524 réponses à ce sujet

[smudboy]

Alocormin wrote...

A few valid points. A lot of (ironically) not well-thought-out criticism though.

By all means.

[smudboy]

finnithe wrote...
Your analysis wasn't exactly even handed. You didn't really talk about what the antagonists represented. 

There's not much to say about a one-liner shotgun prattling on about genetics.  Especially when I can't hear them over my shotgun.

Read Harbinger's battle quotes. He actually does give a lot of exposition, unlike Sovereign he doesn't do it in one sitting. "We are your genetic destiny" means "We are going to turn you into Reapers", and the final boss complies with that promise. 

I shouldn't have to.  I listened to the youtube of them all.  I don't recall even hearing 90% of them.  Random sound files is not how you provide proper exposition, let alone it being any good.

"We are you genetic destiny" could mean anything.  The main feeling was "We're superior, you suck, blahblahblah x100."

Your definition of theme is wrong I think. What you described sounds closer to plot structure, whereas the theme is usually a message or concept of some sort. I described the theme of self-determination, or freedom of thought, which is explored a lot with Legion and his descriptions of the conflict between his faction of Geth and the Heretics. The Reapers represent the end of freedom or self-actualization/determination, and their victims the Collectors/Protheans, again show how dangerous they are.

Because that's as close a theme there is.  It's "Shepard's Rockband Tour and Friends."  There's lots of venues, lots of explosions at those venues, and a big anti-climax finale.  There may be others; this is a space opera, so ideas are going to get plentiful, and messy.  If Shepard had some personality and was constantly pissed off at his
death/resurrection, then it might've been a theme of revenge.  A theme is what a story is about.  To me it seems pretty clear what ME2 was all about: get some people, go on a Suicide Mission.  (From the generic, timeless "man vs. man", to the specific.)  Without a proper protagonist giving us a clear message and feeling, it's anyone's guess.

Either way, I defined theme, premise and plot.  You obviously don't like the definition.  Just don't start comparing my apples to your oranges as if either is right or wrong.

[smudboy]

finnithe wrote...

Your analysis would benefit a lot by not calling ME2's the worst plot in a sequel ever. Its not a great opener.

Learn.  To.  Listen.

To.  The.  First.  Line.

Of.  The.  First.  Video.

[finnithe]

smudboy wrote...

finnithe wrote...
Your analysis wasn't exactly even handed. You didn't really talk about what the antagonists represented. 

There's not much to say about a one-liner shotgun prattling on about genetics.  Especially when I can't hear them over my shotgun.

Read Harbinger's battle quotes. He actually does give a lot of exposition, unlike Sovereign he doesn't do it in one sitting. "We are your genetic destiny" means "We are going to turn you into Reapers", and the final boss complies with that promise. 

I shouldn't have to.  I listened to the youtube of them all.  I don't recall even hearing 90% of them.  Random sound files is not how you provide proper exposition, let alone it being any good.

"We are you genetic destiny" could mean anything.  The main feeling was "We're superior, you suck, blahblahblah x100."

It doesn't just mean anything though. You can't exactly ignore foreshadowing of this nature. By the end of the game, it's very apparent that the Human Reaper is proof that Harbinger is being literal when he says that "we are your genetic destiny" or "we are the Harbinger of your ascendance. 

The nature of this random exposition is similar to the elevator conversations/news reports in Mass Effect 1. I can see the problem with this however: most players will not hear this, and thus will not be able to realize the smaller details in the plot. So you are right, they should have been foreshadowing it in some other way. I wouldn't want a direct conversation with Harbinger, just because trying to find other ways of exposition is better. 

Regardless, you can't just ignore it in a plot analysis due to that reason. The exposition is still there, so you should consider it. 

Modifié par finnithe, 08 juin 2010 - 07:45 .

[Xivai]

Its... its like you didn't play the first or second games. Or read any of the codex entries, or hypothesis enough. Ill admit it isn't the BEST story ever, but it's not the worse. I would go so war as to say it is average. Although this is a limit of the media really, and the demographic of people that play these games.

