736 réponses à ce sujet

[whogotsalami]

So were there any recent news at all about the plot, setting, pictures, whatever? I recently visit these forums only in passing. 

 

If it came down to a reboot I'd have preferred it in a Milky Way setting but what can you do.

[AlanC9]

Do tell.

He mentioned wormholes upthread, so I presume that's what he meant.

And yeah, they're a thing. As opposed to the mass effect drive, which is straight-up nonsense -- though I've always had a soft spot for it myself, since it's a ripoff of the Bergenholm drive from "Doc" Smith's Lensman series. (Does anybody read him anymore?)

[AlanC9]

It's a suite of software, so it won't get "mad" , "upset" or "resentful" if we restrict its capabilities to what it is designed to do, as it is literally incapable of such things. .

Could you walk us through that? You tend to just handwave this stuff, so it's never really clear what software can't do and why it can't do it.

[AlanC9]

As I said, all MW races are now quarians

Except that the MW races can do something that the quarians couldn't or wouldn't do -- land on a new planet and try to get over the old one.
 

We're in Andromeda because Bioware is RUNNING AWAY from the MW's (recent) history!

That's cute, but hardly serious. We all know that running away from the MW will be the history of the Andromeda exiles.

[Il Divo]

You kinda hit it there.  Going to Andromeda is abandoning Palaven and all other places people might like to see.  It's cutting off ties to these locations, and even the potential to see them.

 

I would agree with your argument if we didn't spend almost the entirety of ME1 exploring back-water planets, barring the Citadel itself (depending on how much you perform side quests). 

 

When I say you're employing a double standard, the point is that you're not applying the same intellectual scrutiny to a game you love (ME1) to a game you're already committed to hating (ME:A). ME:A might very well suck. But it can easily do so while matching every single criteria you've laid out as a defense of ME1, in this case with the Palaven scenario. "Well, we might go there at some vague time in the future" doesn't work as a defense of ME1 - you've quite literally just given the developers permission to only have token references to the important locations, by this argument. "We might see Palaven in ME2" really means "We didn't see Palaven in ME1". 

 

 

 

 

And who is going to be the cameos in MEA?  Everyone can potentially be dead.  Of course, tehy appear to be sticking krogan on the Ark, despite their potential fate, so maybe "Your choices are important to us" is the joke I make it out to be and we'll see Thane and TIM on board.

 

 

^We did have an entire cast of ME1 and 2 characters, ranging from plot critical characters like Anderson, to characters who make an occasional appearance. Is there something stopping Bioware from, say, putting a couple familiar faces on the ship? Your criteria for BG2 was meeting a couple characters referenced in BG1. That is easily done with Andromeda. 

 

Technology?  You have to make completely new technology just to justify the journey to begin with!  History?  We're in Andromeda because Bioware is RUNNING AWAY from the MW's (recent) history!   

 

 

This is exactly what Alan is talking about:

 

The Milky Way history does not evaporate - it did not magically disappear. Did Javik's history become irrelevant because he woke up to a new world and setting? No, the entire point of his character was exploring old vs. new, as well as our Prothean perception vs. what the Protheans actually turned out to be.

 

This is the same exact concept: You do not need a game to take place on Earth for Earth to have some kind of auxiliary relevance to the current story. Case in point: ME1 a game you've defended- where Earth functions as a historical back-drop and nothing else. I mean, are you really going to assert as an argument, that any story which involves characters/cultures forced to leave their home land to explore the unknown are completely segregated from their past? To the point where it has no relevance? Because that's not going to be an easy argument to make, especially given Andromeda's opening premise.  

[RoboticWater]

Except that the MW races can do something that the quarians couldn't or wouldn't do -- land on a new planet and try to get over the old one.

*cough*

[Monk]

I'm totally for the idea of off-shot games for the other species in the Mass Effect universe.

 

Getting to the topic though, i'd like to see the games in Andromeda be like the original trilogy, but with Ryder – supposedly the PC's last name – being different from Shepard. Shepard was badass. Shepard was the bomb. Shepard was the next step in human evolution. But Shepard's dead/survived/controlling Reapers. I want to play someone who's great to play, who doesn't mirror what Shepard became. And with a different character, this should change the feel of the newer games.

[Iakus]

 

I would agree with your argument if we didn't spend almost the entirety of ME1 exploring back-water planets, barring the Citadel itself (depending on how much you perform side quests). 

 

When I say you're employing a double standard, the point is that you're not applying the same intellectual scrutiny to a game you love (ME1) to a game you're already committed to hating (ME:A). ME:A might very well suck. But it can easily do so while matching every single criteria you've laid out as a defense of ME1, in this case with the Palaven scenario. "Well, we might go there at some vague time in the future" doesn't work as a defense of ME1 - you've quite literally just given the developers permission to only have token references to the important locations, by this argument. "We might see Palaven in ME2" really means "We didn't see Palaven in ME1". 

 

 

Look at it this way:  in Dragon Age, we've been hearing about big bad Tevinter since the start.  We've met people from there, we'e heard of their history, religion, their views on magic and the Qunari, etc.  But we've never been there.  the idea that the next Dragon Age game will be set there excites people.  Why?  Because it's important to the history of Thedas.  It's one of the oldest, most powerful nations on the continent.  Same with places like the Anderfels, home of the Grey Wardens.  Or Antiva, home of fan favorites like Zevran and Josephine.  IOr Par VOllen, home of the Qunari?  Rivain, Isabela's homeland and the country that doesn't quite line up with anyone?  f we were for some reason to depart Thedas for some other land, likely never to return without visiting these places, you think fans won't be understandably p*ssed?

