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frajaq
Jan 30, 2009

#acolyte GM of 2014


God... I wonder if some people are going to send Thane in the vents or give the squad to Zaeed in 2021

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Funky Valentine
Feb 26, 2014

Dojyaa~an

I feel that if you can't resolve Rannoch peacefully, you should get Renegade points either way because both options are Shepard allowing genocide.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007
i think rannoch was a disaster on par with the game's ending because the way the geth were portrayed in ME2 was so good and so unique and it was crushed flat into generic robot-racism on one side and pinocchio syndrome on the other. completely facile

exquisite tea
Apr 21, 2007

Carly shook her glass, willing the ice to melt. "You still haven't told me what the mission is."

She leaned forward. "We are going to assassinate the bad men of Hollywood."


Funky Valentine posted:

I feel that if you can't resolve Rannoch peacefully, you should get Renegade points either way because both options are Shepard allowing genocide.

Quarians had it coming.

DourCricket
Jan 15, 2021

Thanks Coupleofkooks

exquisite tea posted:

Quarians had it coming.

They really do :laugh:

Oxxidation posted:

i think rannoch was a disaster on par with the game's ending because the way the geth were portrayed in ME2 was so good and so unique and it was crushed flat into generic robot-racism on one side and pinocchio syndrome on the other. completely facile

I will certainly grant you the "Pinocchio Syndrome" as you call it as a bad swerve, even if it does get us one of the better character send-offs in the series "I know, Tali. But thank you" but the robot-racism side of it was a thing from minute 1 of Mass Effect 1.

edit- words.

DourCricket fucked around with this message at 18:42 on Feb 8, 2021

Moola
Aug 16, 2006

Oxxidation posted:

i think rannoch was a disaster on par with the game's ending because the way the geth were portrayed in ME2 was so good and so unique and it was crushed flat into generic robot-racism on one side and pinocchio syndrome on the other. completely facile

Agreed. It doesn't come up enough but ME3 absolutely RUINED the Geth as a concept

Codependent Poster
Oct 20, 2003

DourCricket posted:

They really do :laugh:

Yeah but I'm not gonna let my space waifu down.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.

exquisite tea posted:

Quarians had it coming.

No matter how my Shepard leans, they will always take the Renegade way to end the war between the two because at that point they have to be completely tired of the Quarians deliberately trying to torpedo all their work.

SgtSteel91
Oct 21, 2010

DoubleNegative posted:

No matter how my Shepard leans, they will always take the Renegade way to end the war between the two because at that point they have to be completely tired of the Quarians deliberately trying to torpedo all their work.


Oof, I forgot how Renegade in ME2 and 3 turned you into a hosed up Sith robo zombie

Tirranek
Feb 13, 2014

exquisite tea posted:

Saren kicking around a trash can inside Sovereign screaming RAAARGH! ARRGHHA! in Mass Effect 1 is the absolute lowest point in the trilogy and I'm including the star child here.

Can we bundle that up with anything to do with Benezia?

The Klowner
Apr 20, 2019

by Jeffrey of YOSPOS
Can someone explain in detail the issue with how the geth and/or quarians are portrayed? I remember feeling it was pretty consistent across all the games but I haven't played them in years

Bismack Billabongo
Oct 9, 2012

Wet

exquisite tea posted:

Saren kicking around a trash can inside Sovereign screaming RAAARGH! ARRGHHA! in Mass Effect 1 is the absolute lowest point in the trilogy and I'm including the star child here.

Ah man. That poo poo cracked me up the first time and it cracks me up now. Makes me think of Leon from Curb telling Larry to leave trash on the floor.

SettingSun
Aug 10, 2013

Saren raging at the news that Shepard accessed the beacon like a kid who just lost a fighting game match is the most realistic scene in ME1.

DoubleNegative
Jan 27, 2010

The most virtuous child in the entire world.

The Klowner posted:

Can someone explain in detail the issue with how the geth and/or quarians are portrayed? I remember feeling it was pretty consistent across all the games but I haven't played them in years

In 1, the Geth are unknown and violent. In 2, you find out that there are two factions: the bad Geth and the neutral Geth. In 3, the Geth are all blameless children who never did anything wrong in their life. Every thing they do is only ever in reaction to something else. They took hardware upgrades from the Reapers because the Quarians started a war. Every time they're portrayed by the story, they're always blameless innocents. Literally at one point, despite being artificial intelligences capable of accessing the sum total of knowledge, one Geth in a flashback doesn't understand "why his creator stopped moving."

