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I get the points about the shift in terms of size and connectedness, and it's true that ME2's hubs in particular suffer for it. On the other hand, while I love to explore, I do so first and foremost because I anticipate a reward for exploring. In this respect, I feel that ME1 doesn't quite live up to its potential. There's really only a handful of missions to pick up and characters to speak to in any given hub, but there's a lot of ground to traverse, and most of that ground consists of fairly narrow corridors. Furthermore, unless you have absolutely no patience for finding NPCs to chat up, it's hard to miss out on anything altogether. And on the largely featureless side-mission planets, which are akin to BG1's many countryside areas, there's never (as far as I can remember) more than one mission, and you usually pick it up from one of the hubs anyway. And even if that's not the case, they payoff for completing any given mission generally amounts to "get some XP, get some credits, get some randomised items based on your current level". If you're hoping for the ME1 equivalent of something like Lilarcor or a suit of red dragon armour, you're in for a disappointment. The resources and dog tags and whatnot scattered around a planet's surface provide okay diversions for completionists, but finding all on any given planet isn't likely to give the average player much satisfaction. As a result of all this, I rarely if ever had the sense that I was both putting in an additional effort to see everything there is to the game, and being appropriately rewarded for doing so. Contrast this to, say, Deus Ex. Like ME1, DE's got hubs/civilian areas, and does not always strictly separate those areas from pure mission areas. In either case, there are many, many places that truly require some effort to be found - places that you're not automatically directed to, or can't even get into if you don't have the proper skills and/or items. Sometimes it's just a cleverly hidden room, but that room might just contain a very valuable augmentation upgrade. At other times, it's essentially an entire side-mission area that's worth playing through for a whole bunch of reasons. I remember more or less stumbling upon MJ12's secret sewer facility beneath Hell's Kitchen on my second or even third DE playthrough; I was completely floored that the game had previously managed to successfully hide such a massive place from me. Although I'm not expecting or even asking ME1 to live up to DE's incredibly high standards, as it is, the game doesn't let the player explore enough and doesn't quite provide sufficient incentive for the player to explore. The consequence is, while that ME1 may be great at establishing a setting, the player's position within that setting, and the illusion of a larger world, it ends up feeling rather restrictive and empty. In ME2 and ME3, public places you can visit may be smaller and there's no barren height-map planets anymore, but everything you do visit is filled with life and detail. I'd rather have that kind of substance than ME1's sense of aesthetics and atmosphere (although, ideally, I'd like to have both of course).
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Aug 8, 2014 19:37
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I meant that players wanting the big hub to be smaller don't know what they're asking for; there's a tradeoff involved that the level designers have thought about but the players haven't. The fast travel system is there to keep the Citadel manageable and big at the same time. I don't doubt that there are Mass Effect players who have complained about having to walk around the big Presidium and then turned around and complained that the sequels never did anything as epic as the burning Citadel end game. You can't design a zone to be small, focused, epic, and multipurpose. Oops, new page. Of course I agree that barren height-map planets are no big loss. And Mass Effect could always have had more NPCs. Do you really think ME2 has more going on in its hubs? Or is it just that they're smaller and denser? Omega certainly has more going on than any of Mass Effect's mid-game hub zones, but that's because it's filling in for the Citadel. Mass Effect 2's Citadel is quite a bit smaller than Mass Effect's. DE's not a great comparison because its movement mechanics are so drastically different from ME's. DE can get away with hiding things and even hiding entire paths because the player has the tools to find them. If ME put DE-style rewards for exploration in, the player would either never find it or find it very easily. I'm not sure I understand the connection between exploring and finding hidden/completionist items. I also don't think there are actually any hubs in any of the ME games that consist primarily of corridors. The hubs are Citadel, Zhu's Hope on Feros (open air), the corporate HQ on Novaria (another very large room), and a mini-hub on the Vermire beach. Later games tend to place hubs on balconies, but they still aren't corridors. Oh man, I just realized that Zhu's Hope, Novaria HQ, and the Vermire beach are actually all balcony/skybox layouts. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 20:00 on Aug 8, 2014 |
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Aug 8, 2014 19:39
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If the characters in ME1 moved more quickly than "spicy jaunt" when out of combat the size of the Citadel wouldn't have been so noticeable.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:41
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A Curvy Goonette posted:If the characters in ME1 moved more quickly than "spicy jaunt" when out of combat the size of the Citadel wouldn't have been so noticeable. yeah this is an important thing as well. I think a large part of the frustration relates to how quickly and efficiently you can move through it to get to your destination. The ME1 citadel is nothing but obstacles to efficiency at a snail's pace of character movement, it's maddening. If you want to continue along the lines of "the level designers thought of this, the players did not" then I'd put the blame squarely at the feet of the level designers who made a hub that was fundamentally incompatible with your player movement. Nothing can help you if you wanted to get to the Normandy to where Zabaleta was in any reasonable timeframe though. And the quest, of course, made you go back after you did.  Compare to, say, Saints Row IV, where the city was many, many times larger but your movement options were literally superpowers. Made traveling so easy and straightforward it was never, ever a problem to go from X to Y no matter how far apart those points were. There's a middle ground, of course, where you can have better flow without superpowers. That said, part of me wishes you could lock-on to civs on the Citadel and vanguard charge them. That'd solve the movement problem. 