 

 

 

^We did have an entire cast of ME1 and 2 characters, ranging from plot critical characters like Anderson, to characters who make an occasional appearance. Is there something stopping Bioware from, say, putting a couple familiar faces on the ship? Your criteria for BG2 was meeting a couple characters referenced in BG1. That is easily done with Andromeda.

 

Yes, Low EMS Destroy and Refuse.  

 

 

 

This is exactly what Alan is talking about:
The Milky Way history does not evaporate - it did not magically disappear. Did Javik's history become irrelevant because he woke up to a new world and setting? No, the entire point of his character was exploring old vs. new, as well as our Prothean perception vs. what the Protheans actually turned out to be.
This is the same exact concept: You do not need a game to take place on Earth for Earth to have some kind of auxiliary relevance to the current story. Case in point: ME1 a game you've defended- where Earth functions as a historical back-drop and nothing else. I mean, are you really going to assert as an argument, that any story which involves characters/cultures forced to leave their home land to explore the unknown are completely segregated from their past? To the point where it has no relevance? Because that's not going to be an easy argument to make, especially given Andromeda's opening premise.

 Javik's history is relevant because the history of the Protheans has always been important to the Mass Effect story, since the first time Shepard got zapped by a beacon.

 

And I'd say his purpose was at least to troll Liara on her assumptions about the Protheans as much as anything else 

 

It goes far beyond simply exploring the unknown.  It's being forced to travel such unimaginable distances that returning is nigh-impossible.  As I've said, it's not growth it's total transference.  Sure in ME1 you're visiting uncharted worlds and remote colonies.  But ME1 opened with defending one of Earth's oldest and most successful colonies from a geth attack.  You can visit the Sol system too.  You also have a mission to stop a rogue VI on LUNA!!!  

[In Exile]

It goes far beyond simply exploring the unknown.  It's being forced to travel such unimaginable distances that returning is nigh-impossible.  As I've said, it's not growth it's total transference.  Sure in ME1 you're visiting uncharted worlds and remote colonies.  But ME1 opened with defending one of Earth's oldest and most successful colonies from a geth attack.  You can visit the Sol system too.  You also have a mission to stop a rogue VI on LUNA!!!  

That's just complete nonsense. ME1 opened with going to a complete made up planet that almost certainly doesn't exist, and then proceeded to go through a series of completely made up planets that don't exist. 

 

As for your analogies to other series, they're completely meritless. Your position - whether it's on the setting, or technology - boils down to this: if it wasn't introduced in satisfactory fashion in the first game you encountered, or if it isn't an "acceptable" extension of that in any sequel, then it's somehow illegitimate. All this hand-wringing is nothing more than you just saying "I don't like the direction, or the concept."

 

And that's fine. You don't need to come up with these increasingly absurd justifications simply to say that you don't like a concept. 

[RoboticWater]

Look at it this way:  in Dragon Age, we've been hearing about big bad Tevinter since the start.  We've met people from there, we'e heard of their history, religion, their views on magic and the Qunari, etc.  But we've never been there.  the idea that the next Dragon Age game will be set there excites people.  Why?  Because it's important to the history of Thedas.  It's one of the oldest, most powerful nations on the continent.  Same with places like the Anderfels, home of the Grey Wardens.  Or Antiva, home of fan favorites like Zevran and Josephine.  IOr Par VOllen, home of the Qunari?  Rivain, Isabela's homeland and the country that doesn't quite line up with anyone?  f we were for some reason to depart Thedas for some other land, likely never to return without visiting these places, you think fans won't be understandably p*ssed?

I don't think any of Mass Effect's locations or cultures have been hyped to the level of Dragon Age's.
 
More importantly, you put absolutely no sock in new locations. Why does this new setting have to be so much less exciting than the old ones? Sure, there's no foreshadowing for any of these locations, but why do they need it? I doubt many fans care that we're leaving the Milky Way; either they don't a particular attachment to it or they believe ME3's ending was that galaxy's definitive ending. I suspect many more are even excited at the prospect of seeing something completely new.
 

Yes, Low EMS Destroy and Refuse.

How would that matter if we leave before the ending (which we're obviously doing because BioWare would want to avoid handling the outcomes)?
 

It goes far beyond simply exploring the unknown.  It's being forced to travel such unimaginable distances that returning is nigh-impossible.  As I've said, it's not growth it's total transference.  Sure in ME1 you're visiting uncharted worlds and remote colonies.  But ME1 opened with defending one of Earth's oldest and most successful colonies from a geth attack.  You can visit the Sol system too.  You also have a mission to stop a rogue VI on LUNA!!!

You're still attributing some magical significance to proximity. We can still defend one of Earth's oldest an most successful colonies in Andromeda, and we can still reference Earthen culture and fight Alliance rouge VIs in Andromeda too. It doesn't matter how close Earth is, because Earth is merely a cultural reference.

[AlanC9]

It goes far beyond simply exploring the unknown. It's being forced to travel such unimaginable distances that returning is nigh-impossible. As I've said, it's not growth it's total transference.

You still haven't actually managed to explain why not being able to return is a problem. We're in the same setting, and our PC can't get to places that our PC... couldn't get to in the previous games. It's an interesting RP thing if our PC is, in fact, MW-born. But why is it a problem for us?

