6494 réponses à ce sujet

[littlezack]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Pan's Labirynth did a very good job with exposition. I don't hate the story of ME 2 because it isn't perfect, I hate it because it isn't good. There is something wrong with the story at every single fundemental moment in the plot. The same is not true with every other piece of fiction.

You clearly have never experienced the awesomeness that is Turkish Star Wars.

Also, congratulations on being the first man to read EVERY PIECE OF FICTION IN EXISTENCE.

[Notlikeyoucare]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Or, they could have written the whole thing in such a way as to not require the impossible... 

How, exactly?

If it's impossible, it's still impossible even if you change it.

As in, have Shepard drifting in a coma with his locater beacon knocked out. The Shadow Broker picks him up, and makes a deal with the Collectors to sell him. Only to have Cerberus break him out and take him to see TIM.

2 year time lapse. Establishment of antagonist. Natural plot development.

[Notlikeyoucare]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

Someone With Mass wrote...

I honestly just think Shepard's death was BioWare's way to let the player choose class and move the story ahead a couple of years, as well as change the setting.

And force Shepard into the hands of Cerberus. For some reason it seems like they made an effort to really focus on TIM's story, almost like it should overshadow Shepard's part in the story. But isn't the entire ME trilogy meant to be Shepard's story?

You could say the same thing about the sqaudmates.

[Someone With Mass]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

And force Shepard into the hands of Cerberus. For some reason it seems like they made an effort to really focus on TIM's story, almost like it should overshadow Shepard's part in the story. But isn't the entire ME trilogy meant to be Shepard's story?

Could be setting TIM up for something in ME3, and that requires character explanation and builtup to make sense. 

But, I've always thought the Mass Effect franchise spent way too much time with Cerberus since ME1.

[Il Divo]

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Perhaps I should elaborate on that point further. The point was amidst all that rambling, Sovereign makes a clear distinction between organic life and what the Reapers are. If Reapers were partly organic, then they are just as much of an accident as those they are Reaping. Reapers are refered to multiple times as mechanical beings, meaning, no organic components whatsoever, because that would make them cyborgs, which is not mechanical.

But this ignores exactly how a plot twist works. Based on only Sovereign's appearance and abilities, no character (or the player) would be able to infer that Sovereign itself possessed organic components. The purpose of any plot twist is that the revelation is supposed to fly in the face of everything the player initially perceived about the Universe.

We can look to pretty much every Bioware game for this, since most have featured the inevitable plot twist ~ 3/4 of the way through the game. Essentially, we need to distinguish between what Shepard, Vigil, Saren, etc, believe Sovereign to be and what Sovereign actually is. Sovereign never actually specifies that he is a machine, we assumed that based on other characters, who are fallible. 

Edit: And Xeranx, don't worry. I haven't forgotten your post. Just a little strapped for time at the moment. My apologies.

Modifié par Il Divo, 02 septembre 2011 - 02:19 .

[Whatever42]

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

There's time travel in ME? 

Anyway, I guess I can give you the "brain scan" thing, I suppose.  It's certainly a bit more plausible once you have the information that was lost... the big hurdles are having enough detail, and making that information back into a working brain...

Nope, but I never saw people flip out over the terminator movies because time travel was impossible or unexplained. People just went "oh, time travel, we've seen this before" and moved on. 

As for rebuilding the brain with bio-synthetic fusion (as mentioned in a log), remember that computers will be millions of time more powerful two hundred years from now. 

Go back two hundred years and tell Napoleon we put a man on the moon or give you an artificial heart. Of course, today, that's simple. Today we can actually build synthetic limbs and hook them up to your nervous system so you can control them. Today, surgeons can actually participate in operations from thousands of miles away using robots. In Germany, researchers have been able to pick out specific thoughts from a subject based on their brain scans.

Now, I agree that the resurrection thing is likely a missed opportunity story-telling wise. Perhaps they will use it in ME3 or perhaps it really was just a device used to reset the character.  I can think of reasons they wouldn't want to use it in the story but it would be cool if they did. Since the main ME2 plot was pretty lacklustre, it could have added some depth and coolness.

[Notlikeyoucare]

littlezack wrote...

Sgt Stryker wrote...

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Pan's Labirynth did a very good job with exposition. I don't hate the story of ME 2 because it isn't perfect, I hate it because it isn't good. There is something wrong with the story at every single fundemental moment in the plot. The same is not true with every other piece of fiction.

