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"in anticipation of Mass Effect 2 and what it claims to accomplish with its "suicide mission" finale"
Uh, spoilers?
Uh, spoilers?
You CAN die at the end -- it's not a certainty, but it's a definite possibility. The "suicide mission" thing is set up pretty early on in the game itself.
You definitely didn't have to do Wrex's side quests to save him. I had no idea he even had a side quest but I was still able to save him (and by "saving" I mean not shooting him in the face). Then again I had the paragon option to talk him out of it, so I'm not sure if that mattered or not.
First Wrex paradox I ever experienced? Final Fantasy 6. You have to take care of Cid as Celes, and he dies, and it's really really dramatic and awesome, she even pretty much attempts suicide! BUT, if you get the fastest fish, and nurse him back to health, he just gets better and says something like "great I'm better! Time for you to go! Later!" It's completely void of any drama and totally lame. So, you CAN keep Cid alive, but it just robs you of one of the most dramatic scenes in the game.
The ending of GTA IV is a well-executed example of this. The designers ask you specifically "Okay, which character is more important to you?" to create the biggest emotional impact.
*spoilers*
Far Cry 2 has the opposite effect I think. I wanted to keep my best buddies alive because I liked them. I felt like the game was building up to an awesome ending where me and my best buddy would kick ass together. I even reloaded a save from 2 hours ago when I realized I could save her from jail, and she didn't have to die. And then at the end of the game, turns out all your friends want to kill you, including your best friend. What the fuck. I hated that entire ending. So I guess that's not really the opposite, but it's still bullshit.
*spoiler end*
I didn't experience the Wrex paradox. I was really into my character in Mass Effect, and I liked Wrex, so I didn't want him to die. Sure it would have created drama, but in the same way a friend from real life dieing would create drama. I liked most of my team, and I wanted to keep them alive. I was secretly happy when I got to kill Ashly though, even though I picked the nice option for my last words to her.
Far Cry 2 has the opposite effect I think. I wanted to keep my best buddies alive because I liked them. I felt like the game was building up to an awesome ending where me and my best buddy would kick ass together. I even reloaded a save from 2 hours ago when I realized I could save her from jail, and she didn't have to die. And then at the end of the game, turns out all your friends want to kill you, including your best friend. What the fuck. I hated that entire ending. So I guess that's not really the opposite, but it's still bullshit.
*spoiler end*
I didn't experience the Wrex paradox. I was really into my character in Mass Effect, and I liked Wrex, so I didn't want him to die. Sure it would have created drama, but in the same way a friend from real life dieing would create drama. I liked most of my team, and I wanted to keep them alive. I was secretly happy when I got to kill Ashly though, even though I picked the nice option for my last words to her.
Seems like you are arguing for less "meta gaming" in video games. (Meta gaming being a term which I recently learned from d&d where you try to not use any external information in a situation) This is incredibly hard to do in video games primarily because you can save or plan for any situation you face.
I think that saying that the ability to have Wrex not die in your second play through makes the game's ending inferior to Dragon Age's ending is a mistake. Redoing the part ruined the ending for you, and in several games the same situation has happened to me. So, recently I have tried to play games through no matter what I do.
(Games I have done this in is ME1/ME2/Farcry 2 (one death delete mode... never played the game either, so i failed hard on it)
I think that saying that the ability to have Wrex not die in your second play through makes the game's ending inferior to Dragon Age's ending is a mistake. Redoing the part ruined the ending for you, and in several games the same situation has happened to me. So, recently I have tried to play games through no matter what I do.
(Games I have done this in is ME1/ME2/Farcry 2 (one death delete mode... never played the game either, so i failed hard on it)
Catmurderer:
I'm not saying that the problem is that you can replay the game again and get a different result for the Wrex thing; I'm saying the problem is that if you prove really like Wrex, the game will save him, and if you prove you don't like him, the game will kill him. If you don't care about him and he dies, you feel nothing; if you do care about him and he lives, you also feel nothing.
