Mass Effect 3 - I wish you could see it like I do. It's so... perfect

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Mass Effect 3 - I wish you could see it like I do. It's so... perfect

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Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

Hah. Read through the thread just in time to run into this.

A little learning is a terrible thing, indeed. Trying to narrow down a text to the "message" and just "the message" is something you are generally disabused of during your first year of BA in [Some Sort] Literature. Fiction doesn't work that way. We've known that as far back as when Plato was condemning it for not working that way and Aristotle was writing up the rules to encourage better integration. We've dispatched "what did the Poet mean" as the primary means of analysis well back in the early 20th century, over a hundred years ago.

I can handle smug. I've been told I'm personally insufferably smug in general, and exceptionally smug when I'm right about something (hey, you may have noticed something about this post. Kudos!). I can handle malformed ideas - we all have a few, as no one can know everything, nor withhold judgement one everything they don't know. It's the combination - a babies grin as he displays his brand new poop drawing all over the wall in an adults voice - that's rather annoying.

But hey. That's juuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuust my opinion, backed by millennia of literary analysis.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Aug 18, 2014

# ¿ Aug 18, 2014 18:10

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 06:41

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Your video is private.

Edit:

Lt. Danger posted:

Both of these posts basically 'get' what I'm aiming for with this thread. If this sounds like boring wank to you, that's fine, but you should probably think about not posting here. I mean, didn't you read the OP?

Let me tell you a secret:

I don't think there's anywhere on these forums you get to go "here's my ~~livejournal rant~~ opinion on a subject ~~of how I'm totally right and everyone else is wrong~~, please don't say that it's stupid just because it is".

Personally, I think that's one of the better things about these forums as a whole.

Lt. Danger posted:

Now, of course, people are happy to appropriate my analysis and declare that yes, of course ME3 is about intergenerational conflict! Of course it is.

This is really sad.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 22:12 on Aug 20, 2014

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 22:07

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

e2: have you considered the possibility I don't really believe what I'm saying? you probably should.

Congratulations on your puppet master / social experiment defense, I guess?

Though to be fair, if your entire posting career, starting with the NWN2 LP was building towards this, I'll be genuinely impressed.

Lt. Danger posted:

e: like fully half the argument for my reading of the Crucible comes from a fantasy book series I read when I was young. why haven't you challenged me on this?!

For one thing, so far you weren't actually talking about the Crucible turns out to be, but rather about what it could have been. And everyone are (relatively) fine with what it could have been.

For another, if you genuinely think the Assassin trilogy is superior to the Ships of Magic, you are objectively bad at reading, QED

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 22:37

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

What I mean by this (and I do say this in the video) is that I'm deliberately adopting a specific way of looking at things for the purposes of creating this reading.

It's sort of something I kind of believe, but not to the extent I pretend in the video. I think subtext is more important than textual stuff, but that's my personal preference and like I said, it has weaknesses.

Digging through the ME3 thread, you literally told me I failed to understand the ending because "the signifier is the signified" and "text and subtext are the exact same thing". So you're rather committed to the gimmick. (To be fair, at the time I assumed it was an arcane expression of some obscure theory, rather than a sign you're using words without knowing what they mean).

But by all means, keep backpedaling.

# ¿ Aug 20, 2014 22:53

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Let's be serious for a moment.

The actual theme of Mass Effect 3 is a thought experiment confirming the superiority of objectivist morality. After two games which lured the player into complacency with the assumption that the world has a place for shades of grey, every single conflict is revealed to be a black and white as the infamous Ditko card trick. Furthermore, though you thought that heroes could deviate ever so slightly from the true path in the name of expediency, every Renegade decision you've previously made comes back to bite you, much like the Renegade option in every galactic conflict turns out to be outright wrong. There is the path of the angels and the path of devils, and nothing - nothing - in between.

Lt. Danger posted:

Recommending Spoiler Warning to anyone for any reason is the greatest troll of all.

