TheSchwab_7
Member
It seems like the entire series has been retconned since lolware has no idea what they are doing anymore.
Mass Effect 3 SPOILER THREAD: LOTS OF SPECULATION FROM EVERYONE
- Thread starter XANDER CAGE
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The boss character/monster is an outdated notion, and wholly out of place in Mass Effect.
Nothing screams "HEY, I'M PLAYING A VIDEO GAME!" like a boss battle.
That may be because you are playing video games. Mass Effect is a video game.
You need to play better videogames with better bosses.
This is one of the reasons that japan falling behind this gen is so sad. The west doesn't design bosses as well as the east.
Riposte
Member
I like the idea of you hunting and being hunted by the indoctrinated. I would have love to see stuff like "Leviathan" on the Batarian homeworld playing out.
It's funny because this fits better with the game BioWare wants to make. It is almost story breaking to be doing quests while Earth is actively being destroyed by the strongest force in the known universe. Ultimately, I found some of the "Galaxy at War" theme to be cool though. Stuff like the refugee camp on the Citadel and a war room being built into your ship lol.
I figured that is why they were building a Reaper. To take the place of Sovereign triggering the invasion. Evidently that was wrong.
SerArthurDayne
Member
Preconceptions, and possibly because Tali did not look like Quarians of 300 years ago. Legion hinted at the latter. Romance only hint I would presume based on the conversation.
Quarians always wear suits. They are fragile, even in a mostly sterile environment like the ships. They have to be locked in bubbles to be out of the suits, and they still get sick from direct contact with others similarly situated. Also it has now become a cultural and social norm.
Reapers were retconned to have superspeed. But they still can't catch the Normandy.
Empty Space
Member
There's nothing wrong with a boss battle if it is implemented well and has reasonable mechanics. SoTC is often thrown out as the consummate video games are art argument and that is a game with 13 boss battles.
Edit: I should add I'm okay with the choice not to have one in ME3 if they couldn't think of something that didn't feel totally contrived.
SerArthurDayne
Member
I'm okay with no boss battle. At least no boss battle is better than the Illusive Hulk idea. I was actually kind of disappointed when Saren killed himself and turned into cyberman.
Riposte, either you or MiamiWesker needs an avatar change for the next few days.
Riposte, either you or MiamiWesker needs an avatar change for the next few days.
Riposte
Member
Mediocre wave-based gun fights doesn't scream "Hey, I'm playing a video game"? What about third person controls in a third person shooter?
It is not like a showdown with the (highly capable) villain is a unique aspect to games.
Laughing Wesker is best Wesker.
Again, to say that the level of cooperation is unique to this cycle seems like a massive contrivance. Any space-faring species would have to have developed a level of cooperation on their own and so the notion that no cycle before could have extended that as far as it is in this cycle (which really isn't that extensive) seems rather implausible. If you make it that far, you're aware of the benefits of cooperation and so it's likely you'll extend it to other species.
What I'm challenging is what the criteria is. Why wouldn't synthesis have been used from the get go instead of murdering trillions for millions of years? There would have be a damn good reason for not doing it before and there would have to be something really special about this cycle. I don't see much that would be particularly special about this cycle being more worthy than others, especially not when *everyone in the galaxy responsible or not gets it*
TIM was indoctrinated. If he "won" the Reapers won. This is even explicitly stated by star child. Further, the argument is over whether this cycle is somehow special and it's being said that it is because of the cooperation. TIM clearly wouldn't have provided the cooperation; it still rested on Shepard. My argument is that this cycle really wasn't that special or mature with respect to cooperation.
Yeah if gathering the fleets/convicning people that the reapers were a real threat took multiple games I'd be fine, 95%+ of my favorite mass effect moments have nothing to do with Saren/Soverign/Collectors/Reapers, it's the character arcs of Wrex/Garrus/Liara/Tali and reading every planet description when I'm going through the galaxy.