You clearly have never experienced the awesomeness that is Turkish Star Wars.

Also, congratulations on being the first man to read EVERY PIECE OF FICTION IN EXISTENCE.

I was not trying to imply that ME 2 was the exception.I guess I should have worded that better.

[Whatever42]

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Someone With Mass wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Or, they could have written the whole thing in such a way as to not require the impossible... 

How, exactly?

If it's impossible, it's still impossible even if you change it.

As in, have Shepard drifting in a coma with his locater beacon knocked out. The Shadow Broker picks him up, and makes a deal with the Collectors to sell him. Only to have Cerberus break him out and take him to see TIM.

2 year time lapse. Establishment of antagonist. Natural plot development.

This is a cinematic experience, not a novel. Shepard being flung away from an exploding spaceship towards certain death makes a much more exciting scene.

Again, movie writing is different than novel writing. They have different objectives, such as scenes that are visually exciting and fast paced.

[Whatever42]

Sgt Stryker wrote...

Someone With Mass wrote...

I honestly just think Shepard's death was BioWare's way to let the player choose class and move the story ahead a couple of years, as well as change the setting.

And force Shepard into the hands of Cerberus. For some reason it seems like they made an effort to really focus on TIM's story, almost like it should overshadow Shepard's part in the story. But isn't the entire ME trilogy meant to be Shepard's story?

That was entirely intentional, I agree.

The Shepard character development, as limited as it is outside our imaginations, centers around paragon versus renegade. This isn't good versus evil but more a system of beliefs such as a willingness to cooperate with other species, engage in the galactic community versus anything goes, humanity has to look out for itself.

In ME1, you worked for the paragon forces. Renegade Shep could be an ass, paragon Shep could suck up. In ME2, you worked for the renegade forces. Paragon Shep could poke TIM in the eye, renegade Shep could be his right hand man.

In ME3, you chart your own course, which is why the doctors said it was Shepard's story.

[Notlikeyoucare]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Someone With Mass wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Or, they could have written the whole thing in such a way as to not require the impossible... 

How, exactly?

If it's impossible, it's still impossible even if you change it.

As in, have Shepard drifting in a coma with his locater beacon knocked out. The Shadow Broker picks him up, and makes a deal with the Collectors to sell him. Only to have Cerberus break him out and take him to see TIM.

2 year time lapse. Establishment of antagonist. Natural plot development.

This is a cinematic experience, not a novel. Shepard being flung away from an exploding spaceship towards certain death makes a much more exciting scene.

Again, movie writing is different than novel writing. They have different objectives, such as scenes that are visually exciting and fast paced.

What? Screenwriting is screenwriting. Not all movies have a "blow S*** up!" premise . What about films with no action at all? They're still films, they're still telling a story, what makes the less cinematic then action films?

Novel writing differs on the method of presentation. A novelist must explain the visual details of the story because we can't see anything. This isn't true for films because we can actually see what's happening. The fundemental aspects of telling a story remain the same.

[Notlikeyoucare]

misclick

Modifié par Notlikeyoucare, 02 septembre 2011 - 02:37 .

[CaineMaster]

Someone With Mass wrote...

CaineMaster wrote...

Quick question, are we even sure that all reapers have biological part to them? As far as I know we are just assuming that all of the reapers are the same as the baby reaper and have a biological milkshake in them, maybe the baby reaper was the first one to be created like this. Can someone answer this for me?

Well, EDI says that all the information she got from the human Reaper was just speculation and that it might be the Reaper equivalent of reproduction, so that is a good question.

It could just as easily have been a improvised way for the Collectors and Harbinger to make another Reaper. Then again, there's this.

Uncut, but it might mean something.

I didnt even know that there was a uncut version of that speach:o. 
oh, and thank you for clearing that up for me.

[Whatever42]

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

What? Screenwriting is screenwriting. Not all movies have a "blow S*** up!" premise . What about films with no action at all? They're still films, they're still telling a story, what makes the less cinematic then action films?

Novel writing differs on the method of presentation. A novelist must explain the visual details of the story because we can't see anything. This isn't true for films because we can actually see what's happening. The fundemental aspects of telling a story remain the same.

ME is action. This isn't Terms of Endearment. 

And there is a lot to a screen adaptation of a novel. Take LotR. Why didn't they fly down there on eagles. It was explained in the novels but not the movies. Why didn't they just hide the ring or dump it in the ocean. Explained in the books but not the movies. 