My redoing the part was just an incidental thing.
I'm not saying that the problem is that you can replay the game again and get a different result for the Wrex thing; I'm saying the problem is that if you prove really like Wrex, the game will save him, and if you prove you don't like him, the game will kill him. If you don't care about him and he dies, you feel nothing; if you do care about him and he lives, you also feel nothing.
My redoing the part was just an incidental thing.
Bioware should just take whatever character you've grown closest to and have the bad guy kidnap that character and kill them in front of you, being that whichever character gets close to you will die, also know as Jack Bauer Disorder.
I agree with Catmurderer, you and not the game are reloading to do save Wrex or whatever. The game forcing a decision that has downsides whichever way you go on you is addressing your weaknesses, not the game's.
ReV VAdAUL:
You're misunderstanding. I only reloaded because I *accidentally* chose a path that got Wrex killed (since X, for reasons I will never ever understand, is both the "skip dialogue" and "choose dialogue" button and when trying to skip past a line of dialogue, I hit on a dialogue choice that prompted Ashley to kill Wrex). And beyond that, the ability to reload saves has literally nothing to do with my point: I'm talking about the fact that giving the player what they always want is dramatically uninteresting.
You're misunderstanding. I only reloaded because I *accidentally* chose a path that got Wrex killed (since X, for reasons I will never ever understand, is both the "skip dialogue" and "choose dialogue" button and when trying to skip past a line of dialogue, I hit on a dialogue choice that prompted Ashley to kill Wrex). And beyond that, the ability to reload saves has literally nothing to do with my point: I'm talking about the fact that giving the player what they always want is dramatically uninteresting.
I think people are missing the point. The problem is that giving a choice has to mean something. If all it means is that "Oh, I like this guy, I'll let him live." or "Oh, I don't like you. Die!" then its just a really pointless moment.
The Wrex paradox is more about how story writing needs to become much more dependent on the choices that are made in a big way than just throwing us choices for the sake of giving us choices.
Dragon Age: Origins's ending has a tangible effect on how things will play out and isn't just there for the sake of being there but actually existing for the sake of the conclusion that occurs.
But given that most people cannot write a story in such a way, Anthony is saying that forcing a death and not caring about what the gamer wants will make a much stronger narrative because, in this case, just walking away and knowing Wrex died ended up not meaning much of anything to the story overall.
The Wrex paradox is more about how story writing needs to become much more dependent on the choices that are made in a big way than just throwing us choices for the sake of giving us choices.
Dragon Age: Origins's ending has a tangible effect on how things will play out and isn't just there for the sake of being there but actually existing for the sake of the conclusion that occurs.
But given that most people cannot write a story in such a way, Anthony is saying that forcing a death and not caring about what the gamer wants will make a much stronger narrative because, in this case, just walking away and knowing Wrex died ended up not meaning much of anything to the story overall.
I don't understand what the significance of you saying you accidentally got Wrex killed and reloaded is. Also, how did you even do that? The dialog system isn't really complicated, and only once in the game did Shepard say something that wasn't even close to what I was expecting based on the choices.
I'm sorry, I've got apologize for the previous comment. Seems my son got a hold of the keyboard while I was outside smoking a cigarette.
As for the rant, well, I still haven't watched it, although I did read Company's blog. As for how I felt, I can't comment, because my son won't get out of my face right now. I cannot even think of a coherent sentence about Mass Effect or anything else right now.
Maybe later.
As for the rant, well, I still haven't watched it, although I did read Company's blog. As for how I felt, I can't comment, because my son won't get out of my face right now. I cannot even think of a coherent sentence about Mass Effect or anything else right now.
Maybe later.
The problem mass effect 1's choices had, is it gave the illusion of choice at best one option would extend a dialogue where as usually you had 3 option which all lead to 99% of the exact same line regardless of your answer, even the ending never truely changed, the final boss was never made harder or easier via your choice like say the original fallout boss where you could defeat him without firing a single shot.
