588 réponses à ce sujet

[Pasquale1234]

There is no acceptable way that the start of ME:A happening before the ending of ME3. The rectonning would be beyond preposterous since jumping galaxy to galaxy is something so far out of the reach of the Citadel & Council races grasp it's laughable to think it.

I frequently see this argument along with the claim that it is impossible for the Council races to glean technology from Sovereign, the derelict reaper Cerberus was studying in ME2, Prothean artifacts scattered throughout the galaxy, etc., in the timeframes allowed and without Shepard's knowledge. Oh, and it would be "impossible" to build an ark during that time because *all* of the galaxy's resources were devoted to the Crucible - except that Cerberus somehow managed to go from spending most of their resources on the Lazarus Project and construction of the SR-2 in ME2, yet still somehow managed to accumulate quite a fleet, multiple spacestations and outposts, train and equip quite a few troops, and conduct a lot of research during that same timeframe. (Not to mention they had better intel than any other organization in the galaxy, including the Shadow Broker.)

But let's look at the premise of humanity's entrance onto the galactic stage:

2147 - Trace amounts of eezo, a previously unknown substance, were discovered on Mars.

2148 - Humanity discovers a cache of Prothean technology on Mars - and voila! Instant FTL travel and further exploration of the system.

2149 - Following information from the translated data cache on Mars, humans discover that Charon, Pluto's moon, is actually a massive piece of dormant Prothean technology, a mass relay, encased in ice. Once activated, Jon Grissom leads the first team of explorers through the relay, which instantaneously transports them to another relay in Arcturus, 36 light-years away. The explorers discover that the mass relays are part of a vast network, making travel across the galaxy possible.

Oh, and the Systems Alliance Charter is signed by the 18 largest nations on Earth.

So - within a year after discovering a Prothean archive, Humanity has figured out how to translate a dead alien language, figured out how / where to mine and manage eezo stores, figured out how to remove the ice from a mass relay, activate and use it, and got 18 nations to agree to the terms of a pact. Cool.

2150 - The Systems Alliance begins the first surveys for colonization prospects outside the Sol System. One of these surveys discovers the planet Terra Nova.

2151 - To defend its expanding territory, humanity begins constructing a massive military fleet and space station at Arcturus, the nexus of several key mass relays, even though they have yet to encounter another intelligent spacefaring race.

Apparently, all of the resources needed to construct that massive military fleet and Arcturus Station (which housed 45,000 people) came from Earth. By 2155, they were occupying completed portions of the station, and in 2156, it was formally inaugurated (whatever that means.)

2152 - The first human colonies founded on Demeter, Eden Prime, and Terra Nova. Apparently, they'd somehow figured out the whole colonization thing and had plenty of time and resources to construct colonization ships (?), housing pods, etc., and transports to get everything there.

We spent much of ME2 getting our mitts on technology (given to us by squadmates, scanned from stuff we found on missions, or purchased from vendors) - never questioning the who / what / why / where / how of the origins of that technology. We simply spent some resources to bring it to fruition, and it was ours to use. And let's not get started on the Lazarus Project...

In ME3's opening Mars mission, Liara voices uncertainty about Prothean translations (despite being an acknowledged expert and having studied them for 50+ years), and we see notes and remarks about the volume of material there that has yet to be studied. TIM even makes a comment about having squandered it.

We also see TIM researching reaper technology, and achieving enough to have mastered some portions of it.

So - if you want to apply some sort of sniff test / standard wrt the plausibility of technology adoption, resource acquisition, etc., I would suggest that a lot of what we saw in the trilogy would not pass it. Expecting anything new to adhere to a different set of standards sets a double standard.

[Monica21]

Didn't a dev say that it would be a good idea to keep your saves? The assumption being that at least some of your actions in the original trilogy would carry over to Andromeda? Or am I high?

[United Servo Academy Choir]

Didn't a dev say that it would be a good idea to keep your saves? The assumption being that at least some of your actions in the original trilogy would carry over to Andromeda? Or am I high?

 

Not high. I think I remember that too, though I can't source it. But it's possible that they made that statement with reference to an earlier, no longer valid concept for the game.

 

Or it may be for something different entirely.

[Killroy]

It seems like BioWare has the least imaginative fanbase.

The expedition can leave the Milky Way before the Crucible fires, dumdums.

[Monica21]

Not high. I think I remember that too, though I can't source it. But it's possible that they made that statement with reference to an earlier, no longer valid concept for the game.

 

Or it may be for something different entirely.

 

Okay, good. I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembered something like that.

 

It seems like BioWare has the least imaginative fanbase.

The expedition can leave the Milky Way before the Crucible fires, dumdums.

 

You say that about the community that came up with IT?

[Ahriman]

*snip*

Not to mention that all necessary technologies for inter-galactic travel are already established in the lore, even without introduction of wormholes. Bah, this argument was discussed to death on BSN, only Drone is missing somewhere.