Guess we just have to agree to disagree especially with a Wesker avatar since Resident Evil is one of the biggest offenders of "hmmm what's next idk random bad guy takes more virus and turns into a giant monster with orange blobs to shoot?".
It is a bit a plot hole itself. I always took it as Sovereign having gotten as close as he did, was able to wake the Reapers into action, but was not able to bring the relay online. That should have been stated somewhere though (or something to that effect) rather than leaving it up in the air and uncertain.
You used the Protheans as an example of how much more advanced they were, yet when it came down to it they couldn't achieve what you claim is so achievable in their cycle. You are just assuming that it is so simple to achieve such cooperation, which led to the completion of the Crucible.
alerus said:
Because the Catalyst, whatever it ultimately is/was, wanted organics to evolve to a certain point before presenting the option. I have stated this numerous times and I am sticking to it until proven wrong. If you disagree that is fine; I just don't feel like going in circles about it any longer.
matrix-cat
Member
Hey guys, can we talk about how lame it is that they didn't show any Quarian faces? I'm not even talking about the Gettyimages debacle for Tali, I'm talking about wasting every damn opportunity for what seems like no reason at all.
I always felt it was weird in ME2 how Tali would show Shepard her face when they banged, but it was hidden from the camera. Shepard is supposed to be just an analogue for the player, and whenever we see things that Shepard can't it always feels weird. But that non-reveal of Tali's face kind of spoiled the whole mystery because now the character I'm playing as knows what she looks like and I don't. So if they ever did a big reveal in ME3 Shepard would just be all, "...yup", because he already knows the score.
Then I found myself wondering if maybe everyone in the entire Mass Effect universe knows what they look like. I mean, they've only been wearing suits for 300 years, and this is a universe where that's the blink of an eye to two major races. And, fuckin', they have the internet in Mass Effect. They've presumably got educational books about anatomy and stuff. Surely anyone can download a petabyte of Quarian porn straight to their omnitools 24 hours a day. But Mac Walters doesn't seem to take any of that stuff into account and the characters in the game sure act like they have no idea what Quarians look like.
Anyway, you finally broker peace between the Quarians and Geth, you reclaim Rannoch from the Reapers. Tali's standing right there. She takes off her helmet!
FADE TO BLACK.
I about shat. There's a conversation you can have with Tali back on the Normandy later on where she talks about Geth uploading themselves into Quarian suits and futzing with their genetic code to kickstart their immune systems or something, the point of which is that Quarians will be out of them suits in no time. I took this to mean that maybe there'd be a cutscene at the end of the game of a bunch of suitless Quarians rejoicing on Rannoch, but we all know how that went.
The only thing I can imagine is that Bioware just didn't want to spend time getting their artists to model some Quarian faces. Presumably the same reason why we've never seen a female Turian in any of the games, and the female Salarians and Krogan are just males wearing hats.
I always felt it was weird in ME2 how Tali would show Shepard her face when they banged, but it was hidden from the camera. Shepard is supposed to be just an analogue for the player, and whenever we see things that Shepard can't it always feels weird. But that non-reveal of Tali's face kind of spoiled the whole mystery because now the character I'm playing as knows what she looks like and I don't. So if they ever did a big reveal in ME3 Shepard would just be all, "...yup", because he already knows the score.
Then I found myself wondering if maybe everyone in the entire Mass Effect universe knows what they look like. I mean, they've only been wearing suits for 300 years, and this is a universe where that's the blink of an eye to two major races. And, fuckin', they have the internet in Mass Effect. They've presumably got educational books about anatomy and stuff. Surely anyone can download a petabyte of Quarian porn straight to their omnitools 24 hours a day. But Mac Walters doesn't seem to take any of that stuff into account and the characters in the game sure act like they have no idea what Quarians look like.
Anyway, you finally broker peace between the Quarians and Geth, you reclaim Rannoch from the Reapers. Tali's standing right there. She takes off her helmet!
FADE TO BLACK.