StrifeHira posted:

I'd wager this was something on the design team's mind when setting up both mechanics and story, so Shepard, the player, was kept away from the Reapers (at least, the bigger, kilometer-sized ones) for as long as possible.

Of all the ways the opening was botched, having dozens of Reapers descend upon a single city was possibly the biggest. The absolutely best way to make them as nonthreatening as possible.

Covok posted:

Doesn't some of your statement become moot when you consider Shepard and two other squadmates were able to take down a reaper using their normal equipment in Mass Effect 2? I mean, once you do that, it's hard to undo the effect. We killed a reaper, with collector minions, just using normal weapons, why can't the galaxy beat them with ships?

Yeah, but that was just a Reaper fetus. Come to think of it, Mass Effect is obviously just an abortion alleg :suicide:

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 00:13 on Aug 21, 2014

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 00:08

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Geostomp posted:

I agree. One of many problems about this game's premise is that it can't seem to decide if it wants to be about a war against a powerful, but not unstoppable, threat or the galaxy being devoured by eldritch monsters from beyond the veil.

Once again, you can see this from the very first minutes of the opening. You get the terrible "this isn't about tactics or strategy" speech at the same time as you get "why didn't you fools listen?!", which you also get from ~~Past!Shepard~~ Javik.

Listen and... do what? I realize that being singled out as the Cassandra by inept politicians is an intrinsic part of the genre, but we've just had it hammered into our skulls that "conventional methods are useless", in order to sell us on the Catalyst.

But since we didn't get anything on the Catalyst before this game (and I agree that that's no necessarily a problem with ME2, as each game may as well be taken on its own. It's a problem with ME3

), the whole thing is revealed a blindly following the trope with little concern for the overall logic.

McKilligan posted:

I agree with the points that Cerberus enemies are more fun to fight against, but that's also an example of the narrative and gameplay not reinforcing one another. The shooty enemies are more varied and more fun to fight against than the cyborg space demons, why not just have a game that focused more on that?

The game is actually FAR too focused on Cerberus troops. In addition to the internal logic issue of Cerberus jumping from a minor terrorist organization into a force that can literally conquer planets, there's a design problem. Cerberus troops are rather obviously ~~ripped-off wholesale~~ based on popular multiplayer classes.

On the one hand, Bioware was always adept at... drawing inspiration from other sources... and they are, indeed, fairly fun to fight even outside multiplayer. On the other hand, their design rather fails to hide their origin, and they stick out of the overall game aesthetic. They feel as though they belong in the generic 21st century multiplayer shooter from which they were drawn.

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 06:04

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Iamblikhos posted:

Come now, you know that's not true.

In the words of Leftenant Danger, it's just a joke, like on Top Gear.

However, you may want to keep watching the LP to see how many of the things that were depicted as morally grey in ME1-2 are now purely black.

Lt. Danger posted:

What do people think about the conversation on Virmire and at the end of the Earth prologue being clues by Bioware on how to understand the game - that the genophage, the quarians and Cerberus are more important than the Reapers? Is that convincing?

All of the above supersede the Reaper threat and are thematically more important? Fair enough - a claim that has a lot to support it.

In addition to the above, the Reaper threat ends up displacing, subsuming and (maybe, possibly, arguably) allegorically representing the above conflicts - and that's also convincing and coherent? Nah, I'll have to disagree with that one.

Edit - In general, you should settle on one reading of how important ME1 and 2 are to the themes of ME3. You're oscillating between waving the previous installments aside and relying on them for support.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Aug 21, 2014

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 09:10

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

I think it's very important that these things aren't purely black.

Oh?

Let's talk about the big three - Cerberus, the Genophage and the Geth conflict. Compare and contrast ME2 and ME3.

There are, of course, a great many more minor moments where you are explicitly rewarded for Paragon actions. Offhand, I can think of one Paragon decision that ends with a minor negative consequence.

(Unless we're saving this for later?)

