47 réponses à ce sujet

[Beerfish]

Well we could have easily had a mass effect game with no space magic at all.  No Relays, no protheans, no reapers, no asari, no krogan, no normandy, no salarians, no giant space stations, no fancy weapons, no fancy A.I's, no travelling within the galaxy,....just keep going.

 

The big problem comes when people accept some things they deem as proper lore and assign space magic to something else.

 

In every single case so far I've seen on these forums 'space magic' simply is used as a derogatory term used in which the poster really just doesn't personally like a direction things have gone.

 

Anyone that condemns the next mass effect being in another galaxy and readily accepts any of the sci fi lore from the previous games is a big fat dumbo if you ask me.

[Cainhurst Crow]

Don't get me wrong, I love space magic if it facilitates awesome or fun stuff happening. Rule of cool is one of those things I like as a guilty pleasure.

But I'm talking about when space magic becomes plot magic. Like, "we need to build a super weapon from scratch whose function we dont know, In less then a years time....done". Or stuff like indoctrination having time delays or working instantly and being able to occur through any reaper items.

Or anything kai lang related. Where we need to have this plotpoint happen, and don't mnow how to do it. Boom, space magic becomes plot magic.

[mybudgee]

 

Look what techno babble did to Star Wars.

[SwobyJ]

My dislike of space magic in, say, Mass Effect isn't so much the space magic existing. I actually love a lot of scifi that goes into 'science' that is practically just magic by our understanding.

 

Mass Effect 1 - Very little space magic, though it was present. For the most part though, Bioware tried to explain themselves.

Mass Effect 2 - A little space magic, and it irked some people. What is 'genetic destiny'? What is 'deconstructive analysis to make a Terminator robot?' Why can't Bioware properly explain the plot, and the science of it, of their single game instead of leading us on for answers for the next game?

Mass Effect 3 - Wow they just aren't even trying now. SomethingsomethingrelayssomethingDNAsomethingsomethingquantumphysics. I'm sure there was science involved in everything, including Synthesis. But it rose up to a spiritual-faithful('just roll with it')-transcendental level that, ugh, just annoying, go away Synthesis, you're weird.

 

Now, I dislike this. BUT, I'm also crazy enough to think this is all intentional and part of a larger plan. BUT, I still think this is WEAK for each game taken as single games. It doesn't make me want to buy your single games. If you're going to do this, then stop pretending to be the ending of a definitive trilogy, and be open with the fact that you're trying to make chapters of a larger story that will continue to have questions and (importantly) answers.

 

If MEA has full on space magic, I hope it is still explained well enough in the single game. I can accept the Cypher, for example, if I can accept the idea that the Prothians used technology differently but understandably. This worked in ME1. The Crucible? Wtf was that haha.

 

 

In the end, I actually love space magic, I gotta admit. My first choice was Synthesis. I was fascinated even in ME2 with how the universe may be viewed by the Reapers and what really makes them. In another sense, I absolutely adore the Dragon Age: Inquisition changing take on the Fade and reality. Love it love it fuels allll my speculationz.

 

But it annoyed us in Mass Effect, by the end. It was too weird, in its placement in plot. It made us not enjoy our experience. Fine, its art - I even love the idea that this is very much a psychological experiment put on the player. Okay. If that's the case, then this is the time to (in the spirit of ethical experimentation) reveal to the subjects that they were in an experiment and promise to not do anything much like this ever again, so we can enjoy your games without feeling so manipulated. 

 

Space Magic = can be good

Space Magic feeling meaningless = just get off the stage...ugh

[SwobyJ]

Well we could have easily had a mass effect game with no space magic at all.  No Relays, no protheans, no reapers, no asari, no krogan, no normandy, no salarians, no giant space stations, no fancy weapons, no fancy A.I's, no travelling within the galaxy,....just keep going.

 

The big problem comes when people accept some things they deem as proper lore and assign space magic to something else.

 

In every single case so far I've seen on these forums 'space magic' simply is used as a derogatory term used in which the poster really just doesn't personally like a direction things have gone.

 

Anyone that condemns the next mass effect being in another galaxy and readily accepts any of the sci fi lore from the previous games is a big fat dumbo if you ask me.

 

I spoke with someone recently who seemed to have a good (though he repeated it so many times that it got annoying) view on this:

 

It isn't so bad that we're going to another galaxy. In fact, in some ways, it makes a lot of sense.

It isn't so bad that we're using some previously unknown tech to go to another galaxy. Like you were saying, frankly, we had this done since the first game. Its kind of a thing set up since the lore of the Prothian beacons lol.

 

But why are we going? What could possibly make us do this specific sort of ark trip? Why 'now'? What pushed us? How did we find the tech? Why does this all feel so random?

