367 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

It's hard to be worse than the Organic-Synthetic conflict. Problem that scenario runs into is that Bioware did everything they could to shove the "We can all get along" point down our throats. There's no ME3 where I can murder EDI and proclaim my distrust of all things AI.

 

Synthetic-Organic conflict could have worked as a Reaper motive, if like Deus Ex, Bioware had kept trying to keep the perspectives balanced. Hell, if they'd gone with DA2's approach to Mages vs Templars, it might have worked. Instead, they tacked on Deus Ex's endings to a series that was never interested in exploring Deus Ex's conflicts to any meaningful extent.

 

Dark energy has a number of advantages, one being that it doesn't outright contradict one of the themes that Bioware has continuously emphasized since ME2 onwards. Of course, that also depends on whether Karpshyn would have included the organic-synthetic conflict in his dark energy plot. If so, we're back to square one.

 

As a theme, dark energy for ME3 would have been as undeveloped as Synthetic-Organic, if not worse. At least synthetics and organics in conflict was an issue in one of the trilogy's major subplots- the Geth-Quarian conflict. And the Alliance-Geth war in ME1. It wasn't developed well- and it certainly wasn't done well- but the pieces existed.

 

Dark Energy didn't even have that in ME1 and ME2. It mostly existed as technobabble with no real implication, let alone theme. Haestrum was a single planet that existed with dark energy as a correlation (not even a causation) to something that might have been concerning... but that was it. There were no character plots, there was no narrative importance, there was no moral or trademark bioware symbolism leading up to the moral of the story.

 

What would the Dark Energy theory's theme even be, given what ME1 and ME2 actually gave us? Radical environmentalism is justified? We create our own problems without any reason to believe what we're doing is harmful? The universe is just one big daddy issue?

 

Considering what ME1 and ME2 actually gave us, when Reaper motivations were still in the air and undecided, ME3's answer would have been just as much an out-of-place oddball even if it had been Dark Energy. Thematic consistency would have been just as absent, and arguably even more disconnected from character stories.

 

But, as laid out, the Dark Energy concept is worse in a critical way: it doesn't justify the cycles established in ME1.

 

People call the Catalyst circular reason, but as badly explained as it is there's a logic to it: kill civilizations before they can create a technological signularity. As long as the Reapers don't consider themselves one, it's a logical (if inhumane) reason for the cycle: every time a civilization is put down, the threat reset. And there's no reason to keep civs from developing, because until they reach a distince of tech singularity they're harmless to the goals of the Reapers.

 

But Dark Energy had dark energy buildup as a cumulative effect. But most critically- and here's the part that's fundamental to the theory/vision as it was raised- galactic genocide didn't reset the clock. The point of the Human Reaper was that a new special Reaper brain was needed before the problem became irreversable for good.

 

But if galactic genocide doesn't actually reset the problem- a dynamic identical to the synthetic singularity risk reset- any mass usage of e-zero is a problem. The Cycles don't slow down the problem, they accelerate it by allowing galactic-scale e-zero usage to begin on a regular basis, when the Reapers really should be bombing any space-faring civilization from the start and nuking the pre-space flight civs on e-zero planets even before then.

 

In Synthetic Singularity, the galactic civilization doesn't pose a problem until it does: in Dark Energy, galactic civilization is the problem.

 

Could you fix it by changing the scenario given? Sure- but the same could be said about organic-synthetic.

[Dean_the_Young]

Wrong, Wrong and wrong. Again, I'm not jumping to conclusions right here about the devs' intentions unlike some people.

 

 

Ignoring the weak passive-aggressive, what part of the dev's intention am I jumping?

 

We know that the Devs didn't know the idea of the Reapers motivation until ME3 because they've told us. Drew mentioned that Dark Energy was just one of the ones they threw around. Their trilogy intention was that they had no intention.

 

We know what their intention of Dark Energy was because, again, they told us: Human Reaper as a last saving throw for the buildup of dark energy. That only works when the dark energy timer doesn't reset itself each cycle- or else there's be no pressing need for the Human Reaper as a last chance gambit.

 

We know dark energy is built up because of the usage of e-zero tech. That's lore.

 

We know the Reapers leave behind e-zero tech to guide the development of our civilization: that's ME1 lore, and the premise of the cycles.

 

So where's the leap?

 

 

And i have already explained more times than i can count how your approach to the dark energy ending concept is wrong.

 

 

Really? It's only been seven pages, and I wasn't posting for most of them.

 

 

 

 

 

And how everything developed around that faulty notion is also faulty.

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, So, Now ME1 has one of the weakest stories in the industry,?

 

 

In the video game industry? I don't believe I claimed that- and damning low bar of video game writing quality aside, I can't think of many video game trilogies (or multi-game stories) in the first place to compare it with.
 

I do believe ME is a weak trilogy as a whole trilogy: the entirety is less than the sum of its points. The games work better as stand-alones than a continuity.

