The Mass Effect 3/BioWare Thread

[Azrael the cat]

Hey, here's a conspiracy theory.

Maybe the writers decided that, hey Indoctrination Theory WOULD be a pretty good idea, so the lead designer is replaying the trilogy now in order to work out how to have a reaper villain in order to pull the indoctrination twist

 

[Lhynn]

See what's funny about your insistence is that your wording sets up a false dichotomy whereby a Bioware story making no sense and having an astronomical number of mistakes is in fact NOT a simple, easy explanation for whatever narrative fuckups happen in said story.

Also, you kinda answered your own question with the "weak as that may be" bit. Why in the nether hells would you believe an in-game explanation that is only supproted by some weak references and completely contradicted by half of the material at hand, and directly denied by the writers themselves, when the much simpler and easier explanation is that the game is just badly written?

Ultimately this is the reason why you're getting ridiculed. You keep defending an idea that is only vaguely defensible, only if you ignore like half the trilogy, because you refuse to accept that Bioware simply had no idea what they were doing, when so much of the writing shows (independently) that they really had no idea what they were doing.

But heres the thing, there stuff that bothers me, suggestive details like Anderson looking at shepard directly to the eyes while supposedly talking to TIM about reaper influencing him, stupid oily shadows on your dreams, voices in your head, the catalyst being able to read your mind and take the form of a ghost child that was never anywhere but in shepards imagination to begin with. anderson dying and you having a wound in the exact same spot. the shadows of anderson and TIM completely opposed, and even if they swich positions their shadows remain in a static angle. harbringer never targeting shepard directly with his laser, when he was insta disintegrating everything that came close to that beam of light.

As i said before, it bothers me, i want a satisfactory explanation, them being lazy is not one, because some of this stuff was obviously deliberately made to be that way, it did not need to be in ME3 ending, why bother "putting in" these mistakes in the first place?

Occam's Razor.

I know what it means, but what do you mean by it? because the simpler explanation is really up to the point of view of the one thats doing the interpretation.
bunch of mistakes that just happen to align themselves with a wacky concept vs bunch of deliberate design choices.

 

[Akratus]

Lhynn definitely needs an indoctrinated tag.

Spoiler

and a dumbfuck tag

 

[Angthoron]

See what's funny about your insistence is that your wording sets up a false dichotomy whereby a Bioware story making no sense and having an astronomical number of mistakes is in fact NOT a simple, easy explanation for whatever narrative fuckups happen in said story.

Also, you kinda answered your own question with the "weak as that may be" bit. Why in the nether hells would you believe an in-game explanation that is only supproted by some weak references and completely contradicted by half of the material at hand, and directly denied by the writers themselves, when the much simpler and easier explanation is that the game is just badly written?

Ultimately this is the reason why you're getting ridiculed. You keep defending an idea that is only vaguely defensible, only if you ignore like half the trilogy, because you refuse to accept that Bioware simply had no idea what they were doing, when so much of the writing shows (independently) that they really had no idea what they were doing.

But heres the thing, there stuff that bothers me, suggestive details like Anderson looking at shepard directly to the eyes while supposedly talking to TIM about reaper influencing him, stupid oily shadows on your dreams, voices in your head, the catalyst being able to read your mind and take the form of a ghost child that was never anywhere but in shepards imagination to begin with. anderson dying and you having a wound in the exact same spot. the shadows of anderson and TIM completely opposed, and even if they swich positions their shadows remain in a static angle. harbringer never targeting shepard directly with his laser, when he was insta disintegrating everything that came close to that beam of light.

As i said before, it bothers me, i want a satisfactory explanation, them being lazy is not one, because some of this stuff was obviously deliberately made to be that way, it did not need to be in ME3 ending, why bother "putting in" these mistakes in the first place?

Because it is not a film shot by a visionary director, but a game made by BioWare, while following a very tight release schedule. All the items you list can be explained just as easily by the fact that game dev works by rules like asset recycling and path of least resistance when setting up scenes. Anderson looking in the eye? How many times before in the trilogy have the NPCs looked at Shep instead of at whoever they were supposed to speak at? Oily shadows? Ghosts? BG2 dream sequences have these already. Hell, even BG1 textual descriptions of dreams of the protagonist has shadows and stuff. Does that mean that Bhaalspawn is indoctrinated? No. Wounds in the same place? How about the fact that bodytypes and textures are routinely recycled in the industry?