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Aug 21, 2014

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 10:11

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

I think I actually agree. Talking about the genophage, we've already seen it in how Mordin luckily changes his mind completely and the only people advocating the genophage now are the mean old dalatrass and that arsehole Lt Tolan. A complicated ethical dilemma becomes a black/white good/evil decision where only one choice is presented as morally correct and the other isn't and even backfires in most cases. I think StrifeHira was also driving at this same point earlier in the thread.

Is that what you were saying?

Yes. Hence my entirely well thought out thematic analysis from earlier:

quote:

The actual theme of Mass Effect 3 is a thought experiment confirming the superiority of objectivist morality. After two games which lured the player into complacency with the assumption that the world has a place for shades of grey, every single conflict is revealed to be a black and white as the infamous Ditko card trick. Furthermore, though you thought that heroes could deviate ever so slightly from the true path in the name of expediency, every Renegade decision you've previously made comes back to bite you, much like the Renegade option in every galactic conflict turns out to be outright wrong. There is the path of the angels and the path of devils, and nothing - nothing - in between.

Neruz posted:

You could argue that the presence of the Reapers actually removes the ethical dilemma part of the Genophage; the Krogen are needed to fight the Reapers. We don't want them, we need them. Without the Krogen the Reapers will win (note that this is how it is presented in the game), as such any ethical dilemma arguably takes the back seat to the reality that we need more Krogen fighting the Reapers right now. It doesn't matter if the Genophage was a good idea or a bad idea; it is actively impeding our ability to fight the Reapers and thus it must go regardless of any moral issues.

And if we remember that the Reaper war may well be regarded as WWII IN SPACE, there's a lovely analogy here.

(Kinda get the feeling that the Krogan will be replaced by propah Turian Tommy's should a victory parade ever take place)

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 10:32

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

Is this really what's important here?

The subtext signifier here is that despite their "proud military culture", the Turians are really bloody incompetent. It was the next best things to showing them storm the beaches of Palaven in kilts while waving broadswords.

(This thread is also the first place where I've heard the Turian moon consistently referred to as... not Palaven or whatever)

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Aug 21, 2014

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 12:50

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

2house2fly posted:

"this isnt about strategy or tactics! We fight or we die!"

This is (hopefully) going to be the most :spergin:

post I will make in this thread:

Fire Warrior posted:

�Answer me! How do you fight this?�

�Ceaselessy, xeno. Ceaselessly.� The voice sounded tired suddenly, sighing heavily over the bolterfire chattering in the background of the channel. �This thing... this �Chaos�. You need to forget everything you know when you fight it. Do you believe that superior numbers matter? Do you think the calibre of your weapon, or... or the strength of your armour will avail you now? They won�t. There are no longer any rules. There are no approved tactics. All you can do, xenogen, is the best that you can.

I'm pretty sure that speech was supposed to convey something like that.

Now, as remarked above, these speeches tend towards sentimentalism and hollow platitudes at the best of times. This particular speech, though, comes out of nowhere and is neither set up nor expanded upon. As Lt. Danger mentioned, Bioware is pretty good about coalescing common tropes into a mostly cohesive whole, and they tend to assume that the viewers are familiar enough with genre fiction that expanding upon every single detail is unnecessary. Efficient writing, Mortal Kombat style. Unfortunately, a bit too much is skipped over in this case, and the players were mostly left behind.

Arglebargle III posted:

Ugh I may have to restart Mass Effect 2 simply because playing as an infiltrator is so excruciating. I picked it because it was the one class I haven't played.

I kinda feel as though the Charge Vanguard is meant to be Shepard's default class. You don't get other Vanguards in your party, unlike every other class (ME1's Vanguard is entirely different, and the DLC doesn't really count). It also allows you to play the game as a the intended cover-shooterish experience, or just space-boost and space-smash your way across the battlefield, dropping every enemy in the game the moment they show up.

Watching Danger huddle behind cover and miss headshots is excruciating. Also, by comparison.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 21, 2014

# ¿ Aug 21, 2014 15:55

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Arglebargle III posted:

But hey, why bother with characterizing your antagonist over the next 40 hours when you can not do it in the last ten minutes of the game.

