1483 réponses à ce sujet

[Iakus]

Where's the downside? You think this is going to hurt ME4's sales?

Actually, yes.  I think Mass Effect's marketing department has their work cut out for them with MENext.

[rekn2]

Actually, yes.  I think Mass Effect's marketing department has their work cut out for them with MENext.

i have friends who dont even have nuts say that they felt kicked in the nuts

[ImaginaryMatter]

Actually, yes.  I think Mass Effect's marketing department has their work cut out for them with MENext.

 

I guess it'll depend on how DA:I goes.

 

To my pleasure they seemed to have learned some kind of lesson after the feedback of DA2 and ME3 (maybe ME2?) and DA:I seems like it might be a better game for it.

[Chov54]

"...Players in large part rejected it however (after Refuse its the least popular ending) because it destroys diversity, robs every sapient being in the galaxy of their free will, and requires holding hands and singing kumbaya with the Reapers."

 

Pre-EC, I rejected it because it felt so thematically inconsistent with my playthrough.  My Shep spent a lot of time through 3 games being angry at the Reapers and wanting only to destroy them (whilst also making nice with Geth and other alien races because MyShep is groovy like that). I don't recall the concept of transhumanism being a major part of my playthrough, in dialogue or otherwise.*  But heypresto! with a few minutes left, it's an option.  Arguably THE option.

It still grates on me more than it should. 

Sorry if this has been done to death before I got here.

 

* No I am not saying it was NO part of my playthrough, just not a major part. Even Shepherd's consideration of self after his Cerberus-enhancements in ME2 did not strike me as a major thematic element, when it seems to me that it ought to have been the ideal plot-point from which to launch a philosophical treatment of synthesis as a theme.

[Vigilant111]

His logic is based on presumptions that may not be true, namely that organics will inevitably be destroyed by their synthetic creations.  Therefore I am hesitant to say his logic is valid.

 

The Catalyst didn't wipe out everyone though when he tried, Javik survivied, Ilos survived, the Leviathans survived, not because the Reapers let them

 

I guess it all comes down to why BW didn't enable a dialogue option to ask the Catalyst: "What if you are wrong?". If the Catalyst is supposed to be infallible then why even let the Crucible dock? Why need new solutions?

[AlanC9]

I guess it all comes down to why BW didn't enable a dialogue option to ask the Catalyst: "What if you are wrong?". If the Catalyst is supposed to be infallible then why even let the Crucible dock? Why need new solutions?

The Reapers tried to stop the Crucible from docking, of course.

[Iakus]

The Reapers tried to stop the Crucible from docking, of course.

 

Which is just silly given it opens up new "possibilities" for the Catalyst.

[KaiserShep]

Which is just silly given it opens up new "possibilities" for the Catalyst.

 

Lol, it's not as if it could have known this before it docks.

[CronoDragoon]

From my point, Xzibit is pretty much on point. So, do me a favor and explain what he's missing?

 

There's two immediate issues with the yo dawg meme:

 

The first is that the Catalyst sees the Reapers as 1) living beings that 2) archive organic and synthetic races through the uploading of minds and by preserving their genetic information. As an AI sees it, he *is* preserving the lives of these organic and synthetic races, just in a different form. The yo dawg meme doesn't take into account that what he is doing isn't a contradiction unless you define life in a very specific way, which he doesn't do. Shepard actually brings up this point: "we'd prefer to keep our own form." This viewpoint is irrelevant to him: why would he care in what form organic life is preserved so long as it is preserved? Harvesting prevents organic extinction by translating organic life into Reaper form.

 

The second is that the yo dawg meme fails even if the Catalyst simply killed all advanced organic races and didn't make Reapers out of them. There is a difference between "organic life" and "organic lives" and by killing the races capable of creating synthetics he is allowing the lesser races time to flourish. It's the same as tending a plant by snipping obtrusive branches.

[KaiserShep]

I'd have to ask it why it cares to eliminate the krogan, despite them being one of the least likely to ever care to build synthetics of their own.

