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Lt. Danger posted:Gonna be a pedantic dick here and say that's not really what metagaming means. Yeah I know, I have no clue what the correct word was so I went for the closest thing I could think of.
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Aug 21, 2014 09:22
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Hey, it's worked well for me so far.
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Aug 21, 2014 09:24
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Also, regarding the 'Mass Effect is\isn't about the Reapers, it is about the people' I think you're actually applying a false dichotomy. You are correct in that Mass Effect isn't about 'The Reapers' or that the Reapers themselves don't get much screen time, but just because they don't show up on-screen all that often doesn't actually mean the story isn't about them. While yes the Reapers rarely appear themselves, a not insignificant amount of the story focuses on not the Reapers but their effects on people. Saying that ME1 isn't about the Reapers and it is about Saren is technically true but does not take into account the fact that the only reason Saren is doing what he is doing is because of the Reapers. The Reapers are 'The Man Behind the Man' so to speak (which is why the Illusive Man's indoctrination in ME3 was so predictable, as a human Man Behind the Man he was inevitably going to be superceded by the Reapers because they're better at being The Man Behind the Man than the Illusive Man ever was. Now this is where the big divide happens; some people feel that if your story is about the effects a thing has, but never actually gets to the thing in question, the story is about the thing despite it not appearing. Other people feel that is not the case at all; that by not havin the thing appear the story is instead about the people because the thing isn't front and centre all the time and therefore the thing must not be what the story is about because if the story was about the thing then the thing would be front and centre all the time! Basically I think we're seeing a conflict between people who say "Mass Effect is a story about how people interact with each other in the face of an unstoppable threat! Therefore the story is about the threat." and the people who say "Mass Effect is a story about how people interact with each other in the face of an unstoppable threat! Therefore the story is about the people." And I think that they might actually both be right because it is possible for a story to be 'about' more than one thing. Neruz fucked around with this message at 09:49 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 09:34
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Oh, I agree. I think when Bioware talks about the genophage and the quarians and Cerberus, they're also talking about the Reapers - or rather, when they talk about each of these, they're talking about the same things, the things that each of these represents. So when people say "ME2/3 spends too much time on Cerberus and not enough on the Reapers, it's a muddled story" I disagree, because both Cerberus (or genophage or quarians or Thessia) and the Reapers are different aspects of the same concepts. e: basically I'm not the one applying the false dichotomy. I'm saying it's all relevant
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Aug 21, 2014 09:40
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Lt. Danger posted:e: basically I'm not the one applying the false dichotomy. I'm saying it's all relevant Ah, okay that's... Not really coming across in the analysis at all. In fact I am getting the distinct opposite impression from the videos, not sure if that's me, you or something else though.
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Aug 21, 2014 09:50
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No, that's fair. This is something I'm building up in small parts over several sections. The focus of this section was to suggest that ME3 can be about the genophage or whatever and that this isn't a mistake on Bioware's part, but a deliberate choice - that it doesn't have to be all about Reapers all or even most of the time, which is an argument that does come up occasionally.
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Aug 21, 2014 09:55
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Lt. Danger posted:No, that's fair. This is something I'm building up in small parts over several sections. The focus of this section was to suggest that ME3 can be about the genophage or whatever and that this isn't a mistake on Bioware's part, but a deliberate choice - that it doesn't have to be all about Reapers all or even most of the time, which is an argument that does come up occasionally. The point I'm trying to get across is that even when the game isn't 'about the Reapers' it is actually still technically about the Reapers; just it's about their effects rather than the Reapers themselves. It feels like you're trying to exclude the Reapers as an important part of the plot, rather than pointing out that there are more ways to tell a story 'about the Reapers' than by just having a bunch of Reapers on screen stomping around a city. Basically I'm getting pedantic over what the phrase 'telling a story about X' actually means. Specifically what 'about' means.