My point is that I am watching your plot review and answer all of your questions. So no there aren't these gaping voids of plot or things that don't make sense. Well..... okay a few. But nowhere near enough to cover 6 videos. Also in the very beginning of your video you admit that there are more boring cookie cutter stories out there, and plots that make less sense. You even gave examples, so I don't think you truly believe Mass Effect 2 to have the worse plot ever. I mean it's been done before. You might want to start at the source. Or clarify your meaning as to worse.

Edit
What baffles me is that if its so bad and yet you did all that work, and then come here to debate it. I don't understand. I mean surely you wasted enough time on playing it no? I'm scratching my head trying to think why someone would want to do this. Attention perhaps? I don't know, but I guess we all have different opinions. I suspect you just want to rant at something. Disregard and have fun. I doubt anyone will catch on. Hard ot have a serious and good discussion over the internet.

Modifié par Xivai, 08 juin 2010 - 07:50 .

[SkullandBonesmember]

Xivai wrote...

What baffles me is that if its so bad and yet you did all that work, and then come here to debate it. I don't understand. I mean surely you wasted enough time on playing it no? I'm scratching my head trying to think why someone would want to do this. Attention perhaps? I don't know, but I guess we all have different opinions. I suspect you just want to rant at something. Disregard and have fun. I doubt anyone will catch on. Hard ot have a serious and good discussion over the internet.

*sighs* Copy and paste time again.

Shooter fans get dozens of games that cater their tastes released every year. How many games like Mass Effect do story driven fans get released for them each year? Enough to count on only one hand. So when a game like Mass Effect 2 is released, it's not as if we have a variety to pick from, whether it sucks or not, we have to take it. There aren't many games that allow you to dictate what the main character says with choices and multiple endings. There is however a plethora of games with lots and lots of 'SPLOSHUNS. Even though there's a huge market for games such as Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy, etc.

[Christmas Ape]

It's like Yahtzee.

Stripped of humor, clever delivery, funny pictures, insight into games as a whole, and the other elements that let me listen to griping reviews from a man who sucks at video games.

[smudboy]

finnithe wrote...
It doesn't just mean anything though.

My thoughts exactly.

You can't exactly ignore foreshadowing of this nature. By the end of the game, it's very apparent that the Human Reaper is proof that Harbinger is being literal when he says that "we are your genetic destiny" or "we are the Harbinger of your ascendance. 

I can if it's random rambling about genetics, and not effective, and not everyone's going to hear it, even through multiple playthroughs.  Where's the irony in a taunting voice for an event that doesn't occur (because we kill Arnold)?  Maybe it's ironic toward Harbinger that his intentions failed?  If Shepard and co. got blended, then yeah, that would be foreshadowing.  But the future event of being blended doesn't happen.  Foreshadowing is about dropping clues or "beating around the bush" about what's going to actually happen in the plot, not someone's intentions about what they're going to do with you in some completely un-deductible sci-fi death-trap "answer to a species."

We don't have the knowledge of what "genetic destiny" even means to a Reaper/disembodied voice, to even start deducing it, let alone the other stuff he prattles on about.  I'd imagine neither do the writers.  Is it phenotypes, genotypes, a certain gene, natural evolution, cybernetics, mind control, gene splicing, nanotech, what?  We have no idea what Harbinger's motive is, how, or at that point may be.  He's just a Big Bad with a booming voice going on about sh*t.

The nature of this random exposition is similar to the elevator conversations/news reports in Mass Effect 1. I can see the problem with this however: most players will not hear this, and thus will not be able to realize the smaller details in the plot. So you are right, they should have been foreshadowing it in some other way. I wouldn't want a direct conversation with Harbinger, just because trying to find other ways of exposition is better. 

Regardless, you can't just ignore it in a plot analysis due to that reason. The exposition is still there, so you should consider it. 

I did.  I found it meaningless.  Kudos to you if you didn't.

[MaaZeus]

Im in the process of watching. A lot of good points, though most of them have been complained about since the release of ME2, but also some incredibly nitpicky even for my tastes. But I had to pause for a while to write that there is a very big error. You say that you should do recon on the omega 4 relay after getting the IFF but that is impossible and that is the point. You even mention something about plot device that allows you to pass red mass relays. Everything without proper IFF be it probe or ship get destroyed, so Shepard has to go in blind without knowing what they are really up against and trust the IFF works. This is pretty much the whole point, a blind suicide run.