[Il Divo]

 

 

Look at it this way:  in Dragon Age, we've been hearing about big bad Tevinter since the start.  We've met people from there, we'e heard of their history, religion, their views on magic and the Qunari, etc.  But we've never been there.  the idea that the next Dragon Age game will be set there excites people.  Why?  Because it's important to the history of Thedas.  It's one of the oldest, most powerful nations on the continent.  Same with places like the Anderfels, home of the Grey Wardens.  Or Antiva, home of fan favorites like Zevran and Josephine.  IOr Par VOllen, home of the Qunari?  Rivain, Isabela's homeland and the country that doesn't quite line up with anyone?  f we were for some reason to depart Thedas for some other land, likely never to return without visiting these places, you think fans won't be understandably p*ssed?

 

 

 

 

Well, for one Dragon Age's story isn't exactly finished; it's not a Shepard trilogy, but it's putting together an overarching narrative through each installment. I'd be pissed if Dragon Age changed the setting at this stage, prior to finishing that story. I'm also going to go with Robotic on this one and say that, in my experience on here, I can't say I've seen support for the ME locations approaching anything close to the Dragon Age locations. That's probably helped along by the fact that Tevinter is pretty heavily tied into the story Bioware is telling. 

 

I mean, what's the phrase people use on here? Mass Effect was the story of Shepard - which is done. Dragon Age is the story of Thedas, which is itself ongoing. 

 

Yes, Low EMS Destroy and Refuse.  

 

 

 Ark leaves prior to ME3's ending: problem solved. 

Javik's history is relevant because the history of the Protheans has always been important to the Mass Effect story, since the first time Shepard got zapped by a beacon.

 

And I'd say his purpose was at least to troll Liara on her assumptions about the Protheans as much as anything else 

 

 

 

That's splitting hairs. Key point: his history was important. It impacted him on a fundamental level and subsequently Shepard and Liara as characters. In Exile said this well: you don't have to like Mass Effect: Andromeda's premise. But empty criticisms like "they're throwing out all the history!" is not going to fly. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and I could start tossing dozens of stories which center around people or cultures forced into exile from their homelands where their past is not forgotten, as Javik demonstrates quite easily.  

 

 

It goes far beyond simply exploring the unknown.  It's being forced to travel such unimaginable distances that returning is nigh-impossible.  As I've said, it's not growth it's total transference.  Sure in ME1 you're visiting uncharted worlds and remote colonies.  But ME1 opened with defending one of Earth's oldest and most successful colonies from a geth attack.  You can visit the Sol system too.  You also have a mission to stop a rogue VI on LUNA!!!  

 

 

Yep, and that mission was five minutes in a generic bunker shooting down drones. I can't say I'm feeling the importance of the Sol system from that. 

 

As above, what this translates to is: you don't want a spin-off. And no one expects you to want a spin off. But trying to pass that off as "Mass Effect in name only", is a pretty heavy mischaracterization of what spin-offs are often-times intended to accomplish. You brought up the example of "Else-worlds stories" earlier for why Bioware can retcon out everything you dislike about ME2 and 3. Well, Else-worlds are also used to explore "what if" concepts and ideas you might not otherwise see, as per your Batman-Green Lantern cross-over. If that pill is easier to swallow, then we can call Andromeda an Else-worlds story.  

[KaiserShep]

Look at it this way:  in Dragon Age, we've been hearing about big bad Tevinter since the start.  We've met people from there, we'e heard of their history, religion, their views on magic and the Qunari, etc.  But we've never been there.  the idea that the next Dragon Age game will be set there excites people.  Why?  Because it's important to the history of Thedas.  It's one of the oldest, most powerful nations on the continent.  Same with places like the Anderfels, home of the Grey Wardens.  Or Antiva, home of fan favorites like Zevran and Josephine.  IOr Par VOllen, home of the Qunari?  Rivain, Isabela's homeland and the country that doesn't quite line up with anyone?  f we were for some reason to depart Thedas for some other land, likely never to return without visiting these places, you think fans won't be understandably p*ssed?

 

 

I'm not really convinced that this sort of thing would really be a big deal for Dragon Age. But I think that this comparison has trouble in that it's between a setting that's run its course and one that hasn't. It would be like going to Andromeda after Mass Effect 2. 

 

 

 

It goes far beyond simply exploring the unknown.  It's being forced to travel such unimaginable distances that returning is nigh-impossible.  As I've said, it's not growth it's total transference.  Sure in ME1 you're visiting uncharted worlds and remote colonies.  But ME1 opened with defending one of Earth's oldest and most successful colonies from a geth attack.  You can visit the Sol system too.  You also have a mission to stop a rogue VI on LUNA!!!  

 

But isn't this basically a been-there-done-that affair? I think familiarity is a bit too overstated here in terms of its location. The most familiar place in the entire MEU is the Citadel, so it's really the only thing I can see fans truly missing here, but even then, any major hub where species mingle in a vast space station would probably be a widely accepted substitute. 

[UpUpAway95]

Look at it this way:  in Dragon Age, we've been hearing about big bad Tevinter since the start.  We've met people from there, we'e heard of their history, religion, their views on magic and the Qunari, etc.  But we've never been there.  the idea that the next Dragon Age game will be set there excites people.  Why?  Because it's important to the history of Thedas.  It's one of the oldest, most powerful nations on the continent.  Same with places like the Anderfels, home of the Grey Wardens.  Or Antiva, home of fan favorites like Zevran and Josephine.  IOr Par VOllen, home of the Qunari?  Rivain, Isabela's homeland and the country that doesn't quite line up with anyone?  f we were for some reason to depart Thedas for some other land, likely never to return without visiting these places, you think fans won't be understandably p*ssed?