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Aug 21, 2014 10:03
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Lt. Danger posted:I think it's very important that these things aren't purely black. Let's talk about the big three - Cerberus, the Genophage and the Geth conflict. Compare and contrast ME2 and ME3. There are, of course, a great many more minor moments where you are explicitly rewarded for Paragon actions. Offhand, I can think of one Paragon decision that ends with a minor negative consequence. (Unless we're saving this for later?) Xander77 fucked around with this message at 10:28 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 10:11
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Neruz posted:The point I'm trying to get across is that even when the game isn't 'about the Reapers' it is actually still technically about the Reapers; just it's about their effects rather than the Reapers themselves. Exactly! I agree fully, you're absolutely right. When I say it doesn't have to be about Reapers all the time, I mean in the sense that the game doesn't have to be showing the Reapers all the time to be about them. It's not a zero-sum game where spending time fighting Cerberus is a 'distraction' from the Reapers, which is what ME3 should be about but isn't - but this seems to be the way Geostomp and Arglebargle III interpret it, and I don't agree with them. This will make more sense when I talk about what I think the genophage etc means and how it does tie back in to the Reapers. Lt. Danger fucked around with this message at 10:23 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 10:13
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Xander77 posted:Oh? Okay, sorry, I think I misunderstood you. I thought you were saying I was going to present the story/setting as very dark based on those three and this justifies the eventual ending, and I was going to say yes but so do the lighter optimistic moments, because they show the setting isn't a dystopia and can and should change for the better, and this justifies the eventual ending. I think I actually agree. Talking about the genophage, we've already seen it in how Mordin luckily changes his mind completely and the only people advocating the genophage now are the mean old dalatrass and that arsehole Lt Tolan. A complicated ethical dilemma becomes a black/white good/evil decision where only one choice is presented as morally correct and the other isn't and even backfires in most cases. I think StrifeHira was also driving at this same point earlier in the thread. Is that what you were saying?
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Aug 21, 2014 10:22
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Lt. Danger posted:I think I actually agree. Talking about the genophage, we've already seen it in how Mordin luckily changes his mind completely and the only people advocating the genophage now are the mean old dalatrass and that arsehole Lt Tolan. A complicated ethical dilemma becomes a black/white good/evil decision where only one choice is presented as morally correct and the other isn't and even backfires in most cases. I think StrifeHira was also driving at this same point earlier in the thread. You could argue that the presence of the Reapers actually removes the ethical dilemma part of the Genophage; the Krogan are needed to fight the Reapers. We don't want them, we need them. Without the Krogan the Reapers will win (note that this is how it is presented in the game), as such any ethical dilemma arguably takes the back seat to the reality that we need more Krogan fighting the Reapers right now. It doesn't matter if the Genophage was a good idea or a bad idea; it is actively impeding our ability to fight the Reapers and thus it must go regardless of any moral issues because the Reapers have forced the galaxy into a position where moral and ethical issues are simply not as important as basic survival.
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Aug 21, 2014 10:30
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Lt. Danger posted:
quote:The actual theme of Mass Effect 3 is a thought experiment confirming the superiority of objectivist morality. After two games which lured the player into complacency with the assumption that the world has a place for shades of grey, every single conflict is revealed to be a black and white as the infamous Ditko card trick. Furthermore, though you thought that heroes could deviate ever so slightly from the true path in the name of expediency, every Renegade decision you've previously made comes back to bite you, much like the Renegade option in every galactic conflict turns out to be outright wrong. There is the path of the angels and the path of devils, and nothing - nothing - in between. Neruz posted:You could argue that the presence of the Reapers actually removes the ethical dilemma part of the Genophage; the Krogen are needed to fight the Reapers. We don't want them, we need them. Without the Krogen the Reapers will win (note that this is how it is presented in the game), as such any ethical dilemma arguably takes the back seat to the reality that we need more Krogen fighting the Reapers right now. It doesn't matter if the Genophage was a good idea or a bad idea; it is actively impeding our ability to fight the Reapers and thus it must go regardless of any moral issues. (Kinda get the feeling that the Krogan will be replaced by propah Turian Tommy's should a victory parade ever take place)
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Aug 21, 2014 10:32
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Xander77 posted:(Kinda get the feeling that the Krogan will be replaced by propah Turian Tommy's should a victory parade ever take place) Depends on if Wrex is alive or not I think. Wrex is presented in-game as being somewhat of a savior of the Krogan; smart enough to understand the Krogan in relation to the rest of the galaxy and understand that the Krogan need to change some things in order to 'fit in' (hooo boy.) Wreav on the other hand shows no signs of coming to this realisation, of 'mellowing' if you will and as a result I do not see a positive future for the Krogan under his leadership. Unless you pick Green, because if you pick Green none of this political and ethical poo poo matters anymore thanks to the entire galaxy being equalized and the playing field instantly levelled.