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Aug 8, 2014 19:45
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A Curvy Goonette posted:If the characters in ME1 moved more quickly than "spicy jaunt" when out of combat the size of the Citadel wouldn't have been so noticeable. EDIT: Psion posted:yeah this is an important thing as well. I think 'feeling of place' also relates to how quickly and efficiently you can move through it to get to your destination. The ME1 citadel is nothing but obstacles to efficiency at a snail's pace of character movement, it's maddening.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:47
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Sombrerotron posted:EDIT: I support this.
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Aug 8, 2014 19:55
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Everyone here's probably seen this already, but just in case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xmVO7qjupw&list=PLC801B034CDF711B0&feature=player_detailpage#t=392
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Aug 8, 2014 20:03
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Sombrerotron posted:That would kind of defeat the purpose of making the whole thing so big, I think. And even if you could just quickly leg it everywhere, you'd still be legging it through a whole lot of functionally empty space and empty corridors. Presidium was never supposed to be have a lived-in feeling, it was supposed to be a park and an expression of power. Making it functionally "full" might have actually detracted from the space. If I had time and money to improve Mass Effect, Citadel Wards would be where I'd spend it. That's where the functionally busy space was supposed to be thematically, and it was pretty disappointing in execution.
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Aug 8, 2014 20:05
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Psion posted:Uh, maybe it's me but this feels pretty contradictory of you. You acknowledge there's a reason for a fast travel system but then criticize players for not knowing what they want? I'd say it's proof positive they do know: less walking around a big, badly laid out, mostly empty hub. After my first time playing ME1, the Citadel was nothing more than an exercise in returning as infrequently as possible to slam in as many quest completions as possible and then to leave as soon as possible to anywhere else. This does not feel like the hallmark of successful design to me. Extended traversal times are dope as hell when they're a gameplay element (see: Shadow of the Colossus, Saints Row IV) and absolutely awful when they're blatant time-padding (dragon age, ME1)
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Aug 8, 2014 20:23
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Traveling through the land in Shadow of the Colossus helps give that feeling of loneliness that holds the game together, and you're finding lizards when you're traveling. Traveling around the Citadel in ME1 just makes me think 'well, I'm never coming here again until the plot forces me to.' Hubs in Mass Effect games are just interruption between the actual gameplay. If they're not going to give me a sidequest or some neat character interactions, then I have no problem trimming as much of the bullshit off as possible. Flytrap fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Aug 8, 2014 |
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Aug 8, 2014 20:41
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Psion posted:e: I'll agree Tuchanka was disappointing and a Noveria to Peak 15-esque drive could have - in theory - done a lot for fleshing out the Krogan homeworld, but you didn't think Thane's recruitment owned and I don't even know what's up with that. I think a lot of your positive comments about Tali's recruitment apply to Thane's as well so I'm not sure why you don't. I did actually mention it in my ME writeup but forgot about it doing ME2. Yes, Thane's recruitment or the high-rise assault is like the platonic Mass Effect 2 level. Fun, good level design, space is a little boring. Where are we exactly? Whatever, who cares. Shoot shoot shoot, snarky one-liner, kill a guy in a cool way. "What do these maniacs want?!" villain wonders. Game laughs at him/her, we're actually here for reasons unrelated to villain's objectives. Grab new space buddy/deal with daddy figure. Flying vehicle zooms away from level with a 25% chance of it exploding in the background.
