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[ElitePinecone]

I was about to say that ships flying like jet fighters are so dominant in depictions of space combat that it might as well be the default expectation people have, but then I remembered that the modern BSG used Newtonian physics and that worked fine.

Maybe the ME team looked at that example and discarded it for reasons of not being fun, or not looking cool enough, which is a shame. I can understand that doing course corrections and accounting for momentum properly looks a bit awkward rather than sleek, but it's hard to take the space combat seriously when all the ships behave like they're in an atmosphere.

What was more alarming in ME's case was that the Normandy is essentially a small capital ship, but all of its space battles had it zooming all over the place almost like a fighter.

[Dr_Extrem]

ElitePinecone wrote...

Dr_Extrem wrote...

this is why earth is screwed .. no matter what ending you choose ...

Well, not really. 

This is one of those times when authorial intent *has* to trump what appeared to happen on the screen. No ifs, no buts.

The writers surely didn't intend for Earth to be obliterated, Endor-like, by space debris - just like they didn't intend for us all to assume that the exploding Mass Relays wiped out everything in the galaxy, and they didn't intend for the Normandy crew to starve to death on the jungle planet, and they didn't intend for the turians/quarians to resort to cannibalism in Earth's orbit because they were stuck there, and they didn't intend for all the people on the Citadel to die horribly when the Reapers invaded, etc.

You can call all of that a case of negligence and not following the rules of your own world (which it is!), but it's also an example of fans thinking about things incredibly obsessively, in a way that the authors never did, and never intended. Fans take things literally, nitpick things into oblivion, and are generally prepared to assume the worst about any situation. Unless the writers had spelled out exactly what happened in all those cases above, fans can and will jump to the most pessimistic conclusions. If there's one lesson to be drawn categorically from the ME3 ending, it's that some fans think about every possible minute detail of what happens *far* more often than the developers, and they're far less willing to let things slide because they sound cool. If the reaction to the ending was surprising or disappointing to people at Bioware, it might've been because nobody had any idea people would analyse and nitpick at its consequences the way they did - there's a fundamental mismatch of thinking there.

So while most of that final battle was a "rule of cool"-type affair, it's unquestionable that Bioware did not intend for the planet to be irridiated by eezo and die in a firestorm of Reaper fragments. Handwave that however you want (giant deflector shields, the allied fleets intercepting debris, ground teams destroying dangerous pieces as they fall), but in this case their intention for that part of the story absolutely trumps your extrapolation of what would've happened based on the physics. Since the ending slides show Earth was fine in a high-Destroy/Control/Synthesis ending, and nobody had enormous brain tumours, I think we can safely say the space battle didn't destroy the Earth.

Nobody's going to tell a cinematic designer they can't have a final space battle with the Reapers because Newton's laws of motion state that it's silly to shoot at an enemy with a planet behind them. As much as I want them to keep the lore in mind and stick far more to actual science in their science-fiction game, at some point a game developer is going to do something because it's fun, or cool. People have different levels of tolerance for implausibility, but you can't expect them to completely sacrifice good cinematic storytelling in favour of making the game a science simulation. 

(After all, I hear virtually no complaints about how the Normandy flies like a jet in space, and nothing behaves in a vacuum like it actually would.)

well .. if you ignore the details that made the mass effect universe unique to show a cool face-off, you are either a bad writer, forgot to make your homework (remember the lore that was created by yourself) or are really depending on a cool showdown to save the ending. imo, the battle of earth takes all three reasons into account,

you mentioned the battle of endor - it a perfect example on "how you can do it. why can lucas write such a horrible scene? ... because it does not ignore/cantradict his own set of rules. in star wars, the battle of endor does not break the "suspension of disbelieve" - the effect, that lets the audience/reader ignore certain bs, as long, as it does not get too bad.

the normandy flying like a jet is nothing new - it does not break the suspention of disbelieve but if the normandy disengages the battle and miraculously appears on earth after 4.5 seconds, it does. why? .. because the new normandy still can not do this within this amount of time - the old normandy took 6 minutes to land planetside to save shepard, liara and crew. and back then, the normandy was not shot at by big ass reapers.


the problem with the battle of earth is, that is does not violate one minor in-universe law, but many major ones.