See, you can believe whatever outlandish things you want, I can believe that TNO chose to become a god of sex and had a happy family with Annah and Grace but I don't try to persuade people that that is really how the story ended. Don't try to persuade people to your point of view when they've openly pointed out dozens of flaws in your views and, frankly, don't even care about the thing to begin with. Unless you're a glutton for ridicule, in which case, go for it, this place needs lulz.

Occam's Razor.

I know what it means, but what do you mean by it? because the simpler explanation is really up to the point of view of the one thats doing the interpretation.
bunch of mistakes that just happen to align themselves with a wacky concept vs bunch of deliberate design choices.

What's more likely, mistakes, rush-jobs and lack of polish and control, or that the devs pretended that they've done a hack job at the game for the sake of creating a conspiracy while pissing off their fans?

 

[RK47]

 

[imweasel]

sure. i have no real understanding of the stuff, but what i gathered over the years is essentially:
the higgs field has a non-zero energy state. that implies two things: particles that interact with it, which is all basic particles 'cept the higgs boson, need to have a certain energy to exist, hence the somewhat weird phrase that it gives them mass (energy is mass). the universe is unstable since stability would require it to have a baseline of 0.
the higgs field is not responsible for the mass of everything (contrary to claims by most popular media). it is roughly responsible for something like 0.7% of atom mass. decreasing its energy would likely cause the universe to seek a more stable state (read: you just destroyed the universe) and even if it didn't, lower higgs field energy state means less energy required by basic particles to exist, which they would assume because everything seeks more stable states, meaning grats, you just fucked up all the forces that make atoms hold together and made everything explode (those two might actually be the same, now that i think about it).
increasing the higgs field energy in turn would require said particles to suddenly have more energy to exist, which they don't and thus don't.

either way mass effect field generators do nothing like higgs field manipulation according to the game. that would also require energies on a scale that any society capable of manipulating higgs fields could also create matter at will.

Without the higgs field all matter is massless. This has been said many times and is the current theory, not the brainfart that you just wrote. That is like saying gravity exists without a gravitational field, FYI there is no gravity without a gravitational field.

linked in such a way that quantum entanglement in a 3 dimensional system without gravity is mathematically equivalent to wormholes in a 4 dimensional system that includes gravity... so not really linked at all, you mean?

The theory or postulate is that two quantum-entangled particles always adopt correlated values instantly, no matter how much distance separates them, because they are connected by a wormhole.

You are trying to prove this theory wrong (which is the reason why Mass Effect is total shit according to you) but you can't. If you can use quantum entanglement for communication is actually unknown, but like I said already, it is a game and not a space simulator. You seem to refuse to want to understand this and won't give up trying to prove that the game is shit because the physics in the game just might not be 100% correct.

i am not sure why you thought it relevant to my point about them being visible and thus emitting radiation and also pretty easy to find, as opposed to what the game claims.

The relays obviously emit electromagnetic radiation, otherwise they would be almost completely invisible. The reason why the relay near earth could not be seen with simpler means was because it was covered in hundreds of kilometers of ice, which absorbed that electromagentic radiation. It really isn't that hard to understand.

 

[Sceptic]

But heres the thing, there stuff that bothers me, suggestive details like Anderson looking at shepard directly to the eyes while supposedly talking to TIM about reaper influencing him, stupid oily shadows on your dreams, voices in your head, the catalyst being able to read your mind and take the form of a ghost child that was never anywhere but in shepards imagination to begin with. anderson dying and you having a wound in the exact same spot. the shadows of anderson and TIM completely opposed, and even if they swich positions their shadows remain in a static angle. harbringer never targeting shepard directly with his laser, when he was insta disintegrating everything that came close to that beam of light.

As i said before, it bothers me, i want a satisfactory explanation, them being lazy is not one, because some of this stuff was obviously deliberately made to be that way, it did not need to be in ME3 ending, why bother "putting in" these mistakes in the first place

Them being lazy IS a satisfactory explanation. Mistakes don't get "put in", they happen because the writer is incompetent. Again, you're playing with false dichotomies.