The only character I'm interested in is Thane the buglike assassin as he is apparently dying from a disease so it'll be nice to see how his story pans out, but i'm hoping the betrayal aspects of dragon age have some aspects on the overall story if you only use the same characters over and over.
The only character I'm interested in is Thane the buglike assassin as he is apparently dying from a disease so it'll be nice to see how his story pans out, but i'm hoping the betrayal aspects of dragon age have some aspects on the overall story if you only use the same characters over and over.
For however relevant it is, the dilemma in saving the council ME1 was more about if you were willing to sacrifice far more human lives to save them as well as "risk" the mission. The more tangible consequence is the increased loss of human life. Something a reporter will try to bring you to task for in ME2 if you made that decision. I'm not saying it was perfect but there was that element to it.
Anthony the whole argument that is based on mass effect 1 is nil because you choose to control the mass effect universe when you choose to decide the the reactions the characters would give (run on sentence ftw lulz ). By fully upgrading charm you decided everything would take place in a fairy land. Sure you could have made the argument the game didn't make this clear enough (i would disagree again). The game let you control the universe because you are a controlling person( shown by upgrading what is basically the chance stat fully. lulz i love parenthesis ). SO if you want the experience you describe simply do not max out CHARM (in ME2,3). The game will be unpredictable and satisfying to you.
I thought that Anthony would stop looking like Ahmadinejad by shaving. It never occurred to me that he would go the other way with it.
Fair enough I had misunderstood your point and posted my comment before I saw your first response.
In regards to your actual point I'm not sure which way I lean because at the same time ME has a decision shortly after the Wrex event where you had to choose someone to die and someone to live. In that context the Wrex thing is a different mechanic, its rewarding me for boosting my charm and / or talking to him and doing his side quests. I was happy the Wrex survived because the threat of having to kill him seemed real enough.
Yes giving players choices where they have to choose a lesser of two evils is great but also having a character survive because of work you've put in (unknowingly to an extent) is also cool and its not like you can't have both in a game, as ME shows.
In regards to your actual point I'm not sure which way I lean because at the same time ME has a decision shortly after the Wrex event where you had to choose someone to die and someone to live. In that context the Wrex thing is a different mechanic, its rewarding me for boosting my charm and / or talking to him and doing his side quests. I was happy the Wrex survived because the threat of having to kill him seemed real enough.
Yes giving players choices where they have to choose a lesser of two evils is great but also having a character survive because of work you've put in (unknowingly to an extent) is also cool and its not like you can't have both in a game, as ME shows.
but you fell into the story and as a player made a decision that kill him, so you cant bitch you didn't have to reset it
I wasn't bothered about the wrex paradox i was more annoyed that you'd just convinced wrex to screw over his entire race for a stupidly flimsy reason
Hi Anthony, interesting thought. "Wrex Paradox" is a nice term.
Anyway, I see somewhat your point as being the paradox per se is that if you invested hard on a certain character, then the game will still play it safe in terms of rewarding you, whereas if you do not care about him/her/it/ whatever conclusions the game will make will not matter to you as a player.
so all in all, you end up not feeling a sense of accomplishment.
On your past "wrex Paradox" article, you asked if we liked it better if a game gives you a sense of Chaos rather than you seeing the veil, and inside is still an organized, sterile and "safe" environment wherein the game does conclusions based on the: positive + positive = POSITIVE, negative + negative = NEGATIVE formula. Well, I guess, the point of the matter is: game devs need to find a certain BALANCE.
Yes, in your Lord of the Rings analogy, we can all agree that we need Boromir to die, and having a decision there if he dies or not will ruin the story, but as a game platform, as an Interactive experience, well, we still need to find the certain Balance and Formula wherein a chaotic factor can and will be present to promote a sense of unsureness, unpredictability and realistic approach, BUT will still wield a Thought-provoking and rewarding experience.
People die in an unrealistic, untimely and expedient ways all the time. That's reality. If we opt for that, then we might just as well watch the news and not play games.
That is why a Balance in needed in crafting the stories of games we love.
the HOW part, is the one that is still up for debate and criticisms.
