The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

[Oesophagus]

SS2 whine

 

[DwarvenFood]

I am pleased to see that with the relese of AoD demo, this thread has slowed down from about 10 new pages over the weekend, to just 4.

 

[Angthoron]

There is a good reason for talking about different genres when discussing plots and their quality - same plot can be usually applied to a variety of different genres and plot's shortcomings remain shortcomings whether you're watching the story unfold from first person, behind-the-ass camera, cockpit of your starship or Fleet Command's tactical view.

Yeah, this is very much the case, and a change in perspective can - and is - often very dramatic. What you'd see as a foot soldier is a completely different situation from what that foot soldier's commanding officer will be seeing. Unfortunately, BioWare seems to have no clue about chain of command and various things associated with it. In fact, why the fuck are admirals asking for Shepard's opinion on tactics or strategy? He's never had any qualifications for leading large units of spaceships, AND he's essentially a marine. Do you ask a Marine for a submarine strike attack tactic? Or maybe for a bombing pattern? Who carried out the debriefing for Sovereign incident? The plot hinges on everyone being a gigantic incompetent moron.

One but:
SS2 is glorious survival horror, but sucks brutally hard as a piece of Sci-Fi.

Well yes. But it has better delivery of the topic, and it's still SOME kind of sci-fi IN SPAAAACE. And I'd certainly recommend SS2 over ME series any day, anyhow. But yeah, as "hard" sci-fi, SS2 fails a fair bit.

 

[DraQ]

SS2 whine

So was it aliens?

 

[Angthoron]

SS2 whine

So was it aliens?

Is that a Centauri, from Babylon 5?

 

[Oesophagus]

Science magic. I can completely forgive SS's science derp moments on a account of how good it is.

Anyway, if you were to be really anal about analysing sf plots, then every single sf game would be shit in that respect. I can't think of a game that doesn't break at least one basic law of physics

EDIT

well, I can name one that comes close

 

[Ulminati]

Science magic. I can completely forgive SS's science derp moments on a account of how good it is.

Anyway, if you were to be really anal about analysing sf plots, then every single sf game would be shit in that respect. I can't think of a game that doesn't break at least one basic law of physics

You know what they say. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from the author not knowing shit about fundameltal laws of physics.

 

[DwarvenFood]

"Homage" is when Frontier uses Blue Danube for docking scene. Imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery but sure as fuck ripping off entire plots is not a fucking homage.

Do you, per chance, have a screenshot of the docking sequence in Frontier where you approach from the wrong side , so it clearly shows the text "Dock other side" ? I love that one and want to make it my desktop background.

EDIT: On-topic because hard sci-fi.

 

[DraQ]

The plot hinges on everyone being a gigantic incompetent moron.

How very biowarian.

Well yes. But it has better delivery of the topic, and it's still SOME kind of sci-fi IN SPAAAACE. And I'd certainly recommend SS2 over ME series any day, anyhow. But yeah, as "hard" sci-fi, SS2 fails a fair bit.

I don't think it fails only as hard Sci-Fi. Let's take SW (old trilogy, of course) - it's as soft as it gets, but doesn't fail much, because it sidesteps tech fluff most of the time and uses phlebotinum (hyperspace) where this fluff would have inevitable impact on the story. As the result the sci-fi part of SW is barely more than backdrop and window dressing for a space fable, but it's hard to point at something in particular and say "FAIL".

Ok, if you look hard enough the firepower of the Death Star is quite ridiculous as it is able to not just sterilize a planet, not just turn it into a boiling blob of lava but literally blow it apart (which is hard and quite an overkill), you have infamous Endor Holocaust (good riddance IMO ), you have some terminology fuckups and I can't remember if fagulous glowspear guns are actually called lasers, but that's about it. Oh, you could rag on space combat being not particularly space like, but it'd probably be trying too hard when it comes to the movies. Yeah, AT-ATs are pretty dumb, and Cloud City questionable, but it's mechanism of staying afloat is not explained.

Compare SS2, it shares fagulous lightspear lasers and force PSI, and then it has a lot of things that are detailed enough to be clearly fucking wrong and not as "in minor fuck ups that could be easily fixed by changing some words/numbers/using slightly different phlebotinum" but "gaping plotholes destroying any semblance of integrity in the story".

The reason why SS2 should be recommended over ME, is that it's a good game and very tense survival horror, not because it's any good as Sci-Fi, because it's not. I'm not even sure how it could be fixed - if SHODAN devised and mounted a hyperdrive on the grove it obviously wouldn't have need for VB.

You know what they say. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from the author not knowing shit about fundameltal laws of physics.

The problem is that technology in SS2 isn't sufficiently advanced, while the technology in everyone's favourite space fantasy (Star Wars Ep. IV-VI) is.

Do you, per chance, have a screenshot of the docking sequence in Frontier where you approach from the wrong side , so it clearly shows the text "Dock other side" ? I love that one and want to make it my desktop background.

Nah, but could make one.

FPP or TPP? FE2 or FFE? If TPP, what ship?

And what resolution*?


*) 320x200 if FE2.

Science magic. I can completely forgive SS's science derp moments on a account of how good it is.

Anyway, if you were to be really anal about analysing sf plots, then every single sf game would be shit in that respect. I can't think of a game that doesn't break at least one basic law of physics

There are differences, though.
First, the violations vary in magnitude.

