Fimbulvetr
Member
Does anyone know how to write sentient AI without making everything into a Pinocchio metaphor? Honest question.
I'm not a huge Sci-fi buff, but practically every time I've seen the subject tackled it comes down to that.
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The Mass Effect Community Thread
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Does anyone know how to write sentient AI without making everything into a Pinocchio metaphor? Honest question.
I'm not a huge Sci-fi buff, but practically every time I've seen the subject tackled it comes down to that.
The writer of ME2 Legion. He had a whole blog about it.
Hyperzephyrian
Banned
They misled refugees by luring them to Sanctuary, ensuring a steady stream of victims for them to implant with reaper tech. Showing how they got their huge army was literally the entire point of that mission. I'm not sure how you managed to forget that.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Yep, so they could add Chobot to the game.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Kai Leng played a prominent role in the book Retribution. I didn't like him much in that book. I wouldn't have had an issue if he were given a small role in the game to tie it in to the books.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
If it makes you feel better, we are in 100% agreement on this.
wolfhowwl
Banned
It's explicitly stated that they were recycling refugees into cannon fodder. You don't have to like it but it is there.
Anyways what they should have done was restrict Cerberus enemies to their plot missions and have reskinned indoctrinated troopers (Earth soldier, Batarian soldier, Terminus soldier, etc.) to fill out the rest for some variety and story reasons.
Wasnt that facility just to make reapers? not actual troops?
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
As I stated in my above comment, I wouldn't have minded if Kai Leng ended up being a "boss" battle or something.
Her Twitter death was actually very done well, it was top class reloplaying from Bioware's twitter accounts, and everyone keeping tabs on it's progress loved it.
Yeah, Chris knew how to avoid the Pinocchio trap, sadly the person who took over from him did not.
JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
No, it's quite clear in the game that they were researching reaper tech at the facility and they were bringing in human subjects for testing.
Hyperzephyrian
Banned
No, they were trying to reverse-engineer Reaper indoctrination and use it to amass an army. And it worked.
I thought that was to show some fucked up experiments on those people and hence the Husks and the like.
TacticalFox88
Banned
Love to read this
I always let her on, she brings an interesting perspective to the Reaper war from the news reporter side of things.
Sanctuary bruh
Hyperzephyrian
Banned
Well yeah, they did do fucked-up experiments. But the point of the experiments was to develop their own indoctrination technology, which they did--and they used it to swell their ranks.
He has a username that will bring up all his stuff on google, I don't remember it.
Not only that, but they figured out a way to take control of Reaper husks, but according to Hackett and Shepard the knowledge was gained at too high a price so it was ignored lol. I mean seriously wtf Bioware?
Yes, Sanctuary was a fucked up, but goddamn, that sort of knowledge is invaluable. LIke Javik said, you aren't gonna beat an enemy like the Reapers with your honour intact. I kept the Collector Base for that same reason.
Whatever you want. Female shep has better voice acting though. Plus you can go lez. Picking another gender is a perk of a second playthrough.
Go Male Soldier your first time through to get the hang of it, then on the next playthroughs mix it up and change class and gender. The trilogy has hella load of replay value so you won't get bored for a long time, unless you're one of those people who is obsessively Paragon or who makes the same decisions every time. It took me 7 years to see everything the games had to offer.
Ein Bear
Member
If you're playing Paragon go Male, if Renegade then Female. The voice actors turn in better performances for those playstyles IMO.
The Artisan
Member
perhaps that's how they wanted to set up TIM as the villain, but Saren was seen as an enemy very clearly from the start whereas TIM & cerberus were seen in the milky way society as terorists & evil but with your personal interactions things were a bit more ambiguous, as someone else said.
like I said before, you and I are probably more alike in what we want than you may believe.
Whoa....SEVEN years?! Will I for sure want to be playing this for that long and restarting it as well? Haha. I intended to play each game chronologically. I know that you character carries over from game to game.
And for what it's worth, I have never played a WRPG as deep as Mass Effect, and that includes the Elder Scrolls games and anything made in the past by Bioware. Is there anything else I should know?
And going back to the character I choose/create, I want to make sure I get it right the first time because I must go in with the assumption that I will only play each of these three games once (giant backlog and all). What will give me the most complete experience? I'm hearing that Male Soldier is what I should choose? Any particular reason?
And for what it's worth, I have never played a WRPG as deep as Mass Effect, and that includes the Elder Scrolls games and anything made in the past by Bioware. Is there anything else I should know?
