42753 réponses à ce sujet

[jlb524]

adneate wrote...

I think it will be a Jacob Cyberzombie and he will destroy the galaxy with boredom! Yet even as a glowing cybernetic skeleton FemShep will still be too flirty while talking to it. Palms will hit faces the world over and somewhere deep in the BioWare studios a writer will be pleased.

Someone should make that into a comic, at least

[lastpatriot]

JamieCOTC wrote…

The bold text, 100%. To be honest, I don't envy BW in the balancing act between player created soul and action/adventure character. It won't be easy and they won't please everyone. Still, as sagequeen rightfully pointed out, LotSB infused the game w/ a big ray of hope.

I completely agree that no matter how hard they work on it, there will always be that group out there that will never be happy with the outcome. Still, like you, I think LotSB was an amazing step in the right direction and really gave me the feeling that BW has heard our requests and is going to put much more depth into the characters. I played the same DLC on my ManShep and it was great to see just how much content was put in there for all options.

JamieCOTC wrote…

It’s interesting to note that both our girls are colonists however yours is (mostly?) renegade and mine is mostly paragon. How much of that is head-canon imagination and how much is the actual game, I don’t know, but you are right.

Well, when I was creating my character from ME:1, I chose to pick a background that would likely have the most dramatic influence upon a person and then based upon that trauma she was forced to deal with, how would it likely affect her perspective on the world? From there, I just tried to crease a background bio where she became so bitter as to what happened to her family that my Shep became almost obsessed with her anger. It was this anger and a desire for vengeance that lead to her later “ruthless” personality towards any enemy. On the flip side though, she is 100% loyal to her crew, kind, and respectful of their thoughts and/or concerns. It is only when she is in combat or forced to deal with something that may remind her of the past that she becomes cold, insensitive, and overly aggressive.

JamieCOTC wrote…

Our Shepards should be our own.

This is the main reason I liked Dragon Age so much in that there were many different backgrounds you could pick from and then the events of the game had at least, a good bit of influence based upon your original choices. Also, I really hope that BW will allow for a good bit more character customization options for ME:3 or some future DLC. My Shepard should never really look the same as yours or anyone else’s for that matter. They could fix this problem quickly if there were more hair styles available. After all, Shepard isn’t with the Alliance anymore so shouldn’t she have other options available?



Here is an example of my character from Dragon Age:

[f1r3storm]

sagequeen wrote...

JamieCOTC wrote...
Video games are narcissistic enough w/out the main characters becoming godlike saviors.  

SOooo true. part of why i loved ME1 was that it walked that line nicely. Shep is a savior, but she really had to fight for it and she did it with a team at her back.

ME2 really pushed shep into christ-figure territory, what with the team of 12 disciples squaddies and the raising from the dead and stuff (and lazarus, legion, etc.)

I hope that the way to defeat the reapers is tied to the reapers REASONS for taking on the galaxy. I mean, we still really have no idea what they're after. I have a few theories bouncing around in my head, but none are terribly well supported. If Shep can figure out what they want and why, then that has to go a long way to figuring out how to stop them.

BTW, random question - I personally found the idea that reapers were made from juiced organics highly interesting and "gah! yuck!" but also highly compelling. i didn't even think about the human reaper being terminator like because i was too distracted by thinking over the implications of what that would mean.

would you all have preferred the human-made reaper to look like the other reapers or did you find the very concept of reapers being made from organics stupid?

Thinking about the human reaper... maybe each reaper represents a species that has been wiped out by them.

[sagefic]

f1r3storm wrote...

Thinking about the human reaper... maybe each reaper represents a species that has been wiped out by them.

this is what i am thinking. i keep wondering if at some point, some original, ancient species decided to burn away their individual imperfections into some glorious collective and it just went WAY out of hand.

[JamieCOTC]

sagequeen wrote...

JamieCOTC wrote...
Video games are narcissistic enough w/out the main characters becoming godlike saviors.  

SOooo true. part of why i loved ME1 was that it walked that line nicely. Shep is a savior, but she really had to fight for it and she did it with a team at her back.

ME2 really pushed shep into christ-figure territory, what with the team of 12 disciples squaddies and the raising from the dead and stuff (and lazarus, legion, etc.)