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Aug 8, 2014 20:47
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The best way I've ever heard it summed up was from an old roommate who marathoned ME1 and ME2 back to back to get ready for ME3. His analysis was: "Mass Effect 1 is an RPG that happens to have some shooter mechanics, and Mass Effect 2 is a 3rd person shooter that happens to have some RPG mechanics." I've never played ME3, but from what I've seen so far of your videos Lt. Danger my leaning for ME3 is towards the latter rather than the former. That's not a bad thing by any means. On the contrary, I'm actually looking at ME3 in a somewhat better light as a result. Sure a lot of the story elements are cringe worthy, but I don't care because it's obviously not the primary focus. The focus is on the shooter gameplay, which actually looks pretty fun.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:00
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Willie Tomg posted:Extended traversal times are dope as hell when they're a gameplay element (see: Shadow of the Colossus, Saints Row IV) and absolutely awful when they're blatant time-padding (dragon age, ME1) This is a good way to put it. I just remembered this: KOTOR suffers from Citadel Problems. Taris was atrocious. You could use a super-speed cheat (I did) and it made the entire planet better. That's it: change run speed, better experience. bioware: bad at big spaces
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Aug 8, 2014 21:28
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I'm still catching up on these videos, but I like to say that I really like how you spend so much time discussing game design. It's really interesting to see the theory behind how the game is setup. This is really giving me some new perspective on the game. Hell, it's giving me new perspective on games themselves. Keep it up.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:43
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Solution: Shepard's cyberware had been infected by the Geth "black mamba" virus. When not in a mission he can only dance from place to place. Geth software allows him to dance very rapidly, but only if the player masters this rhythm mini game. $9.95 EA store
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Aug 8, 2014 21:46
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Arglebargle III posted:Solution: Shepard's cyberware had been infected by the Geth "black mamba" virus. When not in a mission he can only dance from place to place. Geth software allows him to dance very rapidly, but only if the player masters this rhythm mini game. I'm pretty sure anything that makes Shepard dance non-stop constitutes as some sort of war crime.
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Aug 8, 2014 21:54
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Now I sincerely want to see a mod that makes Shepard continually dance while in dialogue mode.
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Aug 8, 2014 22:05
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Sombrerotron, if you honestly think that ME3's locations have a lot going on in their small space this LP is going to have some parts that will knock your socks off. We already saw the game's crime against Palaven, but Thessia is going to beat it hands down as the dumbest and laziest main quest area in the series. Hoo boy is it bad.
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Aug 8, 2014 22:20
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Going back to the size discussion, I agree that a large hub can make a setting more impressive, but only if it meets two criteria: 1) It must be thoughtfully constructed to present a realistic feel. 2) It must offer the player incentive to explore it. ME1's hubs didn't do either very well. They were large, but mostly empty and staffed with a handful of static NPCs that mimed mulling about. The planets were worse than that since there was absolutely nothing to do between driving to the pre-fab or collectables. More to the point, Shepard and his/her crew were severely limited in movement. As such, there was no real reason to explore as all you could do was saunter over to some piece of scenery and stare at it unless a button prompt appeared. The Mako was better at interacting with the environment, but we all remember trying to get around the endless mountains to do one sidequest mission. As much as ME2's hubs were cramped, I'd call them some improvement if only because you didn't have to deal with ME1 style filler to get where you needed to go.
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Aug 8, 2014 22:34
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Arglebargle III posted:Sombrerotron, if you honestly think that ME3's locations have a lot going on in their small space this LP is going to have some parts that will knock your socks off. We already saw the game's crime against Palaven, but Thessia is going to beat it hands down as the dumbest and laziest main quest area in the series. Hoo boy is it bad.
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Aug 8, 2014 22:38
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Arglebargle III posted:Solution: Shepard's cyberware had been infected by the Geth "black mamba" virus. When not in a mission he can only dance from place to place. Geth software allows him to dance very rapidly, but only if the player masters this rhythm mini game. So that's what happened in the Freelance Astronauts LP.
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Aug 8, 2014 22:40
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People might complain that Tuchanka was just brown and didn't make sense, but at least it was still distinctive within the series. Every other homeworld just makes it look like there's just one architect in the entire galaxy. Maybe it's just me but I felt the home planets should have had something unique or memorable about them. Instead of making the place itself memorable, in order to drive in the point that the oldest and richest culture in the galaxy is at stake, the place you go in Thessia is the smallest history museum ever. 
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Aug 8, 2014 22:54
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At least the plot justifies why it's a short trip to a museum rather than something like Lair of the Shadow Broker's blasting through the rooftops of Illium. Reapers are knocking on the door and they drop you off at the nearest friendly beachhead. You end up using pretty much the entirety of the local military as ablative armor just to get to where you need to go.