The Quarians in 2 are assholes, but you can understand why they're doing what they do. In 3 they're ambitious war hawks who attack and blow up a ship that one of their leaders and Shepard are currently on board. You tell them to flee and get their civilians to safety, and they refuse to do it and instead start sacrificing ships in a fight. They exist just to give the story artificially heightened stakes because every interaction you have with them will have them doing something needlessly and pointlessly stupid, often to the point of being self-sabotaging.

Radio Free Kobold
Aug 11, 2012

"Federal regulations mandate that at least 30% of our content must promote Reptilian or Draconic culture. This is DJ Scratch N' Sniff with the latest mermaid screeching on KBLD..."




SettingSun posted:

Saren raging at the news that Shepard accessed the beacon like a kid who just lost a fighting game match is the most realistic scene in ME1.

speaking as a gamer it was a very relatable moment for me. in that moment i knew precisely how he felt (feels bad man)

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

exquisite tea posted:

Saren kicking around a trash can inside Sovereign screaming RAAARGH! ARRGHHA! in Mass Effect 1 is the absolute lowest point in the trilogy and I'm including the star child here.

i always kinda assumed that was a mix of the old trope of "always in control bad guy loses it" and a hint of "sovereign taking control of him" but yeah its dumb as poo poo.

Oxxidation
Jul 22, 2007

DoubleNegative posted:

In 1, the Geth are unknown and violent. In 2, you find out that there are two factions: the bad Geth and the neutral Geth. In 3, the Geth are all blameless children who never did anything wrong in their life. Every thing they do is only ever in reaction to something else. They took hardware upgrades from the Reapers because the Quarians started a war. Every time they're portrayed by the story, they're always blameless innocents. Literally at one point, despite being artificial intelligences capable of accessing the sum total of knowledge, one Geth in a flashback doesn't understand "why his creator stopped moving."

more than that, the geth in ME2 come off as truly alien in a way that makes the player (and shepard) struggle with how to apply traditional morality to decisions surrounding them. they consist of trillions of runtime processes that download themselves into the scary clanky robots you fight and then bounce back out to the nearest server or satellite bank if those shells become inoperable, constantly talking with each other and growing more sophisticated all the while. legion himself comes across as recognizably sapient because the geth shoved so many of themselves into his shell that they're finally able to boot TalkLikeHuman.exe. remember legion's introduction, when it took the poor guy/guys/geth several minutes of painstaking explanation just to answer the question "who are you," because the geth's concept of sapience is so different from the rest of the galaxy

the difference between "bad" and "neutral" geth isn't seen by legion as a question of morality, but as a simple point of logical ambiguity like whether 2 + 2 = 4 or 1 + 3 = 4, which later spiraled into a wholly different decision-making process and outlook on current affairs. legion is troubled by how that schism between the two factions arose, but if you bring the "bad" faction in line with the others by overwriting their processes, he doesn't view it as brainwashing, just correcting that initial ambiguity. it's one of the few missions where shepard/the player feels like they're playing by a completely different set of moral standards

then ME3 comes along and wipes all that away. the geth were put-upon robot children and the best solution for all of them is to make them "individuals," which ruins the basis of their character from the last game - and pointlessly so, because ME2 never portrayed their original nature as particularly immoral or vulnerable. it was just a failure of imagination compared to the concepts of ME2

Oxxidation fucked around with this message at 20:46 on Feb 8, 2021

Gato
Feb 1, 2012

The Klowner posted:

Can someone explain in detail the issue with how the geth and/or quarians are portrayed? I remember feeling it was pretty consistent across all the games but I haven't played them in years


DoubleNegative posted:

In 1, the Geth are unknown and violent. In 2, you find out that there are two factions: the bad Geth and the neutral Geth. In 3, the Geth are all blameless children who never did anything wrong in their life. Every thing they do is only ever in reaction to something else. They took hardware upgrades from the Reapers because the Quarians started a war. Every time they're portrayed by the story, they're always blameless innocents. Literally at one point, despite being artificial intelligences capable of accessing the sum total of knowledge, one Geth in a flashback doesn't understand "why his creator stopped moving."

The Quarians in 2 are assholes, but you can understand why they're doing what they do. In 3 they're ambitious war hawks who attack and blow up a ship that one of their leaders and Shepard are currently on board. You tell them to flee and get their civilians to safety, and they refuse to do it and instead start sacrificing ships in a fight. They exist just to give the story artificially heightened stakes because every interaction you have with them will have them doing something needlessly and pointlessly stupid, often to the point of being self-sabotaging.

