173 réponses à ce sujet

[Killjoy Cutter]

onelifecrisis wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

"once you accept anything not real, you have to accept everything unreal"

That is distinctly not what I said. Every story has an internal logic that should be upheld. Mass Effect breaks its own internal logic on a number of occasions, but the mentioning of genetic paste is not one of them. It's unscientific jargon garbage, but it doesn't break the plot. The same can be said for everything else I listed. So why is genetic paste different from the other things on my list?

FTL travel, artificial gravity, and biotic powers all originate from a single basic conceit of the setting -- which is in the name of the game/setting:  MASS EFFECT.  They're not garbage, they're part and parcel of the "what if?" of the speculative fiction setting we're dealing with.

The biology and genetics errors were glaring and basic, and could have been avoided by having an intern spend a few days on Wikipedia and then double-check everything.

[onelifecrisis]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

FTL travel, artificial gravity, and biotic powers all originate from a single basic conceit of the setting -- which is in the name of the game/setting:  MASS EFFECT.  They're not garbage, they're part and parcel of the "what if?" of the speculative fiction setting we're dealing with.

So if EDI had said that the humans were turned into genetic paste using a MASS EFFECT field then you'd have no problem with it?

This "Mass Effect" is never explained. It's just a slap-on label that BW use to explain magic. Might as well just call it Magic Effect.

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

The biology and genetics errors were glaring and basic, and could have been avoided by having an intern spend a few days on Wikipedia and then double-check everything.

Do you know something relevant about genetics? What the errors were? If so, please share

Modifié par onelifecrisis, 24 novembre 2010 - 06:31 .

[Killjoy Cutter]

onelifecrisis wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

FTL travel, artificial gravity, and biotic powers all originate from a single basic conceit of the setting -- which is in the name of the game/setting:  MASS EFFECT.  They're not garbage, they're part and parcel of the "what if?" of the speculative fiction setting we're dealing with.

So if EDI had said that the humans were turned into genetic paste using a MASS EFFECT field then you'd have no problem with it?

No.  "With a mass effect field" is just using a different kind of blender.  Using a blender won't turn lead into gold any more than using a spoon will. 

onelifecrisis wrote...
This "Mass Effect" is never explained. It's just a slap-on label that BW use to explain magic. Might as well just call it Magic Effect.

Have you actually read the explanations of element zero, dark energy, the mass effect, and biotics?  It really seems that you haven't.   There's some far-edge theoretical physics behind the concept once you accept the basic conceit of element zero and generating "dark energy". 

onelifecrisis wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

The biology and genetics errors were glaring and basic, and could have been avoided by having an intern spend a few days on Wikipedia and then double-check everything.

Do you know something about genetics? If so, please share

Example one:  Bioware, please stop telling us how genetically diverse humans are, when the opposite is actually true.  Look it up.  We're just not.  ****** sapiens has been through at least one and probably two "genetic bottlenecks" in our history as a species that really trimmed down our overall genetic diversity.

[Nozybidaj]

Why all the hate for the Human Reaper?

Because it was quite frankly ridiculous?  Did we really need more of an answer to the question than that? [smilie]../../../../images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png[/smilie]

[Killjoy Cutter]

Nozybidaj wrote...

Why all the hate for the Human Reaper?

Because it was quite frankly ridiculous?  Did we really need more of an answer to the question than that? ../../../../images/forum/emoticons/tongue.png

It's not a bad basic concept, it's just that they got the details and execution SO WRONG.

[onelifecrisis]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Have you actually read the explanations of element zero, dark energy, the mass effect, and biotics?  It really seems that you haven't.   There's some far-edge theoretical physics behind the concept once you accept the basic conceit of element zero and generating "dark energy".

Once I accept element zero!? So, once I accept magical space dust that turns human foetuses into wizards... then everything becomes scientific!?

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Example one:  Bioware, please stop telling us how genetically diverse humans are, when the opposite is actually true.  Look it up.  We're just not.  ****** sapiens has been through at least one and probably two "genetic bottlenecks" in our history as a species that really trimmed down our overall genetic diversity.