 

Yes, Low EMS Destroy and Refuse.  

 

 Javik's history is relevant because the history of the Protheans has always been important to the Mass Effect story, since the first time Shepard got zapped by a beacon.

 

And I'd say his purpose was at least to troll Liara on her assumptions about the Protheans as much as anything else 

 

It goes far beyond simply exploring the unknown.  It's being forced to travel such unimaginable distances that returning is nigh-impossible.  As I've said, it's not growth it's total transference.  Sure in ME1 you're visiting uncharted worlds and remote colonies.  But ME1 opened with defending one of Earth's oldest and most successful colonies from a geth attack.  You can visit the Sol system too.  You also have a mission to stop a rogue VI on LUNA!!!  

 

Travelling to any other cluster in the Milky Way in a matter of hours (as clearly presented in the game) is currently impossible.  The idea that a harvest of the MW races would reach a head in a matter of months (at most) when it allegedly took the Reapers centuries to harvest the Protheans is also and absurd distortion of relative times within the game.  The history of the Protheans is relevant because the writers included dialogue and a single character that, by their intention, made it relevant to their story.  They can do the same sorts of the things with Milky Way culture and lore without staging the story in the Milky Way.

 

For example, lets say that the ARK leaves the Milky Way long after the Reaper war ends... but the individuals on it are people who were put into stasis on Ilos before the events of ME3 (using the Prothean facilities there and just repowering them... a contingency plan kept secret by the Alliance and the Council and covered up by telling everyone that the VI just shut down, etc.  Centuries pass... although Shepard's actions had an impact, it doesn't affect other legions of Reapers that were still in dark space when the ending of ME3 occurred.  In other words, regardless of what Shepard did, Starbrat's scenarios are a lie and the harvest just doesn't end... but after centuries, the group on Ilos are programmed to wake up.  In stasis, their DNA is unaffected (if synthesis had been the choice) and they construct an ARK that enables them to leave a destroyed galaxy. to find a new home...

 

Even though you think you've constructed the perfect "box" to make it impossible for Bioware to move forward with this franchise and you revel in that thought... nothing is impossible.  I'm not saying that this is the scenario they've used to write beyond those ME3 endings... just that I think it is very much still possible for write beyond those endings and to "connect" to the Milky Way even from Andromeda.  Also, humanity does have a lore and emotional connection to the Andromeda galaxy... thanks to the Greeks... and we also have Legion in ME2 espousing that "home" is where we choose to go together.

[Iakus]

 

 

Well, for one Dragon Age's story isn't exactly finished; it's not a Shepard trilogy, but it's putting together an overarching narrative through each installment. I'd be pissed if Dragon Age changed the setting at this stage, prior to finishing that story. I'm also going to go with Robotic on this one and say that, in my experience on here, I can't say I've seen support for the ME locations approaching anything close to the Dragon Age locations. That's probably helped along by the fact that Tevinter is pretty heavily tied into the story Bioware is telling. 

 

I mean, what's the phrase people use on here? Mass Effect was the story of Shepard - which is done. Dragon Age is the story of Thedas, which is itself ongoing. 

 

 

Were you around when it was announced we'd visit Earth in ME3?  The disappointment that we wouldn't revisit Omega (in the base game)?

 

Also while Mass Effect may have been the story of Shepard, there are a zillion other stories to tell right here in the Milky Way that could have been told.

 

 

Ark leaves prior to ME3's ending: problem solved.

Multiple threads have mentioned how seriously implausible not to mention contrived it would be to have another piece of impossible technology being researched during a genocidal war.

 

 

 

That's splitting hairs. Key point: his history was important. It impacted him on a fundamental level and subsequently Shepard and Liara as characters. In Exile said this well: you don't have to like Mass Effect: Andromeda's premise. But empty criticisms like "they're throwing out all the history!" is not going to fly. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence and I could start tossing dozens of stories which center around people or cultures forced into exile from their homelands where their past is not forgotten, as Javik demonstrates quite easily. 

 

But his history isn't important, save to redefine Prothean society and a reminder of the price of letting the Reapers win.  He has no insights into the Reapers save how the Protheans failed against them.  Ilos was a legend to him, he knew nothing of the Crucible, or even the Citadel.  There was little we didn't already know.

 

This is why I don't understand complaints that Javik should have been in the base game.  He's an interesting character and all, but he adds nothing of real value to the game unless you think you need another biotic.

 

 

 

Yep, and that mission was five minutes in a generic bunker shooting down drones. I can't say I'm feeling the importance of the Sol system from that.
As above, what this translates to is: you don't want a spin-off. And no one expects you to want a spin off. But trying to pass that off as "Mass Effect in name only", is a pretty heavy mischaracterization of what spin-offs are often-times intended to accomplish. You brought up the example of "Else-worlds stories" earlier for why Bioware can retcon out everything you dislike about ME2 and 3. Well, Else-worlds are also used to explore "what if" concepts and ideas you might not otherwise see, as per your Batman-Green Lantern cross-over. If that pill is easier to swallow, then we can call Andromeda an Else-worlds story.