If you watch the making-of clips on the blu ray discs, you can learn alot about screenwriting. They chop out a lot simply because it saps too much pace or because it really doesn't do enough to develop a character. The fundemental aspects are completely different - well, at least according to movie screenwriters.

[111987]

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Something I brought up in the thread earlier that never got answered : This may seem like an insignificant comment, but how does the IFF of a 37 million year old Reaper transmit the location of the Normandy to the 50,000 year old Collectors? Did they know of its existance? If so, why didn't they clean up like Vigil said the Reapers do? What, did they find it and rig it with tracking software to track the first people who randomly stumbled onto its whereabouts and decided to install it in their ship?

The Reaper IFF is a signal. Reapers have this signal. The Collectors have this signal. When the Normandy tests the IFF, they are broadcasting this signal. The Collectors show up. Happy?

And seriously, just drop your point about how the Reapers were implied to be mechanical. It's not a retcon. If you want to believe it's bad writing, go ahead. Just be aware that you have no basis for saying that. And please do not just copy and paste more quotes from Sovereign.

He says pinnacle of evolution. Organic species evolve. Not machines. And everyone else has raised valid points. You are just wrong.

[Grand Admiral Cheesecake]

Lotion Soronnar wrote...

aridor1570 wrote...
Sure, I didn't, but the counter arguments are still around and I don't need to redirect you to them, even Swifty has a nice video explaining one of them.

Seen them, discussed them, dismissed them. Next.

You are my favorite troll now Lotion.

Mind you you're not as good as Zeely or Extreme One or Zulu....in fact you're distinctly low tier. But dammit you're all we've got!

[DarthSliver]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

What? Screenwriting is screenwriting. Not all movies have a "blow S*** up!" premise . What about films with no action at all? They're still films, they're still telling a story, what makes the less cinematic then action films?

Novel writing differs on the method of presentation. A novelist must explain the visual details of the story because we can't see anything. This isn't true for films because we can actually see what's happening. The fundemental aspects of telling a story remain the same.

ME is action. This isn't Terms of Endearment. 

And there is a lot to a screen adaptation of a novel. Take LotR. Why didn't they fly down there on eagles. It was explained in the novels but not the movies. Why didn't they just hide the ring or dump it in the ocean. Explained in the books but not the movies. 

If you watch the making-of clips on the blu ray discs, you can learn alot about screenwriting. They chop out a lot simply because it saps too much pace or because it really doesn't do enough to develop a character. The fundemental aspects are completely different - well, at least according to movie screenwriters.

You forget one simple thing, movies that are made have been a novel. Its hard to find a movie that wasnt a novel first. And nowadays movies are either based from comic books or are a remake, a new unique movie that has its own story is hard to comeby. 

[Notlikeyoucare]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

What? Screenwriting is screenwriting. Not all movies have a "blow S*** up!" premise . What about films with no action at all? They're still films, they're still telling a story, what makes the less cinematic then action films?

Novel writing differs on the method of presentation. A novelist must explain the visual details of the story because we can't see anything. This isn't true for films because we can actually see what's happening. The fundemental aspects of telling a story remain the same.

ME is action. This isn't Terms of Endearment. 

And there is a lot to a screen adaptation of a novel. Take LotR. Why didn't they fly down there on eagles. It was explained in the novels but not the movies. Why didn't they just hide the ring or dump it in the ocean. Explained in the books but not the movies. 

If you watch the making-of clips on the blu ray discs, you can learn alot about screenwriting. They chop out a lot simply because it saps too much pace or because it really doesn't do enough to develop a character. The fundemental aspects are completely different - well, at least according to movie screenwriters.

Yes, but thats novel to screenplay ADAPTION. Mass Effect is telling its own story and isn't bound by another piece of media. Its has the perfect opportunity to pace itself properly, no excuses.

The director could easily have cut out the repeated scenes of people walking or just have the characters explain it on the fly. The Star Wars prequels and The POTC sequels have quite a bit of nothing going on for the sake of it. The plot progression is thin and simple, but the scene stretches it out for too long and wastes screentime without the narrative being part of it. Which makes them irrelivent scenes that should be left on the cutting room floor. The fundementals of storytelling still apply.

[Whatever42]

DarthSliver wrote...

You forget one simple thing, movies that are made have been a novel. Its hard to find a movie that wasnt a novel first. And nowadays movies are either based from comic books or are a remake, a new unique movie that has its own story is hard to comeby. 

