91 réponses à ce sujet

[RadicalDisconnect]

I'm wondering why some think that it's a good idea to not give the Reapers an underlying motivation. Wouldn't that simply turn them into a plot device? Would this be good storytelling? Note that while I'm not fond of the ending's explanation of the Reaper's motivations , how does that compare to the Reapers having no motivation at all?

Modifié par RadicalDisconnect, 05 novembre 2012 - 12:34 .

[SlottsMachine]

The mystery surrounding them is what I found most interesting.

[CDR David Shepard]

I had no problem with their motivation.

Anyways...it's a catch 22.

People only say that because they don't like what it was revealed to be.

Yet...if they left it a mystery...they would be complaining that they didn't get answers.

[ghost9191]

yeah , something we could not comprehend. they were just monsters that needed to be stopped.

their motives are fine though i guess. but hardly innocent. the conversations i had with them seem to say otherwise. so still monster . just monster trying to do some sick version of good i guess

Modifié par ghost9191, 05 novembre 2012 - 04:34 .

[David7204]

No, it wouldn't be good storytelling. And people would be complaining about it left and right.

Look, this is the BSN. It's full of people who claim any and every idea that isn't in the game as the best thing, EVER, EVER. We've seen it again and again. Miranda...Thane...Alternate endings...

Modifié par David7204, 05 novembre 2012 - 04:33 .

[CDR David Shepard]

ghost9191 wrote...

yeah , something we could not comprehend. they were just monsters that needed to be stopped.

It's all in how you look at it.

[spirosz]

That would probably get more complaining than Shepard's breathe scene, lol.

[ghost9191]

David7204 wrote...

No, it wouldn't be good storytelling. And people would be complaining about it left and right.

Look, this is the BSN. It's full of people who claim any and every idea that isn't in the game as the best thing, EVER, EVER. We've seen it again and again. Miranda...Thane...Alternate endings...

[Mathias]

One of the best aspects of the Reapers is that they are the only ones in the Mass Effect universe that feel truly "Alien" to the player. Even Reapers like Sovereign stressed to Shepard that organics are so far below the food chain to them, that they are like specs of dust, and cannot even begin to comprehend the nature of their existence. That's what was so freaky about the Reapers. And it was effective. To put it in simple terms, they were scary aliens.

But they lost that as soon as their origins were explained.

Modifié par Mdoggy1214, 05 novembre 2012 - 04:36 .

[silentassassin264]

ghost9191 wrote...

yeah , something we could not comprehend. they were just monsters that needed to be stopped.

I would have hated that idea.  If you do not reveal the Reaper's intentions or use the "it is beyond our understanding" line, the Reapers just come off as always chaotic evil bad guys.  There is nothing exciting about beating what is tantamount of Saturday morning cartoon villains...even absurdly strong saturday morning cartoon villains.  Villains with no motive or a bad motive kill a story.  Even with what was given in ME3, their motive was much better than leaving us in the dark.  It could have been written better but still leagues better than beyond our understanding.

[ghost9191]

silentassassin264 wrote...

ghost9191 wrote...

yeah , something we could not comprehend. they were just monsters that needed to be stopped.

I would have hated that idea.  If you do not reveal the Reaper's intentions or use the "it is beyond our understanding" line, the Reapers just come off as always chaotic evil bad guys.  There is nothing exciting about beating what is tantamount of Saturday morning cartoon villains...even absurdly strong saturday morning cartoon villains.  Villains with no motive or a bad motive kill a story.  Even with what was given in ME3, their motive was much better than leaving us in the dark.  It could have been written better but still leagues better than beyond our understanding.

for the love of god guys, there was more to that post/ first part was a response to general

[iiNOMADii]

I liked the fact that in the series we were fighting the reapers with the clear intention to wipe them out in an us-vs-them mentality, with the thought of why the reapers were actually doing this constantly at the back of my mind.  It added a great ominous undertone atmosphere to the series if you ask me, and would have been awesome when, after defeating the reapers, we are left to wonder...what happens next?  Were the reapers fighting for self interest/preservation or some other goal we are yet to discover, perhaps to our horror?

