1394 réponses à ce sujet

[Vazgen]

Mini Normandy in the galaxy map of ME2 and ME3. Absolutely ridiculous

[themikefest]

While walking along the hallway to open the arms, Anderson and Shepard have no problem hearing and talking to one another and then there's some kind of interference. Was it TIM that caused the interference? After the arms are opened, Hackett is able to talk to Shepard. Not sure if he hears Shepard

 

The other thing is, why didn't Hackett send a shuttle to that location? Why didn't Shepard try to talk with Hackett after regaining consciousness? I know he/she is listening/talking with the catalyst, but still surprised Shepard made no attempt to contact Hackett

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

I have this one figured out. See, at this moment in time, Shepard was sprawled on the floor next to Anderson. We have Schrodinger's Shepard both alive and dead at the same time, trapped between life and death. Shepard is trying to hang on to life, but has to give in to death. The entire scene with the Catalyst takes place inside Shepard's head. It is where the game, out of nowhere, got mystical. Everything is symbolic. Shepard has to make the choice. Who are you? What do you want? If Shepard embraces the reapers' or The Illusive Man's logic, Shepard dies. If Shepard thinks of the person she loves and embraces her mission, she lives (assuming she did a sufficient job unifying the galaxy). Shepard takes the breath, and if you played iOS you were supposed to receive a message in the iOS app stating that your LI couldn't wait to visit you in ICU if you had this linked to your gamer account.

 

The Mass Effect series was ripped off from Babylon 5 and the new Battlestar Galactica and several other places. The mystical settings may have made sense in those series, but Mass Effect never went there until the last 10 minutes. So in context with the rest of the story, what @themikefest writes doesn't make any sense if we take it at face value like we should.

[ExoGeniVI]

This is my topic lol

[themikefest]

This is something I posted in the I discovered thread last year

 

Before arriving on Eden Prime, Ashley is seen in the vid and then a moment later it shows Sovereign. When we finally see Sovereign leaving, Ashley acts like she never seen the ship before by saying look at the size of it. If she did, why didn't she mention it before we see Sovereign?

[Treacherous J Slither]

I'll tell you something that doesn't make sense.

How badly salarians got shafted in multiplayer. The freakin volus outnumber them ffs. So sad.

[Treacherous J Slither]

Something else that doesn't make sense is how the most powerful biotics in multiplayer are human. Ridiculous.

[Laughing_Man]

Something else that doesn't make sense is how the most powerful biotics in multiplayer are human. Ridiculous.

 

Well, not necessarily. If you are someone unscrupulous like Cerberus, and are willing to steal every race out there and cut them open to see what makes them tick, and then aggressively use implantation on your soldiers, it's quite believable.

 

I mean think about it, Subject Zero, their prototype biotic badass was more or less comparable to Samara - a frickin Justicar in power. (a shame it was not translated into gameplay)

 

Regarding the Salarians on MP, they are simply not interesting enough to make many people play them. That said, some of them are quite powerful.

[Cknarf]

Well, first of all, it never made much sense to me that Shep and company just walked around armed on the citadel in ME1 or 2. I always chalked that one up to gameplay restrictions but in retrospect, I do think it would have been much better if you would wear your casual outfit on the citadel (at least the presidium) in ME1/2 just like you do in ME3.

 

 

How are you supposed to blast Harkin's drink off the table if you can't bring your guns to Chora's Den? Come on, man!

[Iakus]

How are you supposed to blast Harkin's drink off the table if you can't bring your guns to Chora's Den? Come on, man!

Or pull a gun on Conrad Verner.

Or threaten to kill everyone in a C-Sec interogation room and get away clean, because Spectre!

or have Garrus kill SIdonis with a high powered rifle

Or have a gunfight in a clinic!

 

[Laughing_Man]

I thought exactly the opposite - going around the citadel without weapons and armor during ME3 made no sense at all.

 

As a Spectre you are allowed more freedoms than the average C-Sec grunt, and considering how laughably unsafe the citadel is,

going in armed and armored is the sensible approach.