I would agree that adaptations of novels and comics are very popular these days, especially in the sci-fi/fantasy genre. However, there are a lot of great classic movies that are original screenplays: Alien series, Terminator series, Star Wars, Matrix, etc.

And a lot of the movies adapted from shorter works, like short stories by Phillip Dick or comic books, don't have terribly deep material to work from.

I could tear at Blade Runner with the same fervour as we have here but that wouldn't be the point. Blade Runner is great because of the iconic atmosphere, gritty characters, and deep examination of what it means to be alive. Why anyone would make killer robots that look and feel human in the first place is really beside the point. 

[Killjoy Cutter]

Someone With Mass wrote...

Killjoy Cutter wrote...

Or, they could have written the whole thing in such a way as to not require the impossible... 

How, exactly?

If it's impossible, it's still impossible even if you change it.

I said "in such a way as to not require the impossible", not "in such a way as to make the impossible possible."

You write it so that Shep's brain is never pulped and baked... 

[Whatever42]

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Yes, but thats novel to screenplay ADAPTION. Mass Effect is telling its own story and isn't bound by another piece of media. Its has the perfect opportunity to pace itself properly, no excuses.

The director could easily have cut out the repeated scenes of people walking or just have the characters explain it on the fly. The Star Wars prequels and The POTC sequels have quite a bit of nothing going on for the sake of it. The plot progression is thin and simple, but the scene stretches it out for too long and wastes screentime without the narrative being part of it. Which makes them irrelivent scenes that should be left on the cutting room floor. The fundementals of storytelling still apply.

The LotR screen writers never wrote the movies with the expectation that people would have read the books. They had a huge wealth of material that explained almost every action in the story in great detail but chose to leave it on the shelf. That was my point. They did it on purpose, not because they were sloppy.

When the Kyle Reese explained how time travel worked, he didn't get into the details. How could he? Time travel is impossible. But we accepted it and moved on because it wasn't important.

If I were skynet, I guarantee I would have killed Sarah Conner. Paradoxes obviously didn't concern it; nuke the freaking city. But then again, maybe there were reasons it couldn't do that. But it was not explained because it not important because the story was about Sarah.

[Xeranx]

Whatever666343431431654324 wrote...

Xeranx wrote...

His argument is flawed based on the fact he's attributing his thought processes to that of what is supposed to be out of the realm of understanding.  It's supposed to be on the basis of: "What is this?",  "I can't imagine what this does", "We've been at this for years and we're still no closer to understanding this...thing than we were when we first encountered it".

Attributing Sovereigns speech to arrogance doesn't make it so.  As someone else asked, what reason does Sovereign have to lie?  Saren spoke about how Sovereign viewed the Geth.  They are merely tools.    Actually taking this to a ridiculous route for a bit, imagine you have a bunch of tools that are alive and function however they do, but don't know what real purpose they can serve.  If you're building something do you look at your tools as objects that have feelings or a means to a greater end that you know about and said tools probably can't comprehend?  That hammer might think you arrogant for using him to bang on an object whose purpose he doesn't know about, but you aren't feeling the least bit haughty about completing your goal.

In other words, Squee, and anyone else who takes that view, is humanizing Sovereign.  That's the wrong thing to do knowing that we still have ME3 to contend with.  

And now I'm going to wait for people to tear my analogous story to pieces rather than pay attention to what I'm actually saying.  Not saying that's what you'll do.

I also don't tell my tools that they're worthless and that I'm going to destroy them.

For some reason, it was important to Sovereign to explain this to Shepard.  It was probably just a villain's monologue, of course, but it was not the actions of a machine.

And I can hypothesize that Saren might be the cause of said speech.  Whether it's believable or not is up to you.  I can imagine Saren having all these questions and being answered repeatedly until indoctrination began to take hold.  I can imagine Sovereign being privy to the Council's meeting with Anderson, Udina, Shepard, and making judgments on that situation.  

I can also hypothesize Sovereign having had a talk with an organic being some time before.  Especially since he mentions that the name "Reaper" was given to him and his kind by the Protheans and that "the pattern has repeated itself more times than" we "can fathom".  

The point is, everything said by Sovereign is stated matter-of-factly.

[Notlikeyoucare]

111987 wrote...

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Something I brought up in the thread earlier that never got answered : This may seem like an insignificant comment, but how does the IFF of a 37 million year old Reaper transmit the location of the Normandy to the 50,000 year old Collectors? Did they know of its existance? If so, why didn't they clean up like Vigil said the Reapers do? What, did they find it and rig it with tracking software to track the first people who randomly stumbled onto its whereabouts and decided to install it in their ship?

