307 réponses à ce sujet

[cljqnsnyc]

I have no problem with the "Citadel" dlc. Why? Well, it fits perfectly with my game. Some people seem to forget that this is a series about choices...which to me throughs canon out an airlock......there is no canon! Your game is YOUR game, which may be completely different from the next guy.

Saying that, I use the MEHEM and play "Citadel" post game. For me, it is no accident that the tone is as far removed from the controversial endings as you can get. They hardly, if ever mention the war or Reapers in context to being a pressing threat. They even make fun of the whole thing as a backdrop for a new "Blasto" movie. Not an accident. The whole thing plays as though it takes place after the war has been won, which fits the tone. Again, not an accident.

Hey, some may hate it for whichever reason, and that's fine. For me, it fits. Not a single mention of the Catalyst? Works for me. Dlc isn't always going to satisfy everyone. "Citadel" was very satisfying to me for all the right reasons.

[Dean_the_Young]

Uncle Jo wrote...

More like trying to cure a dangerous illness by injecting its deadly variant. Or lawning the grass with a flamethrower. Or hiring a thief and giving them the safe's access code, a gun and the key of the exit door. What could possibly go wrong?

You do realize that we do all these things on a regular basis in society, yes? Medical research, fire-fighting, and security development have all used those simplifications to advance their goals.

Preserving life at all costs. Yeah, by liquefying people and store them in warships. Very clever, indeed.

You know, of all things this is what I have the least problem with because, well... it's actually valid machine logic.

Mass Effect played with Pinochio stories for their synthetics (EDI always was one, the Geth aren't unless you're Legion, etc.), but the Catalyst's alien morality is actually pretty reasonable for what I can think of a machine having. It is ethically abhorrent, but for a certain definition of life (and, as a machine, AI's can only have a certain definition in their logic), it's not incorrect.

As a whole it's a great example of machine programming doing what the developer writes, but not intends. That's a classic programming challenge, and it didn't seem unreasonable to me that the Reapers would end up being an accidental outcome of someone else's problems. It's also a case of a a super-goal being elevated over a supra-goal, a sort of prioritization error that leads overly-logical people to accomplish the letter of a task while missing the intent.

[Reever]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
You know, of all things this is what I have the least problem with because, well... it's actually valid machine logic.

Mass Effect played with Pinochio stories for their synthetics (EDI always was one, the Geth aren't unless you're Legion, etc.), but the Catalyst's alien morality is actually pretty reasonable for what I can think of a machine having. It is ethically abhorrent, but for a certain definition of life (and, as a machine, AI's can only have a certain definition in their logic), it's not incorrect.

As a whole it's a great example of machine programming doing what the developer writes, but not intends. That's a classic programming challenge, and it didn't seem unreasonable to me that the Reapers would end up being an accidental outcome of someone else's problems. It's also a case of a a super-goal being elevated over a supra-goal, a sort of prioritization error that leads overly-logical people to accomplish the letter of a task while missing the intent.

This man understands! (although I don't know what your overall view on the endings is...)

Thanks for bringing the blog entry to my attention though, missed that.

[Iakus]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

iakus wrote...

How does the presentation of the protagonist change the choices they are faced with?  Or what the player thinks?

Are you talking abstract, or actual research on how presentation affects decision making? I'm afraid I'm not sure what your question, argument, or intent with this line of conversation is.

I'm saying if your Knight in Sour armor and some Knight in Shining armor are both faced with the same ethical dilemma, I posit that both will choose the "morally right" option (as they see it) and won't settle fro "ess bad" unless absolutely necessary.  They may come at it with different justifications, and different attitudes (one more cynical, one more idealistic) but in the end, they will do what is "right"

But what happens if all the answers feel "wrong"?  Not just degrees of "less bad"  but flat out bad-bad?

I enjoy Knights in Sour Armor because, in having to bend rules or go against societal norms for a 'best' result, they tend to have to make compromises with teleological morality in the name of doing the right thing. For me, that's pretty compatible with the endings, and since even my most Paragon playthroughs tend towards that it works for me.

But in the end, they do what's right.  And there's a point beyond which they will not bend.  That is my point.  They still have a moral center.

So, if we're going to go with lessons learned, I hope Bioware doesn't let people mislead themselves about how teleological a setting is, especially when it isn't. Dragon Age doesn't have this problem, and Mass Effect could easily have avoided it had they tried delivering consequences of note either in the same game or in the carryover of ME2. Then people wouldn't perceive no longer kicking the issue down the road for a tone shift.

I prefer to think of it as finding a balance point between sacrifice, consequences, and railroading.

[Dean_the_Young]

iakus wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

iakus wrote...

How does the presentation of the protagonist change the choices they are faced with?  Or what the player thinks?

