80611 réponses à ce sujet

[plfranke]

Andromidius wrote...

EA do have bizzare tactics. They very much have a Slash And Burn style with their assets - if its not making money right now, they liquidise it - regardless of investment and future profits. I don't even know how they got where they are now with that sort of management.

Sooner Bioware can move away from them, the better.

Andromidus! Where've you been I've missed your presence on this thread!

[BansheeOwnage]

spotlessvoid wrote...
Also Leviathans are borderline retarded or lying like crazy. Kind of like Bioware.

HAHAHAHAHahaha! Awesome.

Grunt voice: Something to think about Shepard: If Bioware created the Leviathans, how do we know they don't act like them themselves. [/Grunt]

Maybe they have been ASSUMING DIRIECT CONTROL'd by them the whole time. 

[Andromidius]

On-off. Mostly avoiding saying much since I always get into arguments.

[desert_beagle]

At least Leviathan explains why the Reapers look like big angry cuttlefish.

[Rifneno]

desert_beagle wrote...

At least Leviathan explains why the Reapers look like big angry cuttlefish.

ME actually got me to look into whether you can get cuttlefish for home aquariums.  That's... disturbing, no?  (And no, not really.  It's not impossible, but they're virtually impossible to find and have a lifespan measured in months.)

[BansheeOwnage]

Arashi08 wrote...

paxxton wrote...

Arashi08 wrote...

sooo...all this talk of Leviathan and the way it views it's thralls got me thinking...

Do you think it is possible to create a story whereby there is a certain sentient culture that uses another sentient culture as their livestock, but doesn't consider this species inferior to their own, nor do they consider themselves superior to their "cattle," and STILL make a convincing, well thought out, and overall GOOD story?

Of course. Just read the news.

The news isn't a story, the news is commentary on an event.  imo a "story" is a fictional work that relies on a premise and themes, which are illustrated by an event and incidents in the setting the story takes place.  We have names for alot of things we call "stories" today, but we only have one for the real use of the word "story."  You might also call it fiction, but to me "fiction" is just one aspect that makes a story.

I personally feel that we, as a "modern" culture, have forgotten what it means to actually tell a story and tell it well, why else would there be so much crap in the media that had no substance?

Again, this is all my opinion, just making that clear...

Here: This should sum up your/my feelings nicely.

I'll leave everyone to chew on that and Bioware either being retarded or lying. See ya later.

[BansheeOwnage]

Rifneno wrote...

desert_beagle wrote...

At least Leviathan explains why the Reapers look like big angry cuttlefish.

ME actually got me to look into whether you can get cuttlefish for home aquariums.  That's... disturbing, no?  (And no, not really.  It's not impossible, but they're virtually impossible to find and have a lifespan measured in months.)

YOUR LIVES ARE MEASURED IN YEARS, AND DECADES. YOU WITHER, AND DIE. WE ARE ETERNAL, BLAH BLAH BLAH etc.

[BluSoldier]

I just realized something after all: the Catalyst was right. He states, "The created will always rebel against their creators." But in the end, the Mass Effect franchise and it's fans have rebelled against Bioware....

[demersel]

plfranke wrote...
Let me hear it

Ok. Short version of it - Ilos doesn't add up. 

Why didn't the reapers never came onto it?
What happens with Ilos after the ME1? Who controls and studies it? (answer - the Salarians)
What happens to the conduit after ME1 (the relays are indistructible after all, and it is not likely that they drove asteroids into both parts of the conduit.)
Why do we go to EARTH after learning that the reapers took the citadel, instead of going to Ilos?
How did cerberus got into the citadel during their coup, and was that connected to Ilos? 

And the best question of all - How does Ilos even possible (i mean the conduit?)
The conduit consists of two mini mass relays, linked together, closed on each other and isolated and independent from the rest of the Mass Relay network.

Let's consult the ME  wiki and codex:

- 
 The Conduit is a miniature mass relay which the Prothean researchers on Ilos built as a prototype during their experiments into mass relay technology. It is essentially a 'back door' onto the Citadel, which is the hub of the relay network. It has no connection to the rest of the network, making it independent. The 'receiving' relay on the Citadel was mistaken for a piece of Prothean art, the Relay Monument, and was never removed by the Council.  

- 
The surviving Prothean scientists, trying to break the cycle of genocide the Reapers perpetuate, used the Conduit to travel to the Citadel once the Reapers had departed. 