 

But I give the trilogy credit for trying something new (and RPG trilogy with choice carry-over)- and for getting better along the way. Which is what I'd hope for. ME1 had a weakness of relying on 'kill/don't kill' choices for every major story decision- and not having a clear goal for how those choices would be reflected after. Planning you consequences is something that needs to be done from the start, and not doing so gave us not only our lopsided ME2 content (where Renegade world-state was empty for a number of cameos, rather than giving us equivalent/different scenes), but forced the equivication and thus irrelevance of the choices.

 

ME1, and ME2, stumbled onto the major rule of RPG carryover- any companion character who can die, becomes story-irrelevant foreverafter because the story has to continue on without them. ME1 just made the mistake of having every mandatory choice be based around a 'kill/don't kill' mutual-exclusion.

 

So, Why do you bother playing it? If you "Think" *Crosses fingers* so.

 

 

Because the games are fun even if the story is weak at points. I'll forgive the flaws, because I don't demand perfection.

 

 

The thing is, Everything you're stating is just your opinion, You're assuming things about the dev process and building things around it. Doesn't make it true.

 

 

Stating that the premise of the Dark Energy theory as presented has logical problems with ME1 isn't an opinion if I can point out the logical problems.

 

Stating that the Dark Energy theory would have been received as worse would be an opinion- much like any assertion of the 'feels' of something- but identifying a logical or structural contradiction is objective analysis at work.

[AlanC9]

"Wishful" thinking. Riiiiiiight. No, It's not the same. The choices here are stating that dark energy is a force that will consume, So if you leave it alone, It "Will" consume everything. The synthetic consciousness argument is something that divides computer scientists up until now, So, Stating one argument out of the two as a fact is a forced concept. it's not like saying that there's a consuming force in the galaxy that will wipe out everything.

I'm not sure if you're deliberately trying to change the subject or not. I was talking about the ending as a piece of writing, the same way you were in the quote I responded to. I wasn't saying anything at all about the space magic that would have powered the dark energy ending. That was going to be technobabble in any ending Bio wrote, so it's not worth worrying about.

(Though you can make a case that Drew K. was better at making his technobabble superficially plausible than his successors were.)

[Il Divo]

As a theme, dark energy for ME3 would have been as undeveloped as Synthetic-Organic, if not worse. At least synthetics and organics in conflict was an issue in one of the trilogy's major subplots- the Geth-Quarian conflict. And the Alliance-Geth war in ME1. It wasn't developed well- and it certainly wasn't done well- but the pieces existed.

 

I'd argue Organics vs. Synthetics was developed entirely in the opposite direction of what ME3's endings suddenly attempt to do.

 

Where Deus Ex spends the entire game raising questions about transhumanism (benefits and negatives), the endings stick with this theme. Where Dragon Age II portrays positives and negatives of the Mage Freedom vs. Templar Control, the endings follow this approach. Neither game is perfect in the themes they explore, but the endings at least attempt to keep the general beat that we spend the game exploring.

 

Mass Effect doesn't do anything approaching this. ME1 displays some vague notions of Organics vs Synthetics, which the writers do everything they can to shatter come ME2 and 3 with the humanization of EDI and the Geth. Even the Geth-Quarian conflict makes substantial efforts to portray the Geth as essentially the victimized party, but even in the context of ME3, the Geth-Quarian conflict isn't really framed in terms of Organics vs. Synthetics, but simply as two groups with bad blood between them. Far as I am aware, the issue with siding the Geth isn't framed as whether Shepard can trust a synthetic being. Compare this to the framing of ME1's Rachni decision: will the Rachni Queen murder us all?

 

And that's ultimately where the ending leads. The Catalyst's claim of "Synthetics always rebel and murder organics" flies in the face of all of our empirical experiences via ME2 and 3 as they relate to the central narrative. If he's going to drop a bomb shell like that on us, when the story evolved away from the (relatively minor) Organics vs. Synthetics issues of ME1, now is the time for some in depth explanation or discussion of the logic. Instead he concedes his genocidal solution doesn't work, refuses to give any explanation "there is no time", while forcing a moral dilemma on the player which was thought to have been solved quite a while ago.

 

That's ultimately a level of insanity that Dark Energy, flawed as it is, can't approach, imo. Dark Energy lacks effective foreshadowing. It goes against the Reapers' cyclic nature. These are all true. But dark energy still doesn't approach that level of insanity. On top of the thematic flaws of the ME3 ending, it (and the Catalyst) still has quite a few logic issues of its own.

 

To put it another way, ME1 having some mention of organics vs. synthetics in this case is a flaw, not a feature, in terms of why the endings are so bad. Dark energy having so little presence throughout the trilogy is a feature, not a flaw, because it doesn't radically alter a theme of the trilogy at the last second (in comparison to as written).

[Dean_the_Young]

As a concept though, Dark Energy is just as flawed.Creative projects is a problem argument here even the entire writing and dev team were unsure how the concept would play out, and the ideas presented in the end, while attached since the beginning of the series, are either too vague or to fundamentally different from what were seeing.

