418 réponses à ce sujet

[David7204]

That's frankly a stupid argument.

You don't get to complain about multiplayer affecting the ending and then complain that multiplayer didn't affect the ending enough.

Winning the game conventionally because you got 100,000 EMS from multiplayer would be a titantic screw-up of game design.

Modifié par David7204, 21 juin 2013 - 04:52 .

[Nole]

You have to understand that, after a year, people has problems into find something to complain about the game.

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

So we built a giant Duracell, and this stupid Cuttlefish AI (aka Mac Walters) gives us three ways to end the story. Nice.

And this is why we are not impressed with the Crucible. We could build the perfect Crucible and get the same 3 ways. We could have 100,000 EMS and get the same 3 ways. It is possible to have 100,000 EMS. We should kick reaper ass with that much. You simply play a ton of multiplayer and promote at every opportunity. But you only get the same stupid choices.

"We're sorry. We know you put a lot of time and effort into your game. We know that any reasonable person would understand that 100,000 EMS should kick the reapers back to dark space conventionally with their tails between their legs at about 0.1% of their strength never to be heard from again. Your feelings are important to us. Unfortunately you still get to choose your favorite color from the palette of red, green or blue." - the management.

No matter how much of a difference we made, it made no difference.

And this is why I take the joke arguments seriously. The hyperbole just builds on itself.

I see David's on it too.

Modifié par AlanC9, 21 juin 2013 - 04:58 .

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

o Ventus wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Isn't that only a marketing shot?

Does it matter? The start up screen is similar enough, and the Palaven images from Menae are just as bad as the picture that Julia linked. Keep in mind that Earth received the brunt of the Reaper attack. By all means, the damage seen on Palaven is less serious than that on Earth.

Yes, it matters. The codex flatly contradicts any notion that 80% of the population got killed -- the harvesting figures doin't work if that's the case.

There are approximately 11.4 billion humans on Earth pre-invasion (minus those on Mars, Luna, and other in-system colonies and stations)  It was estimated it would take about a decade for the reapers to complete the harvest.  Shepard was gone for several months before the assault on Earth and deploying the Crucible.

Let's say since it hasn't been a full year that "only" 5% of Earth was harvested.  5 percent of 11.4 billion.  That's still five hundred seventy million dead.  That's more people than currently live on the entire North American continent.


That's in addition to those most likely dead on Luna, Mars and other in-system colonies (4.1 million people live on Luna alone)  So yeah, regardless of the percentage, that's still a frakking tragedy.

[Iakus]

AlanC9 wrote...

iakus wrote...

sH0tgUn jUliA wrote...

So we built a giant Duracell, and this stupid Cuttlefish AI (aka Mac Walters) gives us three ways to end the story. Nice.

And this is why we are not impressed with the Crucible. We could build the perfect Crucible and get the same 3 ways. We could have 100,000 EMS and get the same 3 ways. It is possible to have 100,000 EMS. We should kick reaper ass with that much. You simply play a ton of multiplayer and promote at every opportunity. But you only get the same stupid choices.

"We're sorry. We know you put a lot of time and effort into your game. We know that any reasonable person would understand that 100,000 EMS should kick the reapers back to dark space conventionally with their tails between their legs at about 0.1% of their strength never to be heard from again. Your feelings are important to us. Unfortunately you still get to choose your favorite color from the palette of red, green or blue." - the management.

No matter how much of a difference we made, it made no difference.

And this is why I take the joke arguments seriously. The hyperbole just builds on itself.

I see David's on it too.

Just a comment on how no matter how successful we are at optimizing the Crucible, building up fleets to protect it, ground troops to make the beam charge, once you hit a certain point, it doesn't matter.  It will never be enough  You will never get to a point where you aren't commiting an atrocity on the galaxy.  You will never get to a point where Shepard doesn't burn for his/her actions.  The nail that sticks up gets hammered down.  "You exist because we allow it, and will end because we demand it"

All aboard the tragedy choo-choo.

[David7204]

Which is a colossal problem.

However, the solution is not multiplayer.

[Iakus]

David7204 wrote...

Which is a colossal problem.

However, the solution is not multiplayer.

No argument there.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

David7204 wrote...

Which is a colossal problem.

However, the solution is not multiplayer.

See this is exactly the point I was making. I got you guys discussing it, and this is the point. Multi-player was not the answer. There was a point where no matter what you did, it didn't matter, and that was the colossal problem.

