BioWare: Final Fantasy XIII is Not an RPG

[ManInRed]

First, a small side note. It is one thing to claim FXIII is not an RPG; it is another to claim it's an Adventure game. Adventuring in a game involves venturing and exploration. Something which is certainly not present in FFXIII, as any time spent out of battle involved walking in a straight line.

But let's get back to the real topic here: the general confusion over what games should be labeled RPG game. It is not a new problem, the term RPG has changed meanings several times over the years, let's go over the history.

In the beginning there were just Adventure games, which were never really well defined, but can be described as games were players explore environments to collect items that further advancement in the game and increase the functionality of the protagonist. At some point a subcategory of Adventure games were given a different name. These games have parties of heroes players equipped and controlled, combat involved entering a battle mode and the main focus of the game were to win these battles to further the plot. The games were called RPG games, after RP games (like D&D) which had a similar game play when it came to battle mode and the character stats involved. However, when this new category of RPG came out, the meaning of the word Adventure game change to mean what we would now consider to be Action/Adventure games. For a while true Adventure games were even label as Adventure/RPG games. When people stop using the term Adventure/RPG a ton of different types of games got pushed into the category of RPG. All the while, new games that fell between classical Adventure and RPG games were being made. The term RPG met its next challenger in MMORPG games, which wanted to shorten its name down to RPG and then found they had to re-label games previously called RPG games, when it was apparent the two were nothing alike. Then single player games that played more like MMORPG games were made and were just called RPG games, which brings us to our present confusion.

The major issue is the term RPG has been used to describe two distinctive genre's of games. Since there no good terminology let me just call traditionally defined RPG's as Armada games, and the RPG games Bioware makes as Avatar games. Let me define the two:

Armada: Enter battle mode segments while traveling, in which opposing armies determine how to utilize their limit resources to defeat the opposing side. Outside of battle you can outfit your army.

Avatar: Journey around as an alternate individual whom you can outfit for combat and complete various quests, determining who the individual is with your choices.

It is clear from this definition that FFXIII is not an Avatar game, but it fits perfectly into Armada game. In fact, FFXIII's only game play is the distinctive game play that originally defined RPG games. It is perfectly fair to point out that Avatar games are truer to the full experience RP games provide, but that wasn't how people originally used the terms when talking about games. It is a bit more silly to use the definition of the words 'role play' to define what an RPG game is, as the feature that distinguishes video games form other media is that your playing a role in it. Most classical RPG games involved you controlling multiple characters, therefore you often never took on one particular role anyways. Bioware's definition of an RPG game really fails fit the definition people have been using for the last couple of decades. Instead they listed out traits of Avatar games they have made, and pointed out that it is not the same as an Armada game, which every single Final Fantasy game would fall under. Maybe the time has come that we name a new genre for videogames, but I think it is a little much to claim that a series that has help define the genre of RPG is no longer an RPG game when it clearly hasn't step far out of the bounds of the game play seen in every game of the series.

 

[antipunt]

I don't really care that much about FF13 being an RPG. My real question is, is it -good?-

..No, seriously, I'm asking. I haven't played it yet, and am curious.

 

[Korolev]

True, you do level up in FF games, and in FFXIII. However, there's no customization. Sure you CAN (EVENTUALLY) get Hope to learn the Sentinel or Saboteur Class, but they purposely made him weak in those roles so that you wouldn't. There was customization and some role-playing in FFXII with the license board, but not in FFXIII, where for the first 27 or so hours your progress and development are on a ramrod straight linear track. Again, nothing wrong with it, but it's hardly an RPG. I mean, you get stronger in Infamous as well, but you wouldn't call that an RPG (despite the fact that Infamous is closer to an RPG than FFXIII ever gets).

So FFXIII isn't really an RPG. Well, I don't really care. What bothered me was the rubbish story and weak character interactions. FFXIII might not be an RPG, but I'm not sure it's even a Final Fantasy Game. Previous FF games had great stories (especially FFIX) and many characters and well populated areas and well developed worlds. FFXIII has none of that. Yes, things LOOK nice, the worlds LOOK good, but they're soulless and almost entirely voiceless. Why should I care about Cocoon when they never gave me a reason to care? Why should I care about Snow and Serah when the game never gave me a good reason to care? The only character I ever cared about was Sazh and he's pretty much useless in combat unless you spend an age leveling up his weapons.

So it's not an RPG or even a normal FF game. What is it then? Who knows? A mistake? Yeah, I'm going with that - a huge, gigantic mistaken attempt at trying to "appeal" to westerners by making it linear as hell. Please understand this Japan - just because COD and Half Life were linear doesn't mean that all Westerners want completely linear games.

 

[Korolev]

And to all those who say that JRPGs focus on Narrative more than WRPGs - maybe for the previous FF games. Not so for FFXIII. The story is pitifully weak. It moves so slow, yet nothing really happens during the course of the story. All meaningful character interaction is either delivered with one or two lines or given in flashbacks AFTER the supposedly tragic event between the characters occurs. Cocoon is NEVER fleshed out, and yes I read all the datalog entries. Villains show up once or twice, die quickly, and are never developed, except for one, and even he only shows up, what, 2 or 4 times in the course of the story.

It wasn't linearity that killed FFXIII for me. It was just the rubbish story. Play other FF games - FFXIII has, no doubt about it, the weakest storyline except for perhaps the first 3 FF games (which didn't really have characters at all). And if you are going to make a game story dependent on cutscenes, please don't make the "cutscenes" just 5 or so lines of dialog, repeated again and again and again and again and again. Yes we know, Snow likes Serah and wants to get her back. FFXIII feels as if it has to remind you of this point at least 60 times. Yes we know, Hope is angry over the injustice meeted out to him. Yet he whines and splutters and makes REALLY annoying little gasping noises for over 18 hours, on the same damn point. You see what I mean?

Also - the world of FFXIII is empty and cold. Pretty, shiny, but empty and sterile, except for perhaps the second to last area, but still no NPCs. Without them, it's the six main character's duty to hold the story and they just don't. Hope is annoying as hell. Lightning is a female Keanu Reeves with Red Hair. Vanille is ridiculous. Snow keeps on harping on about Serah (buddy, we GET THE POINT - you like Serah, stop going on and on about your girlfriend, who looks like she's about 12 by the way, so that's creepy, already) Sazh and Fang are alright but apart from a few scenes, the game doesn't really focus on them and they don't get much dialog.

 

[DeadlyFred]

If the game focuses upon playing a role. Then its an RPG. The combat system is regardless.

That qualifies every game in existence. Including pong.

 

[Ultra_Caboose]

You don't make any choices, you don't create a character, you don't live your character... I don't know what those are - adventure games maybe?

No, they're RPGs, silly. You are just Role Playing the lead character. In Game format.

/does not play many RPGs

I agree with this. In a literal sense, EVERY single game out there is an RPG.
I've always been a non-participant in this whole east vs. west RPG debate. I don't give a shit where the game comes from or what gameplay style it adheres to. Both types of RPG's can be really fun games to play, and whether or not you agree with this guy doesn't make XIII any less of an RPG, and it doesn't make it any less fun.

 

[ManInRed]

I don't really care that much about FF13 being an RPG. My real question is, is it -good?-

..No, seriously, I'm asking. I haven't played it yet, and am curious.

Although the quality of a game doesn't really determine the genre (unless we make 'good game' a genre), I'll risk telling you that FFXIII is a good game. If you have liked previous Final Fantasy games, then you will probably like FFXIII. It ranks among the top 5 Final Fantasy games by my preliminary calculations.

Like all Final Fantasy games it has a very gradual learning curve to it, making it easy. The lengthy 20 hour tutorial at the beginning of the game been the source of a lot of jokes, but I am quick to point out FFVI and FFVII had at least 16 hours of game play tutorial as well. The good news is it has about as many hour of total play time as those games, unlike FFX that was over in around 20 hours.

The story of FFXIII is not bad (very similar to FFX's story), but could be told better. Basic facts are revealed to the player much later than they probably needed to be, to create unnecessary plot twists or force you to replay the game. Like FFVIII's time loop plot, I suspect it will take a year before people chattering on the internet finally agree to what the whole story is really about. The protagonists are well developed (unlike FFXII) and likable for the most part to keep you interested even if the game continually tries to confuse you.

