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Yeah all right, it's true that there's more to both Nihilus and the Exile than whatever they (don't) say, but I think it's overshadowed by their abilities in the Force - which I do honestly think are ridiculous and set/sustain a bad example for other writers. Their trauma-induced powers might work in a symbolic sense, but seeing as it's Star Wars and the rest of the game is played out in a pretty factual fashion, I feel they just distract too much from the actual personality of both characters and from the ethics of the events underlying their mental scars. That being said, it's Star Wars so who cares, really. Lord knows there's no shortage of embarrassing rubbish in the rest of the entire franchise.
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Feb 15, 2014 12:06
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I dislike KOTOR 2 but Nihilus is pretty much the most interesting thing about it.
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Feb 15, 2014 12:29
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Hannibal Smith posted:Actually, Chris Avellone has said numerous times that he loves Star Wars and wants to do further games in the universe. Obsidian was even pitching a game set during the original trilogy time period to Lucasarts before they were bought by Disney. The ideas that Avellone hates Star Wars and that Lucas hated Kotor 2 so much they removed it from the canon are both rumors that took on lives of their own. When I first played them I liked KOTOR1 better, though 2 was less buggy, but over time the story of 2 stayed with me, and I slowly began to like it more as I replayed them (I think what cemented it was killing the Jedi Masters on Dantooine, and Kreia losing her poo poo at me, and waking up alone with these dead bodies at my feet that I'd killed, and the feeling that my actions had brought the galaxy to the edge of ruin) and eventually I was replaying it by itself. This was all on my Xbox, I didn't get a PC version and even so much as touch the cut content for years. 2house2fly fucked around with this message at 16:04 on Feb 15, 2014 |
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Feb 15, 2014 16:02
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The most interesting thing about KOTOR 2 over KOTOR 1 to me was the fact that you could be the most dark and twisted rear end in a top hat, but still save all the Jedi Masters. And the game accepted this and worked it out rationally. "They may not agree with me, but they're still Jedi and superiour to others, so therefore they should be saved". And while the Light side version of betraying the Jedi and killing them wasn't as well written, to me. "They are not pure enough, and I am the only one who is truly good" still is better than most every other game when it comes to choices and how they play out. Too bad the game was completely broken in so many other areas 
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Feb 15, 2014 16:32
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Milky Moor posted:Didn't TOR basically say that Darth Nihilus (or whoever the creepy masked one was) didn't actually have his Force devouring powers and neither did the KOTOR 2 protagonist? I never ran into them reducing Nihilus' power explicitly. They did power down the Exile (the Exile is very easily killed off in the one of the books), so you could argue that by making the Exile a pushover, Nihilus must also have been much less powerful. That said, the Sith Emperor is implied to have used the same power as Nihilus (the Emperor basically kills all life on a planet to power himself). Honestly, it was a mistake for Bioware to explicitly feature either the Exile or Revan, leaving ambiguity would have been better. And to tie this back into Mass Effect, they made the same mistake with the Reapers. The Reapers were much more interesting when they were an unknown force with uncertain motives. The speculation at the end of Mass Effect 3 should have been why the Reapers were around at all. Cthulu and the Lovecraft mythos is much more interesting without the later explanations that quantify everything. Bioware wanted to provide answers when they really didn't need to. Moreover, this is also where Bioware gets the formula wrong. Mass Effect works best when its about the characters with the Reaper stuff as a backdrop. The Suicide Mission is much loved because its really about your crew, not the Collectors. The ending of ME3 is a failure because its mostly about the Reapers with characters as a backdrop. Saren worked because Saren was a real character, the Star Child is a poorly inserted Deus Ex Machina.