Aside from that 575 million people harvested is a tragedy. This number does not include the number of people who were turned into husks.

The ecological disaster from the global fires along with the food shortages, the water pollution, etc., will cause a humanitarian disaster that will be worse than we've ever seen.

I could never see how letting Shepard survive the ending with more than that stupid gasp of air wouldn't be bittersweet. Have the reuniting with the team in the smoldering ruins, not at some resort. What do we have left?

This is almost making enslavement of the reapers seem like a good idea. == you made the mess, now clean it up, fix the relays, now self-destruct. But control doesn't work that way, unfortunately. They don't self-destruct. And you can't send them into the sun. You get to watch over the galaxy like big brother. One galaxy under surveillance.

[David7204]

Julia, there has to be some sort of choice at the end. And there has to be very significant new information revealed that changes things for the player and Shepard. You cannot have an ending where the Reapers are just destroyed with no other choices available.

Modifié par David7204, 21 juin 2013 - 05:43 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

David7204 wrote...

Julia, there has to be some sort of choice at the end. And there has to be very significant new information revealed that changes things for the player and Shepard. You cannot have an ending where the Reapers are just destroyed with no other choices available.

This would have been a better ending:

http://h9.abload.de/img/jhtqyrqxxg.jpg

Modifié par sH0tgUn jUliA, 21 juin 2013 - 05:51 .

[David7204]

It would have been tepidly mediocre.

It wouldn't have been great.

But, you're probably right. it probably would have been better. Nevertheless, it should not be something to aspire to.

Modifié par David7204, 21 juin 2013 - 05:53 .

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I can guarantee you there wouldn't have been anywhere near the outrage at the ending. There still would have been disappointment, but when has there never been disappointment in an ending? I'm one of the few people who enjoyed watching the Chantry burn in DA2 even though I thought the fight with Meredith was stupid simply because I was playing an assassin who could have offed her several times earlier -- broken the storyline, but still.

It is what happens when you create an completely overpowered enemy and write a story that strips away all proof of the existence of said enemy from the protagonist to the support structure of the protagonist until the enemy is physically blowing the building apart in which the defense committee is sitting asking the protagonist what they should do now that this enemy has arrived. Such a story requires something stupid like the Crucible to magically appear moments after the arrival of this enemy so that you have a chance in hell of defeating them. Plus you have to make this enemy dumb as rocks on top of it.

Honestly since ME2 was a complete waste plot-wise (fun to play, but a complete waste), they probably should have used ME3 to actually develop (Arrival doesn't count) a plot to set up the reaper invasion and did the reaper invasion in ME4.

But quite honestly I'm glad this reaper crap is behind us.

[David7204]

That is complete nonsense. Maybe it's what happens to you. And maybe to Walters. But not to all of us. And a story where Shepard stops the Reapers before the Reapers arrive would be crap. The Reapers are going to bulldoze through the galaxy when they arrive, and that's really the end of it.

I'm sensing this very silly attitude you have where you seem to be trying to destroy the Reapers from a real-life perspective. Destroying the Reapers through multiplayer, for example. Destroying the Reapers by preventing the invasion in the first place, which, as I just said, would be a crap story.

I get the feeling this is 'bleeding' out of the game for you and into real life.

Modifié par David7204, 21 juin 2013 - 07:30 .

[o Ventus]

David7204 wrote...

Julia, there has to be some sort of choice at the end. And there has to be very significant new information revealed that changes things for the player and Shepard. You cannot have an ending where the Reapers are just destroyed with no other choices available.

There doesn't "have" to be anything.

[David7204]

If you want the ending to be good, there does.

[o Ventus]

David7204 wrote...

If you want the ending to be good, there does.

So I would assume that you have a quantifiable, objective list of things that make an ending "good"? At least, that's what I gather from your post. You keep prattling on about things that "need" to be done.

Care to divulge this secret formula?

[David7204]

- New challenges and information revealed right up until the very end.
- Validation of the themes of the series.
- A confrontation with the antagonist.
- The ultimate triumph of the protagonist in a single moment of great skill, willpower, or truth.
- Consequences being a meaningful and foreshadowed result of choices by the player and actions by the protagonist.
- The resolution of the conflict is a result of the protagonist's actions - tipping the scales from defeat to victory on a larger scale.
- Resolution of foreshadowing established earlier in the story.

Hmm...anything I missed?

Modifié par David7204, 21 juin 2013 - 07:56 .

[o Ventus]

David7204 wrote...