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Aug 21, 2014 10:34
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Neruz posted:You could argue that the presence of the Reapers actually removes the ethical dilemma part of the Genophage; the Krogan are needed to fight the Reapers. We don't want them, we need them. Without the Krogan the Reapers will win (note that this is how it is presented in the game), as such any ethical dilemma arguably takes the back seat to the reality that we need more Krogan fighting the Reapers right now. It doesn't matter if the Genophage was a good idea or a bad idea; it is actively impeding our ability to fight the Reapers and thus it must go regardless of any moral issues because the Reapers have forced the galaxy into a position where moral and ethical issues are simply not as important as basic survival. I both really agree and also totally disagree! Man, this is exciting. quote:Depends on if Wrex is alive or not I think. Wrex is presented in-game as being somewhat of a savior of the Krogan; smart enough to understand the Krogan in relation to the rest of the galaxy and understand that the Krogan need to change some things in order to 'fit in' (hooo boy.) Hot drat!
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Aug 21, 2014 10:34
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Lt. Danger posted:I both really agree and also totally disagree! Man, this is exciting. Yeah that's why I opened with "You could argue", I'm not sure I would make that arguement, but I am forced to recognise that it is in fact a valid arguement. Lt. Danger posted:Hot drat! Yes I am completely and totally aware of the implications of saying that the Krogan need to change to fit in and I choose to not go there because I don't want to touch that particular poop 
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Aug 21, 2014 10:41
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I think you might've gone a little over the top on that one video, but I wanted to just say that I'm really enjoying the LP in general! It might be pretentious, but I love pretentious stuff, so please keep up the good work!
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Aug 21, 2014 12:06
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Most of that turian professional military squad being taken out by sniper fire, in a known hot zone, while wearing no helmets, and standing silhouetted on top of a ruined building. The sniper(s are) is more the idiot for not taking out the turian with bomb defusing skills, but that's a tangent. Also, if the video is supposedly set in a populated area, why haven't the krogan come to investigate the gunfire and explosions? And considering the wildlife on the planet, why haven't any examples shown up during the firefight? Oh what a surprise, the Primarch's son dies heroically in the process of defusing the bomb. 
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Aug 21, 2014 12:18
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Say what you will about the presentation of ideas in the LP, but people are always falling over themselves to throw in their two cents.
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Aug 21, 2014 12:19
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Ulvirich posted:Most of that turian professional military squad being taken out by sniper fire, in a known hot zone, while wearing no helmets, and standing silhouetted on top of a ruined building. The sniper(s are) is more the idiot for not taking out the turian with bomb defusing skills, but that's a tangent. Is this really what's important here?
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Aug 21, 2014 12:22
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Lt. Danger posted:Is this really what's important here? To some people yes, different people have different things they are willing to tolerate in a fictional story and things that they are not willing to tolerate. I have a cousin who can't watch the third Lord of the Rings movie because he finds the complete tactical and strategic ineptitude demonstrated on all sides during the battle for Minas Tirith so painful that he can't bring himself to see the movie through to the end. He has no problem whatsoever with tree mans stomping on Uruk-Hai or Wizards dueling Balrogs though.
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Aug 21, 2014 12:32
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Lt. Danger posted:Is this really what's important here? (This thread is also the first place where I've heard the Turian moon consistently referred to as... not Palaven or whatever) Xander77 fucked around with this message at 12:53 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 12:50
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Lt. Danger posted:Is this really what's important here? To me, yes, since I never played the game I want to see what Bioware developed. I tune you out during in-game dialogue because I'm more interested in the game you're LPing, not what you're saying. Other than that, my opinion of your own script is, what I assume for you, a not exactly entertaining neutral to agreement depending on the theme discussed. Having not played the game, some of what you've spoken of is disconnected from my understanding of the presentation. The whole turian military there being incredibly perpendicular to how present day military, despite hundreds of years of growth and experience in tactics, technology and strategy on us is indeed immersion breaking to me, plot contrivance or no. While there is some precedent for this, ie Turians favoring capital ship classes to Humans favoring carriers and fighter squadrons and Turians being blind-sided by this, I would think a species who favors a aggressive stance would have more of a grasp on small-scale military actions. This being a pro-Player/Shepard first, pro-human second, work of fiction does prevent that, and favors humanity over the buffoonery of aliens.