Are you talking abstract, or actual research on how presentation affects decision making? I'm afraid I'm not sure what your question, argument, or intent with this line of conversation is.

I'm saying if your Knight in Sour armor and some Knight in Shining armor are both faced with the same ethical dilemma, I posit that both will choose the "morally right" option (as they see it) and won't settle fro "ess bad" unless absolutely necessary.  They may come at it with different justifications, and different attitudes (one more cynical, one more idealistic) but in the end, they will do what is "right"

But what happens if all the answers feel "wrong"?  Not just degrees of "less bad"  but flat out bad-bad?

Then your Sour Knights holds to far more Absolutist morality than mine do.

It's not like they don't feel regret or guilt after such choices, mind you. And the pathos of suffering through a no-win can be mighty delicious. But even if the choices are equally bad, rather than less bad, you can still try and approach them with a sense of morality.

I enjoy Knights in Sour Armor because, in having to bend rules or go against societal norms for a 'best' result, they tend to have to make compromises with teleological morality in the name of doing the right thing. For me, that's pretty compatible with the endings, and since even my most Paragon playthroughs tend towards that it works for me.

But in the end, they do what's right.  And there's a point beyond which they will not bend.  That is my point.  They still have a moral center.

I disagree, but then we already disagree on the nature of 'what's right.' My sense of what's right wouldn't be considered bending past a point, whereas yours would.

So, if we're going to go with lessons learned, I hope Bioware doesn't let people mislead themselves about how teleological a setting is, especially when it isn't. Dragon Age doesn't have this problem, and Mass Effect could easily have avoided it had they tried delivering consequences of note either in the same game or in the carryover of ME2. Then people wouldn't perceive no longer kicking the issue down the road for a tone shift.

I prefer to think of it as finding a balance point between sacrifice, consequences, and railroading.

Sure. I'm all for Bioware not fooling people into thinking their games aren't railroaded, I'm positive/ambivalent about sacrifice, and I actively enjoy consequences that you can't get out of with a persuasion check.

[Uncle Jo]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Oh, it's easy to write. It's just hard to write well, a complication Bioware ran into.

Hindsite is 20-20, but there's a difference between blindspots and, well, blindness. Why did Shepard have to die, when being horribly mained, marginalized in recovery, and repaired by a Cerberus front company could have covered the same roles?

A predictable complication. I still have no problem with automatically headcanoning that Shep actually never died in ME2, just seriously wounded and it took a very long time to piece her together. It's absurd, but it works. Doesn't change the fact that the main plot stayed at the same point as at the end of ME1. The Space Chtulhus are coming and everyone is still looking away.

I'm reading your scenario about how Cerberus should have been handled. Very pleasant.

This is me talking off the top of my head, but I could see it being cast in terms of the Mars Archive being the crux of it. Humanity finds the Archive, builds a space navy and uplifts because they know something killed off the Protheans, and crosses a few inactive relays to find a galaxy at war.

The Council, realizing the real significance of the Prothean Cache on Mars, gets the Crucible-like device and beats the Reapers, with Humans playing a valued but non-dominant role. Humanity hasn't saved teh galaxy, per see, but by virtue of being not devastated by the Reapers it emerges as a rising power.

Cue ME2, whether it's ME1 redux or a more 'lawlessness pervades the post-war galaxy' of ME2.

Wow, politicians and military not sticking their hands in the sand? That's almost a blasphemy in the MEU. I'd love to see the first human scout company coming across a relay only to find itself in a cross-fire between Reapers and Turian fleets.

I like your idea, it would take decades to decipher the Prothean data, assimilate their technology and build a sufficent Navy, but we can suppose that humanity found it a long time before the Reaper invasion. And still don't have a clue about how to build the Crucible (still not a fan of giant-guns)

But how could the Reapers possibly not know about us? The brat said that they let us alone the last time they said hello to the galaxy. So they knew and were ready to give us a little visit. Unless without Shep making fun of Sovereign and Harbinger, we didn't attract their attention enough, to make them consider us a priority target.

Interesting is how to set up the encounter between humans and a council race and establish the communication between them.

Given the nature of naval warfare and technology in the ME universe, they were pretty much doomed to be underwhelming and/or incompetent in practice. If they weren't overwhelmingly powerful, they'd be pitiful losers. Still were, in many respects.

I see your point, but I'd still have them as pitiful losers rather than getting steadily retconned and finally reduced to mindless tools.

If you go into my story corner in my sig, you could see something... well, not similar, but definitely inspired, in my musings of a post-Destroy Trilogy of galactic reunification.

Done.

[Dean_the_Young]

Uncle Jo wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Oh, it's easy to write. It's just hard to write well, a complication Bioware ran into.

