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[AlanC9]

Not everything has to be explained in a sci-fi game. There are always things beyond the understanding of even the greatest minds. The trouble comes when you try to explain things in ways that are silly or unscientific though presented as scientific and logical.

Perhaps for some things. I don't think you can get away with handwaving the basic motivation of the opposing side that way in sci-fi.

We could try digging up some of the pre-ME3 speculation threads. My recollection is that very few of us wanted to go the mystery route, but it'd be interesting to see how this stuff played back then. I suppose I could start by looking for my own posts with the right date and "cop-out" in the text.

[Steppenwolf]

True, but back in 2005 EA wasnt the publisher and the game was supposed to be a Xbox 360 exclusive.
When EA took over the scope changed and it became more about "expanding" the audience and multiplayer.

I don't see how changing publishers between the first two games could account for them forgetting that they had to tell a story in three parts across three games. They very clearly never had a plan for the story of the trilogy or each game in mind before they were making the subsequent games. I don't see what EA or multiplayer in ME3 have to do with that. The writers of ME2 and ME3 weren't preoccupied with multiplayer when they were writing those games.

Perhaps for some things. I don't think you can get away with handwaving the basic motivation of the opposing side that way in sci-fi.
We could try digging up some of the pre-ME3 speculation threads. My recollection is that very few of us wanted to go the mystery route, but it'd be interesting to see how this stuff played back then. I suppose I could start by looking for my own posts with the right date and "cop-out" in the text.

Science fiction is just a setting. It doesn't have different rules from other settings. Writing is writing. Things can be unknowable in sci-fi just as easily as in any other genre/setting. If The Sopranos can end by suddenly cutting to black then the Reapers can be ambiguous and unknowable.

[AlanC9]

Science fiction is just a setting. It doesn't have different rules from other settings. Writing is writing. Things can be unknowable in sci-fi just as easily as in any other genre/setting. If The Sopranos can end by suddenly cutting to black then the Reapers can be ambiguous and unknowable.

I don't agree with your concept of genre. You can put me in the camp which says that Star Wars is fantasy in SF trappings.

And the Sopranos isn't really related to the topic.

[wolfhowwl]

I don't see how changing publishers between the first two games could account for them forgetting that they had to tell a story in three parts across three games. They very clearly never had a plan for the story of the trilogy or each game in mind before they were making the subsequent games. I don't see what EA or multiplayer in ME3 have to do with that. The writers of ME2 and ME3 weren't preoccupied with multiplayer when they were writing those games.

Expanding the audience and improving accessibility could be blamed for streamlining the RPG elements and having action based combat but that might not even be a bad thing given how poor and shallow the RPG elements were to begin with and how unfun the initial combat was.

The writing, you're right, that's on BioWare.
 

Science fiction is just a setting. It doesn't have different rules from other settings. Writing is writing. Things can be unknowable in sci-fi just as easily as in any other genre/setting. If The Sopranos can end by suddenly cutting to black then the Reapers can be ambiguous and unknowable.

Even if they hadn't already pulled away a lot of the mystery in ME1 and then went further in ME2, I still would think that if you're going to spend three games on an antagonist there should be a revelation of a motive for them.

ME3 is more of a statement about the importance of execution and not delivering a poorly written and presented reveal.

Other works such as Revelation Space, Xeelee Sequence, and even the anime Gurren Lagaan (lol) managed to have antagonists that weren't as botched as Mass Effect.

Although if BioWare was really gutsy and the narrative had you losing in ME3 (as the galaxy probably should) I would be fine with you never knowing.

[RoboticWater]

Even if they hadn't already pulled away a lot of the mystery in ME1 and then went further in ME2, I still would think that if you're going to spend three games on an antagonist there should be a revelation of a motive for them.

Considering that the best parts of ME3 (Rannoch and Tuchanka) barely involved the Reapers (directly, that is), I think the Reapers could have easily remained a mystery. Their presence would merely be a catalyst for the cultural upheaval happening throughout the galaxy. Our lack of understanding for the Reapers would reflect the lack of understanding we had for the society as a whole. I think it would have been a very effective message that even the most advanced civilizations can kill themselves with apathy.

 

If ME3 didn't include the ending or the two Reaper fights, that's essentially what it would have been. 

 

I'm also fine with the direction ME2 tried to take. It showed that even these Old Gods were just as fallible as us, and if you foil their plans, they'll seek petty revenge. It would've perfectly explained why they attacked Earth first rather than the Citadel in ME3. But of course, BioWare chose the infinitely worse third option.