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Aug 21, 2014 12:56
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Ulvirich posted:I tune you out during in-game dialogue because I'm more interested in the game you're LPing, not what you're saying. Gotta be honest this is probably not the best choice of LP's if you are actually interested in Mass Effect 3 as a game. I'd reccommend another but Spoiler Warning has a very distinct style that is also not really a good choice for if you are actually interested in Mass Effect 3 as a game and I don't know of any others. There are a lot of LP's about Mass Effect 3 but I cant think of any that are actually about Mass Effect 3. (The game rather than the story\themes\what bioware is saying\whatever)
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Aug 21, 2014 13:15
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Neruz posted:There are a lot of LP's about Mass Effect 3 but I cant think of any that are actually about Mass Effect 3. (The game rather than the story\themes\what bioware is saying\whatever) This is another reason I'm watching Lt. Danger's LP. I am interested in what he has to say. It's just that in-game dialogue takes precedence over him talking over it. During the combat sections I'm all ears to him.
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Aug 21, 2014 13:18
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Lt. Danger posted:I'm surprised nobody took the argument expressed in the video to its logical endpoint: that all fiction should take the form of political cartoons, where every artistic choice and decision exists to act as the author's mouthpiece. Nobody wants this. Is that the logical endpoint though? I don't think the dichotomy you set up is between completely mindless escapism on the one hand and Kelly-style Onion editorial cartoons on the other. All texts are political, and are to some extent the mouthpiece of the author. The author can use that mouthpiece to communicate anything. In goodfiction (in the way I take you to be describing it) this leads to the voicing of uncomfortable truths or at least some sort of interesting statement about reality. Badfiction, by contrast, is plagued by sentimental humanism, but offers little by way of genuine insight or illumination. Feel as though you can’t go on? You must! You’ve got to try! These sentiments are empty of meaning for precisely the same reason they are perceived as universal. Both are innately political, it's just that the former will try to say something (not necessarily negative, but against the grain) about the world and our institutions while the latter is a soporific; designed to reassert and reassure us of the legitimacy of our current political arrangements.
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Aug 21, 2014 15:00
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ME3 is chock full of exactly that sort of empty dialog. There's one hilarious exchange near the end where Shep says "they'll do whatever it takes," and Anderson responds "that's what it's going to take." It made me laugh the first time and every time. But it's obviously written and delivered 100% straight.
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Aug 21, 2014 15:10
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"this isnt about strategy or tactics! We fight or we die!" So do we fight Cerberus so often because they're more fun to fight, or are they more fun to fight because Bioware put more effort into them because they knew we'd be fighting them so often?
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Aug 21, 2014 15:42
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2house2fly posted:"this isnt about strategy or tactics! We fight or we die!"   post I will make in this thread:Fire Warrior posted:“Answer me! How do you fight this?” Now, as remarked above, these speeches tend towards sentimentalism and hollow platitudes at the best of times. This particular speech, though, comes out of nowhere and is neither set up nor expanded upon. As Lt. Danger mentioned, Bioware is pretty good about coalescing common tropes into a mostly cohesive whole, and they tend to assume that the viewers are familiar enough with genre fiction that expanding upon every single detail is unnecessary. Efficient writing, Mortal Kombat style. Unfortunately, a bit too much is skipped over in this case, and the players were mostly left behind. Arglebargle III posted:Ugh I may have to restart Mass Effect 2 simply because playing as an infiltrator is so excruciating. I picked it because it was the one class I haven't played. Watching Danger huddle behind cover and miss headshots is excruciating. Also, by comparison. Xander77 fucked around with this message at 16:08 on Aug 21, 2014 |
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Aug 21, 2014 15:55
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Ugh I may have to restart Mass Effect 2 simply because playing as an infiltrator is so excruciating. I picked it because it was the one class I haven't played.