Don't forget the DLC!

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 16:48

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Rogue0071 posted:

ME3 is out on PC, it's just on Origin.

If it's not on steam, then it's not really on PC, now is it?

vvvv :P

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 18:26 on Aug 22, 2014

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 18:17

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

We know for a fact that Turians can't process rum due to their body chemistry, and Mass Effect: Refenestration mentions that their fleet abolished the practice of lashing shortly after the First Contact war. Therefore, the Turian fleet runs on sodomy and sodomy alone. QED.

Edit - vvv. Yeah, I'm sure :wrex: was a smilie at some point.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Aug 23, 2014

# ¿ Aug 22, 2014 23:58

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

My Shepard is incel so no romance, but I'll probably talk about it when we get to the shakier bits of the game.

In the dark future of the ME3 LP, there is no time for romance, character interaction or jokes. Only ~~white people~~ thematic analysis.

# ¿ Aug 24, 2014 20:43

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

People just have the weirdest ideas about characters. See "space racist" for further details.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 11:26

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

A Curvy Goonette posted:

They're supposed to be space Roma.

Obviously Space Jews. I mean, any space race can only have one origin, right?

ungulateman posted:

Her fans.

How many of those does she have, anyways? I'm pretty sure just one or two having a problem would asphyxiate her.

:rimshot:

(Wasn't there a rimshotsuicide smilie?)

# ¿ Aug 25, 2014 16:40

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

The "perfect" Tuchanka ending, the culmination of two games worth of setup, is your reward for taking Shepard through the entire trilogy while making the right decisions.

When you decide that your thematic analysis essentially ignores the interactions between Shepard and the other characters, you're kinda missing the point - Shepard as the agent of change that can lead the galaxy into a better future is a major theme, one of the tropes borrowed most wholesale from Star Trek / Campbell. The "golden" ending very much works in the context and is one of the few things in this all-too-cinematic game that function in a manner unique to gaming in general and the conclusion of a trilogy in particular.

I am, however, actually looking forward to what you have to say about the Geth arc, and other priority missions, which are just as blatant about milking character drama for bathos - but based on an emotional connection you're unlikely to have.

...

You realize you're basically describing remakes, right? Infinite syuzhet variations on the same fabula - telling the same story in different ways - is a function of game limitations, not an actual goal. It's a stage we're trying to pass, as there's very little of interest to be discovered there.

...

Grunt has a fascinatingly Bioware plot arc. We have a typical ~~klingon~~ warrior race, concerned mostly with bashing things and... the honor of bashing, I guess? And we have a "tank bred" member of this race, who is actually quite good at bashing things, but has trouble being accepted because he's ~~not a real boy~~ doesn't fit into their traditional worldview. Just being good at bashing things isn't enough - he has to prove himself a real warrior by... being really really good at bashing things. At which point he's accepted with little hesitation.

A more traditional, nay even cliched story, would have had Grunt (possibly at Shepards prompting) demonstrating some virtue that a mere gun, something without a brain / soul / connection to the past could not. Or possibly convincing the krogan that there are other ways to measure someone's worth. Not that path for Bioware, master storytellers that they are.

...

No, the signifier isn't the same as the signified, and the Reapers and the various generational conflicts aren't freely converted back and forth as equivalent. Call it symbolic logic 101. Or, if you'd like, the paradox of a set containing itself.

quote:

Samara will attempt suicide so that she won't have to execute her sole remaining daughter for having a predatory genetic condition. Live or die?

Eh.

She died as a Matriarch when her daughters turned out to be ~~gay~~ ~~infertile~~ space-vampires, now she's going to drop her code and her life when they actually die.

quote:

Miranda can potentially die while rescuing her sister from Cerberus and her father, in the process giving us a lead that will take us to Cerberus HQ. Live or die?

Live. Much as I dislike the character, saving her is a bit harder, and seems like a more fitting conclusion to the character arc.

quote:

[*]What's more important: the life of an Admiral or the lives of his crew?