And you are not totally blind what you might face. You DO know that you need a good ship because you got your arse kicked in the beginning, and a good team is pretty much mandatory since boarding is possible, be it getting your ship boarder or you attact a space station or base on somekind of homeworld or whatever is beyond the Omega-4 relay. You had to be prepared for pretty much anything, as it is impossible to know exactly what you might face.

Now, back to watching, if only Youtube would let me. God damnit its slow today even on SD content!


*edit* About first fireteam leader getting tech expert killed, it has something to do with "suppressive fire". I always understood that scene so that if there is wrong or unloyal/focused leader, they fail to keep tech expert covered while he/she does her magic on the door. Things start to get very intense on the otherside of the door and they have to try pushing the door closed, resulting in rocket to the face. If you have correct choices, you got tech expert is well covered, not panicing, and when to door is unresponsive, he/she still has enough time to unjam it and close it properly.

This is just how I always saw this scene.

Modifié par MaaZeus, 08 juin 2010 - 08:28 .

[glacier1701]

Grrr.....had a nice reply all typed out and forum locked up and I lost it. Too tired to go back and try to recreate it. Basically though using The Citadel as a relay is a calculated risk. If the Reapers are coming then they should not be there at their end of the gate because time is on our side. The longer they give us to prepare and particularly now when they seem to have no idea of what we might be doing as their allies are all dead makes it more and more probable that we'll have something to destroy them with. And yes there is also the possibility that when we get to the other side there is nothing other than a plain old relay but EVEN that works in our favour in that according to the Council The Citadel is not even a relay in the first place. Had another thought while writing this. It appears in ME1 that the relays can be controlled from the control panel on The Citadel. I wonder if its possible to go into that and figure out HOW to tune the relays so that they do NOT work with Reaper IFF. Would mean that they would have to use FTL to get everywhere slowing them down. Anyways back to point: what we can say is this - if we have blocked them from using the Citadel then they have to be travelling via FTL ot reach us. Its not fast so at some time they will have abandoned their end of the relay. We wait some time - a few weeks or couple of months and then check. We do not necassarily even have to open up the relay the fact that we can do invalidates the claim of the Turian Councillor and it is his voice we have silence.



Oh well - gonna really have to get into trying to save posts as I go along so I dont lose them.

[smudboy]

MaaZeus wrote...

Im in the process of watching. A lot of good points, though most of them have been complained about since the release of ME2, but also some incredibly nitpicky even for my tastes. But I had to pause for a while to write that there is a very big error. You say that you should do recon on the omega 4 relay after getting the IFF but that is impossible and that is the point. You even mention something about plot device that allows you to pass red mass relays. Everything without proper IFF be it probe or ship get destroyed, so Shepard has to go in blind without knowing what they are really up against and trust the IFF works. This is pretty much the whole point, a blind suicide run.

Since the IFF allows ships or -- any space fairing thing -- to travel through the Omega-4 relay, why wouldn't an IFF probe work?

If you look at the "worst ending" video where you save the base, you'll see a scene of TIM looking at his screen of the base, smirking to himself, while various ships (supposedly Cerberus') all advancing on it.  Wouldn't it be prudent to try testing out the very thing that seems to destroy/cause ships to never return?

And you are not totally blind what you might face. You DO know that you need a good ship because you got your arse kicked in the beginning, and a good team is pretty much mandatory since boarding is possible, be it getting your ship boarder or you attact a space station or base on somekind of homeworld or whatever is beyond the Omega-4 relay. You had to be prepared for pretty much anything, as it is impossible to know exactly what you might face.

