it you think im the only one that does after 7 pages of people replying.

We don't care for the ending, but we care for your sanity.

 

[Coyote]

Really, at this point I'm just content with agreeing to disagree. I've already wasted too much energy on Mass Effect fucking 3.

I think that's the most reasonable position to take at this point. Lhynn has framed the argument in a way such that no evidence contradicting IT can possibly be produced. Anything in-game can easily be written off - "Shepard was only partially indoctrinated", "the indoctrination process didn't begin until Arrival", and so on - whereas anything the writers say can't be trusted, since he believes that they had to cover up their original intent as a result of the ME3 ending backlash and/or in order to avoid some nebulous lawsuit.

On a different topic, here's yet another statement from Gaider suggesting that Bioware fans are incapable of navigating a settings menu:

It’s not about hand-holding or forcing the player to experience the game only a certain way, but about avoiding the player getting a radically different experience of which they may not be aware and for which we would be responsible anyhow, since we provided the option. You click that option in the settings, thinking it will do one thing, but end up getting something different. We have to consider that, and consider how well it meshes up with the experience we are otherwise crafting, and which we intend to support.

Fucking tooltips, how do they work?

He goes on to say:

There’s a degree to which, I think, players should be responsible for their own choices, and that doesn’t include filtering out anything which might potentially make them uncomfortable—not in a game which is labeled as big-M Mature.

As a reminder:

Attaching things to toggles is great, but if someone flips that on and doesn't know that it will suddenly make their "Easy" game not quite so Easy anymore... well, that wouldn't be good.

Displaying the full text of the line for a voiced PC does not work for us. We investigated it. We tried it out, and discussed it, and ultimately discarded the idea.

I get that some people feel they need all the information in order to make their dialogue choice-- and they feel that seeing the entire line displayed for them will give them that information. It won't. Or, I should say, it will... but it will break down just as often as paraphrases do. Which is to say not very often, but often enough that you remember the situations where that happens. The only way that wouldn't be the case is if we started writing player lines as if the PC weren't voiced, as in Origins.

Also, there are a significant number of people who would be greatly annoyed by reading the entire line and then having it repeated to them verbatim. Your response might be "well, they shouldn't select that option then." But many people will. They'll see it in the list of options and think "oh, that's an option that will give me more information? More information is better!" and they'll select it... and then be annoyed by the result. So we would be trading one group of people who believe this is what they want for another group who would take the option and make it a poorer experience for themselves.

We chose to set the game at the default, or normal, difficulty. This prevents people from accidentally setting the difficulty too easy or too hard. We do not want to give people the wrong impression about combat by having them accidentally setting it to nightmare and then choosing not to buy as the demo was too hard to play.

Spoiler

Okay, that last one was actually Laidlaw.

Oh, and to give it that special Bioware flavor, the question that Gaider was responding to was about adding a sexuality option at character creation.

 

[Space Satan]

You click that option in the settings, thinking it will do one thing, but end up getting something different

For example you could click and select better graphics options and did not notice the difference.

So we would be trading one group of people who believe this is what they want for another group who would take the option and make it a poorer experience for themselves

...so we decided to trade core RPG fanbase for retarded call of duty idiots.

 

[DraQ]

The indoctrination theory isn't any better than what you got, did you know that? It just nullifies the actual events with a cop out a la "it was all a dream."

To be fair the actual events are so derpy that it *would* be an improvement.

And at least IT doesn't abandon *all* logic and facts, so it's still a notch above "it was all a dream, r00fles!".

Other than that, yeah, it seems Lhynn's headcan(n)on has just backfired.

 

[Lhynn]

Lhynn has framed the argument in a way such that no evidence contradicting IT can possibly be produced.

You shouldnt need to produce evidence, it should be right there, in game. There should be something tangible outright saying, or at least directly pointing against IT.
Best someone could come up with was the retarded IA, which is less conclusive that magical growing plants in the final sequence before going up the citadel.
People say its because IT simply handwaves any piece of evidence away, but i dont buy it, or at least this is the first time ive found such a thing.
A completely different ending that actually fits withing the narrative with a decent twist? instead of the fantasy ending we got on a sci fi game? i dont know man, i just dont. Nothing on the game to disprove it, lots of small mistakes and lazy writing/design choices that when added up leave no choice but to think its deliberate.

A few months ago i finished reading a manga, the ending pretty straight foward. The protagonist and his friends were on a space ship that was self destructing, they made an escape in small shuttles and crash landed somewhere in the ocean in earth. We see them floating in the surface of the water looking at the sky, wondering if they are going to survive, showing sings of early dehydration. Then there is a fade to black and they are shown floating near a beach, all of the people they just saved and even their loved ones are there to hug them and nurse them back to health. The end.

What do you think happened? should i just take that at face value? the circumstances of how it was ended were about the same as in mass effect, the manga was declining so the author was rushed, it was a good, really popular manga that was a victim of its popularity.

Akratus when the actual events that just got erased dont add up to even half an hour i just dont give a fuck if it was just a dream.

 

[dryan]

(...) lots of small mistakes and lazy writing/design choices that when added up leave no choice but to think its deliberate.

Of course lazy design is deliberate. It's how you save time and money.

Instead of bothering with designing people running from the building in the tutorial mission, they just tiled the same 2D image of a woman running sideways because they assumed nobody would look down while instructions were flashing on the screen.
Instead of rendering a 3D model for that mysterious character whose face the fans were so curious about, they just bought a cheap stock photo and asked some employee's kid with minor Photoshop notions to give it a purple tint and chop two fingers off.