 

And if not a full load, at least carry a pistol. As it is, every time something happened, Shep was miraculously saved by someone else, or "found" a pistol.

I found this immersion-breaking in the extreme.

[Arisugawa]

Just finished a trilogy run. I have many of these in mind, but I don't know how motivated I am to write them.

 

 

The importance of the Prothean Cipher is forgotten

 

It's pretty much ignored entirely in Mass Effect 2: there is the beacon message viewed during N7: Archeological Dig Site and the recovered sphere in Project Firewalker: Prothean Site, but if the cipher is meaningful in these two situations it happens within Shepard's mind and is not shown to the player.

 

In Mass Effect 3, the cipher comes into play in a significant sense twice: once, when trying to awaken Javik, and a second time when investigating the Temple of Athame on Thessia.

 

However, it is completely forgotten in other circumstances. Let's accept that what Shiala told Shepard on Feros is true: the cipher is the experience of being prothean. It allows one to understand the language, the culture, and the people. Shiala did say it would take time to fully understand it, of course, so some forgiveness may be given for the fact that Shepard had weeks between obtaining the cipher and the collector attack over Alchera. Shepard's mind would have had time to process the cipher after the Lazarus Project, however, but no progress on this front was ever made.

 

Here are some things to think about:

 

• In Mass Effect 3, Liara is constantly complaining that she needs better prothean material to work with to help decipher the Crucible plans. Well, Shepard is the walking codex of prothean comprehension. The knowledge may not necessarily be accessible immediately, but it is there. There's no explanation at all as to why Liara doesn't gain the cipher herself by bonding with Shepard's mind. If Shiala can absorb it from the Thorian and share it with both Saren and Shepard, Liara should be able to do the same. Or if not Liara, another asari with Shiala's skill level. Liara, or whomever, could then share it with whomever was working on the Crucible project with the need of the knowledge. The majority of the prothean artifact collection assignments become instantly irrelevant. The Crucible is finished faster, or at least any phase that isn't dependent upon obtaining additional construction materials would be.
• In Mass Effect 3, Shepard tells Javik that the prothean psychometric ability is puzzling. But that's just it. It shouldn't be. With the cipher, Shepard should either already understand it outright, or the first experience with it should have awakened the cipher memory so that it was then understood. The whole thing is a mess, likely because the writers needed to have someone be utterly ignorant of how it worked and that requires Shepard to ask questions, but Shepard is not the one who should be asking questions. Shepard should know.
• Shepard's relationship with Javik should be much, much different than portrayed. Shepard would be the only person in the galaxy that would actually understand Javik, know why Javik's perspective is the way it is, comprehend the imperialist nature the protheans had. Even if Shepard disagreed with Javik, the cipher should have made Shepard someone Javik could at least feel more comfortable around.
• In Mass Effect 3, Shepard shouldn't have to ask about the Echo Shard from the perspective of ignorance. Again, Shepard should know what the shards are, even if the specifics of the one Javik has are not known.
• In Leviathan, while searching Bryson's lab, Shepard asks EDI if a particular artifact is prothean. Shepard should know this. If anything, EDI should be asking Shepard to confirm that it is prothean.

 

More example exist, scattered throughout the trilogy. These are the just the ones that immediately come to mind.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Or pull a gun on Conrad Verner.

Or threaten to kill everyone in a C-Sec interogation room and get away clean, because Spectre!

or have Garrus kill SIdonis with a high powered rifle

Or have a gunfight in a clinic!

 

 

Twice!

 

Yeah, Garrus using a high powered rifle on Sidonis and no one noticed.   Remember, it's some story an old man made up and told his great grandkid.

 

"Some of the details have been lost with time. It all happened so long ago...."

[Hulluliini]

Something I've always wondered and I'd appreciate if someone could give a good explanation:

 

How come is it ethical for Shepard to mine resources from planets that are already inhabited? Moreover, when the probe lands, the sound is quite heavy. What if it landed on some poor soul and killed that person??

 

It really bothers me that I'm forced to mine minerals, yet it feels very wrong to deplete even new uninhabited worlds ... how can they ever be settled if Shepard has depleted all resources? Or at least, the 4 mineral types s/he needs..