1) Which doesn't quite make sense, considering there's a massive field of old/dead ships when you get there.  Since the IFF is used to correct relay-drift, how come those ships traveled just fine?  Did they have some other kind of IFF?  Were they also on their own "Attack the Reapers/Collectors" mission?
2) A good team is not mandatory for potential boarding, if your first point is that you need a good ship.  If you need a good ship to even survive, why would you now be concerend with having your good ship being disabled so that you have a team to prevent from being boarded, captured or killed?  Unless you mean boarding the enemy ship?
3) There's nothing wrong with "being prepared".  But we're still talking about an unknown.  One ship?  Two ships? A hundred?  A million?  One base on a planet?  2?  A thousand?  One space station?  An entire solar system full of them?  How about a galaxy?  etc.  If that's the scale, you should be prepared for a space war, not a ground war.  You should be getting more ships, nuclear bombs, making alliances with others to have them help you out.  It would've made sense to have Cerberus and the Alliance/Council to use the threat of The Collectors to build a bridge between the two, as hundreds of thousands of humans are now lost.  Instead you just bet everything on an untested piece of Reaper technology which nearly got the ship captured (instead of destroyed?)  I mean by this point in the story, the plot is already a disjointed mess of crap, so rational it any way you like.

*edit* About first fireteam leader getting tech expert killed, it has something to do with "suppressive fire". I always understood that scene so that if there is wrong or unloyal/focused leader, they fail to keep tech expert covered while he/she does her magic on the door. Things start to get very intense on the otherside of the door and they have to try pushing the door closed, resulting in rocket to the face. If you have correct choices, you got tech expert is well covered, not panicing, and when to door is unresponsive, he/she still has enough time to unjam it and close it properly.

If it's all about suppressive fire, how does that get the door jammed?

The was no additional "suppressive fire" movie where the wrong tech expert does something wrong, which doesn't use suppressive fire.  It would make sense if that were the case, but there isn't.

This is just how I always saw this scene.

You have a wild imagination, sir.

[smudboy]

glacier1701 wrote...
Grrr.....had a nice reply all typed out and forum locked up and I lost it. Too tired to go back and try to recreate it. Basically though using The Citadel as a relay is a calculated risk

All for the point of getting evidence or information?

The worst case scenario being complete galactic destruction?

Dude!  That is one hell of a calculated risk.

If the Reapers are coming then they should not be there at their end of the gate because time is on our side.

Which Reapers?  All of them?  If this assumption of yours is incorrect, it's all you can eat at the Galactic Reaper Buffet.

The longer they give us to prepare and particularly now when they seem to have no idea of what we might be doing as their allies are all dead makes it more and more probable that we'll have something to destroy them with. And yes there is also the possibility that when we get to the other side there is nothing other than a plain old relay but EVEN that works in our favour in that according to the Council The Citadel is not even a relay in the first place. Had another thought while writing this. It appears in ME1 that the relays can be controlled from the control panel on The Citadel. I wonder if its possible to go into that and figure out HOW to tune the relays so that they do NOT work with Reaper IFF. Would mean that they would have to use FTL to get everywhere slowing them down. Anyways back to point: what we can say is this - if we have blocked them from using the Citadel then they have to be travelling via FTL ot reach us. Its not fast so at some time they will have abandoned their end of the relay. We wait some time - a few weeks or couple of months and then check. We do not necassarily even have to open up the relay the fact that we can do invalidates the claim of the Turian Councillor and it is his voice we have silence.

glacier, I know this is an inspriation to you.  But it sounds way too insane.  And how this relates to not keeping the
Collector Base is beyond me...now that you're assuming things to be a certain way.

[MaaZeus]

smudboy wrote...

Since the IFF allows ships or -- any space fairing thing -- to travel
through the Omega-4 relay, why wouldn't an IFF probe work?

If you
look at the "worst ending" video where you save the base, you'll see a
scene of TIM looking at his screen of the base, smirking to himself,
while various ships (supposedly Cerberus') all advancing on it. 
Wouldn't it be prudent to try testing out the very thing that seems to
destroy/cause ships to never return?

Good point. Though I dont know enough about IFF, how easy it can be duplicated etc... But at the ending with TIM smirking at the screen indicates that it shouldnt be too hard to do it. But then again Shepard is in quite a hurry since his shipmates just got abducted.