[AlanC9]

It is not realism for Shepard, with only the knowledge present at that time, to trust the Catalyst and act solely on its word.

 

I'm not quite clear on something. What are you saying Shepard should, realistically, do? Sit there and hope that the Crucible will fire, right? How long is it realistic to sit there and hope? Longer than the Crucible's got, sure. But are you talking minutes, hours, days?

[Mcfly616]

Lol

[KaiserShep]

Catalyst: "The paths are open. It is time to choose."

 

Shepard: *standing still*

 

Catalyst: ..........."What are you doing?"

 

Shepard: "Just listening to see if it's building up a charge or something, like those old flash cameras of the 1990's."

 

Catalyst: "Just...no."

[CronoDragoon]

I'm not quite clear on something. What are you saying Shepard should, realistically, do? Sit there and hope that the Crucible will fire, right? How long is it realistic to sit there and hope? Longer than the Crucible's got, sure. But are you talking minutes, hours, days?

 

Might be a conventional victory argument, that Shepard is better off rejecting the Crucible in totality. This comes back to the player's personal belief of whether the probability of conventional victory is higher than the probability of the Catalyst telling the truth or lying but having one of the options produce a favorable result.

 

Also Alan, please never get an avatar. I'm really hoping that eventually you will be the only frequent poster without one and then the blank human bust will be your signature.

[Mcfly616]

It kinda looks like an 'Alan', doesn't it?


Maybe it's the hair.

[CronoDragoon]

It kinda looks like an 'Alan', doesn't it?

 

I don't know, Mcfly, does it?

 

[Han Shot First]

The Protheans were winning in their war against the machines and the Reapers decided to harvest them anyway. Had they waited the Protheans could have won and solved the organic/synthetic conflict problem.

Geth were content to sit in their space and weren't an active threat to anyone, until Sovereign began using the Geth. The quarians were winning in ME3 until the Reapers gave the Geth an upgrade.

So you do have to wonder if they were telling the truth about the inevitable result of that conflict or if they are just using it as an excuse.

 

Exactly.

 

Synthetics haven't proven themselves to be any more dangerous than any organic faction. The Leviathans crushed their first synthetic rebellion, and the Protheans won the Metacon War. The Heretic Geth were also defeated in the first battle of the Citadel. We see more examples of synethetic factions losing wars to organic factions than the reverse. And some of the organic factions are arguably more dangerous than the synthetic ones. The Krogan for example at one point posed a far greater threat to the galaxy than the Geth ever did, who mostly just wanted to be left alone. Did the Krogan Rebellions need Synthesis as a cure?

 

So why the need for these extraordinary solutions to a problem that simply does not exist? The Catalyst's belief that synthetics will inevitably destroy organic life without some heinous altering of the nature of organic life, is simply not supported by the galaxy's own history. There is no reason to think the Catalyst is anything other than a malfunctioning A.I. whose faulty programming is causing it to draw false conclusions. 

[ImaginaryMatter]

Might be a conventional victory argument, that Shepard is better off rejecting the Crucible in totality. This comes back to the player's personal belief of whether the probability of conventional victory is higher than the probability of the Catalyst telling the truth or lying but having one of the options produce a favorable result.

 

Also Alan, please never get an avatar. I'm really hoping that eventually you will be the only frequent poster without one and then the blank human bust will be your signature.

 

What I always wondered is can the Crucible fire locally or with out the Catalyst? Yes, it uses the Citadel (or what the Protheans labeled as the Catalyst) to amplify/focus the blast but surely the creators did install an actual activation button or mechanism on it, because surely they wouldn't have designed it to only to have been operable by a AI they had no knowledge of... right? Then again I guess this is more of a problem with the Crucible rather than the Catalyst.