I about shat. There's a conversation you can have with Tali back on the Normandy later on where she talks about Geth uploading themselves into Quarian suits and futzing with their genetic code to kickstart their immune systems or something, the point of which is that Quarians will be out of them suits in no time. I took this to mean that maybe there'd be a cutscene at the end of the game of a bunch of suitless Quarians rejoicing on Rannoch, but we all know how that went.
The only thing I can imagine is that Bioware just didn't want to spend time getting their artists to model some Quarian faces. Presumably the same reason why we've never seen a female Turian in any of the games, and the female Salarians and Krogan are just males wearing hats.
Heh.
Modeling a face is no easy task. Even if it would have been unique to Tali. I'm not even sure they really know what Quarians actually look like.
That photoshop was probably a personal initiative from a single dev. No way they spent more than 1 hour on that. They shouldn't have done anything. Just keep the mystery.
That's because I've been working through the various arguments presented for why this cycle is special. For instance, it's been stipulated that us building the crucible made us special, but that was just gifted technology and if you go by technology and science, the protheans win that contest. If it means cooperation between different species, see the argument I have since provided you.
And how have they evolved to a point that is relevant to offer now versus before? Are you sticking by cooperation as the metric? If so, you haven't countered the arguments I've given.
I don't think that Synthesis was possible without the Crucible. Yeah, that doesn't make a lot of sense, but the thing is, Space Kid is only showing you the options you have by controlling the crucible. Space Kid doesn't really have any power over shepard.
Unless you buy into the indoc theory, in which case Space Kid only has enough control over Shepard to make him allucinate stuff unless Shepard resists and chooses destroy. In that case, Synthesis and Control are just hallucinations and there's no point arguing how they are possible.
It makes -slightly- more sense to think that Synthesis is made possible by the crucible, than to think that the Catalyst could have done it all this time.
Forgot about the indoctrination of TIM part. Sloppy thinking.
But still. TIM probably wasn't 100% indoctrinated until the last leg of ME3. Obviously the reapers took control of him partially to make him put Shepard into a trap during ME2, but other than that, he was legit trying to control the reapers.
Maybe someone else inside Cerberus (Kai Leng, Miranda's Dad) could have stopped TIM once it was clear he was 100% indoctrinated and have chosen Control anyway.
MiamiWesker
Member
YOU ARE PLAYING A VIDEO GAME.
The previous cycles failed to finish the Crucible and find the Catalyst and thus were never able to speak to him. They were stomped out long before they could get to that point, outside of the Protheans, who came very close.
The key to getting an audience with the Catalyst wasn't simply to show cooperation, but also to actually find the source - the Citadel. The Protheans discovered that but they were wiped out (outside of Javik) before they could do anything.
The contrivance comes with humans finally being the key to solve the Reaper puzzle. It's anthropomorphic bag of dicks stuff. But the previous cycles totally failing - cooperation or not - seems okay.
Cooperation helped build the Crucible super fast, though.
Like, stupid fast. Less than a year to go from alien schematics to finished product that they don't even understand seems too easy.
MiamiWesker
Member
I just watched the ending right now. Synthesis was never an option before, it did not exist. The AI specifically states the crucible changed it and presented it with new options, it was the crucible that made all this happen, not the AI. If this cycle does not make the crucible, nothing changes.
I have no clue where you guys are getting this idea that the AI could have chosen to create a new path all on its own. The crucible is the reason the endings are possible.
The boss battles in Mass Effect are not needed because all three games have extended sequences with Shephard rushing to some final destination under an apocalyptic threat. That fits with the game world. What is severely out of place is the extended slog to finally reach an enemy who is grossly oversized and can be beaten by discovering and exploiting its pattern or one who behaves in a way that no other enemy has previously.
The idea is immersion, not to draw players out of the fantasy world you've created. When you're aware of how very much this is a video game sequence in a video game, the developers have failed.
Can't be more than a few months at best. Unless you want to save Earth and its population of 1000.
MiamiWesker
Member
But it makes for better gameplay and that should be the focus.