To add to this, the nature of the Geth themselves changes, which is the part I find most disappointing. In ME1, they're self-aware robots who hate organics because said organics tried to wipe them out when they started asking how to become real boys if they had souls. I think they're referred to as having a hive mind but it isn't really explored. They worship the Reapers because the Reapers are bigger, badder robots who also hate organics.

In ME2, the Geth are sentient computer programs, some of which live in the flashlight-headed robot platforms we know and love, but most of which live in giant servers. They acquire unique experiences and perspectives while running around in robot bodies which get shared with everyone else when they go back to the collective. As a result, they don't really have a concept of individuality and iirc Legion says that the "does this unit have a soul" stuff was essentially the teething troubles of a newborn race, and they're pretty cool with what they are now. Most of the Geth want to chill out and build a Dyson sphere around Rannoch, but a minority worship the Reapers because of a difference in their source code.

In ME3 the Geth are sentient robots who want to be real boys want to be like organics, and ally with the Reapers (regardless of what you do in ME2) because the Reapers will make them into "true AI" or something, and so that we have a plot device (REAPER UPGRADES) that lets you turn the tide of battle at the push of a button. What do the Reapers get out of this? :bioware:

e;f,b, Oxxidation said it better, also didn't there used to be a "lots of speculation" smiley

Gato fucked around with this message at 20:47 on Feb 8, 2021

cyclical
Nov 26, 2005
No, not that one.

Lt. Danger posted:

in turn Bioware aren't all that egregious - even Obsidian got in on the gaming-journalism-stunt-casting with the New Vegas DLCs

It's been years since I played FNV, who are we talking about here?

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Gato posted:

To add to this, the nature of the Geth themselves changes, which is the part I find most disappointing. In ME1, they're self-aware robots who hate organics because said organics tried to wipe them out when they started asking how to become real boys if they had souls. I think they're referred to as having a hive mind but it isn't really explored. They worship the Reapers because the Reapers are bigger, badder robots who also hate organics.

In ME2, the Geth are sentient computer programs, some of which live in the flashlight-headed robot platforms we know and love, but most of which live in giant servers. They acquire unique experiences and perspectives while running around in robot bodies which get shared with everyone else when they go back to the collective. As a result, they don't really have a concept of individuality and iirc Legion says that the "does this unit have a soul" stuff was essentially the teething troubles of a newborn race, and they're pretty cool with what they are now. Most of the Geth want to chill out and build a Dyson sphere around Rannoch, but a minority worship the Reapers because of a difference in their source code.

In ME3 the Geth are sentient robots who want to be real boys want to be like organics, and ally with the Reapers (regardless of what you do in ME2) because the Reapers will make them into "true AI" or something, and so that we have a plot device (REAPER UPGRADES) that lets you turn the tide of battle at the push of a button. What do the Reapers get out of this? :bioware:

e;f,b, Oxxidation said it better, also didn't there used to be a "lots of speculation" smiley


i sorta assumed 3s changes were because of legions expirences and reports going back to the collective and another split between "go with reapers" or "go with organics" but than they dumbed it down because :bioware:

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

DoubleNegative posted:

In 1, the Geth are unknown and violent. In 2, you find out that there are two factions: the bad Geth and the neutral Geth. In 3, the Geth are all blameless children who never did anything wrong in their life. Every thing they do is only ever in reaction to something else. They took hardware upgrades from the Reapers because the Quarians started a war. Every time they're portrayed by the story, they're always blameless innocents. Literally at one point, despite being artificial intelligences capable of accessing the sum total of knowledge, one Geth in a flashback doesn't understand "why his creator stopped moving."

The Quarians in 2 are assholes, but you can understand why they're doing what they do. In 3 they're ambitious war hawks who attack and blow up a ship that one of their leaders and Shepard are currently on board. You tell them to flee and get their civilians to safety, and they refuse to do it and instead start sacrificing ships in a fight. They exist just to give the story artificially heightened stakes because every interaction you have with them will have them doing something needlessly and pointlessly stupid, often to the point of being self-sabotaging.

yeah. the quarians are the doctor frankensteins who hosed around and found out and now after like 200 plus years and an entire cultural reshift and poo poo.