YMMV on what was deliberate. A lot of that "but he looks at Shepard!" and "dat shadow!" says more about you and your power of observation than it does anything about Bioware (and I'm not being sarcastic; I honestly never noticed anything with the shadows). But it also very much reads like trying VERY HARD to find SOMETHING to suggest IT. You call them "suggestive details" but the problem is that they don't really mean much for the most part. More to the point, the ones that DO mean something (the catalyst knowing everything, which is a very good point) are the ones that are the most easily explained away by "Bioware cannot into writing", and it bears pointing out that this is NOT circular reasonging because we already know this from their other, unrelated projects. As for the other details, like the shadows, they might mean something, but it could be anything, and I'm not willing to see them as in any way related to IT unless a) IT is already soundly established as a possibility, and b) a direct, sensible, logical link between these apparently completely random aesthetic choices and the very defined and specific IT can be established. Which neatly brings us to

I know what it means, but what do you mean by it? because the simpler explanation is really up to the point of view of the one thats doing the interpretation.

I mean the application of the principle, more specifically shifting the burden of proof. We have a sensible explanation for why the game writing is a mess (Bio writers suck). You have an alternative explanation (it's all a very deliberate and extremely detailed IT). You present your arguments, except they're full of holes; not entirely your fault mind you, you can only work with what you have (which in this case is a very messy plot). They get mocked because of said holes. Instead of patching the holes (my personal explanation is that you don't because it is simply not possible with the available material) you try to shift the burden of proof and claim that WE have to somehow present evidence that your theory is contradicted by clear elements presented in the game writing. THAT is why I invoked the Razor: we don't, because the simpler theory is that the writing just sucks and makes no sense, and the burden of proof is on you to prove otherwise, and to fill in any holes created by the IT. Us trying to disprove IT would make for an interesting mental exercise, but I doubt anyone here loves the game enough to go digging into this kind of detail.

bunch of mistakes that just happen to align themselves with a wacky concept vs bunch of deliberate design choices.

No. Again with the dichotomies. Bunch of mistakes don't "align themselves". Bunch of mistakes <-> stupid writing <-> wacky concept. This really shouldn't need any explanation. The concept is only wacky because the plot is full of holes and the plot is full of holes because the writing sucks. Deliberate design choices would imply the writing doesn't suck and there are no holes. Except that there are and it does, so more proof is needed to justify that they are deliberate design choices to begin with.

EDIT: Angthoron presented the same ideas in a much less pedantic form.

 

[imweasel]

Isn't it a bit silly to discuss in a scientific manner an invention of a fantasy universe?? the inventors of ghostkid for more pointers!!

Their argument was that the game is shit because it doesn't respect the laws of physics and is not a space simulator or something. And here we are, Fallout has illogical stuff and is a great game, Mass Effect probably has illogical stuff and is therefore shit according to them.

I've been trying to tell them that it is a just a game and doesn't have to be 100% accurate, but to no avail.

Anyway, you can kind of discuss with SuicideBunny, Hiver however is a completely freaking out (which is typical for him, but oh well).

Riel
No, see - because the stupid fuck keeps trying to sway the argument into that territory - while being utterly ignorant about these basic principles of science, having read nothing but headlines about any part of it.

It isnt a big surprise the stupid shit is also using the same retarded schtick as the moron in the wasteland thread of just repeating that i am angry - throwing hissy fits, despite that obviously not being the case - as if that makes any difference in regards to starting arguments and his inability to provide any real counter to that.

Its nothing but a stupid blatant strawman, which he does because he is literally incapable of anything else.


he is nothing else then a simplistic stupid shit who somehow liked mas brain defect gaem and now cannot tolerate someone telling him he liked less then mediocre shit.
which obviously corresponds with that level of intelligence and general knowledge about any parts of the content of the game.

Dude, lay off the bues for once.

How somebody can throw such a tremendous fit just because a person (me) likes a game you hate (Mass Effect) is beyond me. All I did was tell you why I like Mass Effect 1 + 2 and you completely flipped out. You do this on every forum that I have seen you on to anyone that you disagree with. Sorry to say this, but you have some serious problems. I know we all get mad sometimes which is okay, but you really need to learn to calm down.