These things were not figments of Shepard's indoctrinated mind. They were conscious choices made by Bioware/EA to save resources.

 

[Coyote]

Lhynn has framed the argument in a way such that no evidence contradicting IT can possibly be produced.

You shouldnt need to produce evidence, it should be right there, in game. There should be something tangible outright saying, or at least directly pointing against IT.

produce
verb: produce; 3rd person present: produces; past tense: produced; past participle: produced; gerund or present participle: producing
prəˈd(y)o͞os,prō-/

show or provide (something) for consideration, inspection, or use.
"he produced a sheet of paper from his pocket"
synonyms: present, offer, provide, furnish, advance, put forward, bring forward

 

[Lhynn]

(...) lots of small mistakes and lazy writing/design choices that when added up leave no choice but to think its deliberate.

Of course lazy design is deliberate. It's how you save time and money.

Instead of bothering with designing people running from the building in the tutorial mission, they just tiled the same 2D image of a woman running sideways because they assumed nobody would look down while instructions were flashing on the screen.
Instead of rendering a 3D model for that mysterious character whose face the fans were so curious about, they just bought a cheap stock photo and asked some employee's kid with minor Photoshop notions to give it a purple tint and chop two fingers off.

These things were not figments of Shepard's indoctrinated mind. They were conscious choices made by Bioware/EA to save resources.

Thats a slippery slope, isnt it?
Plus some of the mistakes are stuff thats added, if they were so lazy, why bother adding them in the first place?

Coyote oh, you are going by the definition that no one in this century uses, thats cool.
produce
— vb
1. to bring (something) into existence; yield
2. to bring forth (a product) by mental or physical effort; make: she produced a delicious dinner for us
3. ( tr ) to give birth to
4. ( tr ) to manufacture (a commodity): this firm produces cartons
5. ( tr ) to give rise to: her joke produced laughter
6. ( tr ) to present to view: to produce evidence
7. to bring before the public: he produced two plays and a film last year
8. to conceive and create the overall sound of (a record) and supervise its arrangement, recording, and mixing
9. ( tr ) geometry to extend (a line)
— n
10. anything that is produced; product
11. agricultural products regarded collectively: farm produce

 

[DraQ]

oh, you are going by the definition that no one in this century uses, thats cool.

Get off my lawn.

 

[Spectacle]

oh, you are going by the definition that no one in this century uses, thats cool.

I think maybe an "illiterate" tag will do just as well as "indoctrinated".

 

[DraQ]

 

[Lhynn]

Well, excuse me, first time ive ever been presented with that way of using it.

 

[Angthoron]

This thread is now about post-structuralism and the death of the author.

 

[dryan]

Plus some of the mistakes are stuff thats added, if they were so lazy, why bother adding them in the first place?

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

 

[Lhynn]

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

stuff that is added, like piles of corpses on the side, the dead plants on the road, etc, etc.
They appear when the final sequence of the game starts, werent there before. As in, before getting hit by harbringers beam.

 

[dryan]

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

stuff that is added, like piles of corpses on the side, the dead plants on the road, etc, etc.
They appear when the final sequence of the game starts, werent there before. As in, before getting hit by harbringers beam.

I don't know what this is about and I really don't have the energy to go look it up. I understand that the crazies might've come up with more "evidence" for the indoctrination theory since 2012, but I'm fairly confident in my assessment that corporate greed half-assing things to cut production costs is a more viable explanation than Reaper mind control.

 

[Tytus]

Well, excuse me, first time ive ever been presented with that way of using it.

Yo Mamma is so fat, when she tried to go through a Mass Relay it exploded.

 

[Lhynn]

I don't understand what you're trying to say here.

stuff that is added, like piles of corpses on the side, the dead plants on the road, etc, etc.
They appear when the final sequence of the game starts, werent there before. As in, before getting hit by harbringers beam.

I don't know what this is about and I really don't have the energy to go look it up. I understand that the crazies might've come up with more "evidence" for the indoctrination theory since 2012, but I'm fairly confident in my assessment that corporate greed half-assing things to cut production costs is a more viable explanation than Reaper mind control.

Shit, i dont blame you, ive had more fun discussing this shit than i did playing that stupid game.

 

[Drax]

A few months ago i finished reading a manga, the ending pretty straight foward. The protagonist and his friends were on a space ship that was self destructing, they made an escape in small shuttles and crash landed somewhere in the ocean in earth. We see them floating in the surface of the water looking at the sky, wondering if they are going to survive, showing sings of early dehydration. Then there is a fade to black and they are shown floating near a beach, all of the people they just saved and even their loved ones are there to hug them and nurse them back to health. The end.

Fucking A.
I've never had a paper fade to black on cue, that's awesome.

 

[Lhynn]

A few months ago i finished reading a manga, the ending pretty straight foward. The protagonist and his friends were on a space ship that was self destructing, they made an escape in small shuttles and crash landed somewhere in the ocean in earth. We see them floating in the surface of the water looking at the sky, wondering if they are going to survive, showing sings of early dehydration. Then there is a fade to black and they are shown floating near a beach, all of the people they just saved and even their loved ones are there to hug them and nurse them back to health. The end.

Fucking A.
I've never had a paper fade to black on cue, that's awesome.

Ops, misremembered, it was a close up, not a fade to black.

 

[Drax]

Supposed so, but I never miss a chance to make a bad joke.