[dreamgazer]

ME2 also posited that these "old gods" and their 50k waiting periods between civilizational and technological apexes had a spectacularly moronic, inefficient, and ultimately risky means of reproduction. Reproduction! There needed to be a reason for it all, from the relays to their baby Terminators, and what was delivered edges out some of the alternatives.

[wolfhowwl]

As much as I love ME2, this was terrible. I admit, I want the giant Cthulu robots of ME1 back. Not the hybrids.

 

 

Fortunately, this is only the end of ME2. I still enjoy it for the world building they did there.

 

I'm not sure the Sovereign was all the Cthulu-like but a different idea they had during ME2 development was better than the hybrid foolishness.

 

 

Reapers were using nanotech disassemblers to perform "destructive analysis" on humans, with the intent of learning how to build a Reaper body that could upload their minds intact. Once this was complete, humans throughout the galaxy would be rounded up to have their personalities and memories forcibly uploaded into the Reaper's memory banks. (You can still hear some suggestions of this in the background chatter during Legion's acquisition mission, which I wrote.) There was nothing about Reapers being techno-organic or partly built out of human corpses -- they were pure tech.

[Cheviot]

I don't agree with your concept of genre. You can put me in the camp which says that Star Wars is fantasy in SF trappings.

And the Sopranos isn't really related to the topic.

Though the ambiguity of the Sopranos ending was a source of anger for some fans, and caused a lot of speculation for everyone.

[NCR Deathsquad]

Yes it is, but the next ME game comes with a lot of demands it didn't.

- It's going to be a shooter where we kill hundreds or even thousands of enemies.

- We're going to have a ship, a crew, and (unfortunately) very likely a whole stupid one-player empire. That kind of scale necessitates a comparative threat to give all of those resources something to do.

- It's pretty much guaranteed to attempt and be a 'heroic' story. (I have serious doubts it's actually going to end up achieving that, but the point is that's what BioWare is going to attempt.)

- It's very unlikely they're going to abandon the style of the previous game of big choices and so forth.

i hope they tone down on the shooting i hope they go with the mass effect 1 route of introducing the planet and starting us off in a peaceful semi open world (noveria) rather than dropping us off to fight wave after wave of enemies in a corridor shooter (the turian missions on tuchanka)

[Iakus]

Though the ambiguity of the Sopranos ending was a source of anger for some fans, and caused a lot of speculation for everyone.

Sopranos

Lost

Battlestar Galactica

 

When will they learn that jerking the audience around is more likely than not to blow up in your face?

[laudable11]

I wouldn't say they were dumbed down they just missed their mark. Remember the Prothian mission on Ilos? They interrupted Sovereign's signal to wake the other Reapers.

Galactic civilizations progressed to the point where they could defend themselves. They had more time to prepare than any other civilization.

[SNascimento]

Galactic civilizations progressed to the point where they could defend themselves. They had more time to prepare than any other civilization.

The Protheans did buy the last circle more time, but I don't think it translated in it being better prepared to fight the reapers. It seems to me the Protheans were much better at war making than the currect circle.

[sH0tgUn jUliA]

BSG? I really didn't see any other way to end it. It had to end somewhere. The only thing that didn't make sense was the Kara Thrace thing - that could have been handled a lot better.

 

Lost lost me in season 2.

 

I didn't have showtime.

 

 

I wouldn't say they were dumbed down they just missed their mark. Remember the Prothian mission on Ilos? They interrupted Sovereign's signal to wake the other Reapers.

Galactic civilizations progressed to the point where they could defend themselves. They had more time to prepare than any other civilization.

 

Yeah, this was a nice ass pull decided around the time Arrival was written. I thought the Catalyst controlled the reapers, not Sovereign. And yet our cycle was still primitive compared to the Protheans. There are so many contradictions in Mass Effect lore vs the story and the game. Then the comics that were written after the games to fill in the holes - and they were big ones.

 

The reapers never needed explanation. They just needed to be defeated, and they couldn't possibly be defeated because even in the face of hard evidence our cycle's leaders were written to be dumber than rocks starting immediately after the end of ME1.

 

The ME3 ending, if they take our choices seriously, which I hope they really don't and just make a canon for the series, makes any kind of decent sequel impossible unless it's in another galaxy. Ark theory - that could take place after ME1 - the Council makes a big ship powered by a drive core theorized by asari scientists (sorry it has to be human scientists because humans are special - even though the asari have that secret archive) and sends it out to Andromeda before the reaper invasion. We'll see Asari, Human, Turian, and Salarian + new races.