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Feb 15, 2014 17:46
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I gave up on KOTOR 2 in the past but I started it up again last night thanks to this thread's chatter. There aren't a lot of space RPGs that let you build your own character and I'll take them where I can get them. ME-related: thinking about it, Citadel isn't just better played as a postscript to the whole series, I almost feel like some of the writers chronologically intended it that way. I mean, look at the possibilities here: 1: It takes place during the meat of the main game's plot. Shepard is told to go on shore leave and is like "OK. The war against the reapers is only kind of important." She then goes to Anderson's apartment, which she either accepts as a gift or grudgingly accepts as a gift. Anderson literally calls her from the scene of the holocaust happening on her own race's homeworld for this purpose. Shepard then plays some video games and gets drunk. 2: It takes place after the conclusion of the plot. Shepard gets to actually focus on relaxing for the first time to which the player has ever been privy, but then hey, look: scattered around the apartment are all these notes left by her dead mentor, and in one of them he talks proudly about Shepard herself. It is cathartic as poo poo and everyone is basically catharting all over the place. After thinking about everything that's been lost, Shepard can move on to enjoying the company of everyone who's still alive. Cue weirdly quiet party I'm sure this was all totally obvious to you guys and I'm probably not saying anything new, but I saw different suggestions on when to play Citadel, some of which involved spacing it out through the game, and I just can't see a good Shepard picking out sofas while Anderson is struggling not to get murdered. It makes infinitely more sense as an epilogue.
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Feb 16, 2014 08:41
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It's been brought up a lot. It makes more sense as an 'epilogue' because it's the final content created for the Mass Effect Trilogy and was, in many ways, a send-off. You should play it after beating the game because it functions, tonally and conceptually, as a goodbye, not because of some silly 'I'm just going to close my eyes and pretend it all away' nonsense. People are right in that you shouldn't pay any attention to where it fits in the 'continuity' or any dumb bullshit like that, but only because it's designed to fit outside of/above concerns like that. It's the real ending in the sense that it is the end of the Mass Effect Trilogy, not in the sense that 'hey, psst, this is what actually happened after the Reapers, if you squint enough.' Shirkelton fucked around with this message at 08:49 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 08:44
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Yeah, I'm not asserting that it's ~the secret ending~ or anything. I probably articulated that post badly. I just think it's the first time I've played something and gotten this much of a sense of... I don't know, an awareness of the story outside the actual canon? I don't think I've ever seen content play out quite like it is all.
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Feb 16, 2014 10:18
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The shore leave is because the Normandy needs a tune-up/repairs, which fits well as a "we better do this before the final battle" thing. Then you can end the DLC with a memorial for Thane before you go off to kill Kai Leng. If you have Legion on the ship at the time, can you invite them to the party?
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Feb 16, 2014 10:38
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a slim spar posted:Yeah, I'm not asserting that it's ~the secret ending~ or anything. I probably articulated that post badly. I just think it's the first time I've played something and gotten this much of a sense of... I don't know, an awareness of the story outside the actual canon? I don't think I've ever seen content play out quite like it is all. I, for one, am with your thinking about Citadel. Obviously it had to fit in somewhere before the end of ME3 but besides those establishing lines literally nothing about it fits in with ME3 and I'm pretty sure that was intentional. I don't mean this as to say the writers suddenly agreed with the spergs that said ME3 is all bad but that they saw the benefits in having a send-off like Citadel basically take place completely outside the "canon" and tone of ME3. Striking Yak posted:The shore leave is because the Normandy needs a tune-up/repairs, which fits well as a "we better do this before the final battle" thing. Then you can end the DLC with a memorial for Thane before you go off to kill Kai Leng. Looking at the Mass Effect wiki, Legion, Thane, nor Mordin can appear even if they're alive at the time.
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Feb 16, 2014 11:15
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Kibayasu posted:I, for one, am with your thinking about Citadel. Obviously it had to fit in somewhere before the end of ME3 but besides those establishing lines literally nothing about it fits in with ME3 and I'm pretty sure that was intentional. I don't mean this as to say the writers suddenly agreed with the spergs that said ME3 is all bad but that they saw the benefits in having a send-off like Citadel basically take place completely outside the "canon" and tone of ME3. Yup, pretty much. It's kind of a mess otherwise.
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Feb 16, 2014 11:55
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a slim spar posted:Shepard gets to actually focus on relaxing for the first time to which the player has ever been privy, but then hey, look: scattered around the apartment are all these notes left by her dead mentor, and in one of them he talks proudly about Shepard herself. It is cathartic as poo poo and everyone is basically catharting all over the place. 
