/meg/ - Mass Effect General

>mass-effect themed reaction images
i wish i had more

I have a question for you meg. In a convention a few years ago, Mac was asked about returning characters in the new ME game and long story short, he said that asking for more of the old characters is attachment and attachment to fictional characters is bad. What is your stance on the matter?

...

...

If we don't get attached to characters, the creator of those characters failed.

Good, you opened this message

People like you are a cancer; rats infesting the once hallowed halls of /meg/. I am the chemo that will remove that cancer. When I am done, we will finally return this general to its former glory. Heh..... hope you.... enjoyed youre little general..... because i've come to end it. Say goodnight..... KIDDO

...

I wish we can post images.

i don't thinks it's bad if it makes sense and is done right.

what would be bad is liara showing up in Andromeda.

what was done right was when Wrex took back his place as the Urdnot chieftain

but there's no problem is getting attached to characters. this guy is right.

i think he was referring to weirdos who obsess over characters and make porn of them

But Mac said we shouldn't and that attachment is bad. That's why he's taking as as far away from the old characters, to save us and introduce his brand spanking new and improved characters, right?

...

>That's why he's taking as as far away from the old characters
no he was making up a bullshit explanation for his new game because bioware fucked up so badly with ME3

Everything need to strike a happy medium. I agree that if we don't grow attached to characters, then the creators of said characters have failed to make players connect, but too much attachement leads to the impossibility for those character to have any sort of character development because it would alienate the fanbase.
If people get too attached to a particular character, then they would get mad if that particular character somehow change, be it through character development, change of design or even death.

...

>i think he was referring to weirdos who obsess over characters and make porn of them
I only got interested in MKX after the tons of Cassie Cage porn, so I wouldn't say porn is hurting the games. I'm sure other people feel the same.

...

...

Depends on the quality of said porn, I'd say. Same with all fan creation, really.
If the porn is good, then it will bring people to the game because they could grow curious about it.
If the porn is bad or out-there, people will get creeped out by someone else weird fetishes.
Tho the ability to decide what is good or what is bad as to do with someone's taste, I think.

...

>then they would get mad if that particular character somehow change, be it through character development, change of design
Liara changed immeasurably in terms of character and nobody batted an eye. Jack changed in personality as well as looks and people loved that as well.

I am not particularly fond of character deaths as, in my opinion, that destroys the potential of said character and should be avoided at all costs, unless their death is pivotal or sensible to the narrative. Otherwise you get something like Thane's death in ME3, which is comically bad.

There will always be the creeps that are into weird fetishes and want to see that with characters. If you're going to start with that assumption in mind, you don't begin writing any characters, at all, ever.

...

...

...

Love it

Liara and Jack changed, but not all people were pleased about it. I remember people being put off by Liara not being the naive science girl she was in ME1. It all depends with your potential audience ability to accept change and see it as good opportunity, to be able to let go of old things and accept new things.

Creeps are creeps, there will always be creeps, but if your first contact with a license is through creepy porn, I don't think it would make a nice first impression. I could be making assumption, tho, and I'm also guilty of making porn writefaggotry in the setting of ME.

...

...

...

...

I liked how they mellowed out Jack, although I've only ever romanced Jack so it always made sense to me

I actually romanced Liara in ME1 and was completely put off by new ruthlessly ambitious attitude in me2. so you got a point there

>Kaileng poster posting cute fan-art and diverse piece of artwork.
>Kaileng poster not jumping at other people's throat like a rabid dog.
>Kaileng poster doing God's work and not imagedumping too harshly yet

I'm 100% behind you, Kailengposter.
For now

...

>I remember people being put off by Liara not being the naive science girl she was in ME1
I don't remember such a thing

>but if your first contact with a license is through creepy porn
then you are probably hanging around a specific creepy porn place, for said creepy porn to begin with. Which makes you a creepy perv.

Creepy porn is hard to come by. You don't just stumble on it, even on regular porn sites. You need to know where to look for that shit, just to get past the vanilla stuff.

...

So far so good

>Kaileng poster doing God's work and not imagedumping too harshly
Hes literally posting at the same pace

Ugh

...

the OPs get worse and worse, seriously. if you sacrifice your time to make one, at least put some fucking effort into it
>inb4 why didn't you make one then
been off all day, just came back

>Kaidanposting turned to Kai Leng posting
excellent!

...

Pleasing everyone is an impossible task for any creator, and the more a project gets famous and big, the more divisive it can become if something goes wrong with its reception.
Audience tends to get a sense of ownership over a work's content : they tends to gets a sense of "belonging", especially in RPGs and wide-open sandboxes where choices are important. For example you never says "I made Shepard choose this instead of that", you say "I choose this instead of that".
Things tends to get heated when the audience vision for a world clash with the author vision of the world. The "what should be for me to enjoy it" versus the "what should be for me to enjoy creating it."

I don't know, maybe I'm pretty naive.
Also apologies for the bad english, it's hard to explain.

...

Are you trying to discourage people from starting new threads or what?