- 
Technically, the Conduit is not simply the miniature prototype relay found on Ilos, but also the Relay Monument itself. The Conduit and the Monument form both ends of a relay system, one relay to send and one to receive. 

the article has another entry in the trivia section, that is irrelevant to my point, but non the less interesting:

- 
As of 2185, the public has become aware of some of the details of the Conduit, as a Presidium Groundskeeper recommends that Shepard look at some demael flowers across from the Conduit on the Presidium. 

_________________


So the conduit is a back door to the citadel which works only one way. Huh. And it was built by the Scientients trapped on Ilos.

Ok... How did they managed to put a recieving mass relay on the citadel after the reapers took it? (and it was the first thing they did) - impossible - it must have been there before the reaper invasion started. 

Why do you start building a back door to the citadel, before you know you ever gonna need one? 

(if it was just an experiment - why make it one way? And why put the reciving end so far awy from the facility, and why put it on the citadel, of all places?)

[jgibson14352]

BluSoldier wrote...

I just realized something after all: the Catalyst was right. He states, "The created will always rebel against their creators." But in the end, the Mass Effect franchise and it's fans have rebelled against Bioware....

that, and when saren and TIM were indoctrinated they became obsessed with studying indoctrination. same here.

[plfranke]

demersel wrote...

plfranke wrote...
Let me hear it

Ok. Short version of it - Ilos doesn't add up. 

Why didn't the reapers never came onto it?
What happens with Ilos after the ME1? Who controls and studies it? (answer - the Salarians)
What happens to the conduit after ME1 (the relays are indistructible after all, and it is not likely that they drove asteroids into both parts of the conduit.)
Why do we go to EARTH after learning that the reapers took the citadel, instead of going to Ilos?
How did cerberus got into the citadel during their coup, and was that connected to Ilos? 

And the best question of all - How does Ilos even possible (i mean the conduit?)
The conduit consists of two mini mass relays, linked together, closed on each other and isolated and independent from the rest of the Mass Relay network.

Let's consult the ME  wiki and codex:

- 
[color=rgb(255,255,255)"> ] which the Prothean researchers on Ilos built as a prototype during their experiments into mass relay technology. It is essentially a 'back door' onto the [/color]Citadel[color=rgb(255,255,255)">, which is the hub of the relay network. It has no connection to the rest of the network, making it independent. The 'receiving' relay on the Citadel was mistaken for a piece of Prothean art, the ], and was never removed by the [/color]Council.  

- 
The surviving Prothean scientists, trying to break the cycle of genocide the Reapers perpetuate, used the Conduit to travel to the Citadel once the Reapers had departed. 

- 
Technically, the Conduit is not simply the miniature prototype relay found on Ilos, but also the Relay Monument itself. The Conduit and the Monument form both ends of a relay system, one relay to send and one to receive. 

the article has another entry in the trivia section, that is irrelevant to my point, but non the less interesting:

- 
[color=rgb(255,255,255)">As of 2185, the public has become aware of some of the details of the Conduit, as a ] recommends that Shepard look at some demael flowers across from the Conduit on the Presidium.[/color] 

_________________


So the conduit is a back door to the citadel which works only one way. Huh. And it was built by the Scientients trapped on Ilos.

Ok... How did they managed to put a recieving mass relay on the citadel after the reapers took it? (and it was the first thing they did) - impossible - it must have been there before the reaper invasion started. 

Why do you start building a back door to the citadel, before you know you ever gonna need one? 

(if it was just an experiment - why make it one way? And why put the reciving end so far awy from the facility, and why put it on the citadel, of all places?)

Do you have a theory that explains all this? From the way you've explained it, it just sounds like bad writing to me.

[Andromidius]

demersel wrote...

Why do you start building a back door to the citadel, before you know you ever gonna need one?

Its possible the Ilos team weren't secret, but rebels.  Hense why no-one knew about them, and they were planning to take over the Citadel at some stage.  Would explain the conduit, they installed it before the Reapers came.

[Arashi08]

Hrothdane wrote...

Arashi08 wrote...

paxxton wrote...

Arashi08 wrote...

sooo...all this talk of Leviathan and the way it views it's thralls got me thinking...

Do you think it is possible to create a story whereby there is a certain sentient culture that uses another sentient culture as their livestock, but doesn't consider this species inferior to their own, nor do they consider themselves superior to their "cattle," and STILL make a convincing, well thought out, and overall GOOD story?

Of course. Just read the news.