Empty Space
Member
According to the Final Hours app they actually spent quite a lot of time among themselves trying to decide what Tali should look like. They tried several looks and it took them till the end of development to find a look they liked. Take that for what you will, but I still think its extremely lazy to not model something out. From the very begining I expected a scene where when you take Rannoch all the Quarians strip off their hoods and mask. I was extremely disappointed when this didn't happen at the time I figured they just hadn't decided on a look for them and gave up. Taking human mesh and making the necessary adjustments can't be that hard. I bet they could have done most of it with texture anyways.
I should also add that I have no issue with using a stock photo for something under most circumstance. The ending scene with the old man and kind being a stock photo don't bother me at all.
Star child made it possible for the crucible to do synthesis, so clearly he understands the technology. I don't think the crucible was designed for that purpose being as no one has ever met star child and therefore has never been exposed to the absurd motivations of the reapers to even consider that that would stop them. And if star child had the ability to do this, then it should have done it from the beginning instead of the reaper nonsense. Of course, I actually think there are any number of other options that could have been pursed. This is just one they've provided themselves.
In the beginning, TIM didn't even want to create the crucible. He tried to delete the plans and didn't want the alliance to make it. And I don't think he had resources to build it since it was a multi species effort. I think it's fair to say he was screwed from early on.
Prove it!
I'm watching a virtual movie with interactive battles. There's nothing videogamey about that.
The crucible doesn't work without star child. He is what makes synthesis possible. The crucible just projects some power that he makes possible. As I said in my other post, are you telling me that the people designed the crucible as a means to provide synthesis? Why? It's a weapon against the reapers and there is absolutely zero reason for anyone to have expected that if they made everything a hybrid that the reapers would go away. This side of the tech is all on star child and for someone of his abilities it should have been an option from the start.
I still find it odd that they sent a mass relay through a mass relay.
It is good to argue with someone who is presenting semi-logical arguments instead of "ENTITLEMENT". I like Shepard. Even if he's indoctrinated.
It's like a Where's Waldo where every vent kid is Waldo.
They spent hours only to chose a stock photo and poorly shop it... Dear lord Bioware, that's lazy at its finest.
And why is using the synthesis option only viable if a species creates the crucible? Why should it not be provided to species of earlier cycles but should provided to the cycle that makes it?
matrix-cat
Member
That Tali photo just brings up all kinds of questions, though. What's she doing out in a field somewhere? Who took the photo? Did she spend a week filling herself full of antibiotics and immuno-boosters just to run out onto some random planet as the sun went down and then get herself all gussied up for her camera crew? They could at least have altered the background to make it look like Shepard might have taken the photo the last time they were together in his cabin.
I think the perceived notion is that the Crucible is a weapon; however, it's more like a firmware update/add-on. It gives the Citadel's VI new core functionality. Namely three new options and space magic.
How it does that? We don't know.
Zomba13
Member
Yeah. Or at least have it look like Rannoch.
MiamiWesker
Member
And the AI doesn't come up with new solutions without the crucible, they needed each other. I know nothing about what the crucible was built to do, none of us do. What we know is simply what is said in the game and the exact line from the AI kid is this:
"The crucible changed me, created new possibilities, but I can't make them happen, and I won't."
Without what this cycle did there is no new possibility, the reapers keep going.
It's clear that Space Kid understands the technology, yes, but it is obvious* that the crucible is designed in such a way that it won't let the catalyst control it. He needs Shepard to do it for him. Maybe it needs a non indoctrinated organic for it, and that's why Space Kid cannot simply force Shepard into his bidding, but just suggest and try to fool him.
*it is obvious cause if it was possible for Space Kid to make the decision, he wouldn't have bothered talking to Shepard.
Cerberus seems pretty powerful. At least they have tons and tons of troops to throw at Shepard. Maybe it would have taken him longer to build it, but it was possible.
And TIM just didn't want the Crucible plans to fall into Alliance hands, but he wanted all the reaper tech that he could get. Notice that as soon as he deduces that the Citadel is the Catalyst, he flies there.
