93 réponses à ce sujet

[mscotch]

CreepingGeth wrote...

This whole Saren plothole thing is like asking why the Eagles didn't simply fly Frodo to Mount Doom. Because the movie, or in this case, the game, would be over as quick as it started

LOL, I always ask that, lazy-ass eagles. 

[plantefol]

The momentum of the first game simply wouldn't allow a very different plot from what we have with ME2. Don't kill shepard off and ME2 would be about getting the alliance and council prepared to march off and fight some Reapers or something. Either way the game could not climax with much because there has to be the third game for that intended clashing of forces. Whether it be building the team or building an army
the middle act in a trilogy is always supposed to set up for the third act. I personally prefer losing the old team and building a new one, especially being able to see Wrex advancing the Krogan race, and Liara
changing so drastically.

Lastly your point about joining Cerberus as a paragon is again, justified in the storyline. The Alliance would not fund a new Normandy. Neither would the council. Sure Shepard could get a new ship but not the resources. Cerberus had resources and Shepard had as much freedom in the Terminus systems as he did as a Spectre. Not once in the game are you denied anything because your rank is too low. (Not to mention you can get "reinstated" by talking to the council). Its not a hole. Just goes against your opinion of what you would have liked.

i don't think the momentum of the first game wouldn't allow a different plot. Others ways exist, it's just a question of imagination...

It's just a bit short to think only Shepard can save the galaxy so he needed to stay alive. If he is the only chance to defeat the reapers, they  need only to wait 100 years (it's nothing for guys who can sleep during 50000 years) and then the way is clear. Shepard will be definitively dead... It remember Babylon 5 and the death of the hero, Sheridan. Lorien said he is not so important and another one will take his place and do the job...

And to tell you, Shepard working for Cerberus ha no freedom, he only follow what TIM said. You are just a puppet in TIm's hands. i don't call that free !!! He has only the ressources nothing else.

Modifié par plantefol, 07 février 2010 - 04:25 .

[Sapienti]

plantefol wrote...

The momentum of the first game simply wouldn't allow a very different plot from what we have with ME2. Don't kill shepard off and ME2 would be about getting the alliance and council prepared to march off and fight some Reapers or something. Either way the game could not climax with much because there has to be the third game for that intended clashing of forces. Whether it be building the team or building an army
the middle act in a trilogy is always supposed to set up for the third act. I personally prefer losing the old team and building a new one, especially being able to see Wrex advancing the Krogan race, and Liara
changing so drastically.

Lastly your point about joining Cerberus as a paragon is again, justified in the storyline. The Alliance would not fund a new Normandy. Neither would the council. Sure Shepard could get a new ship but not the resources. Cerberus had resources and Shepard had as much freedom in the Terminus systems as he did as a Spectre. Not once in the game are you denied anything because your rank is too low. (Not to mention you can get "reinstated" by talking to the council). Its not a hole. Just goes against your opinion of what you would have liked.

i don't think the momentum of the first game wouldn't allow a different plot. Others ways exist, it's just a question of imagination...

It's just a bit short to think only Shepard can save the galaxy so he needed to stay alive. If he is the only chance to defeat the reapers, they  need only to wait 100 years (it's nothing for guys who can sleep during 50000 years) and then the way is clear. Shepard will be definitively dead... It remember Babylon 5 and the death of the hero, Sheridan. Lorien said he is not so important and another one will take his place and do the job...

And to tell you, Shepard working for Cerberus ha no freedom, he only follow what TIM said. You are just a puppet in TIm's hands. i don't call that free !!! He has only the ressources nothing else.

Beat the game and you'll see Shepard is free to choose whatever. He even says as much if you choose to destroy the base. He was going with Cerberus so long as their goals remained the same. When things changed Shepard says "I have altered the deal, pray that I don't do so again" I'm paraphrasing. And yea I know they could have done things differently, but they couldn't have been much different than setting up for the third, in otherwords not some super grand high speed thrill ride.

Also believe me I'm familiar with the whole "puny human" and insignificance angle its more prevalent in Novels (which I read far too much of). But for Mass Effect its about Shepard. The Reapers could wait yes, but then the story would be about Shepard setting up to go to Darkspace and kill the Reapers somehow. It could only stay defensive for so long. The series says Shepard is the key to all things. Not me. To beings that have lived for millions of years, 100 years is like blinking. But you have to admit things get different when everything they're used to is changed (Protheans changing the Citadel set up and all that)

[Ulicus]

Benethyarr wrote...