Hindsite is 20-20, but there's a difference between blindspots and, well, blindness. Why did Shepard have to die, when being horribly mained, marginalized in recovery, and repaired by a Cerberus front company could have covered the same roles?

A predictable complication. I still have no problem with automatically headcanoning that Shep actually never died in ME2, just seriously wounded and it took a very long time to piece her together. It's absurd, but it works. Doesn't change the fact that the main plot stayed at the same point as at the end of ME1. The Space Chtulhus are coming and everyone is still looking away.

I'm reading your scenario about how Cerberus should have been handled. Very pleasant.

I never wrote it down much, but I remember this one idea I had in which the ME2 prologue/Lazarus was more or less Shepard going through rehabilitation. Lazarus would be a Cerberus Front Company, a sort of bleeding-edge medical experimental complex where soldiers grieviously injured in the Geth War are given experimental (and occassionally fatal) cybernetic implants as last-ditch measures. It was to show the sort of 'for Humanity' aspect of such medical research, even as the player would ultimately uncover that, despite the volunteers, this was still a high-lethality test zone with the purpose of making sure Shepard didn't die.

This is me talking off the top of my head, but I could see it being cast in terms of the Mars Archive being the crux of it. Humanity finds the Archive, builds a space navy and uplifts because they know something killed off the Protheans, and crosses a few inactive relays to find a galaxy at war.

The Council, realizing the real significance of the Prothean Cache on Mars, gets the Crucible-like device and beats the Reapers, with Humans playing a valued but non-dominant role. Humanity hasn't saved teh galaxy, per see, but by virtue of being not devastated by the Reapers it emerges as a rising power.

Cue ME2, whether it's ME1 redux or a more 'lawlessness pervades the post-war galaxy' of ME2.

Wow, politicians and military not sticking their hands in the sand? That's almost a blasphemy in the MEU. I'd love to see the first human scout company coming across a relay only to find itself in a cross-fire between Reapers and Turian fleets.

Something like that, yeah.

Though, and I kid you not, I think the MEU has an unhealthy romanticization of the military and authoritarianism. Civilians and politicians are routinely incompetent, but Bold Men of Action, Veterans, and pretty much any military person who isn't a pen-pusher are treated not only sympathetically, but even heroically.

I like your idea, it would take decades to decipher the Prothean data, assimilate their technology and build a sufficent Navy, but we can suppose that humanity found it a long time before the Reaper invasion. And still don't have a clue about how to build the Crucible (still not a fan of giant-guns)

Well, I'd probably edit that somewhat. Maybe make it so that, instead of a Crucible, Shepard ends up traveling through the Citadel Relay to the Dark Citadel. There the Catalyst, the controller of the Reapers, gives the exposition of 'we're trying to restore/preserve order before the galaxy tears itself to pieces,' shortly before Shepard finds the off-switch/self-destruct/chain reaction button.

Then, ME2 and ME3 are about the galaxy kind of proving the Catalyst right in the chaos and outbreak of galactic war that follows (Council vs. Terminus? Batarian vs. Human?), before a resolution that shows that, while the problem might be real, the solution was unnecessary.

But how could the Reapers possibly not know about us? The brat said that they let us alone the last time they said hello to the galaxy. So they knew and were ready to give us a little visit. Unless without Shep making fun of Sovereign and Harbinger, we didn't attract their attention enough, to make them consider us a priority target.

Interesting is how to set up the encounter between humans and a council race and establish the communication between them.

I'd just say sealed relays. Prothean sabotage or whatever, but until we learned how to activate the Charon relay (which takes X arbitrary decades), the Reapers don't know about us because we haven't traveled them.

So Humanity's expansion is really the bursting of a mega-polis planet, already ME-tech industrialized, that takes the Reapers from the rear and upsets the balance of the war. Kinda.

Given the nature of naval warfare and technology in the ME universe, they were pretty much doomed to be underwhelming and/or incompetent in practice. If they weren't overwhelmingly powerful, they'd be pitiful losers. Still were, in many respects.

I see your point, but I'd still have them as pitiful losers rather than getting steadily retconned and finally reduced to mindless tools.

Fair enough.

I think the only compromise in ability/loserdom is if the Reapers weren't super-intelligent, but had other means of action/other goals.

Maybe something like being a for-fun war-game for totally evil alien masters who delight in war. Or a hunting reserve game-keepers. Etc.

If you go into my story corner in my sig, you could see something... well, not similar, but definitely inspired, in my musings of a post-Destroy Trilogy of galactic reunification.

Done.

Enjoy all that, and more. Please, drop a review as you do.

