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Kaboom Dragoon posted:When Shep accuses Saren of murder in the first game, the Council refuses to believe her, not just because she's one of those annoying humans, but because Saren's a Spectre: they're above the law because they're supposed to be incorruptible. They're equally feared and revered because they're the pinnacle of their species. There's no checks or balances because the council trusts them so implicitly. The methods each one uses may be questionable, but the idea of one going totally rogue? Never going to happen. That's why there's such surprise when Saren's treachery is revealed, and why, in the second game, so many people are unwilling to believe it. I'm pretty sure the justification for Spectres being above the law was that they still have to answer to the Council for their actions. So the "Lalala, not listening!" response is kind of stupid considering it's solely their job to keep their agents in control, when the representatives of an entire species is telling them one has gone rogue.
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Jul 30, 2014 13:23
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Also assuming that Spectres are just such great guys not one would abuse being legally untouchable and the hilariously lax oversight is even stupider, no matter how handpicked they are supposed to be.
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Jul 30, 2014 14:23
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Judge Tesla posted:In a manner of speaking, the Council does do stuff to help you, they make Shepard a Specter which gives him/her free reign to do whatever, but officially, they do nothing, balance of galactic power and all that. The Turian councilor was the best in ME1 too though. Of course, I'm sure him constantly questioning Shepard was suppose to just make him an annoying bureaucrat jerk or whatever, especially when he does it regardless of how you handled a situation. But I don't think he ever actually says you did the wrong thing, he just grills you to justify your actions. Which seems like a fairly reasonable approach when you are supposed to keep tabs on your ridiculous above-the-law agents.
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Jul 30, 2014 22:51
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Basically ME2 should have dealt with at least some of the stuff they only introduced in the Leviathan DLC for ME3. There was actually a reasonable way to write themselves out of the corner somewhere in there.
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Jul 31, 2014 13:39
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Kaboom Dragoon posted:There was a mention of a superweapon mentioned in the codex for the second game (I think, it's been a while): one planet was mentioned to have a several-thousand-mile-long scar across it, which was theorised to have been made by a previously-unknown form of weapon. I've heard that this was supposed to be foreshadowing to the final game, having you looking for the creators of the weapon or hunting down lost tech, but it got dropped somewhere along the line or morphed into what we have now. Except that's not at all what the superweapon does. Also, hiding important foreshadowing in the datalogs.
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Jul 31, 2014 13:52
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Endorph posted:Man dude I appreciate your LP and like it but just quoting a bunch of posts and going 'bad!' like you're talking to a disobedient dog because they have a thought or opinion you disagree with has kind of soured me on this. Did you miss the giant "This is my circle-jerk! please" sign in the OP? Fangz posted:Is it plausible for the Protheans to be the *only* ones who have attempted to reprogram the Keepers? They were. It's a pretty explicitly stated plot point. I think you are missing the point here. No one is saying ME1 should have already solved the Reaper problem completely, but "a super secret weapon out of nowhere" was not the best they could have done. And the way it works and is explained doesn't make a whole lot sense even if you ignore the deus ex machina,
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Jul 31, 2014 14:34
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Lt. Danger posted:I don't fully agree myself - I think "fight for Earth" is shorthand for "get the Reapers now before they wipe out humanity and take out one of the four galactic superpowers, crippling any future resistance", but the game doesn't do a great job of spelling that out. Shepard ends up seeming a little callous in their word choice. It's just that the humans aren't really more boned than the turians here, and their fleet is actually bogged down fighting the war in the homefront instead of fleeing to safety. Although obviously the Mass Effect logic is that infantry is somehow infinitely more important than spaceships, so I guess it makes somehow sense to help the diminishing guerilla forces on Earth.
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Aug 1, 2014 12:16
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Flytrap posted:Actually, I got the impression that Earth was where most of the combat was happening since the Reapers have had a strange fascination with humanity ever since Shepard killed their asses. And spreading your forces and charging the biggest Reaper force you can find is such a good idea because..?
