3558 réponses à ce sujet

[gothpunkboy89]

Do you mean before he was implanted? If that's the case how do you figure that he was forced to do that? Maybe it was his decision. He was indoctrinated after all.

 

 

And how does indoctrination work?

[dorktainian]

And how does indoctrination work?

we brought all the evidence to the table when ME3 came out.  If you are quick there's a thread lost in the vaults somewhere that breaks it all down.

 

 

quick before it's lost forever.

[gothpunkboy89]

we brought all the evidence to the table when ME3 came out.  If you are quick there's a thread lost in the vaults somewhere that breaks it all down.

 

 

So to put a long story short it allows the Reapers to manipulate people's minds.

 

So how is this vastly different then what TIM does? Save it is a much more basic and unrefined version of it. Which fits into the whole set up of TIM trying to emulate the Reapers to beat them.

 

Seriously the brain controls the body. If you can effect the mind you can effect the body.

[rossler]

The Starchild is the hallucination of ghostly presences part, the one about psychological conditioning, as well as having feelings of betraying your friends (EDI, Geth, synthetics, etc). 

 

 

The reason I don't like IT is because if it's true then it means the game doesn't have an ending. It has an ending of the dream but the Reapers are still a threat.

 

I'm just letting you know how I see things. People can believe whatever they want. 

 

Ultimately, everything at the end is open to interpretation. 

[BloodyMares]

So to put a long story short it allows the Reapers to manipulate people's minds.

 

So how is this vastly different then what TIM does? Save it is a much more basic and unrefined version of it. Which fits into the whole set up of TIM trying to emulate the Reapers to beat them.

 

Seriously the brain controls the body. If you can effect the mind you can effect the body.

It's different in the way that Reapers make others want to obey. TIM on the other hand manipulates their bodies directly but doesn't control their minds. If he was really using Reaper indoctrination with so much force then Shep and Anderson would become brain dead.

[gothpunkboy89]

It's different in the way that Reapers make others want to obey. TIM on the other hand manipulates their bodies directly but doesn't control their minds. If he was really using Reaper indoctrination with so much force then Shep and Anderson would become brain dead.

 

 

 

The Reapers are shown to be able to alter how a person thinks without them realizing it. Your body and movement is dependent on your brain. That is why if you have a traumatic injury particularly one that involves the brain you do physical therapy. Because your brain needs to literally relearn how to move your body though new path ways since the old ones are damaged.

 

 

Reapers utilized the refined version of this to plant sleeper agents in the various races because that is what they desire out of it and it is the most effective use of it. As the various races during the harvest with the right sleeper agent can cause them to fall to infighting weakening them even more making them easier targets for the harvest.

 

TIM just barely scratched the surface of the mind altering capability the Reapers have developed. This limits him to only being able to effect how the mind controls the body. And not actually able to alter how the person thinks. This is why I call it blunt force compared to the Reaper version because it is such a basic and unrefined version of it.

 

You seem to keep trying to create a problem were none exists. How exactly is the Reaper version of altering their brain to have them bow down and worship them any different then TIM forcing them to bow to him? Save one is more refined and subtle approach to it and the other is about as subtle as a marching band. 

[Natureguy85]

And yet they both exist in the same purpose. Vigil provides info dump that based on that you choose if to save the Council or not. If their lives are worth the risk of Sovereign winning if to many ships get blown up trying to protect them. Much in the same way the Catalyst and it's conversation sets you up to choose your ending to the climax of the game. You treat Vigil's statements as if they are the words of God. Yet constantly question every statement from the Catalyst. Were if it so much as makes a grammar error you use it as proof it is full of hot air.

 

They have the same basic purpose in providing information to the player. However, the context is different. A lot of what Vigil tells you is expanding the story for the future. It is interesting, but doesn't help fix the immediate problem of stopping Saren and Sovereign. And while Vigil does give you a program that allows you to open the arms and Relays, what he tells you has nothing to do with if you save the Council or not. That's entirely separate. The Catalyst, on the other hand, frames the choices and gives you information directly related to deciding.

 

I've also said before that I know as a player that everything the Catalyst says is true. My objections have to do with story structure and what the character of Shepard knows. While Vigil was a friendly entity expanding on what we already knew and providing new information that fit within that, the Catalyst is the enemy providing new information that is at odds with what we already knew. That Vigil is near the end of the first chapter, but before the Climax, but the Catalyst is at the very end of the third and final chapter is also significant.

 

 

 

 

 

You make complaints about why Shepard wouldn't know X or Y because they exist in the game and wouldn't have access to that information since they are not the player. Usually in line with making a complaint about the ending. Yet you decide that DLC is no longer relevant to the topic because it is DLC. Specifically pointing out the DLC that addresses your problems with the story as to why it isn't vital since it wasn't in the vanilla version of the game. Which ignores once a DLC is released regardless of if someone plays it or not it becomes official canon to the story unless stated otherwise by game developers.

 

DLC is both optional and after the fact. If it is plot critical, then the original game and story were missing a piece, and are therefore incomplete. That's not a good thing. The DLC might address problems with the original, and that's fine, but that is a mark against the original, not for it. However, it still remains optional. Maybe they'll come out with a "remastered" release with everything integrated more seamlessly. That might work.

 

DLC might sometimes be canon, but as BloodyMares pointed out, they really haven't laid down an official canon like that, at least as far as I am aware. They even account for if you didn't play Arrival and LotSB, having the relevant events occur even without Shepard. What becomes canon is only relevant for the next installment. Deus Ex: Invisible War made the canon an amalgamation of all three endings. However that does not affect the story of Deus Ex in the least bit. Therefore, while Liara becoming the Shadow Broker and the destruction of the Alpha Relay are canon, Shepard's involvement is not for ME3. However, it could be made canon for Andromeda, depending on when exactly that takes place and what it decided says about Shepard.