[Kel Riever]

OP: Well, none of that information really saves BioWare for me. It just goes on the heap to prove how very ordinary and unimpressive they are. It also shows that no matter how much the PR says they love what they do, how they approach what they do in a very typical manner. Not surprising, really. But I would say the list of accomplishments of those who worked on ME3, including DLC, is a lot less amazing an achievement as either BioWare, or their rabid fans, would lead one to believe.

All in all, it is better to have more information than less. Still, better doesn't mean good.

Modifié par Kel Riever, 22 avril 2013 - 12:53 .

[Bleachrude]

In Exile wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
So, if we're going to go with lessons learned, I hope Bioware doesn't let people mislead themselves about how teleological a setting is, especially when it isn't. Dragon Age doesn't have this problem, and Mass Effect could easily have avoided it had they tried delivering consequences of note either in the same game or in the carryover of ME2. Then people wouldn't perceive no longer kicking the issue down the road for a tone shift.

But ME3 never kicks the can down the road - there is absolutely no choice in ME3 that does not have a paragon happy ending. Every single choice, it ends well for paragons. The only slight consequence that you can identify is the unknown consequence of Wrex/Eve/Genophage cure, and the fact that you have to choose between Grunt's Company/Rachni Queen. 

That's not entirely true....ME3 is actually the first ME game where the paragon choices actually will kill off semi-important characters.

Both javik and Kelly Chambers, if you use the paragon option...will actually be dead at the end of the narrative.

re: New Characters
As much as BSN hates it, I don't think you can have a game that ONLY works if you have played the previous two games...to argue that someone should spend $10-15 (admittedly not much) AND between 40-80 hours (this is the one that is way too much investment you're forcing on customers/potential audience members) especially given the relative short attention span games are given by players (1st month is where most of the sales come)?

[Iakus]

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Then your Sour Knights holds to far more Absolutist morality than mine do.

It's not like they don't feel regret or guilt after such choices, mind you. And the pathos of suffering through a no-win can be mighty delicious. But even if the choices are equally bad, rather than less bad, you can still try and approach them with a sense of morality.

At this point I think you're mistaking the Knight in Sour Armor with the Determinator

[Iakus]

cljqnsnyc wrote...

I have no problem with the "Citadel" dlc. Why? Well, it fits perfectly with my game. Some people seem to forget that this is a series about choices...which to me throughs canon out an airlock......there is no canon! Your game is YOUR game, which may be completely different from the next guy.

Saying that, I use the MEHEM and play "Citadel" post game. For me, it is no accident that the tone is as far removed from the controversial endings as you can get. They hardly, if ever mention the war or Reapers in context to being a pressing threat. They even make fun of the whole thing as a backdrop for a new "Blasto" movie. Not an accident. The whole thing plays as though it takes place after the war has been won, which fits the tone. Again, not an accident.

Hey, some may hate it for whichever reason, and that's fine. For me, it fits. Not a single mention of the Catalyst? Works for me. Dlc isn't always going to satisfy everyone. "Citadel" was very satisfying to me for all the right reasons.

That's largely why I like Citadel too.

And I'm certain the shift in tone is no coincidence either.  Bioware got burned badly telling such an arbitrarilly grim story to an audience expecting a heroic finale.

Modifié par iakus, 22 avril 2013 - 01:05 .

[RiouHotaru]

Uncle Jo wrote...

So adding depth to the lore and giving the point of view from a member of the race of the last cycle, who delayed the Reaper invasion doesn't change the game experience? For you, not for me. And he IS important. Narratively. More than any other new character.

But narrative wasn't what the controversy was about.  The controversy was his importance to the central plot, which, as Dean stated, ended the moment he stated "I don't know anything about the Crucible."  That he adds depth to the narrative is nice, but it doesn't DETRACT from your experience to not have him.  Change, yes.  Detract, no.

[

By definition a retro-active justification explanation (it's the right word). The EC was never planned to begin with. The brat was so out of place and so little exposed, considering his crucial role, that two DLCs were necessary to give him a minimum of background and don't let the player totally in the dark. And even then, he's still the most controversial character of the series.

Two DLCs weren't necessary, only one was.  Leviathan's explaination makes the Catalyst's utterly ridiculous and out-of-place exposition dump at the conclusion of the EC pointless.  I often wonder what would've happened if we'd gotten Leviathan first like we were supposed to, rather than the EC.  I figure, if we got Leviathan as is, than the EC would've been mostly unecessary save for a few of the extra scenes.

It's a terrible one. Preventing conflicts between synthetics and organics by creating a super-synthetic is one of the most stupid ideas I've ever heard.

And now you're strawmanning the concept of the Catalyst.  You can't do that.  You're leaving out who made the Catalyst (a bunch of super-powerful and arrogant aliens who believed they were exempt from the issue of synthetic/organic conflicts), and why (to study organic civilizations and discover an ideal solution).  The "yo dawg we heard you don't like to be killed by synthetics so we made synthetics to kill you so you don't get killed by synthetics" fell apart ages ago.