I agree that destroying or disabling the relay might be beyond the means of standard Citadel tech, but then again so is passing through the relay - and you find a way to do that.

Plenty of people have passed through the relay. They just never came back. No-one knows what's on the other side.

Well, until they do.

I don't think destroying a relay is beyond standard Citadel tech: I think it's pretty much beyond any Citadel tech.  At present, anyway. Disabling or deactivating it might be a different matter (humanity had to "activate" the Charon Mass Relay themselves, IIRC) but then the Omega-4 Relay is already demonstrated to be different from other mass relays in that it's... red. So, uh, yeah. A case of "Our Relays Are Different".

In any case, I don't think taking the relay out of the picture is possible.

Benethyarr wrote...
As for the ambush plan, it doesn't only make sense in hindsight - all the available intel supports it. You only have evidence of one collector ship, and you know it can be damaged by conventional weapons (it's chased off by a handful of GARDIAN laser batteries). Yes, there could be more of them, or larger ships you haven't seen - but equally this theoretical fleet could be waiting for you on the far side of the relay.

Now if you ambush the Collector ship and gain solid intel that there's something on the far side of the relay that (a) you can feasibly destroy and ( you have a compelling need to destroy, then maybe going through the relay would make sense as a follow-up operation. But really, ambushing the Collector ship is just a logical first step whatever the situation.

Well argued.

Still, wouldn't they have to go to the far side of the relay to find out what is being done with the colonists?   Finding out what the Reapers/Collectors are doing with them is the whole purpose of the mission, after all, and so it seems to me that they'll need the Reaper IFF in any case.  Though I suppose, before they've been through the relay and learn differently, there's the possibility that everything that was being done to the colonists was happening ON the ship...

You could always say that Shepard planned to ambush the ship and simply wanted to have all his ducks in a row first, including the IFF. Of course, the Collectors then kidnap his crew, so that plan goes out of the window in favour of an all out rescue attempt.


Hmm. I don't know. While it's not perfect, I don't find it as bothersome as the conduit stuff.

[plantefol]

Beat the game and you'll see Shepard is free to choose whatever. He even says as much if you choose to destroy the base. He was going with Cerberus so long as their goals remained the same. When things changed Shepard says "I have altered the deal, pray that I don't do so again" I'm paraphrasing. And yea I know they could have done things differently, but they couldn't have been much different than setting up for the third, in otherwords not some super grand high speed thrill ride.

Also believe me I'm familiar with the whole "puny human" and insignificance angle its more prevalent in Novels (which I read far too much of). But for Mass Effect its about Shepard. The Reapers could wait yes, but then the story would be about Shepard setting up to go to Darkspace and kill the Reapers somehow. It could only stay defensive for so long. The series says Shepard is the key to all things. Not me. To beings that have lived for millions of years, 100 years is like blinking. But you have to admit things get different when everything they're used to is changed (Protheans changing the Citadel set up and all that)

I am agree with one thing, only at the end, you have the choice, but before even you are polite or you tell TIM to shut up, he will gives you missions and teammate to recruit. You have the choice to do what you want in the missions but they come from TIM.

It's strange then if Shepard is the key of everything to let him die in the suicidal mission at the end of ME2. Or peharps it's just a cherry on the cake" for the players...

For a race that have lived for millions of years, they are not really mature then. It's not said they didn't got troubles before and peharps bigger ones. They would not live for millions of years if they didn't pass through its.

Modifié par plantefol, 07 février 2010 - 04:54 .

[madisk]

CreepingGeth wrote...

This whole Saren plothole thing is
like asking why the Eagles didn't simply fly Frodo to Mount Doom.
Because the movie, or in this case, the game, would be over as quick as
it started.

Wrong.

Sovereign thought the time was right so he signalled the keepers so other reapers can pour trough the Citadel Relay.

Yeah, I realize Nazara is actually a multitude, but it's more convenient to refer to them as 'he'

Nothing happens. Sovereign's all WTF. He starts looking for other solutions - agents to find out what happened and entire races to weaken the organics - he's just one reaper, he can't hope to attack and conquer the citadel all by himself. The Rachni, the Geth, eventually Saren who could infiltrate the citadel.

Note the Citadel itself is a massive relay. The conduit and the 'relay monument' were built by the Protheans and used to thwart the Reaper's harvest cycle by modifying the keepers so that they won't respond to Sovereign's signal. So, Sovereign employs his agents to find out what happened and how to get around it. So they eventually discover the truth behind the conduit (like shepard, saren is also seeking the prothean beacon to try and make sense of what had happened) and realize it can be used to accomplish their goals. By infiltrating the citadel from within with his geth forces, Saren sets the stage for Sovereign and the Geth fleet to successfully attack the station without it closing it's arms to defend itself.