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Aug 1, 2014 13:40
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Neruz posted:Sci-fi writers have no sense of scale. Did anyone really want the series to go full on "human are so special and awesome" though? They didn't even need to have the "rally all the aliens to save Earth" plot, it could have been just "rally everyone" plot. The last minute plot twist pretty much forces Earth to be the decisive battlefield. I mean I don't know about you guys but I was kind of taken out of it by everyone just agreeing to Shepard's "we must abandon our self-centered goal and therefore go save my home planet first!" speeches. I mean you can come up with all kinds of fan theories but the game itself never stops to explain why Earth is so strategically important that the aliens would agree to make a suicidal attempt to retake it. It's just generally pretty loving confusing when the writers are doing a really obvious racism allegory, but at the same time make the race the audience identifies with with inexplicably more important than anyone else and have alien races who are all nothing but slimy moneylenders, religious nutcases or thugs. I mean aside from the Jewish stereotype they are at least not directly offensive in real life, but I just have trouble figuring out the cognitive dissonance of deliberately doing that theme and loving it up so badly.
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Aug 1, 2014 19:43
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Lt. Danger posted:Feel free to re-watch the Primarch video and count the Reapers. There are nine in orbit facing off against the turian fleet and two on the ground on Menae. Perhaps there are more on the surface on Palaven, which is bogged down in a ground war - considerably better off than Earth, where the defence has collapsed into guerilla warfare with civilian conscripts. This is completely incongruous with what we are actually shown. You are seeing entire coastlines of Palaven burning and characters are even pointing it out, so it's not definitely just the art direction getting carried away. And that's in addition to the game constantly reminding you how hosed the turians are during that mission. The game tries to tell you Earth is more important, yes, that's exactly the problem, because what it's actually showing is telling a completely different story.
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Aug 1, 2014 19:49
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Also, please don't use the term "headcanon", it triggers me
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Yeah, all this fan theorizing about why taking the battle to Earth is a great strategy for everyone involved is nice and all. It'd be even nicer if there was some of it in the actual game, because that's not actually how Shepard is selling the plan to everyone.
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Aug 2, 2014 18:41
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Holy poo poo you are upset about people feeling that a middle part of the story didn't drive the plot forward. They named it Mass Effect 2. It's not a crime in the context of critiquing Mass Effect 3 to comment that as a finale it started in a bad place to begin with when all the set up the previous title left it with was "Yup, the Reapers are still coming".
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Aug 5, 2014 15:08
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"ME2 works really well stand-alone" and "ME2 poo poo the bed for the overarching story" aren't mutually exclusive or each other's counterpoints.
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Aug 5, 2014 15:34
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FoolyCharged posted:I wouldn't take how something as marketed into consideration when analyzing it, as marketing divisions have one singular goal: sell the product. They're kind of notorious for telling just enough of the truth to fit within the law while distorting the truth to sell as muc product as possible. On the other hand it's pretty ridiculous to say you aren't supposed to go in with expectations into a direct sequel, of a story that ended with a sequel hook. There is a continuous story and build-up of expectations and it's a completely valid angle.
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Aug 5, 2014 17:13
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Neruz posted:There are people who think that Green is the wrong choice, I question whether these people actually listened to any of the plot in the entire series at all. Green is so ovbiously the better colour that it was a complete and total no brainer for me. Well I suppose you could argue "the problem" was always a self-fulfilling prophecy, and on a thematic level it might be a lot more hollow to solve the villain's dilemma if you feel like you've already proved it didn't really exist in the first place. I think the one proper theme ME actually does do well is dealing with the question of whether it's right to preemptively destroy life if it's a fundamental threat to you in the future. And if you do the paragon route properly you pretty much prove that's the wrong approach, or at least not the only possible solution. In which case taking the same big question and making it disappear with a big scifi magic wand undermines the player's efforts a bit.