The hell? If there's one thing you should really decide for yourself, it's which conclusion for that particular arc works better with your vision of the thematic conflict.

quote:

Steve Cortez. Romance?

Sure? Make Joker gently caress the sexbot, while you're at it. So green.

Edit - Apparently I have even more stuff to say. Wah.

For one thing, I believe it can't be emphasized enough that one brilliant bit of genuinely good writing and gameplay / player agency / storytelling integration is how an absolutely successful Shepard - Galactic Hero and savior of the galaxy - works in a satisfying thematic way.

For another, though I already mentioned I disliked the way the game simplifies the fairly complex moral issues from the previous installments into simple black/white affairs, I believe that the golden ending is the least blatantly simplistic and moralizing of the lot. It feels like the result of Shepard's actions - player agency - and has a lot of thematic resonance. Meanwhile, claiming that the choice is that much harder when a brutish leader and a lack of moderating influence are at hand is basically just repeating the same strawman railed against in the video - "if they didn't have fancy sculptures, would they be less worthy of ~~integration~~ participation in galactic society"?

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 07:53 on Aug 26, 2014

# ¿ Aug 26, 2014 00:45

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

What's a "heightmap"?

It hasn't been so long since I played the game (and I kinda watched the video as well), but I completey forgot you move between different camps on Palaven, instead of going back to the same one (even though Garrus and his hilarious backwards jog were the highlight of the mission in my original playthrough).

Oh yeah - Danger mentioned Raymond E Feist in one of the previous videos, but neglected to point out that the videogame Betrayal at Krondor (based on the series but not a specific book, IIRC) actually had a party that (ostensibly) didn't get along, what with one being a suspicious dirty dark elf and another being a kid who basically forced himself into the questline. The conflict only really manifests in a few cutscenes, but hey - some improvement.

For that matter, most of the party in ME1 couldn't really stand each other - see elevator banter and the like. I guess everyone bonded over the course of three games (+ whatever spinoff media, obviously).

The ME2 party members were also apparently supposed to have a bunch of confrontations that you'd only be able to defuse with enough magic persuasion points, but that Jack and Miranda's was the only one that made it into the finished game.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 16:46 on Aug 30, 2014

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 16:16

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Raygereio posted:

Tali and Legion also have a confrontation. Grunt and Mordin were at some point also supposed to have a confrontation about the Genophage, but it got cut. There's still some dialogue left of it in the files.

Huh. Forgot about that.

Was Thane supposed to have a go at Jacob for some reason as well? (A fierce competition over who has the best abs?)

Zaeed vs Kasumi?

# ¿ Aug 30, 2014 18:46

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

I'm like 60% sure you have to talk / gun down the Vermire survivor regardless of what your playthrough was like. Taking certain actions beforehand might make it easier to talk them down, but I wouldn't even count on that.

I let Ashley live if only because I was so tired of having to use the same few squadmates over and over. And then I never actually used her on a mission.

No comments on Udina's big moment? I think I hinted above that it's one of the many instances of ME3 taking something that was complex in the previous installments and... to be as fair as possible... simplifying it a great deal.

(And if they were going to turn Udina into a comic book villain, at least they could have given him in appropriately epic demise, instead of that wet fart)

Mazerunner posted:

Has anyone read the Mote in God's Eye by Niven and Pournelle?

I have. Not the sequel though. Like a lot of Niven's fiction, it has an interesting idea and a mediocre execution. At one point, a bunch of human techie ensigns (or was it cadets?) outfight an entire battalion of alien supersoldiers.

The ending (the humans are chilling out and looking at the barrier, while one the aliens, birth controlled and all, plays besides them) makes a lot more sense with a sequel in mind.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 16:14 on Sep 3, 2014

# ¿ Sep 3, 2014 16:06

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

I wasn't sure what time, if any, was right to bitch about this, so might as well do so in the downtime before an update:

Back in 2007, disguising loading with an elevator that had a fixed time of travel and therefore took interminably long even when your computer loaded the room within seconds, was... actually kinda stupid. Behind the times even by 2007 standards.