 

For example, Sovereign says the following "I am beyond your comprehension, I am Soverign." ,"Organic life is nothing but a genetic mutation, an accident. Your lives are measured in years and decades, you wither and die. " and "Organic life evolves, advances, and at the apex of their glory they are extinguished."

 

The entire exchange with Sovereign would contradict Dark Energy as a theory for three reasons. One, even if the Reapers are attempting to control life and order it around as much as possible, then what motivation is there truly, outside of "we represent order" that they have to do this? If the full-blown destruction of the galaxy was possible through Dark Energy, as Drew states, then the Reapers logic of allowing organic life to exist makes no sense, especially through a machine.

 

Two, if they are immortal beings, the need of Organic life then makes little sense to the Reapers logic.Wiping out and cultivating races and civilizations every 50,000 years so that they evolve to use Biotic powers that can destroy the universe also contradicts the logic of the story-thread;I.E, the fact that the Reapers simply wipe everything out to prevent the destruction of the Galaxy, ergo saving themselves from destruction, is a glaring inconsistency.

 

As is the fact that the reapers also built the Mass Effect relays, according to Soverign again "Your civilization is based on the technology of the Mass Relays, our technology." Why would they create technology that would also hasten the destruction of the universe through Dark Energy?

 

The only explanation that possibly can work comes from Drew himself. "Then we thought, let's take it to the next level. Maybe the Reapers are looking at a way to stop this. Maybe there's an inevitable descent into the opposite of the Big Bang (the Big Crunch) and the Reapers realise that the only way they can stop it is by using biotics, but since they can't use biotics they have to keep rebuilding society - as they try and find the perfect group to use biotics for this purpose. The asari were close but they weren't quite right, the Protheans were close as well."

 

But it is still flawed, because then the time clock for destruction makes little sense; every 50,000 years for mellenia this has been going on, and the timeframe of this big crunch is very unclear, even in Mass Effect 2. 

 

So the truth of the matter is that Dark Energy is a flawed premise in of itself. Part of that creative process you mention is likely why it was not used. As Drew states "I find it funny that fans end up hearing a couple things they like about it and in their minds they add in all the details they specifically want," he explained. "It's like vapourware - vapourware is always perfect, anytime someone talks about the new greatest game. It's perfect until it comes out."

 

Something else that might be relevant to point out is that the decision of the Reaper motivations, Dark Energy or otherwise, weren't finalized before or even after ME1- it was almost certainly made post-ME2. Which means that any discussion about Dark Energy really can't be talked about in terms of 'well the whole trilogy would be different', but really on how ME3 alone would be changed- which makes ME2 and ME1 judgement points.

 

We know from the dev interviews that the devs hadn't decided the Dark Energy plot from the start- Drew's comments of it being one of the ideas thrown around, but that it wasn't The Key Plan- but we can also see elements in ME2 that were clearly left for ME3 to use as the springboard if that's what they wanted to go with. Haestrum, and what's-her-name, the Noveria lady who mentions her company looking into Dark Energy.

 

ME2 gave a couple different angles that ME3 could have used, each being a retroactive foreshadowing: Reapers could be organic-synthetics (Geth-Quarians, Collectors/Smoothies), Reapers could be dark energy (Haestrum), Reapers could be peace-makers bringing order to chaos (the looming Batarian Rebellion, the other pending wars, the implied utopian unity of ascending to Reaperhood), or the Reapers could be preservationists saving us from ourselves (the Drell, Quarians, and Krogan as near-extinction species). ME2 gave us all of these... but some of them really don't make sense if there was already a plan for which one they wanted. Haestrum doesn't make sense in the context of Organic-Synthetic... but Organic-Synthetic, and most the other B plots, don't advance Dark Energy either.

 

But, considering what we know of the Devs and their planning (their own admission of not having a clear idea, ME2 Cerberus was a post-ME1 invention, the unexpected stumbling over the foreseeable consequences of the Suicide Mission making the entire cast killable and plot-non-critical), it's really, really likely they just didn't make a decision until ME3 was next on the board.

 

What does that mean about discussing Dark Energy?

 

 

When you discuss Dark Energy, you should not only take the Devs on their word- about what it was (cumulative Dark Energy usage, that it was never the original goal)- but the real vaporware start point of 'the series would be changed/improved' would start at the decision point of... after ME2.

 

Meaning only ME3 would actually stand to be changed if they had gone Dark Energy... and at which point, we might as well ask how much would have been changed? Considering how little synthetic-vs-organic mattered in other ME3 decisions- the choice of the Crucible as a not-understood 'I Win' device, the narrative arcs, character missions- the relevance of Dark Energy as the motivation choice really needs to be considered conservatively.

 

I mean, sure, you could argue that Dark Energy would have meant that Bioware would have gone back and changed and better planned the series from the start... but if you're going back to fix ME1 and ME2 to make them work with Dark Energy, why couldn't Bioware fix them to work better with Organic-Synthetic?

 

For a meaninful discussion of Dark Energy theory's applicability to the series, keep the changes to ME3.