1) Which doesn't quite make sense, considering there's a massive field
of old/dead ships when you get there.  Since the IFF is used to correct
relay-drift, how come those ships traveled just fine?  Did they have
some other kind of IFF?  Were they also on their own "Attack the
Reapers/Collectors" mission?
2) A good team is not mandatory for
potential boarding, if your first point is that you need a good ship.
 If you need a good ship to even survive, why would you now be concerend
with having your good ship being disabled so that you have a team to
prevent from being boarded, captured or killed?  Unless you mean
boarding the enemy ship?
3) There's nothing wrong with "being
prepared".  But we're still talking about an unknown.  One ship?  Two
ships? A hundred?  A million?  One base on a planet?  2?  A
thousand?  One space station?  An entire solar system full of them?  How
about a galaxy?  etc.  If that's the scale, you should be prepared for a
space war, not a ground war.  You should be getting
more ships, nuclear bombs, making alliances with others to have them
help you out.  It would've made sense to have Cerberus and the
Alliance/Council to use the threat of The Collectors to build a bridge
between the two, as hundreds of
thousands of humans are now lost.  Instead you just bet
everything on an untested piece of Reaper technology which nearly got
the ship captured (instead of destroyed?)  I mean by this point in the
story, the plot is already a disjointed mess of crap, so rational it any
way you like.

1) If I understood correctly, those shipwrecks on the otherside were the lucky ones who get through without IFF correcting the relay drift. But they had a welcome party, just like you did. And being inferior technology to Normandy they got torn apart fast.

2) I meant both. You do not know if you get boarded OR you have to board something. Through the game you do know that you have to stop collectors, and later you have to attack their source. How you can do it without a good team? Unless you intent to bomb some homeworld/spacestation/whatever might be behind the relay. Actually thats not a bad plan. Normandy is just a wrong ship for it, being a stealth cruiser and not a bomber.

3) I usually go apes**t from anger whenever someone mentions "its just a game". But here I have to take this excuse. Remember that we are talking about Shepard, a frigging cyberjesus. He doesnt care about odds be it army of Geth or army of bugpeople, he and a good team can wipe out anything. Okay, dont you think this is a bit of a nitpicking honestly, especially since we ARE talking about squad based game? Atleast my suspension of disbelief manages to stretch here.

If it's all about suppressive fire, how does that get the door jammed?

The
was no additional "suppressive fire" movie where the wrong tech expert
does something wrong, which doesn't use suppressive fire.  It would make
sense if that were the case, but there isn't.

Let me go through it again. IIRC the door jams on BOTH good and bad choices. I have to check it again to be sure, but I really remember that your tech expert says that something is wrong and door is stuck even if everything is correctly chosen. Difference being that your fireteam either succeeds or fails to cover the door long enough, forcing them to close the door quickly with force instead of unjamming it before collectors get through.

*edit* Yup. Jump to 3:30

Door gets jammed and your another team comes to cover you, buying you enough time to unjam it. This doesnt happen with failed scenes. So the results are obvious when this happens, scene is perfectly fitting without holes.

But you are correct, why this happens if you just choose a wrong tech expert? My theory is that Bioware just didnt bother to make a new cinematic for this situation and recycled the other one. Too bad that it doesnt make much sense this way.

You have a wild imagination, sir.

Oh c'mon... <_<

Modifié par MaaZeus, 09 juin 2010 - 09:58 .

[TK Dude]

I like your videos smudboy, you make good points about ME2's storyline. However, your voice wasn't a bit clearly to me.
Wouldn't have better if you have put subtitles in it? Just saying.

Modifié par TK Dude, 09 juin 2010 - 09:51 .

[Massadonious1]

SkullandBonesmember wrote...

Xivai wrote...

What baffles me is that if its so bad and yet you did all that work, and then come here to debate it. I don't understand. I mean surely you wasted enough time on playing it no? I'm scratching my head trying to think why someone would want to do this. Attention perhaps? I don't know, but I guess we all have different opinions. I suspect you just want to rant at something. Disregard and have fun. I doubt anyone will catch on. Hard ot have a serious and good discussion over the internet.

*sighs* Copy and paste time again.

