I do mean "some". Yet, how many organics willingly sided with the Reapers, without being touched with indoctrination?
There is a little common trait get and the reapers share, they are both synthetics. Some followed them as gods, and they would have no problem killing in their name.
Hmm, I wonder when that happened to humans.
So what? Things work themselves out naturally.
Sorry, but the violent political and religious conflicts still going on around the world speak against the notion of things working themselves out naturally.
And at least a portion of this consensus thought siding with the Reapers would be a good idea.
I'd make an argument however that the Catalyst is also being a bit hypocritical here, in that his Reapers are actually instigating conflict. The Geth were approached by Sovereign for the purpose of using them to assault the Citadel. This comes into conflict with their supposed mandate of preventing conflict. Given how it is inerrant to abide by its mandate to the point of preemptively targeting whatever species is at the galactic apex to prevent them from achieving conflict with synthetic creations, this comes across as an illogical move for the Reapers and the Catalyst for moving so drastically from their procedure. Of course, I just explain it a s bad writing in ME3.
They weren't forced into saying yes, though, and the conflict between the quarians and the geth predates the events of ME1. Despite positive intentions existing on both sides of that conflict, it still mushroomed out of control.
Sorry, but the violent political and religious conflicts still going on around the world speak against the notion of things working themselves out naturally.
And at least a portion of this consensus thought siding with the Reapers would be a good idea.
Other nations have declared peace with each other though. Maybe it's temporary and they'll go to war again, but conflict will be temporary too. Nothing lasts forever. Neither did the Catalyst's plan when I blew him and his Reapers sky high.
Much more prepared? No, ME2's pointlessness ensured that the galaxy was, in fact, not more prepared.
And you're making the Reapers out to be really pathetic beings that have never done anything like this before. Millions of years. Millions.
Which ME3 could have fixed in a blink of an eye by letting us discover that while we were off chasing Collectors, someone actually was doing something about the Reaper threat. STG, small factions in the Alliance, Quarians etc.
I don't know why you think its ridiculous, darkness/futility and being insignificant is a part of our humanity.
Is it ridiculous that mass effect likes to explore places like these and trigger thoughts and emotions?
Mass Effect series was never about these aspects of humanity. Quite the opposite. No, it's not ridiculous that ME triggers thoughts and emotions, I never said that. Don't twist my words.
That you can find something deeper than basic violence and sex instincts?
I wonder where that came from, since I never said anything even close to what you are suggesting here.
I was in awe back in 2008, and I am still in awe today whenever I see that conversation. From that point in that game, I never had a more intense and cathartic play in my life. The villain is so intimidating due to his indifference, the satisfaction I got from killing him in the end is just unrepeatable.
Thanks for making my case for me. No such satisfaction could be gotten from "ME3". With ME1, I have a very similar experience. However, the crucial thing is that you get to defeat the scary enemy, prove them wrong. Not succumb to their way of thinking. Which is then brought up consistently in ME2 and even "ME3", despite what it is.
Saying that its ridiculous that someone views the reapers in superstitious awe, due to your real life beliefs is dumb. The whole art form of videogames is based on an illusion, a human imperfection of the eye. In this game you're able to get engaged, worry, be happy, be afraid etc, and you think its ridiculous we feel this certain emotion. Dark souls, amnesia, silent hill all did it.
What I called ridiculous was the ingame belief that the Reapers are too powerful to defeat them and I have compared that to the views expressed by ingame indoctrinated characters, like Saren.
The Reapers are and intimidating enemy but they are not the central character in ME. When people act like they value them more than they value their Shepard and his/her friends, that's what I call ridiculous.
Games make you worry, be happy, afraid etc. and I never said that it's ridiculous. In fact, it's what makes video games art, as you have said yourself.
As for the titles you mention, I haven't played any of them, but from what I know of Dark Souls I gather it's a completely different type of experience than ME. In ME the plot pretty much revolves around the player, when in Dark Souls I hear the player character is rather insignificant and the world of Dark Souls bears them no malice, is rather indifferent to them. It's not the case in ME.
Also, where did you get that "due to your real life beliefs" stuff? I don't see how is that an indictment, since we all operate on real world beliefs by which we judge the things around us.
Video games are video games, not real life. Its an imaginary world where everything can happen. Not all of us have the same tastes and suspend our disbelief the same. No reason to attack anyone if you can't feel it.
Can't feel what? Don't accuse me of not feeling something, especially if you're going to be non-specific about it. If that's about the intimidation/awe thing, I answered that. As for the remainder of this paragraph, well. We all get very emotive about video games.
Which ME3 could have fixed in a blink of an eye by letting us discover that while we were off chasing Collectors, someone actually was doing something about the Reaper threat. STG, small factions in the Alliance, Quarians etc.
This. It's not hard to believe given how many factions exist in the Mass Effect universe. This is why I'm very forgiving towards ME2's plot.
Glowboy pretty much is the problem he was designed to solve.
I'm sure that was intentional. Like its creators before it it is part of the problem but is too arrogant to see it. There is no point in arguing with it because it is too deluded to care what you say.