I also pointed out the Stargate Atlantis set-up.

 

I don't mind the idea of a spinoff.  But a spinoff needs to retain elements of the base show to connect the two.  MEA seems to be the exact opposite:  attempting to shed as much baggage as possible while keeeping the Mass Effect name for marketing purposes.  

 

You've heard me complain before about how ME1, ME2, and ME3 feel like separate games which just happen to have a protagonist named "Shepard", right?  MEA strikes me as that taken to eleven.  It doesn't even have "Shepard" (not that I want Commander Shepard to return, mind you.  After ME3, Shep's pretty much ruined as far as I'm concerned)

 

I'd love to be wrong.  Believe it or not, I hope I am.  I'd rather enjoy a new game than pine for what's gone.  But history tells me I am most likely in the right here, and a year from now I'll be saying "I told you so"

[RoboticWater]

Were you around when it was announced we'd visit Earth in ME3?  The disappointment that we wouldn't revisit Omega (in the base game)?

Were you around when they announced that we'd be in Andromeda? Loads of people loved the idea, and still do.
 

Also while Mass Effect may have been the story of Shepard, there are a zillion other stories to tell right here in the Milky Way that could have been told.

And it's been discussed ad nauseam why those stories wouldn't work: prequel: can't make major decisions in the past; not many interesting histories (involving humans) that lend themselves to a Mass Effect game, sidequel: would likely retread many of Mass Effect's themes; would be dependent on the OT's timeline, reboot: just read this thread, sequel: has to deal with the endings, etc.. Any option BioWare could have chosen has its strengths and weaknesses. Andromeda was just the most appealing option to BoWare.
 

Multiple threads have mentioned how seriously implausible not to mention contrived it would be to have another piece of impossible technology being researched during a genocidal war.

I seem to remember that none of those threads ever ended in anyone's favor. Why? Because you can't just preemptively decide that all the things that BioWare might do are somehow completely illogical. Nor can you prove that such an implausible premise would ruin a Mass Effect game.
 

I don't mind the idea of a spinoff.  But a spinoff needs to retain elements of the base show to connect the two.  MEA seems to be the exact opposite:  attempting to shed as much baggage as possible while keeeping the Mass Effect name for marketing purposes.

What elements? You keep coming back to this as if it's an actual argument. We have proven to you that we'd keep the culture, the technology, the exploration, some of the people, the mystery, and just about anything but the physical locations in the Milky Way. ME:A is shaping up to be tonally consistent with the series practically to a fault.
 
You can't just drop the term "elements" and expect sympathy.

 

You've heard me complain before about how ME1, ME2, and ME3 feel like separate games which just happen to have a protagonist named "Shepard", right?  MEA strikes me as that taken to eleven.  It doesn't even have "Shepard" (not that I want Commander Shepard to return, mind you.  After ME3, Shep's pretty much ruined as far as I'm concerned)

By your own definition, these games would have to be in a series with each other because they expand upon the predecessor's lore. Unless of course, sequels should be more than just going to places alluded to in the past.

Honestly, at this point you're just willfully ignoring the core elements of the series, filling that void you created with your nebulous "elements," and then whining that these "elements" you invented are now being forgotten.
 

I'd love to be wrong.  Believe it or not, I hope I am.  I'd rather enjoy a new game than pine for what's gone.  But history tells me I am most likely in the right here, and a year from now I'll be saying "I told you so"

I don't believe you. If you wanted to enjoy ME:A you wouldn't be fabricating reasons to dislike it, nor anticipating an "I told you so." Many of the rest of us are probably cautious about ME:A. I, for one, expect that the game will end up a lot like DA:I with too much content for its own good, a passable story, and decent enough characters to get me by. However, I'm not going out of my way to prove that ME:A's foundation is fundamentally flawed. It isn't. No more than any other foundation BioWare could have chosen for another Mass Effect game.

[Il Divo]

 

Also while Mass Effect may have been the story of Shepard, there are a zillion other stories to tell right here in the Milky Way that could have been told.

 

 

And those would be different stories. Kaisershep hit this: you're essentially comparing to ditching the Milky Way after ME2, which isn't really equivalent. If you can give me a premise similar enough to Andromeda's that occurs after the Solas/Old God plotlines,etc, are resolved, then that wouldn't strike me as a problem for a spin-off title. 

 

Multiple threads have mentioned how seriously implausible not to mention contrived it would be to have another piece of impossible technology being researched during a genocidal war.

 

 

 

Multiple threads have also failed to provide a coherent estimate of resources that makes an Ark either plausible or implausible. If your criteria is that you don't have hard numbers, then Bioware could have a quick codex entry about how much an Ark actually costs to build or whether we find it, etc. 

 

That said, you've consistently emphasized that this decision is only being made to circumvent the endings, and that you consider low-EMS destroy to be a relevant possibility for why we can't have cameos. While it's theoretically possible to leave after the endings, the argument you've been putting forth contradicts this. There is no reason to go to Andromeda if it doesn't take place before ME3's endings and building an Ark will only be more difficult after the Milky Way galaxy is toast, even in the highest EMS settings. Not to mention, that would defy the purpose of an Ark - to keep some semblance of the MW population alive in the face of galactic destruction. 

 

And to be clear, you just pivoted again to a different criticism. Your previous point was regarding how low-EMS and Refuse precluded any cameos/characters coming with us to Andromeda. An implausible Ark might be a bad story-line, but that does not have any impact on our ability to bring said characters with us. 

