Agree on the 1st...disagree on the 2nd. The horses were barely faster than running, the companions "poofing in and out of existence" was poorly executed, and you couldn't fight from horseback (another thing TW3 bested DAI in.) Although I appreciate the "shortcut" horses provided to accessing the bottom of canyons.
Oh you killed them! Horse Killer! 
Agree on the 1st...disagree on the 2nd. The horses were barely faster than running, the companions "poofing in and out of existence" was poorly executed, and you couldn't fight from horseback (another thing TW3 bested DAI in.) Although I appreciate the "shortcut" horses provided to accessing the bottom of canyons.
Not to mention n o banter while on horseback.
Deal killer right there.
Plausibility isn't the problem. Consistency is.
I don't care if mass effect fields are caused by running an electric current through magic rocks. I just care that it behaves in a consistent manner throughout the series.
But this is exactly what makes it gibberish. The idea that mass effect fields are caused by running an electric current through magic rocks is complete nonsense. How can you make this nonsense predictable? It has no real rules. At most, you have a number of people who have no formal training or inclination toward abstract theory and philosophy of science being tasked with designing an internally consistent philosophy of science (!!!) for a completely ad hoc theory made-up on the fly to justify a B-movie plot about space travel. Even the most-well meaning and dedicated writers can't ensure consistency with this - hell, not even scientists can do it with actual science.
Guys... the Mako pops up in the middle of some missions, for no reason. Like Noveria and Feros. You guys are debating mass effect fields, but how about answering this first?
Or..... don't think too hard about it at all. That's better.
This is something i've noticed yet I don't necessarily know why.
The Mass Effect trilogy has been one of the more consistent trilogies in terms of quality (outside of ME3s hiccups) around in recent years yet for some reason the fanbase seems to have almost zero hope for Andromeda.
Franchises like Dark Souls, Final Fantasy, Witcher, Deus Ex still manage to conjure up hype yet they are way less consistent than the Mass Effect trilogy, what gives?
Is it modern Bioware or the game series itself? I would understand fears with Modern Bioware but not the game series itself, Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3 are all legitimately fantastic games.
And my SJW point? Many SJW articles said things implying that black wall "underwhelmed and even hurt" the audience by being a straight white male. Giving women the option to romance a white male was hurtful, for some reason. They complained that 5/12 inner circle characters were female, calling the scales significantly tipped (2 is the closes you can get from 0, the numbers are very similar)
Anyway, there's a lot of gibberish posted if you look for it.
Agreed!
I think it can be a good game, but it's up to the people art BW to make it good. It could easily be a huge letdown aswell. I'm hoping for something good though, getting something good, will be nice, I need more entertainment..
But this is exactly what makes it gibberish. The idea that mass effect fields are caused by running an electric current through magic rocks is complete nonsense. How can you make this nonsense predictable? It has no real rules. At most, you have a number of people who have no formal training or inclination toward abstract theory and philosophy of science being tasked with designing an internally consistent philosophy of science (!!!) for a completely ad hoc theory made-up on the fly to justify a B-movie plot about space travel. Even the most-well meaning and dedicated writers can't ensure consistency with this - hell, not even scientists can do it with actual science.
How does running water ground out a wizard's power?
How does digesting tin sharpen one's senses?
What's an Epstein drive?
Why does a binary star's jump points come and go when systems with single stars have stable ones?
Whether the science (or magic) is nonsense or not doesn't really matter. What' matters is that the nonsense gets applied in a consistent manner. You make it predictable by giving them rules: "You can get x y and z effects by running electric currents through magic rocks. But not a b or c" Reality doesn't define the rules in fiction: the rules define the reality.
How does running water ground out a wizard's power?
How does digesting tin sharpen one's senses?
What's an Epstein drive?
Why does a binary star's jump points come and go when systems with single stars have stable ones?
Whether the science (or magic) is nonsense or not doesn't really matter. What' matters is that the nonsense gets applied in a consistent manner. You make it predictable by giving them rules: "You can get x y and z effects by running electric currents through magic rocks. But not a b or c" Reality doesn't define the rules in fiction: the rules define the reality.
It absolutely matters whether it's nonsense. Because you can't make nonsense predictable. That's the whole point. If it was predictable and governed by clear rules, it's not nonsense. It's coherent abstract theory. It's an actual cosmological philosophy, or actual theoretical physics.
When you start with an idea that, fundamentally, is nonsensical, and you desperately try to shoehorn that idea into a system of semi-coherent rules that don't necessarily hang together and are designed to be tested externally by empirical reality (science) what you get is gibberish.
I don't understand how this point is controversial. How can you think nonsense has predictable, logical rules? If it had predictable, logical rules, it wouldn't be nonsense. In fact, if you could create a - fake - internally consistent theory of space travel that allowed FTL, you'd be revered as one of the greatest living intellectuals and philosophers in human history. It's not clear anyone has ever created this theory, even purely theoretically.
