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Yorkshire Tea posted:I don't know why but their situation gives me a little sense of pre-Israel Jewish diaspora? Because their story is a riff on Battlestar Galactica which is itself a semisecular scifi riff on the Jewish diaspora and/or Book of Mormon depending on your leanings. It's about as straightforward as intertextuality gets, tbqh.
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Oct 2, 2014 23:58
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:It occurs to me that we don't really know what Asari do to give birth. They talk about mothers and fathers to imply something about how somebody has to bear something, but I'm not clear on if they don't just lay eggs or bud or what. For all we know they take samples manually and then use a pod, like the Kryptonians and Russell Crowe did before their planet was tragically eliminated. Nope. Just lock the thread here. We're done.
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Oct 3, 2014 00:18
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And why would krogans buy the testicles of someone stupid or weak enough to lose them in the first place? Why would asari be able to mate with every other race if they didn't mate with creatures on their home planet first? Do all quarians have that built in vibrator or was that one that was being hit on just joking? Repeat to you yourself, it's just a game, I should really just relax for
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Oct 3, 2014 01:38
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 Part 15: Criticism 2 Further Reading Tali's romance photo (with stock photo source): http://lpix.org/1824746/Tali.jpg Blurred post in SA's TBB literature thread: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3643994&perpage=40&pagenumber=24#post434981796 Colin Moriarty on entitlement: http://m.uk.ign.com/videos/2012/03/13/mass-effect-3-opinion-video Forbes on entitlement: http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/03/15/upset-mass-effect-fans-entitled-gamers-or-responsible-consumers/ Medium Difficulty on entitlement: http://www.mediumdifficulty.com/2012/03/20/consumer-demand-entitlement/ Apologies for the delay, life continues to be busy. It may be hard to talk about entitlement and the ending controversy without talking about the ending, so perhaps we can use this thread as a model to discuss where we should draw the line when it comes to criticism and artistic choice. I've got a particular purpose in mind when it comes to this thread. Sometimes people offer up criticism and I have taken it on board - hopefully the editing has improved since the beginning. Sometimes, though, people have offered up criticism and I've had to dismiss it - not because it's bad or wrong, but because it's not what I'm trying to do with this LP. For example, I think a couple of people would like just a straightforward playthrough of ME3, largely so that they don't have to buy it themselves and risk disappointment. I don't think that's a bad thing to want, but as you all already know half this LP is me having a soapbox to air a less conventional analysis of Mass Effect - so shutting up and showing off the game isn't what I want to do. The question is, am I being stubborn, are the critics being 'entitled', or is it just an irreconcilable difference of opinion? If so, who takes primacy? The artist or the audience?
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Oct 11, 2014 20:53
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Lt. Danger posted:If so, who takes primacy? The artist or the audience? Both. You're using this a way to express what you liked and disliked about Mass Effect 3 and the audience uses it to express why they think you are wrong/right.
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Oct 11, 2014 21:31
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Sorry, but you're objectively wrong. Jason is a terrible character and that particular injoke is never not funny. On a less stupid note, you seem to describe art as an original communication of an idea or concept effectively to the audience, but in the same video you talk about how unoriginal Mass Effect is, how the background is a pastiche of every single other sci-fi setting, and how over it is a story that retells a Greek myth. It's not art, it's pulp sci-fi with an ending that amounts to a star-wipe to black and a shrug of the shoulders, so it's naturally going to piss off rabid sci-fi fans to the point where they demand a new ending. What's super fun is that no matter what The Ending was, if player agency didn't impact it on a fundamental level, no matter how brilliant the conclusion would end up being it'd still have led to a colossal shitstorm because of the illusion of narrative agency presented to the player up to that point. I guess that's the failure in the communication.