As I said in my last post, there is no adventuring in the game. It is hard to call anything a dungeon or town as you just walk down a straight line path the whole game. I remember Xenosaga 2 getting accused for doing this, but having played through FFXIII I must apologies to Xenosaga 2, I now know what a straight line dungeon is. FFXIII even insults my intelligence by having markers on its map to tell you where to go next, in case you get lost walking down the straight line. That isn't to say game play is completely linear, very late in the game something the equivalent to a world map is opened up with a hundred side quests available.

FFXIII main focus is on its combat system, which is pretty deep and fun to play. You play one of 3 characters and command your party to change their current job class, which you will actually have to change often to survive unlike FFXII (or Dragon Age) where you just sat back and watch the game play with itself. The learning system is a Sphere Grid for each job class, unique for each character, which you do not have access to most of until you complete the tutorial. Equipment upgrading feels similar to Kingdom of Heart games, where items foes drop are used to boost the equipment's level or transform it into something better.

Lastly, FFXIII looks a whole lot better for PS3 than Xbox360, so if you have a choice, get it for PS3. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you likely know by now whether you'll enjoy the game or not.

 

[antipunt]

I don't really care that much about FF13 being an RPG. My real question is, is it -good?-

..No, seriously, I'm asking. I haven't played it yet, and am curious.

Although the quality of a game doesn't really determine the genre (unless we make 'good game' a genre), I'll risk telling you that FFXIII is a good game. If you have liked previous Final Fantasy games, then you will probably like FFXIII. It ranks among the top 5 Final Fantasy games by my preliminary calculations.

Like all Final Fantasy games it has a very gradual learning curve to it, making it easy. The lengthy 20 hour tutorial at the beginning of the game been the source of a lot of jokes, but I am quick to point out FFVI and FFVII had at least 16 hours of game play tutorial as well. The good news is it has about as many hour of total play time as those games, unlike FFX that was over in around 20 hours.

The story of FFXIII is not bad (very similar to FFX's story), but could be told better. Basic facts are revealed to the player much later than they probably needed to be, to create unnecessary plot twists or force you to replay the game. Like FFVIII's time loop plot, I suspect it will take a year before people chattering on the internet finally agree to what the whole story is really about. The protagonists are well developed (unlike FFXII) and likable for the most part to keep you interested even if the game continually tries to confuse you.

As I said in my last post, there is no adventuring in the game. It is hard to call anything a dungeon or town as you just walk down a straight line path the whole game. I remember Xenosaga 2 getting accused for doing this, but having played through FFXIII I must apologies to Xenosaga 2, I now know what a straight line dungeon is. FFXIII even insults my intelligence by having markers on its map to tell you where to go next, in case you get lost walking down the straight line. That isn't to say game play is completely linear, very late in the game something the equivalent to a world map is opened up with a hundred side quests available.

FFXIII main focus is on its combat system, which is pretty deep and fun to play. You play one of 3 characters and command your party to change their current job class, which you will actually have to change often to survive unlike FFXII (or Dragon Age) where you just sat back and watch the game play with itself. The learning system is a Sphere Grid for each job class, unique for each character, which you do not have access to most of until you complete the tutorial. Equipment upgrading feels similar to Kingdom of Heart games, where items foes drop are used to boost the equipment's level or transform it into something better.

Lastly, FFXIII looks a whole lot better for PS3 than Xbox360, so if you have a choice, get it for PS3. Otherwise, I'm pretty sure you likely know by now whether you'll enjoy the game or not.

Thx for the input

 

[Calum_M]

The main problem is people keep comparing WRPGs to JRPGs like they're the same genre. They look like they are (wow, the names are almost the same!) but they aren't, really. The thing is: Role Playing Game was "invented" in america, with "pen-and-paper" Dungeons and Dragons. Back in the days, RPGs didn't have that much focus in "choice" and "character creation" from a plot standpoint. You had choices, but they were all pretty much related to combat and survival in dungeons (choosing attacks, customizing equipment). In truth, there was not a lot of plot development, really. It was all about killing big Dragons and getting XP. The RPG was then transported and localized to Japan, in the form of eletronic games. See, for them, RPGs were pretty much created as videogames (pen-and-paper RPGs weren't that popular in Japan). For japanese people, the "template" for what RPG means is Dragon Quest I, Final Fantasy I, Phantasy Star etc. They evolved from that primitive dungeon crawling into creating memorable characters and stories... All the "Non-linear plot, non-linear character creation, huge amount of interaction with the player etc" was not what defined a RPG back then, that's what define more recent pen-and-paper western RPGs, and that's what Western Eletronic RPGs try to simulate.

The thing is: although the JRPG genre was created inspired by the first western pen-and-paper RPG adventures, it gained a life of its own. They only took reference for the first games, and after that, evolution in JRPGs was totally independent from the evolution of western RPGs, eletronic or not. But when it comes to western eletronic RPGs, they're highly dependent on their "pen-and-paper" counterparts even now.

"Character creation", back when RPGs were invented, meant basicly to choose classes/abilities for your character. "Character interpretation" meant basicly to govern your character through a Dungeon, not to make moral choices that affect your karma or anything like this.

More recent additions to the pen-and-paper RPGs changed that paradigm. Systems like the "storyteller" (introduced in 1991, way after eletronic RPGs were introduced in Japan) had a heavy emphasys on interpratation and interection between NPCs and the player. The focus of this system is basically to build a character from scratch and to interpret him deeply, even psychologically, and from the interactions between players and NPCs, construct a plot, a "chronicle". That's pretty much what western eletronic RPGs have been trying to simulate until now, and that's the reference western people have for the term "RPG".

TLDR: Bioware is dumb to compare a JRPG to a modern Western RPG template. Period.

I was going to post, but this post summed up everything I could have possibly said.

 

[Cryo84R]

Playing through it now. Not sure what to call it, to be honest.

 

[geizr]

I'm coming late to this thread, but, in my opinion, you all are arguing over things you've never really had in the first place; you've only had the illusion of having them. All Final Fantasy XIII has really done is strip away these illusions that have been put up by more traditional RPG video games up to this point and present the abstractions in a more raw form. We've always been traveling linear paths through the games; towns have always been little more than a shopping stand(you just had the tedium of moving between vendors to create the illusion) with a few cut-scenes and action points thrown in(something happens, the characters have a conversation, or a quest is given); we've never really had much choice in how the character progresses, and when we have had such choices, it really was nothing more than the linear graph with some branching that the crystarium system in Final Fantasy XIII presents. Until very recently, we've not had the ability to chose the appearance of the character or characters in the party(and those choices are still fairly limited), and the party has almost always been limited to a small(3 to 6) predetermined number of characters; in many cases, you had no choice at all of who was in the party.

Even more so, the story, even in today's games, has almost always been fixed. There usually is only one path along which the story progresses, and the story does not progress until the player takes particular actions. More games today are being designed with branching story-lines, however, I personally consider this non-linear because there is still a fixed order and pacing to the progression(very, very few games have an out-of-order progression with pacing that doesn't depend on the player executing a particular action). You are still proceeding from a point A to a point B to perform action C, and the story does not move forward until you get to point B and perform action C.

The closest I have seen to a true RPG these days are the MMORPGs(I am more of the school of thought that considers pen-and-paper tabletop RPGs as the more true definition of an RPG). While one can argue the story of an MMORPG is either lacking or largely irrelevant, this is the prime variety of game where the player truly can choose his character to be what he wants, and the player can act out the personality of his character in any manner he chooses.

On the issue of story in an RPG, story is not a necessary element; it is merely a commonly included element. It would be valid to pretend to live the life of a lawyer, a doctor, a CEO, a caveman, or just whatever you want, proceeding episodically with simple day-in-the-life style situations. There need be no overall story tying it all together; you only need that you are pretending to not be you.

Most video game RPGs seem to have in mind the singular goal of telling a story by allow the player to play through that story. Yet, the story itself remains fairly fixed(many tabletop RPG GMs take this same approach with significantly more variability in the experience because a human being is capable of creativity, whereas a computer and video game are not), even in the case of branching story-lines(the branches never change and have no possibility to do so). Because of this, they tend to essentially suffer all the complaints regarding Final Fantasy XIII. The reason why most people don't notice is because games past have built an illusion that things are otherwise.