 

 

 

We know from interviews that ME2's plot wasn't even decided pre-ME1 because Cerberus (a key driver of the plot) wasn't even intended to be significant in ME1. And IIRC, the leaked script for ME3 dabbled with Reaper motivations- so that
 

[Mathias]

The two biggest crimes Drew K has committed, is that horrible Revan novel, and that he almost wrote an equally crappy ending to Mass Effect 3. And I say equally cause I've heard many opinions from people who thought Dark Energy was worse, or better than what we got. The actual ending and Dark Energy is in the same ballpark, let's just leave it at that.

 

However, Drew is also responsible for a lot of good stuff. Kotor 1, The Bane Trilogy, Mass Effect 1, Jade Empire, and the Mass Effect novels written by him were fairly decent. To me, Drew is pretty good, but really shines when he's got a talented writing team to support him. I'm glad he's back, hopefully some good things will come of it.

[AlanC9]

I'm just not a big fan of cynics.

Hm. I'm not a fan of naive optimists either, so I suppose this is balanced. But I'm not sure why these views would be of interest to anyone but ourselves.We should keep this sort of thing out of the posts.

[Dean_the_Young]

You're supposed to read my argument before criticizing it, Aren't you?

 

 

Indeed- hence why I responded point-by-point, rather than gloss over and refuse to respond to individual challenges and counter-arguments.
 

 

And I'm not being passive-aggressive. I'm just not a big fan of cynics.

 

 

You were, and are again. Poorly- but you were, through the 'unlike some people' attempt to sling an insult without directly identifying the target even when context maes clear.

 

 

Everything you're asking has already been answered in my pervious posts,

 

 

Not really. To take the most important one, you've claimed Dark Energy would be great and feel right... without actually acknowledging what it was, or how it would have fit in relation to had it been chosen. You can repeat the insistence on that Dark Energy would have felt right and great had it been chosen because it would have been developed to fit the narrative... but you really haven't justified the assertions.

 

There's no real ambiguity about what it would have been fundamentally or jumping to conclusion about the Dev's intentions because the Dev's told us the intention- and there's nothing you raise to suggest that they would have changed it or even felt a need to change it from what it was, anymore than they changed organic-synthetic to fix the post-release flaws. It's not even clear you're accepting the issues with Dar Energy as flaws, when you deny that they would have been presented in the first place... but even that's not convincing when you waffle about what would have changed. You haven't set out an actual vision of what would have changed, except that anything we point out wouldn't have worked would obviously have been changed in the development process (unlike the analogous issues with Synth-Org, which were not identified/fixed and which you treat as inherent to the choice as a Reaper motivation).

 

 

Basically you've dodged the primary issue of Dark Energy with an appeal to vaporware, and have been avoiding addressing specific points or answering direct questions ever since.

 

Heck, even this response of yours starts with an implicit insult while avoiding a direct question that would have offered you an excellent (and easy) way to disprove me: the Dev's intentions argument. You just avoided the argument instead of identifying which dev intention I misidentified or loaded with assumption.

 

(Unless the loaded assumption is taking Drew's intention at his word- in which case the alternative to assuming intentions is hypothetical vaporware that fixes the problems before they exist. Which is a non-falsifaible hypothetical and thus meaningless as an argument.)
 

 

I'm currently busy doing some research for my indie project and don't want my flow of ideas interrupted.

 

Really? Looks like you're goofing off on an internet forum to defend an opinion argument with hyperbolic rhetoric and strawman exagerations when challenged with multiple disagreements by people offering more concrete points and direct counter-arguments than you.

 

Ah, but you did say 'indie' project.

 

 

 

So, I might think about replying to you later.

 

 

I await with bated breath, I assure you.

 

But not as much as Alan's posts. You're just bait to keep him coming back.

[Gothfather]

That hook though also put them in a corner for the series, which is a bigger issue that seems to be glossed over.

 

It was a well done little twist and a good finish, I grant you that. Imagine the overall experience being more impactful though if you were fully invested. I never felt fully invested in the first game, not like how I was in 2 or 3 honestly.

 

We shall see what he can do with TOR. I wonder what they are planning next after this upcoming expansion.

 

For me ME2 was the worse written ME game but introduced better game play to the series. Some of the "loyalty" quests just made ZERO sense mechanically and thematically.

 

Seriously are you telling me that seasoned professionals would be so flighty as to have their "head out of the game" on the suicide mission if you didn't resolve their daddy issues? Come on. Some of the loyalty mission do make sense like Jack's and Thane's, Jack ISN'T a professional so this makes sense that her head wouldn't be in the game and Thane is dying so his priority isn't survival any more so he could very well be off his mark. But the rest are seasoned professionals and for the love of god you seriously think it is credible writing that Legion would be off his game because you didn't reprogram or delete the heritics?

 

It just doesn't make sense that all these professionals, the best the galaxy has to offer are so out of it that if you don't personally resolve their deep seeded daddy issues they are just not going to preform up to snuff. I find this utterly BS, they are not rookies , they are seasoned soldiers, some of them really could have their "issues" pushed to after they survive a mission they expect to die in. 