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Oct 11, 2014 23:12
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Hitlers Gay Secret posted:Both. You're using this a way to express what you liked and disliked about Mass Effect 3 and the audience uses it to express why they think you are wrong/right. This is pretty much what I was thinking of as well. You're here to give us your view on the series as a whole, in your own unique way. We're here to give feedback to those ideas, to develop on them, and see how they incorporate into our own thoughts on the subject matter. While I've been mostly silent for the ride thus far, I would like to pop in to say that I do like the ideas that you present about the franchise. After finishing Mass Effect 3, my thoughts on its ending, as well as the reactions that I saw many others express toward it, drove me off from the series. With that in mind, being able to come back to it in this format, with someone else to help me see it all again from a different point of view, is a real treat. I've regained a reason to care for the series again, to think about what was good about it as well as what was bad, and to incorporate new ideas into my own perceptions of the series. I might not agree with all of what you've said thus far, or the views that you've expressed in regards to some elements of the narrative, but that only comes up whenever I have ideas of my own that run counter to yours. This relationship between the audience and the creator, in my mind, should always be a fifty-fifty split for that exact reason. Those who have created a work have their own message that they want to convey, and those who experience that message will naturally interpret it and react to it based on what they believe to be true at that moment in time.
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Oct 11, 2014 23:31
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Doctor_Blueninja posted:This is pretty much what I was thinking of as well. You're here to give us your view on the series as a whole, in your own unique way. We're here to give feedback to those ideas, to develop on them, and see how they incorporate into our own thoughts on the subject matter. This kinda sums up my thoughts. While I don't agree with a good chunk of what Lt. Danger has been saying towards the game/series/fans of the series/etc., I do find it interesting looking at a different point of view and having a dialogue about it. This LP will not change my mind in regards to the game. My mind's made up. But it's giving a more balanced approach towards it, downplaying some of the vitriol I had towards it before. It's... almost cathartic? Not sure how to properly say it. As for the video itself... I will bring this up again, since you've mentioned again the "context" of the setting and the viewers' reactions to it. I don't see Mass Effect through the lens of Greek myth (mostly because doing so is a bit of a tired old trope to me, but I digress) or anything of that sort. I see it more in the same light I see Gurren Lagann: an intended love letter to the genera it makes its presence known in. Mass Effect is to western Sci-Fi what Gurren Lagann is to classic Super Robot anime, to varying degrees of intensity and bluntness. The reaction fans of each genera have some parallels, as well. Those irritated at people calling Mass Effect and its setting "original" (who aren't as well versed in older Sci-Fi stories) have some parallels to people irritated at those who think Gurren Lagann's setting and ideas are "original" (it is decidedly not). I certainly know that not everyone shares this view, but to me, it seems most apt. And I feel that both can be viewed and discussed without knowing of the things they reference, and both might have a bit more enjoyment with at least a passing knowledge of the things they reference. As for another comment, I don't buy into Bioware being at the reigns of the game's story entirely precisely because of the interaction that they had with the fan community; why else go to all the effort to include the Zaeed, Kasumi, Jacob side-missions if they ultimately add little to the "main" story beyond more wartime funbux? Why include all the little jokes and references, why have a ton of Blasto Movie dialogue, have Joker call Javik "Prothy the Prothean", why go through with the Citadel or Leviathan or Omega DLC pieces, why make the Extended Cut if the fans weren't a part of crafting the game's narrative? Hell, take it a step backwards; why did Lair of the Shadowbroker get made when Liara's original intended story in ME2 get cut? Why design the Hammerhead vehicle, leave it out, and finally put it back in? Why the Garrus and Tali romance options? Partially because the fans wanted it. Partially because Bioware wanted to do it. Fans, players, are "crafting" the story in the game, and yes under the constraints of what Bioware intended. But it's only part of the bigger picture behind the statement; fans are involved in Mass Effect because Bioware chose to have them involved. To reference them. To "pander" to them. Finalize this all with the game's advertising (however falsified), of players' choices mattering in crafting the ending (however limited), gives them expectations (however unreasonable) based on their present relationship with Bioware. Would the reaction to the ending have garnered such intensity if it there weren't this sort of relationship already in place? I don't believe so. I'll make another final comment towards how the mechanics and story play out. I repeat my claim that when presented with a number of options, with one option being noticeably better than the other, players will tend to go with the optimal choice. Criticism comes when one sees another playthrough going sub-optimally. Perhaps to put it in another perspective, it's like a Time Traveler who's changed the past and for the better, seeing another Time Traveler change the past as well, but not as well. Or to put it closer to videogames, it's clearing Majora's Mask without knowing there's a Fierce Deity Mask, killing Magus in Chrono Trigger (don't you give me that look), losing party members to Lord Blackthorn's torture chamber in Ultima V. It's avoidable and while saying it serves no purpose is probably incorrect, it more often than not serves less of a purpose than the "optimal" run. Mechanics reinforce these gameplay decisions and story decisions. Majora is harder to defeat. Crono's party isn't at full capacity when confronting Lavos. The Avatar's has a more difficult time fighting monsters and stopping Lord Blackthorn. You miss out on wartime funbux. It's harder to argue against this as intended story direction when gameplay reinforces it. Beyond all else, this is probably the best bet on what one can use to guess Bioware's intended direction of Mass Effect's story.