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Aug 9, 2014 00:56
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I think people should remember I was posting specifically about setting. Mass Effect spends more effort on its setting and is recognizably about setting. Mass Effect 2's setting work is perhaps not worse but more limited and lacks the same cohesive vision. But does that mean I think Mass Effect 2 is a worse game? No, the illusion of setting is just cheaper and easier, as I said. So, to everyone stepping in to defend ME2, remember this is specifically about setting. We all know that it's superior to Mass Effect in some areas, but setting isn't one of them. Now on to the Presidium-- I wonder how many people lamenting the Presidium have played through multiple times, because the tradeoff I mentioned gets worse and worse as game hours add up. The Presidium exists the way it does for the benefit of the first couple and last couple hours of the game. It's built for exploring and development first and player convenience a distant third. As play hours stretch out, player convenience becomes a bigger and bigger mark in the negative column, while the exploration never recurs and the shock of blowing up the Presidium in the final act, while cool, never has the same impact again. Exploration is inherently limited. The Presidium is big and there's a lot to do... the first time you get there. People mention slamming in sidequests, but those NPCs who hang around giving sidequests are mostly there as objects of exploration. Who didn't chuckle at the Elcor and Volus ambassador when they first poked their heads out of Udina's office in the game's third hour? Or remember their first encounter with a Hanar or a VI? That's all basically just there for you to find wandering around the Presidium. (If it was arranged the way ME3's Presidium is they'd all be in a 200m2 quadrangle disguised with geometry.) When you come back there on another playthrough, or even in the middle of the game, the Presidium's kind of used up for now. It'll have another job to do later but in the meantime it's just kind of there. It's been explored; the gameplay is gone. And that's what people are reacting to when they're mad about bridges, it is no longer a gameplay space, it's just an obstacle. It's especially bad on later playthroughs, because that exploration gameplay can't be repeated in new game+. But it's worth remembering that it was a space for gameplay, and they sure as hell aren't just going to lock it for the rest of the game after spending all that work on it, especially since they don't want to lock content for players that might not have seen it yet. It could be better, of course. Probably the best thing for it would be to move characters and quest-givers around to avoid the mid-game slog across the Citadel. Some of them could just get up and walk to Citadel Wards, for example, and some of them could just go stand in reasonable locations. Someone mentioned Zabaleta, for example, who if I recall is actually in a weird little corridor between C-Sec Security and Citadel Wards lower level which the player never needs to pass through and is at the rear end-end of both levels with regard to fast travel. And, of course, the elevators could be faster although that's more of a technical limitation. But I'd still argue that shrinking the Presidium is not the best solution, because both its payoffs require it to be big. ME2 and ME3 can get away with the smaller Citadel largely because of ME's Presidium, annoying as it may have been in the middle of the game. But those areas also have issues, and they can't have much happen there. You'll notice they try the same trick of shooting up the Citadel permanently in the later games, and it never has anything like the impact of the first time they did it. I'd put that partly up to them having done it on a much larger scale earlier, but partly up to the level design. ME3's Presidium just doesn't leave much of an impression on the player, so when you put some bullet holes in it the reaction is a resounding shrug. I'll reserve the post about Mass Effect 3 until we see the settings again. I only played through ME3 once as opposed to the 2-3 times for the other two games. Thessia's rooftop combat section has the same problems that Lt. Danger pointed out in the Earth video, but its main area and final encounter deserve a couple paragraphs just dissecting how and why they're so bad. Don't get me wrong, Menae was awful too. Sur'Kesh is an ME2 level design through and through; functional but boring.* Of the videos we've watched so far, Mars is the only setting that's executed with the level of competence you'd expect from a team that has ME and ME2 under their belts. *I should leave this for another post, but Sur'Kesh is notable for how easily you can get turned around and how impossible it is to get lost. The level is not only a disguised hallway, it's a completely straight hallway. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 08:05 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 07:07
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Once you have played through once, you only have to do the Citadel 3 times. 1 - First time. Recruit. Do all the quests. And on this one you do have to wander the whole thing for the keepers. 2 - Go back to finish a couple and pick up new ones. The only bad part is taking the elevator down to CSec. From there you can fast transit everywhere. 3 - When you are grounded. Complaining about the Citadel in 1 is pretty lame. Now in 2 and 3. Yeah. It's really boring in those and in 3 you have to constantly go around if you want to talk to people. It's awful.
