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Post by dom1984 on Oct 17, 2018 13:35:30 GMT
Well, here's a plea and almost a love letter for future of Mass Effect.
I think Mass Effect is the best RPG ever made, and the most impressive thing in all game is its narrative. The main feeling is that from the beginning of the first game to the end of ME3 is a continuum of a growing feeling. Not even the story nodes drop the narrative or lose its rhythm. This makes ME trilogy the most epic RPG narrative in my opinion. And before ME I was one of those classical "only sword & spell" fans. The way I see it, the end of ME3 was controversial not because people wanted a different one, but there was no way a story like that to have a fully appeasing end. Characters can die, can be replaced, even the player, but as it seems the narrative was developed to go on, rising and growing. That's why I see, why I love, why I think it was geniously made space opera, and what I plea must be considered into new games.
Well, coincidence or not, the concept called "Shepard tone" is defined by a sound design technique used to create an illusion of something always rising, always coming to a climax. As used to movies like Dunkirk:
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Sanunes
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Just a flip of the coin.
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by Sanunes on Oct 17, 2018 14:12:45 GMT
The issue is how to do a game like that again. I could be remembering incorrectly, for I think Casey Hudson mentioned that it might have been a mistake to make Mass Effect into a true trilogy due to the problems that come up during development. I do agree the buildup across three games was nice because you never had the "bigger and badder" bad guy after each game it was a continual process until Mass Effect 3. The one thing I would want BioWare to learn from before taking this approach again is to plot out a few choices that must cross all the involved games and at the same time not have huge world altering choices in the game that aren't brought to the same point by the end of one game. So using ME1 as an example, if you free the Rachni Queen she dies trying to help during the attack on the Citadel so there is never a question mark that big going into the next game which I think would also keep the final ending expectations to a certain level. Its things like how they approached the Asari from Noveria I think would be the best connective tissue. The other thing is they would need to take a Telltale approach to NPCs, if they can die somewhere they either don't come back or they die elsewhere like any other major choice.
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Post by Link"Guess"ski on Oct 18, 2018 0:58:32 GMT
I think Casey telling you that "a trilogy might never be done again" and whatnot is a different way of saying he is proud of his achievement but too jaded about how it worked out to attempt it twice plus he doesn't need to see any developer put MET in its shadow by doing the same but better.
I agree with the OP by the way. I think we need more directly connected choice driven action RPGs with ambitious storytelling and dramatic relationships. Andromeda is playing it too safe unless they course corrected it with a sequel by overall making it slicker in presentation and plotting out an arc that really asks for a bigger emotional range and then contextualize it all with specific, poignant science fiction lore.
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Post by dom1984 on Oct 19, 2018 21:08:12 GMT
But it is not too hard and many thing that can be exploited. We still not knowing for sure what Reapers was about. Also, there is a large shadow over Andromeda initiative. I have some examples.
Imagine a game that presents an unknown hero that is built under the Reaper's War, then he took an important part but still unknown, and goes beyond. relating the Reapers to Ketts, and perhaps explaining some weaknesses of Andromeda's plot. A new light over Andromeda's relations to original trilogy can even give more life to MEA. Imagine if you knew that in Andromeda's were made to execute a protocol against Reapers in a colonization disguise. Or imagine if Andromeda's initiative decides to build a mass relay within this new galaxy, to communicate to Milk Way, but something goes wrong, opening the plot for parallel reality or even time travel.
There were only raw examples, but in my opinion, Bioware has the most fruitful game franchise ever made. I am sure people would love to know more about the trilogy and MEA even dealing with an entirely new game. To me, this is about to use all that was done as a ground, to make even bigger discoveries and heroes, but it cannot be smaller.