 

Are you suggesting that playthroughs where the player didn't play Arrival or LotSB are invalid?

 

 

 

You continually use the term retcon less like a statement and more closer to a insulting jab. Much in the same way conservatives will call someone a liberal almost as if it is an insult.

 

Yes, retcons are bad. So is modern liberalism, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.

 

 

You obsess over show don't tell as if it is the only valid way to tell any story.  Which ignores some rather important parts besides the fact that you don't have to show and can tell things without ruining the quality of the story. Besides the fact you can tell a story just fine by telling most and showing only a little. Showing isn't nearly as budget friendly as simply telling. While I and I no doubt countless other would love a couple hours of cut scenes showing the Reapers advancing and every little plot point played out in extreme detail. That would unfortunately cost a lot to do and unfortunately ME series has never gotten close to the level of popularity like CoD were the day of it's release will sell millions of copies simply because of it's name to warrant the budget to pull it off.

 

Now you're just whining. "Show don't tell" is the preferred way to tell a story. Any author will tell you this. Obviously there is a place for "tell," but that has to be done properly too. It depends on what the information is that we're talking about. The problem is that what we are being told is at odds with what we've been shown. The change in excuses is a good sign for me though. It's you grasping at straws and spinning your tires in the mud.

 

 

You see what you want to see rather then what happens in the game. Which is expected because you perceptions always color things how you want to see them. This is painfully obvious in politics to the point it makes me think there are a lot more stupid people out there then I think there are. How ever you take your perception of the game and it's story and then try to apply literary criticism to it as if it is an exact science like 1+1=2.  It simply is not.  If you are not familar with it I would suggest you getting familiar with Red Vs Blue. It is a great machinima series currently on it's 14th season. Inconsistency and retcon are close to second nature to the series yet it has gained so much popularity that you can find all 13 seasons besides the handful of short series like Recovery One on Netflix.  Using your arguments this should be a terrible story that shouldn't have made it past the first 3 seasons. Yet here it is mid way though the 14th season with a promise of a 15th and more. Stating they will keep making it as long as the fans keep watching it.

 

I haven't kept up with RvB, but I did watch at least the first season. That is a comedy and parody series. I didn't get the impression that people watch that for a consistent narrative, but because it's wacky and funny. That works for that type of show. Mass Effect was never that. And no, that first season didn't have a great story, but it was fun because the characters and humor were good. Just like ME2 had a crappy story but was fun because of the characters and gameplay.

[angol fear]

You continually use the term retcon less like a statement and more closer to a insulting jab. Much in the same way conservatives will call someone a liberal almost as if it is an insult. And vastly over use it to describe anything even vaugly changed. Particularly when compared to your words of God from Vigil. Which you treat as any possible alteration from those statements as blasphemy.

 

Retcon is seen, from the doxa point of view, as an inconsistency. It's an easier way to create the illusion of an argument. The fact that we don't know everything and new information just change our point of view on Mass Effect element, so we learn more and more about everything, that fact is ignored. It's easier to consider that our informations in Mass Effect 1 are complete and what comes after change Mass Effect 1. It's actually not what happens. Mass Effect 1 gives the basis of our representation of Mass Effect but Mass Effect 2 and 3 give more details about events, they make us know more things. And because our representation is forced to change it's "retcon" (while it's totally debatable). Mass Effect 2 and 3 use "retcon" so their writing became "bad". That's the easy argument. Using Wikipedia instead of trying to analyze the writing, that's why "retcon" is used.

 

 

You obsess over show don't tell as if it is the only valid way to tell any story.  Which ignores some rather important parts besides the fact that you don't have to show and can tell things without ruining the quality of the story. Besides the fact you can tell a story just fine by telling most and showing only a little. Showing isn't nearly as budget friendly as simply telling. While I and I no doubt countless other would love a couple hours of cut scenes showing the Reapers advancing and every little plot point played out in extreme detail. That would unfortunately cost a lot to do and unfortunately ME series has never gotten close to the level of popularity like CoD were the day of it's release will sell millions of copies simply because of it's name to warrant the budget to pull it off.

 

The "show don't tell" is used the exact same way "retcon" is used. "Show don't tell" is supposed to be a rule, which there is no rules in writing, there's just principles (but they are harder to teach them, that's the reason none are explained on internet). Anyway the "Show don't tell" is actually a "give an explicit information" thing. In a game where it's supposed to be open to the interpretation, it's a real problem, a real contradiction. The game actually showed what was said. It's just that the game was writing in order to be ambiguous, in order to be interpreted by the player. The game actually showed the answer but with many ways to understand it. The problem with the "show don't tell" complaint is that it's actually coming from players who want to have a limited answer, an answer that doesn't require interpretation, a closed answer. That would be actually against the writing and the intention of the game/developers. And we have seen that the reaper level is defined since Mass Effect 1 with Sovereign.

 

 

 

What actually happens is that people who consider themselves doing critique are just doing the opposite. Doing critique isn't taking fake rules and making argument with them. Doing a real critique is actually to understand the structure, seeing how the form and content are linked. This require comprehension, which means following the writing not going against it. Following the writing has nothing to do with good or bad, and that's why it's so hard for many people here : as long as they want something to be "bad" they can't observe it, they're in constant wong interpretation because everything is defined by an a priori. Basically people who want it to be "bad" will never be in analysis because the beginning is biased. It's actually funny to see that it's those people who claim to be objective...

[Natureguy85]

Well I can't speak against the "weird" part (some of the strangeness was probably on purpose by the devs to create a unique experience), but as far as consistency goes TIM's ability to control people seemed like an extension of the indoctrination properties already demonstrated and described throughout he trilogy, and gained from the procedure he underwent on Horizon. His Reaper-like nature was also described by his changed appearance.