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Aug 5, 2014 18:00
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Lt. Danger posted:I dunno... do they? Morrigan is snarky, but people find her irritating because she keeps turning that snarkiness on the PC, the player and the game itself until she becomes frustrating. Morrigan was annoying for completely unrelated reasons. Refuse to ritually sacrifice your father? Morrigan disapproves (-10). Agree to do a mutually beneficial job for someone? Not the spirit of the free market, Morrigan disapproves (-10).
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Aug 6, 2014 16:57
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Arglebargle III posted:Morinth represents the gay menace. This is actually pretty hard to escape, hilarious and unintentional as it may be. I'm slowly starting to believe the only reason Bioware's writers have a reputation as liberal minded is because everyone is misunderstanding what is essentially their glorified lesbian porn.
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Aug 6, 2014 20:52
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Well, this is a thread where people cite tvtropes as an argument. Seriously, if "there's no message, ignore anything that looks like an allegory" is the intended interpretation then the writer should be ashamed. If it's the interpretation you make you should be ashamed. If you tell people to stop thinking you should be doubly ashamed. Also allegories don't have to be 1:1. In fact they would kind of stop being allegories at that point. You are thinking of analogues. Anyway, one reason it's kind of hard to buy Morinth represents only a sexual predator is that the only tool she uses is seduction. Up until they magically die during the sex, her victims completely on board with what's going on. Maybe you could frame Morinth in a way that didn't come off like that, but c'mon, the victim's diary actually has a line to the effect of "is it wrong to have gay feelings?".
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Aug 7, 2014 09:52
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FullLeatherJacket posted:This would be fine if it was just a case of highlighting a funny way something could be read and then throwing it away and moving on. The problem is that there's stuff in this thread that starts to swing into, "well, if you look at it like this, then the conflict between the Geth and the Quarians is a metaphor for the Boer War, and I can't believe Bioware allowed it to stay in the game". Which seems to just be masturbatory self-indulgence for people who want to pretend that they're Roger Ebert and that video games work the same way as movies. Ah yes, the obscure subject of homosexuality. Also if they directly referenced the Boer War during the Geth/Quarian plot then it would be a pretty good interpretation of it, yeah.
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Aug 7, 2014 11:12
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FullLeatherJacket posted:I'd be more willing to hear out the argument if Morinth was the only character in the series that's bisexual or homosexual, same as I'd be more willing to hear out arguments about the position of women in the game if Bioware hadn't gone to significant expense in allowing for the player-character to be a (bisexual) woman in the first place. So does the "everyone get along" message invalidate any grievances about the greedy space Jews or vice versa? Like who decides which way it goes? Or maybe you are confused about whether the writing or the writer is on trial here.
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Aug 7, 2014 13:37
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Pretty much every Volus you meet is a shady or/and greedy merchant. The one exception I can think of acknowledges that all his people are greedy bastards. ME1 had the shady banker you can call out on unethical practices. ME2 had the guy gloating over the destruction of colonies because it made him money, and the merchants involved in illegal operations during Samara's recruitment. In ME3 the sidequests with the Volus involved stopping them from war profiteering. Like were there some I missed that really break the picture there?
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Aug 7, 2014 16:05
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Nihilarian posted:Excuse me, you forgot about the BIOTIC GOD, Niftu Cal. He was one of the merchants in Samara's recruitment mission, wasn't he? 
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Aug 7, 2014 16:12
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I wonder how voice actors feel when the director tells them to scream dramatically. Is it ever not silly?
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Aug 7, 2014 21:40
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People might complain that Tuchanka was just brown and didn't make sense, but at least it was still distinctive within the series. Every other homeworld just makes it look like there's just one architect in the entire galaxy. Maybe it's just me but I felt the home planets should have had something unique or memorable about them. Instead of making the place itself memorable, in order to drive in the point that the oldest and richest culture in the galaxy is at stake, the place you go in Thessia is the smallest history museum ever. 