DourCricket
Jan 15, 2021

Thanks Coupleofkooks

Gato posted:


In ME3 the Geth are sentient robots who want to be real boys want to be like organics, and ally with the Reapers (regardless of what you do in ME2) because the Reapers will make them into "true AI" or something, and so that we have a plot device (REAPER UPGRADES) that lets you turn the tide of battle at the push of a button. What do the Reapers get out of this? :bioware:

Legion actually talks about this in Mass Effect 2 - The heretic Geth want to accept the Reaper's upgrades (they're non-specific as to what those upgrades are however) while the main Geth want to advance along their own lines and choose their own fate. The Quarians getting some new type of weapon that attacks the Geth (again, mentioned in 2) is what causes the main Geth to change their minds and more or less join the reapers in 3.

The reapers obviously get an army of even more obedient slaves out of it. It's like asking why they make husks, they need foot soldiers so they are not vulnerable.

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

DourCricket posted:

Legion actually talks about this in Mass Effect 2 - The heretic Geth want to accept the Reaper's upgrades (they're non-specific as to what those upgrades are however) while the main Geth want to advance along their own lines and choose their own fate. The Quarians getting some new type of weapon that attacks the Geth (again, mentioned in 2) is what causes the main Geth to change their minds and more or less join the reapers in 3.

The reapers obviously get an army of even more obedient slaves out of it. It's like asking why they make husks, they need foot soldiers so they are not vulnerable.

yeah, i think the geth-qurian thing isnt "that" bad in 3 but its way too dumbed down and poo poo.

DourCricket
Jan 15, 2021

Thanks Coupleofkooks

Dapper_Swindler posted:

yeah, i think the geth-qurian thing isnt "that" bad in 3 but its way too dumbed down and poo poo.

Yes, they very clearly started the ME3 design doc with
    "Geth and Quarians are at war, Shepard shows up near the end so we're not here for 20 hours. How start?! How finish?!?!"
And their solution was... poor. I'd argue it serves as a good emotional climax to the subplot and to Tali (less to Legion, even if I do love his final line) in a vacuum, however in a game whose (secret!) central tension is that AI and Organics can never get along - it is unfortunate. I do think the good outweighs the bad but I definitely see faults in it. ME 3 in a nutshell basically

Snake Maze
Jul 13, 2016

3.85 Billion years ago
  • Having seen the explosion on the moon, the Devil comes to Venus
Also the upgrade that turns them into real boys is treated as a good thing despite the fact that it was made by the reapers. Who, if you will recall, previously made the Geth into loyal servants by introducing subtle rounding errors into their software. But apparently the update that fundamentally changes how the geth work is a-okay and doesn’t include any reaper indoctrination stuff.

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Mass Effect was the only good game in the series

Missionary Positron
Jul 6, 2004
And now for something completely different

Arglebargle III posted:

Mass Effect was the only good game in the series

it was bad, actually

Gato
Feb 1, 2012

DourCricket posted:

Legion actually talks about this in Mass Effect 2 - The heretic Geth want to accept the Reaper's upgrades (they're non-specific as to what those upgrades are however) while the main Geth want to advance along their own lines and choose their own fate. The Quarians getting some new type of weapon that attacks the Geth (again, mentioned in 2) is what causes the main Geth to change their minds and more or less join the reapers in 3.

The reapers obviously get an army of even more obedient slaves out of it. It's like asking why they make husks, they need foot soldiers so they are not vulnerable.

But if they can rewrite the Geth at will to the extent of making them fully sentient beings, why do they need the Geth's consent to enslave them? Why are they waiting for the robots to think really hard about whether they want to be real boys? The Reapers apparently have a button they can push to effortlessly destroy the biggest organic fleet in the Galaxy but they're just going to wait until the enemy is literally inside their base before doing anything about it? The whole thing makes no sense, because the Reapers don't need to be in the Rannoch plotline at all except that it's Act 2 and we need to remind people they're around.

You're right that the stuff in ME2 does vaguely allow for what happens in ME3, but like Oxxidation said it's such a waste of a really interesting concept for an alien lifeform, and you could have taken it in so many other directions.

e: also the thing about the Quarians having new weapons made me remember how they handwaved away all the outcomes from the trial, one of ME2's best quests

Gato fucked around with this message at 21:41 on Feb 8, 2021

Snake Maze
Jul 13, 2016

3.85 Billion years ago
  • Having seen the explosion on the moon, the Devil comes to Venus
Imagine if there was a subplot where the reapers were giving away brain implants to a Cerberus cell that lets them fight better, and the conclusion of the plotline was saying “Great, the reapers built enough brain implants for everyone! Let’s give a brain implant to every single human in the alliance!”

That’s the geth plotline.

Psycho Landlord
Oct 10, 2012

What are you gonna do, dance with me?