 

I don't see how it's an extension, though it is a different form of mental control. Indoctrination changes how and what a person thinks, but is manipulative rather than direct. More direct influence reduces utility. Also, the damage to the individual is permanent. TIM, on the other hand, can't control Anderson or Shepard's thoughts, but only their motor functions. There is no loss of mental ability and Shepard recovers TIM is dead.

 

 

Why?

But let's stipulate that it is. It fits a pet theory of mine anyway. Without getting into specifics, I think most of us are in general agreement that the games made somewhat less sense as we went on. What this means depends on how nonsense-tolerant each player is. From what I've seen, the players who will put up with anything are just fine. But the players who thought that ME was always nonsense are also fine. It's the people in the middle, who could ignore or didn't notice ME1's glaring flaws but couldn't or wouldn't do that for the later games, who have problems. (You can probably sort forum regulars into these groups pretty easily.)

The open question is whether nonsense-tolerance is a stable value. I have a suspicion that a lot of people only started to question ME3's logic after they found it emotionally unsatisfying, but I can't come up with any valid system for investigating this aspect. You've certainly seen posters from the always-nonsense group accusing posters from the middle group of blatant hypocrisy; it's a common move on this board.

 

Because once you put an intelligence on the Citadel, there is no reason for it to not directly control the most crucial function of the thing it is plugged into.

 

There is definitely a difference in individuals for how much their suspension of disbelief can be stretched. However, things have a compounding effect. While two things may be equally problematic, the second one is piled on top of the first because you still remember that first one.

 

I actually don't get much from the "always nonsense" crowd. That argument comes from the apologist fanboys that say everything is perfectly sensible.

 

 

This was caused by an indoctrination sequence being cut. If you look at the leaked outline (not the full-text leak), you can see that the effect was supposed to have been familiar to the player, presumably from Horizon. Devs have said that the sequence failed in playtesting; IIRC it felt like the game had gone buggy rather than like insidious mind control.

 

So it didn't happen in the games then.

 

 

Controlling Shepard I wouldn't find hard to believe. The first time I saw that, I thought it had something to do with all the upgrades implanted in Shepard's body. With Anderson, it could be similiar to the Dominate power that TIM used. He was also being controlled by the intelligence. It still doesn't explain the fist-pump thing. Unless Bioware wanted to do that for a "it looks cool" effect.

 

Yeah, there's something to be said for that. However, didn't TIM speak against the idea of any sort of "control chip" again in the videos on the Cerberus base?

 

 

How the body moves is build entirely based on the mind. The Reapers and their refined indoctrination subtle alters how the person things and reacts to certain circumstances. And in the case of being around undirected indoctrination effect like in the Dead Reaper. It overloads and breaks the mind of people who are subjected to it.

 

TIM figuring out the very basic form of it would still allow him to manipulate the body to react a certain why by controlling the brain. How ever because it is such a basic blunt force version of what the Reapers are capable of he can not induce that subtle alteration in how they think. The targets are aware what is going on but are incapable of over riding the effect TIM has on their basic motor controls.

 

It isn't really new.  Closer to someone in this day and age creating the Wright Brother's first plane vs the F-22 Raptor jet fighter the US military has. Same thing just a lot more basic version of it.

 

How is this "more basic?" The Reapers exerting that level of control would fry the brain of the subject, rendering them useless.

 

 

Sure they can.

 

All those Collectors you fought in ME2 and ME3 multiplayer, Citadel arena, as well as TIM were directly controlled by Harbinger. When you shot Anderson, Harbinger was controlling TIM as well as you. Both mind and body. 

 

Harbinger wasn't directly controlling TIM. When Harbinger directly controls a Collector, the light on fire and gain special powers. TIM didn't do that, though he did gain weird powers from his experiments. He definitely wasn't controlling Shepard. TIM was Indoctrinated and controlled Anderson and Shepard's movements somehow.

 

 

Harbinger controlling TIM? Hmmm. I remember the intelligence saying we controlled him. Meaning the intelligence was controlling TIM

 

As in TIM was Indoctrinated.

[gothpunkboy89]

Erm...not quite. The official canon for Mass Effect can only be the events that every player experienced. i.e. everything that cannot be skipped: cutscenes for the main storyline and several dialogues that happen the same way regardless of your choice. That's it. Everything else is "personal canon" because the player decides which events take place in their game. Your Shepard can be a man or a woman, Shepard can be a naive saint or a ruthless jerk. Shepard can spare the colonists of Feros or they can kill them. Shepard can cure the Genophage or sabotage it etc. You get the idea. That's why Bioware always say that there is no canon ending. Everyone shapes their own story. And DLC is a part of that "personal canon". But unlike the content of the base game, it's not accessible to everyone.

 

No the offical Canon for Mass Effect is everything in game.  Main, side, DLC. Now all those can be done specific ways that differ in how you approach them and how you want Shepard to approach them. But they are still canon events.

[BloodyMares]

No the offical Canon for Mass Effect is everything in game.  Main, side, DLC. Now all those can be done specific ways that differ in how you approach them and how you want Shepard to approach them. But they are still canon events.

Whatever. My point still stands. Everyone shapes their own story. The player doesn't have to learn all the possible twists and turns that are possible in the game to understand the story. And the overarching plot should make sense for every player, not the select few that played the game "this (correct?) way" and played all the DLC necessary for the story to work. Either don't give choices at all and direct your narrative as you wish or if you give choices then these choices should be taken into consideration by the main plot.