The news isn't a story, the news is commentary on an event.  imo a "story" is a fictional work that relies on a premise and themes, which are illustrated by an event and incidents in the setting the story takes place.  We have names for alot of things we call "stories" today, but we only have one for the real use of the word "story."  You might also call it fiction, but to me "fiction" is just one aspect that makes a story.

I personally feel that we, as a "modern" culture, have forgotten what it means to actually tell a story and tell it well, why else would there be so much crap in the media that had no substance?

Again, this is all my opinion, just making that clear...

I think we just forgot how many crappy stories there used to be. The single most important lesson I learned from years of studying history and hanging out with history majors and reenactors is that yes, the present sucks, but the past sucked at least twice as much. It's quite a sobering thought.

Think about all the ****ty reality TV you see nowadays. How much of that will actually be remembered by your children? How much of it will YOU remember in twenty years? The "golden age of television" had tons of crap game shows, variety programs, and just plain morely written crap that nobody remembers because they don't WANT to remember.

Try watching TCM during the morning and early afternoon, when they play all the movies people forgot. You will see lots of overblown melodrama, every film will use PARAGRAPHS OF TEXT for exposition, and the camera will be so immobile that the director is essentially filming a theater performance.

You should watch the film Midnight in Paris; it addresses this very issue and is VERY entertaining if you have a working knowledge of early twentieth century writers and artists. It may be my favorite Woody Allen film.

To bring this back into the topic of Mass Effect, even though we got stuck with a crappy ending and all kinds of problems in the storytelling methods of the third game, the games themselves pushed the expectations of storytelling in video games to another level. The huge fan outcry against Final Fantasy XIII's totally linear story and gameplay would not have happened ten years ago before games like Mass Effect. The execution may not have been perfect by any means, but Mass Effect pushed the boundaries and showed gamers what COULD be achieved.

I never felt as attached to a character in ANY medium as I do to my Shepard, and many appear to agree. That BioWare drew in the audience to such an extent that they would revolt so emphatically and universally because of the game ending is unprecedented. Even if Mass Effect and BioWare end up being lost causes, the rest of the industry has an opening to take over and do it right. While player agency and choice have already become watchwords in the RPG genre, we can already see the development of increased player interaction in other genres as well.

I'm excited for the future of storytelling in the game industry for these very reasons. I've been going back and forth for many years on which direction I should take my creative efforts, and seeing the storytelling potential in Mass Effect made it crystal clear that storytelling in gaming has a bright future, one that I hope to help create personally. If and when I get the chance to make my own game on the scale of Mass Effect, I will definitely put the lessons learned from the experience into play.

A very informative post.  Still, to me it seems like the ratio of good to bad stories keeps going further in favor of the bad ones as time passes.  That's not to say there aren't any good stories being made today, but when it becomes more about making money than art, the art suffers, and ultimately so does the money, unless they hit the "sweet spot" of mindlessness that people just lap up, which happens far too often.

I think companies like BioWare have done a better job than most, but I still am not convinced that can write the same stories that they used to, at least not under the constraints that they probably now have.  I mean sure their merger with EA gave them more money to improve aesthetic and mechanical quality of their games.  But money doesn't make a good story.  passion and a good vehicle of transporting the idea are what make good stories imo.  A good system for conceiving, designing and composing a story goes a long way if you have the passion to put into the work.  BioWare could use EA's money to hire a thousand writers to work on one game, but if all those writers don't know anything about artfully crafting a story that works then the story will still suck no matter how many writers they have.

I'm not saying that this is the case with BioWare; clearly they have quite a few talented writers.  But does that make them GREAT storytellers?  I personally don't know...

On the one hand, they have alot of great ideas and the games reflect them well, and their work does pull me in and get me to care more about their characters than nearly any other games by other developers (although I feel Persona 3 and 4 also do a really good job of this, storytelling-wise, and I also found myself caring a great deal about these characters)  But at the same time they've made alot fo mistakes with the consistency of their lore, at least this is what I tend to notice the most.  alot of times their story elements do feel flat in certain places, the ending being among them.  Now I don't expect it to be perfect, but it just seems like to me their  capacity for great storytelling has gone a little downhill and just become "good."  But that's just how I feel personally.

Still, I like the work BioWare puts out the for most part, even DA2 (the story wasn't horrible, it just felt lacking, like it was missing something, which is how ME3's ending feels to me.)  I just feel like these day's BioWare's work is just...not complete; there's something that the story still needs to make it as memorable as their old, pre-EA stuff.  While I don't support IT as much as I used to because I noticed this trend, I do still hope Iters are vindicated, because it could may well mean that BioWare has gotten their old spark back.