[dreamgazer]

I'm not sure the Sovereign was all the Cthulu-like but a different idea they had during ME2 development was better than the hybrid foolishness.

It's an interesting alternative, I agree, but it makes one wonder why they wouldn't have chosen the asari for that task given their consciousness bridging abilities, let alone not made any progress with the Protheans in that spectrum given the beacon's ability to upload mental info.

[Sanunes]

Sopranos

Lost

Battlestar Galactica

 

When will they learn that jerking the audience around is more likely than not to blow up in your face?

 

I am not sure if it would qualify as "jerking the audience around" would be the right term, I think it would be trying to be unexpected with the conclusion for that is what they all seemed to have expect for Lost for they were trying to be unexpected for most of the series.  Then again the comments against Mad Men and the people upset about its conclusion is starting to show that people just don't want their fixations to ever end. Which I think parallels some of the criticism around the ending for Mass Effect 3 as well.

 

Edit:

 

I am interested to see how Game of Thrones ends and the reaction to that, for that fanbase seems to be more intense then most I have encountered outside of anime.

Modifié par Sanunes, 24 mai 2015 - 01:03 .

[camphor]

The main reason we don't need Reapers is that a few thousand skyscraper sized aliens are terrible enemies for a third person shooter. No resolution to that would ever be satisfying, because it was a threat you can't fight without a deus ex machina.

 

There absolutely should be an overarching threat, but just keep it something the protagonist can actually fight directly.

I disagree although i am in no way saying that this is how it should have went the argument could have been made that with thannix cannons and all the races combined and the crucible doing something like shorting out reaper sheilds (or not really wouldent have mattered) that what we seen of reapers is ME3 they could have been beaten with sheer force....arguably i mean that would have changed the ending into a lord of the rings esk giant battle with us winning but it could have been written in i mean we took one out with a lazer pointer

[goishen]

The Reapers really only work as a vague concept. As they became more fleshed out they got dumber.

 

 

Ehhhh, not really.  

 

They were an unknown threat, for sure.  They were an unknowable threat, definitely.  They didn't get dumber the more they got fleshed out, it's just you knew more about them.  Goliath is a whole lot less intimidating if you're looking at him.  

 

It's the fear of the unknown and unknowable that BioWare capitalized on and they scored tremendously.  This is underscored in every speech that a reaper gives to Shepard.  "You cannot understand."  "Confidence born of arrogance." 

[Steppenwolf]

Ehhhh, not really.  

 

They were an unknown threat, for sure.  They were an unknowable threat, definitely.  They didn't get dumber the more they got fleshed out, it's just you knew more about them.  Goliath is a whole lot less intimidating if you're looking at him.  

 

It's the fear of the unknown and unknowable that BioWare capitalized on and they scored tremendously.  This is underscored in every speech that a reaper gives to Shepard.  "You cannot understand."  "Confidence born of arrogance." 

 

...you didn't counter my point at all. The more we found out about the Reapers the dumber they were.

[Mcfly616]

Their story has been told. I haven't heard anyone  suggesting we "need" them in the next game.

[Mcfly616]

Perhaps for some things. I don't think you can get away with handwaving the basic motivation of the opposing side that way in sci-fi.

We could try digging up some of the pre-ME3 speculation threads. My recollection is that very few of us wanted to go the mystery route, but it'd be interesting to see how this stuff played back then. I suppose I could start by looking for my own posts with the right date and "cop-out" in the text.

Hindsight is 20/20. Post-ME3 there's people out there that say that BW should've just left the Reapers as a mystery. To which all I can do is laugh. If Bioware didn't even attempt to explain anything about the Reapers -origins, motives, the cycles- there would've been a backlash on par with that of the pre-EC endings.

 

Good sci-fi isn't your average action movie romp you just throw a malevolent figure into and say "Here's the bad guy. They're bad because they just are." People may still think the endings are bad. But if you take the main thing driving the narrative forward throughout the trilogy (stopping the Reaper threat) and boil them down to nothing but one dimensional cartoon villains, it would've been full-retard.

[goishen]

...you didn't counter my point at all. The more we found out about the Reapers the dumber they were.

 

 

No, I kind'a did.   It's a mystery box.   You like the idea of a vague looming threat.  We all do.  It's what got us all hooked.  As soon as we learned more though, you thought that it was dumb.  But you also know that stories need to have a middle and an end, correct?  I don't wanna sound overly critical here, but you sound to me like one of those kids who gets (or got) extremely excited on those camping trips telling ghost stories and about the fourth line in, "Awww man, this is dumb!  There's no insane asylum four miles up the road!"