9962 réponses à ce sujet

[dpMeggers]

Dark Satris wrote...

oh, and something i've wanted to ask for a little while but always forgot, is the 'edit profile' option on ffnet the thing where we write the bio?

Yep

[Dark Satris]

thx meggers

[ladyvader]

Gisle-Aune wrote...

Lilivati wrote...


I came up with roughly six months for ME1 (the first half of 2183), and about a month lag between the end of that game and the beginning of ME2. This is the hardest part to fill in as there is very little temporal information available- but based on the sheer SCALE of ME1 and the amount of things to do, anything less than six months seems parsimonious. Liara finds Shepard's body and turns it over to Cerberus roughly one month after that, so it's August 2183 when the Lazarus project begins.

I just found out an implication of ME1 happening on the second half of 2183. ME3 starts on the 6th of June, 2186 -- as seen in the news trailer. And Tali mention in the last act when you meet her on the Citadel it was 3 years to the day since she were shot.

The ANN date stamps with the batarians leaving their system is dated third week of September 2186. 

There is a time line at the Wikia and if the beginning of ME3 is 6 months after Arrival, the beginning of ME3 couldn't be in June.  Six months from June is December and Arrival happned in 2186.  According to the timeline at the Wikia.

[Drussius]

^ Well, you're talking about the difference of a week. It's easier to say six months than five months and three weeks. And the timeline has always been very vague regarding the course of the games.

On the other hand, Gisle's info is misleading too. Tali mentions that it was 3 years to the day since she was shot by Saren's assassins. But that's not the day that she met Shepard. Because after getting shot, she went to C-Sec, then to Doctor Michel in the wards for treatment, then contacted the shadow broker's people, who sent her to Fist, etc... That could have all happened in a day, but there could have been a number of days between the time she was shot and her actual meeting of Shepard.

[ladyvader]

Drussius wrote...

^ Well, you're talking about the difference of a week. It's easier to say six months than five months and three weeks. And the timeline has always been very vague regarding the course of the games.

On the other hand, Gisle's info is misleading too. Tali mentions that it was 3 years to the day since she was shot by Saren's assassins. But that's not the day that she met Shepard. Because after getting shot, she went to C-Sec, then to Doctor Michel in the wards for treatment, then contacted the shadow broker's people, who sent her to Fist, etc... That could have all happened in a day, but there could have been a number of days between the time she was shot and her actual meeting of Shepard.

Very true about Tali. 

I look at the time like like this.  By the time the war with the Reapers is over, it's the beginning of 2187.  Month is on me to decided, I suppose.  All it does it gives me a rough idea of when things happen.  The date stamps on the ANN articles say a lot.  Or to me anyway.  

[hot_heart]

Lilivati wrote...
Miranda being engineered for biotics YEARS before humans knew what biotics were- in the official timeline.

It is, in all likelihood, an error, but I know some Miranda fans came up with a 'fix'.

It is noted in-game, that the krogan had a surgical procedure (details are very non-specific) to give them biotic abilities somehow. The fans suggested that Lawson Snr. could've had access to this, and Miranda would have undergone a similar procedure later in life. It has a high mortality rate, but then it just emphasises his attitude towards his creations.

It's a little bit of a stretch, and I'm not sure whether it bears any significance to what other people are writing, but I figured I'd share anyway.

[Lilivati]

Yeah, I was more just pointing out that you can't be TOO rigid about it because even the actual writing staff was not. Interesting about the krogan surgical procedure though- it's the type of science they'd like, high risk in exchange for strength. And it does provide a way out for Miranda. I wonder if that might have been the beginning of the end of her relationship with her father, forcing her to undergo a procedure like that?

Biotic abilities are themselves kind of contradictory. They're supposed to function via eezo nodules embedded in tissue following in utero exposure to eezo dust, which I can't find any logical way to link to DNA, yet Miranda and the datapad in the mining lab in Leviathan both suggest a genetic component exists (or can be developed). Asari are obviously the exception as they evolved adapting to their high-eezo homeworld.

On the other hand, it's nice to have some inconsistencies because they provide a lot of room to explore and adapt as you write within this world. I find this stuff more interesting than I probably should (minutiae, not just inconsistencies). It's an incredibly rich universe.

[hot_heart]

Oh, I agree. I don't think any lore will be airtight, and it can be a fun exercise in itself to toy with the possible scenarios and fill in the gaps. Especially since the games don't explore every avenue of possibility, given their short(er) nature.

I like picturing some of the history of certain in-game characters.

Modifié par hot_heart, 19 octobre 2012 - 10:24 .