The Reaper IFF is a signal. Reapers have this signal. The Collectors have this signal. When the Normandy tests the IFF, they are broadcasting this signal. The Collectors show up. Happy?

And seriously, just drop your point about how the Reapers were implied to be mechanical. It's not a retcon. If you want to believe it's bad writing, go ahead. Just be aware that you have no basis for saying that. And please do not just copy and paste more quotes from Sovereign.

He says pinnacle of evolution. Organic species evolve. Not machines. And everyone else has raised valid points. You are just wrong.

1. Supposition.

2.  Vigil calls them "machines" therefore, thats all we can assume they are. We don't know how Vigil knew this because the story never bothered to explain how. SHepard is the only one we know to be speculating

3. Evolve is completely interchangeable with any other word that implies progression. Such as "Technology advancement"

4. Sovereign explodes we never see any kind of organic material like the stuff in the feeding tubes.

5. What about the chunk that hits Shepard, where's the goo?

6. If they consider the Sovereign to be no more than Geth Warships, then the materials they collected (less than half, but still alot considering its size) were purely mechanical, no traces of organic material.whatsoever. Whats that, the pieces they found didn't have any organic components in them? How convenient.

[littlezack]

Even Vigil admits that most of what he tells Shepard is based on guesses. He doesn't know anything more about the Reaper's composition than you do. How could he, really?

As far as Sovereign exploding and what organic matter might have been left with that it's a bit hard to judge what is and isn't organic - we know for sure that the core of a Reaper is organic, but how much of that holds true for the rest of the ship is hard to say.

At the end of the day, I think calling Reapers 'organic' or 'machine' is a gross oversimplification based on lack of a proper term. Reapers are both...and neither. Something so foreign, so advanced, so different from normal organic life that they can't be properly defined so easily.

[Someone With Mass]

The human Reaper was simply the core of a Reaper. It was supposed to get a shell later.

Plus, we don't know how the genetic goo is implemented into the Reaper or what form it takes after it's inserted.

[111987]

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

111987 wrote...

Notlikeyoucare wrote...

Something I brought up in the thread earlier that never got answered : This may seem like an insignificant comment, but how does the IFF of a 37 million year old Reaper transmit the location of the Normandy to the 50,000 year old Collectors? Did they know of its existance? If so, why didn't they clean up like Vigil said the Reapers do? What, did they find it and rig it with tracking software to track the first people who randomly stumbled onto its whereabouts and decided to install it in their ship?

The Reaper IFF is a signal. Reapers have this signal. The Collectors have this signal. When the Normandy tests the IFF, they are broadcasting this signal. The Collectors show up. Happy?

And seriously, just drop your point about how the Reapers were implied to be mechanical. It's not a retcon. If you want to believe it's bad writing, go ahead. Just be aware that you have no basis for saying that. And please do not just copy and paste more quotes from Sovereign.

He says pinnacle of evolution. Organic species evolve. Not machines. And everyone else has raised valid points. You are just wrong.

1. Supposition.

2.  Vigil calls them "machines" therefore, thats all we can assume they are. We don't know how Vigil knew this because the story never bothered to explain how. SHepard is the only one we know to be speculating

3. Evolve is completely interchangeable with any other word that implies progression. Such as "Technology advancement"

4. Sovereign explodes we never see any kind of organic material like the stuff in the feeding tubes.

5. What about the chunk that hits Shepard, where's the goo?

6. If they consider the Sovereign to be no more than Geth Warships, then the materials they collected (less than half, but still alot considering its size) were purely mechanical, no traces of organic material.whatsoever. Whats that, the pieces they found didn't have any organic components in them? How convenient.

1...what? How is what I said a supposition? Are you disputing that the Reaper IFF is a signal?

2. And how would Vigil know if the Reapers were partly organic? Did he witness the construction of a Reaper Core like EDI? THAT is a supposition.

3. Then why didn't Sovereign use another word? Why did he use evolution when the world evolution was created to explain an organic process?

4. We don't know where the organic goo is stored, besides the fact that it is in the Reaper Core. A shell is then placed over the Reaper Core that is purely mechanical. This was confirmed in a developer interview.

5. That was not a piece from the Reaper Core.

6. Watch Sovereign blow up again. He explodes from the middle, where the Reaper Core would be. It would have thus been obliterated.

Try again...or actually, don't.