[gothpunkboy89]

Whatever. My point still stands. Everyone shapes their own story. The player doesn't have to learn all the possible twists and turns that are possible in the game to understand the story. And the overarching plot should make sense for every player, not the select few that played the game "this (correct?) way" and played all the DLC necessary for the story to work. Either don't give choices at all and direct your narrative as you wish or if you give choices then these choices should be taken into consideration by the main plot.

 

Well apparently when players don't play the whole game they come to the forums to complain about stuff in the game not making any sense. Even though when you play the whole game it makes sense.  It is kind of like skipping every other chapter in a book. You read the LotR Trilogy but you skip every other chapter the story doesn't make a lot of sense compared to when you read the all the chapters.

 

Ignorance isn't an excuse for stupidity when you choose to be ignorant.

[gothpunkboy89]

They have the same basic purpose in providing information to the player. However, the context is different. A lot of what Vigil tells you is expanding the story for the future. It is interesting, but doesn't help fix the immediate problem of stopping Saren and Sovereign. And while Vigil does give you a program that allows you to open the arms and Relays, what he tells you has nothing to do with if you save the Council or not. That's entirely separate. The Catalyst, on the other hand, frames the choices and gives you information directly related to deciding.

 

I've also said before that I know as a player that everything the Catalyst says is true. My objections have to do with story structure and what the character of Shepard knows. While Vigil was a friendly entity expanding on what we already knew and providing new information that fit within that, the Catalyst is the enemy providing new information that is at odds with what we already knew. That Vigil is near the end of the first chapter, but before the Climax, but the Catalyst is at the very end of the third and final chapter is also significant.

 

They are the same context. Vital game information being revealed that will decide your actions in the game after the info dump. The time between doesn't matter because the time between the information and choices made in game because of that information isn't part of context.  You either don't know what context actually means or you have altered it to say what you want rather then what it said. Vigil fills you in on what the Reapers plan is and what they will do if Sovereign is successful. Catalyst fills you in on the Reaper reasoning for their actions and the logic behind it. You then make your choice based on that.

 

Yes Vigil is a friendly  entity that shows up after Saren has passed though with information that it shouldn't possibly have due to how it contradicts it's own statements and gives you a program that some how is able to lock out a massive super advanced AI space cuttlefish from the very systems they created. If you use the same level of objection with story structure and what the character of Shepard knows you should be even more suspicious of Vigil. Vigil is only vindicated and show to be trust worthy after the fact that it's special program works. Just like the Catalyst is shown to be telling the truth after you make your choice.

 

This is the part that honestly gets a bit frustrating with you. You hold what you don't like to vastly different standards then what you do like then claim it is bad story telling. Shepard has no information on Protheans other then they existed 50,000 years ago and disappeared. While chasing after Saren who is working for the Reapers you get blocked off from pursuing him by a force field. Which requires you to stop giving chance and detour to some were else. Were you happen to run into a VI program that some how is still working 50,000 years later even though by it's own story it had to shut down thousands of life support modules during the couple hundred years it took for the Reapers to finish harvesting the Protheans. And yet some how had enough power to erect a force field and continue running.

 

This is all after Saren and his army of VI programs the Geth who can transfer themselves into different technology if it is set up to hold a VI system like that interface would be set up for.

 

And after giving a story to Sheaprd which out right contradicts it self in obvious ways. The facility can not go dark at the start of the war to allow it self to be bypassed by the Reapers and yet some how know everything that happened. The Protheans can not create a program to over ride a Reaper control of a station they build using their own technology without working on it. Yet Vigil claims they used the Conduit and lost contact with them. Yet some how was able to get a hold of a program that they created to interrupt Sovereign's control of the station.

 

Using the same logic you apply to the Catalyst there is even less reason to list, believe or act on anything Vigil says. In fact give the set ups of each one I would be far more inclined to believe Catalyst over Vigil in their respective games. Because the Catalyst is open and honest about who it is.

 

DLC is both optional and after the fact. If it is plot critical, then the original game and story were missing a piece, and are therefore incomplete. That's not a good thing. The DLC might address problems with the original, and that's fine, but that is a mark against the original, not for it. However, it still remains optional. Maybe they'll come out with a "remastered" release with everything integrated more seamlessly. That might work.

 

DLC might sometimes be canon, but as BloodyMares pointed out, they really haven't laid down an official canon like that, at least as far as I am aware. They even account for if you didn't play Arrival and LotSB, having the relevant events occur even without Shepard. What becomes canon is only relevant for the next installment. Deus Ex: Invisible War made the canon an amalgamation of all three endings. However that does not affect the story of Deus Ex in the least bit. Therefore, while Liara becoming the Shadow Broker and the destruction of the Alpha Relay are canon, Shepard's involvement is not for ME3. However, it could be made canon for Andromeda, depending on when exactly that takes place and what it decided says about Shepard.

 

Are you suggesting that playthroughs where the player didn't play Arrival or LotSB are invalid?

 

No the DLC expands something that people who were not paying attention missed to make it unmissable. They actually have leaid out an offical canon. The events in game are canon. Now how Shepard goes about them being paragon or renegade isn't official. Regardless of how you play you always go to Noveria and find the Rachni Queen and Liara's mother. You always go to Geth Heretic base. You always go to Tuchunka and do something with the genophage and kill the Reaper. The individual choices you make are not offical but the fact you are there to make those choices are.

 

Arrival and LotSB are still official canon if your Shepard takes place in them or not. If Shepard doesn't do it then it is the 125th infantry that destroys the Relay and Liara brings an army of mercs to assault the base. The events are still canon.

 

Yes, retcons are bad. So is modern liberalism, but that's irrelevant to this discussion.

 

No they are not bad inherently it really depends how they are done. Because if retcons are bad then please explain how Marvel and DC comics are still in business. Because every few years they retcon tons of stuff. Unless you are saying every person who has ever enjoyed any comic by them are drooling idiots who wouldn't understand the basics of story structure and telling if it walked up and spit in their face?