It's a shit OP

What's bad about it anyway?

What's a good OP then?
>inb4 "not this!"

Not this

If you don't know how to please your audience, the one that has been playing your games for nearly 20 years now, then maybe you shouldn't do the whole "your choices matter" thing. Especially when you're not going to have those choices matter, either way, because you're going to cut corners and avoid the work, by offering cop outs. But, in my opinion, Bioware already knew all of that, they just decided to go "fuck it".

...

No, but I am trying to discourage people from doing fucking terrible OPs. Is it that hard to read that out of my post?

It's lazy with nothing in it. There's been all kinds of new news and developments that could be in there for instance

...

I get what you are trying to say. That's the problem with RPGS and the like. If it's good people have an emotional connection which is the problemost but also the desired outcone and that can lead to conflict as people's emotions and feelings differ from that of the creators

So this is your new job now is it, Quietposter? Still as autistic as ever I see.

>Quietposter
What have I missed?

We have a plethora of collages readily available, which have become our trademark, but for the last 1-2 weeks we only had those retarded shit images as OPs.
A link to them is in the pastebin.

...

>bitch to make someone make an OP because you are lazy
>someone makes it but you don't like it
>bitch some more

...

This is the first time I've ever come to this general, and I immediately recognised the posting style of the guy image dumping this thread to death, because he did exactly the same thing to /mgg/ with pictures of the character Quiet. For some reason he thinks it's his duty to 'kill off' ailing generals, even though the generals he decides need purging are no less active than many others on the board.

Basically he's fucking cancer that should have been permabanned long ago, and if there was a button in front of me that ended his life I'd press it.

I think that in the ME trilogy, choices mattered on a smaller scale. Characters can be present or dead and have to be replaced, some sidequests needs a specific person (Legion and Tali have to be both alive to broker peace), to be alive and be dealt with a certain way (Gianna will only kiss a male shepard that helped her on Noveria). The scene in ME3 where Kai Leng tries to assassinate the Salarian councilior goes to multiple checks : The first one determine which councilior is attacked (old one or new one), second determine Thane from ME2 is alive (if yes, assassination fails), third one determine if Kirahe from ME1 is alive (if yes, assassination fails.) If both Thane and Kirrahe are dead then the assassination is successful and either the old or new councilior dies.

If I compare another RPG trilogy where you have choices but they don't even matter on the small scale is when in the Witcher 3 there is absolutely no indication that Geralt helped the Scoia'tel in W1, helped Iorveth in W2, he still have to deal with Roche. Saskia's fate is never adressed in game. The Striga princess fate is never adressed.

On one side, ME trilogy got so bloated with having to have repercussion for multiple small-scale and big-scale choices that it got too big without having to resort to a cop-out.
On the other side, W trilogy do not adress any choices and give a streamline experience.

Finding a right balance is pretty hard, I think.

Took far too long to figure out it's that one guy. Just ignore.

...

Quiet a shit. Fuck off to your shit general

I wasn't here, I couldn't make it. else we would have had a proper one.

...

what is that monster on the left?
femshep? sounds about right

...

Youre retarded. We don't need even more retarded rapefugees here, begone.

You also have to take into account the new players that can get into a lore-heavy game. You need to explain to them who they are, what they did in the games they missed and why they should care. If you don't, you risk alienating the new player-base that don't want to have to buy 2 games or read 3 books just to understand why this character is important and close to the main character.

And you also have to deal with the fact that a game, like any creation, has an end. Having to deal with endings, having to deal with the loss of the character you get emotionally attached too is hard to deal with.
It's the feeling you get when you look at the last blank page of a book you really like, that empty feeling that there is no going back, nothing to look forward anymore, no possibility to change things, no possibility to experiment that book the first time again. It's a very hard feeling to deal with and it can leads to disapointement if you feel like there should have been more, or that it should have been something different.
The more a work inspire its audience, the harder it is for the audience to deal with its inevitable loss.

Raiden from Metal Gear Rising Revengerance

...

...

Fuck me, forgot the one thing you must always include youtube.com/watch?v=N3472Q6kvg0

...

...

...

...

...

Thanks for proving me right. I knew you were too weak to resist kaidanposting.

...

>I think that in the ME trilogy, choices mattered on a smaller scale
But they are so superficial and shallow. Someone else taking up a previous character's place is not resolution or a culmination. It's a stand-in, a cop-out. Similarly, the choices that had some effect are so underwhelming and totally not worthy of the hype Bioware built the games up for.

The Striga princess' fate is addressed in TW2. You actually meet her, if she is alive, if only in passing. I do not remember much of the games to state you true or false on the other choices. I have yet to play TW3. I am not particularly fond of the games.

Not being able to manage the choices you had implemented in your games shows lack of insight, problem in management or even worse, intentional false advertisement in order to sell your game. These are all problems on the side of the developer.

...

I'm not the kaidanposter though

At least not the original one you're talking about. But now you just encouraged me to continue his legacy

...

...

...

...

...

...