I hope that the way to defeat the reapers is tied to the reapers REASONS for taking on the galaxy. I mean, we still really have no idea what they're after. I have a few theories bouncing around in my head, but none are terribly well supported. If Shep can figure out what they want and why, then that has to go a long way to figuring out how to stop them.

BTW, random question - I personally found the idea that reapers were made from juiced organics highly interesting and "gah! yuck!" but also highly compelling. i didn't even think about the human reaper being terminator like because i was too distracted by thinking over the implications of what that would mean.

would you all have preferred the human-made reaper to look like the other reapers or did you find the very concept of reapers being made from organics stupid?

I don’t know if Mass Effect could be classified as cyberpunk, but they are definitely playing w/ the concepts of human/machine fusion.  In ME1 we find out that Sovereign is a living machine from a race of living machines.  In ME2 we find out that it’s a little more complicated than what we may have thought.  The human Reaper is a fusion construct of organist material and machine.  My theory is that Reapers need organics to evolve.  By the same token, the Geth want to understand organics in order to evolve, but they want to evolve on their own terms.  The Reapers’ destiny seems to be tied just as much to organics as organics’ destiny is tied (in the Reapers minds) to the Reapers.  They feed off of organics in the same way organics feed off the technology left behind.  So there is a cycle that needs to end.

As to the human Reaper looking like a Terminator, well, yeah, it did.  And I thought the concept of human/machine fusion could have been handled a bit better too.  On one level a giant human Reaper does hit the point home that humans are the main course.  On the other hand, for purely cinematic purposes, a giant metallic squid is a bit more terrifying than a giant Terminator.  I like the concept and where they are going w/ it, especially since it seems to be affecting Shepard personally now.  I just hope that in ME3 Shepard’s cybernetics becomes more than just a plot device. 

[lastpatriot]

sagequeen wrote...

f1r3storm wrote...

Thinking about the human reaper... maybe each reaper represents a species that has been wiped out by them.

this is what i am thinking. i keep wondering if at some point, some original, ancient species decided to burn away their individual imperfections into some glorious collective and it just went WAY out of hand.

I think they are called the Borg....

Modifié par lastpatriot, 07 octobre 2010 - 05:53 .

[jlb524]

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

[Sable Phoenix]

jlb524 wrote...

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

I'm fine with her being a machine now.  As I've mentioned before, I personally think she's now just as much a synthetic as a geth, except that her quantum blue box is organic (i.e., brain tissue).  It's the only way I can reconcile bringing someone "back from the dead", supposedly.  In my mind, as awful as it may sound, the real Shepard is dead, permanently.  I don't care how advanced technology becomes, when someone's reduced to a decompressed, frozen corpse for a minimum of a few weeks, there is no coming back from that.  We'll never be able to pull the life force, the soul if you will, back into a dead body.  Shepard is now an advanced AI program based upon her Alliance medical records scans, installed into an organic blue box.  There's no question this is an amazing scientific and technological achievement, but while she may be nearly indistinguishable from the original, she's no more the real Shepard than the SR2 is the "real Normandy", to steal one of her own quotes.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 07 octobre 2010 - 06:07 .

[Jagged Orchid]

jlb524 wrote...

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

Hmmm, that assumes we'd be given the choice. However, if it were up to me, I'd like my Shep to be less machine and more human. To expand up that, she is what she is. She has been modified and essentially upgraded. I think she kind of has to accept that fact. However, at the same time, she is going to hold on to every shred of humanity she has left. It's not such a bad thing to utilize what you have. She's been upgraded and she will use that to her advantage. However, I can see her being more hesitant, if by doing so, it sacrifices her as a person. Does any of that make sense? I might have to think about that question in more detail.

[jlb524]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

I'm fine with her being a machine now.  As I've mentioned before, I personally think she's now just as much a synthetic as a geth, except that her quantum blue box is organic (i.e., brain tissue).  It's the only way I can reconcile bringing someone "back from the dead", supposedly.  In my mind, as awful as it may sound, the real Shepard is dead, permanently.  I don't care how advanced technology becomes, when someone's reduced to a decompressed, frozen corpse for a minimum of a few weeks, there is no coming back from that.  We'll never be able to pull the life force, the soul if you will, back into a dead body.  Shepard is now an advanced AI program based upon her Alliance medical records scans, installed into an organic blue box.  There's no question this is an amazing scientific and technological achievement, but while she may be nearly indistinguishable from the original, she's no more the real Shepard than the SR2 is the "real Normandy", to steal one of her own quotes.