 

Because 9 times out of 10 your complaint about retcon goes something like this: OMG on the follow up game they provided more information to the game expanding it and altering some old information from the previous game. They really suck at story telling. How dare they build the world up anymore then it was previous.

 

Now you're just whining. "Show don't tell" is the preferred way to tell a story. Any author will tell you this. Obviously there is a place for "tell," but that has to be done properly too. It depends on what the information is that we're talking about. The problem is that what we are being told is at odds with what we've been shown. The change in excuses is a good sign for me though. It's you grasping at straws and spinning your tires in the mud.

 

Two questions for you...

 

1. How many authors do you know and who are they?

2. You do realize the writing a book and making a game are vastly different right?

 

I mean seriously an author of a book can get into great detail because all that costs besides the time to write it is the cost of paper and ink. So someone could add an extra 50 pages providing extreme detail to a book for an extra cost of like $20 compared to without it. A game being a much more visual medium then a book requires several people dozens of hours of work to create the same thing. So that cost jumps up to a couple thousand dollars for a little bit extra information.

 

It really comes across like you are blindly applying book based set ups to game based set ups and ignoring the vast and important differences between them so you can stand on your soap box and complain.

 

I haven't kept up with RvB, but I did watch at least the first season. That is a comedy and parody series. I didn't get the impression that people watch that for a consistent narrative, but because it's wacky and funny. That works for that type of show. Mass Effect was never that. And no, that first season didn't have a great story, but it was fun because the characters and humor were good. Just like ME2 had a crappy story but was fun because of the characters and gameplay.

 

Well watch the rest before you make any statements.

[BloodyMares]

Well apparently when players don't play the whole game they come to the forums to complain about stuff in the game not making any sense. Even though when you play the whole game it makes sense.  It is kind of like skipping every other chapter in a book. You read the LotR Trilogy but you skip every other chapter the story doesn't make a lot of sense compared to when you read the all the chapters.

 

Ignorance isn't an excuse for stupidity when you choose to be ignorant.

Well, even in books there are chapters that don't advance the plot but rather flesh out the characters or expand the world. These chapters can be skipped because they are relevant to the characters but not the actual plot.

What are you talking about? You can't call people stupid just because they skip all the optional stuff. You know what the word "optional" means, right? You are not bound to complete every sidequest. You should only need to get through the story to understand the story, In ME1 it's Prologue, Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Therum, Ilos and well the Citadel itself. That's it. All of it is mandatory and nothing else is required to understand the story completely. In ME2 it's only Freedom's Progress, Horizon, Collector Cruiser, Derelict Reaper, Collector Homeworld and all the banter with TIM. Even though the story is much smaller than of ME1 it still doesn't require anything else to understand the main plot. Even recruitment and loyalty missions are a filler. Quests that expand the universe and flesh out the characters but don't affect the main plot (The Collector / Reaper threat). In ME3 it's unskippable Priority missions. Everything else is optional. I hope you get the idea. Optional content shouldn't be required to understand the main plot. 

[gothpunkboy89]

Well, even in books there are chapters that don't advance the plot but rather flesh out the characters or expand the world. These chapters can be skipped because they are relevant to the characters but not the actual plot.

What are you talking about? You can't call people stupid just because they skip all the optional stuff. You know what the word "optional" means, right? You are not bound to complete every sidequest. You should only need to get through the story to understand the story, In ME1 it's Prologue, Feros, Noveria, Virmire, Therum, Ilos and well the Citadel itself. That's it. All of it is mandatory and nothing else is required to understand the story completely. In ME2 it's only Freedom's Progress, Horizon, Collector Cruiser, Derelict Reaper, Collector Homeworld and all the banter with TIM. Even though the story is much smaller than of ME1 it still doesn't require anything else to understand the main plot. Even recruitment and loyalty missions are a filler. Quests that expand the universe and flesh out the characters but don't affect the main plot (The Collector / Reaper threat). In ME3 it's unskippable Priority missions. Everything else is optional. I hope you get the idea. Optional content shouldn't be required to understand the main plot. 

 

I can call people stupid for skipping stuff. Why would you pay$50-60 dollars for a game and skip stuff on it?

 

There are stuff that is required to advance the plot. But you can still miss details important to the plot if your skip them.

[Obadiah]

Not sure how the conversation got to this point, but I played the original pre-DLCs and thought it made sense. The DLCs didn't do much but flesh out what was already there.

[BloodyMares]

I can call people stupid for skipping stuff. Why would you pay$50-60 dollars for a game and skip stuff on it?

 

There are stuff that is required to advance the plot. But you can still miss details important to the plot if your skip them.

 

For different reasons. Because I'm bored or the sidequests are a chore. It doesn't matter. I'm not buying the full-priced DLC that's for sure. And if without these DLC the story is incomplete then I feel that Bioware screwed me over. I paid for a full game, not some fragment.

But even if I have the DLC, it's still an optional content. I like to roleplay. Non of my playthroughs are identical. What my Shepard #1 experiences in the game doesn't carry over to the experience of my Shepard #2. I do certain stuff as one character and the other stuff as another. The experience is always different. And when the game makes sense for my number 1 renegon playthrough but doesn't make sense for my number 2 paragade playthrough then I think the narrative has a problem for not adapting to the different ways of roleplaying that the game itself provides opportunities for. 

It really reminds me of HISHE episode:
Shepard: I'm ready for this, I made all the right choices.
Catalyst: You chose not to play  as FemShep.

I mean, come on, that's ridiculous.