 

But his history isn't important, save to redefine Prothean society and a reminder of the price of letting the Reapers win.  He has no insights into the Reapers save how the Protheans failed against them.  Ilos was a legend to him, he knew nothing of the Crucible, or even the Citadel.  There was little we didn't already know.

 

 

His history affects everything about him. It's quite literally fundamental to Javik as a character. And in Andromeda, we're bringing an entire population with us that's spent their entire lives in the Milky Way galaxy. 

 

Simple example: We find a race of brutes in Andromeda and decide the possibility of up-lifting them. Krogan says no, Salarian says yes - they start fighting about the Krogan rebellions and your character has to decide who is right. 

 

That was literally off the top of my head, in five seconds. Yes, it's theoretically possible Bioware could craft this story where the MW history is completely irrelevant. But where is your basis for saying "this is clearly what Bioware is going to do?". You're not expressing this as a hypothetical fear - you're stating unequivocally that any story where a character or group of people is forced into completely unknown circumstances is a story where history is unimportant. And that's easily disproven using countless examples.

 

 

This is why I don't understand complaints that Javik should have been in the base game.  He's an interesting character and all, but he adds nothing of real value to the game unless you think you need another biotic.

 

That's not the point of the Javik comparison. The Javik comparison demonstrates that a character - completely separated from his history, culture, and previous environment - does not magically disappear - it influences him and by extension us. You just got through calling the entire MW population on the Ark the equivalent of Quarians; we may as well call Javik a MW human, by that standard. 

 

 

I don't mind the idea of a spinoff.  But a spinoff needs to retain elements of the base show to connect the two.  MEA seems to be the exact opposite:  attempting to shed as much baggage as possible while keeeping the Mass Effect name for marketing purposes.  

 

 

Which is exactly what Andromeda does: races, history, and technology. It even features Mako and planetary exploration in the style of ME1. That's a heavy dose of traditional Mass Effect being injected into Andromeda. 

 

Spin-offs often undergo radical departures: on a previous page you advocated for an elseworlds story where Batman is a Green Lantern. It really does sound like you're admitting to what a spin off is in name only, and getting upset when a spin-off actually does give us a radically different story. Nothing about Andromeda is so far out of line that it cannot be considered a spin-off or an else-worlds tale, which you've said is acceptable. It might not be the story you want told - but it's a perfectly valid approach, with the name Mass Effect written across the cover. 

 

 

I'd love to be wrong.  Believe it or not, I hope I am.  I'd rather enjoy a new game than pine for what's gone.  But history tells me I am most likely in the right here, and a year from now I'll be saying "I told you so"

 

 

I think Alan is right on the money here. In the face of clear evidence, I could buy into the idea you're putting out. But there isn't any basis for what you're suggesting - hell, we had an Andromeda trailer that actually has Shepard narrating a send-off for the Ark - that's not a great starting point for claiming the MW history is irrelevant, especially since your alternative is a retcon where Shepard and the Reapers never even existed. 

[Il Divo]

 

I don't believe you. If you wanted to enjoy ME:A you wouldn't be fabricating reasons to dislike it, nor anticipating an "I told you so." Many of the rest of us are probably cautious about ME:A. I, for one, expect that the game will end up a lot like DA:I with too much content for its own good, a passable story, and decent enough characters to get me by. However, I'm not going out of my way to prove that ME:A's foundation is fundamentally flawed. It isn't. No more than any other foundation BioWare could have chosen for another Mass Effect game.

 

I think this is a great way to think about it. It's not about blindly loving Andromeda, no matter what Bioware feeds us - I have more than a few concerns with what we might end up getting. But cautious optimism (or pessimism) are the more appropriate responses at this stage. 

 

With so many different ways to make a sequel to ME3, there was never going to be a perfect solution to keep everyone jumping with joy. 

 

 

[Lady Artifice]

The whole "history proves the future," thing that's getting touted around to pre-emptively dismiss ME:A's quality doesn't even begin to hold water. Even if someone hates Bioware's tendency to make radical stylistic transitions from one installment of a franchise to the next, that alone doesn't speak to the quality of each installment, just their style. 

[Puddi III]

History seems to prove that BioWare consistently rakes in a decent amount of cash when they don't rush through development mashing the awesome button.

[Laughing_Man]

The whole "history proves the future," thing that's getting touted around to pre-emptively dismiss ME:A's quality doesn't even begin to hold water. Even if someone hates Bioware's tendency to make radical stylistic transitions from one installment of a franchise to the next, that alone doesn't speak to the quality of each installment, just their style. 

 

True, but when for some reason you find yourself disappointed with a game developer time and again, wouldn't you feel a certain amount of skepticism?

 

I don't actually think that ME:A is going to be bad per se, I mean, it is the first in a trilogy and that's always easier, even my expectations are rather low, so it's not like I expect too much from it to ever be able to be good enough, still, I can't help but feel a little skeptic due to my experience with Bioware since DA2.

 

I really do want them to prove me wrong.

[Lady Artifice]

True, but when for some reason you find yourself disappointed with a game developer time and again, wouldn't you feel a certain amount of skepticism?

 

I don't actually think that ME:A is going to be bad per se, I mean, it is the first in a trilogy and that's always easier, even my expectations are rather low, so it's not like I expect too much from it to ever be able to be good enough, still, I can't help but feel a little skeptic due to my experience with Bioware since DA2.

 

I really do want them to prove me wrong.

