1470 réponses à ce sujet

[Archonsg]

phillip100 wrote...

Archonsg wrote...

ps: I do want to point out that in the ending pre-ec, you *are shown* the Normandy's engines being ripped off their lateral mounts before miraculously surving an inter-atmospheric crash (with no engines and a compromised hull) and later flying off with hull and engines (which were lost in blueshift space) reattached. 
No questions unanswered huh?

The Normandy was never shown flying off the planet it crashed on in the pre-EC endings.

oh snap!
I think you are right.
The scene shows the engines being ripped appart from the relay explosion colored light of choice but shows the engines and hull intact on the ground.

My bad.

I must have thought of the EC scene where they later show the Normandy flying off.

Still, I am very sure that I remember correctly that the engines and part of the fuselage was shown ripping away just before they fade to black for the "crash on paradise" scene.

But again, you are right.
The Normandy didn't fly off.



ps: I remember now.
We were arguing on how Garrus and Tali are going to survive with no dextro food if they don't get rescued in time given that all the relays were destroyed and no one can get to them in time.
And why my LI was making googly eyes with Joker. :-P

Pps: just watched that link you provided. Thanks that helped to refresh my memory.
And I was right, the engines and a major part of the wing itself was shown to have sheared off just before the fade to black. 

Now I remember having a discussion about how any craft after suffering such damages to its hull and structural integrity could survive atmospheric reentry, have control without engines to even crash land as well as avoid super heated gasses flooding compromised areas on reentry and melting / set on fire components that were supposed to be protected by the hull. If not frying anyone inside to a crisp.

Modifié par Archonsg, 11 mai 2013 - 03:21 .

[dreamgazer]

You can still find reliable substance at certain gaming publications, as long as they're not exploiting a readership for industry growth or, in the case of Forbes last year, playing to a hungry crowd seeking validation for their counter-opinions (which, not so coincidentally, spiked their subscription numbers). Trial and error will tell you what you need to know about them, but they're out there.

GameInformer---the rag owned by a company that sells games, includes a subscription with their discount card as an incentive, and uses them as a reference point---is not the place for unsullied final game impressions.

[SpamBot2000]

Morlath wrote...

The Catalyst is not a Chekhov's Gun since it's actually fired/used in the firing of the Crucible and that goes against everything a Chekhov's Gun is.

Do you actually know who Anton Checkhov was, and what he said about a gun? This is one of the things, and it takes 2 seconds to google:

"One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev(pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.

The idea being to not use extraneous materials in the presentation of a stage play. Chekhov said if you put a gun in, you better use it.

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 11 mai 2013 - 04:04 .

[Morlath]

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Morlath wrote...

The Catalyst is not a Chekhov's Gun since it's actually fired/used in the firing of the Crucible and that goes against everything a Chekhov's Gun is.

Do you actually know who Anton Checkhov was, and what he said about a gun? This is one of the things, and it takes 2 seconds to google:

"One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev(pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.

The idea being to not use extraneous materials in the presentation of a stage play. Chekhov said if you put a gun in, you better use it.

And so how does the Catalyst fit?

Weapon - Well, part of one.
Introduced early - Yes.
Not used at all - Nope.

The entire game is a "search quest" into finding out wht the Catalyst is. The Catalyst isn't hanging on a wall or laying on a table in the first scene, it's mentioned as a key componant that's needed to be found.

So not a MacGuffin (as there's an actual use involved) and not a Chekhov's Gun.

[The Night Mammoth]

Morlath wrote...

SpamBot2000 wrote...

Morlath wrote...

The Catalyst is not a Chekhov's Gun since it's actually fired/used in the firing of the Crucible and that goes against everything a Chekhov's Gun is.

Do you actually know who Anton Checkhov was, and what he said about a gun? This is one of the things, and it takes 2 seconds to google:

"One must not put a loaded rifle on the stage if no one is thinking of firing it." Chekhov, letter to Aleksandr Semenovich Lazarev(pseudonym of A. S. Gruzinsky), 1 November 1889.

The idea being to not use extraneous materials in the presentation of a stage play. Chekhov said if you put a gun in, you better use it.

And so how does the Catalyst fit?

Weapon - Well, part of one.
Introduced early - Yes.
Not used at all - Nope.

The entire game is a "search quest" into finding out wht the Catalyst is. The Catalyst isn't hanging on a wall or laying on a table in the first scene, it's mentioned as a key componant that's needed to be found.

So not a MacGuffin (as there's an actual use involved) and not a Chekhov's Gun.

Why would there being a use involved excuse it from being a MacGuffin?