Even so, at the end of the day, the only real relevant question is whether you, as a gamer, had fun playing the game, regardless of the genre.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

Wait... So, the fact that Dragon Age: Origins quite literally visually steals in excruciatingly exact detail major scenes from the LoTR movies makes it not a clone or plagiarist

Hmmm... personally, I didn't notice any blatant rip-offs. I mean, Dragon Age's cinematics are.... conventionally cinematic. Panning over top of battlefields, pointing the camera down the line of an enemy force while they taunt and shout... They're done in the way you would do them if it were a mainstream film. I'm not sure how much ground LotR really broke in that area, and it would have had to break new ground for any of the similar scenes to be "cloned".

The more common complaint I hear is that the world is obviously Tolkien inspired. I suppose. It's more built upon settings like Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk (which, yes, were Tolkien inspired), but thematically I'd say it's a bit more George R.R. Martin.

Tolkien, a Cambridge professor who was extremely well versed in Norse mythology and Anglo-Saxon literature, who very lovingly took themes from something ancient and rebuilt it into something different.

Wait, so is it different because it's different or because Tolkien himself is beyond reproach?

I don't like Bioware because the writing is bad

Compared to what? I play a *lot* of video games, and the writing seems vastly better to me than the vast majority of them.

and they reuse the same characters over and over. (This you will not agree with

Nor I. But I suppose you'll have to be more specific if I'm going to truly entertain the notion.

I like having choices and I don't like being forced to have my character make a moral choice between "a stupid decision" and "a very, very, very stupid decision" like I must do in both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins.

Hmmm.... I don't recall many stupid decisions being forced upon me in either game. What did you have in mind?

Dragon Age: Origins ends up the worse offender because Mass Effect 2 at least gets to say that it's a shooter with RPG elements. And I mean stupid decision, not that I simply don't like the choices presented (which I don't). But the majority of decisions I must make either as Shepherd or a Grey Warden give me the feeling that the character I'm playing has the intellect of 2 and is a rolling, drooling, incompetent moron. (Especially Renegade Shepherd in Mass Effect 2.)

Majority, eh? That's one of the things that can make a discussion like this challenging. That just about has to be hyperbole. I mean, if I tried really hard, I could probably come up with some times where I was substantially disappointed with the options I was presented, but it would be the rare exception. You make it sound almost as though we played a different game altogether... or perhaps there's some communication gap here.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

As for Mass Effect being your own story? I really end up in X-Files territory here. I want to believe, but there are way too many instances in the game where you are presented with a choice, and regardless of your selection, you don't actually get to have any effect. Your first dialog on the Normandy after Eden Prime comes to mind. There are precisely three dialog nexus you can have an influence on (of those one is just a question set, and another lets you choose to badmouth the Doctor at random, the final one is a standard investigation nexus). The other four (I believe) all funnel you to either say identical things or provoke Captain Anderson to say the same thing regardless of which choice you made. While I would accept that what you say to Anderson in the Medlab shouldn't radically alter the game (though, it could, theoretically), that the game presents you with a choice that you quite literally cannot make says volumes about the game in a larger context. If it were an isolated example, I could forgive it, but it really becomes endemic of the design philosophy of the larger game.

I've DMed quite a bit in the past, and I always found that whenever my players left the rails of prepared content into improv territory, the quality of the content suffered. It was fun, largely because we were exercising actual freedom rather than just nodding at the illusion of it, but in the prepared content, the characters were always better fleshed out, the scenarios were more clever and inventive, and the result was generally more rewarding. This comparison bears out between Bioware and Bethesda games as well. You can run around in a whole world of "not a lot going on" in Oblivion. While it's fun, the prepared "rails" content of Mass Effect is far higher caliber.

Furthermore, the comparison bears out *within* Mass Effect. You *can* blow off the main quest and go explore the galaxy. And you'll find a bunch of (mostly) empty planets with cookie cutter buildings full of barely characterized villains to shoot. There's freedom, but the experience is comparatively empty.

I think I prefer the illusion the game creates. I can choose what Shepard says. It may not mean I go to another planet or have to shoot a different main bad guy, but it defines *who* Shepard is in my mind. I can even play Shepard wildly inconsistently and the game won't care (which goes back to your beef with how little is actually remembered... though remembering anything at all between games in a series is borderline unprecedented). But basically, I create my own reward in playing Shepard consistently in such a way that I feel like I get to know and relate to the character. And it is extremely rewarding to me.

By changing the dialog system so that it reflects your/Shepard's gut reaction to things, it makes it much harder to realize your freedom of choice the game is presenting you with is actually much more of an illusion than it appears to be.

Yes, but you don't think it's a bit too much to expect that a story that spans three games would have wildly divergent plot paths in what amounts to the first act? Besides, they do a good job of making it look like the *situation* railroads you more than the game. There are a lot of ways to complete Nouveria and a lot of ways it can turn out, but yeah, you can't just neglect to go there altogether. But if you don't go there, you'll have no way to find Saren, and the only possible outcome of the game is a horrifically bad ending. I guess they could have mocked one up, but why bother?

There's multiple kinds of campaigns a GM can run. They can run you on rails, as FF does, they can run you on rails and give you the ability to shift the rails around a bit, off hand Deus Ex comes to mind, or they can simply turn you loose the Fallout or TES games are good examples of this. Now, Bioware keeps claiming they're on rails with the ability to shift, but, from where I'm standing, shifting around doesn't really result in any change.

In terms of the main plot, perhaps you're right. But I'm sure Kaidan, Ashley, and Wrex care what decisions you make. I always enjoy these sorts of things more for the characters and relationships than the plot. The plot of Mass Effect is really just a contrived situation so we can have tension, threat, danger, thrills, and so on and so forth. Unless Mass Effect 3 surprises the hell out of me, there won't be any profound revelation that will make the Reapers into compelling, fascinating villains. They're just the classic "frightening alien" foil for our intrepid heroes. What makes Mass Effect interesting is how the characters handle the situations they are thrust into. Both games have been emotionally affecting to me, not because I am so relieved for the galaxy and the doomsday that was averted, but rather because I care about what happens to the people.

And in Mass Effect 2, any of them can die, even Shepard (though you really have to try, admittedly). So, if you're a person like me, who cares about the characters, the fact that any of them can live or die according to your choices makes for a profound feeling of influence and control over the outcome.

The problem is, starting with Dragon Age and to an even greater extent in Mass Effect 2, their writing is... well... bad. Especially when held up to the hype they've put into the games.

Can't really speak to the hype, but "bad" seems like a wild overstatement. I mean, compared to what, exactly? Had you said "adequate" I would have disagreed but I could see how we might look for different things in a game or that you might have very exacting standards, but bad?

Dragon Age has an egregious disparity between the hype it received, "an innovation in dark low fantasy," and all that bullshit, and a product that ends up, on the whole as a (relatively) kid friendly high fantasy version of Lord of the Rings.

It's significantly darker than Lord of the Rings. The closest Lord of the Rings comes to killing off a beloved character is Boromir, and I would say that it it is the manner of his death itself that redeems him to the point that losing him is a tragedy.

We lose Gandalf, sure, but then we get a "psych! just kidding!"

Cailan may be a bit of a fool, but he's a lovable one, and his death and desecration is graphic and shocking. Much worse than he deserves, both by its mechanical nature and the root cause (betrayal).

Worse yet is Duncan, who was a father figure to the main character and Alistair. Alistair himself can be executed if you betray him and allow Anora to rule. The honorable Harrowmont is up for summary execution if you side with Bhelen and permit it. You can coax the werewolves into viciously slaughtering the elves. You can convince the templars to execute the mages, including the grandfatherly Irving. You can knife a child to death, or, alternatively, blood sacrifice his mother in order to save him. The human noble origin leads off with your parents, your sister in law, and your child nephew all being murdered. Your parents, according to Howe, were tortured first.

So yeah... waaaay waaaay darker.

With Mass Effect 2 they were comparing themselves to Aurthur C. Clark in their prerelease material. Saying how the game would be deep science fiction and examine the nature of man versus machine. And... it's not.

I didn't see that prerelease material. But I agree that it is not deep, thought-provoking, philosophical science fiction.