Validation of the themes of the series.

Which is most certainly not accomplished.

The ultimate triumph of the protagonist in a single moment of great skill, willpower, or truth.

Neither is this.

Consequences being a meaningful and foreshadowed result of choices by the player and actions by the player.

Again, neither is this. Weren't you the one who earlier said that choices need not provide consequences, or some odd drivel along that line?

The protagonist ultimately resolving the conflict - tipping the scales from defeat to victory on a larger scale.

Arguable, considering that the central conflict (according to the Catalyst) changed from "everybody vs the Reapers" to "organics vs synthetics", and 3 endig voices don't affec this conflict in any way.

Modifié par o Ventus, 21 juin 2013 - 07:56 .

[David7204]

No, they certainly aren't. The ending has a great deal of faults.

[Farangbaa]

That image is obviously made by someone who sided with the Quarians, and their downright retarded idea that the question "does this unit have a soul?" should be met by shutting them all down/killing them all. (I personally would've jumped up and down from excitement if a machine asked me a question like that)

If I had not been given the option of brokering peace, I would've let the Quarians be slaughtered, without any hesitation.

And from what I gather from all the ME games, the Geth willingly had to pledge their allegiance to the Reapers, not once did the Reapers hack them, or force them.

Modifié par Psychevore, 21 juin 2013 - 08:09 .

[GreyLycanTrope]

AlanC9 wrote...
The obvious problem with this is that there's no immediate singularity problem in the first place. You could headcanon that it's the geth except that if they're dead we still get a Destroy option. What short-term problem is Destroy solving? Why is he consenting to the destruction of the Reapers and the abandonment of the cycles? 

Since when are the Geth the the only condition driving the Catalyst? You still have EDI, a bunch of Alliance Inflitration Units(if you count MP), The Reapers which now pose a problem since they are no longer part of the solution in the scenario, the virtual aliens, and we've seen on the Citadel twice that AI's exist outside of the Geth both in ME1 and in the Archieves during the Citadel DLC, to assume the Geth are the only AI's out there given the current cycle's level of technology and their reluctance to explore the rest of the galaxy after the Rachni incident fairly naive. There is a very strong possibility other AI's exist out there, you because you haven't run into them doesn't mean the "chaos" isn't out there.

[GreyLycanTrope]

HYR 2.0 wrote...
Yes, that reason is Mac's infamous notes on the ending.

However, speculation (read: interpretation) is still necessary to the understanding a story.

If we have any interest in understanding this work, we should do it, no matter how jaded the writers have made us!

There is no "spin" on my quotes. They prove the options come from the Crucible at their face-value.

You, OTOH, would have to reductio ad absurdum (sp?) the quotes at hand to make them support your claims.

Not really no, an example: -
"You have altered the variables."
That's great but all I really take away from this is that you gave him more stuff to consider when formating a solution.
-"I can't make them happen. If there is to be a new solution, you must act."
So you sprung these new variables on him in the last minute and he needs your help to implement one of them then and there, partly because he lacks the physical component to do so and secondly becauses he's unsure which solution would be the best to implement right now. One way or the other synthesis is seen as inevitable by him so in his view really either option you pick you'll there at some point just in a different manner.
-"The Crucible will not descriminate" Yes beacuse the Crucible is the device you use to implement these changes not the one the determines what they are.

I could go on but I find this a bit of a moot point for reasons I'll explain later.

As to the last part -- it helped me discern Crucible from Citadel, as I understand it now.

Alright but that's fairly irrelevent when you consider both you and the view point your arguing agains agree that the Crucible and Citadel work in tandem to some degree. The question is which one creates the solutions, no what their physical placement is.

Oh. Well, in that case... yeah. 

You have to admit, it's a lot of trouble for something we can concretely prove is correct or not.

This thread is a drop in the bucket compared to the all the complaining/hate caused by the premise it responds to.

Just keep in mind what you write, you've managed to establish a very condesending tone for the entire discussion right off the bat. I'm not saying I'm personally offended but if you really want to talk with people in earnest about a topic probably best to keep that in mind.

It is supported by the context.

See #1 in my OP. I came up with eight (count 'em, eight) quotes from the scene that support my claim.

If your disbelief doesn't allow you to accept in-game dialogue, your disbelief is much too high.

You've yet to show me how the given information points to the RGB as his doing.

Up to now it's mainly been "seems that way" kind of reasoning -- too convenient, don't buy this, (...)

