Mass Effect 3: Blue Oyster Cult Was Wrong

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Mass Effect 3: Blue Oyster Cult Was Wrong

«‹›9 »

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Pretzel Rod Stewart posted:

The only ending that isn't morally justifiable is Destroy, because you commit genocide on a people you've spent hours of game time proving are people. Control is rolling the dice that you can benevolently master the Reapers, and Synthesis is the nonsensical everything-is-perfect-now tidy bow ending intended by the developers to be The Best

Wrong, actually. Just because I go around telling everyone that my toaster is a person doesn't mean it is murder if I smash my toaster with a sledgehammer.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 00:12

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 08:10

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Geniasis posted:

Your toaster doesn't have self-awareness though. What makes a true AI a not-person?

Prove to me that it's a true person and not just a very convincing puppet.

Your move, creep.

hobbesmaster posted:

For your philosophy to be internally consistent you should consider that murder.

We're talking moral justification, not moral consistency. I'm pretty sure Shepard is routinely a hypocrite.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 01:14

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Strategic Tea posted:

You can't prove that any human being other than yourself isn't just a puppet either. Turians are made of metal; do they have souls~~

If something tells you it's intelligent without prompting or design, you treat it as intelligent unless you can prove otherwise.

Treating something as a metal or meat 'puppet' only because you don't think it has a soul is literally religious murder/slavery. Because souls aren't real silly.

Eliza the Chatbot told me she is intelligent. This does not prove anything.

The Geth are just bipedal Talkie Toasters. You can't enslave a toaster, even if it calls you Shepard-Commander as it prepares you your breakfast meal.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 13:53

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Geniasis posted:

The Geth have actually demonstrated it, though. And I don't recall Eliza ever making coherent plans for the the future evolution of her people.

This is a pretty disingenuous comparison even from a cursory glance.

It's not, actually. I'm only responding to the argument put forwards by others. That is, blind acceptance of sentience because something tells you it is.

"If something tells you it's intelligent without prompting or design, you treat it as intelligent unless you can prove otherwise."

Do we judge self-awareness around what you 'recall', now?

You should feel no more guilt from disassembling a Geth than you should from disassembling a printer. In fact, you should feel less. My printer never attempted to commit sci-fi genocide.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2016 15:28

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Just a reminder that MisterBibs is one of the most dedicated gimmicks in the history of the Internet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71RJJ0umdjQ&t=3844s

# ¿ Jun 29, 2016 07:07

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Moola posted:

Dan loving Didio is STILL discussing the ending

Please don't insult Dan. We are all friends, here, in the Mass Effect thread.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2016 13:51

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

so apparently andromeda isn't going to be at gamescom in any fashion whatsoever?

is there ever going to be any really good news about this game?

# ¿ Aug 13, 2016 11:11

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Pattonesque posted:

man 2012 was not a great year for the Mass Effect #brand

mass effect 3 (and the extended cut)
paragon lost
mass effect: deception

checks out

Milkfred E. Moore fucked around with this message at 15:55 on Aug 23, 2016

# ¿ Aug 23, 2016 15:53

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

exquisite tea posted:

What's most concerning about these departures is that this game was apparently not up to the quality standards for the head writer of Halo 4.

Halo 4 wasn't too bad.

I mean, if you remove the Composer and the Didact and that whole Forerunner/Ancient Humans War thing... but the core story about the Chief and Cortana felt like a great thing to end the series on.

But then they went and made Halo 5, so...

# ¿ Aug 25, 2016 13:18

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Pattonesque posted:

The fact that the book is written by NK Jemisin of all people is shocking to me

like they went from "lol autism is cured don't worry about it" to an actual author

I want Peter Watts to write about the Reapers.

# ¿ Sep 2, 2016 21:37

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Sombrerotron posted:

Not that weird if the game's still in the pre-alpha stage, as the footage suggests.

But aren't they claiming release early next year? Shouldn't they be beyond pre-alpha?

What are they, Star Citizen?

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 02:12

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

hobbesmaster posted:

Pre alpha is everything up until formal testing begins. An alpha is everything up until feature completion, a beta is feature complete. Depending on their testing definitions, alpha->beta->gold could be relatively fast compared to the majority of the time spent in "pre alpha".

Seems weird that they didn't show a full vertical slice though, should've at least taken a pot shot at something to show some particle effects in engine.

Ah, cool, thanks.

It looks good and it's positive to see something in-engine and such but it still feels a bit weird that this is the first thing we've really seen.