Is this your Shepard's view of herself (that the real her is dead and she's nothing more than a copy) or just your view as a fan, or both?

If Shepard herself thinks this, I'd be curious to know how that affects her relationships, morals, etc.

[Sable Phoenix]

avalon30 wrote...

Sable Phoenix wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

I'm fine with her being a machine now.  As I've mentioned before, I personally think she's now just as much a synthetic as a geth, now, except that her quantum blue box is organic (i.e., brain tissue).  It's the only way I can reconcile bringing someone "back from the dead", supposedly.  In my mind, as awful as it may sound, the real Shepard is dead, permanently.  I don't care how advanced technology becomes, when someone's reduced to a decompressed, frozen corpse for a minimum of a few weeks, there is no coming back from that.  We'll never be able to pull the life force, the soul if you will, back into a dead body.  Shepard is now an advanced AI program based upon her Alliance medical records scans, installed into an organic blue box.  There's no question this is an amazing scientific and technological achievement, but while she may be nearly indistinguishable from the original, but she's no more the real Shepard than the SR2 is the "real Normandy", to steal one of her own quotes.

Oooh. I LOVE this.

Do you really?  I think it's kind of horrible, frankly.  As much as I enjoyed ME2, as much as I enjoy the universe BioWare created and the storyline of the trilogy they're putting together, I found it really difficult to still identify with Shepard any longer because of the whole stupid, contrived, lacking-in-development-and-consequences,  and ultimately impossible death-and-resurrection plot device.  Thank goodness the other characters were so involving, because it was them I finished the game for.

Shepard, the person, is now in heaven (or hell, I suppose, depending on how many of her actions were morally justified), or nirvana, or on her way to being reincarnated, or if you're depressingly nihilistic, has dissipated into nothingness.  Now we're just left with Shepard, the program.

jlb524 wrote...

Is this your Shepard's view of herself
(that the real her is dead and she's nothing more than a copy) or just
your view as a fan, or both?

If Shepard herself thinks this, I'd be curious to know how that affects her relationships, morals, etc.

It's my view as a fan, but something similar has crossed Jessica's mind many times during ME2.  She had the "I've been in a lot of foxholes" conversation with Ash... and the theological implications of her actually coming back are rather staggering.  That's one reason she dove headlong into the whole Collector thing without asking too many questions of Cerberus... she does not want to deal with said implications.  She's either a cyborg AI or Jesus Christ XY.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 07 octobre 2010 - 06:17 .

[JamieCOTC]

lastpatriot wrote...

JamieCOTC wrote…
The bold text, 100%. To be honest, I don't envy BW in the balancing act between player created soul and action/adventure character. It won't be easy and they won't please everyone. Still, as sagequeen rightfully pointed out, LotSB infused the game w/ a big ray of hope.

I completely agree that no matter how hard they work on it, there will always be that group out there that will never be happy with the outcome. Still, like you, I think LotSB was an amazing step in the right direction and really gave me the feeling that BW has heard our requests and is going to put much more depth into the characters. I played the same DLC on my ManShep and it was great to see just how much content was put in there for all options.

JamieCOTC wrote…
It’s interesting to note that both our girls are colonists however yours is (mostly?) renegade and mine is mostly paragon. How much of that is head-canon imagination and how much is the actual game, I don’t know, but you are right.

Well, when I was creating my character from ME:1, I chose to pick a background that would likely have the most dramatic influence upon a person and then based upon that trauma she was forced to deal with, how would it likely affect her perspective on the world? From there, I just tried to crease a background bio where she became so bitter as to what happened to her family that my Shep became almost obsessed with her anger. It was this anger and a desire for vengeance that lead to her later “ruthless” personality towards any enemy. On the flip side though, she is 100% loyal to her crew, kind, and respectful of their thoughts and/or concerns. It is only when she is in combat or forced to deal with something that may remind her of the past that she becomes cold, insensitive, and overly aggressive.

JamieCOTC wrote…
Our Shepards should be our own.

This is the main reason I liked Dragon Age so much in that there were many different backgrounds you could pick from and then the events of the game had at least, a good bit of influence based upon your original choices. Also, I really hope that BW will allow for a good bit more character customization options for ME:3 or some future DLC. My Shepard should never really look the same as yours or anyone else’s for that matter. They could fix this problem quickly if there were more hair styles available. After all, Shepard isn’t with the Alliance anymore so shouldn’t she have other options available?