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Aug 21, 2014 15:58
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I think one of the reasons I find myself disagreeing with Lt. Danger is that I read a very different primary theme into the series than he did, throughout ME1 and 2, which felt like it built logically upon itself before being discarded in the third act for what felt like a blatant violation of said theme. To explain: In ME1, we learn, right away, that the fantastic technology that allows FTL is something we discovered from 'the ancients'. Common sci-fi/fantasy trope, but it's still a little eye-rolling. I remember being really goddamn pleased to discover that the Ancients were a trap, this time. That total reliance on magic ancient technology was stifling and damaging the society of the galaxy and that more importantly, it was actually going to allow the Ancients to clean everybody up at their leisure for their own dark and inscrutable purposes. Suddenly, you have to try to warn everyone that the easy route of copying the ancestors isn't going to work and we're gonna need to do something new or we're all going to die. Look at Saren's reasoning: The Ancients can't be overcome, their way is too powerful, we must follow them in all things and merely hope we can live up to their expectations enough and remain useful enough to continue to exist. He argues for the status quo, for stagnation in all things, out of hopelessness that anything can actually change (and, you know, mind controlled by space cuttlefish). Shepard rejects that, chooses to fight, and they bring down an Ancient and delay the arrival of the others. This gives them the time they might need to try to escape being chained to the past. In ME2, you go to the seedly underbelly of the galactic power brokers and discover much more about how the other sort of wise ancient of the setting, the Asari, are corrupt as all hell. The Council, which you already likely suspected of being corrupt, is really just there to maintain the power of the dominant races and doesn't care about advancement or the disruption of the status quo, and are genuinely happy to just bury things where they are and continue getting rich off the Ancients' technology despite everything they've seen. In the process of your work, you are opposed by the servants of the Ancients, who are fully controlled by them (to the point that their masters can 'assume direct control') and who tempt other races by trading bits and bobs of their powerful technology in return for the keys to the galaxy. Similarly, you meet a highly sympathetic ally (Legion) who explicitly tells you his culture resists using things like ancient technology as much as possible in order to allow them to shape their own society and their own development. You also, on Hadstrom, see hints that there may be major ecological consequences of using technology you don't really understand for mass transit. You can see where I'm going. Rather than created-vs-creator, I read it as past vs. present, the struggle to break out of the comfortable, easy route of using Mass Effect relays and relying on the wisdom of the ancients rather than trying to understand it for yourself. The Reapers are the overbearing specter of the past, 'allowing' your existence and 'demanding' your end if you ever look like you may eclipse them. They're the embodiment of renaissance doctors refusing to toss out Galen's anatomy because 'Well he's Roman, he has to be better and wiser than us. If it's not working we must be mucking it up somehow'. They enable, even thrive, in the creation of corrupt organizations like the Citadel Council who will happily play their game if it means their races get to lord over others (because they found the ancient treasure first and can control its distribution) and do anything they can to stop any threat to the status quo. That's the reason the Crucible jarred me so much when it was introduced. I'd thought the story was building up to using understanding, unity, and willingness to explore to break the status quo and the cycle that has locked everyone into being in the past's shadow, forever, and then suddenly 'We found this super ancient device plan that will totally kill all the Reapers, we think. We don't actually know what it does, but it sure is pretty.' Despite this device having every hallmark of a Reaper Trap. I actually half expected it to turn out to be such during the story and that Shepard would have to do something to get past said trap and turn it to better purpose, but nope. Well, you asked for effortposts. Thus, you get 
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Aug 21, 2014 17:53