Doing the same in 2013, after everyone bitched about you doing this in the original game is just pure Bioware.

(gently caress the war-room exit scanner is what I'm saying)

# ¿ Sep 6, 2014 04:21

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Arglebargle III posted:

The war room scanner is like 1.5 seconds.

If you can make your way to the galaxy map within a minute of Hackett shutting his trap, you are a better Shepard than me, Arglebargle.

# ¿ Sep 6, 2014 14:28

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Arglebargle III posted:

I liked the reaper honking noise, just not when the synth horns did it as part of the soundtrack. In fact i liked the piano in ME3's soundtrack a lot. Unfortunately the ME3 theme involved both piano and synth horn honks.

It's one of those Onion things which would make for a pretty unbelievable joke only five years ago... and then we get to the present and "oh, I guess everyone are rushing to use the Inception horns as a generic part of their soundtrack/trailer. Huh."

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 06:14

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

And if the WotW remake was a movie anyone cared about, much less bothered to steal from, I would certainly have referred to them as "War of the Worlds horns".

# ¿ Sep 18, 2014 10:43

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

Part 13: Writing

"Writing comedy is easy" is an opinion a lot of desperately unfunny people share.

Aria is sort of annoying in ME2, and moderately so in ME3, provided you just leave her to hang around in her club and be cooler than you. If you actually purchase all the DLC though... (presumably the people who bought it would be interested in Aria being cool, which... fair enough, but still)

(I was about to remark on the coincidence of having Clauda Black as her voice actor... but turns out that isn't actually the case. Odd.)

...

I don't quite follow some of the complaints about CRPG romances. Not to echo Patrick's "I'm paying 60 currency units, so you better get down and start pandering right now" arguments... but a lot of heroic videogame stories are rather explicitly about wish fulfillment.
As to the issue of your videogame NPC romance partners being... videogame NPC's - with pre-programmed reactions that can be gamed...
Well, yeah?
...
And?
Those are the interactions you have in a typical CRPG. Are we worried that children playing these games are being presented with a wrong model to base their romantic interactions upon? They're also being presented with the wrong model of bluffing people, influencing them, haggling, and human interaction in general.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2014 15:09

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

~~Dying~~ sap is easy - comedy is hard.

The first example that comes to mind is Jerome K Jerome's (or Robert Heinlein's, whatever) Christmas Kitten. To elaborate - the kitten is a few weeks old, all alone, stuck in an abandoned building. It's snowing outside, the kitten is hungry and confused about being abandoned. Besides all that, something mangled its right paw. Worse things yet await that poor little furball in the near future.

Now. I (and Jerome's / Heinlein's writer character) am quite aware of the fact I'm making a crass and cynical effort to squeeze some tears out of you. And yet, just writing this out makes me a bit verklempt. The same thing can be done with... actually, skip the hypotheticals, and lets go straight for the obvious example - the death of not!Grunt. A bit of sappy piano music, a bit of slowmotion, some noble sacrifice, and you might well tear up for this no-name NPC that didn't even get the minor development accorded to not!Mordin.

Can't quite get the same calculated effect with humor. And I'm saying that as a desperately unfunny person who's been using (quote unquote) humor as a defense mechanism for a few decades now.

Lt. Danger posted:

Well, one part of Sawyer's (and my) argument is that stories should be about more than just wish fulfilment, and wish fulfilment isn't a particularly worthy goal for a story, for a writer or an audience.

Yes, but in that case the romances are a symptom rather than a cause. In a story that isn't a straight up (or ever so slightly Obisidian twisted) wish fulfillment fantasy, the romances would probably follow suit.

I've never played DA2, nor am I going to, but I've been given the impression that the player character and her friends gently caress up everything they ever touch, and having a romance just contributes to loving things up even more rather than playing into a happy ending.