It could even have set the stage for future installments quite nicely, too.

Not that I don't necessarily disagree that Bioware revealed their intentions, since I understand I am most likely in the minority of people who wanted the reapers intentions to remain a mystery, but that was my hope.

[silentassassin264]

ghost9191 wrote...

for the love of god guys, there was more to that post/ first part was a response to general

Not when I quoted.

[ghost9191]

silentassassin264 wrote...

ghost9191 wrote...

for the love of god guys, there was more to that post/ first part was a response to general

Not when I quoted.

yeah but submited before i was done lol. edited it in less then a min .

[DeinonSlayer]

OP, I think a lot of that sentiment stems now from disappointment in what their purpose was revealed to be.

[Zardoc]

Never cared for Reaper's motivations or origin. Would've made good speculation. Also, revealing to much about a mysterious antagonist entity, taking away the mystery, makes it seem much less dangerous and bland.

David7204 wrote...

No, it wouldn't be good storytelling. And people would be complaining about it left and right. 

Look, this is the BSN. It's full of people who claim any and every idea that isn't in the game as the best thing, EVER, EVER. We've seen it again and again. Miranda...Thane...Alternate endings...

Modifié par Zardoc, 05 novembre 2012 - 04:55 .

[royceclemens]

The Reapers were a plot device, that's the long and short of it. There was genuinely nothing interesting about them except how they were served or how they were fought. They were giant metal Cthulhu knock-offs with all the personality of, say, a stapler or a pair of scissors.

They set a plot in motion that took us to exotic locales and introduced us to interesting people. They did their job and any attempt to "explain their motivation" not only would have been doomed to failure (because really, there is no explanation good enough), but would have appealed solely to the kind of person who jerks off to continuity on the internet.

And they were going to complain anyway, because no long-form story told in such a manner is completely airtight plot-wise. And even if there was, I wouldn't want to read, watch or play it because it would have to contort itself to a ridiculous extent to get there. It would have to spend more time explaining itself than going anywhere an audience in their right minds would want to go.

So we saw with the ending to Mass Effect 3. So intent were the writers to seal up loose ends about the least interesting part of the story that they threw away themes that were prevalent in the first two games (as well as a major part of the third) to make everything fit.

Had they just not bothered with the motivation, we'd have no StarBrat and the series could have come away with a good ending. Instead, they over-explained it and the majority of their die-hard fans waged an open revolt against them.

Modifié par royceclemens, 05 novembre 2012 - 05:09 .

[Deadpool9]

Because Lovecraft and Cthulhu.

Dammit Royclemens.

Modifié par Deadpool9, 05 novembre 2012 - 05:00 .

[dreamgazer]

Honestly, knowing that they operate on a 50,000-year cycle was enough. I kinda had it figured out in the first game that the Reapers were some kind of a primal force---driven by who knows what---that kept civilization from growing beyond its technological/developmental means. The rest was left to interpretation, and I liked that.

[hiraeth]

I'm OK with the storyteller revealing the Reapers' true motivation/history...as long as you do it well and it's consistent with the rest of the story (both in style and content). Tackling the Reaper intricacies is a tall order, so if you're going to do it, it's important that it's fleshed out (and I mean, *really* fleshed out), doesn't leave more questions than it answers, is thematically and tone-wise consistent with the rest of the story, and is convincing to the player. Otherwise you have...well, the ME3 ending.

That all being said, like many others, I would have been fine without an in-depth knowledge of why Reapers engage in their cycles of killing. My investment in the universe was Shepard and the characters I interacted with and their stories, not the villain or his background.

[Sajuro]

It wouldn't, I knew they would have some bull**** reason as soon as Sovereign gave his spiel.

[GreyLycanTrope]

I find mysterious and unknowable much more intimidating. Would have been better villains if they were left as something simply beyond our comprehension.

[eddieoctane]

silentassassin264 wrote...

ghost9191 wrote...

yeah , something we could not comprehend. they were just monsters that needed to be stopped.