Anyway, I see somewhat your point as being the paradox per se is that if you invested hard on a certain character, then the game will still play it safe in terms of rewarding you, whereas if you do not care about him/her/it/ whatever conclusions the game will make will not matter to you as a player.
so all in all, you end up not feeling a sense of accomplishment.
On your past "wrex Paradox" article, you asked if we liked it better if a game gives you a sense of Chaos rather than you seeing the veil, and inside is still an organized, sterile and "safe" environment wherein the game does conclusions based on the: positive + positive = POSITIVE, negative + negative = NEGATIVE formula. Well, I guess, the point of the matter is: game devs need to find a certain BALANCE.
Yes, in your Lord of the Rings analogy, we can all agree that we need Boromir to die, and having a decision there if he dies or not will ruin the story, but as a game platform, as an Interactive experience, well, we still need to find the certain Balance and Formula wherein a chaotic factor can and will be present to promote a sense of unsureness, unpredictability and realistic approach, BUT will still wield a Thought-provoking and rewarding experience.
People die in an unrealistic, untimely and expedient ways all the time. That's reality. If we opt for that, then we might just as well watch the news and not play games.
That is why a Balance in needed in crafting the stories of games we love.
the HOW part, is the one that is still up for debate and criticisms.
"People die in an unrealistic, untimely and expedient ways all the time. That's reality. If we opt for that, then we might just as well watch the news and not play games. "
Seriously?
Seriously?
The thing about Wrex's event is that it's not a paradox, it has nothing to do with what the story needs versus what the player wants. The story doesn't really gain anything besides a little irritation from the player if Wrex dies, his death doesn't propel some new arc. It's simply a senseless death.
It's like you said, games shouldn't go around killing all the characters you like just for creating drama, and that's really what killing Wrex does. The story element was in the stand-down itself, the result is mostly irrelevant. It was about showing how deeply Wrex wanted to help Krogans, to the point where he was willing to consider attacking his friends for the hope of a genophage cure. You either help him realize that what Saren is doing is wrong, and allow Wrex's character to continue to develop, or you kill him and never even mention it for the rest of the game.
It's like you said, games shouldn't go around killing all the characters you like just for creating drama, and that's really what killing Wrex does. The story element was in the stand-down itself, the result is mostly irrelevant. It was about showing how deeply Wrex wanted to help Krogans, to the point where he was willing to consider attacking his friends for the hope of a genophage cure. You either help him realize that what Saren is doing is wrong, and allow Wrex's character to continue to develop, or you kill him and never even mention it for the rest of the game.
Maxing out charm skills etc isn't a game flaw. it's a writing flaw. Maxing out charm should give you more dialogue options but NOT give you what you want. There's no reason 'charm' responses shouldn't be unpredictable and in some cases create more drama/take more away because of an unpredicted reaction.
combine this with checkpoint/auto save systems doing away with savefiles so your world is always up-to-date and no previous saves.
I think one flaw is that these decisions play out in conversation options too often!! do it with actions, eg in battle if i fail to cover a teammate too often- he dies permanently. let me feel the guilt of my ACTIONS, not of choosing sentences and having time to weigh it all up first. (side-note: time limits on convo response! don't let me weigh it up for five minutes. Take action or have action taken upon. publish or perish.)
combine this with checkpoint/auto save systems doing away with savefiles so your world is always up-to-date and no previous saves.
I think one flaw is that these decisions play out in conversation options too often!! do it with actions, eg in battle if i fail to cover a teammate too often- he dies permanently. let me feel the guilt of my ACTIONS, not of choosing sentences and having time to weigh it all up first. (side-note: time limits on convo response! don't let me weigh it up for five minutes. Take action or have action taken upon. publish or perish.)
@Larktenchi
Not in 2, Wrex just has a small cameo. Maybe in 3, but I really doubt it will be anything major.
Not in 2, Wrex just has a small cameo. Maybe in 3, but I really doubt it will be anything major.
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