Torchlighter posted:

See, in a tabletop world, the DM is capable of adapting his story to fit the needs of his players. Thus, the story that emerges is a collaborative effort: The player suggest actions that his character takes, and the DM figures out how those actions affect the world and how the world responds. In those cases, romances can be powerful, both as character traits and as plot hooks. DM's can choose how much impact the romance has on the story, either tangentially as throwaway gag ('How's your wife?') or as important plot points ('You can't do anything because I have your wife. Nyah!')

But computers aren't capable of adapting. They have pre-programmed phrases, plans that are only affected by your choices in almost always a Boolean fashion

Yes. But the same is true of every interaction.

# ¿ Sep 21, 2014 19:27

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

Part 14: Setting

Are you under the impression that "fascist" and "revolutionary" are mutually exclusive?

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 13:55

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Can we agree that that the game is militaristic to the point of fetishizing military service? Can we also agree that a counterpoint to that worship of big manly men of action is a disdain for short-sighted politicians and their petty concerns about stuff like "what people want/need"?

Note that this is something drawn from the current climate and other shooty games (the next Call of Duty and all that) rather than the classic sci-fi that Mass Effect ostensibly draws inspiration from - that media usually went in the opposite direction of casting military men as blundering oafs and the intelligentsia as the protagonists that must overcome entrenched "charge!" stupidity.

...

And skipping everything in between... one of the major foundational... stones, I guess? For fascist ideology is the eliding of differences within society as it unites under the single leader. If democracy is about acknowledging that different classes, populations and social strata have different, often conflicting, desires that should be haggled over in the democratic process, fascism is about denying that entirely. The "people" as a whole are a single organic being with a single organic will that will be directed by the leader - anyone claiming a different desire from what whole, much less imply that the leader is actually only working for the benefit of a small portions of the countries population is declared an enemy of the people.

On a completely unrelated note, what did this thread unilaterally declare to be the best ending?

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 17:52

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

One of the common suggested alternative storylines for ME3 is that it should just be about Shepard and company tooling around the galaxy, rallying everyone behind one banner and blasting the hell out of the Reapers with their united galactic fleet. I'd say that such a storyline would be 'fascist' - at least, more so than what we have here, where Shepard heals and transforms the galaxy spiritually in order to overcome the inevitable crisis that the Reapers represent. That, I'd hazard, is not fascist at all, though Willie Tomg may or may not agree.

N-no? That's not what I, Willie Tomg or anyone else is saying. "Unity" is not, in an of itself, a fascist concept. Nor is strength through unity. Nor is cooperation that overcomes our differences etc etc.

Enforced unity for the greater good is hella fascist though.

Lt. Danger posted:

Agreed, though I think the depiction of the quarian admirals does a lot to dispel this.

Yeah, kinda. It would have been more convincing coming from a human military commander rather than those shifty space-~~JewsArabsRoma~~vagabonds.

I' not entirely fond of the Geth arc, particularly the conclusion, but what was done with the admiral characters between ME2 and 3 was more or less exactly what should have been done with Udina though.

Willie Tomg posted:

Originally that Mass Effect was a poor fit for being called "fascist" in the same way one could call the works of Robert Heinlen "fascist" but as this tangent goes on, increasingly that

Carry the analogy to its natural conclusion. You probably can't call ~~At Home Among Strangers, a Stranger at Home~~ Stranger in a Strange land fascist without doing some work. But you can probably call Straship Troopers fascist quite reasonably, and you certainly can point out that a lot of elements therein are fascist. Ditto ME - it has certain problematic elements, as you could probably expect from a franchise that takes pride in drawing inspiration from sci-fi juvenalia.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 18:28 on Sep 27, 2014

# ¿ Sep 27, 2014 18:24

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

Well, a lot of it is in how it's presented. Fascism is (intended to seem) a populist movement and takes ideas from all over the place. As others have said, cooperation isn't particularly fascist, but I'd suggest cooperation in the name of defeating a greater enemy is closer, and cooperation to defeat an enemy where the only dissenters are indoctrinated inhuman slaves is closer still.