The fact I like science fiction so much means I'm perfect familiar with and okay with the idea of abusive precursors.  It's a comfortable and well-worn concept.

[Uncle Jo]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

You do realize that we do all these things on a regular basis in society, yes? Medical research, fire-fighting, and security development have all used those simplifications to advance their goals.

You don't crack a match in a dark room you know being filled with gas.

Research has always implied a simpler, contained and relatively harmless variant of the problem you're trying to solve.

And what's the point of creating a synthetic which will always lack the understanding of organics?

You know, of all things this is what I have the least problem with because, well... it's actually valid machine logic.

Mass Effect played with Pinochio stories for their synthetics (EDI always was one, the Geth aren't unless you're Legion, etc.), but the Catalyst's alien morality is actually pretty reasonable for what I can think of a machine having. It is ethically abhorrent, but for a certain definition of life (and, as a machine, AI's can only have a certain definition in their logic), it's not incorrect.

As a whole it's a great example of machine programming doing what the developer writes, but not intends. That's a classic programming challenge, and it didn't seem unreasonable to me that the Reapers would end up being an accidental outcome of someone else's problems. It's also a case of a a super-goal being elevated over a supra-goal, a sort of prioritization error that leads overly-logical people to accomplish the letter of a task while missing the intent.

I get the machine "interpreting" a task in an unexpected way and the whole thing going wrong in dramatic proportions, but the whole point is moot for me. Because a machine would never store the preserved life in something that is susceptible to be destroyed. It blatantly contradicts its purpose. Every destroyed Reaper represents a lost civilisation. For ever.

And as long as I don't get why and how the organic minds are "uploaded", since the Reapers are now a simple fire under the brat's control, I think that the could have spared themselves a lot of work by storming hospitals, get some DNA samples and burn the rest.

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 22 avril 2013 - 01:08 .

[RiouHotaru]

In Exile wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...
Sometimes the universe sucks, yep.

I prefer my RPG universes to be just as flawed as the one I'm actually living in. YMMV.

The problem is that ME1-ME2 were, basically, typical Bioware Universes. The ending is thematically inconsistent with Bioware's hero-worship, which (via paragon ME3 choices) continues all the way through to the end-game, where you can (basically) save everyone important (i.e., that the player likes). 

The other thing is that the actual theme of the ending - the whole AI genocide cycle - comes right out of the blue, which is also unsatisfactory. 

So for a great deal of players, you get a morally dissonant ending which, beyond the moral issue, is asking you to do something morally abhorent to avoid an end which (at that point) the game basically hasn't gotten the player to believe. 

Instead of casting the ending as: 

"To beat the reapers, you must choose between 3 hard and difficult choices"

You got:

"To prevent the eternal genocide of organics by artificial intelligence that organics create, help the reapers by picking 1 of 3 hard and difficult choices ..." 

But the ending IS cast as "Beat the Reapers".  Picking one of the three difficult choices doesn't necessarily help the Reapers.  In fact only Synthesis helps them because it helps EVERYONE.  And the AI genoicde issue has cropped up over and over again.  That it turns out to be the Reaper's primary motivation doesn't make it "out of the blue".  It might, read MIGHT, have helped the pacing to learn the Reaper's motives earlier and then have the Catalyst give his spheal, but in no way is the organic/synthetic conflict a "new" idea in ME.

[KiwiQuiche]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Fandango9641 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
That's not a logical connection or justification for your suggestion, nor does that rule out other motivations.

Again, Citadel was pure fan service. It’s Bioware fawning to and flattering their toady demographic. It’s a circle jerk.

And again, I'll give you the same challenge I gave Kiwi: justify that that claim. Provide proof that supports your claim and invalidates other explanations. You can make as many claims based on self-evidence as you like, but they don't become any more substantial just by repeating them.

It's fine to be skeptical of Bioware claims, if you're that far into it, but it doesn't change the nature of supporting efforts. If you believe the stated reason is wrong, you should have evidence to support such a belief. And if you have your own alternative belief, you should have evidence to prove the alternative.

You should play Citadel- it's very obviously a fan service DLC. It's plot is nonsensical and stupid and most of it relies heavily on squadmate interaction. Bioware shoves the whole "hang with your bros" angle really freaking hard because they know people got attatched to the characterx. So yes, it's a fanservice DLC. So yeah, I have my proof on the fact the DLC was just used to placate people. 

[Dean_the_Young]

iakus wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...
Then your Sour Knights holds to far more Absolutist morality than mine do.