The cause and resolution of the Geth stuff in and of themselves nowhere near as bad as the loving pinnochio plot that got foisted on them after Patrick Weekes spent so much time making them cool and different in ME2.

Seriously the ME2 Geth were loving awesome and had so much potential from a writing standpoint

But nope, gotta I Robot this poo poo once more

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

DourCricket posted:

Yes, they very clearly started the ME3 design doc with
    "Geth and Quarians are at war, Shepard shows up near the end so we're not here for 20 hours. How start?! How finish?!?!"
And their solution was... poor. I'd argue it serves as a good emotional climax to the subplot and to Tali (less to Legion, even if I do love his final line) in a vacuum, however in a game whose (secret!) central tension is that AI and Organics can never get along - it is unfortunate. I do think the good outweighs the bad but I definitely see faults in it. ME 3 in a nutshell basically

yeah alot of mass effects 3 issues were also just games at the time. everything was super dumbed down and conflicts were made simpler/dumber and EA wanted it to be a big gently caress off action game too. the problem is also what you infered, the put mac walters dumb transhumanism theme at the heart of it instead of "hey we need to get past our grudges and our mistakes and try to work together and save our future from the sins of the past". instead its "lol hat glows green". you can tell they were planning on going other places with the story in 2 but then that got rewritten in 2 and 3. some plot holes i am willing to overlook like the various ones with cerberus because its pretty easy to fill in the blanks with various stuff.



Dapper_Swindler fucked around with this message at 22:10 on Feb 8, 2021

SgtSteel91
Oct 21, 2010

Snake Maze posted:

Imagine if there was a subplot where the reapers were giving away brain implants to a Cerberus cell that lets them fight better, and the conclusion of the plotline was saying “Great, the reapers built enough brain implants for everyone! Let’s give a brain implant to every single human in the alliance!”

That’s the geth plotline.

That's also the Synthasis ending in a nutshell :v:

Strategic Tea
Sep 1, 2012

The ME2 geth were so cool as well. Are they sentient? Who knows! They're a billion billion fairly dumb programs that network and network until they're discussing philosophy and getting sentimental over Shep's armour and worshipping reapers. And then those programe might not even stay together but instead upload to a hundred different geth servers never to speak again.

While Legion seemed to be getting attatched to itself as an identity, there was every chance that after ME2 it would just go home and dissolve itself back into the collective and not really care. If the human mind is like a solid, geth are a liquid.

And the ME3 comes and says "no, they don't have ~~souls~~, unless they get magic Reaper Code that turns them into Just A Dude in a robot body".

Lt. Danger
Dec 22, 2006

jolly good chaps we sure showed the hun

cyclical posted:

It's been years since I played FNV, who are we talking about here?

Old World Blues - Christine and the talking stealth suit were voiced by some gaming journalist lady

Psycho Landlord posted:

The cause and resolution of the Geth stuff in and of themselves nowhere near as bad as the loving pinnochio plot that got foisted on them after Patrick Weekes spent so much time making them cool and different in ME2.

Chris L'Etoile - Patrick Weekes wrote Mordin in both games

now personally say what you like about Rannoch, but I reckon Tuchanka is far worse. at least Rannoch commits to the bit

Best Bi Geek Squid
Mar 25, 2016
*Jack and shepherd peer pressuring legion into smoking weed*

Arglebargle III
Feb 21, 2006

Missionary Positron posted:

it was bad, actually

no u

Dapper_Swindler
Feb 14, 2012

Im glad my instant dislike in you has been validated again and again.

Lt. Danger posted:

Old World Blues - Christine and the talking stealth suit were voiced by some gaming journalist lady


Chris L'Etoile - Patrick Weekes wrote Mordin in both games

now personally say what you like about Rannoch, but I reckon Tuchanka is far worse. at least Rannoch commits to the bit

i thought Tuchanka was fine, if a little too cleanly solved but that only happens if you made all the right choices in the trilogy and did that bomb quest.

Bismack Billabongo
Oct 9, 2012

Wet
I definitely would never advocate for letting wrex die in me1 but I almost think the worst case scenario tuchanka ending where you convince mordin to sabotage the cure because wreav is a dipshit and eve is dead is the most interesting one from a perspective of a sequel to ME3

Bismack Billabongo
Oct 9, 2012

Wet
Of course if there was never a followup then the “happy” ending is the most satisfying albeit kinda trite

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man nurse
Feb 18, 2014


I guess you could say this is turning out to be a uhhh real half rear end remaster

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