On one hand, there could be perfectly good reasons. I hope so. I think of a bunch, but I also think of a bunch of crazyass theories that have no proof, so don't trust me.

On the other hand, this could be complete asspull. Just ruleofcool things even more, again. Yay, Bioware not learning any lessons. Yayy....

 

I'm so damn torn on Mass Effect now, haha. Bipolar.

[Rawgrim]

Bothers me bigtime. Huge surprise, I know.

[SwobyJ]

When you agree to go out with a sci-fi piece of fiction set in space, you know going in that a certain amount of space magic is expected... and as long as we are all consenting individuals, it can be fun and enjoyable.

But when the fiction pulls out their space magic at the restaurant table, right in the middle of the date, with no prompting or forewarning, that's when I get disgusted. I'm the kind of girl who needs to be wined and dined by the lore before just hopping into bed with some random space magic. I've got standards.

 

I'm actually even okayish with 'random' space magic.

 

But some ME3 stuff just was utterly baffling. Like just weird bumps in even our immersion. Lots of 'WTF is happening here..??...'

 

DA can get away with a degree of space(or rather cosmic) magic because duh, magic. Oh, you just 'time traveled' in DAI? La de dah! Few care, its okay, we move on.

 

ME would be better off going with fantasy tech. As in it still needs a damn good explanation and reasoning and setup*, even if it does similar things to magic. ME3 had a bunch of 'NOTIMETOEXPLAINGOTTADOSOMETHINGWACKYANDISWEARITSTHERIGHTTHINGTODOWITHTHEBESTRESULTNOWDOITNAO!'

 

 

 

*This doesn't even mean reasoning and setup in the plot, but at least in how we experience the plot and can poke around in its corners. I think ME3 DID have this, but it was far far less than was needed. If very few people can remotely comprehend Synthesis, why are you even putting it in your story? (If its meant to be taken as legit. Obviously there's theories, the biggest being IT, that Synthesis *isn't* legit. Hehhh.)

[Fast Jimmy]

I spoke with someone recently who seemed to have a good (though he repeated it so many times that it got annoying) view on this:

It isn't so bad that we're going to another galaxy. In fact, in some ways, it makes a lot of sense.
It isn't so bad that we're using some previously unknown tech to go to another galaxy. Like you were saying, frankly, we had this done since the first game. Its kind of a thing set up since the lore of the Prothian beacons lol.

But why are we going? What could possibly make us do this specific sort of ark trip? Why 'now'? What pushed us? How did we find the tech? Why does this all feel so random?
On one hand, there could be perfectly good reasons. I hope so. I think of a bunch, but I also think of a bunch of crazyass theories that have no proof, so don't trust me.
On the other hand, this could be complete asspull. Just ruleofcool things even more, again. Yay, Bioware not learning any lessons. Yayy....

I'm so damn torn on Mass Effect now, haha. Bipolar.

That's the thing... the early thought is that the ark was sent out before the end of ME3 as a means of preserving life against the Reapers, should the worst have come to pass. That the tech was existent during the galaxy during the war AND that resources were diverted away from the war effort to do so is dauntingly silly.

But otherwise, how do you escape Synthesis? Or if they are going to be retconning/ignoring ending options, why even bother with a different galaxy, but instead just got to a previously unexplored area of the Milky Way?

[Teddie Sage]

Depends on the franchise. Otherwise I wouldn't be playing Star Ocean games.

[SwobyJ]

That's the thing... the early thought is that the ark was sent out before the end of ME3 as a means of preserving life against the Reapers, should the worst have come to pass. That the tech was existent during the galaxy during the war AND that resources were diverted away from the war effort to do so is dauntingly silly.

But otherwise, how do you escape Synthesis? Or if they are going to be retconning/ignoring ending options, why even bother with a different galaxy, but instead just got to a previously unexplored area of the Milky Way?

 

My insanity includes the Reapers being destroyed but the Milky Way messed up, Shepard becoming a Reaper (put very very simply), the ME3 world being in a Reaper, and the galaxy collecting itself and having some time to use tech to use other tech to take something to go to Andromeda, with ReaperNewShepThatIsn'tShep pursuing us for our own goodbutnotreally.

 

So basically ME3 was real but not real but effectively real in some ways but not real at all. End of Matrix, blah blah.

 

I should go.

 

[Fast Jimmy]

My insanity includes the Reapers being destroyed but the Milky Way messed up, Shepard becoming a Reaper (put very very simply), the ME3 world being in a Reaper, and the galaxy collecting itself and having some time to use tech to use other tech to take something to go to Andromeda, with ReaperNewShepThatIsn'tShep pursuing us for our own goodbutnotreally.

So basically ME3 was real but not real but effectively real in some ways but not real at all. End of Matrix, blah blah.

I should go.