[Matthias King]

The Crucible is a plot device. A MacGuffin is a specific type of plot device. The Crucible doesn't quite fit the definition of a MacGuffin, but it's definitely a plot device.

The best plot devices are so subtle or well executed that you don't notice that they are a plot device at all.

The Crucible is definitely not a subtle plot device, but it's made necessary by Bioware's relentless insistence that the Reapers can't be defeated conventionally.

Even if the plot of ME3 had turned out differently and the Crucible hadn't been a factor, it's likely that a plot device of some kind still would have been necessary.

Bioware painted themselves into a corner by making the Reapers so ultra-powerful. Victory against an undeafeatable foe requires some change to the status quo, which is where the Crucible came in.

They actually laid the groundwork for a possible different, less obviously 'device-y' solution with the Thanix technology reverse engineered from Sovereign, and the mysterious ancient Reaper-killer mass accelerator weapon that cut right through a Reaper capital ship and impacted Klendagon, but they didn't capitalize on either one.

Thanix technology was largely swept under the rug and disregarded, and the Reaper-killer weapon was relegated to a single allusion in Leviathan and then similarly forgotten.

We'll never know what might have been.

Modifié par Matthias King, 11 mai 2013 - 04:48 .

[Morlath]

The Night Mammoth wrote...

Why would there being a use involved excuse it from being a MacGuffin?

Because what generally defines a MacGuffin is that at the end of the story, the object being searched for doesn't change anything about the story. Searching for the Maltese Falcon? Why not the Portuguese Mouse?

This isn't the case with the Catalyst. The only object you could replace the Catalyst with is something similar in design. At its most basic it's a giant firing pin and so can only be replaced by another firing pin.

[remydat]

The fundamental problem seems to be we are conditioned in most movies and games to think humans will win no matter what. Hence despite the fact ME1 and ME2 was us defeating basically ONE Reaper and his goons whether they be the Geth or the Collectors people expected us to win conventionally in some way because hey humans always find a way to win against impossible odds.

Without the crucible, the only way for this story to end logically is organics put up a valiant effort and finally all come together and we get touching and emotional scenes of saying goodbye as they are harvested. Of course, that would probably get even more hate.

[crimzontearz]

Right, no. Conventional victory is as likely as the writer wishes it to be sure but there are hints through the game that the reapers are not unbeatable and that a lot of what they said was purely for the sake of intimidation.

Legion says it well "their bodies are mundane"

I bet as unlikely as it would have appeared a conventional victory would have prevented this mess

[SpamBot2000]

Morlath wrote...

This isn't the case with the Catalyst. The only object you could replace the Catalyst with is something similar in design. At its most basic it's a giant firing pin and so can only be replaced by another firing pin.

This is disingenuous at best. The Catalyst is a character that is portrayed as controlling the enemy forces. It sets the terms of the conclusion of the game (while presenting the player with a wholly different problem than what the preceding 99.99% of the game was focused on solving). Not characteristics of "a firing pin". A firing pin is a part of the mechanism of a gun that you operate by pulling the trigger. It doesn't speak, or offer you alternatives in any other way.

Modifié par SpamBot2000, 11 mai 2013 - 05:24 .

[The Night Mammoth]

I admit to jumping into the discussion without reading back, to I'm a little off. Which Catalyst are we talking about here? The Catalyst as the AI, or the Catalyst as we understand it for the whole game until arguably Cronos but really until the last ten minutes? The latter is a MacGuffin, and the two, despite being both called the Catalyst, aren't the same thing.

[AlanC9]

Matthias King wrote...

They actually laid the groundwork for a possible different, less obviously 'device-y' solution with the Thanix technology reverse engineered from Sovereign, and the mysterious ancient Reaper-killer mass accelerator weapon that cut right through a Reaper capital ship and impacted Klendagon, but they didn't capitalize on either one.

Thanix technology was largely swept under the rug and disregarded, and the Reaper-killer weapon was relegated to a single allusion in Leviathan and then similarly forgotten.

Well, there are good reasons why they didn't go this route.

One was a couple of unforced errors in ME1, which ended up establishing both that space battles are not particularly decisive unless both sides want to stand and fight, and that planets are fairly easy to blow up. Put these together and the Reapers can still wage a successful guerrilla campaign against the galactic economy even if their total fleet strength is substantially less that total organic fleet strength.

Another is conceptual. Shepard's a ground combatant, not a fleet commander. The game doesn't even have a space combat system.

[knightnblu]

Yeah, and they said that they learned a lot from DA2. I have been on these boards since 2009 and it was more than obvious that people cared about this world and the characters. For that drivel to come out of Hudson's mouth is nothing more than PR whitewash.

[IanPolaris]

The Night Mammoth wrote...

