Game News Electronic Arts E3 2015 Conference: Mass Effect: Andromeda officially announced, coming Holiday 2016

[Septaryeth]

The ME3 ending was just fine. What was ruined was all the area design, because they now had to add multi-player. And the levels were terrible.

At the end of Mass Effect 3, a ghost kid appears and tells you that because organic life always makes synthetics that destroy them, he decided to make synthetics that would destroy organic life before they could make synthetics that would destroy themselves. How is that not fucking retarded?

P.S.: Thesis (A) is something in what a lot of modern biologists believe. They believe it to be a trait of everything organic. There's a balance in nature and as soon as some species gets an edge, it's gonna fuck shit up completely, it cannot helps itself (self preservation instinct paradoxically). This is something observed in world of microorganisms (improved bacteria in a petri dish devoured everything, then died) and macroorganisms as well (ants in South America). They say humans are no different (you might argue that we're more evolved, but some say that in the end, every motivation - even the ones giving us progress and culture, are just disguised basic instincts).

A fellow biologist (well, biomedical science major actually) disagrees.

Honestly I don't want to get into the details on this again, because I saw so many arguments on the endings to the point I'm sick of it. (Can you imagine they created a FB page for it? And the friends that stupidly joined and bomb you with every news on the latest development...)
If you are talking about the consequences of food shortage and population crashes and all that, it doesn't really work that way. Organisms eat, poop, reproduce and expand their territories, and that's it. There is no genetic code wiring the working of the universe.
The so-called balance is maintained based on the assumption of no migration and we are confined with limited supply of food and space. If you can make machines that travel to the oh-no-dark-space, I honestly doubt resources will be an issue at this point.
Like these damn possums from Auz, once we reach a new planet or galaxy, we're likely become the crazy foreign invaders that will again dominate the local "earth", which, I guess is the premise of this new mass effect game.

Assuming resources and space are a problem, viewing organics as a singular life form or an individual population is surprisingly narrow minded for a supposedly all-knowing machine/race.
Even with their DNA and genome sequenced and preserved, actions and niches of particular species are still required to maintain a balanced ecosystem or a status quo if you prefer.
A self-driven population crash rarely cause the extinction of the species itself. It usually takes a dive, allow room for the species it relies on to incline, then increase, and repeat.
Believe it or not, with the simple rules of supply and demand, we created a somewhat artificial "ecosystem" that serves our own interest. Imagine our fat juicy cows trying to survive in the wild. Or compare that tiny unnoticeable weed you find in south america with the monstrous corns in the local supermarkets.
The proposed genocidal approach is stupidly unnecessary and irresponsible from a scientist -especially a conservation scientist's- point of view.
If there is anything ME3 ending said it right, it's that entropy and chaos prevail. You just can't predict all the possibilities. A conservation scientist don't shoe-horn a naturally established environment into a statistical model they created.

And don't remind me of the most retarded fusion solution. It severely reduced the evolutionary potential of both organics and synthetics and crippled your diversity into two. Far out, I don't know why I wrote so many of this shit when I still need to figure out why we shouldn't apply molecular genetics on domestic animals...

 

[Prime Junta]

It's not retarded, it's actually very thoughtful in regards of how AI could work.

I can't believe I just read this... here. BioWare forums, fine, but... here?

I'm not even a writer and it took me, like 10 minutes to figure out a better :cough: philosophical premise for the Great Reveal than what was in the game. Like so:

The Reapers, being immortal mechano-biological entities, think in the long term. Like, seriously long term. They have proven, without any room for doubt, that the Universe will end due to fundamental quantum instability. Not in the next million years, or even ten, hundred, or necessarily thousand million years, but it will. They see no escape from this. And they would very much like to continue existing.

They also know, from experience and from observing the evolution and destruction of countless sapient species over the aeons, that every being is a prisoner of its own mode of consciousness. Every sapient race makes some unique discoveries, however trivial, but eventually exhausts the possibilities of its particular way of perceiving the Universe.

Therefore, the only possibility the Reapers see for somehow escaping or preventing the inevitable death of the Universe -- and with it, themselves -- lies in a discovery they know they cannot make. Their solution: the Cycle. Accelerate evolution, causing new races to emerge and flourish and reach the pinnacle of their creative potential. Then harvest them: absorb their knowledge, discoveries, and consciousness into the Reaper whole, allowing the Reapers to continue perceiving the Universe their way, in their search for the solution for the end of the Universe. (And eliminating something that might, left unchecked, eventually grow powerful enough to threaten them.) Repeat until an answer is discovered, or the Universe ends.