[CronoDragoon]

What I always wondered is can the Crucible fire locally or with out the Catalyst? Yes, it uses the Citadel (or what the Protheans labeled as the Catalyst) to amplify/focus the blast but surely the creators did install an actual activation button or mechanism on it, because surely they wouldn't have designed it to only to have been operable by a AI they had no knowledge of... right? Then again I guess this is more of a problem with the Crucible rather than the Catalyst.

 

Well, the Crucible does fire off a local blast before utilizing the Citadel relay network, but it's unclear if it still needs the Citadel even for that(7:30 is the local blast):

[Obadiah]

Synthetics are more dangerous than you believe, as are the Organics. The Geth are the beginning, and the Reapers are their potential. The Crucible represents the kind of firepower that this conflict will create.

[KaiserShep]

Exactly.

 

Synthetics haven't proven themselves to be any more dangerous than any organic faction. The Leviathans crushed their first synthetic rebellion, and the Protheans won the Metacon War. The Heretic Geth were also defeated in the first battle of the Citadel. We see more examples of synethetic factions losing wars to organic factions than the reverse. And some of the organic factions are arguably more dangerous than the synthetic ones. The Krogan for example at one point posed a far greater threat to the galaxy than the Geth ever did, who mostly just wanted to be left alone. Did the Krogan Rebellions need Synthesis as a cure?

 

So why the need for these extraordinary solutions to a problem that simply does not exist? The Catalyst's belief that synthetics will inevitably destroy organic life without some heinous altering of the nature of organic life, is simply not supported by the galaxy's own history. There is no reason to think the Catalyst is anything other than a malfunctioning A.I. whose faulty programming is causing it to draw false conclusions. 

 

I've always considered the Intelligence and its reaper product to be the biggest fluke in the galaxy. They stood as an example of how synthetics could ultimately wipe out all organic life, but the circumstances which lead to its creation is pretty unique. It is, as far as we know, the only artificial intelligence to exist solely for the purpose of figuring out what could very well have been an unsolvable problem. And really, in some ways, it kind of is. When the ultimate solution to the problem involves altering all life in the galaxy against their will, I don't really see that as a solution at all, any more than I would see a solution to our own propensity for violence, crime and war in conditioning us all to have no difference in opinion or values.

 

I'll always hold to the idea that once the reapers are gone, whatever potential there is for a resurgence of synthetics even half as hazardous as they are is no greater than the potential that the galaxy will live and die before such a thing ever returns.

[AlanC9]

In the interest of not multiplying entities unnecessarily, it'd be nice if the local blast comes from the Citadel Relay, assuming that's located right about where the Crucible docked to. That way we don't have the local blast emanating from a different mechanism than the one all the other blasts emanate from

 

Does the scale work for that?

[AlanC9]

 

Also Alan, please never get an avatar. I'm really hoping that eventually you will be the only frequent poster without one and then the blank human bust will be your signature.

 

I'll take it under consideration, anyway. I was considering Marvin the Paranoid Android (BBC version), but I haven't pulled the trigger, obviously.

[KaiserShep]

Just stick with the silhouette, and alter it in an entertaining way

[Farangbaa]

Which is just silly given it opens up new "possibilities" for the Catalyst.

 

No. It's called the Crucible for a reason. Only if you (i.e. the galaxy)  manage to dock it against all odds do you pass the test. 

 

Might be a conventional victory argument, that Shepard is better off rejecting the Crucible in totality. This comes back to the player's personal belief of whether the probability of conventional victory is higher than the probability of the Catalyst telling the truth or lying but having one of the options produce a favorable result.

 

Also Alan, please never get an avatar. I'm really hoping that eventually you will be the only frequent poster without one and then the blank human bust will be your signature.

 

Like conventional victory has ever been in the scope of ME. Honestly, how anyone would think conventional victory is possible after the ME1 ending where Sovereign just goes 'lollll, lemme get inside the Citadel while you peasants tickle me' is beyond me.

 

And people have to realize here that Sovereing messed up by taking control of Saren. Surely, it might've had reasons to do so, but that's the reason it dies. Not because the combined might of the Citadel and Alliance fleet is too much.