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Oct 12, 2014 02:53
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you mention the Tali picture and one thing that annoyed me about that picture wasn't that Bioware decided to just put zero effort into the final product. The annoying part to me was that I was shown a bunch of different concepts for that same photo and there was one that, while it looked like it still took cues from that stock photo with the lighting but it still actually showed a Tali that looked unique and like someone actually spent time thinking about what a Quarian might potentially look like under the mask. So it is one thing for people to take for granted and feel entitled to something but let's be honest here, that photo deserves all the criticism and bile directed towards it that it does because it is a huge slap in the face to the fans and it hurts Bioware's credibility since the fans know how lovely a job that was done. I don't care much for the other arguments and points brought up in this video but I just want to say that Bioware deserves everything they get for that photo because it's a microcosm of other problems that occurred.
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Oct 12, 2014 03:00
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I never played Overlord myself, so that's the first time I've seen that interaction. I want to stand up and applaud it for being so poorly written. In terms of entitlement, though, I feel the need to reference professional wrestling. You're going to have to stick with me on this one. For people who've never taken an interest in it, for the last decade or so, WWE has been in a very weird position. They now not only have an audience that all know the product is a performance, they also have an audience that believes as a result that the product should therefore be written to cater to their wishes (and there's a big discussion to be had about whether the live audience wants the same thing as the wider television audience they're trying to attract). This means you have the bizarre situation where for ten years, WWE's biggest "good guy" is a man, John Cena, who gets booed out of every arena he visits but is pushed in the main because he sells a lot of merchandise and has mainstream credibility. There's been an increasingly large gulf between what WWE wants to push and the live crowds they have. This whole fan "problem" reached a head at the beginning of 2014, where the live crowd at a pay-per-view event realised that the guy they wanted to see pushed wasn't going to be involved, and it immediately turned into angry "gently caress you and gently caress your lovely product" heckling. In the end, it became the case that a month or two later they had to throw out and re-write their entire plans for their biggest show of the year in order to accommodate not upsetting the fanbase when they realised that this one incident could potentially spiral into something that could make or break the company. I mention this because it feels almost exactly like the situation with ME3, and it resulted in the same conversation about "fan entitlement". And it comes with the same caveats. Their original plans could maybe have worked, but certain details leaked at the last minute which forced them into a bad re-write, and the bad writing magnified the issue ten times over. I could sit here and say that I was sympathetic to both McMahon and Hudson regarding their creative endeavours, but for the most part they made their own beds. I know you talked in the video about people believing in advertising, but if you're going to market a product by saying that the fans are the centre of what you do, Bioware can't then retreat behind a cover of "gently caress you, it's art". That's the problem for a franchise that makes a point of putting in the chance to bone Kaiden because six people on the Bioware forums wanted it. That's the problem if you point to the crowd for thirty years and talk about giving them "what they want". You can't have your cake and eat it too. I remember at the time of the ME3 controversy, there was a lot of suggestion that the "entitlement" claims were more a circling of the wagons, and I think there's a fair bit of merit to that. There was an oft-repeated line of "75 perfect scores" that got brought out, and I think even without the ending, no impartial critic should be giving this game 10/10. It comes off as a case where the love-in has been exposed, they've overplayed their hand, and the obvious response is to call the people who complained "ingrates" and hypothesise about the nature of art. But the ending is pretty much indefensible. I would love for you to play through the original ending without comment just so people in the thread who haven't played the game can see how many issues they can pick out on first viewing. It says a lot that the two gigabyte Extended Cut patch makes no significant plot changes, it simply