The Crucible is a Prothean artefact built with knowledge secretly acquired of and from the Reapers. Its completion in the latest cycle has the potential to finally give the Reapers the answer they have sought through the aeons. It is a device that can re-engineer the fabric of reality itself, by infinitesimally adjusting the value of the Planck constant. The direction in which it is adjusted has profound implications, and it can only be done once: any adjustment precludes the possibility of another Crucible. Shepard is faced with a choice. Will s/he:

1. Adjust it by -1.067 * 10^-35, which will result in an almost imperceptible shift to all organic consciousness, but will make mechanical consciousness an impossibility. The Reapers will become mindless automata, subject to control by the Alliance, but AI's will become VI's or stop functioning altogether, and may never emerge again. The Universe will still eventually end, and if there is any other way to prevent its ending or escape it, it will be even more elusive than the one the Reapers spent aeons searching for.
2. Adjust it by 1.011 * 10^-35, removing the quantum instability and making the Universe potentially eternal. The Reaper invasion will continue, and while their main motivation for upholding the Cycle will be removed, they will certainly continue to jealously guard their position at the top of the Universe's food chain.
3. Adjust it by 1.107 * 10^-35, which will make it possible for sufficiently sophisticated entities to imprint their consciousnesses on the "metaverse," thereby escaping the Universe and its inevitable doom (only available if a bunch of boring sidequests were successfully completed). The Reapers will eagerly seize on the possibility and vanish. In some distant future, perhaps the remote descendants of Shepard and his/her waifu/husbando will join them.

See, was that so hard?

 

[curry]

See, was that so hard?

 

[GarfunkeL]

Holy shit, I didn't know eremita had gone full retard. Never go full retard man.

 

[lurker3000]

What irritated me about ME3 was how you play three games over 100+ hours and in the last 5 minutes find out an AI construct based in the Citadel is the one controlling everything. If I'm not mistaken this was never hinted at anywhere.

Also of course the ending options were lame.

 

[Jaesun]

Impress us Ian?

As in Ian Frazier of Ultima Lazarus?

Should that be a reason to be remotely interested in this?

Ian works at BioWare Montreal. Though I have no idea what his contributions are to this.

 

[Fitz]

What irritated me about ME3 was how you play three games over 100+ hours and in the last 5 minutes find out an AI construct based in the Citadel is the one controlling everything. If I'm not mistaken this was never hinted at anywhere.

Also of course the ending options were lame.

Yeah, these were the real problems with the endings. No buildup at all and no real differences at all. That's pretty much all there is to it, singularity fags be damned.



If your only complaint is about the ending you're pretty autistic though, since the entirety of the game that lead up to it was just as disjointed and retarded. They very first thing they did was to flush all lore and consistency with the previous games down the toilet FFS. Of course, they did that in ME2 too, and the entire series started in the toilet to begin with only to get flushed down into the vortex completely by the third game.

Ian works at BioWare Montreal. Though I have no idea what his contributions are to this.

He's the lead designer of ME4, as Keldryn just said one page back when Ian was brought up to begin with.

 

[eremita]

It's not retarded, it's actually very thoughtful in regards of how AI could work.

I can't believe I just read this... here. BioWare forums, fine, but... here?

I'm not even a writer and it took me, like 10 minutes to figure out a better :cough: philosophical premise for the Great Reveal than what was in the game. Like so:

The Reapers, being immortal mechano-biological entities, think in the long term. Like, seriously long term. They have proven, without any room for doubt, that the Universe will end due to fundamental quantum instability. Not in the next million years, or even ten, hundred, or necessarily thousand million years, but it will. They see no escape from this. And they would very much like to continue existing.

They also know, from experience and from observing the evolution and destruction of countless sapient species over the aeons, that every being is a prisoner of its own mode of consciousness. Every sapient race makes some unique discoveries, however trivial, but eventually exhausts the possibilities of its particular way of perceiving the Universe.

Therefore, the only possibility the Reapers see for somehow escaping or preventing the inevitable death of the Universe -- and with it, themselves -- lies in a discovery they know they cannot make. Their solution: the Cycle. Accelerate evolution, causing new races to emerge and flourish and reach the pinnacle of their creative potential. Then harvest them: absorb their knowledge, discoveries, and consciousness into the Reaper whole, allowing the Reapers to continue perceiving the Universe their way, in their search for the solution for the end of the Universe. (And eliminating something that might, left unchecked, eventually grow powerful enough to threaten them.) Repeat until an answer is discovered, or the Universe ends.