Duh.

Modifié par madisk, 07 février 2010 - 05:12 .

[deimosmasque]

Vaeliorin wrote...

The biggest problem comparing ME2 to The Dirty Dozen is that the characters in The Dirty Dozen interact with each other and change as people over the course of the movie, while the characters in ME2 hardly interact with anyone other than Shepard, and the only ones that show any real character growth from the beginning to the end are Miranda and Jack (this is excluding romances, because those aren't inherent in every playthrough.)

That is the difference between an ensemble cast where everyone is a main character, and Mass Effect 2 where it's really just 1 main character.

[Pocketgb]

Good post OP, well written.

Small comment:

Eain wrote...

I noticed many people automatically assumed that his Human-Reaper would be flying about through space with his arms stretched forward and a cape around his neck, Superman style. I find that seriously hard to believe.

Personally? The thought of that thing in space terrifies me. Why shoot lasers and stuff out of your eyes when you can latch onto a cruisier and ruin it's **** with your giant fricking claws???

And I kind of imagined it flying around like a sort of ghost or wraith, NOT something you'd want to see flying towards you while stuck in a ship.

[glacier1701]

The biggest plot hole that everyone has missed is the one about why in heck all advanced sapient life was not wiped out 2000 years ago? While the point about this comes up only if you saved the Rachni in ME1 it is very strongly implied that the Rachni were indocrinated into attacking Council space. Now considering that the Reaper fleet can get to the galaxy in a short time (2-5 years since we know outside of the game that Shepard is alive and going to be facing that fleet in ME3) why go through all the bother of indoctrinating the Rachni, trying to get Geth onboard and the while build new Reapers thing when all that needed to be done was the following:

Sovereign wakes up 2000 or so years ago. The conditions for the next cycle are met so the siganl is sent to the Keepers. They do not respond. Ok what now. Well pop on over to the Collector Base and have a quick chat with Harbinger. Wait 2-5 years and the Reapers are now at the nearest Mass Relay on the edge of the galaxy. And thus they can now move in and take over WITHOUT tipping their hand. They need troops to take over the Citadel so they can shut down the relay network - well until ME2 no-one knew the Collectors were actually working for the Reapers. So why not send in their ship at the right time. They can be the troops. Plenty of them and they have Reaper technology.

The ONLY explanation I can see for this NOT being the way things went is that the Reapers are very badly flawed. Which then begs the question if they are that flawed how in heck have they lasted this long?

Modifié par glacier1701, 07 février 2010 - 06:24 .

[madisk]

glacier1701 wrote...

The biggest plot hole that everyone has missed is the one about why in heck all advanced sapient life was not wiped out 2000 years ago? While the point about this comes up only if you saved the Rachni in ME1 it is very strongly implied that the Rachni were indocrinated into attacking Council space. Now considering that the Reaper fleet can get to the galaxy in a short time (2-5 years since we know outside of the game that Shepard is alive and going to be facing that fleet in ME3) why go through all the bother of indoctrinating the Rachni, trying to get Geth onboard and the while build new Reapers thing when all that needed to be done was the following:

The key to wiping out the organics every cycle is the surprise attack on the council. Have you not paid any attention to the game at all?

Roughly 50 000 years pass. Intelligent civilizations inhabit the citadel, making it their centre of galactic government. The Citadel is the legislative capital of the damn galaxy, has the leaders of all the organics + the census data on near all the colonies in the known space. By surprise attacking the citadel, they wipe out the organics there likely in hours, eliminating their government and crippling them, thus making the organics unable to coordinate a response. With thousands of Reapers, they can pour trough all the relays and completely eradicate organic resistance in a couple of months, if not less. However, should they enter the galaxy from the frontier, they wouldn't have such a surprise element and they also wouldn't control the Citadel - the master relay that would allow them to shut down comms and travel between the other relays.

The reapers are a race of sentient machines who've existed for millions of years. Do you really think they risk their existense on an invasion without these advantages? Surely they'll try to find a way to regain control of the citadel to ENSURE their victory. By crippling the organics' government and seizing control of the entire relay network, they've practically ensured absolute victory.

[HrznKn]

maybe a bit offtopic but...

Sapienti wrote...

...