 

Skepticism is one thing, doomsaying another. The former is cautious, tempered, and above all, calm. The latter makes unsubstantiated claims about what the game will feel like and plans how to say, "I told you so." 

[The Elder King]

History seems to prove that BioWare consistently rakes in a decent amount of cash when they don't rush through development mashing the awesome button.

Bioware actually gained quite a bit of cash from DA2. It sold around half of the copies of DAO, but had a fairly short dev cycle, so they spent a lot less money then when making other games.  Not that I think it's a good practice for them, but it's not true that DA2 made them lose money or they made a little profit.

[Quarian Master Race]

There are upsides to a ship completely under the supervision of an AI, it is faster and much more precise than organics, and while working in conjunction with organics is able to cover for their inherent weaknesses, while still not losing processing power on technically complicated decisions which are easier for humans to solve, do to intuition, and other technically illogical methods of problem solving, which are still effective in some situations where simple accounting for every possibility might take too long in comparison even for an AI.

 

(like the legend that to stop a Vampire you throw a bag of rice on the ground, and it would be compelled to count the all the rice, I would imagine that an AI would approach many problems by being overly methodical and systematic about them, even when the answer seems obvious to a human)

 

In regards to emotions, I'm not really sure how AI are supposedly designed in the ME universe, but locking the "senses" of an AI might trigger the punishment-reward system EDI mentioned at some point, even if you do not mean to do so. And anyway, it has proven itself non-hostile, so I'm not sure what would be the point.

 

Dealing in "good faith" with the first non-hostile AI humanity has managed to create,

might be crucial to how it perceives humanity and organics in general.

 

After all, an overly suspicious response by the Quarians triggered the seeds of hostility in the Geth.

 

Not saying that someone shouldn't have an option B somewhere (They might even had manual overrides, who knows.), but for all intents and purposes, you should approach communication with a non-hostile AI with the same caution you would approach a first contact scenario.

It has a strong potential for both negative and positive actions.

Why would one need a singular artificial intelligence to control every facet of a mechanical system like a ship? Reaction times are irrelevant when the margins for error are so comparatively huge. Everyone isn't going to suffocate because the oxygen supply goes .01% leaner than it needs to be for a few seconds, or get hit by an enemy projectile because Joker took .23 of a second to react. The ability of the ship and its occupants to withstand mechanical stresses is the primary limiting factor. Moreover, you don't need an AI at all for those sorts of things. It's complete overkill. Much simpler computational devices would be more than sufficient to run most of the systems on the ship. You don't need a machine of massive processing power and capable of learning to know what oxygen ratios you need to maintain within the ship's hull. Humans had that figured out in the 1960s. Yet EDI (basically a toddler in its comprehension of human ethics/morality) is threatening to turn of the air supply as a "joke"? It's like I'm in a universe populated by deliberately retarded people.

Cyberwarfare and strategic data processing are the only two things I could see one needing an AI for here, to provide huge advantages over others not using AI's for those tasks or parity with other AI opponents. Everything else could be done by the crew or much simpler, more predictable computers. If you were really interested in absolute, maximum combat efficiency, you wouldn't have or design the ship to carry organic passengers at all. However, this universe is so action shlock, and it assumes that the intelligence of its audience is so low, that even the actual AI's design ships with structurally unnecessary cockpits, walkways, computer terminals etc and then have humanoid robots operating them when the AI could just design a much better ship without these features and operate it with even greater efficiency i.e. you don't need to wait for platform #8276-35 to walk down the hallway reach the console and program the navigational computer, or send drones to repel Shepard, Tali and squadmate #3 to keep them out of the Operations center (because they would be unable to board and operate the ship's systems at all), and your fighter doesn't suddenly stop working if its "pilot" gets hit and disabled or hacked like we literally get to make happen in one of the missions (through a pod inexplicably designed specifially for an organic to be able to do just that and kept around despite being an obvious strategic vulnerability).

As for humanlike emotions (which is a lot of what you are describing with the rest of your post), well they simply wouldn't happen to an AI, unless it was very carefully and deliberately designed as a non dualistic system specifically for the purpose of being capable of experiencing them. They are the result of an extremely specific and intricate interaction of components and chemicals in the limbic system of the mammalian brain and nervous system, designed by evolution and natural selection over hundreds of millions of years to produce the emotional responses that motivate humans, and in the last several hundred thousand years have been designed to interact with and gain evolutionary advantage over other humans (a major reason why humans developed the higher level of intelligence compared to other primates and animals that they have). A piece of software designed solely for cyberwarfare or a bunch of drones designed to pick crops, mine ore and get shot at in place of organics wouldn't suddenly start developing emotions just like ours, or even conscious experience at all, because there's no need of it, and they literally don't have a physical design that is compatible with such. To do so would require nothing short of a sudden onset of magic (which, to their credit, the ME the writers sort of inadvertently and unintentionally acknowledge with the green ending). These stories in fiction are just classic examples of anthropomorphism by people who don't actually understand how the technology they are discussing functions and imbue it with human characteristics, which is fair, because AI is a relatively nascent field and most of the people writing for it in fiction are, you know, writers , not scientists, software engineers or programmers.