It doesn't raise any serious issues the way science fiction does,

*some* science fiction. No reason science fiction can't be more about the story than about a philosophical idea.

it certainly doesn't ascend to the throne of one of the big three of Sci-Fi. It's a fun, light space opera, and that'd be neat, if they weren't plugging it as some kind of masterpiece that it isn't.

So it doesn't sound like you really think the writing is *bad* so much as not up to the standards you expected from the hype. I think that's one of those YMMV things.

 

[Starke]

As for Mass Effect being your own story? I really end up in X-Files territory here. I want to believe, but there are way too many instances in the game where you are presented with a choice, and regardless of your selection, you don't actually get to have any effect. Your first dialog on the Normandy after Eden Prime comes to mind. There are precisely three dialog nexus you can have an influence on (of those one is just a question set, and another lets you choose to badmouth the Doctor at random, the final one is a standard investigation nexus). The other four (I believe) all funnel you to either say identical things or provoke Captain Anderson to say the same thing regardless of which choice you made. While I would accept that what you say to Anderson in the Medlab shouldn't radically alter the game (though, it could, theoretically), that the game presents you with a choice that you quite literally cannot make says volumes about the game in a larger context. If it were an isolated example, I could forgive it, but it really becomes endemic of the design philosophy of the larger game.

I've DMed quite a bit in the past, and I always found that whenever my players left the rails of prepared content into improv territory, the quality of the content suffered.

Honestly, on this count, our experience differed. Some of the best experiences I've had as a GM came out of improv territory. Now, the fact that most of my GMing was in the storyteller system, which tends to have a story before gameplay focus could be relevant.

It was fun, largely because we were exercising actual freedom rather than just nodding at the illusion of it, but in the prepared content, the characters were always better fleshed out, the scenarios were more clever and inventive, and the result was generally more rewarding. This comparison bears out between Bioware and Bethesda games as well. You can run around in a whole world of "not a lot going on" in Oblivion. While it's fun, the prepared "rails" content of Mass Effect is far higher caliber.

I'd actually debate this on one count. With Morrowind there were a lot of players who became very attached to the life they carved out for themselves on Vvardenfell. You can argue that the content of Mass Effect is much more polished, but I've never heard of someone becoming particularly attached to their version of Cmdr Shepard the way players have to their Morrowind characters. Somehow Oblivion (your example) doesn't quite capture this either, though, I'm at a loss to explain exactly why.

Furthermore, the comparison bears out *within* Mass Effect. You *can* blow off the main quest and go explore the galaxy. And you'll find a bunch of (mostly) empty planets with cookie cutter buildings full of barely characterized villains to shoot. There's freedom, but the experience is comparatively empty.

I think I prefer the illusion the game creates.

Actually, thinking back to Morrowind (and Oblivion) and contrasting, I think that may be the primary feature here. Mass Effect creates the illusion for you, while Oblivion and Morrowind require you to create the illusion, and the game supports that. I'm not saying you're unimaginative or anything of the sort, simply that Morrowind is a lot like a novel where you fill in the background yourself, while Mass Effect is like a TV serial where you can turn your brain off and everything will be provided in flickering technocolor. One isn't automatically better than the other, they're simply different experiences.

I can choose what Shepard says. It may not mean I go to another planet or have to shoot a different main bad guy, but it defines *who* Shepard is in my mind. I can even play Shepard wildly inconsistently and the game won't care (which goes back to your beef with how little is actually remembered... though remembering anything at all between games in a series is borderline unprecedented).

As I believe I pointed out earlier in this thread, it really isn't. It's been over a decade since this feature popped up before ME, but it did exist in earlier games, particularly RPG franchises back in the mid to late 80s. (KOTOR2 took a stab at this as well, though the results were somewhat mixed.)

But basically, I create my own reward in playing Shepard consistently in such a way that I feel like I get to know and relate to the character. And it is extremely rewarding to me.

By changing the dialog system so that it reflects your/Shepard's gut reaction to things, it makes it much harder to realize your freedom of choice the game is presenting you with is actually much more of an illusion than it appears to be.

Yes, but you don't think it's a bit too much to expect that a story that spans three games would have wildly divergent plot paths in what amounts to the first act?

In a sense? Yes, but at a deeper level this does dig at the contrast between what Bioware has said they were doing (and implied) and what they have delivered.

If the goal of the game is to recreate the kind of atmosphere of the choose your own adventure novels, which is sort of what they've suggested is the ultimate goal, then this kind of railroading is unforgivable. And it should have been at the core of the design document. Instead there's claims that this is what it is aiming for, but the game itself fails to achieve that.

Besides, they do a good job of making it look like the *situation* railroads you more than the game. There are a lot of ways to complete Nouveria and a lot of ways it can turn out, but yeah, you can't just neglect to go there altogether. But if you don't go there, you'll have no way to find Saren, and the only possible outcome of the game is a horrifically bad ending. I guess they could have mocked one up, but why bother?

To be clear, my complaint isn't that you have to travel to these four worlds in (nearly) any order, to complete your agenda. And the plot coupons that Bioware lays out in Mass Effect are at least unique from one another, unlike KOTOR or Dragon Age, so kudos on that count. What is also present is the aformentioned railroading. Now, as you point out, they usually take pains to try to make it look like it's the situation that railroads you, when in fact it's a limited array of choices presented to the player.

For example: Look at the first two hours of Mass Effect 2. Being forced to work with Cerberus makes sense, as it sets up the structure of the rest of the game. However, it would not represent a massive plot divergence to be able to maintain a hostile and suspicious attitude towards Cerberus, calling the Illusive Man out on some of Cerberus' more dubious actions (for the record, the save does record which Cerberus Missions in ME1 you actually finished.) Instead there is a single line of dialog about how you know Cerberus from before, but you can't even really challenge the Illusive Man in any meaningful way (there are two spoilerific counter examples, the first of which does allow you to chew him out if you want, but then forces you to back down when he responds.) This isn't choice, it's a railroad.

There's multiple kinds of campaigns a GM can run. They can run you on rails, as FF does, they can run you on rails and give you the ability to shift the rails around a bit, off hand Deus Ex comes to mind, or they can simply turn you loose the Fallout or TES games are good examples of this. Now, Bioware keeps claiming they're on rails with the ability to shift, but, from where I'm standing, shifting around doesn't really result in any change.

In terms of the main plot, perhaps you're right. But I'm sure Kaidan, Ashley, and Wrex care what decisions you make.

Well... yes, and no. Yes, they would care (I'm not getting into they're fictional characters debate), but at the same time they aren't the ones making the decisions as to whether they live or die, you are. So, in that sense, their opinions are moot (if only after the fact).

I always enjoy these sorts of things more for the characters and relationships than the plot. The plot of Mass Effect is really just a contrived situation so we can have tension, threat, danger, thrills, and so on and so forth. Unless Mass Effect 3 surprises the hell out of me, there won't be any profound revelation that will make the Reapers into compelling, fascinating villains. They're just the classic "frightening alien" foil for our intrepid heroes. What makes Mass Effect interesting is how the characters handle the situations they are thrust into. Both games have been emotionally affecting to me, not because I am so relieved for the galaxy and the doomsday that was averted, but rather because I care about what happens to the people.

In this sense, I found a lot of the characters in Mass Effect, and really in Bioware games as a whole, more than a little shallow. They tend to introduce archetypes, and about the time you realize there isn't really much in the way of distinguishing characteristics between the various reused archetypes, the less appealing they are.

In particular Kaiden and Ashley grated on my nerves severely, hence my assertion that I would gleefully kill the survivor on Horizon in an interrupt if given the choice.

I do think Bioware's dropped the ball a number of times in the Mass Effect series, where moments or dilemmas could have been raised that would have presented a real consequence to your actions, but I'm left with Yahtzee's line from a Gears of War review, Mass Effect is "without a single challenging act, thought or deed, from start to finish." (And yes, I am transposing the acerbic Brit's opinions, and this doesn't reflect his opinion on Mass Effect.)

And in Mass Effect 2, any of them can die, even Shepard (though you really have to try, admittedly). So, if you're a person like me, who cares about the characters, the fact that any of them can live or die according to your choices makes for a profound feeling of influence and control over the outcome.