[Spiritwolf1]

I like the fact the the game was vague in a lot of areas, leaving it open for some great fan fic. It's just too bad not everyone has an open mind and people get angry when people have a different concept then they do, personally I think that is what makes the fan fics so great. You can look at someones idea and go oooohhh that's neat

[dpMeggers]

My thought on eezo was that it was mutagenic/teratogenic. So we get exposed fetus, and 3 possible things happen 1) nothing (woo healthy baby), 2) bad mutations/stillbirths, 3) lucky ones who get the good mutation. So with our lucky mutant baby, the DNA has been irradiated/damaged/what have you, so it codes for the proteins at the ends of nerves a bit bizarrely and we wind up with vesicles (little sack thingies) full of eezo as a neurotransmitter (the thingies that go between nerves and are all like - sup? start doing stuff) and receptors specifically for eezo. Which is why it's so rare - you have to develop precisely the right mutation. Not sure how I get from there to biotics, but it's a work in progress.

Alternative option (aka the Gears of War Lambent comparison). Eezo is not, in fact, a mineral. It's a parasitic virus-y type life form which can 1) be carried/processed harmlessly 2) cause harmful mutations 3) cause beneficial mutations and develop a symbiotic relationship with the host. (I don't think this is remotely likely, but the explanation is simpler).

[MrStoob]

I use the 'Lucas' method. Don't explain anything. I'm telling a story, not writing a tech manual.

[dpMeggers]

MrStoob wrote...

I use the 'Lucas' method. Don't explain anything. I'm telling a story, not writing a tech manual.

As in George? Do you also have a silly beard?

I don't actually go into the details, as they're (largely) irrelevant to the story. I think I've mentionned in passing that one character had weird little nodules and that he produced a lot of static electricity, but those were for the purposes of the story itself. (eg: why Conatix showed up at his door, why he shocks people when he shakes hands).

I just like to have an idea about how stuff works before I start writing about it. Even if I made it all up and it never appears in the story, I find it makes it easier for me to write the big picture if I know personally how the details work (more or less).

[Spiritwolf1]

MrStoob wrote...

I use the 'Lucas' method. Don't explain anything. I'm telling a story, not writing a tech manual.

So it's not Eezo that creates biotics, its mediclorians

[fluffywalrus]

Spiritwolf1 wrote...

MrStoob wrote...

I use the 'Lucas' method. Don't explain anything. I'm telling a story, not writing a tech manual.

So it's not Eezo that creates biotics, its mediclorians

You know, of all things Lucas is given crap for, I thought Midichlorians made sense.  Otherwise it seemed like this pseudo-faith based magic that only special snowflakes got. Always bugged me that so few people had force abilities, if there was no set requirement to getting it.

Midichlorians just made sense IMO. or, more sense than whatever it was before. (disclaimer: I tend to loathe fantasy/Sci-fi tropes  where some characters have super ultra awesome abilities for no known reason, such as Luke. There's leaving flexibility in lore so that people can use imagination, and then there's leaving zero details on a pivotal component of character and plot progression, ultimately undermining both character and plot in the process).

/mini-rant

I mean, don't get me wrong, I love the Star Wars universe, but a lot of things about it ****** me off

I think not explaining things in detail is fine, so long as it's not an essential component to the story. In those cases, a sprinklng of information would be fine, at least. Kind of like how Bioware grounds Eezo in some vague lore, but doesn't explain the process of how exactly the eezo makes people biotics, scientifically. That's cool. If Biotics weren't explained at all, and it was (like in SW Ep4-6) special snowflake space magic,  I'd probably only ever play engineers or soldiers out of spite.

[Spiritwolf1]

ummm I was just joking when I said that. *Backs away slowly*

[fluffywalrus]

Spiritwolf1 wrote...

ummm I was just joking when I said that. *Backs away slowly*

Oh I wasn't trying to jump all over you or anything, i'm sorry

I just thought it was relevant to the topic (at least, the stuff I said after my rant)

Modifié par fluffywalrus, 19 octobre 2012 - 07:47 .

[dpMeggers]

I just treated Force-Sensitivity like a sense of smell before that film came out. Everyone has a sense of smell. Some people are very bad at smelling things (your super-non-Force-sensitives like...that Moff from ep 4 who's all 'The Force is some stupid religion *Vader choke*'), some people are decent at smelling things (your Han Solo/Carth Onasi types, eerily keen instincts but not Jedi-levels) and some people have an excellent sense of smell (your Luke, Leia, Anakin etc. types). I thought the midichlorian explanation was unnecessary but given that it didn't really contradict any previous lore I just sort of accepted it.

Given that we also have Force-Ghosts and Jedi are capable of some level of clairvoyance, I accept that in the Star Wars verse, there are some levels of 'magic' that we're never going to really understand.

I agree that in Mass Effect, we needed an explanation for where the hell Biotics come from, as the setting is explicitly 'future humans' and not 'totally alternate universe with magic stuff.' The biotic classes aren't my faves anyway, although that might have more to do with the fact that I'm ambivalent towards the Shepards I created for them. I wound up most attached to Infiltrator Kara (who I don't write about at all) and Engineer Damon (the first time I've managed to successfully RP as a male character).

[dpMeggers]

Question regarding weapons/powers between games:
So here we run into a slight story/gameplay separation. According to the lore, the Alliance has been using SMGs since pre-2176 (when Cerberus helped a guy murder 2 presidents with the M-12 Locust), but in ME1, no SMGs. In ME2, you have powers that didn't exist in ME1, charge (Vanguard) and tactical cloak (Infiltrator) being the ones that pop into mind first. (For that matter there are powers in ME3 that didn't exist in ME2...)