exists to rectify plot holes and mistakes in a sequence that lasts less than ten minutes. It's hard to say if there would have been more of a pro-Bioware argument if the EC version was the one originally released, but I would still definitely say that it doesn't work. I've discussed the problem before, and this video highlights it. ME3 feels in its entirety like a game that is building to a payoff. Dicking around with Jacob while other people fight Reapers is not a payoff. It's 40 hours of dicking around killing time and resolving petty issues from the first two games until you get the chance to go to last level, which is (spoiler) teeth-grindingly dull, followed by some stuff that isn't actually new or interesting and doesn't pass all but the most cursory of sense-checks. If this is a video game as art, then it's an egregious failure, and they'd legitimately have been better served having the ending be a big fat monster you can shoot with a gun until it dies. FullLeatherJacket fucked around with this message at 03:05 on Oct 12, 2014 |
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Oct 12, 2014 03:01
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Aces High posted:huge slap in the face to the fans Tali fans are a special kind of self indulgent who project a perfect girl onto a cypher and then adore it. To satisfy them, Bioware tried to execute on the most straightforward part of the tali fantasy; that underneath that stupid featureless face plate, there was a gorgeous model who was yearning for you. They tried to make it slightly coy and still deliver on exactly that fantasy. The idea that they could pick a perfect alien thing to be the right fantasy for everyone is unreasonable. There is no perfect fantasy for a plastic cypher that represents someone's perfect girlfriend--especially considering that with the imagination a person so perfect that they can't be represented by an image might exist. If they didn't show the photo, tali's mask becomes a tease. Choosing whether you want to be teased or see the 'reveal' is at the core of what bioware offers its customers. The really nuts quality of the whole thing is that you only catch a glimpse of this image, and it's hard to see. The only way to get a better view is by going out of your way, outside the game, to obtain it.
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Oct 12, 2014 07:11
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I've got to be honest, the first time I saw the Tali picture I thought it was a piece of placeholder art that was either forgotten or accidentally left in the game. I'm still not entirely convinced that it isn't in fact a piece of placeholder art that was forgotten about, thus never received a replacement and nobody noticed until it was too late.
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Oct 12, 2014 07:18
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but that's what I mean, they could have done anything and I remember reading some notes about one concept of her that showed her as something more akin to a skeleton and the explanation was that showing Tali like this would be a testament to how much your conversations with her meant to the player. The guy said that Tali is more like a pen pal that we can actually directly engage, we don't know what is under the mask and we might not like it. Of course when you go and do what they did then nobody likes it. This was what I meant that I preferred the concepts more, because they actually thought about making Tali look like something that wouldn't be "pretty" like any of the other romance-able characters were. To me the appealing aspect for her was always her conversations, she was easily one of the more interesting squadmates to talk to in ME1, but that's not really saying a whole lot But sure, us "Tali fans" deserve all the crap we get  we're not all sick fucks who think about how an imaginary character's sweat tastes
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Oct 12, 2014 08:59
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I liked Tali right up until the overzealous fans ruined her. They had to get their perfect angel and so they got a blurry photo where they didn't even realize it fucks with the anatomy of her fingers.
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Oct 12, 2014 09:04
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Neruz posted:I'm still not entirely convinced that it isn't in fact a piece of placeholder art that was forgotten about, thus never received a replacement and nobody noticed until it was too late.
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Oct 12, 2014 09:45
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Raygereio posted:If it was just a piece of internal filler art that wasn't supposed to be a in the release version of the game, would they have put Getty Images - the source of the stock photo - in the credits? Yes because otherwise Getty could sue em.