The Crucible is a Prothean artefact built with knowledge secretly acquired of and from the Reapers. Its completion in the latest cycle has the potential to finally give the Reapers the answer they have sought through the aeons. It is a device that can re-engineer the fabric of reality itself, by infinitesimally adjusting the value of the Planck constant. The direction in which it is adjusted has profound implications, and it can only be done once: any adjustment precludes the possibility of another Crucible. Shepard is faced with a choice. Will s/he:

1. Adjust it by -1.067 * 10^-35, which will result in an almost imperceptible shift to all organic consciousness, but will make mechanical consciousness an impossibility. The Reapers will become mindless automata, subject to control by the Alliance, but AI's will become VI's or stop functioning altogether, and may never emerge again. The Universe will still eventually end, and if there is any other way to prevent its ending or escape it, it will be even more elusive than the one the Reapers spent aeons searching for.
2. Adjust it by 1.011 * 10^-35, removing the quantum instability and making the Universe potentially eternal. The Reaper invasion will continue, and while their main motivation for upholding the Cycle will be removed, they will certainly continue to jealously guard their position at the top of the Universe's food chain.
3. Adjust it by 1.107 * 10^-35, which will make it possible for sufficiently sophisticated entities to imprint their consciousnesses on the "metaverse," thereby escaping the Universe and its inevitable doom (only available if a bunch of boring sidequests were successfully completed). The Reapers will eagerly seize on the possibility and vanish. In some distant future, perhaps the remote descendants of Shepard and his/her waifu/husbando will join them.

See, was that so hard?

Cool Idea, man. Although I would question this part: "...that every being is a prisoner of its own mode of consciousness. Every sapient race makes some unique discoveries, however trivial, but eventually exhausts the possibilities of its particular way of perceiving the Universe." History teaches us that our understanding of the universe is changing. The notion and understanding of something like "potential" is unclear... But more importantly, what does it have to do with my post? I stand by my point, ME3's ending is not retarded.

Holy shit, I didn't know eremita had gone full retard. Never go full retard man.

Then i was always fully retarded, because I never hide my positive attitude towards ME3, I just wasn't very vocal about it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying it's masterpiece or anything to write home about really, but it's certainly smarter than majority of writing in other RPGs. It shouldn't be called retarded - just average.

I do however admit that the series is not coherent and that' a real shame. They were clearly figuring things out on the way. Why can't they just write a meaningful script and then stick with it?

 

[Shevek]

FF7 is an RPG

Lol, no.

 

[Blaine]

Mass Effect: Androgyna, can't wait!

 

[a Goat]

The ME3 ending was just fine. What was ruined was all the area design, because they now had to add multi-player. And the levels were terrible.

At the end of Mass Effect 3, a ghost kid appears and tells you that because organic life always makes synthetics that destroy them, he decided to make synthetics that would destroy organic life before they could make synthetics that would destroy themselves. How is that not fucking retarded?

I think it's about preservation. Didn't even played ME, but my brother used to sperg about it.

Some stuff is bullshit but I think that the point of the "cycle" is to wipe sapient life forms without wiping all organics. The custom-made AI may as well wipe everything.

 

[eremita]

The ME3 ending was just fine. What was ruined was all the area design, because they now had to add multi-player. And the levels were terrible.

At the end of Mass Effect 3, a ghost kid appears and tells you that because organic life always makes synthetics that destroy them, he decided to make synthetics that would destroy organic life before they could make synthetics that would destroy themselves. How is that not fucking retarded?

P.S.: Thesis (A) is something in what a lot of modern biologists believe. They believe it to be a trait of everything organic. There's a balance in nature and as soon as some species gets an edge, it's gonna fuck shit up completely, it cannot helps itself (self preservation instinct paradoxically). This is something observed in world of microorganisms (improved bacteria in a petri dish devoured everything, then died) and macroorganisms as well (ants in South America). They say humans are no different (you might argue that we're more evolved, but some say that in the end, every motivation - even the ones giving us progress and culture, are just disguised basic instincts).

A fellow biologist (well, biomedical science major actually) disagrees.

Honestly I don't want to get into the details on this again, because I saw so many arguments on the endings to the point I'm sick of it. (Can you imagine they created a FB page for it? And the friends that stupidly joined and bomb you with every news on the latest development...)
If you are talking about the consequences of food shortage and population crashes and all that, it doesn't really work that way. Organisms eat, poop, reproduce and expand their territories, and that's it. There is no genetic code wiring the working of the universe.
The so-called balance is maintained based on the assumption of no migration and we are confined with limited supply of food and space. If you can make machines that travel to the oh-no-dark-space, I honestly doubt resources will be an issue at this point.
Like these damn possums from Auz, once we reach a new planet or galaxy, we're likely become the crazy foreign invaders that will again dominate the local "earth", which, I guess is the premise of this new mass effect game.