Here is an example of my character from Dragon Age:

Yeah, femShep needs more hairstyles. 

Question for you on your renegade.  Since she is nice to the crew and ruthless to her enemies does she accumulate enough renegade points to get the extra dialog, say in Tali’s trial?  One of the complaints of the ME2 system seems to be that a character has to be fairly top heavy on one side or the other to get all the extra dialogue.  I was just curious. 

[sagefic]

jlb524 wrote...

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

huh. i was going to automatically say "less" - but if that's what it takes to save the galaxy (and her friends), then pile the implants on, baby.

for herself, personally, she's hated implants ever since she got reconstructed after mindoir. but if she hadn't gone biotic then, she wouldn't be where she is now. so...

i think she'll use the tools she can, but the two things that bother her are 1) cerberus gave them to her, and who knows what they expect in return for that and 2) she just wants to make sure that the "soul" part of herself is still her. she's not really  certain about that anymore.

[jlb524]

I'm not sure about the answer myself...I'm sure my Shepard would allow further mechanical upgrades if it was deemed a necessity, by her.

[Sable Phoenix]

avalon30 wrote...

Sable Phoenix wrote...

Do you really?  I think it's kind of horrible, frankly.  As much as I enjoyed ME2, as much as I enjoy the universe BioWare created and the storyline of the trilogy they're putting together, I found it really difficult to still identify with Shepard any longer because of the whole stupid, contrived, lacking-in-development-and-consequences,  and ultimately impossible death-and-resurrection plot device.  Thank goodness the other characters were so involving, because it was them I finished the game for.

Shepard, the person, is now in heaven (or hell, depending), or nirvana, or on her way to being reincarnated, or if you're depressingly nihilistic, has dissipated into nothingness.  Now we're just left with Shepard, the program.

I do love it as a concept and here's why. It's full of such rich potential for thinking about the meaning of existence, consciousness, etc. It's got rich narrative potential if a video game were really in the position to delve into it, flip it over a few times, and see what's there. Shepard's story could become the story of an advanced AI trying to find meaning in relation to the human off which she is based. To my mind, being a machine does not mean she can't genuinely have both real emotion and the complexity of consciousness that some might call soul.

It may be a worldview difference, but I don't find it depressingly nihilistic to believe that consciousness is extinguished when a body dies. I do believe that and I find it impossible to force myself into any other position. I wouldn't see an AI Shepard as just a program... I would see it as a revival of an extinguished consciousness along parameters that are as faithful as possible to the original. In my view, I guess, because death is the complete extinguishing of the individual... there is such fascinating thinking to be done about what it means for a consciousness to be brought back...

Hope that clarifies what I mean... I am totally a wacko, though, so do bear that in mind

Did you know that there is a measurable decrease in the mass of a body when a person dies?  Of natural causes, without anything escaping from it (and obviously not from trauma that could reduce the mass of the body itself).  I'm not going to approach that from a theological perspective, there are waaay to many worms in that particular can for this thread, but speaking from a quantum physics perspective, there is no difference between mass and energy.

Did you also know that heart transplant patients can often take on the preferences, desires, and even memories of the person they recieved the transplant from?  Murders have been solved because of this.  There are really interesting theological implications for this, too, which again I won't go into.

One of the interesting things about hypnosis is that anyone, no matter what their beliefs or worldview, can be asked what kinds of lives they lived before this one, and they'll be able to remember them.  My mom experienced this herself.  She specifically believes that reincarnation does not occur and yet she spontanously regressed to supposed past existences during hypnotherapy.  This is definitely not proof of a contiguous consciousness, but the fact that it's universal across all humanity gives one pause to consider.

One thing I can unequivocally state is that life processes and personality are not just a pattern of neurons.  They are made up of the collective energies and memories of every cell in the body.  Combine that with some form of energy that leaves the body when a person dies.... maybe that's a soul, maybe it's just a quantum pattern of some kind, who knows.  We probably never will.  I personally can't really reconcile that with a consciousness that just snuffs out upon death, though.

Jessica wasn't much of a social butterfly.  Once she got off the streets and had access to books and the extranet, she devoured everything she could get her hands on to read.  She knows a lot about a bunch of things, including religion, philosophy, and some of the wierder observed phenomena surrounding death.  She believes in a soul, of some kind, and a higher consciousness, whether that's something like the Force or God or the breath of the universe itself.  She isn't sure about any of it, but she thinks it's even odds whether or not she's really alive any more.