[Redbelle]

Or maybe we just stop asking questiosn and just go with it

That's pretty much all we can do without throwing out speculation's. After all, MGS3 was a departure from the established pattern and yet added so much more to the franchise.......

 

And that's where ME4 will sink or swim for me. Is it a shallow cash grab with ME3's subpar RPG efforts, or something where the team have gone back to the drawing board and imagined Mass Effect from the ground up using what came before as a way to guide them towards delivering new and innovative that attracts the player's desire to continue on after ME3......

 

Or is it just another CoD clone.

 

Bioware may exist separately from EA but EA's games tend to focus on mechanics of game play, whereas, Bioware have traditionally married mechanics with story to deliver such scenes as a Mako crashing into the Citadel through a relay. Or a suicide mission that's essentially serves as a final test for how much effort and attention you paid to the character's while playing the game.

 

In the end though, the next game I'm going to let the independent critics and reviewers judge it before I consider picking it up.

[Killroy]

Didn't a dev say that it would be a good idea to keep your saves? The assumption being that at least some of your actions in the original trilogy would carry over to Andromeda? Or am I high?

Not high. I think I remember that too, though I can't source it. But it's possible that they made that statement with reference to an earlier, no longer valid concept for the game.
Or it may be for something different entirely.

That's a pretty old quote from right around the time Citadel came out iirc, and one of the projects leads of Andromeda has since said(via twitter) that you don't need to keep your trilogy saves.

[Guanxii]

Ark Theory is such contrived b.s. but if that's all they can come up with, so be it and let that be the end of it. One thing that they will need to connonize is peace between Quarians and (pre-destroy) Geth if we are to see both again.

Reading between the lines if Ark Theory is true that basically establishes synthesis as the cannon ending of the original series (and that we will never see the Milky Way again) because there is no other permissible reason to adopt such a contrivance except to accommodate synthesis.

[capn233]

They should just pick the "none of the above" ending for ME3 and make it canon.  Stargazer just embellished the ending of Shepard's story for the kid.

[Abedsbrother]

There is no acceptable way that the start of ME:A happening before the ending of ME3. The rectonning would be beyond preposterous since jumping galaxy to galaxy is something so far out of the reach of the Citadel & Council races grasp it's laughable to think it. 

Try reading Mass Effect: Ascension. The Quarians send a small group of ships on an exploratory 5-year mission to an unknown galaxy through a recently discovered mass relay. Specifics of the mission are sketchy, but the mission is "in an uncharted system beyond the edge of the galaxy". And in Mass Effect: Retribution, the Quarian  mission is confirmed as a deep-space mission (page 106). Whether this is the starting point for Andromeda or not, deep space and other galaxies are already accessible prior to the arrival of the Reapers. These new places just haven't been explored. At all.

[Undead Han]

The whole reason for the setting shifting to Andromeda is probably so that the writers wouldn't have to address the aftermath of ME3's endings. If they have the colonists leave either during or before the Reaper War, which will almost certainly be the case, they'd be completely unaffected by the Crucible. 

 

The issue of whether or not an ending should be imported as the sole basis for a sequel is something Bioware only has to consider if they create a Milky Way sequel. 

[Andrew Lucas]

MEA is happening regardless, no Control, Synthesis or Destroy, but something else. Wait and see.

[Drone223]

*snip*

A lot of people had problems with Cerberus being retconed from a small rogue faction of the Alliance to a massive organization that rivals them. The  same thing happened with the crucible and star child they both come out of nowhere with no build up and were very jarring and extremely contrived.

 

This will be just as bad if not worse since the galaxies technology level in the trilogy makes it impossible to travel to other galaxies not to mention since its going to be on a similar scale to the crucible not to mention its going to be impossible for two project to exist at the same time since the crucible alone is enough to bankrupt the galaxy and ark ship will only make things worse then there's the fact that rumors of the crucibles existence were already spreading the the same thing would happened with an ark ship.

 

When Bioware was making ME3 they didn't come up with the idea at the time so its going to be contrived and poorly implemented one way or the other.

[Former_Fiend]

Speaking as someone who did have a problem with the scale up in Cerberus, I don't have a problem with the idea of the Ark leaving before the endings.

 

Maybe I would have, at some point, but at this point, honestly, I just find it hard to care. I can't bring myself to devote the energy to get upset or even annoyed at such a minor thing.

 

It's weird, in that there are changes and violations to the lore they could make that would annoy me. Allowing any species other than asari to crossbreed would have me drop the series. Having turians and quarians suddenly able to eat non-dextro food(even though the idea that they can't is scientifically inaccurate from the jump) would be something that would annoy the hell out of me.

 

There are other things Bioware can do that would ****** me off, but this isn't one of them, if only because I see it as the lesser of two evils, and a necessary one to avoid the mess they made.

[Drone223]

Speaking as someone who did have a problem with the scale up in Cerberus, I don't have a problem with the idea of the Ark leaving before the endings.

 

Maybe I would have, at some point, but at this point, honestly, I just find it hard to care. I can't bring myself to devote the energy to get upset or even annoyed at such a minor thing.