I am interested to see how things unfold...

[demersel]

 - Rachni found the Mu Relay during Rachni wars. If Reapers were behind the Rachni wars, why would Sovereign, who is behind Saren, would have Saren go and extract the coordinates of the Mu Relay from the rachni queen, by Bonezia? If reapers were behind the Rachni wars, - that would be Sovereign (at least he would be around) - so he would know it first hand. 
Also this -
 - After achieving spaceflight, the rachni first traveled to the neighboring planet of Kashshaptu and discovered a crater there known as "the howling gulf", which featured an abundance of element zero. The rachni obtained samples of the eezo and studiously researched its properties, but would not develop FTL technology until centuries later.- 


My theory is that Element Zero - is like the Spice of Mass Effect. 

Leviathans produce it. Like the worms in Dune.

Leviathans comsume stars, and defecate element zero. 

edit:

Mu Relay - 
"Mu" is the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph for water, but the Mu Relay was likely named after the fabled lost continent of Mu. The continent was allegedly located in the Pacific Ocean before, like Atlantis, it was lost beneath the sea. 

Modifié par demersel, 01 septembre 2012 - 02:13 .

[demersel]

Andromidius wrote...

demersel wrote...

Why do you start building a back door to the citadel, before you know you ever gonna need one?

Its possible the Ilos team weren't secret, but rebels.  Hense why no-one knew about them, and they were planning to take over the Citadel at some stage.  Would explain the conduit, they installed it before the Reapers came.

If they were rebels - how would they put the Mass Reley in the capital of prothean empire? 

[plfranke]

demersel wrote...

 - Rachni found the Mu Relay during Rachni wars. If Reapers were behind the Rachni wars, why would Sovereign, who is behind Saren, would have Saren go and extract the coordinates of the Mu Relay from the rachni queen, by Bonezia? If reapers were behind the Rachni wars, - that would be Sovereign (at least he would be around) - so he would know it first hand. 
Also this -
 - After achieving spaceflight, the rachni first traveled to the neighboring planet of Kashshaptu and discovered a crater there known as "the howling gulf", which featured an abundance of element zero. The rachni obtained samples of the eezo and studiously researched its properties, but would not develop FTL technology until centuries later.- 


My theory is that Element Zero - is like the Spice of Mass Effect. 

Leviathans produce it. Like the worms in Dune.

Leviathans comsume stars, and defecate element zero. 

edit:

Mu Relay - 
[color=rgb(255,255,255)">"Mu" is the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph for water, but the Mu Relay was likely named after the fabled lost continent of ]. The continent was allegedly located in the Pacific Ocean before, like Atlantis, it was lost beneath the sea.[/color] 

Alright, now you've got my attention

[jgibson14352]

Andromidius wrote...

demersel wrote...

Why do you start building a back door to the citadel, before you know you ever gonna need one?

Its possible the Ilos team weren't secret, but rebels.  Hense why no-one knew about them, and they were planning to take over the Citadel at some stage.  Would explain the conduit, they installed it before the Reapers came.

i think its much safer to assume that they wanted their relay close to the relay network. itd be like building your own road, itd be much more efficient to have it connect to the already built superhighway. their relays only went one way, its safer to have a quick way back i.e. the relay network. i think it makes perfect sense

[Andromidius]

demersel wrote...

If they were rebels - how would they put the Mass Reley in the capital of prothean empire? 

Subterfugue.  Plus they could have installed the Relay before isolating themselves on Ilos, then started preparing for the first strike.

Its not the best explaination, but it would make some sense.

[Rifneno]

According to Vigil, all records of Ilos' team were destroyed during the the battle where the Reapers took the Citadel. Understandable, there's going to be a lot of damage to the place during the invasion as we see in ME1.

The reason the Ilos relay worked as it did is because the Protheans were reverse engineering the relays. They were on the "verge" of being able to reproduce the technology. The Ilos/Citadel relay was their prototype. But being a prototype, it was flawed. It only worked one way. And remember that there's a countdown where you have to get to the conduit before it closes in ME1. I forget whether this is because Saren had it set to self-destruct/seal after he went through or if it only had enough power to work for a few minutes and Saren flipped the switch and left. But either way, the relay was apparently rendered nonfunctional after Shepard used it in ME1.