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Aug 8, 2014 22:54
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Polaron posted:I think if they had done more to sell the Catalyst as a fundamentally broken AI people might have accepted it more. Because you're right, making peace with the geth and the quarians proves that organics and synthetics can live together in peace. But all the Catalyst can think of is what if the humans build an AI that rebels, or what if the asari do, or what if some race on the other side of the galaxy that the Citadel races have never encountered builds a hostile AI. What if what if what if. The Catalyst is stuck, but the big conversation at the end shows no real sign of this. You can't call it out, not really, and they don't really show that it's stuck. It just makes big declarative statements about how your opinions don't matter whenever you point something out to it. It might have been a bit more interesting if the Catalyst knew the problem he was solving is nonsense, but had to keep at it because that's what he was created to do. It would explain why he just kind of gives up with some silly excuse. "One half-dead human made it to the control room (with my help)? Welp, this isn't working afterall, here's how to kill me". Unfortunately you are supposed to take his motivations at face value.
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Aug 13, 2014 18:13
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It's not just the organics/synthetics conflict though. The genophage plot is pretty much about the same thing, with the harsh solution to the problem of predestined conflict. Also killing the rachni queen in the first game, and other smaller moments. But in all those cases the player can reject the entire premise, so why not during the ending that's entirely about that theme? But of course the writers probably never even thought about thematic things like this too hard, it's all just a Star Trek homage or something.
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Aug 13, 2014 22:16
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Lt. Danger posted:I think people are overstating the relevance of Leviathan. I've not played it myself, but from what I can tell it doesn't say anything you need to know or couldn't work out from the main game. Leviathan is incredibly important because it gives you exposition about major plot points sooner than 10 minutes before the game ends.
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Aug 14, 2014 10:50
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Sombrerotron posted:Fair enough. I confess that I tend to view prior encounters with AI through the Catalyst's lens, because I find the essence of its argument (i.e. synthetic life is bound to outperform organic life at some point, and conflict naturally arises from that) both plausible and an interesting premise for a story - more so, I suppose, than "we can all be friends if we just really want to". That probably makes me a little blind to legitimate criticism regarding the player's expectations. The thing is that from what we are shown, an AI so superior to organics that it could wipe them out wouldn't, because the only reason synthetics are hostile is that they view organics as threats (or because the Catalyst itself is manipulating them). The Geth consistently stop shooting the moment Quarians surrender and stop being a threat, even when their explicit goal was to genocide all Geth. The premise is "too powerful AI will want to kill all organics", yeah, but that doesn't make any sense because A) logically that powerful AI wouldn't have a reason to B) in every single case we see the organics are the ultimate aggressor, not the machines.
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Aug 14, 2014 11:49
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Neruz posted:No the premise is "organic and synthetic intelligence will always come into conflict" that can mean the AIs flip out and murder everyone, or it can mean the organics become fixated on destroying the AI's and either succeed or get destroyed themselves as we see with the Quarian-Geth conflict. No, it's definitely about AI ultimately winning. "Turning you species in a Reaper is the only way to save you", remember?
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Aug 14, 2014 11:57
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Neruz posted:Well the synthetic intelligence will ultimately win because if the organic intelligence survives it just creates another synthetic intelligence and eventually it makes one that is too good and they lose. Back to my first point then.
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Aug 14, 2014 12:05
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Neruz posted:Note that the Geth are only not interested in wiping out the organic sophonts right now, in say a million years time when they have grown so large that they now require resources that biologicals are using that attitude may no longer hold true. I don't see why machines would have the problem of overpopulation. Also another detail they throw about Geth is that they don't really occupy the same space organic life does and are perfectly happy to just float in vacuum doing their own thing. And again, this goes back to the story showing and saying different things. It's bad writing no matter how well constructed argument the game throws at you in the last ten minutes if everything up to then has been the completely opposite message.