As for the human Reaper, I said this in another thread, but people are again forgetting or neglecting key information, the Reapers are not purely synthetic, they're all built using the organic life they harvest and the Larva built are designed after the harvested race. We don't see what the finished product looks like in the game but according to the concept art it would have gotten an outter shell. The thing didn't haven legs. While the superman in space thing is funny, that isn't even in the Reaper's design.

...

I'm looking at the concept art right now, and i dont see where you get it from that that fail of an endboss would get an outer shell eventually. They just show different concept images for the boss, and the one they (unfortunately)  went for in the end.

quoting the artbook
" The countless designs for the Reaper-human larva [above and previous page] covered a
full spectrum between Reaper and human forms. Ultimately, a more human shape was
chosen, albeit one that’s only partially formed, and of distinctly Reaper construction. "

[Katarian]

Sapienti wrote...

Lastly your point about joining Cerberus as a paragon is again, justified in the storyline. The Alliance would not fund a new Normandy. Neither would the council. Sure Shepard could get a new ship but not the resources. Cerberus had resources and Shepard had as much freedom in the Terminus systems as he did as a Spectre. Not once in the game are you denied anything because your rank is too low. (Not to mention you can get "reinstated" by talking to the council). Its not a hole. Just goes against your opinion of what you would have liked.

I consider it a hole as you only find out about the Council and the Alliance after you've already joined Cerberus. You basically take everything Cerberus says on trust despite the fact your entire experience with Cerberus up to that point is they are murderers, terrorists, and perform horrific experiments of dubious value. If after you had escaped the station where you were ressurected you told Cerberus to go hell, then went off to the Citadel and meet with the Alliance and the Council and found they weren't going to do anything. Afterwards Miranda and Jacob turn up and say another colony has gone quiet and they want your help, so you join Cerbeus as you have no other choice to help the human colonies and you go off to Freedom's Progress. That story makes more sense, but I know it would increase the length of the opening sequence (which isn't skippable for some reason) and so the shooter fans wouldn't like it.

Being able to say "Up yours!" at the end of the game doesn't really compensate though it is satisfying. The speech is ridiculous as well, it's some thing about not betraying your ideals to ensure victory. You've just spent the entire game betraying your ideals by supplying Cerberus with information and technology.

Modifié par Katarian, 09 février 2010 - 11:02 .

[Snowraptor]

Nautica773 wrote...

There aren't any plot holes in ME2, because there's almost no plot.

your hopeless

[Snowraptor]

the_devils_aid wrote...

hi guy. you may be missing the point about the conduit

saren practically took over the citadel. he needed the back door to do so. sovereign knew that saren and his geth army would NEVER succeed in taking the citadel in a frontal attack, because they would just close it.

this makes the conduit a doomsday weapon. with it saren bypasses the citadels main defense (closing it) and can take control with an entire army.

only someone who cant read above a 3rd grade level would say that it lost all meaning because it was a backdoor into the citadel no-one knew about

is that your evidence for poor story in me2? you just corrected his thoughts on the conduit,

[Snowraptor]

JamesT91 wrote...

ME1 clearly has better story
its longer

its more epic- u save the galaxy not just a few colonies

its more fluid- u do a mission and then explain ur actions to the council rather than that annoying mission complete screen

there are no plot holes whereas ME2- why didnt shepherd get in the pod with joker? why did the entire team suddenly leave the normandy just before the IFF was analysed?

more epic? you thought me1 was more epic? it was epic, but no way in hell anywhere being closely epic as me2
Its more fluid? your explaining your missions to cerberous, diferent character same idea

[overseer909]

Nozybidaj wrote...

Mox Ruuga wrote...

Nautica773 wrote...

There aren't any plot holes in ME2, because there's almost no plot.

Lol. Funny, but true.

Haha, agreed.

so true

[overseer909]

Eain wrote...

This thread has in part been inspired by another thread (now on Page 2) that discusses the flaws in ME2's story, or rather, it's shortcomings. I found myself disagreeing with most of what's stated there, even though the points in general are valid.

I write this thread as someone who's finished Mass Effect 1 about ten times, and is now on his third playthrough for Mass Effect 2. Let me start with quickly summing up my main problem with Mass Effect 1:

In ME1 the game offered a solid a convincing story, from start to Ilos. Yes, to Ilos. Because Ilos is where the story falls apart due to the biggest plothole that I've encountered so far in gaming. The Conduit is simply a Citadel back door, rather than some Reaper doomsday device. This makes Saren's quest for the Conduit lose any and all meaning, since he already had access to the Citadel's systems before he lost his Spectre status. He risked everything to find something he didn't need at all, and I still can't quite get over how the writers of ME managed to overlook this.