Remember, you're talking about AIs who have willingly sided with the Reapers in the past.
Well, to be fair, that's true of any individual, organic or synthetic. To quote a certain other franchise:Right. There's no inertia. The consensus can flip their whole society on a dime. Doesn't EDI talk about this?
Still, yeah - two of the three synthetic/organic conflicts we know of were fomented by the Reapers themselves. Glowboy pretty much is the problem he was designed to solve. If he won't do us the kindness of self-destruction, though, that leaves us with the options we're presented, distasteful though they may be.
"Solutions" to a "problem" the Reapers themselves caused.
Yeah, no thanks
Other nations have declared peace with each other though. Maybe it's temporary and they'll go to war again, but conflict will be temporary too. Nothing lasts forever. Neither did the Catalyst's plan when I blew him and his Reapers sky high.
Conflict's only permanent if one side gets wiped out to a point where they simply cannot fight anymore. That's a very real concern for the quarians.
But, hey, good deal blowing the Catalyst and the Reapers sky-high. Just because I think it's a valid problem worth considering under these circumstances (and in the future) doesn't mean I think people should be persuaded by his agenda as a whole. I'm a destroyer, all day every day.
Which ME3 could have fixed in a blink of an eye by letting us discover that while we were off chasing Collectors, someone actually was doing something about the Reaper threat. STG, small factions in the Alliance, Quarians etc.
That wasn't ME3's job to do, though. It was ME2's, which had two bloody years and the events of ME1 to work with.
You are you really mad at Iakus? The Catalyst or the Leviathans? The Catalyst didn't create the problem, the Leviathans did. It certainly made it worse because they gave it too much power to enforce an excessively vague mandate but it didn't start the madness. They did by teaching everything slavery was the way to go.
I've said this before, Rannoch couldn't have any impact on the ending because it had 3 possible outcomes. Making peace playing some pivotal role in the ending would have punished everyone that couldn't import.
I've said this before, Rannoch couldn't have any impact on the ending because it had 3 possible outcomes. Making peace playing some pivotal role in the ending would have punished everyone that couldn't import.
Or, it'd punish people who simply didn't choose peace.
Conflict's only permanent if one side gets wiped out to a point where they simply cannot fight anymore. That's a very real concern for the quarians.
But, hey, good deal blowing the Catalyst and the Reapers sky-high. Just because I think it's a valid problem worth considering under these circumstances (and in the future) doesn't mean I think people should be persuaded by his agenda as a whole. I'm a destroyer, all day every day.
Well that's one (of many) issues I had with the ending is that we weren't given a real chance to present our case. Since Dialogue has always played pivotal part in the series, it seems completely wasted that we couldn't have a battle of mind and wit with an ancient AI. If you had nearly maxed out Paragon/Renegade points, it would've been awesome to be able to attempt to prove the Catalyst wrong. You'd have to choose the proper counters to his argument that the dialogue wheels would present you. It'd be a nice challenge. Just seems to me that a smarter writer and developer would've done this, instead of "How many points do you have? Ok pick a color."
Or, it'd punish people who simply didn't choose peace.
I don't exactly have a problem with that. For all I know they could be doing it intentionally. But it'd still be a bad idea. You can't have an optional outcome influencing the ending in a massive way screwing over like 63% of the player base. Pretty much everyone on this forum can make peace if they want to so it doesn't sound like a big deal to us.
You are you really mad at Iakus? The Catalyst or the Leviathans? The Catalyst didn't create the problem, the Leviathans did. It certainly made it worse because they gave it too much power to enforce an excessively vague mandate but it didn't start the madness. They did by teaching everything slavery was the way to go.
How can I be mad at the Catalyst? It's just the mouthpiece for Bioware's fallacious logic and railroaded outcomes
How can I be mad at the Leviathans? They're nothing more than retroactive foreshadowing meant to prop up said "logic"
I'm mad at Bioware, for creating such a ludicrous scenerio.
Well that's one (of many) issues I had with the ending is that we weren't given a real chance to present our case. Since Dialogue has always played pivotal part in the series, it seems completely wasted that we couldn't have a battle of mind and wit with an ancient AI. If you had nearly maxed out Paragon/Renegade points, it would've been awesome to be able to attempt to prove the Catalyst wrong. You'd have to choose the proper counters to his argument that the dialogue wheels would present you. It'd be a nice challenge. Just seems to me that a smarter writer and developer would've done this, instead of "How many points do you have? Ok pick a color."
Eh, it happened that way in Deus Ex, which both derived influence from Asimov's Foundation books.
And pay attention to all the endings of Mass Effect. They're all color swaps based on your decisions, with minimal differences. At least the EC enhanced this.
How can I be mad at the Catalyst? It's just the mouthpiece for Bioware's fallacious logic and railroaded outcomes
How can I be mad at the Leviathans? They're nothing more than retroactive foreshadowing meant to prop up said "logic"
I'm mad at Bioware, for creating such a ludicrous scenerio.