Let's say we get Neil deGrasse Tyson here. We tell him: we have magic space rocks that allow for FTL travel and gravity manipulation by a complete unknown mechanism. Now invent an internally consistent theory unifying all of physics with this abstract thesis to allow space travel. He'd have to come up with a Grand Unified Theory of physics all on his own, starting from a postulate that doesn't make sense.
Writers can struggle to come up with generally plausible sounding rules that most of the time are applied in a kind of reasonable way. But they can't do more than this tiny thing. IRL, we can't even do this with the law, which is an entire system designed by its fundamental nature to be a logically consistent and internally coherent set of rules, designed exclusively by people and absolutely not tested against empirical reality. The idea we can create internally consistent rules is nonsense, and wrong.
It absolutely matters whether it's nonsense. Because you can't make nonsense predictable.
Yes you can. Every story and universe needs to be consistent and "logical" according to its own rules.
A story can even allow for exceptions, but ideally has to implement them in a way that makes sense and provide good reasoning.
Of course, playing fast and loose with the established rules can have some bad effects on the quality and consistency of the story.
Practically every fantasy and SF universe out there base their theme and "spirit" on (more or less) consistent nonsense rules.
Again, you can break consistency as a writer, just be gentle and give a frag about immersion enough to provide the necessary explanations
and in-universe logic to explain the inconsistency. (or you can just avoid breaking consistency, that's better.)
The reason for all this is that suspension of disbelief works the best when you have something resembling logic and consistency in
your nonsense universe. Note, that you still have to suspend your disbelief to some degree in most cases, even with all the consistency and best intentions.
So as long as the holes in the fabric of nonsense are small enough to ignore, I won't go digging for more.
Yes you can. Every story and universe needs to be consistent and "logical" according to its own rules.
A story can even allow for exceptions, but ideally has to implement them in a way that makes sense and provide good reasoning.
Of course, playing fast and loose with the established rules can have some bad effects on the quality and consistency of the story.
Practically every fantasy and SF universe out there base their theme and "spirit" on (more or less) consistent nonsense rules.
Again, you can break consistency as a writer, just be gentle and give a frag about immersion enough to provide the necessary explanations
and in-universe logic to explain the inconsistency. (or you can just avoid breaking consistency, that's better.)
The reason for all this is that suspension of disbelief works the best when you have something resembling logic and consistency in
your nonsense universe. Note, that you still have to suspend your disbelief to some degree in most cases, even with all the consistency and best intentions.
So as long as the holes in the fabric of nonsense are small enough to ignore, I won't go digging for more.
This doesn't make any sense. If you've given me comprehensible rules that behave in predictable ways, that ultimately interact in a logical fashion and don't have exceptions that are noticeable or absurd, then you've created a totally cogent and comprehensible system. You no longer have nonsense. You have a theory. A logical theory.
My point is simple: what makes a rule nonsense is that it's phrased in a way that leaves you with no rational basis to say how it should behave apart from unjustifiable arbitrary preference. Magic space rocks that control gravity is meaningless. It doesn't tell us anything about what it means to - for example - control gravity. Or how it allows for FTL. I have to invent more premises to explain these details. And there's no logical or rational connection between these new premises. If there is a logical and rational connection then my original idea isn't nonsense - it's a clever thought experiment.
Personally I have some head-canon explanations for Eezo and FTL that make things slightly more plausible to me.
That said, I am still aware that the theory probably can't hold water in the scientific sense, and I am fine with it. It's called suspension of disbelief.
Admittedly, ME writers made suspending my disbelief exponentially more difficult over time by throwing in things without much consideration to established lore.
This doesn't make any sense. If you've given me comprehensible rules that behave in predictable ways, that ultimately interact in a logical fashion and don't have exceptions that are noticeable or absurd, then you've created a totally cogent and comprehensible system. You no longer have nonsense. You have a theory. A logical theory.
My point is simple: what makes a rule nonsense is that it's phrased in a way that leaves you with no rational basis to say how it should behave apart from unjustifiable arbitrary preference. Magic space rocks that control gravity is meaningless. It doesn't tell us anything about what it means to - for example - control gravity. Or how it allows for FTL. I have to invent more premises to explain these details. And there's no logical or rational connection between these new premises. If there is a logical and rational connection then my original idea isn't nonsense - it's a clever thought experiment.
Only if you are using real world physics. If you change things so certain laws of nature operate differently, but keep those laws consistent with each other, then you have a logical, fictional world.
Writers do this all the time (with varying degrees of success) It's called "world-building"
Personally I have some head-canon explanations for Eezo and FTL that make things slightly more plausible to me.
That said, I am still aware that the theory probably can't hold water in the scientific sense, and I am fine with it. It's called suspension of disbelief.
Admittedly, ME writers made suspending my disbelief exponentially more difficult over time by throwing in things without much consideration to established lore.