 

[Akratus]

Tali's face was revealed in a photoshopped stock image that broke lore, immersion and logic and they still thought that was perfectly acceptable to put in the game. It was a 5 minute rush job, and the most incompetent thing I've ever seen in a game. If they're retarded enough to think that wouldn't go over badly they're retarded enough to accidentally put in those ending shenanigans.

 

[RK47]

Mass Effect 3 Online is a great game.

 

[dryan]

I'm not part of this industry, but I imagine that making things up as you go along is pretty common for video game writing.

 

[Commissar Draco]

ME3 chef flaw was that unlike ME2 which was straight B class Space Opera/Action Movie pastiche it tried to be serous and failed due to combination of usual Biowerian choices, Gaydar/Hamburger Helper level dialogues and General EA pressure to rush with release of their merchandise; EA - Electronic Assembly.
Trying to invent 3rd bottom or deeper meaning to this cheap Hamburger of the game is ridicullus and Dumbfack! tag worthy. You can enjoy it for what is good for ie Decent Popamole Combat and MP though.

 

[RK47]

You can enjoy it for what is good for ie Decent Popamole Combat and MP though.

I have spent more hours online than the single player campaign.
All the free updates are worth a look.

 

[Caim]

Hey, here's a conspiracy theory.

Maybe the writers decided that, hey Indoctrination Theory WOULD be a pretty good idea, so the lead designer is replaying the trilogy now in order to work out how to have a reaper villain in order to pull the indoctrination twist

Bigger twist: the ME4 protagonist is a Reaper in human form.

 

[RK47]

Hey, here's a conspiracy theory.

Maybe the writers decided that, hey Indoctrination Theory WOULD be a pretty good idea, so the lead designer is replaying the trilogy now in order to work out how to have a reaper villain in order to pull the indoctrination twist

Bigger twist: the ME4 protagonist is a Reaper in human form.

I'd say Time Travel through Prothean Bacon.

 

[Caim]

Hey, here's a conspiracy theory.

Maybe the writers decided that, hey Indoctrination Theory WOULD be a pretty good idea, so the lead designer is replaying the trilogy now in order to work out how to have a reaper villain in order to pull the indoctrination twist

Bigger twist: the ME4 protagonist is a Reaper in human form.

I'd say Time Travel through Prothean Bacon.

I'm going with Put Into Stasis Inside Protean Beacon, and have them be some kind of experimental Prothean supersoldier.

 

[Xor]

I'm gonna take another crack at this.

Anderson looking at shepard directly to the eyes while supposedly talking to TIM about reaper influencing him

So they fucked up scripting some dialog. Wouldn't be the first time. The game probably has characters in dialog look at Shepard by default since that's going to be the case 90% of the time and they just forgot to override it.

stupid oily shadows on your dreams

An aesthetic choice, but not necessarily a meaningful one. Someone probably just thought it would look cool. Seriously, I'm having trouble figuring out how this could be a sign of indoctrination when it isn't mentioned in the codex entry, or anywhere else that I can remember for that matter.

voices in your head

You've brought this up a few times and I still have no idea what you're talking about.

the catalyst being able to read your mind and take the form of a ghost child that was never anywhere but in shepards imagination to begin with

Bad writing. I doubt Bioware even knew what the fuck the ghost kid was supposed to be. Remember, the head writer basically wrote the entire ending sequence alone and it wasn't peer-reviewed, and apparently none of the other writers were happy with it.

anderson dying and you having a wound in the exact same spot

The scene is supposed to show Shepard dying, and they only have one hurt animation. So it's either make an entirely new animation that will only be used once, or use the generic gut-punch one they've been using since ME1. I'd have to look but the wound is probably in the exact same place because they copied the texture and bleed effect too.

the shadows of anderson and TIM completely opposed

Could be intentional, but nothing about this screams "indoctrinated" to me. More likely it was just supposed to emphasize the conflict between synthetics and organics, or something like that. Or it could be a lighting bug - maybe they had to do something weird to get shadows to work because of the lighting in that room, or something.

and even if they swich positions their shadows remain in a static angle

They probably set the shadows up to be static so they could get the effect and forgot to move the shadows when the characters move, or the scene was changed and someone forgot/was too lazy to edit the shadows later on. A minor aesthetic detail like this would be missed by 99% of players (I know I did, but I was furious by this point in my ME3 playthrough, so...) and it would be very low priority to fix if it was caught by QA.

harbringer never targeting shepard directly with his laser, when he was insta disintegrating everything that came close to that beam of light.