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In regard to the video: I don't think that it's particularly controversial to say that Cerberus are emphasized in the game because they're a more fun enemy to fight than the Reaper forces are. In fact, I think one of the first things I said in this thread was that the plot had increasingly become something that existed to drive combat situations rather than the other way around. This very much happens here. Having already invaded the Salarian homeworld and overrun a special forces base, Cerberus now not only dumps hundreds of mercs on the Krogan homeworld unchallenged, but is fully aware of the exact location of a Turian bomb that is so top secret that neither a senior Turian military advisor, a Council Spectre, or the actual Shadow Broker have any knowledge of, and responds by bringing in hundreds of tonnes of strip-mining equipment to dig it out. Despite this being close enough to a major Krogan population centre that the detonation would decimate their society, literally nobody has noticed this enormous operation by an alien terrorist group until the point Shepard arrives. This isn't just contrived, it's ludicrous beyond the point of believability and appallingly stupid writing for a game of this scope and budget. I don't disagree at all that there needs to be more to the game than just shooting various colours of husks, but taking the approach of, "gently caress it, that'll do" deserves to be called out for what it is and lends credence to the "anything intelligent in this game is entirely unintentional" theory. I wasn't going to go into the Geth until they showed up later, but note that they naturally get the same treatment. There's a whole mission in ME2 where you go and either reprogram or destroy all Reaper-loyal Geth. ME3 goes, "gently caress it, that'll do" and has you fight a whole bunch of Reaper Geth anyway. Hooray Bioware. In terms of the gameplay, you also alluded in the video to the fact that ME3 is pretty much the first time that the "waves of enemies" mechanic gets used, particularly with the Reapers. This again is actually quite a big jump from ME2 and has a bigger effect on the game than first impression would indicate. From a combat gameplay perspective, it's probably better, or at least more challenging, but in ME2 you had enemies that all spawned just before you entered their particular area. That meant that you had a dynamic where you were moving through space clearing out enemies (particularly if you played as a Vanguard), or where you were trying to control space within a large open area. ME3 instead has bulletsponges coming at you while you're stationary, which again gives that very claustrophobic, repetitive feel of slogging through generic enemies on generic planets. My controversial opinion here is going to be that in the end, despite the changes, I felt ME2's combat was just more fun. Regarding the second half of the video, though, I'd also agree that the series isn't about the Reapers. It's about Shepard. In the same way that the Odyssey is about Odysseus and not the Cyclops. And, like you say, the majority of that (for both Shepard and Odysseus) is not about the character themselves, but in the idea of exploration of a mythic world and of resolving these great mysteries. In all honesty, you could actually have made this game and not mentioned the Reapers at all. Mass Effect 3 could have been Shepard vs Cerberus, and as long as it had never been sold as anything else and you'd not had the build-up in ME2 and Arrival, it would likely have worked better than what we ultimately got. The problem is not that Shepard isn't on the front line fighting Reapers, it was discussed earlier why that doesn't particularly work. The actual issue is that Shepard in this game is no longer the central character that drives the plot forward. He or she instead becomes a character who is forced into largely irrelevant situations by the demands of others. Again, a lot of these stories could still have been told while making Shepard's actions an active means of defeating the Reapers with just a little more application of intelligent writing. Nor is the argument necessarily that ME2 should have been about Reapers. The argument is that Bioware leaves off from ME2 with numerous issues unresolved, and a branching plot nightmare of Schrodinger's NPCs. They then try and resolve the Reaper war and the Illusive Man and the genophage and the Quarian/Geth conflict and what happened to Jacob and Kelly and Conrad and it all just turns into plot holes, ret-cons and hot sick. If these are the key elements of the game, then they deserve more than to be resolved within thirty minutes and never mentioned again. If needs be, make an ME3 that resolves all of this and removes the branches and then start fresh with your ME4 story that is purely about defeating the Reapers.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:17
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In regards to Night10194's post, wasn't that the actual original plan for Mass Effect? I can't recall any direct sources offhand, but I'm pretty sure one of the writers that worked on 1 and 2, but was kicked off by 3, was going in that direction of "copying the ancients was a poo poo idea, and the Mass Effect is somehow polluting spacetime", and that the Reapers were doing their thing to keep the species from accidentally tearing the universe apart. Maybe I'm misremembering everything, but I'm pretty sure there actually was some sort of other narrative plan that was abandoned and restarted into what we have here, now. I need to try to find that stuff now, but it still doesn't change the game that Bioware eventually decided to release. Even if the Crucible wasn't in the original plan, it's here now and the writers thought it somehow fit into what was already there (and to be fair, with Lt. Danger's interpretation, it does make sense). This is still their vision, though now it has the added challenge of picking up the narrative pieces that they may not completely understand.