You're right about our genetics lacking diversity (at least compared to other life on this planet) but I fail to see what that has to do with the human reaper and its genetic paste.

Modifié par onelifecrisis, 24 novembre 2010 - 07:41 .

[Nozybidaj]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

It's not a bad basic concept, it's just that they got the details and execution SO WRONG.

I think the concept in and of itself would have been fine for a ME2 DLC mission pack.

Get rid of the Terminator wanna-be design, get rid of the Contra style boss fight, and maybe it wouldn't have completely sucked, sure. 

[Redcoat]

Several problems I have with the Reapernator:

- The whole "using humans' genetic material" makes no sense. It's like taking thousands of blueprints for various houses, mashing them up into one big pulply mass, and then using that to build a really big house. Just coming up with alternate reasons off the top of my head for why the Collectors/Reapers are abducting humans, they could have been using their pulpified organic material to build the organic components of a Reaper (maybe the Reapers are incapable of synthesising organic material on their own). Or maybe they needed to use the combined brain power of thousands upon thousands of humans to "run" a Reaper. Either of these strikes me as being slightly more plausible than using genetic material.

- The visual design. The "Reaper larva" should have looked like something grotesque and horrifying. Something that anyone would call an abomination. Instead, what we have is a big metalli skeleton, which is neither horrifying nor grotesque.

- The boss fight itself. The boss doesn't do anything except slam the platforms and fire off a few shots now and then. And you don't do anything to fight it except "attack its weak point" which is oh-so-conveniently called "WEAK POINT." Just a really underwhelming boss fight. I agree with the others who said that a "hold the line"-style battle.

[Killjoy Cutter]

How about...



We go into the base, and instead of the cheapo "body horror" smoothie effect, we find them scanning the brains of the colonists with a process that burns the minds out and leaves them as husks (thus tying that in as well). If they want the "essence" of humans, they need minds, not genes.



There's a Reaper being "gestated", but instead of fighting the "reapernator", we have to take the squad deep into the bowels of the "reaper womb", to the core of the new Reaper, and rig the gigantic mass effect core so that it implodes into a singularity, taking the entire Collector base with it.



Or something...

[thebrute7]

I just recently beat Mass Effect 2 for the first time (yes I know, I can't believe I hadn't played it sooner either), So here were my impressions of the boss fight.



1) It's a HUMAN REAPER! Was perhaps the dumbest line in the game.

2) the thing is a massive joke, I had more trouble beating the 2 YMIR mechs in Garrus' loyalty mission,and it was more entertaining as well.

3) I still don't know why it is shaped like a human, I agree that the reapers probably look similair to their precursors, but the Human-reaper didn't look sleek enough, nor was it anywhere close to big enough. The only possible conclusion I could draw is that the actual Reaper-ships that we see are only an outer shell for the much smaller reaper within it that is created from the bio-synthetic process we see occuring.

4) The reaper was, I must admit, scarier than the Saren-husk from ME1... until I started fighting it, then I was so uinderwhelmed I almost cried.

5)The reaper-human was the single biggest letdown of the Mass Effect story for me in my first playthrough (not getting Liara as a teammate aside), in my opinion the story didn't really lead up to this thing very well



My ultimate conclusion was that the boss-battle was way to easy, boring, monotonous and didn't really make much sense to me. The collector general would have made a much better end-fight. In fact I think that the people I left behind for hold-the-line probably had a tougher fight than I did, The battle neither challenged me nor contributed to the story in any meaningful way, if it had done one of those I would have been content to overlook the rest.

[Nashiktal]

Imagining a giant terminator flailing through space just doesnt appeal to me in a ME game.

[Killjoy Cutter]

onelifecrisis wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Have you actually read the explanations of element zero, dark energy, the mass effect, and biotics?  It really seems that you haven't.   There's some far-edge theoretical physics behind the concept once you accept the basic conceit of element zero and generating "dark energy".

Once I accept element zero!? So, once I accept magical space dust that turns human foetuses into wizards... then everything becomes scientific!?

Ugh.

I'm not sure I'm up to explaining one of the core overarching concepts of the entire genre of science fiction in a forum post.