Except, you know, I don't. Okay, Garius, because I fell for that very heavy handed opening, Mordrin because he was the only character in the game who was actually funny, and Legion because the aesthetics of the character design appealed to me. But, for the most part I was highly apathetic towards the various characters.

Honestly, as characters there isn't a hell of a lot that distinguishes Jacob from Garius, Samara from Thane, and so on. (And don't even get me started on why Jack wrankles my nerves.) As a cornerstone of the game, ME2's characters are abysmal.

The problem is, starting with Dragon Age and to an even greater extent in Mass Effect 2, their writing is... well... bad. Especially when held up to the hype they've put into the games.

Can't really speak to the hype, but "bad" seems like a wild overstatement. I mean, compared to what, exactly? Had you said "adequate" I would have disagreed but I could see how we might look for different things in a game or that you might have very exacting standards, but bad?

Okay, on Dragon Age, the presented freedom of choice is of marginal difference (moralistically), there's always a take a third option with no downsides. So you can either choose A, B, or A and B. Which undermines the entire concept of making choices.

The Dialog waffles. There's a base line medieval fantasy sect, which is bland, but otherwise unimpeachable except for being uninspired. There's characters like Alistar who just wandered in off of the set of Buffy, and there's characters like Leliana or Zevran who broadcast "I'm pretending to be one thing badly to make up for the fact that deep down I'm a complete sociopath", except, then they never even hint at something deeper (okay, Leliana does, but it made me want to go strangle someone.)

The characters themselves are teaspoon deep. Okay, if Zevran was actually a complete sociopath who had no problems carving his way through people en mass, and used his cheesy approach to get people to underestimate him, that'd be great, except the game (and the devs) make it pretty clear this isn't the case.

This isn't to say nothing works. Logain works in a pulp villain sort of way (though, not as the strategic genius he's supposed to be.) And Stenn radiates the whole noble warrior without table manors archetype pretty effectively. But enough of the party members are terminally shallow enough that the game as a whole suffers. (I did a specific write up of all the characters a while back, but I've no idea where it is, if you're interested.)

Beyond that, the story kinda functions in a very pulpy kind of way, but it has plot holes you can drive a Boeing 777 through. Shamus Young hilariously observed, the second stage to the Redcliffe quest basically involves you going off to find the holy grail on the random thought that maybe just maybe it might help, with no certainty that it wasn't simply a myth, instead of doing something, you know, productive.

Dragon Age has an egregious disparity between the hype it received, "an innovation in dark low fantasy," and all that bullshit, and a product that ends up, on the whole as a (relatively) kid friendly high fantasy version of Lord of the Rings.

It's significantly darker than Lord of the Rings. The closest Lord of the Rings comes to killing off a beloved character is Boromir, and I would say that it it is the manner of his death itself that redeems him to the point that losing him is a tragedy.

We lose Gandalf, sure, but then we get a "psych! just kidding!"

Cailan may be a bit of a fool, but he's a lovable one, and his death and desecration is graphic and shocking. Much worse than he deserves, both by its mechanical nature and the root cause (betrayal).

Yeah... I'm not talking about Boromir, though he is a good example. Some other characters who were terminally fucked up by the rings, include all nine Nazgul, Isildur and Golum. And the incedeous nature of the ring almost claimed Gandalf, Bilbo, Frodo, and Aragorn. Gandalf, Galadrael and Aragorn were all smart (or wise) enough to realize what the ring would do to them. And Faramir was wise enough to not press the issue. But, beyond the one ring, the setting is littered with all kinds of collapse and shattered kingdoms in the wake of Sauron's influence, Arnor comes to mind off hand.

EDIT: Come to think of it, with the exception of Sam and Tom Bombadil, everyone who so much as touches the one ring ends up irrevocably broken, or dead as a direct result, and a number of people suffer that fate without ever even coming into contact with it.

Worse yet is Duncan, who was a father figure to the main character and Alistair. Alistair himself can be executed if you betray him and allow Anora to rule. The honorable Harrowmont is up for summary execution if you side with Bhelen and permit it. You can coax the werewolves into viciously slaughtering the elves. You can convince the templars to execute the mages, including the grandfatherly Irving. You can knife a child to death, or, alternatively, blood sacrifice his mother in order to save him. The human noble origin leads off with your parents, your sister in law, and your child nephew all being murdered. Your parents, according to Howe, were tortured first.

So yeah... waaaay waaaay darker.

Except, in each case (except with Howe) the events are basically irrelevant to the plot. In the Redcliffe example, you want dark? Convince the mother to kill herself because she brought this upon her child (not as part of the blood sacrifice, she views that as a noble death), and then kill the kid, because there is no saving of abominations.

Maybe I've been spoiled by genuinely dark settings like The Witcher and Warhammer, but for me Dragon Age just isn't dark.

With Mass Effect 2 they were comparing themselves to Aurthur C. Clark in their prerelease material. Saying how the game would be deep science fiction and examine the nature of man versus machine. And... it's not.

I didn't see that prerelease material. But I agree that it is not deep, thought-provoking, philosophical science fiction.

It doesn't raise any serious issues the way science fiction does,

*some* science fiction. No reason science fiction can't be more about the story than about a philosophical idea.

Fair enough. You can make the distinction between Science Fiction and Space Opera, and that was the distinction going through my head when I wrote that (I think).

it certainly doesn't ascend to the throne of one of the big three of Sci-Fi. It's a fun, light space opera, and that'd be neat, if they weren't plugging it as some kind of masterpiece that it isn't.

So it doesn't sound like you really think the writing is *bad* so much as not up to the standards you expected from the hype. I think that's one of those YMMV things.

No, it's bad. The hype only elevates to to an Icarian fall rather than simply sub par video game writing.

 

[bushwhacker2k]

Does it have stats and leveling as a focus in combat? Then it's an RPG.

Unless he's also saying that stuff like Diablo and MMORPGs aren't RPGs?

Besides, when the genre was named, anything with dialogue and a plot above "Eat Dots" was pretty much an RPG.

>_> Well, just because someone made a stupid decision years ago doesn't mean we should stick with it according to tradition. For all intents and purposes FFXIII is NOT an rpg, I completely agree.

A role-playing game is a game where you play a role, and the reason we don't count every single game ever made as a role-playing game is because YOU play the role, not that you just control a character who HAS a pre-made role. Diablo is NOT really an rpg, it's a hack n' slash. MMORPG's can be role-playing games, it depends.

Not to mention that leveling without any control over stat gains or ability points or things of that nature isn't really playing a role either, it's just growth.

I don't really feel like arguing over this, I'll just conclude with you are mistaken (and quite possibly an offended FF fanboy).

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

snip

I wrote up a long, detailed reply and lost the whole damn thing.

So here's a summary:

1) Improvised D&D content is greatly rewarding when done well. Prepared content of any variety is more sophisticated and profound. Which you prefer is a matter of personal preference, I suppose. I like both, but tend toward the latter.

2) I did care about the characters in the aforementioned Bioware games. In the way that you liked the imagination you could add to Morrowind (and I did with Oblivion) to fill in your own story, I tended to fill in what was not explicitly stated by the characters in a way consistent with how they presented themselves. I felt like I knew them (though this is increasingly true as you go from ME1->ME2->DA:O). This difference just about completely explains our differing perspectives on these games, I think.

3) Still think DA:O is way darker than LotR. Responding loosely to your points: Why should I care about stuff that happened to people I never knew or places I only heard about in history? All of the truly nasty corruptions of the ring happened before The Hobbit. Had I known and loved Smeagol, perhaps his conversion to Gollum would have been deeply tragic... but I didn't. LotR creates a credible threat in Sauron and the ring, but the characters triumph over it (almost) completely.