[MrFob]

@Arisugawa: You assume that the cypher translates a whole lot of specific knowledge that Shepard (or anyone who has it) can consciously access. I as always under the impression (ever since playing ME1 for the first time) that the cypher is rather something that acts on the subconscious level.
Remember, even in ME1, Shepard still need to get any kind of specific information from other sources, e.g. the two beacons, even on Therum Liara has to tell him/her how to operate the controls in the prothean ruins. As for the crucible, yes, Shepard now has an understanding of the prothean language but people in the ME universe were already able to translate written prothean anyway. So the difficulties with the crucible are not so much a language issue but rather an issue of understanding the blueprints themselves.

So in general, I am ok with the fact that Shep doesn't just know everything about the protheans all of a sudden. The cypher is kept sufficiently vague to accommodate that.
 
 
On a different note, here is one that always boggled me:

This is supposedly the main gun of the geth dreadnought. We know that mass accelerators are basically supposed to be magnetic accelerators, that (with the help of ME fields) propel metal slugs to almost relativistic speeds. Now, I am not an engineer but I'd have thought, if you are going to do that, a barrel that is actually straight might be a good idea.

[Arisugawa]

@Arisugawa: You assume that the cypher translates a whole lot of specific knowledge that Shepard (or anyone who has it) can consciously access. I as always under the impression (ever since playing ME1 for the first time) that the cypher is rather something that acts on the subconscious level.
Remember, even in ME1, Shepard still need to get any kind of specific information from other sources, e.g. the two beacons, even on Therum Liara has to tell him/her how to operate the controls in the prothean ruins. As for the crucible, yes, Shepard now has an understanding of the prothean language but people in the ME universe were already able to translate written prothean anyway. So the difficulties with the crucible are not so much a language issue but rather an issue of understanding the blueprints themselves.

So in general, I am ok with the fact that Shep doesn't just know everything about the protheans all of a sudden. The cypher is kept sufficiently vague to accommodate that.
 

 

That's my point, Fob. The information is only available when it's convenient for the writers.

 

It's never awoken by experience with things. For example, Javik touches Shepard, Shepard experiences the memory transfer of the ancient battle of Eden Prime.

 

This sparks no memory at all from the cipher, when it should, if the cipher is the experience of being prothean. But it doesn't. Several weeks or months later, when Shepard talks to Javik again, the experience is still as alien to Shepard as it was the first time.

 

SOMETHING should have triggered understanding within the cipher.

[Vortex13]

Going off the Geth, why do robotic units with no need for oxygen, gravity, or even the room to walk around (they're all programs) make their ships with sealed interiors, interior gravity, and contain walkways, ladders, and easy to access computer terminals?

 

 

I liked how the Loa of the Sword of the Stars universe handled their ships. Everything was automated by internal software, and the Loa ships could support more guns than organic races because they didn't have to use space for a crew and this fact made their ships immune to boarding actions.

 

 

 

Going off the that topic to hazardous environments, why is it that a breather mask is totally acceptable when entering a vacuum, or caustic atmosphere? I don't care how bad*** a biotic Jack is, having your (practically) naked body exposed to the harsh extremes of outer space or an atmosphere composed primarily of ammonia is not good for one's health, let alone conductive to running around and shooting at enemies in a combat zone.

[MrFob]

*snip*

 

SOMETHING should have triggered understanding within the cipher.

 

That is what you may think but my point is, the cypher is an entirely fictional form of pseudo-telepathy with no established rules. Maybe that is what irks you about it and that is fair enough but in terms of making sense, I think that the entire concept is so vague and so far out there, that the writers are allowed to do with it whatever they want.

For example, you are saying, the cypher should be given to a lot of people. Who knows, it may be that only the thorian could properly transfer it and that Shiala could only transfer it to Shepard because right after coming out of the thorian, she was still under the influence of some after effect that vanished. Did I pull that explanations out of my a$$? Of course I did but it's just as valid as you saying what exactly should trigger something in Shepard.