It's not like they don't feel regret or guilt after such choices, mind you. And the pathos of suffering through a no-win can be mighty delicious. But even if the choices are equally bad, rather than less bad, you can still try and approach them with a sense of morality.

At this point I think you're mistaking the Knight in Sour Armor with the Determinator

Where's the mistake? Just because you hold to Absolutist morality doesn't mean everything else is measured by the same standard.

[Bleachrude]

I'm not sure citadel's plot is actually non-sensical.

The plot is unoriginal because on how often clones are used in mass media.....

[Dean_the_Young]

[quote]Uncle Jo wrote...

[quote]Dean_the_Young wrote...

You do realize that we do all these things on a regular basis in society, yes? Medical research, fire-fighting, and security development have all used those simplifications to advance their goals.

[/quote]You don't crack a match in a dark room you know being filled with gas.

Research has always implied a simpler, contained and relatively harmless variant of the problem you're trying to solve. [/quote]Always? Hardly. Just admit it: when you contract things, you can find quite a few things in life where pursuing a limited amount of one thing can lead to a greater amount of progress in the other direction.

And what's the point of creating a synthetic which will always lack the understanding of organics? [/quote]To try and understand synthetics, which organics will always lack the understanding of.

Of course, this 'it's so stupid' argument really rests on implicit inherency of all synthetics being malevolent beings uninterested in peace. I'm not sure if that's the stance you really mean to make, and I'm certain most people here would disagree with it, but creating a synthetic to help make peace with synthetics is only illogical if synthetics are presumed to universally be the problem.
[quote]
[quote]You know, of all things this is what I have the least problem with because, well... it's actually valid machine logic.

Mass Effect played with Pinochio stories for their synthetics (EDI always was one, the Geth aren't unless you're Legion, etc.), but the Catalyst's alien morality is actually pretty reasonable for what I can think of a machine having. It is ethically abhorrent, but for a certain definition of life (and, as a machine, AI's can only have a certain definition in their logic), it's not incorrect.

As a whole it's a great example of machine programming doing what the developer writes, but not intends. That's a classic programming challenge, and it didn't seem unreasonable to me that the Reapers would end up being an accidental outcome of someone else's problems. It's also a case of a a super-goal being elevated over a supra-goal, a sort of prioritization error that leads overly-logical people to accomplish the letter of a task while missing the intent.

[/quote]I get the machine "interpreting" a task in an unexpected way and the whole thing going wrong in dramatic proportions, but the whole point is moot for me. Because a machine would never store the preserved life in something that is susceptible to be destroyed. It blatantly contradicts its purpose. Every destroyed Reaper represents a lost civilisation. For ever. [/quote]Which, in machine logic, isn't necessarily a problem. Explicit goals vs. implicit expectations: once a civilization is preserved in Reaper form, a computer could very well not  care less about keeping it intact... or the computer could simply not prioritize the preservation of a preserved species as high as you think it should.

After all, the Catalyst's MO isn't to preserve all forms of life permanently at all cost: it's really about preventing the rise of a technological singularity that would wipe out all life permanently. Losses in the process of preventing that might be undesirable, but it's not a contradiction since it can fall under the unlimited mandate of 'at all costs.' IE, the costs of preserving the potential future life is the loss of some forms of established life, something we already know the Reapers accept in species that can't be ascended.
[quote]
And as long as I don't get why and how the organic minds are "uploaded", since the Reapers are now a simple fire under the brat's control, I think that the could have spared themselves a lot of work by storming hospitals, get some DNA samples and burn the rest.

[/quote]What does it matter if you don't get it? I don't get how Mass Effect fields supposedly enable the defiance of conservation of energy, but it's a key part of the lore.

Reapers require live subjects for whatever reasons. So what?

[Uncle Jo]

[quote]RiouHotaru wrote...


But narrative wasn't what the controversy was about.  The controversy was his importance to the central plot, which, as Dean stated, ended the moment he stated "I don't know anything about the Crucible."  That he adds depth to the narrative is nice, but it doesn't DETRACT from your experience to not have him.  Change, yes.  Detract, no.

[/quote]Huh? Got it completely wrong then. My bad.

[quote]Two DLCs weren't necessary, only one was.  Leviathan's explaination makes the Catalyst's utterly ridiculous and out-of-place exposition dump at the conclusion of the EC pointless.  I often wonder what would've happened if we'd gotten Leviathan first like we were supposed to, rather than the EC.  I figure, if we got Leviathan as is, than the EC would've been mostly unecessary save for a few of the extra scenes.

[/quote]No, no, no. I insist two of them. The EC was a first aid kit. It was impossible to do it and get away without any explanation about the brat. So they gave us a bone to knibbel off, while preparing a better explanation with the Leviathan DLC.