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Oct 12, 2014 09:51
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Good lord, is that mission dull and point-free. Much like Joseph himself, really. "Intra-galactic" or just galactic. No just being pedantic - words having meanings is probably one of the main reasons you have trouble getting your points across, at least for me. "Anyone can enjoy it, which [qualifier] means no one can [another qualifier]". Qualified or not, that's one hell of a meaningless statement. Koan-like, really. Your videos are composed of this awkward jumble of actually interesting points, generic rambling and... stuff... like this. When describing a point of view you do not subscribe, is may be advisable to actually ask someone what the point of view is. If you still fail to understand it, just copy the answer outright, instead of making a half-informed summary that mashes together actual points and total irrelevant tangents. I'll be honest: "the problem fans had with the ending was because it was too sad - it killed characters and ended the setting" is a strawman I did not expect to hear here. I'm actually disappointed. You seem to forget that Bioware are fans of their game. In a "mature" or "non-insane" way, in which most authors are fans of their work, sure. But also in the "gigglesquee" "I want to nom her ears" way. There's no clear delineation here. (One of the issues with the ending breaking tone with the rest of the series is precisely because the regular team - the fans - weren't the ones who wrote it). ... I can never hate that Archer interaction. It's funnier than the entirety of its namefellow series. ... Edit - "Is this person writing for IGN correct about how" - NO. The answer to whatever follows is always NO, as evidenced by the fact that this person is writing for IGN. It's pretty much the equivalent of "this person on Fox news is making the allegation that-". Xander77 fucked around with this message at 01:05 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 00:36
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Xander77 posted:I'll be honest: "the problem fans had with the ending was because it was too sad - it killed characters and ended the setting" is a strawman I did not expect to hear here. I'm actually disappointed. ...though that opinion clashes with my other opinion, which is that if you're sold something and it turns out to have flaws that you consider critical you're well within your rights to complain about that to the people sold it to you, especially if they sold it to you for the non-trivial sum of sixty dollars. Handing over money complicates the entitlement thing somewhat. Fans of Farscape were probably more entitled when they got it brought back from being cancelled on a cliffhanger, since they were basically getting that show for free.
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Oct 13, 2014 02:11
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2house2fly posted:Fans of Farscape were probably more entitled when they got it brought back from being cancelled on a cliffhanger, since they were basically getting that show for free. But seriously. gently caress that cliffhanger.
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Oct 13, 2014 02:16
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Let's be fair though - season 4 was rather poo poo. (Except for the Earth episodes and Prayer)
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Oct 13, 2014 02:25
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Xander77 posted:Let's be fair though - season 4 was rather poo poo. (Except for the Earth episodes and Prayer) And that was a totally bullshit cliffhanger, the could have easily ended the series without having a random alien we've never seen before come out of nowhere and 'kill' the two main protagonists. I'm pretty sure the only reason they ended on that cliffhanger was so that the writers could ride the wave of indignation and outrage from fans and force through a sequel. Xander77 posted:"Intra-galactic" or just galactic. No just being pedantic - words having meanings is probably one of the main reasons you have trouble getting your points across, at least for me. 'Intra-galactic' would refer to things happening inside a single galaxy, which is correct for the setting as everything takes place inside a single galaxy. Xander77 posted:"Anyone can enjoy it, which [qualifier] means no one can [another qualifier]". Qualified or not, that's one hell of a meaningless statement. Koan-like, really. Your videos are composed of this awkward jumble of actually interesting points, generic rambling and... stuff... like this. You're kind of bad at language aren't you? "Anyone can enjoy it, which means no-one can" is a perfectly legitimate statement meaning that the thing in question has been carefully designed to be as inoffensive as possible and appeal to the lowest common denominator. All edges and corners have been removed, no risks are taken and everything is always balanced so that under no circumstances could anyone involved with the thing be hurt or offended. In theory this should mean that everyone enjoys it, in practice it typically means that the thing is so bland that while arguably anyone could enjoy it, very few people actually do enjoy it. "Anyone can enjoy it, which means no-one does" would be a better way to put it but the statement is linguistically valid and one that I have heard multiple times when talking about media that is overly 'safe' in execution. I'm actually kind of surprised you haven't encountered this linguistic turn of phrase before Xander; it pops up quite often with regards to multimedia reviews. Unrelated: While yes the mark of a good artist is the ability to maintain a suspension of disbelief, usually by masking the fourth wall. The mark of a really good artist is the ability to maintain a suspension of disbelief even while they knock the fourth wall down. loving with the fourth wall without ruining everything is one of the hardest things you can do in fiction, it is also one of the most entertaining when done properly. (The 'when done properly' qualifier is super important to this statement.) Neruz fucked around with this message at 03:45 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 03:33