Modifié par Sable Phoenix, 07 octobre 2010 - 06:49 .

[lastpatriot]

Sable Phoenix wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

I'm fine with her being a machine now.  As I've mentioned before, I personally think she's now just as much a synthetic as a geth, except that her quantum blue box is organic (i.e., brain tissue).  It's the only way I can reconcile bringing someone "back from the dead", supposedly.  In my mind, as awful as it may sound, the real Shepard is dead, permanently.  I don't care how advanced technology becomes, when someone's reduced to a decompressed, frozen corpse for a minimum of a few weeks, there is no coming back from that.  We'll never be able to pull the life force, the soul if you will, back into a dead body.  Shepard is now an advanced AI program based upon her Alliance medical records scans, installed into an organic blue box.  There's no question this is an amazing scientific and technological achievement, but while she may be nearly indistinguishable from the original, she's no more the real Shepard than the SR2 is the "real Normandy", to steal one of her own quotes.

I know that Jacob said she is the same Shepard she always was but I still tend to think that at least some part of her must be a clone or else the synthetic option you speak of is likely the only other way to bring her back.  I think I read a story awhile back where the tech was available that a person could download their memory and all life events onto a database and then if they were killed, that information would be uploaded to the new clone.  Yes, it's not the "original" body but not even a doctor could tell the difference.

Perhaps something like that happend to Shepard.

[Vralenalien]

jlb524 wrote...

I'm not sure about the answer myself...I'm sure my Shepard would allow further mechanical upgrades if it was deemed a necessity, by her.

This. Only if she thinks it's necessary. So far I don't think anyone has asked her about the upgrades. Alliance gives genetherapy for soldiers and alltho I'm not sure if that is done for all I think Shepard did get it and I'm not sure if they actually ask about it or if you can refuse them and still serve. Anyway she'd had extensive upgrading even before dying and cerberus giving her even more upgrades and they certainly didn't ask her. Her being dead and all.

[Chugster]

avalon30 wrote...

Sable Phoenix wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Would you gals and guys allow your FemSheps to become more 'machine' in ME3 (for whatever reason), or do you want her to try and become less machine...less reliant on the implants Cerberus gave her (if possible)?

I'm fine with her being a machine now.  As I've mentioned before, I personally think she's now just as much a synthetic as a geth, now, except that her quantum blue box is organic (i.e., brain tissue).  It's the only way I can reconcile bringing someone "back from the dead", supposedly.  In my mind, as awful as it may sound, the real Shepard is dead, permanently.  I don't care how advanced technology becomes, when someone's reduced to a decompressed, frozen corpse for a minimum of a few weeks, there is no coming back from that.  We'll never be able to pull the life force, the soul if you will, back into a dead body.  Shepard is now an advanced AI program based upon her Alliance medical records scans, installed into an organic blue box.  There's no question this is an amazing scientific and technological achievement, but while she may be nearly indistinguishable from the original, but she's no more the real Shepard than the SR2 is the "real Normandy", to steal one of her own quotes.

Oooh. I LOVE this.

I think this depends on whether you beleive the essence of life to be more than electrical impulses firing in the brain....if you think it just lil sparks then rezzing shep is easy if you can repair everything and jumpstart her...as for a soul...im not gonna comment on that

[Sable Phoenix]

Chugster wrote...

I think this depends on whether you beleive the essence of life to be more than electrical impulses firing in the brain....if you think it just lil sparks then rezzing shep is easy if you can repair everything and jumpstart her...as for a soul...im not gonna comment on that

Mm, well, even Miranda said that their progress was really not going anywhere until they moved on to bio-synthetic fusion.  I think it's the third of her logs you run across on the Lazarus Station.

[NamiraWilhelm]

I definitely would prefer my fem to be more human.

I dont even choose her to be anything other than a soldier for the same reason. I like the idea that Shepard is just a fantastic woman, just as she is, not 'improved' in any way.

Woah, people consider Shepard to actually be dead? Thats horrible!
She loves, she laughs, shes the same woman, so i'll keep my happy thoughts that shes just a little bionic
...

Modifié par NamiraWilhelm, 07 octobre 2010 - 07:13 .