[/quote]If we had the Leviathan DLC, be assured that the outrage would never have had these epic proportions. But without EC, the endings were absolutely terrible. Don't you remember the litteral RGB endings, the galaxy becoming a wasteland, zero closure and the "buy new DLC" message?

[quote]And now you're strawmanning the concept of the Catalyst.  You can't do that.  You're leaving out who made the Catalyst (a bunch of super-powerful and arrogant aliens who believed they were exempt from the issue of synthetic/organic conflicts), and why (to study organic civilizations and discover an ideal solution).  The "yo dawg we heard you don't like to be killed by synthetics so we made synthetics to kill you so you don't get killed by synthetics" fell apart ages ago.

The fact I like science fiction so much means I'm perfect familiar with and okay with the idea of abusive precursors.  It's a comfortable and well-worn concept.

[/quote]No I'm not. The Levs stated that their organic thralls had problems with their synthetics and "tribute doesn't flow from a dead race" or something like that. So they, an organic race, created a... super-synthetic to solve the problem between organics and synthetics.

It's a good concept when it is well exposed and fits the narrative, not when it comes afterwards and try to give some plausibility to a character which came out of the blue.

Modifié par Uncle Jo, 22 avril 2013 - 02:03 .

[cljqnsnyc]

LOL! I don't understand the use of "fan service" as a complaint. To me, aren't ALL GAMES supposed to be fan service?

Who are games made for if not the fans? If you want hard reality or bitterness, open the door and go outside....you'll find more than enough of it. If you don't like a game, don't buy it. Hate the dlc? Don't install it.

Personally, I can't find fault with Bioware for providing this fan the service he enjoys! If this sort of "fan service" isn't what you enjoy, why spend money on it, download it, and then install...just to rip it to shreds for providing "fan service?" The problem for this fan at least was that Bioware didn't allow choice in a game of choices when it was all said and done that honored the way you played the series, and it took a major backlash plus a mod....thanks Mr. Fob......to set the record straight....for me at least.

People really do enjoy complaining about any and everything, even when it doesn't apply to them. Dlc is OPTIONAL.

"Citadel" is the cherry on top of the cake that was ME..and I like my cake sweet. If you like yours sour, there are 3 other colors and a "Refuse" that might suit you.

Modifié par cljqnsnyc, 22 avril 2013 - 02:22 .

[chemiclord]

cljqnsnyc wrote...

LOL! I don't understand the use of "fan service" as a complaint. To me, aren't ALL GAMES supposed to be fan service?

Who are games made for if not the fans? If you want hard reality or bitterness, open the door and go outside....you'll find more than enough of it. If you don't like a game, don't buy it. Hate the dlc? Don't install it.

Personally, I can't find fault with Bioware for providing this fan the service he enjoys! If this sort of "fan service" isn't what you enjoy, why spend money on it, download it, and then install...just to rip it to shreds for providing "fan service?" The problem for this fan at least was that Bioware didn't allow choice in a game of choices when it was all said and done that honored the way you played the series, and it took a major backlash plus a mod....thanks Mr. Fob......to set the record straight....for me at least.

People really do enjoy complaining about any and everything, even when it doesn't apply to them. Dlc is OPTIONAL.

"Citadel" is the cherry on top of the cake that was ME..and I like my cake sweet. If you like yours sour, there are 3 other colors and a "Refuse" that might suit you.

When you decide that all stories are just "fan service", you completely devalue and dismiss a perfectly legitimate form of storytelling... that of literature being the mirror to the world, and your challege to what you see in that mirror.

Sometimes, the best story is the one that makes your audience uncomfortable; the one that they don't necessarily want to hear.  It's a lot HARDER to do in a way that an audience will accept, though... you have to convince them that they want what you want... but it is doable, and when it works, I personally feel it's a hundred times a better tale than the empty calories of "fan service" storytelling.

[SpamBot2000]

Problem with ending: you have to commit suicide because King Reaper says so, to do one of the things it appears to want. This is not "the universe is not always fair." This is the author insisting you kneel before his monsters.

Is that difficult to understand?

[RiouHotaru]

[quote]Uncle Jo wrote...

Huh? Got it completely wrong then. My bad.[/quote]
Yeah, most of the argument was about the fact that as a Prothean, he SHOULD have been central to the plot, or he had no business existing in the first place, or something along those lines, also the whole Day 1 DLC shenanigans.  It was blown way out of proportion.

[quote]
No, no, no. I insist two of them. The EC was a first aid kit. It was impossible to do it and get away without any explanation about the brat. So they gave us a bone to knibbel off, while preparing a better explanation with the Leviathan DLC.