Shooter fans get dozens of games that cater their tastes released every year. How many games like Mass Effect do story driven fans get released for them each year? Enough to count on only one hand. So when a game like Mass Effect 2 is released, it's not as if we have a variety to pick from, whether it sucks or not, we have to take it. There aren't many games that allow you to dictate what the main character says with choices and multiple endings. There is however a plethora of games with lots and lots of 'SPLOSHUNS. Even though there's a huge market for games such as Mass Effect, Heavy Rain, Indigo Prophecy, etc.

You keep repeating this as if it's anyone but the studio's fault that they don't make these "awsum" story driven games. Here is a hint. It isn't.

[smudboy]

MaaZeus wrote...
Good point. Though I dont know enough about IFF, how easy it can be duplicated etc... But at the ending with TIM smirking at the screen indicates that it shouldnt be too hard to do it. But then again Shepard is in quite a hurry since his shipmates just got abducted.

So he has an extra motivation.  That doesn't negate the fact he doesn't know what he's rushing into.

1) If I understood correctly, those shipwrecks on the otherside were the lucky ones who get through without IFF correcting the relay drift. But they had a welcome party, just like you did. And being inferior technology to Normandy they got torn apart fast.

Really anything could've happened.  It was my assumption they did have some kind of IFF or they would've been thrown into a star or something.

2) I meant both. You do not know if you get boarded OR you have to board something. Through the game you do know that you have to stop collectors, and later you have to attack their source. How you can do it without a good team? Unless you intent to bomb some homeworld/spacestation/whatever might be behind the relay. Actually thats not a bad plan. Normandy is just a wrong ship for it, being a stealth cruiser and not a bomber.

That's not rational.  You already have a crew.  Obviously not as competent in firing a gun, but so what?  You're in a space ship.  This is as if Sheridan was going to go fight some unknown enemy they know almost nothing about aside from having a ship, whom they want to DESTROY, but instead of using their super-awesome new White Star warship, they're going to shoot it with bullets from an assault rifle on foot, in the supposed hope they'll be able to somehow board the unknown enemies supposed ship.  It's ****ing retarded.  If you got 12 peopel to collect, why not 24, or 36?  It seems numbers is the way to go here.  It makes no sense.

We have a cargo hold.  I can hold entire other vehicles, and what, 60 probes?  Putting nuclear bombs in there doesn't seem like that different an operation.  Voila.  Your stealth ship is now a bomber.

Planning for "well gee, that ship/ships/unknown enemy opposing force can just destroy us no problem.  But we may get boarded, or we may board them," is stupid.  If that's the case, why not take everyone with you, all the time?  But you can't.  There are many more practical, logical things to do then just pick up foot soldiers.

3) I usually go apes**t from anger whenever someone mentions "its just a game". But here I have to take this excuse. Remember that we are talking about Shepard, a frigging cyberjesus. He doesnt care about odds be it army of Geth or army of bugpeople, he and a good team can wipe out anything. Okay, dont you think this is a bit of a nitpicking honestly, especially since we ARE talking about squad based game? Atleast my suspension of disbelief manages to stretch here.

That may be a fine personality Shepard, but stupidly rushing into something isn't planning ahead for anything.  When he has capable technology to scout ahead.  When he has the capacity to have other means to ensure this mass relay thing they've never tested before is actually safe.  That the enemy they're going to be facing isn't an entire other solar system of trillions of Collectors, or a Reaper planet, or whatever.

It doesn't matter if it's a squad based game.  We're talking space opera here.  I don't mind if things end up in a squad based ground-solution.  But things have to be built up in such a way so that it doesn't feel like a piece of obvious, contrived bull****.

Let me go through it again. IIRC the door jams on BOTH good and bad choices. I have to check it again to be sure, but I really remember that your tech expert says that something is wrong and door is stuck even if everything is correctly chosen. Difference being that your fireteam either succeeds or fails to cover the door long enough, forcing them to close the door quickly with force instead of unjamming it before collectors get through.

Yes, the door is stuck in both cases trying to be opened, but not when it's trying to be closed.  When you have the wrong fireteam leader/loyalty, the door magically gets jammed when trying to be closed.

*edit* Yup. Jump to 3:30

Door gets jammed and your another team comes to cover you, buying you enough time to unjam it. This doesnt happen with failed scenes. So the results are obvious when this happens, scene is perfectly fitting without holes.