I admit to jumping into the discussion without reading back, to I'm a little off. Which Catalyst are we talking about here? The Catalyst as the AI, or the Catalyst as we understand it for the whole game until arguably Cronos but really until the last ten minutes? The latter is a MacGuffin, and the two, despite being both called the Catalyst, aren't the same thing.

Indeed.  The Catalyst is a genre breaking DEM during the last 10 minutes of the game.  Before then it's a McGuffin.  That's why the MEHEM ending actually works as well as it does.  By completely eliminating the Starkid, it eliminates at least 80% of what's wrong with the ending by reducing the Catalyst to a simple McGuffin.  The MEHEM ending is still poor, but not nearly as poor as the Bioware ending (either pre or post EC).  [Honestly MEHEM is probably the best that can be expected without major surgery.]

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

AlanC9 wrote...

Matthias King wrote...

They actually laid the groundwork for a possible different, less obviously 'device-y' solution with the Thanix technology reverse engineered from Sovereign, and the mysterious ancient Reaper-killer mass accelerator weapon that cut right through a Reaper capital ship and impacted Klendagon, but they didn't capitalize on either one.

Thanix technology was largely swept under the rug and disregarded, and the Reaper-killer weapon was relegated to a single allusion in Leviathan and then similarly forgotten.

Well, there are good reasons why they didn't go this route.

One was a couple of unforced errors in ME1, which ended up establishing both that space battles are not particularly decisive unless both sides want to stand and fight, and that planets are fairly easy to blow up. Put these together and the Reapers can still wage a successful guerrilla campaign against the galactic economy even if their total fleet strength is substantially less that total organic fleet strength.

This is a prime characteristic of a star-gate style FTL system (and Mass Effect falls in this overall Genre).  In such a system, it's easy for ships to break contact which means that space battles are never decisive unless one side HAS to make a stand.  [You see this in the Traveller universe as well.] 

This is why Planets are so vulnerable and valuable (and honestly in an anti-gravity civilization which MEU is, Planets are sitting ducks.  If you want to and don't care about the consequences, you can make a planet lifeless from orbit very quickly....or even shatter a planet complately with near-c asteroid strikes (a problem not just in Mass Effect but the Honor Harrington Universe as well).  The only reason you wouldn't is because you might need/want the resources of that planet that are only available as a living planet.  It would also make some battles "last stands" as you mention.

The real unforced error in ME1 (and ME3) is given this universe, they then made the Reapers immune from logistical problems.  Huge Mistake.

-Polaris

[AlanC9]

Polaris, you are aware how sloppily you're using those terms, right?

[Matthias King]

AlanC9 wrote...

Matthias King wrote...

They actually laid the groundwork for a possible different, less obviously 'device-y' solution with the Thanix technology reverse engineered from Sovereign, and the mysterious ancient Reaper-killer mass accelerator weapon that cut right through a Reaper capital ship and impacted Klendagon, but they didn't capitalize on either one.

Thanix technology was largely swept under the rug and disregarded, and the Reaper-killer weapon was relegated to a single allusion in Leviathan and then similarly forgotten.

Well, there are good reasons why they didn't go this route.

One was a couple of unforced errors in ME1, which ended up establishing both that space battles are not particularly decisive unless both sides want to stand and fight, and that planets are fairly easy to blow up. Put these together and the Reapers can still wage a successful guerrilla campaign against the galactic economy even if their total fleet strength is substantially less that total organic fleet strength.

Another is conceptual. Shepard's a ground combatant, not a fleet commander. The game doesn't even have a space combat system.

Those were just two offhand examples, not be-all end-all solutions, but for the sake of argument, the time the Alliance devoted to building the Crucible could have just as easily been devoted to reverse engineering the Reaper-killer weapon and duplicating it as many times as they can to get it emplaced on as many worlds as possible, all while retrofitting as many of their ships with thanix technology that didn't already have it, making the stand up space battle more even.

But regardless, I was just illustrating that even without the Crucible, some kind of plot device would have been required to tip the scales back into our favor since Bioware so obnoxiously drove the point home that the Reapers couldn't be defeated conventionally.

The 'conventional victory is impossible' routine always seemed forced to me, especially in ME3, and especially since there were several places where it was contradicted or subverted, but in any event, working within that unwinnable war scenario, some kind of plot device was required.

I was just presenting what some alternate ideas for that plot device could have been.  I don't know if trading one for the other would have been an improvement, but for what it's worth, I don't think Shepard would have encountered the star brat at the controls of the super mass accelerator, so perhaps it would have been better.