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Aug 14, 2014 12:18
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Neruz posted:The Geth require physical resources of some sort, metals, carbon etc. They require power which means either sunlight or more physical resources. Unless both organic and synthetic lifeforms cease reproduction they will eventually come into conflict because there is only a limited amount of resources in the galaxy. It's an entire galaxy, but fine, it's a scifi writer's galaxy where the scale is whatever. I'm not going to sperg about that, because the actual problem is that the story doesn't present the problem as some kind of darwinist struggle for limited resources, it's "the created will rebel against the creators!" and other enemies-by-nature conflicts. And right at the end it flat out states a completely different moral about the issue to the one the player has been slowly uncovering through experience. poo poo writing. EDIT: I mean the best solution you are handed with is turning everyone into some kind of magical organic-synthetic hybrids. It's not a solution to the eventual overpopulation of the galaxy, because that's not the problem the story is about. BioMe fucked around with this message at 12:37 on Aug 14, 2014 |
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Aug 14, 2014 12:30
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The thing is that Mass Effect is derivative to the point where it's completely oblivious to having any substance. The reason it doesn't work thematically is that it doesn't have real themes, only "homage". Of course nerds love "homage", but when most genre fiction (let alone in video games) has nothing to say about anything that's not other genre fiction you start to understand why anyone who reads real books looks down on it.
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Aug 16, 2014 09:20
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Arglebargle III posted:I don't think that word means what you think it means. Would you also criticize Mass Effect 2 for being obsessed with fathers? Because fathers are not limited to genre fiction as far as I'm aware. Your whole post was pretty much garbage honestly. It's obsessed with tropes.
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Aug 16, 2014 12:57
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The father thing in ME2 was more of a motif than anything. I mean yeah, fathers show up a lot, but what did all those subplots as whole actually have to say about fathers? They certainly weren't long enough to count as some general exploration of fatherhood, especially when the one thing they had in common beyond that was that none of the fathers really acted like fathers.Arglebargle III posted:What does this even mean? The writing is way more fascinated with the building blocks than constructing anything cohesive. Really the problems is more with ME1, but obviously it leaves some baggage for the rest of the series. The "homage" or "intertextuality" or whatever the nicer word you want to call just plain ripping off other series in itself isn't really the issue. It's that such huge chunks of the story are purely intertextual that it starts to override plain old textuality. To the point where you are supposed to ignore stuff that looks like it serves some narrative purpose and just assume it's another meaningless reference, or a trope that was put there just for the sake of having that trope. So unless you have an encyclopedic knowledge of scifi series from the past couple decades, you'll be really confused by what the writer is after by having the space gypsies also have created the evil robots, or who or what the turians are supposed to represents, until someone takes pity and explains the references for you. BioMe fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Aug 17, 2014 |
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Aug 17, 2014 02:20
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This is the best soapbox.
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Aug 18, 2014 13:44
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I have to say I'm really surprised people like the Citadel. Especially the purely character-building segments. That was really loving awkward to play and I had to stop. I mean I like the characters and all, but I don't want a make-believe social life with them. And the comedy bits were obnoxious too.
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Aug 18, 2014 19:12
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Kurieg posted:Because the combat is fun, the banter is good, they re introduce Wrex as a squadmate again and gives you some time to hang out with your space bros. I'm sorry if you didn't like that but a lot of people did. The arena was alright. The social-life simulator was hilariously/uncomfortably pandering. I mean someone said Bioware has been slowly reinventing the dating sim. Well, they finally got there.
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Aug 18, 2014 20:05
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Interpretations are subjective, but not all interpretations are equally well realized in the text. Even something like Final Fantasy 8 is a fascinating story about stuff like the Cold War paranoia and child soldiers, you could argue. And sure, those things are objectively present in the text. You just have to cherry pick like hell between all the awkward teenage drama to argue they are strong themes and worth playing the game for.
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Aug 18, 2014 23:03
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So basically everyone should be less interested in the game than in what you have to say about it. This is going to be great if the LP sycophant squad doesn't ruin everything.
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Aug 20, 2014 22:30
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