Really short version -- element zero, the mass effect, etc, is the "what if?" of the ME setting, the concept that enables the setting and several, well, elements thereof.  Anything that can logically and empirically derived from that core concept is therefore internally consistent within the setting as established.  It's not magic, which allows anything simply by the fiat of being.  It allows what it can be shown to allow. 

If you don't get that, and don't get that distinction, then I suggest you find a professor of speculative fiction at some nearby university and have them try to explain it to you. 

onelifecrisis wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Example one:  Bioware, please stop telling us how genetically diverse humans are, when the opposite is actually true.  Look it up.  We're just not.  ****** sapiens has been through at least one and probably two "genetic bottlenecks" in our history as a species that really trimmed down our overall genetic diversity.

You're right about our genetics lacking diversity (at least compared to other life on this planet) but I fail to see what that has to do with the human reaper and its genetic paste.

**sigh**

Am I the only one who listens to what the characters are saying and reads the Codex entries while playing the game?

[Killjoy Cutter]

Nashiktal wrote...

Imagining a giant terminator flailing through space just doesnt appeal to me in a ME game.

As has been pointed out so many times on these forums, so so many times, that's just not what Bioware was going for there, at all, in any way.  The "reapernator" was poorly done, but please keep your criticisms to what's actually going on.

[Mr. MannlyMan]

Redcoat wrote...

Several problems I have with the Reapernator:

- The whole "using humans' genetic material" makes no sense. It's like taking thousands of blueprints for various houses, mashing them up into one big pulply mass, and then using that to build a really big house. Just coming up with alternate reasons off the top of my head for why the Collectors/Reapers are abducting humans, they could have been using their pulpified organic material to build the organic components of a Reaper (maybe the Reapers are incapable of synthesising organic material on their own). Or maybe they needed to use the combined brain power of thousands upon thousands of humans to "run" a Reaper. Either of these strikes me as being slightly more plausible than using genetic material.

- The visual design. The "Reaper larva" should have looked like something grotesque and horrifying. Something that anyone would call an abomination. Instead, what we have is a big metalli skeleton, which is neither horrifying nor grotesque.

- The boss fight itself. The boss doesn't do anything except slam the platforms and fire off a few shots now and then. And you don't do anything to fight it except "attack its weak point" which is oh-so-conveniently called "WEAK POINT." Just a really underwhelming boss fight. I agree with the others who said that a "hold the line"-style battle.

Yes.



I would have been much more intrigued and shocked by that. TBH I have no idea why they didn't go with this concept, because it just looks like it would totally fit in with the Mass Effect aesthetic (actually, it looks like something you'd find in the first game, which isn't at all a bad thing). It'd also make a lot more sense, and it'd be a lot more believable than having a big metallic skeleton lumbering after you (and don't get me started on the "it's sci-fi, so how could it be more believable" defense).

[Iakus]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Nashiktal wrote...

Imagining a giant terminator flailing through space just doesnt appeal to me in a ME game.

As has been pointed out so many times on these forums, so so many times, that's just not what Bioware was going for there, at all, in any way.  The "reapernator" was poorly done, but please keep your criticisms to what's actually going on.

I think part of the problem is that it's not explained why a "human reaper" has to look human.  I mean, it's not like it's made from a human body.  Or even many human bodies.  It's made from whatever the smoothie is that the bodies are rendred down into.  It seems like it could take the form of pretty much anything.  From starship to  cuttlefish to giant spider to cube.  So not only is the form silly, it's nonsensical.

Besides, the image of a Termireaper punching a turian dreadnaught while saying "This hurts you" is funny in a sad way.

[Killjoy Cutter]

**twitch**



There's plenty of reason to conclude that the final form of the "human" reaper would not have looked human...

[Nerdage]

To be honest, if EDI hadn't said "It's a reaper" that honestly wouldn't have been my first guess, not sure what lead it to believe that it was a reaper in the first place come to think of it, perhaps it was wrong?



Anyway, I'll wait until ME3 before I start getting all "Why doesn't this make sense?" about it, could be that there's more to come on the subject.