[IanPolaris]

Mathius,

Indeed. Bioware clearly meant the Reapers to be beatable and at least hypothetically vulnerable in Mass Effect One. Vigil clearly thinks they are (in principle) and the Reapers themselves clearly think this. Otherwise there is no need to decapitate the galactic government at the start of each harvest and then shutdown (and isolate) the systems linked to the relay network. It's a good strategy, but one that implicitly assumes the enemy can beat you.

However, *somebody* didn't think through the implications of not neededing logistical support in a Mass Effect type universe. This could have been easily fixed. As a single ship (albeit a DN), the resources needed to support Sovereign would have been relatively small on a galactic scale, but surely the Reapers writ large should have needed supplies, etc as well as transports etc. Why else would the Reapers need to sleep most of the time between cycles?

This whole thing was badly done, and the whole "Reapers can't be beaten conventionally" seems like a late and half-baked posterior pull by bioware.

-Polaris

[AlanC9]

IanPolaris wrote...
This is a prime characteristic of a star-gate style FTL system (and Mass Effect falls in this overall Genre).  In such a system, it's easy for ships to break contact which means that space battles are never decisive unless one side HAS to make a stand.  [You see this in the Traveller universe as well.]

You've got this backwards. A gate system can theoreticaly be defended at the choke points. The problem in the MEU is disengagement via standard FTL. (Hence the Alderson drive in The Mote in God's Eye and related works; Niven and Pournelle wrote a good essay on the topic, but I don't recall where to find it.)

However, Bio took pains to make trans-relay assaults more workable than they needed to be, for reasons I don't really understand

Anyway, we're fully in agreement on the substance. Though it's hard to see how Sovereign could operate independently for 50,000 years and still be subject to logistical constraints, something might have be done.

[IanPolaris]

AlanC9 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...
This is a prime characteristic of a star-gate style FTL system (and Mass Effect falls in this overall Genre).  In such a system, it's easy for ships to break contact which means that space battles are never decisive unless one side HAS to make a stand.  [You see this in the Traveller universe as well.]

You've got this backwards. A gate system can theoreticaly be defended at the choke points. The problem in the MEU is disengagement via standard FTL. (Hence the Alderson drive in The Mote in God's Eye and related works; Niven and Pournelle wrote a good essay on the topic, but I don't recall where to find it.)

You are right if the stargate is the only form of FTL.  I was assuming it wasn't but I should have stated that.  We see the same effect in Traveller (among others).

However, Bio took pains to make trans-relay assaults more workable than they needed to be, for reasons I don't really understand

Anyway, we're fully in agreement on the substance. Though it's hard to see how Sovereign could operate independently for 50,000 years and still be subject to logistical constraints, something might have be done.

Well for starters, we could presume that even Sovereign wasn't fully active all of the time.  For another, if you are just talking about one DN, you can get a lot of ambient solar energy and material even from largely uninhabited systems (especially ones that were recent supernovae).  It might not be enough for a whole Reaper fleet, but one DN IMO could be handwaved with some combination of the above IMHO.  We also might have had some evidence (like we saw with the Leviathans) that the Reapers DO in fact need to occassionally mine for Eezo and recharge their cores.

-Polaris

[AlanC9]

IanPolaris wrote...
However, *somebody* didn't think through the implications of not neededing logistical support in a Mass Effect type universe. This could have been easily fixed. As a single ship (albeit a DN), the resources needed to support Sovereign would have been relatively small on a galactic scale, but surely the Reapers writ large should have needed supplies, etc as well as transports etc. Why else would the Reapers need to sleep most of the time between cycles?

This whole thing was badly done, and the whole "Reapers can't be beaten conventionally" seems like a late and half-baked posterior pull by bioware.

Actually, your first paragraph makes the case for Reapers being unbeatable conventionally being the logical outcome of the universe they set up, not a late and half-baked anything.

Doesn't mean they couldn't have worked around it. But they didn't want to anyway; there's no evidence Bio ever thought a conventional victory was worth doing. 

Modifié par AlanC9, 11 mai 2013 - 06:28 .

[Matthias King]

Crazy how radically this topic shifted focus over the last 29 pages huh?

[remydat]

IanPolaris wrote...

Mathius,

Indeed. Bioware clearly meant the Reapers to be beatable and at least hypothetically vulnerable in Mass Effect One. Vigil clearly thinks they are (in principle) and the Reapers themselves clearly think this. Otherwise there is no need to decapitate the galactic government at the start of each harvest and then shutdown (and isolate) the systems linked to the relay network. It's a good strategy, but one that implicitly assumes the enemy can beat you.