Assuming resources and space are a problem, viewing organics as a singular life form or an individual population is surprisingly narrow minded for a supposedly all-knowing machine/race.
Even with their DNA and genome sequenced and preserved, actions and niches of particular species are still required to maintain a balanced ecosystem or a status quo if you prefer.
A self-driven population crash rarely cause the extinction of the species itself. It usually takes a dive, allow room for the species it relies on to incline, then increase, and repeat.
Believe it or not, with the simple rules of supply and demand, we created a somewhat artificial "ecosystem" that serves our own interest. Imagine our fat juicy cows trying to survive in the wild. Or compare that tiny unnoticeable weed you find in south america with the monstrous corns in the local supermarkets.
The proposed genocidal approach is stupidly unnecessary and irresponsible from a scientist -especially a conservation scientist's- point of view.
If there is anything ME3 ending said it right, it's that entropy and chaos prevail. You just can't predict all the possibilities. A conservation scientist don't shoe-horn a naturally established environment into a statistical model they created.

And don't remind me of the most retarded fusion solution. It severely reduced the evolutionary potential of both organics and synthetics and crippled your diversity into two. Far out, I don't know why I wrote so many of this shit when I still need to figure out why we shouldn't apply molecular genetics on domestic animals...

Oh I don't want to either, believe me. The butthurt about the endings back then was fucking crazy.

"The so-called balance is maintained based on the assumption of no migration and we are confined with limited supply of food and space. If you can make machines that travel to the oh-no-dark-space, I honestly doubt resources will be an issue at this point." - Yep, true. Talking about anything else than closed ecosystem doesn't make much sense.

"Assuming resources and space are a problem, viewing organics as a singular life form or an individual population is surprisingly narrow minded for a supposedly all-knowing machine/race." - Well, they're wiping out only the sentient ones. Everything required for balanced ecosystem is preserved as I understand it.

"A self-driven population crash rarely cause the extinction of the species itself." - Unless the crash means extinction of everything. Just like the Petri dish experiment. An equivalent would be an uninhabitable Earth due to human actions.

 

[Copper]

maybe this stuff is impressive if you compare it to Diablo 3, but if you have a library card, you can read shit like Stephen Baxter or Alastair Reynold that handle similar themes in a far less derp manner. Hell, Eclipse Phase the RPG has 3 possible scenarios behind its 'alien virus', all of which are sounder.

Most 'AI will destroy us' fiction is rooted in Nuclear/Biotech doomsday scenarios, mixed with a good dose of fear of being usurped by a newer, better model, which most people have to deal with at some stage in their life, from getting a new brother/sister to competing against young kids for your shitty job. In general, it's about the tragedy about being undone by your own work - build a big enough bomb, and it's going to go off.

Very few books look sensibly at why AIs would kill us all, since the AI is just personifying human incompetence and systematic failures. The best answer I've seen if that intelligence, from an evolutionary point of view, is a weapon, and the more intelligent you are, the better you are at anticipating things, leading to paranoia and pre-emptive strikes against possible threats.

The fatal flaw in Mass Effect is that it contradicts itself - the Geth are not some galactic threat, and it's only butthurt that prevented their creators from settling on other planets - they're in no danger of extinction at the hands of their creations.

Probably the message they wanted to push was that we will destroy ourselves unless we become more inclusive.

 

[Riel]

ME wasn't ruined by its ending it was ruined by the "Awesome Principle", that is everything is secondary to awesomeness: coherence, maturity, proper plot building up, gameplay itself... anything will be sacrificed to get an awesome scene NOW, followed quickly by another. Pretty much all AAA games fall into this category which is sad, though Bioware is probably the worst culprit in this.

 

[Cassidy]

Why bother overthinking such retarded ripoff from Frederick Pohl's Heechee Series with generic space opera trappings?

 

[Morality Games]

What screwed Mass Effect was a general disregard for continuity throughout the entire series. They kept re-imagining key parts of the narrative, like the Geth/AI in ME1 vs the Geth/AI in ME2 then the Geth/AI again in ME3. Bioware started employing a lot of comic book writers at a certain point, and while comic book writers are fine, their tradition doesn't empathize reverence for continuity because they have to keep characters that have been around for 80 years interesting. But in a series that's about getting players emotionally invested about their choices, is continually altering the thematic framework in which those choices occur the right way to go?

Can't blame the writers entirely, of course. The production side of things also lent itself to that approach.

 

[Akratus]

What screwed Mass Effect is that they are fucktarded games made by fucktarded people to be enjoyed/overanalyzed by fucktards.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Bigger worlds to explore, ship combat would also be good, also tighter shooting and power usage mechanics.