[Iakus]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

**twitch**

There's plenty of reason to conclude that the final form of the "human" reaper would not have looked human...

Are you sure?  I mean, I've heard the speculation that in the end it would be enclosed in a more cthulhoid "ship" form.  But the Reaper itself was already well on the way to looking like a ginormous human.  The top half, at least.  With three eyes.

[Rekkampum]

Mr. MannlyMan wrote...

Redcoat wrote...

Several problems I have with the Reapernator:

- The whole "using humans' genetic material" makes no sense. It's like taking thousands of blueprints for various houses, mashing them up into one big pulply mass, and then using that to build a really big house. Just coming up with alternate reasons off the top of my head for why the Collectors/Reapers are abducting humans, they could have been using their pulpified organic material to build the organic components of a Reaper (maybe the Reapers are incapable of synthesising organic material on their own). Or maybe they needed to use the combined brain power of thousands upon thousands of humans to "run" a Reaper. Either of these strikes me as being slightly more plausible than using genetic material.

- The visual design. The "Reaper larva" should have looked like something grotesque and horrifying. Something that anyone would call an abomination. Instead, what we have is a big metalli skeleton, which is neither horrifying nor grotesque.

- The boss fight itself. The boss doesn't do anything except slam the platforms and fire off a few shots now and then. And you don't do anything to fight it except "attack its weak point" which is oh-so-conveniently called "WEAK POINT." Just a really underwhelming boss fight. I agree with the others who said that a "hold the line"-style battle.

Yes.



I would have been much more intrigued and shocked by that. TBH I have no idea why they didn't go with this concept, because it just looks like it would totally fit in with the Mass Effect aesthetic (actually, it looks like something you'd find in the first game, which isn't at all a bad thing). It'd also make a lot more sense, and it'd be a lot more believable than having a big metallic skeleton lumbering after you (and don't get me started on the "it's sci-fi, so how could it be more believable" defense).

Yeah, looks great. As for the skeletor version, the things that the Reapers do- along with their purposes, are supposedly incapable of being understood by organics, as Sovereign once mentioned.

[Anacronian Stryx]

iakus wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

**twitch**

There's plenty of reason to conclude that the final form of the "human" reaper would not have looked human...

Are you sure?  I mean, I've heard the speculation that in the end it would be enclosed in a more cthulhoid "ship" form.  But the Reaper itself was already well on the way to looking like a ginormous human.  The top half, at least.  With three eyes.

Fist and foremost because of it's size, The Reapers are known to be two kilometers long ships, The Reaper Larvae structure implies it would be no more than 20-25 meters tall when completed(if it's to keep it's form) - Second of all the last scene of Mass Effect 2 shows quite a lot of Reapers and while there is some deviations they do all seem to conform to the same over all shape - If their exterior where to take exact shape after the race used to create them one could expect far more deviance in their appearance.

Most likely the Reaper Larvae is the central/core unit (something akin to the Space jockey from Alien)and the cuttlefish shape exterior is then build around it.  

[Iakus]

Anacronian Stryx wrote...

Fist and foremost because of it's size, The Reapers are known to be two kilometers long ships, The Reaper Larvae structure implies it would be no more than 20-25 meters tall when completed(if it's to keep it's form) - Second of all the last scene of Mass Effect 2 shows quite a lot of Reapers and while there is some deviations they do all seem to conform to the same over all shape - If their exterior where to take exact shape after the race used to create them one could expect far more deviance in their appearance.

Most likely the Reaper Larvae is the central/core unit (something akin to the Space jockey from Alien)and the cuttlefish shape exterior is then build around it.  

Which leads to the question:  Why does this "core unit" have to resemble the host species?  Particularly since it's to be an entirely internal component when completed.  I'm inclined to think Reapers don't get many opportunities to get out of their ships/hulls and go for a stroll while hibernating in dark space. As a spacefaring synthetic life form you'd think you take a form designed from the ground up to be the last word in "Reaper CPUs"

Modifié par iakus, 25 novembre 2010 - 03:09 .

[Sajuro]

Because the people who frequent this forum are haters, and haters gonna hate