 

It's weird, in that there are changes and violations to the lore they could make that would annoy me. Allowing any species other than asari to crossbreed would have me drop the series. Having turians and quarians suddenly able to eat non-dextro food(even though the idea that they can't is scientifically inaccurate from the jump) would be something that would annoy the hell out of me.

 

There are other things Bioware can do that would ****** me off, but this isn't one of them, if only because I see it as the lesser of two evils, and a necessary one to avoid the mess they made.

Each time Bioware makes a retcon it always turns out for the worst since they only create even more inconsistency's and contrivances if Bioware wants to improve their writing they shouldn't so casually retcon aspects of the series. Given the history Bioware has with retcons in the ME series it wouldn't be surprising if retconing the galaxies technology level during the trilogy ends up being as bad as the other retcons.

 

Retcons should only be done if there is a an extremely good reason to do so (especially if it ends up improving the overall narrative and lore), otherwise they usually do more harm than good.

[Former_Fiend]

Each time Bioware makes a retcon it always turns out for the worst since they only create even more inconsistency's and contrivances if Bioware wants to improve their writing they shouldn't so casually retcon aspects of the series. Given the trend Bioware has with retcons in the ME series retconing the galaxies technology level during the trilogy is most likely going to be like the other retcons poorly implemented and poorly written.

 

Retcons should only be done if there is a an extremely good reason to do so (especially if it ends up improving the overall narrative and lore), otherwise they usually do more harm than good.

 

You don't think that avoiding the cluster that is the endings qualifies as "an extremely good reason"? Especially since, as pointed out by others in the thread, the ground work's already there.

[Drone223]

You don't think that avoiding the cluster that is the endings qualifies as "an extremely good reason"? Especially since, as pointed out by others in the thread, the ground work's already there.

Nope avoiding the endings won't make them go away and there really is no ground work since during ME3's development they never considered the idea at the time. Bioware's track record with retcons doesn't inspire much confidence either.

[Former_Fiend]

Nope avoiding the endings won't make them go away and there really is no ground work since during ME3's development they never considered the idea at the time.

 

Avoiding the endings means they don't have to either devote large amounts of resources representing them, ****** off a large portion of the fan base by declaring one canon, or coming up with a contrived handwave to say "they happened but where then magically undone", which would be far worse than a minor retcon to make travel to another galaxy feasible. 

 

If one of the endings gets canonized, there is going to be a hell of a stink raised about it. If they set out before, a handful of people, such as yourself and the OP, will call foul, but I guarantee you that the fanbase as a whole will not care. 

[Drone223]

Avoiding the endings means they don't have to either devote large amounts of resources representing them, ****** off a large portion of the fan base by declaring one canon, or coming up with a contrived handwave to say "they happened but where then magically undone", which would be far worse than a minor retcon to make travel to another galaxy feasible. 

 

If one of the endings gets canonized, there is going to be a hell of a stink raised about it. If they set out before, a handful of people, such as yourself and the OP, will call foul, but I guarantee you that the fanbase as a whole will not care. 

Their already pissing off fans by ditching the MW for good and their explanation for getting to another galaxy is definitely to be contrived and forced. I wouldn't call rectoning the galaxies technology level in during the trilogy  a minor retcon its actually a massive one.

[Former_Fiend]

Their already pissing off fans by ditching the MW for good and their explanation for getting to another galaxy is definitely to be contrived and forced. I wouldn't call rectoning the galaxies technology level in during the trilogy  a minor retcon its actually a massive one.

 

It really isn't.

[JeffZero]

I think the takeaway here is the same as usual with these discussions.

 

No matter what they do, some of you will be angry.

[Drone223]

It really isn't.

It is a huge retcon, traveling to other galaxies with FTL methods in the trilogy time frame is impossible since they'll have to discharge static build every 52 hours or so doing and it'll take them a few centuries to get to Andromeda. Unfortunately there are no planets to discharge it safely so the discharge will just fry the ship and crew and it also raises another problem.

 

If the galaxy is able to develop the means of traveling to other galaxies during the trilogy time frame, then the reaper's should've done it already in the billions of year's they've existed. Their mandate is to preserve all life and that mandate didn't specify a particular galaxy so the logical thing to do is expand that mandate to other galaxies.

[Undead Han]

One the things I'd like to see ME:A do, that I think TW3 largely did right, is populating a lot of the side quests with interesting characters. When I think back to DA:I I'm hard pressed to really remember many of the people you run into on side quests in that game. They were just quest givers and quest objectives and not much more. 

 

For those of you who played both TW3 and DA:I, did you find any characters on side quests in DA:I to be as memorable as The Bloody Baron, Keira Metz, or Witcherverse trolls and godlings? Even some of the monsters you're sent to slay have as much (or more) personality than the people paying Geralt to deal with them.

[JeffZero]

One of the things that hurts the side quest NPCs most in DAI is that damn lack of cinematic camera. I just innately care less.