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Aug 21, 2014 20:53
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The Lone Gunman posted:In regards to Night10194's post, wasn't that the actual original plan for Mass Effect? I can't recall any direct sources offhand, but I'm pretty sure one of the writers that worked on 1 and 2, but was kicked off by 3, was going in that direction of "copying the ancients was a poo poo idea, and the Mass Effect is somehow polluting spacetime", and that the Reapers were doing their thing to keep the species from accidentally tearing the universe apart. Maybe I'm misremembering everything, but I'm pretty sure there actually was some sort of other narrative plan that was abandoned and restarted into what we have here, now. You're correct and there's hints in ME2 about what Tali was working on that continue to point in this direction. However, it was never really developed and dropped entirely. Lt. Danger, I'm still on-board with your LP and it's interesting in where its leading. I hesitate to speculate but I believe I'm starting to see where you're taking this LP and line of questioning. In retrospect, I would've stated in the OP that you're not selling us on how Mass Effect 3 is a good game. That just conjures some idea that you've found a hidden or overlooked theme/thread that really brings the game around. (I know this is false on a logical level because it there was something like that in the game, most everyone else would've picked up on it and there would've been less controversy at the ending). I would've stated that there's a particular way of reading Mass Effect 3 (and perhaps, the series as a whole) and that this is that reading. One of many but one that is often overlooked and you hope brings new perspective on what Bioware was attempting to achieve. Is that what you said in the OP? Kinda but leading off with "This LP is gonna be all about me trying to re-sell Mass Effect 3 to you." was a poor primer.
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Aug 21, 2014 21:36
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Lt. Danger posted:I think I actually agree. Talking about the genophage, we've already seen it in how Mordin luckily changes his mind completely and the only people advocating the genophage now are the mean old dalatrass and that arsehole Lt Tolan. A complicated ethical dilemma becomes a black/white good/evil decision where only one choice is presented as morally correct and the other isn't and even backfires in most cases. I think StrifeHira was also driving at this same point earlier in the thread. More or less, yes. But I'll emphasize that it's the corner that Bioware wrote themselves into and the expectation built up by the player by taking the "optimal path." If you have a number of solutions, and one of them far outweighs the other ones, people will go for that optimal solution. And that keeps building up as the games go on until you've either done it all right or you are given the knowledge that you, the player, hosed something up you monster. There are very few "Vermire" choices in the games, ones that you can't Paragon/Renegade/Paragrade/Renagon/Purple/Green your way out of. The Lone Gunman posted:In regards to Night10194's post, wasn't that the actual original plan for Mass Effect? I can't recall any direct sources offhand, but I'm pretty sure one of the writers that worked on 1 and 2, but was kicked off by 3, was going in that direction of "copying the ancients was a poo poo idea, and the Mass Effect is somehow polluting spacetime", and that the Reapers were doing their thing to keep the species from accidentally tearing the universe apart. Maybe I'm misremembering everything, but I'm pretty sure there actually was some sort of other narrative plan that was abandoned and restarted into what we have here, now. I'll spoiler this just in case it gets a bit too much of a distraction, but here: The earlier plan was that the usage of the "Mass Effect" itself was speeding up the Heat Death of the Universe with an overabundance of Dark Energy, causing stars to die early like the one in Tali's ME2 recruitment mission. It eventually meant having to destroy the Reapers and trying to find another way or agreeing with them and sacrificing humanity to save the galaxy. Does this sound familiar? Yeah, I made that earlier comparison with that anime entirely on purpose. In the end it wasn't used, so take this how you will.
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Aug 21, 2014 21:53
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StrifeHira posted:I'll spoiler this just in case it gets a bit too much of a distraction, but here: The earlier plan was that the usage of the "Mass Effect" itself was speeding up the Heat Death of the Universe with an overabundance of Dark Energy, causing stars to die early like the one in Tali's ME2 recruitment mission. It eventually meant having to destroy the Reapers and trying to find another way or agreeing with them and sacrificing humanity to save the galaxy. Does this sound familiar? Yeah, I made that earlier comparison with that anime entirely on purpose. In the end it wasn't used, so take this how you will. To be fair to the writers, I don't think "The Reapers are the Anti-Spirals" would have changed much in terms of the negative reaction to the Reaper's motivations. I think Bioware kind of wrote themselves into a corner in the Sovereign conversation where he pretty much tells you that the Reaper's reasons are so complex that the human mind can't begin to comprehend them. It certainly made for an incredible narrative hook (who doesn't love the Sovereign conversation?) but it hypes the poo poo out of the Reapers because any motivation that you can understand just ends up falling flat. "Mass effect energy is destroying the universe so stop it you dicks", as well as the motivation actually used in ME3, are both perfectly logical and easy to understand. I'd almost argue the answer is to not reveal their motivations at all. Complete their picture as a force of nature by making them this unstoppable alien hoard that wants to harvest all life for reasons you can't even begin to fathom, that cannot be understood or reasoned with. And hell, this is what the Reapers were up until the very last minute, which might be some of the reasoning behind why the ending is so reviled.