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Feb 16, 2014 12:56
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a slim spar posted:Yeah, I'm not asserting that it's ~the secret ending~ or anything. I probably articulated that post badly. I just think it's the first time I've played something and gotten this much of a sense of... I don't know, an awareness of the story outside the actual canon? I don't think I've ever seen content play out quite like it is all. No, no, no. I understood what you meant, just a lot of people have suggested that this should be treated as the 'canonical ending' by pretending that it's what really happened after the Reapers were defeated and, I understand why and I get it, and everything, but I just still think it's a bit, well, childish? Not necessarily in a bad way, but yeah. I don't really agree with that frame of mind. Just trying to explain exactly why the catharsis is so permeating for something that can be done, essentially, at any time.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:08
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Above all else, Citadel gives me hope for ME4. They have shown that they are really able to deliver a good playing experience, so there is a chance that they can do it again in the next game. And they will be much less constrained by the huge build up and the need to come to an end for the series defining conflict. Personally I hope the next game will have completely new characters. Well, if EDI or Wrex are around I would not be mad about it.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:23
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Torrannor posted:Above all else, Citadel gives me hope for ME4. They have shown that they are really able to deliver a good playing experience, so there is a chance that they can do it again in the next game. And they will be much less constrained by the huge build up and the need to come to an end for the series defining conflict. I liked Citadel, for the most part, but I think the lesson they should be taking from that is 'smaller stories, more focused on the characters' not necessarily the wacky, self-referential hijinks. I would hope that they're smart enough to go with an all new cast of characters.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:25
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I would honestly love to see an "episodic" approach to Mass Effect take shape where you get shorter, cheaper games that allow for more character interaction with smaller, self-contained plots (and maybe a slow build-up to a "finale") where you just fight the Space rear end in a top hat of the Week. I know this will never happen for various reasons.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:40
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Kibayasu posted:I would honestly love to see an "episodic" approach to Mass Effect take shape where you get shorter, cheaper games that allow for more character interaction with smaller, self-contained plots (and maybe a slow build-up to a "finale") where you just fight the Space rear end in a top hat of the Week. I know this will never happen for various reasons. I'd love an episodic, downloadable game. I guess, similar to Telltale's latest output, but not as restrictive. I could see that being a fairly safe pitch, given the success of The Walking Dead Season 1.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:47
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Torrannor posted:Personally I hope the next game will have completely new characters. Well, if EDI or Wrex are around I would not be mad about it. Eh, Wrex or Garrus or whoever could easily overshadow the new characters. EDI still being around as an immortal AI could be interesting though.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:50
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I think the obvious choice for long-lived character who could still be around is Liara.
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Feb 16, 2014 13:54
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Kibayasu posted:I would honestly love to see an "episodic" approach to Mass Effect take shape where you get shorter, cheaper games that allow for more character interaction with smaller, self-contained plots (and maybe a slow build-up to a "finale") where you just fight the Space rear end in a top hat of the Week. I know this will never happen for various reasons.
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Feb 16, 2014 18:13
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Inverness posted:No. This is not a door I want opened by EA of all places. They're already the worst sort of people. We'll end up with $40 "episodes" with a fraction of the content. That's a valid complaint but on the other hand if the alternative is all future games gravitating towards all the stuff that made ME3 as terrible as it is because they think that they have to keep escalating the scale and gravity of the plot and nemeses that threaten the entire galaxy then welp, that's not really where I want them to go either. Being against episodic content because it would be EA doing the thing is, first and foremost, a (valid) complaint against EA, not so much because the series itself isn't suited for that kind of model.
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Feb 16, 2014 18:29
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Inverness posted:No. This is not a door I want opened by EA of all places. They're already the worst sort of people. We'll end up with $40 "episodes" with a fraction of the content. To top it off, I'm more than sure EA will monetize the crap out of ME4 given that we already had a good amount of content not available without Javik's DLC, but at a smaller scale to fit with an episodic format. It'll be Buy Your Own Adventure going forward. "You can keep going down this corridor to the next firefight, but you can buy access to this side corridor for just $1.99 and replenish medi-gels and ammo plus have access to a Premium Spectre Pack that may contain a new ultra rare gun..haha, no, just kidding, gently caress you, it's Explosive Ammo IV."
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Feb 16, 2014 20:21
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Burning Mustache posted:Being against episodic content because it would be EA doing the thing is, first and foremost, a (valid) complaint against EA, not so much because the series itself isn't suited for that kind of model. Saying no games should ever be episodic just isn't valid now that Walking Dead has proved it can be a reasonable price and level of entertainment. But saying THIS game shouldn't be because of the publisher it DOES have is unfortunately valid because if how big a pile of twats they are.