However, *somebody* didn't think through the implications of not neededing logistical support in a Mass Effect type universe. This could have been easily fixed. As a single ship (albeit a DN), the resources needed to support Sovereign would have been relatively small on a galactic scale, but surely the Reapers writ large should have needed supplies, etc as well as transports etc. Why else would the Reapers need to sleep most of the time between cycles?

This whole thing was badly done, and the whole "Reapers can't be beaten conventionally" seems like a late and half-baked posterior pull by bioware.

-Polaris

I don't follow this logic.  Because Vigil a simple VI thinks the Reapers can be defeated that makes it so?  Further, killing the head of the Galaxy is not proof the enemy can beat you.  It is proof you are a smart strategist and understand the demoralizing and hopeless effect suceeding will inspire in the enemy.  Trying to do your job efficiently is not evidence you think you can be beat.

I understood the Reapers likely could not be beat conventionally when a single Reaper nearly took down the most powerful organics in the Galaxy and the only reason they didn't was because a dude stumbled upoin a beacon on Eden Prime.  The only reason to think conventional victory is possible is because you are playing a game and so you expect to be able to win the game.  If this were real life and a single Reaper ship down near took down all the governments in the world, you would not be thinking taking on thousands if not tens of thousands of them will be possible.  You will fight because what choice do you have but the odds are decidedly stacked against you.

Modifié par remydat, 11 mai 2013 - 06:36 .

[IanPolaris]

AlanC9 wrote...

IanPolaris wrote...
However, *somebody* didn't think through the implications of not neededing logistical support in a Mass Effect type universe. This could have been easily fixed. As a single ship (albeit a DN), the resources needed to support Sovereign would have been relatively small on a galactic scale, but surely the Reapers writ large should have needed supplies, etc as well as transports etc. Why else would the Reapers need to sleep most of the time between cycles?

This whole thing was badly done, and the whole "Reapers can't be beaten conventionally" seems like a late and half-baked posterior pull by bioware.

Actually, your first paragraph makes the case for Reapers being unbeatable conventionally being the logical outcome of the universe they set up, not a late and half-baked anything.

I disagree.  First of all, if this was all planned out, then why would the reapers even bother decapitating the galactic governments and shutting down the relays at all?  This is good tactics, but only if you think that a unified opposition is an actual threat.  Otherwise you just go in and harvest and "game over".  Not only that, but the fact that Sovereign could be destroyed by conventional weapons, the Reapers DO sleep for most of the cycle and do so in the safety of Dark Space, and the fact the Reapers DO feel a need to have a sentinel to watch over things "just in case" tell me that the original Devs clearly intended the Reapers to be extremely powerful, but ultimately beatable (and yes I mean conventionally beatable).

The fact they didn't think through the logistics issues tells me that much of this was in fact half-baked.

Doesn't mean they couldn't have worked around it. But they didn't want to anyway; there's no evidence Bio ever thought a conventional victory was worth doing. 

I strongly disagree.  ME1 and even parts of ME2 (Thanix Guns, Klendagon Railgun) tell me that the Devs had intended to make the Reapers ultimately beatable.

-Polaris

[IanPolaris]

remydat wrote...

I don't follow this logic.  Because Vigil a simple VI thinks the Reapers can be defeated that makes it so?  Further, killing the head of the Galaxy is not proof the enemy can beat you.  It is proof you are a smart strategist and understand the demoralizing and hopeless effect suceeding will inspire in the enemy.  Trying to do your job efficiently is not evidence you think you can be beat.

If you are in fact unbeatable by conventional means, then tactics and strategy are completely irrelevent.  There would be no point in having the Reapers waste their time and effort (and energy) to shut down anything.  They'd just move in and harvest.

That clearly isn't the case.  If you use clever tactics to weaken the enemy, the implication is that you think the enemy at least has the hypothetical chance of defeating you (or at least inflicint unsustainable losses) if you don't do this.  This is not the mindset of an invulnerable and undefeatable army.

I understood the Reapers likely could not be beat conventionally when a single Reaper nearly took down the most powerful organics in the Galaxy and the only reason they didn't was because a dude stumbled upoin a beacon on Eden Prime.  The only reason to think conventional victory is possible is because you are playing a game and so you expect to be able to win the game.  If this were real life and a single Reaper ship down near took down all the governments in the world, you would not be thinking taking on thousands if not tens of thousands of them will be possible.  You will fight because what choice do you have but the odds are decidedly stacked against you.

I don't think you do.   Given enough weapons upgrades, enough time to prepare, perhaps some vulnerabilities that we didn't know about in ME1, and there is no reason to think the Reapers aren't ultimately beatable after ME1.  We simply know that we have to improve our odds and do so in a hurry at the end of ME1.

-Polaris