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Neruz posted:'Intra-galactic' would refer to things happening inside a single galaxy, which is correct for the setting as everything takes place inside a single galaxy. quote:"Anyone can enjoy it, which means no-one can" is a perfectly legitimate statement meaning that the thing in question has been carefully designed to be as inoffensive as possible and appeal to the lowest common denominator. All edges and corners have been removed, no risks are taken and everything is always balanced so that under no circumstances could anyone involved with the thing be hurt or offended. (Nevermind that in context the statement has a bunch of additional qualifiers around it just to dilute any possible message as completely as possible) Edit - presumably because the very first "I'm right, you're wrong, nah nah nah" video provoked such a fierce reaction. Which... is fine, sure. But you either avoid expressing "controversial" opinions altogether, or stand behind them when you do. Piling on qualifiers does nothing. Well, nothing positive, at least. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 05:06 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 05:01
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Xander77 posted:"You're kinda bad at language, aren't you"? I'm offering two possible options, obviously presenting them as an alternative to the incorrect usage within the video. Apologies, I appear to have misunderstood your post. What are you actually trying to refer to anyway? I went back and watched the vid again and I didn't notice anything that fit with your statement. For future reference to avoid misunderstandings like this it is usually a good idea to have a direct reference or quote rather than just putting your statement in response to a half hour video and expect everyone reading it to know exactly what part of the video you're talking about. Xander77 posted:Sorry if you're a fan of terribly pointless phrases, I guess? If it helps, I also mark down any text that uses "[something] is meaningful" without elaborating, and it's been a while since anyone tried to argue with me about that one (and I kinda miss the resulting "'this is meaningful' is meaningful" singularity). I honestly have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here. Apart from words.
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Oct 13, 2014 05:08
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Neruz posted:Apologies, I appear to have misunderstood your post. What are you actually trying to refer to anyway? quote:I honestly have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here. Apart from words.
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Oct 13, 2014 05:21
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Xander77 posted:"Intergalactic", obviously. Xander77 posted:You shouldn't use phrases without thinking about what they mean or whether they make sense. Even if you've seen these phrases used elsewhere by people pretending they make sense. "[Something] is obviously meaningful" is just one of the archetypical (ironically) meaningless phrases first year B.A students throw into their essays when analyzing texts. Okay sure, I agree with you in principle but you haven't explained to me how the phrase doesn't make sense, you've said that it doesn't make sense but I'm still not seeing why. Sure it is not worded as well as it could be (changing the second 'can' to a 'does' is much better) but the phrase makes perfect sense to me and is one I have seen used repeatedly in reference to similar 'lowest common denominator' things where the first part of the phrase refers to the intent and the second part refers to the actual result. Neruz fucked around with this message at 05:26 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 05:24
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not to put words in Xander's mouth but my guess is he is talking on the pseudo-intellectualism of the phrase and the LP as a whole... maybe?
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Oct 13, 2014 10:11
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How about the pseudo-intellectualism of dissecting phrases? I may be just a filthy undeducated European peasant, but I find a lot of thought-provoking stuff in this LP.
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Oct 13, 2014 10:59
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Yeah, I think this derail has ran its course. Let's agree to disagree. So... how about Jason's abs? Gigglesquee, am I right?
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Oct 13, 2014 11:06
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Lt. Danger, I think there might be another issue omnipresent within the topics you bring up within this video. In the realm of business, an individual and a corporation are considered at the same theoretical level. Is it necessarily the same in art and literature? I noticed this when you refer to the author of Mass Effect 3 as "Bioware", which is a rather anonymous identifier for a large group of people. It is the exception, not the rule, when we are able to refer to specific members of Bioware by name, such as Hudson. As a result, when you posit this thing known as "Bioware" is not only capable of making artistic decisions but has an innate right to, there is something within that argument that makes it inherently unbelievable. Even if it should logically follow, the idea of this "Bioware" taking creative risks seems unusual, even if it might be difficult to say why exactly. Immediately, I try to think of cases where a game took creative risks and there were no issues with that happening. In most, the games had at least one specific "author" involved. Swery65 with Deadly Premonition, Shigesato Itoi with the Mother games, Phil Fish with Fez, and the list goes on. If you were to make