 

The whole suicide mission is also contrived it makes no sense to not build and scatter probes around it to see if and when the collectors travel through it. Why not mine the area around it? Why not station ships there? Why not send probes through? Why not send probes with the reapers IFF signal? If the premiss of ME2 is that aliens are stealing humans from colonies why do we do ABSOLUTELY NOTHING towards finding out the why? Sure we do find out why but we take no ACTIVE steps to discover this. We simple stumble upon it. The only active things we do is assemble the crew and deal with their daddy issues. WTF? How is that good writing?

 

There are no steps taken to gather intelligence by the Normandy or its crew. There are no steps taken by Shepard to oh I don't know come to gripes with the fact Shepard DIED and came back to life. In Me2 Shepard has surprising lack of importance to things. You could remove Shepard from the plot and poof nothing changes. Shepard makes no critical choices, Shepard takes no actions to solve the issues of the collectors, gather intelligence on the collectors or protect colonies from the collectors. Shepard is superfluous to the events in ME2. The only reason he is there is because Shepard is the vehicle the player uses to experience the game. There is no growth of character in ME2 for Shepard but plenty of growth for the supporting cast. Of all the games in the series ME2 is NOT Shepard's story because Shepard makes absolutely zero growth as a character.

 

Me2 is enjoyable to play but story wise there is NOTHING there. Hell they could have literally removed Shepard because he died, put in any alliance commander and had Shepard return in the arrival DLC and there would be NO story discontinuity. Why? Because ME2 has almost nothing to do with Shepard.

 

I would say the ME2 is more poorly written then the ME3 endings. The only reason the endings get more flak is because the series ends so you can't skate by on the strength of other features like game play. The endings stand only on the strength of the writing of said endings nothing else while ME2 stands on more than just it's writing. It is bolstered by game play, by the story foundations cemented in ME1, by the fact it doesn't need to end so no closure is required. Yet writing wise it is terrible.

 

As to Drew this is the clown that came up with the dark energy ending. hey lets have reapers harvest the galaxy to stop mass effect technology speeding up the universe's death from dark energy but lets LEAVE the mass relay system intact each cycle to guarantee new civilizations develop the same tech killing the universe? huh?  And a Human reaper can save the galaxy because of reasons? Oh wait our genetic diversity? WTF? how is genetic diversity going to solve death by entropy in the universe? Yeah great writing lets bring more of that back please.

[Han Shot First]

I thought the Dark Energy ending sounded worse than the original endings that shipped with the game. It is also seems like it gave birth to some of the bad ideas that led to the ending controversy. The Reapers being misunderstood problem solvers made its first appearance there, with the Reapers working to prevent an accelerated heat death of the universe caused by the mass effect. Mac Walters and Casey Hudson simply changed the problem they were trying to solve from an accelerated heath death to a technological singularity. In both, destroying the Reapers is presented as the less than ideal solution. 

 

So in that sense I think Drew is a bit overrated, in that there were a lot of people on the forums during the whole ending controversy lamenting that they'd have never gotten a bad ending if he were still on the dev team. He also isn't the strongest writer when it comes to dialogue or characters.

 

That being said he is also responsible for a good deal of what made the series one of my favorite video game series, and Jeff Zero's comment about him being well suited for the managerial role of a lead writer is probably valid. If he were to return to Mass Effect I'd see it as good news overall, I just don't see him as the messiah that the forums sometime make him out to be.

[Dean_the_Young]

I'd argue Organics vs. Synthetics was developed entirely in the opposite direction of what ME3's endings suddenly attempt to do.

 

Where Deus Ex spends the entire game raising questions about transhumanism (benefits and negatives), the endings stick with this theme. Where Dragon Age II portrays positives and negatives of the Mage Freedom vs. Templar Control, the endings follow this approach. Neither game is perfect in the themes they explore, but the endings at least attempt to keep the general beat that we spend the game exploring.

 

Mass Effect doesn't do anything approaching this. ME1 displays some vague notions of Organics vs Synthetics, which the writers do everything they can to shatter come ME2 and 3 with the humanization of EDI and the Geth. Even the Geth-Quarian conflict makes substantial efforts to portray the Geth as essentially the victimized party, but even in the context of ME3, the Geth-Quarian conflict isn't really framed in terms of Organics vs. Synthetics, but simply as two groups with bad blood between them. Far as I am aware, the issue with siding the Geth isn't framed as whether Shepard can trust a synthetic being. Compare this to the framing of ME1's Rachni decision: will the Rachni Queen murder us all?

 

And that's ultimately where the ending leads. The Catalyst's claim of "Synthetics always rebel and murder organics" flies in the face of all of our empirical experiences via ME2 and 3 as they relate to the central narrative. If he's going to drop a bomb shell like that on us, when the story evolved away from the (relatively minor) Organics vs. Synthetics issues of ME1, now is the time for some in depth explanation or discussion of the logic. Instead he concedes his genocidal solution doesn't work, refuses to give any explanation "there is no time", while forcing a moral dilemma on the player which was thought to have been solved quite a while ago.