Good gravy - if our efforts to defeat Space Hitler stuck to the familiar but coherent allegory, we might have sorta-kinda-butnotreally whirred into a thing that a stupid person might have considered fascist-like. Thank heavens we avoided that in favor of something that is both far less coherent and actually works as a metaphor/simile/allegory of forced integration into a single whole and non-consensual eradication of differences.

Xander77 fucked around with this message at 22:20 on Sep 28, 2014

# ¿ Sep 28, 2014 22:07

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

"Intended" isn't necessarily a particularly good word when analyzing problematic content. However, I think that if you trace back the source of the problem, it all comes down to space-vampire (which is already something with a lot of intrinsic connections to exotic and dangerous sexuality) being combined with space-lesbian (as the only obvious in-universe race suited for the role). The content doesn't draw direct inspiration from "gay menace" narratives, if that helps.

The biggest issue with that interpretation is the victim's diary specifically talking about Morinth being a "girl" rather than, say, "an alien". I can't quite locate the blog post at the moment, but I recently read a rather lovely one about Bioware not really understanding how sci-fi allegories work. Or how to put any kind of subtle message into the medium. (Kind like how you occasionally get "Shepard is a girl?!" moments, even though it really should be "Shepard is a human?!") (Edit: I don't actually recall a lot of examples of the last point offhand, but I do remember the blog post in question listing quite a few in Bioware writing in general)

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 09:04

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

FullLeatherJacket posted:

It's entirely pandering when it's in response to people bloo-hooing on the Bioware forums and the various social media hellscapes that the writers didn't bolt on an opportunity for male Shep to get his homoeroticism on, and that it's somehow an obligation on them to add this in for the <1% of the fanbase that would care in any way. It's not done for the benefit of the gameplay or the narrative, it's done purely as an indulgence for a tiny minority of people with nothing better to complain about, and maybe some good PR.

Which is fine, if that's what Bioware want to do, but you can't applaud that behaviour and then criticize them for spending yet more time writing a whole bunch of dialogue about how exactly you gently caress a Teenage Mutant Gypsy Chicken without giving her lupus.

Let me google "gay representation" for you.

Widestancer posted:

How is Morinth "The Gay Menace" and how are the writers misogynistic?

Shocking idea - watch the latest video to hear the argument?

# ¿ Sep 29, 2014 21:41

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

Yes, I see

Ditto.

...

Also, note how her appearance coincides with the fatal confrontation between Liara and her mother. Kinda a shame that the Rachni queen speaks through a random Asari, rather than Benesia's corpse.

# ¿ Sep 30, 2014 20:40

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

The threat of ME3 is the Titanomachy.

And when we fight the Asari, it's Amazonmachy*.

I get it - "generation conflict" isn't a :10bux:

word. But still.

...

* Which it absolutely is

Shepard, ~~Galactic Hero~~ Hero of Humanity, alleviates the anxiety women in positions of power inspire in the player, by using good old videogame violence to put those sexy alien warrior women in their rightful place.

ME 2 posted:

I love nailing asari. So ageless and superior -- then you get them, and they squeal like schoolgirls.

# ¿ Oct 2, 2014 19:43

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Lt. Danger posted:

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

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 00:36

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Let's be fair though - season 4 was rather poo poo. (Except for the Earth episodes and Prayer)

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 02:25

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

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.

"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.

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.

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).

(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

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 05:01

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Neruz posted:

Apologies, I appear to have misunderstood your post. What are you actually trying to refer to anyway?

"Intergalactic", obviously.

quote:

I honestly have absolutely no idea what you are trying to say here. Apart from words.

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.

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 05:21

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# ¿ May 11, 2024 06:41

Xander77: Apr 6, 2009; Fuck it then. For another pit sandwich and some 'tater salad, I'll post a few more.

Yeah, I think this derail has ran its course. Let's agree to disagree.

So... how about Jason's abs? Gigglesquee, am I right?

# ¿ Oct 13, 2014 11:06

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Let's Play! > Mass Effect 3 - I wish you could see it like I do. It's so... perfect

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