Second, in some games violations are completely irrelevant to plot or sometimes even gameplay. In others they are central to the plot and would make the game fall apart when fixed.

For example the storyline of Homeworld wouldn't be in the least bit affected if the game was strictly newtonian apart from hyperspace, Frontier wouldn't suffer if you removed exterior sounds in space and replaced enemy laser beams with HUD indicators when outside the atmosphere, and so on.

Now try fixing the grove on Tau Ceti problem in SS2. Derp. You can't.

 

[DwarvenFood]

DraQ
FE2, 1440x900 if possible ?

 

[DraQ]

DraQ
FE2, 1440x900 if possible ?

Would have to try doing it in GLfrontier IF I manage to set it above my screen resolution, and manage to do it in (buggy and fugly) GL renderer.

TPP or FPP?

 

[DwarvenFood]

DraQ
TPP does not matter which ship. FPP is the text would be obscured using TPP. Thank you in advance.

 

[DraQ]

Iz dat monocled enovgh?

Had to set res to something I could printscrn and GLFE2 renderer is p. shit.

 

[DwarvenFood]

Thanks DraQ looks allright:

 

[Schleichwerbung]

The point of that and the skipping of several ranks for ashley and the allusions to prison time, reinstatement, and promotion to full commander is to show a whole lot of time has passed. There's no plot hole there the writing is just too subtle for him, which is pretty scary.

BioWare confirmed, that only 6 months have passed since "Arrival".
They also said, that ranks in Mass Effect don't work like in our world.
And they said, that we should read James Vegas comic, if we are confused.

lol @ BioWare and subtle writing.

Edit:
http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

 

[DraQ]

They also said, that ranks in Mass Effect don't work like in our world.

So how do they wo

DING DONG BANNU!

Oh.

 

[Hamster]

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

The biggest derp of ME franchise:

2157 CE: The First Contact War


2183 CE: Mass Effect

From first contact to "all aliens drinking in the same bar Star Wars style" in 26 years.

No, just no.

 

[Menckenstein]

Clearly Space Obama has taken humanity to new and glorious heights of inclusion.

 

[Oriebam]

[Perception]It would make sense if humans were only one colony or outmatched by the aliens in everything, like what happened to some of the races, I think the drell and the hanar, I think krogan and volus too

 

[commie]

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Timeline

The biggest derp of ME franchise:

2157 CE: The First Contact War


2183 CE: Mass Effect

From first contact to "all aliens drinking in the same bar Star Wars style" in 26 years.

No, just no.

What? Krauts were fucking chummy with their erstwhile enemies just a few years after the war so it's possible, and the Nips were selling cameras to those that nuked them not long after as well. Aliens may be a bit different but with all the enlightened everyone's gay and we're all fine with that' among the human race at this time suggesting that they've reached the Star Trek liberal faggotry before the First Contact War so would be malleable to fucking aliens in a very short time. Asari were already enlightened on the alien side and the other races were influenced by that, so they too wouldn't take all that long to be friendly. Besides, it's only Shep that can be a hardcore alien lover; many other crew and characters aren't all that comfortable with the alien luv, even a bro like Garrus gets treated with suspicion. At least ME1 had racism and xenophobia as quite pronounced undercurrents though of course this was given up in subsequent games with just Cerberus playing the role of Space Nazis.

 

[LoPan]

[Perception]It would make sense if humans were only one colony or outmatched by the aliens in everything, like what happened to some of the races, I think the drell and the hanar, I think krogan and volus too

The creation of the drell species was the outcome of designing a male alien love interest that was required to be an attractive and stealthy assassin. The appearance of the resulting character, Thane Krios, then formed the basis of the design for other members of the drell species.[1]

It was never made to make sense.

 

[Achilles]

Since Bioware shamelessly ripped off Babylon 5 almost right down to the protagonist's name (John Sheridan-John Shepard, come on), why didn't they go all the way and shamelessly rip off B5's ending too? Babylon 5's last episode was the best ending for a tv show ever, it almost brought a tear to my eye. Had Bioware done something like that for ME3, they would be considered living gods by their audience.

 

[evdk]

Since Bioware shamelessly ripped off Babylon 5 almost right down to the protagonist's name

I would like to know more, because I never noticed that. In fact even now that you've mentioned it I still can't see the similarity.

 

[Storyfag]

I don't think it fails only as hard Sci-Fi. Let's take SW (old trilogy, of course) - it's as soft as it gets, but doesn't fail much, because it sidesteps tech fluff most of the time and uses phlebotinum (hyperspace) where this fluff would have inevitable impact on the story. As the result the sci-fi part of SW is barely more than backdrop and window dressing for a space fable, but it's hard to point at something in particular and say "FAIL".

Endor, Ewoks and an elite legion of stormtroopers. Just sayin'

 

[evdk]

I don't think it fails only as hard Sci-Fi. Let's take SW (old trilogy, of course) - it's as soft as it gets, but doesn't fail much, because it sidesteps tech fluff most of the time and uses phlebotinum (hyperspace) where this fluff would have inevitable impact on the story. As the result the sci-fi part of SW is barely more than backdrop and window dressing for a space fable, but it's hard to point at something in particular and say "FAIL".

Endor, Ewoks and an elite legion of stormtroopers. Just sayin'

That's just the story being stupid in general, nothing to do with SciFi hardness or the lack thereof.