4) Character depth in ME1-2 and DA:O. In short, even a stock archetype can become a person if the writing and performance is good. You don't have to check differences off a list to make the person interesting. They just have to seem real. Difference is overrated, I think As to your specific examples.... meh, I didn't think Garrus and Jacob were all that similar. Your point is better taken with Samara and Thane, but even then, they only seem similar to me if you list features on a page. Actually interacting with them and seeing the performances... they don't seem very similar at all. You know that intuitive feeling you get about a person? I got that with the Mass Effect 2 characters and even more so with the Dragon Age Origins characters. So arguing about a list of features we could put in a stock biography seems pointless to me. They felt like real people *shrug*

5) The writing of ME1-2 and DA:O is sub-par video game writing? I couldn't disagree more. I have maybe 35 games from this console generation, and perhaps 2 of them (Fallout 3 and GTA IV) compare in terms of writing. Not exceed. Compare. Add PC releases I haven't had access to (I haven't done any PC gaming since 2006), and maybe we'll get to 5 games. Maybe you meant for roleplaying games? Even then, I'd disagree, but so few video games truly deserve the label "role playing game" that there at least wouldn't be many games with which to compare.

I thought it was kind of funny that someone else in the thread, when asked what roleplaying games he *likes* if he doesn't like Bioware games, said "Planescape Torment"

Seriously. Has he not liked a video game in over 10 years? Why frequent a site *about* video games? Sometimes I feel like people complain just to be contrary.

EDIT: Or, more likely, they happen to like games that are not widely considered to be beyond reproach and don't want to admit to it for fear that they'll be called out as not having standards nearly so exacting as they pretend.

 

[Starke]

snip

I wrote up a long, detailed reply and lost the whole damn thing.

So here's a summary:

1) Improvised D&D content is greatly rewarding when done well. Prepared content of any variety is more sophisticated and profound. Which you prefer is a matter of personal preference, I suppose. I like both, but tend toward the latter.

2) I did care about the characters in the aforementioned Bioware games. In the way that you liked the imagination you could add to Morrowind (and I did with Oblivion) to fill in your own story, I tended to fill in what was not explicitly stated by the characters in a way consistent with how they presented themselves. I felt like I knew them (though this is increasingly true as you go from ME1->ME2->DA:O). This difference just about completely explains our differing perspectives on these games, I think.

With one serious caveat: just because you enjoy something does not mean it is good. For example: I enjoy The Bourne Identity, but that doesn't change the fact that it isn't a good book.

This is where the characters from most Bioware releases end up. You may like them, but that doesn't mean they're qualitatively good.

3) Still think DA:O is way darker than LotR. Responding loosely to your points: Why should I care about stuff that happened to people I never knew or places I only heard about in history? All of the truly nasty corruptions of the ring happened before The Hobbit. Had I known and loved Smeagol, perhaps his conversion to Gollum would have been deeply tragic... but I didn't. LotR creates a credible threat in Sauron and the ring, but the characters triumph over it (almost) completely.

The failure of this argument, and I lead you into it, but it's still intrinsic, Lord of the Rings isn't supposed to be dark fantasy. It's the goddamn paragon of high fantasy as a genre. And, it really isn't possible to hold Dragon Age up against something that is legitimate dark fantasy and retain that illusion. It's more An-emo-on-facebook fantasy, than dark fantasy. The illustration of Lord of the Rings isn't meant to convey how LotR is really dark, it's how Bioware completely missed the genre they were aiming for and ended up in a nearby zipcode. (Returning to your comments on my previous post ages after I wrote it, and that obscured my original intent behind the argument.)

4) Character depth in ME1-2 and DA:O. In short, even a stock archetype can become a person if the writing and performance is good.

This is actually two completely separate elements. The writing is, in general bad. For a snapshot, quickly name off the party members in Mass Effect 2 who don't have family issues tied into their loyalty quests at the hip.[footnote]Basically, all of them (including Legion and Zaeed).[/footnote]

On the other hand we have the voice acting, which manages to salvage some really horrifically bad writing, but that's been the case for Bioware since Knights of the Old Republic.

You don't have to check differences off a list to make the person interesting. They just have to seem real. Difference is overrated, I think As to your specific examples.... meh, I didn't think Garrus and Jacob were all that similar.

(Think Garrus from ME1, not 2) A young man striving in vain to please his father ends up in the military and affiliated with a group of dubious morality?

Your point is better taken with Samara and Thane, but even then, they only seem similar to me if you list features on a page. Actually interacting with them and seeing the performances... they don't seem very similar at all.

I'd wager, that's because you bought in to the characters. Based on the actual material presented, there really isn't a lot.

You know that intuitive feeling you get about a person? I got that with the Mass Effect 2 characters and even more so with the Dragon Age Origins characters.

*twitches*

On one hand, I want to write: "If you're only contact with the rest of the human race involves people who are completely neurotic to the point of being sociopaths, then you probably need to get out more." But, at the same time I don't really want to come across as quite that condescending.

So arguing about a list of features we could put in a stock biography seems pointless to me. They felt like real people *shrug*

For me they don't. Flat out. And frequently they cross a threshold into completely impossible. As I've said elsewhere, Jack is about as realistic as a tap dancing iguana. There is quite literally no possible way a person could be subjected to what she was supposed to have been put through, and resulted in a personality even remotely similar to the one presented.

You can kinda fake a buy out with the aliens and say their psychology doesn't sync up with human psychology, but that still doesn't excuse some absolutely batshit characters whose history and behavior are completely incompatible.

5) The writing of ME1-2 and DA:O is sub-par video game writing?

Okay, here you have me, congratulations, you found a dangling modifier.

But, yes, Bioware's writing is bad, even in the context of videogames. Their plots are poorly developed and symplistic, their characters... well, there's the previous break to reference there, and their production values are top notch.

That most games produced today actually feature worse writing, doesn't make Dragon Age's writing better, it simply means the average has been undermined in the last decade.

I couldn't disagree more. I have maybe 35 games from this console generation, and perhaps 2 of them (Fallout 3 and GTA IV) compare in terms of writing.

See. Fallout 3 actually got blasted for how much poorer it's writing was compared to the previous games. Compared to the original game, Fallout 3's writing is bad. Particularly in it's plot structuring. The dialog isn't particularly bad (though I know someone will disagree with me on that point.)

In contrast, on the subject of GTA4, I agree, it is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen in the last couple of years in a game.

Not exceed. Compare. Add PC releases I haven't had access to (I haven't done any PC gaming since 2006), and maybe we'll get to 5 games. Maybe you meant for roleplaying games?

No, I didn't.

Even then, I'd disagree, but so few video games truly deserve the label "role playing game" that there at least wouldn't be many games with which to compare.

Depending on what you define as truly worthy... yeah... no. For the record I consider Shadow of Chernobyl an RPG.

I thought it was kind of funny that someone else in the thread, when asked what roleplaying games he *likes* if he doesn't like Bioware games, said "Planescape Torment"

Seriously. Has he not liked a video game in over 10 years? Why frequent a site *about* video games? Sometimes I feel like people complain just to be contrary.

EDIT: Or, more likely, they happen to like games that are not widely considered to be beyond reproach and don't want to admit to it for fear that they'll be called out as not having standards nearly so exacting as they pretend.

Yeah, I've no idea. But randomly snarking passers by, does seem kinda pointless to me.

Though... if you asked me to provide an example of what the pinnacle of video game writing can be, I'd probably pull out Torment as one of my first suggestions. It's not because I'm some kind of elitist snob, nor because I'm trying to hide behind it's reputation. I've played it, and it has some serious flaws, but the writing is quite possibly the best I've seen in a game. When compared to that, Dragon Age comes across as shallow pond scum.

 

[Labcoat Samurai]

With one serious caveat: just because you enjoy something does not mean it is good.

The converse is also true.

The failure of this argument, and I lead you into it, but it's still intrinsic, Lord of the Rings isn't supposed to be dark fantasy.

Beside the point. Your point was that Dragon age is a kid-friendly lord of the rings. It is not that. If you want to compare it to genuine dark fantasy, go right ahead. I was taking the lazy approach to counterargument, which is not to give an argument to the antithesis of your point, but rather to undermine your thesis by contradicting the specific points of your argument.

And, it really isn't possible to hold Dragon Age up against something that is legitimate dark fantasy and retain that illusion.

That's easy to say. I mean, personally, I don't particularly care if you think it's dark fantasy or not, and I suspect this argument is a pointless black hole, but feel free to continue or not at your option. Regardless, you're certainly not going to convince me with that

This is actually two completely separate elements. The writing is, in general bad. For a snapshot, quickly name off the party members in Mass Effect 2 who don't have family issues tied into their loyalty quests at the hip.