- eezo dumped into the biosphere: people get cancer and die .. only a minority shows biotic potential afterwards
- eezo itself is a strong mutagene (the drug red sand is full of it - we all know what red sand causes)
- a dreadnought class mass accelerator impact equels 38 kilotons of TNT (2.5 times hiroshima)
- dreadnoughts are not very accurate in "knife fights" - they are turning too slow to hit at close distance.
- if a slug flies, it flies .... until it hits something at some time.


the codex entries on space combat are very helpfull ... and they were written by the same people, who wrote the battle of earth.

as a writer i can not state that: "billy is allergic on seefood" and make him eat scallops without a reaction in the next scene. IF i let billy eat scallops (without a reaction) despite his allergy, i have to explain why. if i dint do it, its a plot hole and plot holes are bad.


this breaks your immersion and suspention of disbelieve. no story is flawless ... but the battle of earth overdoes it. it is full of things that contradict the laws written by themselves. but i guess the "take earth back" theme demanded a battle over earth that ultimately would destroy it.

how ironical - you save earth by obliterating it.


and before i forget it ... genre is not an excuse ... science fiction may use alternate laws of nature but then, you have to stick to them just like they were real.

[Saberchic]

maaaad365 wrote...

Can Bioware do a mega-marketing ploy ? Can they lie to the fans of ME to lower their expectations , then on the final day/month announce that ME4 is all about Shepard and his future ? I mean , he was resurrected in ME2, and they already announced that the "canon" ending is Destroy, which leaves the possibility of Shepard being ALIVE. I am not going into the IT, although that would be even better in my opinion.


EDIT : Ok, so the red ending is not canon , sorry for that. The question still stands.

No, I really think they tried to kill shepard off so that the character could not come back. which is why only one ending gives you hope of survival if you have enough numbers.

Also, I think people need to learn to let characters go. They said Shepard's story was going to be done in ME3; I'm ok with that. I like a finished story (though I did not like the ending for the trilogy ).

If people want to keep playing a certain character forever, I would suggest the TES series. It's open world and you can just keep playing and playing and playing...

[Dr_Extrem]

maybe we "need" more stories with shepard, because the ending of mass effect 3 did not feel like the ending of shepards journey?

lets face it ... the writers tried to define shepards character in me3 .. the problem is, that we already did that (for ourselves) in the 2 games that came before. to a lot of people, me3-shepard, does not feel like "my/our/there" shepard(s). we decided how shepard felt/acted/was - this was largely taken away in me3 - thus, "our" shepards story does not feel finished. we finished the story of "some" shepard, that looks like ours ... but he/she acts strange ... just like a lot of characters in me3.

[Iakus]

Saberchic wrote...
No, I really think they tried to kill shepard off so that the character could not come back. which is why only one ending gives you hope of survival if you have enough numbers.

Also, I think people need to learn to let characters go. They said Shepard's story was going to be done in ME3; I'm ok with that. I like a finished story (though I did not like the ending for the trilogy ).

If people want to keep playing a certain character forever, I would suggest the TES series. It's open world and you can just keep playing and playing and playing...

This isn't just about Shepard for me anymore.  This is about the Inquisitor.  This is about whatever protagonist comes next in Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and the new IP.

Why should I get invested in any character, make any of them "mine" when the writers think they can just grab it away and burn it because it fits their "vision"?

Is the character mine oir not?  Am I contributing to the story or am I just a passenger?  Is this an RPG or is this an action- shooter?

[wright1978]

iakus wrote...

Saberchic wrote...
No, I really think they tried to kill shepard off so that the character could not come back. which is why only one ending gives you hope of survival if you have enough numbers.

Also, I think people need to learn to let characters go. They said Shepard's story was going to be done in ME3; I'm ok with that. I like a finished story (though I did not like the ending for the trilogy ).

If people want to keep playing a certain character forever, I would suggest the TES series. It's open world and you can just keep playing and playing and playing...

This isn't just about Shepard for me anymore.  This is about the Inquisitor.  This is about whatever protagonist comes next in Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and the new IP.

Why should I get invested in any character, make any of them "mine" when the writers think they can just grab it away and burn it because it fits their "vision"?

Is the character mine oir not?  Am I contributing to the story or am I just a passenger?  Is this an RPG or is this an action- shooter?

I think it was a so called artistic decision. According to them had to die a 2nd time because...... They never had any intention of setting a game immediately afterwards given the idealogical colour differences of the endings so Shep's survival would have never been an issue from that standpoint. I was never bothered about playing Shep again i just wanted at least one option where the character could choose to retain his/her 2nd chance at life Lazarus provided him/her and go off into distance

As Iakus says it makes investment in any future character questionable.