And going back to the character I choose/create, I want to make sure I get it right the first time because I must go in with the assumption that I will only play each of these three games once (giant backlog and all). What will give me the most complete experience? I'm hearing that Male Soldier is what I should choose? Any particular reason?
prag16
Banned
Did it? I'd say kind of but not really in the end... in the process they themselves all became indoctrinated in the presence of all the tech and implants. Hence the whole showdown at the end with Shepard accusing T.I.M. of being indoctrinated by the Reapers, etc.
Or was that not the implication.. did I miss something?
Hyperzephyrian
Banned
It worked in the sense that they got their army. But you're right that the Illusive Man failed to meet his larger goal of controlling the Reapers, since he was already indoctrinated.Did it? I'd say kind of but not really in the end... in the process they themselves all became indoctrinated in the presence of all the tech and implants. Hence the whole showdown at the end with Shepard accusing T.I.M. of being indoctrinated by the Reapers, etc.
Or was that not the implication.. did I miss something?
I suggested Male Soldier because the class is probably one you're the most familiar with and it's also the one that changes the least throughout the trilogy. The power focused classes are fun, but Lord, they go through some crazy changes in the next two games, and since you're on a console you're going to bring up the power wheel a lot if you play as them due to the lack of hotkeys, so if you want some consistency and a more smooth experience it's best to stay Soldier on your first time through.
I can agree with this.
I'm not a fan of the whole Voice Acting debate between male and female Shepard. Both nail it in their own way, and some lines each voice actor does one better than their counterpart.
Lots of sci fi authors do because they like to write lots of post singularity stuff that most of the other artistic mediums havent caught up with yet.
Poodlestrike
Banned
Really? I always thought just the opposite.
They do. ME1 had one recently, for example. And I think you can activate on Origin as well. I mean, I did that with Alice Madness Returns, but I'm not sure if it was a temporary thing.
I'm laughing so hard about Emily. never knew how they ended her. "died on twitter" is an incredible way to go out in 2015 lmao
Remember it was in 2012, not 2015.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
I don't even think Hale is better as paragon. But male Jerk-Shepard is godly.
The annoying thing about Hale is just how widespread she is. She's like the female Steve Blum, except instead of just tertiary characters for the most part she gets all the leading-lady roles. I think she's like twenty characters in the DC animated universe as well as a major character in seemingly every Bioware game. Meer is much less prolific and I only really associate him with this one role.
Yeah I agree, Renegade Femshep is awful. Hale has to make her voice deeper to come off as more tough and the results are hilarious, I just cannot take it seriously. Renagade Sheploo on the other hand is godlike, probably due to the fact that Meer has a background as a comedian, so he knows how to deliver those deadpan lines
People should really read the BSN thread which covered the whole Twitter thing, it really was awesome work from Bioware. I just happen to have it bookmarked actually, so I'll link the thread for people to read.
It's all kicking off on Twitter! ARRIVAL
It's 82 pages BTW, so get some coffee and get ready for a good read for the next hour or two.
It's all kicking off on Twitter! ARRIVAL
It's 82 pages BTW, so get some coffee and get ready for a good read for the next hour or two.
DOWN
Banned
I thought Hale's forced deep inflection as femShep was awful and was rightfully left out of the marketing for the trilogy. Sounds like a 7th grade boy trying to talk tough sometimes.
Plus none of the character models compare in quality to the captured model for default maleShep so in the first two games femShep and custom maleShep looks like playdoh getting baked, and the added ME3 femShep still doesn't look like it was based on anything real (since it wasn't).
https://youtu.be/wktw5GvCT1E?t=13m2s
Plus none of the character models compare in quality to the captured model for default maleShep so in the first two games femShep and custom maleShep looks like playdoh getting baked, and the added ME3 femShep still doesn't look like it was based on anything real (since it wasn't).
https://youtu.be/wktw5GvCT1E?t=13m2s
prag16
Banned
I know it's not the popular stance (most seem to think Hale >>>>> Meer), but I completely agree. That weird husky voice just sounded odd much of the time. And Meer improved greatly from ME1 to ME3.
Also agree about the custom faces. They all look awful (male moreso than female). ME3 default female was a step in the right direction, but still looked strange to me. The Vanderloo model was clearly the best overall imo.
Ganzlinger
Member
I agree with you. Her concept is great, but the execution was not, though. Thankfully there are some texture mods that make her face a lot cleaner:
<3
I agree with you. Her concept is great, but the execution was not, though. Thankfully there are some texture mods that make her face a lot cleaner:
<3
Care to share? I never tried the default femshep model in ME3 because something about the face just isn't right, but that looks pretty good.
It's all a part of my official headcanon.
Ganzlinger
Member
Sure. I used this. But there are some times the lack of quality shaders will make the face weird, but that happens since ME1.
Fimbulvetr
Member
Guess that explains EDI too.
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