[/quote]If we had the Leviathan DLC, be assured that the outrage would never have had these epic proportions. But without EC, the endings were absolutely terrible. Don't you remember the litteral RGB endings, the galaxy becoming a wasteland, zero closure and the "buy new DLC" message?[/quote]
Calling the EC a first-aid kit is funny, because the EC was specifically what people wanted.  Well, or rather, what Bioware was willing to deliver.  What people wanted was a complete and utter rewrite, and to be honest I'm glad it didn't happen.  I'm fine with folks wanting change but I'm glad Bioware at least tried to stick to their guns.

...Eh, this is a personal thing, but the endings were more than JUST R/G/B.  There was R1 (Bad Destroy), R2 (Normal Destroy), R3 (Best Destroy), B1 (Bad Control), B2 (Best Control), and G (Synthesis).  Regardless of the similarities of the cutscenes, each ending had very different implications.  And the Galaxy DID become a wasteland.  What, did people really think the moment the war the was over everything would be fine?  The place was smashed.  No one could argue the Galaxy hadn't been decimated.  Also, zero closure is in the eye of the beholder.  I was perfectly fine with things left open for whatever new game would be released.  And the buy DLC message, while lacking tact, wasn't that bad.  They were going to make DLC, why not advertise it?

Maybe I'm just more tolerant of these things or something.  I was part of the group that was perfectly okay with the endings when the game came out vanilla.  Honestly in retrospect, a lot of what was in the EC was mere seconds-long snippets of dialog or brief footage that overall I feel wasn't needed.  We didn't NEED Hackett telling the fleet to guess that was why Joker left.  But I guess people need to be told outright.

[quote]No I'm not. The Levs stated that their organic thralls had problems with their synthetics and "tribute doesn't flow from a dead race" or something like that. So they, an organic race, created a... super-synthetic to solve the problem between organics and synthetics.

It's a good concept when it is well exposed and fits the narrative, not when it comes afterwards and try to give some plausibility to a character which came out of the blue.
[/quote]

You do know why Leviathan was DLC, yes?  Because it wasn't something they had a concrete idea of, and it wouldn't have fit into the main game regardless.  Also, did you play Leviathan?  Shepard points out the fact of "Wait, you made a synthetic to solive the issue of synthetics?"  The Leviathans were JUST that full of themselves.  As for it coming out of the blue, eh, again, eye of the beholder, personal preference, etc.  The Catalyst, while a surprise, wasn't unexpected.  The Reapers are a bunch of AIs, a higher-order AI controlling/commanding them wasn't outside the realm of possibility.  The game hinted that the Reapers were obeying a higher directive a few times.

[cljqnsnyc]

chemiclord wrote...

cljqnsnyc wrote...

LOL! I don't understand the use of "fan service" as a complaint. To me, aren't ALL GAMES supposed to be fan service?

Who are games made for if not the fans? If you want hard reality or bitterness, open the door and go outside....you'll find more than enough of it. If you don't like a game, don't buy it. Hate the dlc? Don't install it.

Personally, I can't find fault with Bioware for providing this fan the service he enjoys! If this sort of "fan service" isn't what you enjoy, why spend money on it, download it, and then install...just to rip it to shreds for providing "fan service?" The problem for this fan at least was that Bioware didn't allow choice in a game of choices when it was all said and done that honored the way you played the series, and it took a major backlash plus a mod....thanks Mr. Fob......to set the record straight....for me at least.

People really do enjoy complaining about any and everything, even when it doesn't apply to them. Dlc is OPTIONAL.

"Citadel" is the cherry on top of the cake that was ME..and I like my cake sweet. If you like yours sour, there are 3 other colors and a "Refuse" that might suit you.

When you decide that all stories are just "fan service", you completely devalue and dismiss a perfectly legitimate form of storytelling... that of literature being the mirror to the world, and your challege to what you see in that mirror.

Sometimes, the best story is the one that makes your audience uncomfortable; the one that they don't necessarily want to hear.  It's a lot HARDER to do in a way that an audience will accept, though... you have to convince them that they want what you want... but it is doable, and when it works, I personally feel it's a hundred times a better tale than the empty calories of "fan service" storytelling.

Oh please! 

You took my statement WAY out of context. "You completely devalue and dismiss a perfectly legitimate form of storytelling...." Give me a break! 

That isn't at all what my statement was about.  People see things the way they want to and that's fine with me. I'm not going to get into a debate about it. Agree or disagree. Your choice.

[chemiclord]

You said, and I quote:

To me, aren't ALL GAMES supposed to be fan service?

Who are games made for if not the fans? If you want hard reality or bitterness, open the door and go outside....you'll find more than enough of it.

I apologize if I misinterpreted your meaning.  What was I supposed to take from that?

Modifié par chemiclord, 22 avril 2013 - 05:32 .