I guess that ultimate depends how you look at it. What I took away from it from the Quarians, from the Protheans, from the Leviathans that the reason these wars happen is because organics can't accept synthetics as equals and either try to enslave them or if they can't do so destroy them. Robots are only tools and if they don't behave right they get shut off. Only sentient machines tend to be the ones that ultimately win because they got underestimated and seize the advantage and rarely ever lose it.
I don't think the story was ever supposed to imply they were just evil kill bots. After all history is cyclical (thanks for that Vendetta...)
Eh, it happened that way in Deus Ex, which both derived influence from Asimov's Foundation books.
And pay attention to all the endings of Mass Effect. They're all color swaps based on your decisions, with minimal differences. At least the EC enhanced this.
The EC fleshed the decisions out for sure, but the fundamental problems with the ending were still there. Like doing nothing but putting a band-aid over an infected wound, it doesn't get the treatment it needs.
Or, it'd punish people who simply didn't choose peace.
Not necessarily, since as DeinonSlayer indicated above, there actually isn't any version of the Rannoch outcome that supports the hypothesis of inevitable and destructive (of organics) conflict between synthetics and organics. If you sided with the Quarians, then organics beat synthetics; if you sided with the Geth, then sure synthetics won, but only with the help of first other synthetics (the Reapers, the supposed solution; if they're helping us, why are they siding with the Geth?) and second, organics (namely, Shepard and company). So no matter what you did, there should be something you can say to challenge the catalyst.
Personally, I think being able to argue with the catalyst is still a half measure; the catalyst was an ill-conceived plot device from the start, and was better off just never having existed. It was a mistake to have the villain be a source of a massive info-dump, and certainly in the original ending, the game seems quite tone-deaf to its status as a villain. I'm perfectly fine with the idea of large-scale losses and sacrifices, but the mechanisms by which these were delivered were precisely the wrong ones IMO.
You are you really mad at Iakus? The Catalyst or the Leviathans? The Catalyst didn't create the problem, the Leviathans did. It certainly made it worse because they gave it too much power to enforce an excessively vague mandate but it didn't start the madness. They did by teaching everything slavery was the way to go.
Within the story, yeah, the Leviathan should get the brunt of one's ire, but from a player's perspective, the issue I see with the Catalyst is that it doesn't seem so much like a character in the story, than it does an insertion of the author, trying to tell us what to do.
"I think we'd like to keep our own form."
"No, you can't"
"OMFG, f*ck you, man."
Since Dialogue has always played pivotal part in the series, it seems completely wasted that we couldn't have a battle of mind and wit with an ancient AI. If you had nearly maxed out Paragon/Renegade points, it would've been awesome to be able to attempt to prove the Catalyst wrong. You'd have to choose the proper counters to his argument that the dialogue wheels would present you. It'd be a nice challenge.
By the way, I'm really glad they didn't go this route. This logic-bomb yelling was ridiculous in Star Trek V (universally panned), it was ridiculous in Babylon 5 (resolving the war in that way has been repeatedly criticized), and it would've been ridiculous for Commander "Charisma" Shepard to do it here.
The EC fleshed the decisions out for sure, but the fundamental problems with the ending were still there. Like doing nothing but putting a band-aid over an infected wound, it doesn't get the treatment it needs.
It did what it could, without altering the framework of what's there. And it still beats the hell out of Drew K.'s dark energy decision.
Well that's one (of many) issues I had with the ending is that we weren't given a real chance to present our case. Since Dialogue has always played pivotal part in the series, it seems completely wasted that we couldn't have a battle of mind and wit with an ancient AI. If you had nearly maxed out Paragon/Renegade points, it would've been awesome to be able to attempt to prove the Catalyst wrong. You'd have to choose the proper counters to his argument that the dialogue wheels would present you. It'd be a nice challenge. Just seems to me that a smarter writer and developer would've done this, instead of "How many points do you have? Ok pick a color."
Personally, I would have preferred that the last dialogue in the game simply be between Shepard or Anderson, or, if there's to be some kind of info dump, it should be the "character" that has already been sort of serving as one earlier: Vendetta.
Vendetta was supposed to join with the Citadel/Crucible systems anyway, so it would make sense that it should explain what it knows of the device now that it's complete. The Catalyst doesn't really tell us anything of importance anyway. All that ascension gobblededook is for the birds.
Can't say I want to be forced to adhere to one side of the wheel for the entire trilogy to open such dialogue up. ME2 had the worst persuasion mechanic in the trilogy. Reputation was an improvement, but ideally I'd like to see redbar-bluebar (and the pavlovian mindset this instills in players) go away entirely.Well that's one (of many) issues I had with the ending is that we weren't given a real chance to present our case. Since Dialogue has always played pivotal part in the series, it seems completely wasted that we couldn't have a battle of mind and wit with an ancient AI. If you had nearly maxed out Paragon/Renegade points, it would've been awesome to be able to attempt to prove the Catalyst wrong. You'd have to choose the proper counters to his argument that the dialogue wheels would present you. It'd be a nice challenge. Just seems to me that a smarter writer and developer would've done this, instead of "How many points do you have? Ok pick a color."
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