That's when the indoctrination is finally complete.
Otherwise, he'd just have destroyed the Prothean VI looong before Shepard could gets his hands on it.
Beelzeboss
Member
Anyone else find it weird how fast Paragon Shepard can convince someone to shoot themselves in the head?
Yeah, it was designed as a weapon is my point. No one would have designed the crucible to do the synthesis option. The only reason it can, is because Star Child has the ability to make it do that. In which case why didn't he use this as his solution from the start? The best reason I've been given for waiting till now is because he would only given to species who demonstrated an ability to cooperate, but for the reasons I've stated in a number of posts, I don't see why this cycle is so deserving that everyone in the galaxy gets it.
The notion that star child (or whoever the hell made star child) couldn't have done this himself at the start is absurd though. His power is way beyond anything else. He's the one who made the reapers! Or at least claims its his solution. If it was his creators then so be it, but then the argument just regresses one level.
but isnt the crucible needed to concentrate the energy and send it through the mass relays? in the codex was something like it, that the crucible somehow uses the mass relay to release it's energy. so maybe part the crucible is even more advanced than the reaper tech?
Edit:
alerus said:
But we dont know if the reapers were created in order to harvest organics or if they somehow turned rogue on their creators in order so preserve / safe them.
And the point is the technology should have been available from the start, so why didn't star child or whoever made him use it from the start?
I think its a problem a man power at that point. The best we could do is speculate, but I think the problem is he's screwed by the Reapers from the get go. He could be indoctrinated which means he loses, but Shepard couldn't and that's the supposed reason it's made a-ok for Shepard to do control. I think it's a major cop-out to say Shepard can from the arguments Shepard made throughout the game, but that's a different discussion.
MiamiWesker
Member
When the developers fail to deliver an interesting game to play, that is when they fail. Luckily ME3 is a fantastic game to play but they could have put so much more variety and interesting setpieces to make it better and you can easily make the story fit around these moments. As for immersion, this game has it, but so does something like Dark Souls and that is super video gamey. They are not exclusive.
Plus in an RPG it is kind of hard to not draw people out of the world when you have to navigate a bunch of menus to advance stats and stuff. If you guys really wanted true immersion you would argue to remove all that as well.
Are you saying that the original creators of the Reapers, Citadel, and Star child didn't possess this technology themselves? I find that hard to believe since one of the factors of the cycle is that all technology is based on their technology. As far as we know, protheans are the only ones who even started to understand mass relays.
MiamiWesker
Member
Someone created the AI in the first place, probably organics and they made sure this AI does something to save organic life. Its plan was a bit harsh. As for its power, that is just your feeling on it. The game is specifically telling you it did not have the tech to do that. You can argue against it all you want, that is what it is.
Star Child says they're his solution... Someone put this all in motion and saw it as a solution and that someone had the technology available to them.
When you start asking those questions, though, there's one that immediately jumps out: why didn't the Catalyst do anything when Sovereign was having a hard time calling the other Reapers?
Or why didn't the Catalyst ever do anything about the Conduit, which was built specifically for people to teleport into the Citadel (which is an extension of the Catalyst) in order to stop Sovereign from sending out the signal to dark space?
There are plenty of plot holes involving the Catalyst, no doubt, especially when you try to link him to the events in Mass Effect 1 (because the Catalyst didn't exist in the minds of the writers at that point).
My belief is that star child couldn't have done it without the crucible. It's hard to know whether this is right or not, but at least space child says it is only made possible through the crucible.
But even if he could, he obviously preferred to harvest civilizations every few millenia to keep organics around. Synthesis is an option he takes -or is made possible- with the crucible, which for space kid is the equivalent of being threatened at gun point.
Maybe Synthesis was less attractive an option cause it means that the organic races will last longer, and new civilizations will become rarer.
Because BioWare wanted us to speculate. They didn't give us any answers.
MiamiWesker
Member
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