[plfranke]

Hey guys if the cycle was delayed so much by the protheans, why is humanity so behind them? And if the cycle was delayed, why are so many things still happening in accordance with the cycle, like Cerberus being indoctrinated?

[jgibson14352]

demersel wrote...

 - Rachni found the Mu Relay during Rachni wars. If Reapers were behind the Rachni wars, why would Sovereign, who is behind Saren, would have Saren go and extract the coordinates of the Mu Relay from the rachni queen, by Bonezia? If reapers were behind the Rachni wars, - that would be Sovereign (at least he would be around) - so he would know it first hand. 
Also this -
 - After achieving spaceflight, the rachni first traveled to the neighboring planet of Kashshaptu and discovered a crater there known as "the howling gulf", which featured an abundance of element zero. The rachni obtained samples of the eezo and studiously researched its properties, but would not develop FTL technology until centuries later.- 


My theory is that Element Zero - is like the Spice of Mass Effect. 

Leviathans produce it. Like the worms in Dune.

Leviathans comsume stars, and defecate element zero. 

edit:

Mu Relay - 
[color=rgb(255, 255, 255)">"Mu" is the 12th letter of the Greek alphabet, derived from the Egyptian hieroglyph for water, but the Mu Relay was likely named after the fabled lost continent of ]. The continent was allegedly located in the Pacific Ocean before, like Atlantis, it was lost beneath the sea.[/color] 

.......because the reapers indoctrinating someone does not grant them access to their memories or knowledge? we kinda covered that. indoctrination realigns goals. superficially, thats really it.

[spotlessvoid]

plfranke wrote...

Hey guys if the cycle was delayed so much by the protheans, why is humanity so behind them? And if the cycle was delayed, why are so many things still happening in accordance with the cycle, like Cerberus being indoctrinated?

50,000 year cycle delayed by a few centuries isn't really a big deal

[demersel]

Rifneno wrote...

According to Vigil, all records of Ilos' team were destroyed during the the battle where the Reapers took the Citadel. Understandable, there's going to be a lot of damage to the place during the invasion as we see in ME1.

The reason the Ilos relay worked as it did is because the Protheans were reverse engineering the relays. They were on the "verge" of being able to reproduce the technology. The Ilos/Citadel relay was their prototype. But being a prototype, it was flawed. It only worked one way. And remember that there's a countdown where you have to get to the conduit before it closes in ME1. I forget whether this is because Saren had it set to self-destruct/seal after he went through or if it only had enough power to work for a few minutes and Saren flipped the switch and left. But either way, the relay was apparently rendered nonfunctional after Shepard used it in ME1.

Ok. That answers my questions. Exept for the "How did cerberus get into the citadel from within?" THe conduit would be a answer to that. 
And that would mean that we have yet to hear this part of the story. 


And my theory about all this, that possibly future DLC will feature Ilos, either in regards of Salarians, or Cerberus or both.

We will certainly get and Omega DLC
There will be sonething about the Salarians.
Possibly something about drell and hanar

And there is going to be a DLC wich will feature the Citadel Defence Force. 

[DoomsdayDevice]

Hey guys, I'm back.

So I haven't had the time to catch up with the thread, and I have no idea what the general consensus on Leviathan is (if any), but here are my thoughts:

Leviathan helps IT a LOT.

- It helps establish that Indoctrination/mind control techniques are very much capable of visually changing what the victim perceives.

- Leviathan says "Your memories give voice to our words", while showing Shepard familiar people who speak these words. This helps IT because it establishes that Reapers can use the victim's memories to shape what he perceives. (Hence the boy as the catalyst, the parts of the Citadel looking like places Shepard has been to)

Leviathan says: "Your nature will be revealed to us, accept this." This helps IT because it establishes that Reapers can indeed poke around in the victim's mind and know his/her intentions. ("I know you've thought about destroying us.")

My favourite line: "Your own species could be destroyed by a single thought."

Also:



One question though: Chris Priestly said it depends on your actions if Leviathan will be an ally or an adversary. He was an ally for me... but how does it work? On what is it based? Was he an adversary for some of you here? I'm curious how that works.

Modifié par DoomsdayDevice, 01 septembre 2012 - 02:35 .

[demersel]

jgibson14352 wrote...
.......because the reapers indoctrinating someone does not grant them access to their memories or knowledge? we kinda covered that. indoctrination realigns goals. superficially, thats really it.

And yet we have a theory here that the ending is a dream infused by the reapers, and formed only with the things that are taken directly from Shepards memory...