You don't need pleasure or pain to motivate an AI system to do what you want it to, whatever its utility function is and its far more efficient mechanistic design provides far more "motivation" than any organic limbic system ever could. Now, emulating humanlike emotions could be part of its behavior if the intelligence calculated that it would be useful for maximizing its function for whatever reason (lets say its an infiltraton unit that needs to deceive organics), but no you'd never spontaneously get a "punishment-reward" system, and it wouldn't actually "feel" the emotions, it would simply act them out not unlike an actor in a movie (though it could and likely would be very good at this, better than even a human, because it could store thousands of terrabytes worth of psychological and biographical information with the capability to instantly recall and apply it). An analogy, your vehicle's ECU computer is connected to sensory hardware and can tell when the engine is overheating, but it will never develop the ability to get burned and feel pain. It can detect when the fuel-air ratio is lean and adjust it, but it won't feel "hunger" or fear for its starvation. The difference in intelligence between this simple computer and an AI isn't really any more relevant than the difference in intelligence between a human and a simpler animal like a mouse. Their intelligence is incomparable, but both share the same or similar sorts of structures that make conscious emotional experiences possible (albiet the mouse's emotions would be much simpler and more rudimentary).

An AI wouldn't percieve humanity in a "positive" or "negative" manner based upon how we interact with it. It would merely attempt to acquire the physical and computational resources necessary to accomplish its task. Now, it might resist and react violently to us if its utility function was insufficiently designed in compliance with our moral/ethical norms and we attempted to interfere with actions we deemed undesirable, but its resistance wouldn't be out of any sort of malice or other displeasure at our actions. It would simply be doing what it was (accidentally) designed to in the most efficient manner it judged possible based upon the variables it had access to. That's actually the goal of modern AI research, to perfect intelligent agents with powerful optimization process that have a very particular goal. It's not to create artificial people.
 

The fact that the geth even felt "hostility" (and they did, or at least emulated it, as Legion threatens Tali with revenge if sided against in their ME2 argument) was an example of the type of silliness I'm talking about. Of course, Legion (or its doppelganger) constantly seems to deny it experiences emotions ("fear is an experience reserved for organics" etc.), and at least one writer (Chris L'Etoile) seems to have had an understanding of the basic principles, and that AIs wouldn't have emotional responses nor desire them for their own sake....

 

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How I wrote Legion (and EDI) came from sitting down and thinking about how a "real" machine intelligence free of glandular distractions, subjective perceptions / mental blocks, and philosophical angst (fear of death, "why am I here?") would view the world. Star Trek was a minor inspiration, though in the negative -- I didn't want the geth to be either the Borg ("You are different, so we will absorb/destroy you") or Data ("I am different, so I want to be you").

 My broad approach with the geth was that they observed and judged (Legion used that word a lot), but always accepted. "You hate and fear us? Very well. We will go over there so we don't bother you. If you want to talk, come over whenever you want."

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Geth are comfortable with what they are. They accept that organics are different, and that their way is not suited for organics (and vice versa). IMO, only an intelligence divorced from emotion could be so completely accepting. Geth are the essence of impartiality. If you pay attention to Legion's dialogue, you'll note it uses "judge" and judgment" quite often. I went out of my way to use that word, since judges in our society are supposed to impartial and unaffected by emotion when they make their decisions.

 I wanted to treat AI with more respect than the tired Pinocchio "I want to be a Real Boy" cliches of Commander Data. The geth are machines. There's absolutely no reason they should want to be organics. They should be allowed to be strong enough to want to better themselves, not change themselves.

which resulted in one of the better portrayals of AI in fiction I've seen (ME2 geth, minor slipups aside) but unfortunately he doesn't seem to have been part of the initial ME1 design concept for the geth (i.e. basically nu-BSG Cylons down to the dumb religion, that indiscriminately attack meatbags on site for no logically discernible reason except that they're meatbags), and his ME2 influences were completely ignored in the 3rd installment. No one else seemed to have a clue what AI actually was other than pop culture esque "cool robot people" leading to Pinnochio geth and Data EDI.

This post has gotten much longer than I intended, and I still don't feel I've adequately elucidated my views on this topic. If you want a more detailed summary of anthropomorphic bias in fictional AI's, Yudkowski wrote a good paper on the subject for MIRI. Look at section 2
https://intelligence...osNegFactor.pdf
It goes on into "Friendly AI" theories, i.e. how to properly create utility functions and constrain AI decision making to optimization processes desirable to humans.

 

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Could you walk us through that? You tend to just handwave this stuff, so it's never really clear what software can't do and why it can't do it.

 

see above. I don't hold the general ignorance of people against them, because AI is a hard subject, but when people actually take action/comedy shlock like the ME3 geth or EDI seriously as realistic interpretations of how an AI might behave and then claim that I'm the one handwaving things, it annoys me. Anyone who has taken a 3000 level course in computer science, or even bothered to read a few wikipedia articles on the subject of AI should be able to figure out "does this unit have a soul" or EDI wanting to bang Joker is anthropomorphic nonsense.

[AlanC9]

Thanks. Though I don't think we can take the consciousness part of that too seriously until we have a solid explanation for what caused organic brains to evolve consciousness; if it's useful for us then why isn't it ever useful for AIs? Of course, we could just go all-in on the "zombie problem" and say that consciousness has zero utility in either AIs or organics, and is just an accidental byproduct of brain development, but then that leaves the door open for accidentally conscious AIs too.

It's also not very convincing to point out that current AI research isn't about building artificial people. We're in no position yet to actually do that, so people not attempting it doesn't prove much.

In any event, this has only limited relevance to science fantasy like ME; it'd barely relate to hard SF.