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Feb 16, 2014 20:36
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Bobby Deluxe posted:But the series is owned by EA, so it's more that we'd rather the series took an innapropriate format than trust those fuckers not to use it to effectively jack the price up. It's hard to disconnect EA from the franchise but so far they've been pretty reasonable (for their standards) with the ME series. The only possible exception would be Javik I suppose, which was indeed pretty lovely. Even the multiplayer packs were fairly benign what with them being completely optional and unnecessary, in effect just being an idiot tax rather than a way to extract money from people who just wanted to play the game legitimately, as is often the case with these kinds of things. So if the MP transactions were the only lovely things EA forced on Bioware (well, besides making the game require Origin on PC) and stuff like that will stay at around that level then I'm not too worried about it, and it really might be possible that Bioware is fairly autonomous from EA's meddling as I seem to recall some Bioware dev mentioned in an interview a while ago. Of course they could also completely sink the series by forcing lovely, expensive microtransactions / episodic DLC crap on the next titles but then again the series now has so many potential holes it could stumble into that would take down the entire franchise, soo ... Burning Mustache fucked around with this message at 20:54 on Feb 16, 2014 |
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Feb 16, 2014 20:48
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Inverness posted:No. This is not a door I want opened by EA of all places. They're already the worst sort of people. We'll end up with $40 "episodes" with a fraction of the content. That's one of the various reasons. But the main reason I doubt that EA of all companies will start releasing smaller, shorter, cheaper games is that it just won't make as much money. So until we see a bunch more THQ's happen we're safe from $40 games with 1/4 of the content of a $60 one.
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Feb 16, 2014 21:21
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Mass Effect 4 demo available. :iamafag: Friend made this. I really have no idea.
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Feb 16, 2014 22:35
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PootieTang posted:It successfully took the ideas of Star Wars seriously. Definitely the only valid 'dark' star wars thing I've ever seen. gently caress George Lucas and his entire company. Alpha Protocol's ability to change the story does make other "you decide the story" games look bad. However the gameplay is not nearly as fun as the Mass Effect series.
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Feb 16, 2014 23:48
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Alpha Protocol also mostly works because it is one game. I don't know if they can maintain it if your choices work across multiple games.
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Feb 17, 2014 01:53
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The MSJ posted:Alpha Protocol also mostly works because it is one game. I don't know if they can maintain it if your choices work across multiple games. Sure they could, in the sense that it's just carrying over variables. That's not your point though, your point is that the size, scope, and length of content in one game at least doubles if you add another non-trivial section of content (like another game). However it's still possible, it just becomes very very complex and perhaps not worth the time needed to do it. Whoever said earlier that AP was able to do it because of a relatively limited cast of interactive characters is making a good point - AP has a really nice choices/consequences system, but it also railroads you pretty hard with respect to what environments you can visit/revisit, and what you can do in a general sense in those environments (who can I talk to? What are the scope of my conversational options?)
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Feb 17, 2014 03:02
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Depends on what extent you want the variables to carry over. Basic version would be an npc who says "hey commander goatherd, remember when we [made love by the fireside] [shot that dog] [took acid]? That sure was [good] [bad] [confusing]!" More complex would be a mission where they join your squad, and the mission features the two of you going for a quickie, being arrested by the RSPCA or having hallucinatory flashbacks. And the altered outcome then spawns a while slew of other variables, which go on to spawn other variables. The first is fairly easy, the second is a nightmare programming wise.