the same assertions about Mass Effect for a game like Deadly Premonition, you wouldn't spark much argument from anyone. These cases might seem to be on the auteur side of things, but I seldom ever hear of an authored game being overly conservative or focus-grouped in its execution. This makes sense, in a business way of thinking. Should this weird and not-market-tested game fail spectacularly, the developer and publisher escape damage to their brand and reputation by having a scapegoat at the ready. Like film, video games are an industrial artform. This does not mean this issue is endemic to them and therefore games are not art, but rather, it is simply more commonplace. One does not necessarily lead to the other. In literature, for example, there are/were many publishing houses that employed many nameless ghostwriters to produce a large number of works, such as the Stratemeyer Syndicate. However, the practice of named corporations within book publishing has since declined, and now a publisher might sell-out the name of a single once-successful author and have many ghostwriters group under their name. Making a literary analysis of the artistic direction in a Alice Munro book would be easy. Doing the same for Nora Roberts, would be unthinkable. You also mentioned two ways of approaching fiction: the romantic way where the author is invisible, and the authoritative way where the author permeates the communication. Is the latter only possible when the author is a known quantity? Morroque fucked around with this message at 13:36 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 13:33
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Good grief.Xander77 posted:"Intra-galactic" or just galactic. No just being pedantic - words having meanings is probably one of the main reasons you have trouble getting your points across, at least for me. And "heroing" goes by without comment? I'm being fanciful here, not literally describing what Jacob does. Jacob doesn't travel between galaxies, and Jacob is not much of a hero. ME: Galaxy may be different, but in ME2 and ME3 he's practically a working stiff. But fair comment. quote:"Anyone can enjoy it, which [qualifier] means no one can [another qualifier]". Qualified or not, that's one hell of a meaningless statement. Koan-like, really. Your videos are composed of this awkward jumble of actually interesting points, generic rambling and... stuff... like this. I couldn't resist the reference to a children's movie. It's a joke! Like on Top Gear. But again, fair comment. quote:I'll be honest: "the problem fans had with the ending was because it was too sad - it killed characters and ended the setting" is a strawman I did not expect to hear here. I'm actually disappointed. quote:I'm writing too much, but this video game is making me feel like the love of my life just walked out the door and I'm forced to slowly come to grips with the fact she's never coming back. It's so simple when you say it in your head: "Just stay with me, we can work this out" "Just have Shepard survive the reapers, his story can live on" but ultimately the decision is entirely up to someone else, and all you can do is bitch and moan on the internet. quote:I played through ME1, ME2, and ME3 in one huge orgy of not-being-a-productive-human-being this week. Seriously put like 40 or 50 hours of sitting in front of my TV like a slug. quote:I wanted a happy ending, as cheesy it gets with Shepard having a loving medal and getting sexytime with Yeoman Chambers and Specialist British Accent (forgot her name) for the rest of my life. A happy ending isn't a fanservice, it is something what most (if not all) people play for but, eh, whatever the game itself was kinda fun.. quote:No, you are basically right. The endings make everything you ever did as Shepard pointless because galactic civilization is ruined and people are stranded on whatever world they were on when the relays exploded. drat near 98% or more of the population of the galaxy is going to die due to resource shortages because they can no longer transport goods and a vast majority of them relied on that and are not on self sustaining planets or stations. "strawman" C'mon, man, give me a little slack here. e: like I think you're expecting me to be more rigorous in this than I can be. you know I'm winging it half the time Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 16:22 on Oct 13, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 16:18
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This is interesting and a distinction worth teasing out. I'd like to look at this more at the end of Rannoch.
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Oct 13, 2014 16:18
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Lt. Danger posted:
quote:e: like I think you're expecting me to be more rigorous in this than I can be. you know I'm winging it half the time ... Very few projects are actually done by a single auteur - which is just one of the many reasons "what did the capital A Author intend to convey" is no longer a particularly favorite approach compared to "what does the text actually say". Even book authors work with more or less obligatory suggestions from publishers and editors - and when those become irrelevant due to the Authors stature, their books become unreadable. As to films and videogames... well, you get my points, surely. It's tempting to single out a particular "auteur" as responsible for these team efforts, but also absolutely a mistake grounded in a fundamental misunderstanding of the process. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 00:23 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 13, 2014 21:55
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Lt. Danger posted:"strawman" The best part about that last one is that it is only a disaster if you are a complete and utter idiot and pick the red option. If you pick the insane blue option or the correct green option then the fact that the relays went poof isn't a problem at all. "I am upset that I made the wrong decision and ruined the galaxy for everyone."