So the question is: Do you treat those elements as things that have always been there? Some have been there but some are new developments? Ignore everything as a separation of story and gameplay?

[fluffywalrus]

I use future abilities (ME2 and ME3) in my fics that deal with timelines before those. My Shep was able to charge at a young age, but that doesn't become a thing until ME2. Meh. It's an ability that to me, screams "Vanguard". So I used it. I haven't mentioned SMGs in my fics iirc, but they've been used in the passt, they'll be in my fic even if they weren't in the game. Batarians weren't visible in base ME1, but I'm using them. As the series went on, they built the lore, and I don't see the harm in making use of that.

[Dark Satris]

i get so confused by how quickly the conversation changes on one page *shakes head as if to chase away dizziness*

and i wonder what happens when you got biotics without the Eezo. oh wait, i already know (slight spoiler for those who havent read SE)

Modifié par Dark Satris, 19 octobre 2012 - 10:31 .

[MrStoob]

Spiritwolf1 wrote...

MrStoob wrote...

I use the 'Lucas' method. Don't explain anything. I'm telling a story, not writing a tech manual.

So it's not Eezo that creates biotics, its mediclorians

Hehe, even Lucas quickly realised that trying to overly explain things was a bad way to go.  I'm not saying that it should not be explained, I just think it can get in the way.  As I just said on one of them 'conventional victory' threads: suspension of disbelief.  How does a light sabre work?  Who gives a ****?!  

[Spiritwolf1]

MrStoob wrote...

Spiritwolf1 wrote...

MrStoob wrote...

I use the 'Lucas' method. Don't explain anything. I'm telling a story, not writing a tech manual.

So it's not Eezo that creates biotics, its mediclorians

Hehe, even Lucas quickly realised that trying to overly explain things was a bad way to go.  I'm not saying that it should not be explained, I just think it can get in the way.  As I just said on one of them 'conventional victory' threads: suspension of disbelief.  How does a light sabre work?  Who gives a ****?!  

You press a button and a pretty light appears?

[Dark Satris]

well, im going to play ME3 mp now

hey kinda curious; anyone on the support group (might as well call us that) play on the 360 aside from me? or are you all on ps3 or pc (by this i mean mainly pc)

[Spiritwolf1]

Im PC same name Spiritwolf1

[Drussius]

dpMeggers wrote...

Question regarding weapons/powers between games:
So here we run into a slight story/gameplay separation. According to the lore, the Alliance has been using SMGs since pre-2176 (when Cerberus helped a guy murder 2 presidents with the M-12 Locust), but in ME1, no SMGs. In ME2, you have powers that didn't exist in ME1, charge (Vanguard) and tactical cloak (Infiltrator) being the ones that pop into mind first. (For that matter there are powers in ME3 that didn't exist in ME2...)

So the question is: Do you treat those elements as things that have always been there? Some have been there but some are new developments? Ignore everything as a separation of story and gameplay?

On the submachine gun front, I would assume they've always been there. I mean... we have them now, after all. I doubt we'd do away with them for a few years and then bring them back. I think that was more of a gameplay decision, with the devs figuring that since weight wasn't an issue in ME1, there was no need for two types of fully-automatic weapons.

As for the powers, while my fic is set concurrent with ME3, if I went back and did an ME1 fic, I would use the new powers and assume they've always been there. In ME1... and a lot of people disagree with me on this one, but it's just my opinion... To me it really felt like there were only two classes. Biotics and non-biotics. They all just felt the same. The addition of some powers that helped solidify the roles of the classes was one of the best things about ME2 in my opinion. So I would definitely retroactively apply them to a fic set earlier in the timeline if I wrote one. However, you could justifiably decide that they were new discoveries that didn't exist two years prior, and I doubt anyone would complain about it.

But I have to add that I am one of those people who advocates ignoring some of the gameplay restrictions when writing a story. For example in my fic, several of my characters can't be easily classified into a single class, because logically, there's no reason someone couldn't buy or salvage a tactical cloak, combat drones, tech armor, frag grenades, a concussive burst emitter, and also be a biotic, and go out to war as an Infiltration Engineering Sentinel Biotic Soldier... The limitations such as engineers have only tech powers and infiltrators can have only combat and tech abilities was plain and simple gameplay restriction, to give distinction between classes. One of the characters in my story makes use of both a combat drone and tactical cloak, because I see no reason a single person couldn't employ both technologies.

Dark Satris wrote...

well, im going to play ME3 mp now

hey kinda curious; anyone on the support group (might as well call us that) play on the 360 aside from me? or are you all on ps3 or pc (by this i mean mainly pc)

I'm on the 360, but sadly due to a major catastophe in my home that required expensive repairs, when my Gold membership came up for renewal it had to temporarily go bye-bye. I'm hopeful that it may be in the budget again within the next month or so.