 

Yes, details but these details shouldn't be crucial. They can provide some flavour and other interesting bits but not the actual need-to-know info that you can't understand the story without it. Mass Effect 1 for example feeded all the right info and you couldn't choose not to eat it. Sidequests didn't have any plot-integral information. That's the way to go. And calling completionists smart because they "got it" while calling those that want just juicy stuff stupid is impertinent. It's not the player's fault that the plot-integral information is hidden in DLC.

[AlanC9]

I actually think we got that after sheps supposed beam me up scotty moment.
 

It happened on Horizon. It was cut.

[gothpunkboy89]

For different reasons. Because I'm bored or the sidequests are a chore. It doesn't matter. I'm not buying the full-priced DLC that's for sure. And if without these DLC the story is incomplete then I feel that Bioware screwed me over. I paid for a full game, not some fragment.

But even if I have the DLC, it's still an optional content. I like to roleplay. Non of my playthroughs are identical. What my Shepard #1 experiences in the game doesn't carry over to the experience of my Shepard #2. I do certain stuff as one character and the other stuff as another. The experience is always different. And when the game makes sense for my number 1 renegon playthrough but doesn't make sense for my number 2 paragade playthrough then I think the narrative has a problem for not adapting to the different ways of roleplaying that the game itself provides opportunities for. 

It really reminds me of HISHE episode:
Shepard: I'm ready for this, I made all the right choices.
Catalyst: You chose not to play  as FemShep.

I mean, come on, that's ridiculous.

 

Yes, details but these details shouldn't be crucial. They can provide some flavour and other interesting bits but not the actual need-to-know info that you can't understand the story without it. Mass Effect 1 for example feeded all the right info and you couldn't choose not to eat it. Sidequests didn't have any plot-integral information. That's the way to go. And calling completionists smart because they "got it" while calling those that want just juicy stuff stupid is impertinent. It's not the player's fault that the plot-integral information is hidden in DLC.

 

 

But the story wasn't incomplete at all. All that Leviathan DLC did was expand on it so players couldn't complain about not knowing or missing something because they were not paying attention. Which seems to be a theme when talking about this game and it's story. It isn't so much the story was done badly it is that players missed, ignored or mentally altered how certain events and things happened then complain about the story.

 

Oh you can role play all you want in the game. No one is saying you can't role play in the game how you want. How ever ignoring content because you find it boring or you simply don't want to then coming to forums to complain about the game and flaws it has in the story is......silly.

 

And side quests don't have plot inegral information. But they have bits that add to it to help understand it as whole. Like people who like to claim the Geth couldn't be a threat seem to ignore the side missions in ME 1 were the Geth faked a distress signal and lured an Alliance Marine squad right to a thresher Maw nest which resulted in their death. Or those many times the Geth popped out of no were when you were responding to a distress call from ship they destroyed themselves. Do you realize how much that would effect moral of troops not knowing if every distress signal sent out is a trap. And what is worse that their own distress signal might be ignored out of fear of it being a trap.

 

And I shall repeat there is no plot integral information restricted behind DLC. How ever many people are honestly at this point I would start calling them stupid if not willfully ignorant of the points the game tries to make. So the Leviathan DLC acts less plot integral and more taking the point already made in the vanilla game and blowing it up on a 600 foot jumbotron with fire works and a marching band playing so players can't claim they didn't see it anymore. Oh it certainly expands on it more but the point it makes is already there.

[AlanC9]

Because once you put an intelligence on the Citadel, there is no reason for it to not directly control the most crucial function of the thing it is plugged into.

Sure, but then the Prothean scientists just have to sabotage a system that works a little differently. What Vigil describes is a Rube Goldberg mess anyway.

 

I actually don't get much from the "always nonsense" crowd. That argument comes from the apologist fanboys that say everything is perfectly sensible.

Yeah, we don't typically hang out in threads like this. (It's embarrassing to find yourself effectively on the same side as some of these guys,)
 

So it didn't happen in the games then.

 
Right. I wasn't intending to defend the mess; just explaining what happened.

[rossler]

Leviathan didn't tell me anything I didn't already know. Did a good job of rehashing the Anderson/TIM/Shepard scene as well as the Star child scene with its ending.

[Natureguy85]

No the offical Canon for Mass Effect is everything in game.  Main, side, DLC. Now all those can be done specific ways that differ in how you approach them and how you want Shepard to approach them. But they are still canon events.

 

Well that means Shepard going to Noveria is canon, but there is no canon as to whether the Rachni Queen lived or died. If they do nail down one or the other as canon, perhaps whatever the default ME2 state is, then it is only relevant to ME2 and beyond, not to any playthrough of Mass Effect 1.

 

 

Well apparently when players don't play the whole game they come to the forums to complain about stuff in the game not making any sense. Even though when you play the whole game it makes sense.  It is kind of like skipping every other chapter in a book. You read the LotR Trilogy but you skip every other chapter the story doesn't make a lot of sense compared to when you read the all the chapters.

 

Ignorance isn't an excuse for stupidity when you choose to be ignorant.

 

But it isn't like skipping chapters. It's like reading the entire book and then a new chapter being written and released separately.

[Natureguy85]

They are the same context. Vital game information being revealed that will decide your actions in the game after the info dump. The time between doesn't matter because the time between the information and choices made in game because of that information isn't part of context.  You either don't know what context actually means or you have altered it to say what you want rather then what it said. Vigil fills you in on what the Reapers plan is and what they will do if Sovereign is successful. Catalyst fills you in on the Reaper reasoning for their actions and the logic behind it. You then make your choice based on that.

 

Yes Vigil is a friendly  entity that shows up after Saren has passed though with information that it shouldn't possibly have due to how it contradicts it's own statements and gives you a program that some how is able to lock out a massive super advanced AI space cuttlefish from the very systems they created. If you use the same level of objection with story structure and what the character of Shepard knows you should be even more suspicious of Vigil. Vigil is only vindicated and show to be trust worthy after the fact that it's special program works. Just like the Catalyst is shown to be telling the truth after you make your choice.