I'm referring to the door closing getting magically jammed if you have the wrong fire team leader, not opening.

The "suppressing fire" comment happens regardless of who's the fire team leader.  If you have the wrong leader, then the door magically gets stuck when trying to close.  That does not make sense.  This is clear to me.

But you are correct, why this happens if you just choose a wrong tech expert? My theory is that Bioware just didnt bother to make a new cinematic for this situation and recycled the other one. Too bad that it doesnt make much sense this way.

It doesn't make any goddamned sense.

[luk3us]

There were some things I disagreed with in your epic analysis, you owe me an hour of my life back buddy. But overall I agree with what you are saying, it seemed there were some serious communication breakdowns in the team developing the game. As lots of the little things don't line up well.



Hopefully Bioware takes notice and makes ME3 well.



Have a fun flamewar in the mean time, haters gonna hate and all.

[glacier1701]

smudboy wrote...

glacier1701 wrote...
Grrr.....had a nice reply all typed out and forum locked up and I lost it. Too tired to go back and try to recreate it. Basically though using The Citadel as a relay is a calculated risk

All for the point of getting evidence or information?

The worst case scenario being complete galactic destruction?

Dude!  That is one hell of a calculated risk.

If the Reapers are coming then they should not be there at their end of the gate because time is on our side.

Which Reapers?  All of them?  If this assumption of yours is incorrect, it's all you can eat at the Galactic Reaper Buffet.

The longer they give us to prepare and particularly now when they seem to have no idea of what we might be doing as their allies are all dead makes it more and more probable that we'll have something to destroy them with. And yes there is also the possibility that when we get to the other side there is nothing other than a plain old relay but EVEN that works in our favour in that according to the Council The Citadel is not even a relay in the first place. Had another thought while writing this. It appears in ME1 that the relays can be controlled from the control panel on The Citadel. I wonder if its possible to go into that and figure out HOW to tune the relays so that they do NOT work with Reaper IFF. Would mean that they would have to use FTL to get everywhere slowing them down. Anyways back to point: what we can say is this - if we have blocked them from using the Citadel then they have to be travelling via FTL ot reach us. Its not fast so at some time they will have abandoned their end of the relay. We wait some time - a few weeks or couple of months and then check. We do not necassarily even have to open up the relay the fact that we can do invalidates the claim of the Turian Councillor and it is his voice we have silence.

glacier, I know this is an inspriation to you.  But it sounds way too insane.  And how this relates to not keeping the
Collector Base is beyond me...now that you're assuming things to be a certain way.

 LOL well I do tend to be something of a magpie when ideas and things start bubbling up that I lose any focus on what the original point may have been. Which is what happened in this case. It also means that I tend to find it very hard to go back and get back into the mood I might have had before so it may be ages before i get around to replying to this if I ever do. 

[glacier1701]

One other thing that gets me about 'bullrushing' the Relay is why in hell didnt we mine the gate while we went around looking for a way of going through? A few hundred megatons of nuclear destruction is not going to make anyone's day better. So far as we know its the only way they have of getting to us and if they destroy themselves when coming through so much the better for us. IN other words turn things around - its a 'minefield' on their side so why dont we do the same on our side? And so what if its in the Terminus systems. The Omega-4 relays is already surrounded by warning markers so someone obviously is trying to keep peolpe away - we are just making sure that nothing comes through from the other side.

[smudboy]

glacier1701 wrote...

One other thing that gets me about 'bullrushing' the Relay is why in hell didnt we mine the gate while we went around looking for a way of going through? A few hundred megatons of nuclear destruction is not going to make anyone's day better. So far as we know its the only way they have of getting to us and if they destroy themselves when coming through so much the better for us. IN other words turn things around - its a 'minefield' on their side so why dont we do the same on our side? And so what if its in the Terminus systems. The Omega-4 relays is already surrounded by warning markers so someone obviously is trying to keep peolpe away - we are just making sure that nothing comes through from the other side.

That was one of the first things that popped into my head.

"Hey there's this unique public point in space where our enemy comes and goes.  And it's on the map."