As I said earlier... I'm not willing to swallow the pill (no Matrix pun intended) Bioware is going to give to us to even start this new game, so I really don't care what they do or how they go about it. How they move the story on into the next ME game is too incredulous for me to even consider... but to be fair (or unfair, depending on your perspective), I've been of that mind since ME3 came out.

[Han Shot First]

Depends on the space magic and how well it is sold in-universe.

 

Biotics and the mass effect for example are pure space magic. I'm able to suspend disbelief however because the Mass Effect series includes the fictional element zero, and a suitable technobabble explanation for both in the lore. 

[Torgette]

Bad Boys 2 is more scientifically accurate than Star Trek or Star Wars.

[Dobbysaurus]

No, I don't care. It's just a video game, not real life.

[Voxr]

 

 

 

It'll be fine.

[Gravisanimi]

Depends on the space magic and how well it is sold in-universe.

This.

 

Mass Effect has plenty of both well implemented and terribly explained space magic.

 

For me space magic is defined as incompletely explained scientific processes unique to the universe.

 

E.g.:Everything about the use of Element Zero.

 

Then there's freaking Ar Tonelico/Ar noSurge.

 

It tells you how the universe works on a quantum level, and uses it as build up for the rest of the technology.

 

But they don't even keep pretenses and just all it Song Magic.

[In Exile]

My dislike of space magic in, say, Mass Effect isn't so much the space magic existing. I actually love a lot of scifi that goes into 'science' that is practically just magic by our understanding.

Mass Effect 1 - Very little space magic, though it was present. For the most part though, Bioware tried to explain themselves.
Mass Effect 2 - A little space magic, and it irked some people. What is 'genetic destiny'? What is 'deconstructive analysis to make a Terminator robot?' Why can't Bioware properly explain the plot, and the science of it, of their single game instead of leading us on for answers for the next game?
Mass Effect 3 - Wow they just aren't even trying now. SomethingsomethingrelayssomethingDNAsomethingsomethingquantumphysics. I'm sure there was science involved in everything, including Synthesis. But it rose up to a spiritual-faithful('just roll with it')-transcendental level that, ugh, just annoying, go away Synthesis, you're weird.

Now, I dislike this. BUT, I'm also crazy enough to think this is all intentional and part of a larger plan. BUT, I still think this is WEAK for each game taken as single games. It doesn't make me want to buy your single games. If you're going to do this, then stop pretending to be the ending of a definitive trilogy, and be open with the fact that you're trying to make chapters of a larger story that will continue to have questions and (importantly) answers.

If MEA has full on space magic, I hope it is still explained well enough in the single game. I can accept the Cypher, for example, if I can accept the idea that the Prothians used technology differently but understandably. This worked in ME1. The Crucible? Wtf was that haha.


In the end, I actually love space magic, I gotta admit. My first choice was Synthesis. I was fascinated even in ME2 with how the universe may be viewed by the Reapers and what really makes them. In another sense, I absolutely adore the Dragon Age: Inquisition changing take on the Fade and reality. Love it love it fuels allll my speculationz.

But it annoyed us in Mass Effect, by the end. It was too weird, in its placement in plot. It made us not enjoy our experience. Fine, its art - I even love the idea that this is very much a psychological experiment put on the player. Okay. If that's the case, then this is the time to (in the spirit of ethical experimentation) reveal to the subjects that they were in an experiment and promise to not do anything much like this ever again, so we can enjoy your games without feeling so manipulated.

Space Magic = can be good
Space Magic feeling meaningless = just get off the stage...ugh

ME1 was filled with space magic. In fact every single story sequence turned on some serious space magic.

[Kaiser Arian XVII]

 

She's too average to be a Heroine... I mean the only good thing about her is, her eyes.

[Rawgrim]

She's too average to be a Heroine... I mean the only good thing about her is, her eyes.

 

"She's got it where it counts, kid!"

[blahblahblah]

ME1 was filled with space magic. In fact every single story sequence turned on some serious space magic.

If you're talking about the asari, quarians and their physiology yeah its very space magicky.

[Fast Jimmy]

If you're talking about the asari, quarians and their physiology yeah its very space magicky.

I think he's rather talking about Element Zero, how it creates a Mass Effect field and his that fuels every bit of technology from space travel to guns to the epitome of space magic, biotics.

There is an attempt at an explanation (this random substance can somehow cause matter to disobey the laws of physics), but it is still has zero basis in actual reality and is just plausible space magic. Conversely, plugging a large MacGuffin into another large MacGuffin to power the ability to send an energy wave that converts the biology of ONLY sentient creatures into a hybrid of machine and organic material (and obtaining someone's "essence DNA" to do so by having them jump into a pillar of light) is so incredibly space magic that it might as well be called space religion instead.

[Fast Jimmy]

"She's got it where it counts, kid!"

Quoted for awesome quote application.