Thankfully, Mass Effect 2 is absent of any such gaping plot holes. Obviously the question could be asked: why a Human-Reaper? What the hell's the point? Thing is that you can easily fill this in with your own imagination: perhaps the Reapers simply enjoy turning their greatest enemies into one of their own. Perhaps this human Reaper's the start of a landbased army, since the lack of one was an obvious shortcoming for them in ME1, having to rely on Saren and the Geth. I noticed many people automatically assumed that his Human-Reaper would be flying about through space with his arms stretched forward and a cape around his neck, Superman style. I find that seriously hard to believe.

But other than the Human-Reaper, which IMO really isn't a plothole at all, simply a questionable element at worst, ME2's story is rock solid from start to end. ME2 tells the story of the Reapers using their subdued Prothean minions to commence preliminary harvesting of organic life, in compensation for Sovereign's failure at the Citadel. However, nobody knows that these Collectors are Protheans in the first place, or what this harvesting is even for. Or how it can be prevented.

And there you have the key difference between ME1 and ME2. If people say that ME2 lacks a certain level of urgency, they are correct. Because ME2 is not supposed to have urgency. ME2 is about unravelling a mystery, not about preventing the Collectors from destroying all galactic life. The Collectors are -supposed- to be an ominous threat, only sporadically encountered. How strange would it be if nobody really knew what these Collectors were all about, only to have them suddenly appear all over the shop during Shepard's investigation? If we want to talk lack of urgency, then perhaps Dragon Age is a better example, where in the beginning of the game the Darkspawn are built up to be this gigantic threat to Ferelden only to barely encounter them throughout the rest of the game other than in skirmishes.

From where I stand, the Collectors make a great enemy. As the Illusive Man said about the attack on Horizon: This is the most warning we've ever gotten. If there had been more warnings, more often, then Cerberus wouldn't have needed Shepard for the job in the first place. The Alliance would've just waged war on the Collectors.

Throughout the entire game I felt like I was left with the feeling that the Collectors were plotting their next move while I was assembling my team, and that it was simply a matter of time until I ran into them again. And it was.

There is no sense of urgency because the Collectors aren't on the verge of wiping out all human life in the colonies. They've abducted many, yes, but obviously not enough for the Alliance to care yet. That's why Shepard is required to investigate. Truth be told, all the urgency you could possibly want from ME2 is masterfully delivered to you in the final 10 seconds of the game. I mean, how awesome was -that- part? My jaw dropped.

In conclusion, I think ME1's story fell seriously short. It sent you on a wild goose chase around the galaxy to find something that only lead to where your quest basically began. It made me seriously wonder what the hell the point of all the quests in between was in the first place. Mass Effect 2 is clear cut: Build a team strong enough to deal with what may lie beyond the Omega 4 relay, so that we can solve the Collector question in the absence of the Alliance. The war has died down, the threat seems to have vanished, but you know better. You -know- the end of all organic life is still impending, but it obviously isn't here yet since otherwise the Collectors wouldn't have been needed in the first place. This alone implies time and leeway. That's the setup of ME2, and it works great.

http://social.biowar...5/index/1088178

[CRISIS1717]

I could write the plot of ME2 on a sticky note.

[drstg]

one of the worst aspects about ME2 is that they keep hammering away at the "suicide mission" aspect of the plot. and before the game release the developers kept saying "shepard can die" but when you complete the game, shep can die because no one catches him when he jumps? you can kill a baby reaper, kill thousands of mercs, be brought back to life after entering an atmosphere, but die because you could jump 30 ft, not 31ft.?



it bugged me that even paragon choices in this game were mostly neutral or sorta bad. ME1 paragon was all cliched hero. ME2 felt more like shep didnt care a lot of the time, or really did at one point of a convo and not another.



it seems a lot of people defend ME2 because "it sets up ME3", "DLC will take care of it" or "the books will explain it" but i didnt buy ME2 so that i could read the books, or wait until ME3 (which i would have to do anyway) i wanted to learn about and beat the collectors. instead i got 16 missions beating up mercs and building a loyal squad to help me pass through a debris field (which joker from ME1 gets me through) and walk me around the collector base for an hour.



side note: did they implement thermal clips right after the battle of the citadel? because shep dies a few months afterwards, but knew how to use them as soon as he woke up. so they can't possibly be new tech or he would have asked about them. or so it would seem.