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Aug 10, 2014 07:20
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 Part 7: Patterns Further Reading Hellforge's Bioware Story Chart: http://lpix.org/1766552/1252214-bioware.png Bioware's Story Chart Reaction: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/bioware-defends-story-structure SPENT: http://playspent.org/
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Aug 10, 2014 09:18
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There's still some more work to do on what patterns mean in Mass Effect, which I'll look at... ...in a later video.
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Aug 10, 2014 09:20
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Your thoughts on the Crucible seem solid to me; if not quite the closest thing to the original intent, then certainly a very well structured analysis. Although I've sometimes wondered if Mass Effect never really operated on any explicitly stated themes, it's easy to forget the operating motive of the Reapers as originally stated in the first game, since they tend to get relegated to the status of boogeyman over the long picture. The Crucible is the only means of defeating the Reapers -- not just in a brute force method -- but as a way to strike against the ethos at their core. But if I could turn the premise on its head, I'm left to wonder... If the Crucible is the one true method of solving the conflicts at the heart of the matter, then why was it the ending remained so reviled upon first viewing? Could it have come down to bad messaging? What prevents that idea from being truly realized? Is it the sheer scope of the story? Gameplay included, it's quite a long way from our current point all the way back to the later half of the first game, where we first find the thing that provides the context as to "why" the crucible. Or is it just that the final draft of the game didn't have the wherewithal to actually put the ideas into words and into action?
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Aug 10, 2014 11:05
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You cut out just before the best lines of that exchange! "You exist because we allow it. You will end because we demand it." Sovereign's delivery during the entire conversation is absolutely chilling, but those two lines are perfect. It's a shame that none of the following Reaper voice actors were able to pull that off, the only one that came close being Harbinger. Edit: The scene at the end of the video is a perfect example of how Liara has improved as a character from the first game. Back in Mass Effect 1, it felt like her only real character trait was her naivety and getting swept up in things. It wasn't until the second game that she started to get depth in her hunt for the Shadow Broker, and I wouldn't say she is an outright good character until the Shadow Broker DLC. SirSamVimes fucked around with this message at 12:01 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 11:33
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Arglebargle III posted:I think people should remember I was posting specifically about setting. I think people are dogpiling you because your bias is showing. You seem like a person who prefers the 'experience' of playing games, so ME1 was probably a really enjoyable smorgasbord of light, sound and colour, and ME2 must have felt cramped and disorientating in comparison. I think most of the people disagreeing are probably people who prefer the 'challenge' of playing games, so ME2 was perfectly paced and conveyed its setting quickly and concisely so as not to interfere with the combat, and ME1 was interminable repetitive 'w + mouse' tedium. I don't think you can (or should!) attempt to sound impartial analysing the setting design when you've clearly got specific priorities and desires. You clearly like expansive, contiguous areas that immerse you in a particular aesthetic - own it! Despite my efforts I'm not quite as interested in that area of design myself, so I'm not as good at it. What do you mean about Sur'Kesh? Now that you mention it, you're right - it's very same-y but I don't recall getting lost all that often.
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Aug 10, 2014 11:49
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Morroque posted:But if I could turn the premise on its head, I'm left to wonder... If the Crucible is the one true method of solving the conflicts at the heart of the matter, then why was it the ending remained so reviled upon first viewing? Could it have come down to bad messaging? What prevents that idea from being truly realized? Is it the sheer scope of the story? Gameplay included, it's quite a long way from our current point all the way back to the later half of the first game, where we first find the thing that provides the context as to "why" the crucible. Or is it just that the final draft of the game didn't have the wherewithal to actually put the ideas into words and into action? I mentioned earlier that I didn't think the fundamental concept for the Crucible is unworkable, but the execution is awful. The idea is flung at the player at the start of the game, apropos of nothing, where it's been sat in a Prothean archive on Mars for 200 years. Mars. The planet next to Earth. Which Javik claims the Protheans abandoned as soon as the Reapers invaded, yet which houses the only known blueprints for their doomsday device but apparently makes no mention of the Reaper invasion itself. It then sits in the background with Hackett giving nonsensical updates ("we don't know how it works, but we know it's super big") while Shepard goes off to solve a bunch of 1000-year-old problems that don't actually need fixing right now and which ultimately have no bearing on the material outcome of the game. I'm avoiding spoiling any of the ending or the significant plot points for any of the six people on the internet who haven't yet seen it, but suffice it to say that none of this is ever paid off and that the Crucible will be less well explained by the end than it is already. The idea would have worked a lot better if it had been something directly revealed to the player, either by Javik or by ShepVision, where you then have to go off and find the missing pieces of this superweapon while Hackett gets on the vidcom to passive-aggressively complain that you're not at the front shooting wildly at all these cuttlefish. That's effectively the structure of the first two games, and does a lot better at not making the player feel like they're just a passenger while the story happens around them. Now, I'd then want the final level to be where you have to actually get on board Harbinger to trigger the weapon and blah blah blah Independence Day blah blah blah armchair game design, but you could at least then have achieved everything discussed in the video and still had a proper payoff at the end.