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Aug 21, 2014 23:44
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Sydin posted:To be fair to the writers, I don't think "The Reapers are the Anti-Spirals" would have changed much in terms of the negative reaction to the Reaper's motivations. I think Bioware kind of wrote themselves into a corner in the Sovereign conversation where he pretty much tells you that the Reaper's reasons are so complex that the human mind can't begin to comprehend them. It certainly made for an incredible narrative hook (who doesn't love the Sovereign conversation?) but it hypes the poo poo out of the Reapers because any motivation that you can understand just ends up falling flat. "Mass effect energy is destroying the universe so stop it you dicks", as well as the motivation actually used in ME3, are both perfectly logical and easy to understand. Frankly, I think that the Reapers' motives should have stayed at "reproduction". It works just fine and the sheer baseness of it all makes it seem more horrifying: these space cuttlefish aren't killing us all out of malice or for any grand purpose, they really just see us as a crop to be harvested every so often. Knowing their arrogance, they'd probably consider melting millions of fleshies into Reaper goo to be doing them a favor by "elevating" them to their level. Geostomp fucked around with this message at 00:09 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 00:03
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I love how the Reapers evoke Skynet mixed with the tinfoil cone doomsday machine from Star Trek the original series. Skynet is the technology gone awry story, and doomsday machine is the 'flood' story where we connect the disappearance of real or unknown civilizations to some kind of inherent fault in society or mankind. The idea of children spurning parents is kind of an interesting one in biology. Did you know that the human placenta is extremely aggressive and traumatic to the mother? We're right up there with rats in terms of aggressive placentas. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2dDwLKk1YA I bring it up because it kind of cuts to the quick of the struggle between mother, child, father, and sibling. He even goes into the game theory equilibriums for the basic relationship and how it's related to inheritance. The talizoras make the geth (who are loving awesome, and ME3 is baller if for no other reason than you can play one in the online horde game), then suffer an equilibrium problem having to sacrifice their resources to their offspring. The salarians end up with an equilibrium problem when they teach the krogan how to nuke things. The protheans end up being too stingy with their help to make a useful contribution to the defense against the reapers. The reapers reap all the time due to the reasons which I'm not clear on whether we can mention or not yet. Quit reaping, reapers. Anyway, I think my point is, Mass Effect is a tripartide treatment of the subject of aggressive placentas, and what we can do to mitigate their effects on the womb of human kindness.
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Aug 22, 2014 00:20
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Games > Let's Play! > Mass Effect 3 - Reach For The Stars! (In Your Critical Analysis Of A Game) I chose to interpret the Quarian Fleet as the 12 Tribes of Israel, with the Geth being the lost 13th tribe from Battlestar Galactica. The Krogan and Salarians are a discourse on brains vs. brawn as they are both clearly frog people that went their separate ways in high school, jocks v nerds see? Turians are Space Rome, Asari are token colored space babes. Humans are the best at progressing plot because anthropocentrism. Furthermore, Mass Effect One is clearly the renegade game of the series because you're a loose cannon cop on the edge. Mass effect 2 is the game that is actually fun to play because vanguards are awesome and cerberus getting stuck in a railing and screaming for ages is hilarious. Mass Effect 3 is a game I haven't played so I don't know what's going to happen next. Clearly it is a metaphor for the life of a twenty something about to graduate university who has no idea what she is doing with her life. Samuel L. Hacksaw fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Aug 22, 2014 |
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Aug 22, 2014 02:17
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I have a feeling we're coming at this from different perspectives.
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Aug 22, 2014 04:05
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TheCosmicMuffet posted:I have a feeling we're coming at this from different perspectives. Hey man I'm just giving you my schizophrenic reading of this videogame. The fact that my reading resembles a loosely assembled bowel movement composed of tvtropes nonsense and 100 level critical reading courses is secondary to the subtext.
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Aug 22, 2014 04:29
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