And, I disagree with that last part of your post. The audience needs to do a little headwork at times and not rely solely on context, because there may exist subtext they may not notice if they don't stop and think things over critically. It doesn't always stand out in an obvious manner, and yet the whole story can ride on one piece of subtext.

It's not disbelief it's pure context. Sraight from the people building the device "the Catalyst is the key on how to focusing that energy." The Catalyst focuses the energy of the Crucible. The Crucible is a power source, the Catalyst determines how the power it provides and disperses is used.

Subtext is great when your considering the philosophical/moral implications of a presented idea, less so when your talking about the functionality of an in game device that holds no such implications. And as I pointed out earlier subtext can go either way. I mean we could debate the interpreation of subtle meanings behind the words and picture back and forth forever, but that's very close to an IT style of interpretation and I'm not getting near that line of thinking.

I believe you just answered your own question.

And it would not be the first thing in the plot to happen for that same reason.

As another example: Shepard and Legion first crossing paths, Derelict Reaper.

Yeah but Legion being there was not a definitive aspect of the plot or resolution, hell you can sell the poor bastard later.

I never said my interpretation is 100% water-tight, and at some point that may have more to do with the ending itself than my ability to make sense of it. Some issues can simply be chalked up to author screw-ups (plotholes).

However, not everything about the ending is purely nonsensical either, as many would have you believe.

There are holes with the ending. I have never denied this. Yet many things can be answered with a little thinkun.

It's not some much your ability to make sense of it as it is you willingness to put up with it. Not everything is nonsensical but we're not arguing about nonsense just who's in control of creating the options at the end. The Catalyst being in control makes the most sense to me, people don't always like handing over control, but that's how it seems to have been written. I don't find that nonsensical I just don't like that aspect.

Modifié par Greylycantrope, 21 juin 2013 - 02:58 .

[KaiserShep]

David7204 wrote...

That is complete nonsense. Maybe it's what happens to you. And maybe to Walters. But not to all of us. And a story where Shepard stops the Reapers before the Reapers arrive would be crap. The Reapers are going to bulldoze through the galaxy when they arrive, and that's really the end of it.

I'm sensing this very silly attitude you have where you seem to be trying to destroy the Reapers from a real-life perspective. Destroying the Reapers through multiplayer, for example. Destroying the Reapers by preventing the invasion in the first place, which, as I just said, would be a crap story.

I get the feeling this is 'bleeding' out of the game for you and into real life.

It's too bad that the multiple times that their plans were foiled didn't seem to affect this. It would've been better if their overall strength during the attack seemed to be more greatly influenced by how many times they failed to reap on schedule. 

[AlanC9]

iakus wrote...
Let's say since it hasn't been a full year that "only" 5% of Earth was harvested.  5 percent of 11.4 billion.  That's still five hundred seventy million dead.  That's more people than currently live on the entire North American continent.

That's in addition to those most likely dead on Luna, Mars and other in-system colonies (4.1 million people live on Luna alone)  So yeah, regardless of the percentage, that's still a frakking tragedy.

Of course. Like I said upthread, there's a non-crazy version of the argument, and this is it.

[AlanC9]

Greylycantrope wrote.
Since when are the Geth the the only condition driving the Catalyst? You still have EDI, a bunch of Alliance Inflitration Units(if you count MP), The Reapers which now pose a problem since they are no longer part of the solution in the scenario, the virtual aliens, and we've seen on the Citadel twice that AI's exist outside of the Geth both in ME1 and in the Archieves during the Citadel DLC, to assume the Geth are the only AI's out there given the current cycle's level of technology and their reluctance to explore the rest of the galaxy after the Rachni incident fairly naive. There is a very strong possibility other AI's exist out there, you because you haven't run into them doesn't mean the "chaos" isn't out there.

(Wait.... you're counting the Reapers? Is the Catalyst no longer in control of them?)

Anyway, your definition of an immediate threat seems to be having a highly technological civilization at all. Destroy AIs without destroying the civilization and they can be constructed again. And the Catalyst knows this; he says this himself.

He's letting Shepard destroy the Reapers to gain..... a few decades? I'm not sure how seriously to take this argument; it's starting to sound like a bizarre rationalization.

Edit: that was unfair. But you are starting to sound a bit like The Twilight God here, who was pretty explicit that his IT variant was an attempt to interpret the ending in a way that made it palatable.

Modifié par AlanC9, 21 juin 2013 - 04:30 .