 

That's ultimately a level of insanity that Dark Energy, flawed as it is, can't approach, imo. Dark Energy lacks effective foreshadowing. It goes against the Reapers' cyclic nature. These are all true. But dark energy still doesn't approach that level of insanity. On top of the thematic flaws of the ME3 ending, it (and the Catalyst) still has quite a few logic issues of its own.

 

To put it another way, ME1 having some mention of organics vs. synthetics in this case is a flaw, not a feature, in terms of why the endings are so bad. Dark energy having so little presence throughout the trilogy is a feature, not a flaw, because it doesn't radically alter a theme of the trilogy at the last second (in comparison to as written).

 

I think this is all well reasoned and organized and perfectly respectable, even if our opinion on what is 'better' differs. But I think it misses the forest for the trees- it's not really the Reaper motivation that upset people. The Reaper motivation is a symptom for the ME3 ending uproar, not the cause.

 

If the thing that changed in ME3 trilogy was the Reaper motivation, but the rest was the same- the Catalyst, Shepard dying, the fate of the galaxy and everyone in it being irrevocably shaped without consent- I think we would have gotten the same sort of uproar. Maybe some slightly different people- some people who cared about Synthetics-vs-Organics might be mollified, while others who accepted it would be agitated by something they wouldn't- but for most people, I think they would have latched on to the new flaws as their justification for hating and dismissing it.

 

While I, personally, think that Dark Energy as an ending would have been worse structurally... I think the real flaws and uproar came in how the motivation was approached, not the structure, and I don't see a reason why that would have changed just because the Reaper motive did, especially when so many of the arguments against Organic-Synthetics have the same structure. We've gone over some of them (no foreshadowing = 'out of nowhere', Reapers being the good guys, turning technology from our go-to solution for plot problems into the source of our ruin as a 'thematic betrayal'), and I think most people would have clutched on for anything to justify their feelings.

 

When it comes down to it, I don't think the uproar was about writing quality or an appreciation for structure and design. The previous two ME games convinced me most fans care about the feels far more than the appreciation for design implications. So unless the Dark Energy theory radically changed the feels- and I don't see why it would have changed the various other design flaws that produced those feels- I think it's a bit of a red herring to chase after.

[Puddi III]

I would have been fine with the dark energy ending if one of the catalyst's solutions was to make everyone magical girls.

[Dean_the_Young]

There are no steps taken to gather intelligence by the Normandy or its crew. There are no steps taken by Shepard to oh I don't know come to gripes with the fact Shepard DIED and came back to life. In Me2 Shepard has surprising lack of importance to things. You could remove Shepard from the plot and poof nothing changes. Shepard makes no critical choices, Shepard takes no actions to solve the issues of the collectors, gather intelligence on the collectors or protect colonies from the collectors. Shepard is superfluous to the events in ME2. The only reason he is there is because Shepard is the vehicle the player uses to experience the game. There is no growth of character in ME2 for Shepard but plenty of growth for the supporting cast. Of all the games in the series ME2 is NOT Shepard's story because Shepard makes absolutely zero growth as a character.

 

Me2 is enjoyable to play but story wise there is NOTHING there. Hell they could have literally removed Shepard because he died, put in any alliance commander and had Shepard return in the arrival DLC and there would be NO story discontinuity. Why? Because ME2 has almost nothing to do with Shepard.

 

I've raised this before, but I think one of the better things that they could have done to improve the series was to replace Sheaprd as the PC in each game. If the series was treated like a connected franchise (like Dragon Age) rather than judged as the trilogy it claims to be (Shepard's story), it'd hold up a lot better.

 

ME2's a great example for the reasons you mention. Imagine if, say, Jacob had been the PC: he was for that little phone game, so they might have dabbled with it. If Jacob had been TIM's choice to lead a suicide mission... what would have changed? The majority of the crew and cast were there for the mission, not Shepard- the expendibles, the likes of Mordin and Samara and Thane and even Jack. Even Chakwas is there for Joker, not Shepard. The only people for whom Shepard is a motivation are Joker, Garrus, Tali, and Legion... and even they could have been written with taking motivations already given (Joker for flying, Garrus for revenge, Tali for the Migrant Fleet and duty (which could lead to the Treason plot better), and Legion to make contact with Humans/organics).

 

If ME2 was the adventure of not-Shepard, you'd keep almost all the same missions, and all the same themes, but without the nonsense of abandoning previous choices and relationships to reset Shepard, because Shepard wouldn't have to be reset. Instead of Sheaprd, First Human Spectre, Public Face of Humanity, we'd have Taylor, the Secret Face of Humanity in the Dark, giving a different foil of how Humanity influences and expresses itself in the galaxy. The story can still end with the player flickin TIM the bird and running away from Cerberus, if that's what we want.

 

 

The same premise applies to ME3 with not-Shepard. Say it's re-imagined PC Vega. It's the War Hero narrative: Vega starts as the padawan for the Virmire Survivor, takes over by necessity while surrounded by heroes and legends while serving as Hackett's gopher, but comes to stand on his own as the face of War Effort and Resistance with one PC-inherent victory over the Reapers after another, all while guilt (from Earth, from the backstory) builds up in the dreams.