I would have hated that idea.  If you do not reveal the Reaper's intentions or use the "it is beyond our understanding" line, the Reapers just come off as always chaotic evil bad guys.  There is nothing exciting about beating what is tantamount of Saturday morning cartoon villains...even absurdly strong saturday morning cartoon villains.  Villains with no motive or a bad motive kill a story.  Even with what was given in ME3, their motive was much better than leaving us in the dark.  It could have been written better but still leagues better than beyond our understanding.

So there is no deeper meaning to stopping Cthulhu, even if to do so you must kill an entire city of people you know, because Lovecraftian horrors are chaotic evil? Actually, strike that. They aren't chaotic evil. Chaotic evil would have been TDK's Joker. Everything done was for the sake of spreading chaos. But even that is a motivation we can understand. There is a beauty to something as chaotic as fire or lightning.

The Reapers, with their Lovecraftian origins, were outside of the moral axes we understand. It's not a third one that crosses the good/evil and lawful/chaotic lines we know. It's not some parallel line we can relate to. It's somewhere else entirely. The Reapers were entirely alien. That was what made them cool to me.

What's more, beating the Reapers can have meaning in the sacrifices necessary to do so. Do you throw your girlfriend into a volcano to stop Yog-Sothoth from eating your entire town? That's where destroy could have taken the plot. Do you try to use your own will to hold him back for a time, even though you're consumed in the process and may just be the new unknowable destroyer the next time around? Now we have control. Both had appeal before the "robots are bad" crap. Synthesis doesn't fit anymore with an unknowable Reaper, for who makes friends with Cthulhu in the first place? But that whole plot doesn't make the biggest amount of sense in the first place. Refusal would be a better third option.

Still, the incredibly alien nature of the Reapers in ME1 was way better. ME2 watered them down with their need for humans to reproduce. ME3 killed the mystery altogether and there was nothing left to be afraid of.

[Kataphrut94]

In all fairness, we all knew since the end of ME2 (and hell, probably ME1 as well) that the game would end with a confontation with the Reapers. Mass Effect 3 is all about the Reaper invasion and gathering the armies and resources to fight them. When the Reapers are such a persistent element throughout the entire game (and let's face it, they're not exactly subtle) could there have been a way to do it that would keep the mystery intact?

Granted the reveal of the Catalyst was a bit too much of an expostion dump, even more so after the EC added a whole bunch of dull questions to ask him. But all the stuff about why they use the relays and the Citadel, why they do it in cycles, why they spare the younger species are all clues to an underlying purpose. The only new information we learned from Johnny Catalyst was the fact that it linked to the organic-synthetic conflict.

In my opinion, that was way too narrow a motivation - if they'd gone with the general idea that advanced species are a danger to the developing worlds then that would make sense and still fit with what Sovereign and Rannoch Reaper said about the bringing order to the chaos of organic evolution. While all advanced species have the potential to create AI, only the quarians have taken it far enough to be a major issue. If they'd made it so the Reapers just harvest advanced species for their hubris, you could draw links to all the Mass Effect races, not just the quarians.

The salarians uplifting primitive races and creating the genophage when it all goes wrong, asari hoarding and exploting ancient technology, turians and their military expansion, humans and their territorial expansion, the drell overpopulating their homeworld, the batarians and their facsist dictatorship, the Protheans for their empire building, the krogans and vorcha for being too bloody dangerous, etc.

Mind you, as dumb as the organic-synthetic business, it was better than the stupid dark energy idea. The idea that turning everyone into cyborgs is the best way to stop a war between man and machine may sound ridiculous, it's a million times more logical than pulping humans to create a robot that stops stars from dying.

[sharkboy421]

Deadpool9 wrote...

Because Lovecraft and Cthulhu.

Dammit Royclemens.

Seriously.  I loved that vibe from the Reaper's.  They were these monsters from dark space.  Things that lived in a place man was never meant to go.  I enjoyed that feeling of cosmic horror they inspired and felt it was best left alone.

And yes as Royclemens said, they were a plot device.  They didn't need a reason beyond that.