I *could* do that. Or I could question its relevance to the point. Name a single real person who doesn't have family issues tied into who they are and how they live their lives. People have families. *shrug*

Otherwise.... I guess Garrus's loyalty quest never really references his family. Nor Mordin's. Nor Legion and Zaeed for that matter (despite your footnote). Jack doesn't actually have a literal family. The lack of one could be called a family issue, I suppose, but I'm not really sure how broad a brush you're applying with that term. So, sure, I suspect you can find a contrived way to link these loyalty quests back into something about a person or thing you could loosely call family, but if you had to do that, it would sort of prove my point.

(Think Garrus from ME1, not 2) A young man striving in vain to please his father ends up in the military and affiliated with a group of dubious morality?

Wow, exactly the same! Except in ways that are basically irrelevant. Look, if that's what matters about those characters to you, then sure, they're the same. If the feature about characters that mattered most was gender, then there have only been three kinds of characters in all Bioware games! (I'd say HK-47, for example, is non-gendered)

I'll stick my neck out a bit, though, rather than just being snarky. Garrus, in the first game, was generally angry with the methods of the law. He felt that criminals needed to be stopped, and it was not possible to stop them by following the rules. He had lost sight of what makes us better than the criminals. You, as Commander Shepard have the option of reinforcing this or showing him there is another way (incidentally, *that* is something I wish ME2 remembered better). Jacob, if he's fed up with anything, it's the complete thumb-in-their-asses inaction and refusal to accept that there is any threat to the galaxy. Jacob is more of a boy scout from the start. Even in Cerberus, he'll tend to do the right thing. So, superficially, he and Garrus may have similar one sentence backgrounds, but they play out very differently. Their personalities are different, their approaches to problems and to Shepard are different. They're different. In the ways that matter to me.

I'd wager, that's because you bought in to the characters. Based on the actual material presented, there really isn't a lot.

*shrug* Thane has random acid flashbacks. Seriously, though, I see it the other way around. The similarities are superficial. If you list a feature that both have, it doesn't tell the whole story. I'm sure if I listed their differences, you'd argue the differences are superficial, and it's be one big pointless wank. So let's just agree to disagree. I'm feeling lazy like that.

*twitches*

On one hand, I want to write: "If you're only contact with the rest of the human race involves people who are completely neurotic to the point of being sociopaths, then you probably need to get out more."

There's a gulf of difference between "real people" and "people I personally know". I didn't mean "Oh, Garrus is just like my friend Jeff!" I meant "Garrus, other than being an alien, seems like he isn't a cardboard cut-out, but a real person"

But, at the same time I don't really want to come across as quite that condescending.

Too late.... I mean, you did go ahead and write it after all, didn't you?

For me they don't. Flat out. And frequently they cross a threshold into completely impossible. As I've said elsewhere, Jack is about as realistic as a tap dancing iguana. There is quite literally no possible way a person could be subjected to what she was supposed to have been put through, and resulted in a personality even remotely similar to the one presented.

Ok, you're saying something particularly interesting, here. I'll bite. Let's hear why. I found it believable, and presumably you have a reason why you didn't. Maybe I'll find it compelling.

See. Fallout 3 actually got blasted for how much poorer it's writing was compared to the previous games. Compared to the original game, Fallout 3's writing is bad. Particularly in it's plot structuring. The dialog isn't particularly bad (though I know someone will disagree with me on that point.)

I did feel it suffered in pacing. The setup was very good, but by the time the story with your dad went anywhere, they had lost the hook. I really cared when I left the vault, and by the time I found him, I had to sort of force myself back into the mindset of caring.

In contrast, on the subject of GTA4, I agree, it is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen in the last couple of years in a game.

It's very good. I guess if we count comedy writing, Portal is really really good as well. And I quite liked Bioshock.

Depending on what you define as truly worthy... yeah... no. For the record I consider Shadow of Chernobyl an RPG.

It also depends on how you define "many"

When compared to that, Dragon Age comes across as shallow pond scum.

*sigh* ok. We irreconcilably differ on some of these points. For me, this conclusion doesn't follow from your specific points as presented. So I suspect, as I've more than hinted at, that it comes down to personal taste. You look for different things than I do. I suspect, from your tone, that you think that means you have more sophisticated taste. Thinking about it for a moment... eh, that's fine with me. I'm free to disagree about that too. So I think we're good

 

[Starke]

With one serious caveat: just because you enjoy something does not mean it is good.

The converse is also true.

And your point is? Remember I like most of the Bioware library. I'm just under no illusion that their writing is good.

I like the games because they tend to feature fantastic gameplay, and usually have a pretty decent range of options and customization, which allows for some varied gameplay. Even Dragon Age, the entry I'm less than fond of, has a really solid tactical RPG base under the surface. For me it's obscured by the real time format, but, that's personal preference and not something I'm inclined to hold against them seriously.

The failure of this argument, and I lead you into it, but it's still intrinsic, Lord of the Rings isn't supposed to be dark fantasy.

Beside the point.

I'm not sure I see how the intent of my comments is beside the point.

Your point was that Dragon age is a kid-friendly lord of the rings.

I never said anything of the kind. Neither Lord of the Rings, nor Dragon Age is what I would consider kid friendly by any stretch.

It is not that.

Indeed.

If you want to compare it to genuine dark fantasy, go right ahead.

Why thank you, I will...

...

...

...Yeah, that didn't work out so well for Dragon Age.

I was taking the lazy approach to counterargument, which is not to give an argument to the antithesis of your point, but rather to undermine your thesis by contradicting the specific points of your argument.

Yeah, that didn't work out so well. As a piece of advice arguing that LotR isn't darker than DAO is neither. The fact remains that thematically they're in the same territory, and the only differentiation is the amount of sex. But, neither is dark fantasy.

BTW, assaulting individual pieces of evidence rather than attacking the thesis actually takes more work, generally speaking, so it's neither the lazy nor the easy approach and you should be commended for that. The lazy approach tends to involve attacking the thesis and ignoring the evidence.

And, it really isn't possible to hold Dragon Age up against something that is legitimate dark fantasy and retain that illusion.

That's easy to say.

And easier still to type.

I mean, personally, I don't particularly care if you think it's dark fantasy or not, and I suspect this argument is a pointless black hole, but feel free to continue or not at your option.

Again, this was all parenthetical, so yeah, that's exactly what to expect, an endless black hole filled with grue.

Regardless, you're certainly not going to convince me with that

But, I has cookies.

If you want a flash card for what I'm describing go dig up The Last Wish by Andrzej Sapkowski. The English translation is actually pretty good, and it's a short story anthology, so it's pretty accessible in bite sized chunks.

This is actually two completely separate elements. The writing is, in general bad. For a snapshot, quickly name off the party members in Mass Effect 2 who don't have family issues tied into their loyalty quests at the hip.

I *could* do that. Or I could question its relevance to the point.

The relevance is, its the same trick being played over and over. Now, in general as a writer you want to vary things up a bit, unless you're going for a theme. You could argue that that's exactly what Bioware's been going for in every game since Neverwinter Nights, but that seems more like a cop out, especially when the devs claim they're aiming for other themes instead, and never mention it.

Name a single real person who doesn't have family issues tied into who they are and how they live their lives.

That would actually be most people. I know a few who are affected by their families in that kind of way, but there's a major difference between the way Bioware portrays family ties and their effects and reality.

People have families.

Indeed, they do. Or, they don't and it's a different kind of dynamic. Either way, most people don't act completely neurotically as a result.

*shrug*

Think of it this way, you've known your parrents all your life. Now after 27 years of experience with my parents, concern over my father's health (he's 72) does raise some strange behavior towards him from me, but that behavior doesn't extend to others. In every single case I can think of, Bioware characters, when they have family issues feel compelled to share them with the player. They always act neurotically because of their family issues. And they always have only a single one. This combination stretches credibility and speaks of sloppy repetitive writing, not authenticity.

Otherwise.... I guess Garrus's loyalty quest never really references his family.

However, his dialog in ME1 establishes pretty heavily that his father has been a dominating influence in his life.

Nor Mordin's.

The closest we get is the betrayal of his former team member. His reaction to his former assistant's betrayal is more consistent with family than that of a (somewhat) hardened operative's reaction to betrayal by a colleague. And his assistant's behavior is incredibly similar to the petulant BS we get from Thane's child.