Mines, surveillance...get an army and camp it...

[adam_grif]

"Mines" aren't literally the same as naval mines where the idea is to get the enemies to run directly into it. Instead, you can have big bombs strapped to big engines, they remain cold until enemies get within a certain distance, at which point they turn on and race towards them at high speeds, detoating when they get close enough.



Alternatively, they could have put some cruiser guns into orbit around O4 relay.

[glacier1701]

smudboy wrote...

glacier1701 wrote...

One other thing that gets me about 'bullrushing' the Relay is why in hell didnt we mine the gate while we went around looking for a way of going through? A few hundred megatons of nuclear destruction is not going to make anyone's day better. So far as we know its the only way they have of getting to us and if they destroy themselves when coming through so much the better for us. IN other words turn things around - its a 'minefield' on their side so why dont we do the same on our side? And so what if its in the Terminus systems. The Omega-4 relays is already surrounded by warning markers so someone obviously is trying to keep peolpe away - we are just making sure that nothing comes through from the other side.

That was one of the first things that popped into my head.

"Hey there's this unique public point in space where our enemy comes and goes.  And it's on the map."

Mines, surveillance...get an army and camp it...

Yup. We know that the Collector vessel is fragile in that it can be destroyed by non-upgraded weapons so one hit by a mine could have taken it out. That way we could have avoided the Horizon abductions and the poor 'reunion' scene we got there.

[Steingrimur Steingrimsson]

I agree with some of the points, like most of the plot holes.



I do not agree with the structural criticism. The game was obviously not focusing on Shepard's own development nearly as much as to flesh out the universe and the characters in it. I do not mind having 12 books in a package, as long as they are all extremely interesting, which I found them to be. I do not understand the criticism of all your squadmates except Mordin not having a purpose, since they all play important roles in the end mission. Although I really wish there were more missions like it. Shepard is still the protagonist and the focus, but his role is leader, so I do not find focusing on his team as being a fault. They are going on a suicide mission, his team mates are going to risk their lives for his cause, if he does not have a team that trusts 100 % in his ability and his character. They are obviously going to hesitate and suffer from bad morale. Therefore making it natural for him to give them a reason to make the ultimate sacrifice and thus focusing on them. In one of my playthroughs, where I play a well-meaning paragon, who looses half the crew and a few squadmates who were important to him (through my own metaroleplay, admitably, since it's hard to get your squadmates killed), the end scene really is powerful and shows his sadness and his newborn motivation and determination. Although the same thing happened in ME1, he only lost one squadmember back then, it felt he wanted to fight for a cause and not a personal reason. Now I feel both.

[InvaderErl]

glacier1701 wrote...

smudboy wrote...

glacier1701 wrote...

One other thing that gets me about 'bullrushing' the Relay is why in hell didnt we mine the gate while we went around looking for a way of going through? A few hundred megatons of nuclear destruction is not going to make anyone's day better. So far as we know its the only way they have of getting to us and if they destroy themselves when coming through so much the better for us. IN other words turn things around - its a 'minefield' on their side so why dont we do the same on our side? And so what if its in the Terminus systems. The Omega-4 relays is already surrounded by warning markers so someone obviously is trying to keep peolpe away - we are just making sure that nothing comes through from the other side.

That was one of the first things that popped into my head.

"Hey there's this unique public point in space where our enemy comes and goes.  And it's on the map."

Mines, surveillance...get an army and camp it...

Yup. We know that the Collector vessel is fragile in that it can be destroyed by non-upgraded weapons so one hit by a mine could have taken it out. That way we could have avoided the Horizon abductions and the poor 'reunion' scene we got there.

I could make the same argument about Saren and the ending of Mass Effect 1.  If they had just pointed some cameras at the Mu relay on either end they would have noticed the Normandy coming through, stealth systems or not.

Which was just lazy on his part since by this point he should have known that Shepard would be coming in his stealth ship.

As for the Omega relay, I doubt the Terminus systems powers are going to be overjoyed over Cerberus setting up shop/mining the relay of somebody that they do business with. Who's going to send a  fleet? The Alliance/Council, yeah I'm sure that won't start a political incident.