 

This is the part that honestly gets a bit frustrating with you. You hold what you don't like to vastly different standards then what you do like then claim it is bad story telling. Shepard has no information on Protheans other then they existed 50,000 years ago and disappeared. While chasing after Saren who is working for the Reapers you get blocked off from pursuing him by a force field. Which requires you to stop giving chance and detour to some were else. Were you happen to run into a VI program that some how is still working 50,000 years later even though by it's own story it had to shut down thousands of life support modules during the couple hundred years it took for the Reapers to finish harvesting the Protheans. And yet some how had enough power to erect a force field and continue running.

 

This is all after Saren and his army of VI programs the Geth who can transfer themselves into different technology if it is set up to hold a VI system like that interface would be set up for.

 

And after giving a story to Sheaprd which out right contradicts it self in obvious ways. The facility can not go dark at the start of the war to allow it self to be bypassed by the Reapers and yet some how know everything that happened. The Protheans can not create a program to over ride a Reaper control of a station they build using their own technology without working on it. Yet Vigil claims they used the Conduit and lost contact with them. Yet some how was able to get a hold of a program that they created to interrupt Sovereign's control of the station.

 

Using the same logic you apply to the Catalyst there is even less reason to list, believe or act on anything Vigil says. In fact give the set ups of each one I would be far more inclined to believe Catalyst over Vigil in their respective games. Because the Catalyst is open and honest about who it is.

 

Again, Vigil's information doesn't do much for what is left of Mass Effect. He just tells you what Saren's plan is. And yes, time between the need for the information and when it is provided is part of the context. You declaring it otherwise doesn't make it so. As you say, Vigil tells you more about the reaper plan, but what did that change for your actions? Were you not going to stop them before?

 

You have a point that Vigil probably shouldn't know some things he knows, but I acknowledge that and see that he knows just to tell the player. It's a minor problem and I accept it to advance the story. As for the data hack, I just saw that as a direct link overriding the wireless connection or something like that. Vigil does say it is temporary, so Sovereign is going to be able to overcome that delay. However, the idea that you should be more suspicious of Vigil than the Catalyst is preposterous. You're just being silly.

 

You have it backwards. It's not that I hold what I do and don't like to different standards, it's that I do and don't like things based on how they succeed or fail.  You have no clue, nor do I, what power it takes to erect the forcefield vs run stasis pods. Even guessing, we'd be complaining to the writers about their details, not using that as evidence for Shepard to distrust Vigil.  A more fun question is why Vigil didn't use the field to stop Saren. Maybe Saren would have found and destroyed him or something. Again, it's an obvious plot hook.

 

 

 

No the DLC expands something that people who were not paying attention missed to make it unmissable. They actually have leaid out an offical canon. The events in game are canon. Now how Shepard goes about them being paragon or renegade isn't official. Regardless of how you play you always go to Noveria and find the Rachni Queen and Liara's mother. You always go to Geth Heretic base. You always go to Tuchunka and do something with the genophage and kill the Reaper. The individual choices you make are not offical but the fact you are there to make those choices are.

 

Arrival and LotSB are still official canon if your Shepard takes place in them or not. If Shepard doesn't do it then it is the 125th infantry that destroys the Relay and Liara brings an army of mercs to assault the base. The events are still canon.

 

Yes, mandatory events are canon, optional ones are not. We already discussed that. No, Arrival and LotSB are not canon because in those, Shepard goes and does those things. The destruction of the Alpha Relay and Liara becoming the Shadow Broker, the end results of those DLCs are canon, but Shepard's involvement is not, at least as far as the Trilogy goes. They may become Canon for Andromeda.

 

 

 

 

No they are not bad inherently it really depends how they are done. Because if retcons are bad then please explain how Marvel and DC comics are still in business.

 

People still like the stories and characters. They also do a lot of reboots and "alternate universes". People roll their eyes when these things happen. Just because something is popular doesn't mean those fans like every aspect of it. This question is childish.

 

And yes, they can work, but it's harder to pull off and the change must be addressed. The best example of it working is Vader as Luke's Father in The Empire Strikes Back. That is a retcon, but that change served the story very well and made it better, setting up the excellent events on Bespin and the 2nd Death Star. However, in Return of the Jedi, Luke and Obi-Wan discussed what had been said earlier and justified it. The characters never address the issue in Mass Effect.

 

 

 

Because 9 times out of 10 your complaint about retcon goes something like this: OMG on the follow up game they provided more information to the game expanding it and altering some old information from the previous game. They really suck at story telling. How dare they build the world up anymore then it was previous.

 

Exactly retroactively altering old information. It wasn't that something was misunderstood and now we understand it, it was that something was changed.

 

 

 

Two questions for you...

 

1. How many authors do you know and who are they?

2. You do realize the writing a book and making a game are vastly different right?

 

I mean seriously an author of a book can get into great detail because all that costs besides the time to write it is the cost of paper and ink. So someone could add an extra 50 pages providing extreme detail to a book for an extra cost of like $20 compared to without it. A game being a much more visual medium then a book requires several people dozens of hours of work to create the same thing. So that cost jumps up to a couple thousand dollars for a little bit extra information.

 

It really comes across like you are blindly applying book based set ups to game based set ups and ignoring the vast and important differences between them so you can stand on your soap box and complain.

 

Then they need to alter the story to suit their medium. Leaving out key information because of cost is not a good excuse. Also, being a visual medium allows for information to be presented in multiple ways.

 

 

 

And I shall repeat there is no plot integral information restricted behind DLC.