Bad writing, and a common action cliche. The reapers at the beginning of the game do the same thing when they blow up the transport with the star kid on it instead of the armed warship launching from the surface 50 feet away.

 

[Lagole Gon]

Here. No need to thank me.

 

[Oesophagus]

I'm not part of this industry, but I imagine that making things up as you go along is pretty common for video game writing.

Especially if the game in question is designed by a committee of advertising suits.

 

[Ninjerk]

Hey, here's a conspiracy theory.

Maybe the writers decided that, hey Indoctrination Theory WOULD be a pretty good idea, so the lead designer is replaying the trilogy now in order to work out how to have a reaper villain in order to pull the indoctrination twist

Bigger twist: the ME4 protagonist is a Reaper in human form.

A reaper and a human have sex, resulting in a female hybrid. That you can have a gamelong romance with.

 

[Angthoron]

Hey, here's a conspiracy theory.

Maybe the writers decided that, hey Indoctrination Theory WOULD be a pretty good idea, so the lead designer is replaying the trilogy now in order to work out how to have a reaper villain in order to pull the indoctrination twist

Bigger twist: the ME4 protagonist is a Reaper in human form.

A reaper and a human have sex, resulting in a female hybrid. That you can have a gamelong romance with.

A hybrid of a human and a reaper is called a Humper, by the way.

 

[yes plz]

For me, that prothean bot thing on the Asari homeworld disproves the Indoctrination Theory. Yes, I know, IT idiots have constantly tried for the gold in mental gymnastics to explain why it doesn't detect any Reaper influence in Shepard but that isn't the only reason why I think it disproves it. Rather, I think if BioWare actually meant to hint at indoctrination then that scene would have been the perfect opportunity to do so.

They could have had the thing detect Reaper influence once Shepard got near it, with a party member then handwaving it away as it being a glitch or it detecting the presence of the thousands of husks on the planet, but they didn't. They instead had it work perfectly fine and then go berserk once Kai Leng shows up, which is completely counterintuitive to establishing that the Reapers had any sort of hold on Shepard.

 

[Delterius]

That particular robot doesn't really exist. In fact, there never were any such things as Reaper detectors. The memories of them were implanted into Shepard's memory.

Yes you see, it is all an illusion. A dream. Nothing is true. Everything is shit.

This is basic storytelling comprehension, God.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Without the higgs field all matter is massless. This has been said many times and is the current theory, not the brainfart that you just wrote.

http://cms.web.cern.ch/news/why-would-i-care-about-higgs-boson

Without the Higgs field, quarks would have no mass and consequently the proton would be heavier than the neutron, since all their mass would come from their respective binding energies. Now, without the Higgs field, the W− particle would have a much smaller mass, protons would spontaneously and almost instantly decay into neutrons — we would have a Universe without protons.

anyway, i'm done arguing with you.

 

[hiver]

Their argument was that the game is shit because it doesn't respect the laws of physics and is not a space simulator or something.

No it wasnt. Im sure you can quote that right? Unless youre simply just lying through that asshole on your head.

Its you who is desperately trying to throw in that strawman for several pages now, because youre a stupid retard. (because not only is it your limit, but you think it will work)

It is you who tried to invent that issue, saying the "theories" behind the game lore were believable or beyond being "disprovable" - only that turned out also not to be true. (arguments from ignorance rarely turn out to be correct btw)

So then you switched to inane attempt to present that as an issue itself.

Anyway, you can kind of discuss with SuicideBunny, Hiver however is a completely freaking out

Again, the same inane strawman in ad hominem form, that just additionally clarifies how fucking limited you are.

How somebody can throw such a tremendous fit just because a person (me) likes a game you hate (Mass Effect) is beyond me.

Continuation of previous strawman.
Already directly addressed a few times.

What you claim, without supporting it by anything except that you liked it - is that mass defect was/is a good game - and a good science fiction story.
Without providing a single factual thing as explanation and support of those statements. (except the fact it is better then the sequels) You just keep making statements and throwing in stupid blatant strawmans because you dont have anything else to support those statements.
Which makes you the same dumb stupid shit as deadalos, decado and the the like - who are behaving in exactly same way.