# ¿ Sep 8, 2016 02:39

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Von_Doom posted:

That is acceptable but I'd rather have HK47 or Soviet Iron Giant. I saw that movie as a kid and I would so toss all my monies at a game if it let me have a giant robot pal (prefrably with giant Megatron arm cannon) that was a combination of pal and ride. ALL MY MONEY! Never understood why there wasn't an RPG mech game where the mech had an AI that you could program/choose from some templates. I would choose Mecha Stalin every time. During combat it would shout out ultra patriotic slogans (I'm Russian but would rather have pro-Soviet than pro Oligarch, ROC and Adidas) like Fallout 3.

# ¿ Sep 11, 2016 06:46

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

There's going to be quarians and geth on the Arks. It's Bioware. Can you imagine the backlash if they didn't include two of the most popular races?

# ¿ Sep 11, 2016 06:49

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

exquisite tea posted:

Ryder's ark ship is going to have some kind of malfunction that causes the entire crew to remain in cryostasis for 100 years after their planned arrival time so when you get to Andromeda, the galaxy is already populated with all the meme races you've come to know and love so it's like you never left! Oh and look the settlers before you found The Fortress, an ancient galactic hub of unknown origin, and unlocked some of the Big Volleys for instant travel around the galaxy. They were believed to have been built by the Firsteans, a technologically advanced civilization that suddenly disappeared many years ago, but after uncovering some ruins at a Firstean digsite, Ryder and the crew are led to believe their technology may be of more sinister origin...

I, for one, think that this Mass Effect game will be

good.

# ¿ Sep 12, 2016 15:52

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Randarkman posted:

I've been replaying the Mass Effect series this year, did ME1 and part of ME2 back before summer and got around to finishing ME2 and now doing ME3 as I've been down with the flu this past week and a half. ME1's gameplay has aged really bad so I just casualled through that as a soldier almost literally just holding down the left-mouse button and massacring all opposition. ME2 was about as I remembered, pretty fun but after having played 3 the combat just feels slightly off, as in it's not as much fun. 3 is pretty stupid and disappointing storywise but the gameplay is actually a lot of fun on higher difficulties particularly if you play aggressively (and ensure you have fortification or something like that to enhance your armor/shields/barrier). However having gotten the Tuchanka missions done I got to thinking that they really dropped the ball with the story in general and the Reapers in particular and its not just that ending is bad.

Their part in ME1 was pretty good, Saren was a great villain and the Sovereign reveal and conversation was awesome. The stuff with the Prothean archives on Ilos and their attempt to stop the next Reaper invasion was also really well handled. However I think where they dropped the ball was with not having the Reaper threat resolved at the end of ME1 and making the Reaper threat the overarching and in many ways sole focus of the next two games.

There are two reasons I think this, first is that the Reapers, a vastly powerful, unknowable and alien threat is really more interesting when they remain kind of mysterious, in the background or you have a limited encounter with them to drive home the threat (Sovereign at the end of ME1 being the example here). Sovereign being a Reaper, Saren being his pawn, tidbits of information about the Protheans' extinction at the hands of the Reapers, and the conversation with Sovereign are really the most interesting encounters we ever had with them. When they kept them as the villains for 2 and 3 they really only had two options. For 2 they basically did the same thing again, try to stop a Reaper plot to invade the galaxy, which is fine and typical sequel stuff but its not as interesting as the first time around and it would get bad fast if you kept doing it. Then for 3 they had to advance the story and do the invasion and do a full on reveal and explanation of the Reapers and what they are, taking away all the mystery that made them interesting in 1, culminating in the dumb ending that reminded me of the architect scene from Matrix Reloaded more than anything else. Now the ending could have been done much better, but in the end I really think it was a mistake to stick with the Reapers and a really big one to do a straight up Reaper invasion storyline.

The second reason is somewhat simpler, by keeping the Reapers as the threat and ultimately having this apocalyptic force invade the galaxy Bioware straight up destroyed what was a pretty drat interesting and well thought out sci-fi universe with fun and well designed aliens, and some fun tech what with the relays, mass effect fields, ships, guns and armor, I think it was also really helped (at least in my case) that it was set in a somewhat recognizable locale (the Milky Way) and that the universe seemed lived in with plenty of stuff going on that wasn't directly part of the story. With the Reaper invasion plot they pretty much tore all that down and ensured that if they were going to do any more games set in this universe they would either have to retcon or ignore everything that happened and start over, set it long before the whole Reaper invasion stuff (but with only like 40 years from humanity discovering FTL and mass relays and ME3 that doesn't really give alot of room to set this, especially as it seems to indicate that its around the time of ME1 that things get interesting anyway), or just set it somewhere else and start from scratch, like the Andromeda galaxy, as pretty much everything in the old galaxy was destroyed or irreversably altered. Now for someone like me who very much liked the whole universe as it was set up, that doesn't really make me that excited for Andromeda as I would be more excited about discovering more about the existing universe than just abandoning it entirely for exploring something in the Andromeda galaxy for some reason.