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Aug 10, 2014 13:28
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I said you can't get lost in Sur'Kesh, because it's a disguised straight hallway. You can get turned around, but the game locks the door behind you every time you go up a stairwell so you can't do the Halo 1 thing of going about 500 meters the wrong way before seeing an arrow on the floor and realizing you're going the wrong way. Not comparing this to Halo 1's awful corridors, Sur'Kesh may be a corridor but at least it's a well-designed one. The player has a touchstone to remind him what's going on with Mordin or not-Mordin yelling at him every time he runs by the elevator, and is always moving up. The level is entirely contained within one of the low-rise buildings you see on the way in. The building is wedge shaped (a right triangular prism is probably the most accurate way to say it) and open on one side, and it gets narrower as you go up. Sort of, since at the higher levels the game lets you venture out onto some structures outside the floor. Each floor is a long, straight quadrangle with sort of minimalist room divisions. Dividing walls and decorative elements are all suspiciously about 1-1.5 meters high.  Salarians are apparently fans of open-plan design, and who can blame them with that view!Speaking of open-plan design, you'll notice that the overall layout of the building makes it a series of balconies. So why did I call it a hallway? Well, it is. The only way to move between floors, other than the elevator, is a series of one-story stairwells inconveniently located at opposite ends of each level, connecting the floors like a jacob's ladder. (Can you imagine the fire code nightmare?) Unfold the jacob's ladder, unpack the building, and you get a long, straight, increasingly narrow hallway, with doors that lock behind the player at regular intervals. There's a solid wall on one side containing the elevator and various specimens, and the skybox on the other side. And remember, those open windows are just more walls as far as the map geometry is concerned. It's a pretty hallway, a disguised hallway, but it's a hallway nonetheless. This is why I said Sur'Kesh is a very ME2 map. It's a straight line with Shep on one end, the goal on the other and a bunch of badguys in the middle. It's also competently made; the cover, open plan sort of semi-divisions between rooms and enemies with easy access to drop in turn what is essentially a corridor map into a space with lots of interesting sight-lines and opportunities for both the player and enemies to move tactically and fight at a variety of ranges. Making the player zigzag up the building with staircase placement does an excellent job of hiding how linear the whole thing is by continually switching the player's perspective, putting the skybox now on the right and now on the left, disguising the fact that you're fighting down almost the same hallway over and over. The space is a bit boring though, very much like Thane's recruitment mission. Both take place in one building which is essentially a stack of similar spaces, both lack any real transitions in style or type of play, and both lack much use of vertical space despite being set in high-rises. (although if you live or work in one you'd know that that's art imitating life.) Compare to the Thorian's chamber on Feros, an area that uses similar design tricks but has more honest use of vertical space and breaks up shooting with exploration and conversation. Sur'Kesh and the Tower map from ME2 use vertical space as an illusion, on Sur'Kesh to hide the level's simplicity* and in the Tower especially where the elevator really is just a loading screen for another flat map, while in the Thorian's chamber the map is dominated by the huge empty vertical space in the center, through which you can see and shoot at other levels, and which you have to reach and step out into to finish the level. *A very simply level design trick that you'll see used endlessly throughout the games industry. I'm not knocking its use, in fact Sur'Kesh is a great example of it being used well, but it is a trick to obfuscate a flat environment and not a real vertical environment. The canyon sidequest level in ME2 is a good example if you want to see a level that is really vertical and not just pretending to be. Now, is the Thorian's Chamber a better level than Sur'Kesh? Hell no! That's the reason I chose it. The Thorian Chamber is a bastard and Sur'Kesh plays like silk. Sur'Kesh is also much prettier. But the Thorian Chamber is a more interesting space. Arglebargle III fucked around with this message at 13:58 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 13:38
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I like how the ancient high imperial civilization have West African accents. It's just a nice tiny little subversion.