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Oct 14, 2014 04:27
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Neruz posted:The best part about that last one is that it is only a disaster if you are a complete and utter idiot and pick the red option. If you pick the insane blue option or the correct green option then the fact that the relays went poof isn't a problem at all. "I am upset that I made the wrong decision and ruined the galaxy for everyone." This claim might have had some weight with the original take, but Extended Cut makes it a moot point: have enough wartime funbux, disaster averted. So instead of Red, Blue, and Green all leading to possible, ambiguous disaster  , they now all lead to almost certain success! This is better, yes.Except if you shoot the kid. Then you don't get to win, in a "I'm taking my ball and going home!" kind of way. Honestly, I'd take the "Happy Ending Mod's" failure ending over that temper tantrum. At least it's a failure.
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Oct 14, 2014 04:56
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StrifeHira posted:This claim might have had some weight with the original take, but Extended Cut makes it a moot point: have enough wartime funbux, disaster averted. So instead of Red, Blue, and Green all leading to possible, ambiguous disaster Well yeah but the quotes referenced were from before Extended Cut I'm pretty sure since they talk about Shepard dying. Green also never had any ambiguous disaster and anyone who thought it did is an idiot who didn't stop to consider the ramifications.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:11
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well gee, Neruz called anyone who picked colors they didn't an idiot. Or an utter idiot. Sometimes with bold and italic. Wrap it up, thread is over ... idiots. alternately, Neruz, source your quotes.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:15
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Psion posted:well gee, Neruz called anyone who picked colors they didn't an idiot. Or an utter idiot. Sometimes with bold and italic. Wrap it up, thread is over ... idiots. Green is the only choice that actually solves anything. Red is a galactic catastrophe and Blue is basically 'and now Shepard is the Illusive Man, we can expect him to be totally indoctrinated and the Reapers back in power within a century or two.' Green is the only choice that doesn't ultimately end in disaster and also has the added bonus of solving conflict. It is objectively the best choice, or at least was until the Extended Edition rewrote everything to completely remove any semblance of decisions having consequences. Psion posted:alternately, Neruz, source your quotes. I was just talking about the quotes Lt. Danger had in his post. I have no clue where they came from, Bioware Forums I assume.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:19
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Hell yeah OP mass effect 3 is the loving best, anyone who says otherwise had their experience ruined by the last 20 minutes of the game which is an overreaction, I think. my favorite ending is the red one because gently caress the reapers man independence day solution these are my thoughts on this matter thank you for listening
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Oct 14, 2014 05:40
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The problem with green, along with all the endings, is that it's a complete rear end pull. Oh yeah also you can turn everyone in the universe into cyborgs, even the plants, and your ship, and your car. We didn't realize this was an option before because I'm apparently only omniscient up until the point I decide I'm not. No you don't get to ask their opinion of this, they'll all love it because it's the super best thing ever. So do it do it do it DO IT. They were also super manipulative in basically forcing green as the only 'logical' and 'correct' path. Since Red Kills the quarians, geth, and EDI and Blue is loving insane. And the fact that the classic Commander Shepard "gently caress you and gently caress the odds, I'm going to win anyway" ending is basically the writer himself killing Shepard for not adhering to the forced narrative and then puppeting up someone who did. That's what bothered me about the ending the most, the fact that all throughout the game you see your choices come to fruition, plotlines resolve or entwine themselves into the main narrative, and they're all functionally meaningless outside of their wartime funbux value working towards allowing you to choose green if you pass a certain threshold.
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Oct 14, 2014 05:44
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Also, poster posting a post above my previous post, red is only a galactic catastrophe if you fuckin sucked at getting dudes to help you or if you cared about the geth. I kind of did but it was worth it in my view it was a total rip to not wreck the jerks you've been fighting for 3 games action space explosion hero style and I am glad there was an ending that catered to that! Like remember in mass fx 2 when you're running out of the collector base and harbinger is like ILL GET YOUUU SHEPARD and shaking his bug puppet fist? that was the thing to emulate. man it was a tragedy that harbinger voice didnt come back for 3 and at the end they got some real life space guy to do a voiceover wasnt that nice? I thought it was Shark Mafia fucked around with this message at 05:51 on Oct 14, 2014 |
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Oct 14, 2014 05:46
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