 

 

After the Conduit, what was Shepard ever unqiuely qualified for that another PC couldn't have been... or that couldn't have been written with ease to accept another PC? Nothing- because Shepard's uniqueness stopped being anything but fame after ME1.

 

[Han Shot First]

What the series really needs in my opinion, is either Chris L'Etoile back or a writer cut from a similar cloth. He seemed to want to introduce more hard sci fi into the series (compare his concept of the Geth and A.I. to later pinocchio portrayals), which I think the series could use more of. Also while Mac Walters is good with characters and dialogue he isn't as good at crafting a strong story, and he is a comic book guy who since Mass Effect 2 has tugged the series more towards Flash Gordon or Star Wars than Ender's Game or Starship Troopers. I'd like to see someone on the dev team who could maybe work as a counterbalance to that.

 

I'd like to see the series find a happy balance between hard sci fi and space opera or comic book influences, and I think since ME2 it has leaned a little too far towards the latter.

[Aimi]

After the Conduit, what was Shepard ever unqiuely qualified for that another PC couldn't have been... or that couldn't have been written with ease to accept another PC? Nothing- because Shepard's uniqueness stopped being anything but fame after ME1.

I agree. (As you know.) But maybe they could've done something that actually would have made Shepard speshul.

Considering the mysticism that ME1 started out with, I feel like you could've had decent mileage with the notion that Shepard is, like, a personification of some sort of universal impulse, such as entropy. S/he's singularly powerful because she's the avatar of chaos or destruction, counterposed to the organized slaughter of the Reapers. I dislike the Chosen One janx as much as anyone else, but if it had to be there, maybe there could've been actual grounds for it being there.

I dunno, a quarter-baked idea repurposed from other fiction, but...

[Dean_the_Young]

What the series really needs in my opinion, is either Chris L'Etoile back or a writer cut from a similar cloth. He seemed to want to introduce more hard sci fi into the series (compare his concept of the Geth and A.I. to later pinocchio portrayals), which I think the series could use more of. Also while Mac Walters is good with characters and dialogue he isn't as good at crafting a strong story, and he is a comic book guy who since Mass Effect 2 has tugged the series more towards Flash Gordon or Star Wars than Ender's Game or Starship Troopers. I'd like to see someone on the dev team who could maybe work as a counterbalance to that.

 

I'd like to see the series find a happy balance between hard sci fi and space opera or comic book influences, and I think since ME2 it has leaned a little too far towards the latter.

 

I'm curious as to how much space magic MEA goes into. I'm hoping not much- the less mysticism, the better. I can only think of two story element in which I thought mysticism improved the quality- and that was Javik and most of the Krogan, who were less mysticism and more alien philosophy about survival.

 

The rest though? The Cipher with Shiala, the Asari in general, Eve the female messiah figure who somehow speaks for all Krogan females and half the males? I thought it was a let-down.

[Dean_the_Young]

I agree. (As you know.) But maybe they could've done something that actually would have made Shepard speshul.

Considering the mysticism that ME1 started out with, I feel like you could've had decent mileage with the notion that Shepard is, like, a personification of some sort of universal impulse, such as entropy. S/he's singularly powerful because she's the avatar of chaos or destruction, counterposed to the organized slaughter of the Reapers. I dislike the Chosen One janx as much as anyone else, but if it had to be there, maybe there could've been actual grounds for it being there.

I dunno, a quarter-baked idea repurposed from other fiction, but...

 

I think they could have gotten some distance if the Cypher were played up- Shepard the Human becoming more and more 'Prothean' in nature.

 

It would have required railroading- or at least steering the dialogue rails in a general direction- but Shepard being the key to Prothean ruins and tech because of the Cypher, even as the 'essence of Prothean' began to affect Shepard more and more- would have been a way to keep Shepard relevantly unique in many respects. Gotta get those Prothean ruins and macguffins.

 

Could have led to a sort of 'beginning of a new species', in which Shepard is the herald of the return of the Protheans in some sense. Maybe the Prothean cypher begins to spread and become more common/desired across Humanity. Or maybe we learn that 'Protheans' aren't just a single race, but all the Races rolled up into one- so Shepard becomes the carrier of the legacy of every race assimialted before. Then the Reaper preservationist tendencies could be tied in, the the point that while Shepard carries the Protheans, the 'assimilation' ending amounts to Humans carrying the cyphers for all the Reaped species or something.

 

 

Actually, that could be kind of good if approached right. Shepard becoming a figure that brings the Reapers back into the proper way of living, making peace, with humanity 'genetic versatility' being the ability to hold cyphers for longer periods of time. Or something.

 

I'm tired. But good to hear from you again, Aimi!

[Il Divo]

I think this is all well reasoned and organized and perfectly respectable, even if our opinion on what is 'better' differs. But I think it misses the forest for the trees- it's not really the Reaper motivation that upset people. The Reaper motivation is a symptom for the ME3 ending uproar, not the cause.