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Aug 10, 2014 14:05
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I've been following the thread and really enjoying both the videos and the discussion, but I wanted to chime in to make a point / expand on something mentioned in the latest video. I should preface it by saying I'm not a fan of the series - I played through about half of ME1 and less than a quarter of ME 2, and beyond being vaguely aware of the controversy, I've never really paid much attention to the third one. I am one of the six people mentioned in the previous post who doesn't know the ending, so take this with a grain of salt. In the series of books by Robin Hobb mentioned in the video, one of the really interesting things about the main character is his relative incompetence. He's not a war hero, a supremely skilled assassin, a wise sorcerer, or anything like that. Indeed, in the first trilogy (less so in the second, but it's a theme that's still present), the main character's lack of... finesse, for want of a better word, and his rash behaviour form a major plot point. He's not a total klutz incapable of tying his shoelaces, but nor is he infinitely effective in the roles he pursues. It's this that makes the series so compelling and makes the character so interesting - for one thing, it's relatable. And characterisation like this has a long precedent - look at Hamlet (the character, not the play). It's his fallibility and the difficulties he faces in addressing this that are so interesting. Compare this to (what I have seen so far) of Mass Effect 3. Shepard is well-recognised as a war hero, and while I'm assuming Lt. Danger is making the combat look easier than it actually is, it's pretty clear that Shepard is in their element. It's kind of interesting that despite their puissance as a soldier, the circumstances driving the plot are almost totally external to the character. A couple of posts earlier, someone described the action so far as, well, kind of dicking around with no clear goal. How good Shepard is at killing things has no tangible bearing on the plot, and it lessens the storytelling pretty considerably, at least from my perspective. To continue the Hamlet theme, Shepard is reduced to the role of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, or perhaps more charitably, Laertes. And while there's nothing wrong with that (see Tom Stoppard, for example), played straight as it seems to be here it's just not compelling. While there's certainly conflict, it's just not interesting conflict. Imagine if the play followed Laertes' viewpoint - there'd be just as much violence and conflict, but it would feel bizarrely disjointed without the context of Hamlet's dilemma. In short, from what I've seen of the game so far, there's just not much scope for the characters to actually do anything to avert their fate. It's all being either handled offscreen, or the problem is so large that shooting it won't help. Which would be fine if that were the point of the story, but it's not, and the end result feels more than a little jarring. Shepard isn't bad at their job, it's just that it doesn't matter, and they don't seem to have realised this.
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Aug 10, 2014 14:16
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Good point about the verticality. One of the things I was planning to comment on in the Sur'Kesh video was the design, as it was used in the ME3 single-player demo. That one area with the two-level lab, I thought "that's an interesting space! Usually you never get vertical spaces in the combat arenas!" Then I played it and remembered that you can't even really use the vertical space that well, so I didn't bother. Glad somebody could get some useful analysis out of it.
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Aug 10, 2014 14:19
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You certainly complemented ME1 and 2 a lot in this video. Though saying ME1 was poorly written is very far from the mark. Start to finish it is the best written of the series. It has a coherent plot structure that is void of the gaping holes that riddle the next two games. It introduces characters and begins to develop them. It has a satisfying introduction, arc and ending. One thing about this "DLC" that always drives me nuts is how you are able to just access the stasis pod. Where is Cerberus? It makes no sense that they would just leave this out. Especially if they were trying to get it open. They would have taken it, or at least had it under heavy guard. Another reason ME3 is a badly written game. Also, why is Javik African? Is this a Star Wars prequel? Another thing, why does Javik have his room set up moments after arriving on the ship? It makes no sense. Some may feel I am being ticky tacky but these are the sorts of things that pop up on multiple play throughs that pull the game down. There are some things that got better and when I see one I will point it out. Waltzing Along fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 18:11
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Waltzing Along posted:Also, why is Javik African? Is this a Star Wars prequel? There is no cultural or historical meaning to the oldest primary character in the series having an African accent. Nope, none at all.