 

Woah, where did this come from? You objected when I said that in the other thread and started arguing that the DLCs were absolutely plot integral.

[BloodyMares]

But the story wasn't incomplete at all. All that Leviathan DLC did was expand on it so players couldn't complain about not knowing or missing something because they were not paying attention. Which seems to be a theme when talking about this game and it's story. It isn't so much the story was done badly it is that players missed, ignored or mentally altered how certain events and things happened then complain about the story.

 

Oh you can role play all you want in the game. No one is saying you can't role play in the game how you want. How ever ignoring content because you find it boring or you simply don't want to then coming to forums to complain about the game and flaws it has in the story is......silly.

 

And side quests don't have plot inegral information. But they have bits that add to it to help understand it as whole. Like people who like to claim the Geth couldn't be a threat seem to ignore the side missions in ME 1 were the Geth faked a distress signal and lured an Alliance Marine squad right to a thresher Maw nest which resulted in their death. Or those many times the Geth popped out of no were when you were responding to a distress call from ship they destroyed themselves. Do you realize how much that would effect moral of troops not knowing if every distress signal sent out is a trap. And what is worse that their own distress signal might be ignored out of fear of it being a trap.

 

And I shall repeat there is no plot integral information restricted behind DLC. How ever many people are honestly at this point I would start calling them stupid if not willfully ignorant of the points the game tries to make. So the Leviathan DLC acts less plot integral and more taking the point already made in the vanilla game and blowing it up on a 600 foot jumbotron with fire works and a marching band playing so players can't claim they didn't see it anymore. Oh it certainly expands on it more but the point it makes is already there.

If it wasn't why do you always mention side content in your arguments? Back up your arguments with the main missions that everyone played.

I guess I failed to get through to you. What I meant is that not everyone experiences the same kind of content. You may have heard of that Citadel Archives section but others may not have. You may have completed that one minor sidequest in ME1 but others may not have. The RPG game should account for a possibility of their content being skipped or played differently. Imagine if you didn't recruit Thane or he died in ME2 and he would still magically appear in ME3 during the Citadel Coup to save the day. This attitude from Bioware would be showing a middle finger to all non-completionists who didn't play the game like "it's meant to be played".  I mean, why give the option to broker a peace between Quarians and the Geth at all? It may be just one example but it's included in the main mission and is a very powerful moment. Of course people would think first of this reunion when the Catalyst says "Without us to stop it synthetics would destroy all organics". If the option wasn't there and you could only choose between quarians and the geth then the Catalyst could just pass as arrogant and self-righteous AI that didn't believe that organics could defeat synthetics but his claim would be irrefutable and I wouldn't need his proof to believe him.

Ahem. It wasn't the Geth. It was Cerberus.  And what was about Legion saying "We are all Geth and we have not met you"?

Not really. It doesn't merely expand on what was said by the Catalyst. It serves as a crutch for the Catalyst section to lean on. Without it the Catalyst really seems out of place. And this DLC helps to understand the Catalyst better, because Leviathans provided a much needed example of those defeated organics by their synthetics that Catalyst was talking about all the time.

[gothpunkboy89]

If it wasn't why do you always mention side content in your arguments? Back up your arguments with the main missions that everyone played.

I guess I failed to get through to you. What I meant is that not everyone experiences the same kind of content. You may have heard of that Citadel Archives section but others may not have. You may have completed that one minor sidequest in ME1 but others may not have. The RPG game should account for a possibility of their content being skipped or played differently. Imagine if you didn't recruit Thane or he died in ME2 and he would still magically appear in ME3 during the Citadel Coup to save the day. This attitude from Bioware would be showing a middle finger to all non-completionists who didn't play the game like "it's meant to be played".  I mean, why give the option to broker a peace between Quarians and the Geth at all? It may be just one example but it's included in the main mission and is a very powerful moment. Of course people would think first of this reunion when the Catalyst says "Without us to stop it synthetics would destroy all organics". If the option wasn't there and you could only choose between quarians and the geth then the Catalyst could just pass as arrogant and self-righteous AI that didn't believe that organics could defeat synthetics but his claim would be irrefutable and I wouldn't need his proof to believe him.

Ahem. It wasn't the Geth. It was Cerberus.  And what was about Legion saying "We are all Geth and we have not met you"?

Not really. It doesn't merely expand on what was said by the Catalyst. It serves as a crutch for the Catalyst section to lean on. Without it the Catalyst really seems out of place. And this DLC helps to understand the Catalyst better, because Leviathans provided a much needed example of those defeated organics by their synthetics that Catalyst was talking about all the time.

 

And yet if Thane is recruited or dies someone else shows up to take his place. You have to actively go out of your way to prevent Thane or the Salarian Captain from showing up to protect the Council Member. But even if you don't recruit or kill Thane and have it set up so the Captain isn't there to take the bullet you still head to the C-Sec office. You still confront Leng. Someone still dies and you still chase after him and prevent him from killing the rest of the Council members. The interaction can change once you reach them but at the end of the day you still prevent the coup attempt. If you pick the Quarians, Geth or make Peace the events that follow in the game still play out the same. Thessia is still attacked, You still have to go to Sanctuary then the rest of the missions. Regardless of what you choose the game still plays the same just with slight shift in dialogue.

 

That is the point you are missing when I make my statement.

 

But it was the Geth

 

http://masseffect.wi..._Distress_Call

 

http://masseffect.wi...m/wiki/Antibaar

 

Um the entire story about the Quarians is based on them losing to the Geth in an all out fight. Showing the superiority of Synthetics over organics when both are fighting to the death with relatively equal technological abilities. If you have gotten to the 3rd game and need an example of organics being defeated by synthetics then you really really missed a lot.