Nor Legion and Zaeed for that matter (despite your footnote).

Legion is a family issue in the most literal sense. His family is at war with itself. This comes off of the nature of the geth architecture. In a very real way they're all family.

Zaeed is more of a fraternal issue. The Blue Suns are his family, in a very concrete way. But, I do conceed that this is one of the weaker suggestions. The other one is Kosumi. Interesting that they're also the two DLC characters.

Jack doesn't actually have a literal family. The lack of one could be called a family issue, I suppose, but I'm not really sure how broad a brush you're applying with that term.

It kind of is. I mean, in a way she's more the abused child, and you can paint Cerberus as her family, but her lack of a family is what I was alluding to.

So, sure, I suspect you can find a contrived way to link these loyalty quests back into something about a person or thing you could loosely call family, but if you had to do that, it would sort of prove my point.

For the most part I'm trying to keep it fairly narrow. Aside from the DLC characters the only one that stands at odds is Garrius (who got his dues in in the first game), and Mordin (who certainly behaves like it.)

(Think Garrus from ME1, not 2) A young man striving in vain to please his father ends up in the military and affiliated with a group of dubious morality?

Wow, exactly the same! Except in ways that are basically irrelevant. Look, if that's what matters about those characters to you, then sure, they're the same. If the feature about characters that mattered most was gender, then there have only been three kinds of characters in all Bioware games! (I'd say HK-47, for example, is non-gendered)

I'll stick my neck out a bit, though, rather than just being snarky. Garrus, in the first game, was generally angry with the methods of the law. He felt that criminals needed to be stopped, and it was not possible to stop them by following the rules. He had lost sight of what makes us better than the criminals. You, as Commander Shepard have the option of reinforcing this or showing him there is another way (incidentally, *that* is something I wish ME2 remembered better). Jacob, if he's fed up with anything, it's the complete thumb-in-their-asses inaction and refusal to accept that there is any threat to the galaxy. Jacob is more of a boy scout from the start. Even in Cerberus, he'll tend to do the right thing. So, superficially, he and Garrus may have similar one sentence backgrounds, but they play out very differently. Their personalities are different, their approaches to problems and to Shepard are different. They're different. In the ways that matter to me.

I'll admit, there are much better examples when you start crossing games.

A couple snapshots that come to mind are the Aribeth/Bastilla/Silk Fox/Miranda, Canderus/Black Whirlwind/Sten/Wrex/Grunt, Imoen/Mission/Tali, and so on. Shamus Young has written an article [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/experienced-points/6862-Experienced-Points-The-Writers-of-BioWare] on the subject if you want a full and carefully considered write up. (It doesn't include ME2 and doesn't use the same groupings I do.)

I'd wager, that's because you bought in to the characters. Based on the actual material presented, there really isn't a lot.

*shrug* Thane has random acid flashbacks.

Oh god, those annoyed me so much.

Seriously, though, I see it the other way around. The similarities are superficial. If you list a feature that both have, it doesn't tell the whole story. I'm sure if I listed their differences, you'd argue the differences are superficial, and it's be one big pointless wank. So let's just agree to disagree. I'm feeling lazy like that.

So no cookie for you then?

*twitches*

On one hand, I want to write: "If you're only contact with the rest of the human race involves people who are completely neurotic to the point of being sociopaths, then you probably need to get out more."

There's a gulf of difference between "real people" and "people I personally know". I didn't mean "Oh, Garrus is just like my friend Jeff!" I meant "Garrus, other than being an alien, seems like he isn't a cardboard cut-out, but a real person"

But, at the same time I don't really want to come across as quite that condescending.

Too late.... I mean, you did go ahead and write it after all, didn't you?

But sarcasim is so much fun.

For me they don't. Flat out. And frequently they cross a threshold into completely impossible. As I've said elsewhere, Jack is about as realistic as a tap dancing iguana. There is quite literally no possible way a person could be subjected to what she was supposed to have been put through, and resulted in a personality even remotely similar to the one presented.

Ok, you're saying something particularly interesting, here. I'll bite. Let's hear why. I found it believable, and presumably you have a reason why you didn't. Maybe I'll find it compelling.

To generate a character like Jack's psychology, what you would need is a basically nurturing, but restrictive environment. Religious extremists might fit the bill (and similar stimuli have resulted in similar results historically). But realistically a fairly average upbringing with a low level of familial resentment combined with an extreme trigger event sometime in her late teens (loss of family in a bataarian raid would work) would be more reliable. This has to be after her model of social norms and softer personally have been pretty well established. After that, her post Cerberus experiences could model something of the personality we see, but its her early history that undermines this model.

What Jack fundamentally lacks would be social norms to rebel against. Her treatment should result in a character who is predatory and feral, or completely devoid of emotion and psychopathic. A combination of both is possible, but would be rather bizarre.

See. Fallout 3 actually got blasted for how much poorer it's writing was compared to the previous games. Compared to the original game, Fallout 3's writing is bad. Particularly in it's plot structuring. The dialog isn't particularly bad (though I know someone will disagree with me on that point.)

I did feel it suffered in pacing. The setup was very good, but by the time the story with your dad went anywhere, they had lost the hook. I really cared when I left the vault, and by the time I found him, I had to sort of force myself back into the mindset of caring.

Yeah. The pacing and difficulty curve have always been a little weird in the Fallout franchise. It's actually the lack of freedom though, that's the issue. Fallout 1, when it presented you with a hostage situation would then follow it with about four or five ways of solving it. Fallout 3 generally boils down to a handful of options, and, when it comes to the main story, a single option only (every main quest vault and (original) ending come to mind here).

In contrast, on the subject of GTA4, I agree, it is one of the best pieces of writing I've seen in the last couple of years in a game.

It's very good. I guess if we count comedy writing, Portal is really really good as well. And I quite liked Bioshock.

Not a comprehensive list by any means, but excellent writing in recent video games: Bioshock and Bioshock 2, Alpha Protocol, Two Worlds (the game is actually successfully doing some quite complex things structurally with the writing, and the dialog, while weird (very weird (no weirder than that)) and anachronistic, is consistent and entertaining (in a renfair on mescaline kind of way)), Saints Row 2, Far Cry 2 (though that could be my fondness for Nietzsche seeping through), Metro 2033 (though there may be translation issues), The Witcher, and Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (though the original game is also quite well written). I'm tempted to add Dawn of War 2 to the list as well, because, while hammy as fuck, it accurately captures the tone of the Marines from the setting, and would be a fairly interesting mystery (if the various factions weren't all detailed on the box for multiplayer).

Depending on what you define as truly worthy... yeah... no. For the record I consider Shadow of Chernobyl an RPG.

It also depends on how you define "many"

Why am I reminded of President Clinton debating the meaning of "the"? Regardless, this was spinning off a comment you attributed incorrectly to me.

When compared to that, Dragon Age comes across as shallow pond scum.

*sigh* ok. We irreconcilably differ on some of these points. For me, this conclusion doesn't follow from your specific points as presented. So I suspect, as I've more than hinted at, that it comes down to personal taste.

In this particular statement you seem to be breaking from context and attributing it as a global statement. It isn't.

When you take Dragon Age and hold it against a game like Planescape Torment, a couple themes emerge. On the writing side of things, DAO's is practically non-existant and has (comparatively) little effect. In the case of Torment, the point is trying to replicate a DMed game through dialog, while Dragon Age is more in line with Baldur's Gate (from the same era) in that it is a combat game with little snips of dialog inserted to create a coherent theme from one battle to the next. On the combat and strategy side, DAO actually comes out ahead. In Torment you play a character who is, quite literally, immortal. You can't be killed, you have regeneration (+3 at CON 12 IIRC), and as a result combat is fairly meaningless.

Now, if your rubric is the quality of a game is determined by the quality of your writing, then Bioware is screwed. If you're looking at a combination of all elements of a game, well that explains why I still keep buying their games.

You look for different things than I do. I suspect, from your tone, that you think that means you have more sophisticated taste.

Might be a sign I'm turning into an old bastard. Mowing down loads of enemies still entertains me, but not as much as it used to.

Thinking about it for a moment... eh, that's fine with me. I'm free to disagree about that too. So I think we're good