Agreed. In fact you need to have suspension of disbelief in any game. After all, you cannot not live in that virtual world. But if the game gives you the illusion of being real, then all of a sudden I can live with the fact that I don't sleep, eat, or drink. And I can move from one location to another in a split second by clicking on a map, kill 100 foes within a hour without PTSD, look totally different than I look in real-life, etc.
You keep talking about this in the abstract. It doesn't happen in practice. If you change those laws of nature, you have - in science fiction - an incredible challenge before you. This is why most science fiction - like Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Babylon 5 - are really just space opera fantasy that relies on technobable.Only if you are using real world physics. If you change things so certain laws of nature operate differently, but keep those laws consistent with each other, then you have a logical, fictional world.
Writers do this all the time (with varying degrees of success) It's called "world-building"
This is something i've noticed yet I don't necessarily know why.
1. The loss of a universe I loved so much in the Milky Way Galactic civilisation
2. Mac Walters
Since there are many, could you link to one or two?
Anyway, there's a lot of gibberish posted if you look for it.
You keep talking about this in the abstract. It doesn't happen in practice. If you change those laws of nature, you have - in science fiction - an incredible challenge before you. This is why most science fiction - like Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, Babylon 5 - are really just space opera fantasy that relies on technobable.
None of these settings have logical worlds based in their rules of science. That's all just farcical nonsense.
Even the well regard science fiction, Hugo award winners - like Hyperion - just amount to space magic.
Writers try to do it. The smart ones completely avoid trying to come up with rules on their space magic. Babylon 5 never tries to give you rules about how telepathy works. Or how space travel works. Star Trek gives you technobabble. Star Wars became a joke when it tried to explain the force.
They do it like fantasy. And good fantasy doesn't try to waste time coming up with a rule set for magic - it just handwaves it away as magic. That's what good science fiction ultimately does unless it is a rare gem of hard science fiction. Mass Effect fails because it tried to explain this gibberish.
World building doesn't come from exhaustively listing nonsense.
Babylon 5 doesn't try to explain "how telepathy works" But even then it still has rules. Like physical contact makes telepathic contact easier (thus why Psi Corps members wear gloves as part of their uniform). Or the existence of telepathy-dampening drugs. Or ways to block a telepathic scan. Or how extremely rare telekinetic power was in addition to telepathy. Babylon 5 didn't just let Bester go around manipulating people like they were meat puppets (much as he might have liked to). Even a powerful telepath like him was constrained by the setting.
Because, yes, even good fantasy operates by rules.
I suggest looking at Moh's Scale of Science Fiction Hardness Frankly I'm willing to settle on a 3 or better
Babylon 5 doesn't try to explain "how telepathy works" But even then it still has rules. Like physical contact makes telepathic contact easier (thus why Psi Corps members wear gloves as part of their uniform). Or the existence of telepathy-dampening drugs. Or ways to block a telepathic scan. Or how extremely rare telekinetic power was in addition to telepathy. Babylon 5 didn't just let Bester go around manipulating people like they were meat puppets (much as he might have liked to). Even a powerful telepath like him was constrained by the setting.
Because, yes, even good fantasy operates by rules.
I suggest looking at Moh's Scale of Science Fiction Hardness Frankly I'm willing to settle on a 3 or better
I think ME is a typical Space Opera. After KOTOR, Bioware wanted a franchise that they could call there own and therefor it is no surprise that ME shows similar features. That doesn't mean it isn't SF, though.
I can be a geek as much as the next person, but for fucksakes. Get a grip. Try to have fun. It's been literally years now.
When I think of the term science fiction I think science reality years from now.
The best kind, sure. A lot of sci-fi looks into human potentialities..
I don't think Mass Effect qualifies though. Even from the start, it takes a negative view on human potential. Every race has been reduced to scavengers and fighting over artifacts. The potential is already unlocked for them.
DAI - a ****** mess. Bad design choices; like the 8 slot limit in the ability bar; the loot system was (and still is) terrible; MMO style of play; actually forcing me to farm mob (by saving, killing, saving, etc etc) for drops to craft; bad hair; invisible walls, hills, doors - all designed to waste time (another MMP tactic); a TERRIBLE boss fight (the end battle was worthless... I just sat back and let my companion kill Cory); plot holes (though Trespasser helped); fetch quests; bad combat (no auto hit - though this was added by a DLC; and adding features and fixing bugs in paid DLC's.
And this is just off the top of my head. Since I haven't played the game in a year or so. Want more? Look in the DAI forums.
BW was taken off my auto-buy list when DAI hit. IMHO they destroyed the DA franchise. MEA, I will wait a few weeks to see players reviews and thoughts before I pay $60+. If it's bad, I'll still buy it, when it hits the $5.99 bin.
In short, I don't trust BW [anymore] and certainly not EA to produce a good RPG game.
Wanna bet MEA will turn out to be just another shooter with a 20 min story? It'll be all about playing online. Just like all the other EA titles. So they can milk us to death with micro-payments.
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