 

If the thing that changed in ME3 trilogy was the Reaper motivation, but the rest was the same- the Catalyst, Shepard dying, the fate of the galaxy and everyone in it being irrevocably shaped without consent- I think we would have gotten the same sort of uproar. Maybe some slightly different people- some people who cared about Synthetics-vs-Organics might be mollified, while others who accepted it would be agitated by something they wouldn't- but for most people, I think they would have latched on to the new flaws as their justification for hating and dismissing it.

 

While I, personally, think that Dark Energy as an ending would have been worse structurally... I think the real flaws and uproar came in how the motivation was approached, not the structure, and I don't see a reason why that would have changed just because the Reaper motive did, especially when so many of the arguments against Organic-Synthetics have the same structure. We've gone over some of them (no foreshadowing = 'out of nowhere', Reapers being the good guys, turning technology from our go-to solution for plot problems into the source of our ruin as a 'thematic betrayal'), and I think most people would have clutched on for anything to justify their feelings.

 

When it comes down to it, I don't think the uproar was about writing quality or an appreciation for structure and design. The previous two ME games convinced me most fans care about the feels far more than the appreciation for design implications. So unless the Dark Energy theory radically changed the feels- and I don't see why it would have changed the various other design flaws that produced those feels- I think it's a bit of a red herring to chase after.

 

I'd agree with this. To be sure, there seemed to be a special vendetta against Shepard's death and the fate/galaxy aspect.

 

This is strictly meant in​ terms of what would have made the endings more palatable for me. I think my (idealized) dark energy ending would still have resulted in an uproar amongst many/most. Shepard's survival never really made my priority list.

 

I think Mass Effect in general strayed too far into power fantasy for many fans and tried to bring us back away from that for the ending. Having to potentially commit atrocities didn't really bother me. The way I saw it: survival, in any form, against the Reapers was itself a miracle.
 

[Dean_the_Young]

I'd agree with this. To be sure, there seemed to be a special vendetta against Shepard's death and the fate/galaxy aspect.

 

Agree? You can't do that! What else are we supposed to argue about if we're both reasonable people?

 

You're stupid! Your avatar is stupid!

 

 

 

This is strictly meant in​ terms of what would have made the endings more palatable for me. I think my (idealized) dark energy ending would still have resulted in an uproar amongst many/most. Shepard's survival never really made my priority list.

 

 

I think Mass Effect in general strayed too far into power fantasy for many fans and tried to bring us back away from that for the ending. Having to potentially commit atrocities didn't really bother me. The way I saw it: survival, in any form, against the Reapers was itself a miracle.

 

Some people hated it, but I actually really liked the idea of breaking the mass relays and putting a hard reset on galactic civilization. For me it was the ultimate repudiation on the Reapers and the idea of 'you develop along our paths'- a giant 'well **** you and your relays, we'll build it our own way next time!' Whereas Control (could/should) have been the great 'we beat you at your own game, and took your stuff for our own.' I always favored the Renegade-leaning 'take advantages/power/forcible coopation' options- and keeping the Relays seemed like a relatively good trade off to me. It was the payoff/vindication of 'ends justify the means', with enough negatives to keep it guessing. Do you want your life of comfort with Shepard-controlled Reapers lingering, or the discomfort of sticking to your ideals (mostly)?

 

(For the record- I don't oppose it, but I think Destroy could reasonably have been 'just Reaper tech.' A Reaper-tech self-destruct that shatters the relays rather than all AI- though Geth, if they took Reaper Code, should have been collateral.)

 

 

But yeah- power fantasy to the max, which doesn't help when the fantasy ends. It's like Alan has said in the past: Mass Effect was never about Hard Choices as much as it was about avoiding having Hard Choices- either through 'ideal' options or just avoiding consequences.

 

Though, I really do appreciate a non-persuasion playthrough now. Playing the game, especially ME2, without persuasion checks is a much darker experience.

[Han Shot First]

I'm curious as to how much space magic MEA goes into. I'm hoping not much- the less mysticism, the better. I can only think of two story element in which I thought mysticism improved the quality- and that was Javik and most of the Krogan, who were less mysticism and more alien philosophy about survival.

 

The rest though? The Cipher with Shiala, the Asari in general, Eve the female messiah figure who somehow speaks for all Krogan females and half the males? I thought it was a let-down.

 

I'm okay with some space magic and rule of cool. The series for me, starting with the first game, has always been a blend of fantasy and hard Sci Fi. I just thought that starting with Mass Effect 2 the series seemed to pivot more towards the former, and preferred when the tone of the series was more balanced. (Though admittedly, it was a never a perfect marriage)

[AlanC9]

I was a HUGE fan of his until that novel.  I absolutely hated where he took the story in that novel, though.

Just looked up the summary on Wookiepedia. Yikes.

[NKnight7]

I didn't mind his ME novels, I enjoyed reading all of them but I'm not too familiar with his work on The Old Republic or Star Wars in general. I'm hoping to start that game by early October at least and most reviews I read say the story in TOR isn't bad, so I'm excited.