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Aug 10, 2014 18:14
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CPFortest posted:There is no cultural or historical meaning to the oldest primary character in the series having an African accent. Addendum, the oldest character from the oldest civilization. People have a nasty habit of forgetting that Africa isn't one big stereotype and was the seat of many advanced empires. Especially in sci-fi that already tends to boil entire species into single themes based on human stereotypes. FullLeatherJacket posted:I mentioned earlier that I didn't think the fundamental concept for the Crucible is unworkable, but the execution is awful. That's another big reason I hate the Crucible: it was just a complete waste of potential. Instead of being developed into a real plot, it was just pasted in to be the writer's little backdoor because they couldn't come up with an actual way to end things. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 18:32 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 18:27
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Waltzing Along posted:Though saying ME1 was poorly written is very far from the mark. Start to finish it is the best written of the series. Nooope. I know I excuse Bioware a little for harping on the same themes but there isn't an excuse for writing the same game six times over. The writing is loose and sprawling, there's a lot of filler that tells us nothing interesting or new (all those evil corporations covertly doing evil experiments!) and most of the recurring characters will get personality transplants between ME1 and ME2 that make them much less boring. Lots of ME1 is quite nice, but only one part (the bit I mentioned) stands out as being particularly noteworthy, as the concept that makes ME1 different to its five brothers and sisters. quote:Instead of being developed into a real plot, it was just pasted in to be the writer's little backdoor because they couldn't come up with an actual way to end things. FullLeatherJacket is largely incorrect and I'd like to suggest that the Crucible is an intentional choice on Bioware's part, not a last resort. But again, topic for a later update. Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 18:35 on Aug 10, 2014 |
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Aug 10, 2014 18:33
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Lt. Danger posted:I know I excuse Bioware a little for harping on the same themes but there isn't an excuse for writing the same game six times over. The writing is loose and sprawling, there's a lot of filler that tells us nothing interesting or new (all those evil corporations covertly doing evil experiments!) and most of the recurring characters will get personality transplants between ME1 and ME2 that make them much less boring. Lots of ME1 is quite nice, but only one part (the bit I mentioned) stands out as being particularly noteworthy, as the concept that makes ME1 different to its five brothers and sisters. It's totally unfair to criticize Mass Effect for being BioWare RPG Epic #6. Criticize BioWare all you want for that, but ME is ME. There was a huge audience of new adopters for the XBOX 360 console generation, and aside from KOTOR everything on that list is small potatoes compared to Mass Effect. And I defy you to find anyone who played Jade Empire. Are you going to criticize Rembrandt for painting all those drat faces? Or Michaelangelo for not branching out from all those muscly forms? But seriously though, you can't try to distance Mass Effect 3 from comparison the other installments in the trilogy and then turn around and criticize Mass Effect for being too similar to BioWare's previous outings. I think the formula is understandable; Mass Effect was by far the most ambitious project BioWare had ever worked on, it made sense to work within a familiar structure. That said, I think I'd agree that Mass Effect's writing is unexceptional with two major exceptions. First, setting. I know I just talked about it but seriously, just open up the encyclopedia or take a look around at your crewmates and ship in the game. They had a clear vision and put a ton of effort into it, and you really can't deny that Mass Effect is a great pastiche of pulpy retro-futuristic 60s and 70s space opera. How many original space opera franchises pop up every decade anyway, and how many actually succeed? I was mostly talking about areas within the game when I talked about setting, I didn't even get into the species or the art design, but it all works together to make something greater than the sum of its parts. Everything just screams 70s future. Somebody wrote that vision down before the art team got their hands on it. Second, the 3rd act. Which may start at the beginning of Virmire but really kicks into gear with that conversation with Sovereign. I don't know who was in charge of plotting out ME's 3rd act but the game leaps into focus right around the Sovereign conversation and doesn't lose that focus until the credits roll. Mass Effect's third act is like a better game embedded in Mass Effect. Except the combat AI is still garbage, and no matter how good Sovereign's writing is, enemy is still everywhere. At least from Ilos on you fight Geth. Seriously, though, you could make a little diagram of just the third act. It introduces new conflicts by revealing that Sovereign is a character and that he's a super scary badguy. It plots its own rising action across Ilos, which starts with a locked door and a spooky empty graveyard and accelerates until Shepard is literally firing his car across the galaxy at ludicrous speed. And then, to somehow keep ramping up the intensity after that, the game helpfully blows itself up, turns itself sideways, and turns off the gravity. Everything from the conversation with Sovereign until his claw comes crashing down into the Citadel Tower is glorious. I didn't say end credits because of the part where killing the Council has any impact on galactic politics. That's retarded. Killing the President doesn't let you pick the new President. But anyway, somebody wrote the third act. Somebody made sure to set up the Citadel in the first act so that it would pay off at the end. Seems pretty good to me.
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Aug 10, 2014 19:48
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