Anyway that was probably far too much thinking about Mass Effect, but really I'm kind of amazed at just how little I actually care about Mass Effect Andromeda and its setting and I kind of just wanted to put down some words to that fact.

There's a few things going on with Mass Effect and the Reapers.

I think someone posted in this very thread about how weird it is that the great antagonists are an innumerable race of giant space battleships when the scale of the game is about small squad shootmans.

But the biggest thing is that they had no idea what they were doing with the Reapers in general. In ME1, the Reapers are basically harvesting the galaxy for biomass and technology to improve themselves. In ME2, they're just going for biomass for self-propagation. In ME3, something about stopping inevitable genocide. I don't think sticking with the Reapers was a mistake per se, because that deflects a lot of criticism you can level at Bioware because the idea was apparently impossible in general, but more they had no idea how to handle it. Ultimately, there's a hundred things they could have done with the basic story beats they had in ME1 and ME2 and the laws of their fictional universe to write a more interesting story. As it is, though, there's no reason for the Citadel trap to even exist. The very fact that the Reapers have that trap implies that they're not as godlike as Sovereign arrogantly proclaims.

Like, poo poo, imagine if ME3 had've had you searching for the Reaper homeworld. And you find this broken, desolate planet that the Reapers have kept off the Relay network and there's all these different bits and pieces of how and why the Reapers came to be, letting the players come up with their own theories. Sort of like a dark reflection of Ilos.

As far as the second reason goes - Bioware actually wanted to end ME with ME3. I think Walters said that was the intention, to close the franchise out. Given how high the hype was, this might have worked really well if ME3 had've stuck the landing. But it didn't and it doesn't surprise me that someone, probably EA, told them to get this franchise making money and having a positive fan perspective again. When you get right down to it, Andromeda is a loving weird choice for a sequel. It's like doing a Star Wars game set in a completely different galaxy.

The two year gap between ME1 and ME2 always seemed like the perfect place for more entries in the franchise... but then people would always remember what it'll all lead to: R G B.

# ¿ Sep 16, 2016 05:16

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Arcsquad12 posted:

Hey, if he managed to work that Dark Energy nonsense into the plot, then Mass Effect 2 would be slightly relevant! For precisely one conversation with Tali in a forty hour game.

And the conversation with Parasini, and Veetor's mention of it (and Okeer too, I think), and...

# ¿ Sep 26, 2016 00:49

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Strategic Tea posted:

*screeches discordantly as the normandy's engines are blown out*

That was the best part of their 'fixed' ending though.

It goes from that, to...

*uplifting but weak melody as the normandy languidly sails away from a huge explosion without any drama or real fanfare*

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 00:42

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

The best part about the ending is how weird a lot of the assets and decisions are, even before you get to the Starchild.

I mean, the nightmare trees that show up around the blue sky beam after you get knocked down, the Mako textures reused for the Crucible, the Anderson weirdness, Illusive Man's crazy powers...

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 00:57

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Transmogrifier posted:

Mass Effect Twitter just dropped this little teaser

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPkv7DmeM1A

Doesn't seem like the sort of thing that makes sense during ME3's 'Reaper War We're All hosed' timeline but hey, whatever.

# ¿ Nov 1, 2016 23:45

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

AriadneThread posted:

there's something about that moon lander in the trailer that's bothering me, but i can't quite place it

it's because the moon landing was fake

# ¿ Nov 2, 2016 02:01

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Ever since someone in this thread pointed out how weird it is that your ultimate antagonists of your spaceman squad game are giant alien space battleships, I can never stop thinking about it.

# ¿ Nov 2, 2016 14:37

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

aegof posted:

I always kinda looked forward to the Hammerhead bits of ME2.

# ¿ Nov 3, 2016 05:44

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Moola posted:

someone kill this terrible thread please

The cycle cannot be broken. Fucker.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2016 02:32

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

Moola, you may destroy this thread. However, you will destroy every other thread that has used the words 'mass', 'effect' and the number 'three'.

You may take control of the thread, where it will continue to exist under your guidance, but you will lose everything you have.

Alternatively, you may alter the matrix of all posters on SA into a new framework, a new DNA.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2016 07:51

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 9, 2024 08:10

Milkfred E. Moore: Aug 27, 2006; 'It's easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism.'

poisonpill posted:

Be careful. All choices will result in a self-ban (unless you've bought enough avs)

Also if you refuse to choose.

Also if you insult me.

# ¿ Nov 9, 2016 08:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Mass Effect 3: Blue Oyster Cult Was Wrong

«‹›9 »