You may say it's kinda bad writing to have such a mechanism without rules and I might even agree (although this is a very common writing tool in science fiction). But as long as there are no facts established, the writers have free reigns. Doesn't mean you have to like it all but it doesn't mean that it is inconsistent either.

[Treacherous J Slither]

Well, not necessarily. If you are someone unscrupulous like Cerberus, and are willing to steal every race out there and cut them open to see what makes them tick, and then aggressively use implantation on your soldiers, it's quite believable.

I mean think about it, Subject Zero, their prototype biotic badass was more or less comparable to Samara - a frickin Justicar in power. (a shame it was not translated into gameplay)

Regarding the Salarians on MP, they are simply not interesting enough to make many people play them. That said, some of them are quite powerful.

Naaah man. The N7 Fury isn't ex Cerberus. Neither is the N7 Slayer. Both of these powerhouses are all Alliance. Dirty Cerby had nothing to do with them being able to TELEPORT THROUGH FREAKING WALLS.

Salarians are just as interesting as any of the other main races and the developers could have done plenty with them. Instead they decided to make even more humans. >_>

[Vortex13]

Naaah man. The N7 Fury isn't ex Cerberus. Neither is the N7 Slayer. Both of these powerhouses are all Alliance. Dirty Cerby had nothing to do with them being able to TELEPORT THROUGH FREAKING WALLS.

Salarians are just as interesting as any of the other main races and the developers could have done plenty with them. Instead they decided to make even more humans. >_>

 

 

Don't you know? 

 

 

Humans are the BESTEST RACE EVER! 

 

Plus it's obvious that the species that was the first to lose their home world to the Reapers would have the most forces to contribute to the fight. 

[Undead Han]

Something I've always wondered and I'd appreciate if someone could give a good explanation:

 

How come is it ethical for Shepard to mine resources from planets that are already inhabited? Moreover, when the probe lands, the sound is quite heavy. What if it landed on some poor soul and killed that person??

 

It really bothers me that I'm forced to mine minerals, yet it feels very wrong to deplete even new uninhabited worlds ... how can they ever be settled if Shepard has depleted all resources? Or at least, the 4 mineral types s/he needs..

 

I think the 'depleted' thing is just a gameplay mechanic and not really the Normandy depleting an entire world of it's resources. The Normandy is just one ship, and a tiny one at that. We've been mining our own planet for millenia and have yet to run out of resources. 

 

If anything maybe the Normandy is just skimming some resources that are easily detected and recoverable on the surface. So you've depleted everything that your small probe could extract from the surface in the area it touched down, but there is still a whole planet's worth of resources that could be extracted by miners with heavier equipment.

 

To compare it to gold mining...the Normandy would be the equivalent of the guy with a pan scooping gold dust out of the river. Meanwhile a few miles upstream and beneath a mountain, there are entire veins of gold that run for miles, and that the panner can't get to.

[MrFob]

Forget the mining though. In ME3 (Leviathan DLC), Shepard steals food packages from a bunch of Turian colonists that are in the process of being starved to death by the reapers. Ah, the evil deeds we do for war assets.

[Iakus]

Forget the mining though. In ME3 (Leviathan DLC), Shepard steals food packages from a bunch of Turian colonists that are in the process of being starved to death by the reapers. Ah, the evil deeds we do for war assets.

But on the plus side, this means Garrus and Tali don't starve

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

Something I've always wondered and I'd appreciate if someone could give a good explanation:

 

How come is it ethical for Shepard to mine resources from planets that are already inhabited? Moreover, when the probe lands, the sound is quite heavy. What if it landed on some poor soul and killed that person??

 

It really bothers me that I'm forced to mine minerals, yet it feels very wrong to deplete even new uninhabited worlds ... how can they ever be settled if Shepard has depleted all resources? Or at least, the 4 mineral types s/he needs..

 

How do you think Cerberus got enough money and resources to transform into the military juggernaut between ME2 and ME3? Do you really think all of those "research units" went to Shepard?

[Iakus]

How do you think Cerberus got enough money and resources to transform into the military juggernaut between ME2 and ME3? Do you really think all of those "research units" went to Shepard?

I thought it was that paperclip patent