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Feb 17, 2014 03:11
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I feel the multiplayer packs in me3 get a bad rep. They were entirely optional and getting credits to buy them in game is never difficult enough to force you to buy them. The game isn't difficult enough, and no weapon/class is powerful enough (combined with the fact they're random) to make them pay-to-win. I think it's also unfair to label those who bought them idiots - in some cases. When a free dlc came out, I'd purchase a few packs depending on what I thought the dlc was worth. The success (the monetary success) of the me3 multiplayer meant that a shot-in-the-dark multiplayer inclusion was expanded and worked on above and beyond what was expected. It's not perfect, it's sometimes buggy, but it still has a massive community playing it even so far after the game came out. I actually think it was microtransactions done right - not necessary to play or win the game, not ludicrously expensive , not a guaranteed money=win state and effective enough that bioware ended up delivering a really good multiplayer experience with multiple free expansions. If this kind of resource pack (and to a similar extent the dead space 3 packs which were entirely unnecessary and by the mid point of the game significantly worse than the resources found in game) leads to less day one dlc, paid dlc and season pass bullshit, I'm all for it.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:08
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Yeah, the microtransactions are "fantastic" in ME3, because you can entirely ignore them. Wish EA picked up that kinda model rather than their Battlefield BS.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:21
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So I'm finishing up my replay of ME3 (just have the Citadel Party to do now what a great DLC) and my main pet peeve (besides obvious ones like less dialogue choices, the opening and the tone) with the game is that there are plenty of main missions where you can't choose your partner, I mean that's pretty annoying, I hope they design their missions better to avoid this kind of stuff next time. It's pretty egregious with the Cerberus Headquarters mission when you have to bring EDI and Joker says "You're bringing EDI?!", I don't have a choice here Bioware, don't chastise me for it. Overall I liked the game even on a replay but Citadel is really a cut above the main game.Maybe it's the tone, as it's kind of annoying to see sour faces all over the galaxy, part of what makes the Tuchanka mission so good is Wrex, Mordin and Eve who are not always super serious. Kurtofan fucked around with this message at 18:25 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 18:23
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lenoon posted:I feel the multiplayer packs in me3 get a bad rep. They were entirely optional and getting credits to buy them in game is never difficult enough to force you to buy them. The game isn't difficult enough, and no weapon/class is powerful enough (combined with the fact they're random) to make them pay-to-win. The other factor here is that ME3 multiplayer is cooperative, so playing with a dude whose gear totally outclasses your own is actually beneficial.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:29
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Bogart posted:Yeah, the microtransactions are "fantastic" in ME3, because you can entirely ignore them. Wish EA picked up that kinda model rather than their Battlefield BS.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:35
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Dan Didio posted:I think the obvious choice for long-lived character who could still be around is Liara.
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Feb 17, 2014 18:53
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Dan Didio posted:I think the obvious choice for long-lived character who could still be around is Liara. That reminds me, one thing about the extended cut that annoyed me was that the two bits where a party member gets some business to do decided which party member to use based on either romances or (as far as I can tell) who you'd interacted with the most. And since you get Liara at the start of the game and she never leaves, unless you actively avoid her you're seeing Liara in the ending if you went without romance. It took a few tries but I finally got her injured in the last mission so I could see a character I actually liked mourning me.
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Feb 17, 2014 19:11
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2house2fly posted:That reminds me, one thing about the extended cut that annoyed me was that the two bits where a party member gets some business to do decided which party member to use based on either romances or (as far as I can tell) who you'd interacted with the most. And since you get Liara at the start of the game and she never leaves, unless you actively avoid her you're seeing Liara in the ending if you went without romance. It took a few tries but I finally got her injured in the last mission so I could see a character I actually liked mourning me. Yeah but if Garrus were the one you got at the start and he would be the default option for mourning you, it would have annoyed other players. And the safe route for Bioware was probably a female character anyway, to avoid outrage from the homophobes. I think Bioware did the best they could in this situation. Regarding the forced party members, they do make a certain amount of sense. Liara on Thessia, Tali on Rannoch, that gives the writers more to work with. You will always have the party member who knows the world and they can thus tell stories easier than if party member choice was free. Although it would have helped if the default party size was 4.
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Feb 17, 2014 19:33
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I remember my first time playing Dragon Age and being incredibly surprised at having 4 party members. And, I think it added a lot to the party dynamics, both RPG/characterization and tactically. I hope they decide to do that in more games, I would've loved that in ME (or back in KOTOR).
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Feb 17, 2014 21:46
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Malderi posted:I remember my first time playing Dragon Age and being incredibly surprised at having 4 party members. And, I think it added a lot to the party dynamics, both RPG/characterization and tactically. I hope they decide to do that in more games, I would've loved that in ME (or back in KOTOR). As long as they get the AI to work properly. That it got significantly worse from ME2 > ME3 is kind of mind boggling. And that's with just two NPCs.
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Feb 17, 2014 21:49
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