Anyway, I think it was great, but don't even need great choices. The more impressive choices (IMO) were the simple ones, like the death of the crew and the memorial forcing you to remember the character you lost so the choices you had to make, even if they had no considerable storytelling impact, would be cool anyway. The most important thing to me was the main narrative structure, always rising and growing for a menace so dangerous that even as a player you can truly fear the Hero will fail.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2018 12:04:14 GMT
But it is not too hard and many thing that can be exploited. We still not knowing for sure what Reapers was about. Also, there is a large shadow over Andromeda initiative. I have some examples. Imagine a game that presents an unknown hero that is built under the Reaper's War, then he took an important part but still unknown, and goes beyond. relating the Reapers to Ketts, and perhaps explaining some weaknesses of Andromeda's plot. A new light over Andromeda's relations to original trilogy can even give more life to MEA. Imagine if you knew that in Andromeda's were made to execute a protocol against Reapers in a colonization disguise. Or imagine if Andromeda's initiative decides to build a mass relay within this new galaxy, to communicate to Milk Way, but something goes wrong, opening the plot for parallel reality or even time travel. There were only raw examples, but in my opinion, Bioware has the most fruitful game franchise ever made. I am sure people would love to know more about the trilogy and MEA even dealing with an entirely new game. To me, this is about to use all that was done as a ground, to make even bigger discoveries and heroes, but it cannot be smaller. Anyway, I think it was great, but don't even need great choices. The more impressive choices (IMO) were the simple ones, like the death of the crew and the memorial forcing you to remember the character you lost so the choices you had to make, even if they had no considerable storytelling impact, would be cool anyway. The most important thing to me was the main narrative structure, always rising and growing for a menace so dangerous that even as a player you can truly fear the Hero will fail. It's contradictory to tell Bioware to build emotional connection over several games and yet, in the same breath, tell them to short circuit Andromeda's story just because some fans became "too jaded" with the story's slow start. Those "too jaded" fans need to set aside their jaded-ness a little and give Bioware a chance to develop that story further... giving it more connections and more emotional range. The story has the potential and, going forward, does not carry with it the story-based baggage that continuing the Trilogy does. If the Andromeda story goes forward with well written dialogue and better pacing, it can be every bit as amazing as the Trilogy... moreso because it will built from a slow start to a momentous finish... rather than fade to a disappointing finish like ME3 was basically doomed to do from the start (because that is really where that story was leading from the start).
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Post by griffith82 on Oct 21, 2018 0:05:41 GMT
But it is not too hard and many thing that can be exploited. We still not knowing for sure what Reapers was about. Also, there is a large shadow over Andromeda initiative. I have some examples. Imagine a game that presents an unknown hero that is built under the Reaper's War, then he took an important part but still unknown, and goes beyond. relating the Reapers to Ketts, and perhaps explaining some weaknesses of Andromeda's plot. A new light over Andromeda's relations to original trilogy can even give more life to MEA. Imagine if you knew that in Andromeda's were made to execute a protocol against Reapers in a colonization disguise. Or imagine if Andromeda's initiative decides to build a mass relay within this new galaxy, to communicate to Milk Way, but something goes wrong, opening the plot for parallel reality or even time travel. There were only raw examples, but in my opinion, Bioware has the most fruitful game franchise ever made. I am sure people would love to know more about the trilogy and MEA even dealing with an entirely new game. To me, this is about to use all that was done as a ground, to make even bigger discoveries and heroes, but it cannot be smaller. Anyway, I think it was great, but don't even need great choices. The more impressive choices (IMO) were the simple ones, like the death of the crew and the memorial forcing you to remember the character you lost so the choices you had to make, even if they had no considerable storytelling impact, would be cool anyway. The most important thing to me was the main narrative structure, always rising and growing for a menace so dangerous that even as a player you can truly fear the Hero will fail. It's contradictory to tell Bioware to build emotional connection over several games and yet, in the same breath, tell them to short circuit Andromeda's story just because some fans became "too jaded" with the story's slow start. Those "too jaded" fans need to set aside their jaded-ness a little and give Bioware a chance to develop that story further... giving it more connections and more emotional range. The story has the potential and, going forward, does not carry with it the story-based baggage that continuing the Trilogy does. If the Andromeda story goes forward with well written dialogue and better pacing, it can be every bit as amazing as the Trilogy... moreso because it will built from a slow start to a momentous finish... rather than fade to a disappointing finish like ME3 was basically doomed to do from the start (because that is really where that story was leading from the start). Couldn't agree more.
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Post by SwobyJ on Oct 22, 2018 3:37:34 GMT
I just think that Andromeda was a bit like a puppy begging to be liked but I didn't get used to yet. It made all the happy yips, played the tricks, stumbled but eventually did what I wanted, but its own expectations were out of wack. I'm talking particularly about the character writing.
I'm all-in for a ship that ends up like an outright family (at least one chapter of the Mass Effect series can be that, cool). But I think MEA, as 'big' as the game was (scope, maps, npcs number), the plot was relatively limited, and I would have preferred everyone to be more cold to each other at the start, then we see realistic and wonderful cracks in that by the end. The movie night itself could have happened, but with more bickering and different tastes at start, and something of an attempted collaboration by the end. Instead I got basically a warm and happy family like they've known each other for years. Yeah no. This attitude infects everything in the game.
The Kallo and Gil conflict was, while strange, one of my favorite sequences. They can end with mutual respect and the start of care, but not the deepest of friendships. That should be for after everything, at least.
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