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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Jun 27, 2019 16:30:59 GMT
The Arks also had fighters aboard. We see some in the hanger as the Pathfinder team is boarding the shuttles to go to Habitat 7.
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Post by AnDromedary on Jun 27, 2019 16:32:02 GMT
That can't be the case. Unless dreadnoughts have enough empty space to fit thousands of colonists, a dreadnought-sized ship can't both have dreadnought capabilities and be an ark. Check out that blueprint of the geth dreadnought for example. The barrel and firing mechanism are a fairly small part in the middle of the ship. From the looks of human dreadnoughts, they are not that different and the quarians could just convert their live ships to dreadnought-like weapons without too much trouble.
The Arks are huge anyway, which is the main constraint (as the barrel of the mass accelerator needs to be long to accelerate the projectile enough). Now, I am not proposing to actually put a dreadnought size weapon in there. It would basically present the same problem that joker mentioned with the quarians in ME3 (don't put a giant gun on a school bus and make it into a military target). Also, the Treaty of Farixen wouldn't have allowed it (though they could build AIs without the council knowing, so why not dreadnoughts, too ). My point is, from all we know from other ME ships, it wouldn't have been a huge trade off to put some smaller armament on them for self defense in an emergency.
Hanako Ikezawa : Good point about the fighters. It seemed they relied heavily on those for defense in space. Doesn't quite fit with how ME space battles usually work but it's definitely better than nothing.
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Post by helios969 on Jun 27, 2019 18:40:36 GMT
It's not that they assumed that the locals wouldn't be hostile, it's that planning for that case was useless. What good would a militaristic AI approach have done? A race without mass effect technology or the equivalent can't threaten the AI at all. A race with those techs is going to outclass any possible AI fleet. Trade a couple of the Arks for dreadnoughts and the AI fleet is still far inferior to the kett, and now you're half the population size forever.. I suppose they might have been able to blackmail the angara into letting the AI settle on Aya, depending on how many armed shuttles the angara have, but 20,000 colonists aren't going to be able to enslave a population of millions for long. Would anything about the ME:A plotline change in this case? And the Heleus situation is actually pretty close to optimal for a militaristic AI. The chances of running into two factions hostile to each other, one of which has had its entire space fleet destroyed and the other one being just a small expeditionary for, is not high. If you want to go into the Alaskan wilderness unarmed and end up gnawed on by wolves or a grizzly well have fun. And how'd you manage to go from basic commonsense of being able to defend yourself to "militaristic AI" enslaving a population of millions. Simply brilliant.
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Post by Iakus on Jun 27, 2019 20:26:53 GMT
It's not that they assumed that the locals wouldn't be hostile, it's that planning for that case was useless. What good would a militaristic AI approach have done? A race without mass effect technology or the equivalent can't threaten the AI at all. A race with those techs is going to outclass any possible AI fleet. Trade a couple of the Arks for dreadnoughts and the AI fleet is still far inferior to the kett, and now you're half the population size forever.. I suppose they might have been able to blackmail the angara into letting the AI settle on Aya, depending on how many armed shuttles the angara have, but 20,000 colonists aren't going to be able to enslave a population of millions for long. Would anything about the ME:A plotline change in this case? And the Heleus situation is actually pretty close to optimal for a militaristic AI. The chances of running into two factions hostile to each other, one of which has had its entire space fleet destroyed and the other one being just a small expeditionary for, is not high. If you want to go into the Alaskan wilderness unarmed and end up gnawed on by wolves or a grizzly well have fun. And how'd you manage to go from basic commonsense of being able to defend yourself to "militaristic AI" enslaving a population of millions. Simply brilliant. This is why I don't bother to argue with him much anymore.
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Post by themikefest on Jun 27, 2019 20:40:28 GMT
How much armament? How many colonists do you trade off for that armament? What armament would cause the number of colonists to be lowered? How does having weapons let you activate the drive faster? Does it not take a moment to get the ship to light speed? Without a defense system in place, an enemy could damage the drive system crippling the ship whereas with the system in place, firing at the enemy would likely cause the enemy to evade oncoming fire giving the ship that few seconds of time to escape. Where were the fighters when the kett showed up and took the Hyperion? The Arks also had fighters aboard. We see some in the hanger as the Pathfinder team is boarding the shuttles to go to Habitat 7. And what did those fighters do when the kett showed up at the Nexus to take the Hyperion? Collecting dust in the hangar bay.
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Post by isaidlunch on Jun 28, 2019 11:37:05 GMT
I'd rather they didn't after seeing how they handled these topics in the later games. Overlord still boils my blood.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 28, 2019 19:00:26 GMT
How much armament? How many colonists do you trade off for that armament? What armament would cause the number of colonists to be lowered? How does having weapons let you activate the drive faster? Does it not take a moment to get the ship to light speed? Without a defense system in place, an enemy could damage the drive system crippling the ship whereas with the system in place, firing at the enemy would likely cause the enemy to evade oncoming fire giving the ship that few seconds of time to escape. Where were the fighters when the kett showed up and took the Hyperion? The Arks also had fighters aboard. We see some in the hanger as the Pathfinder team is boarding the shuttles to go to Habitat 7. And what did those fighters do when the kett showed up at the Nexus to take the Hyperion? Collecting dust in the hangar bay. Maybe the fighters were outside the ship fighting off what kett ships they could. How do you know they weren't? We're never shown the outside of Hyperion to know what was going on or around the entire Nexus. Somehow, Nexus did survive the attack and only Hyperion was taken. Why wasn't Nexus utterly destroyed? Maybe those fighters put up a better fight than you give them credit for doing.
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Post by burningcherry on Jun 28, 2019 23:21:42 GMT
Not sure about how seriously MEAMP should be taken but there's a fight between Initiative and kett fighters in the background of one map
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Post by Hanako Ikezawa on Jun 29, 2019 1:38:52 GMT
Not sure about how seriously MEAMP should be taken but there's a fight between Initiative and kett fighters in the background of one map Like the ME3MP and DAIMP, the MEAMP is considered canon (not counting obvious errors like multiple people playing the same character in DAIMP or 'over 120,000 outlaws killed thud entire AI population in MEAMP).
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Post by helios969 on Jun 29, 2019 11:20:35 GMT
'over 120,000 outlaws killed thud entire AI population Lol, that is pretty funny. Damn I wonder how many matches that took.
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Post by themikefest on Jun 29, 2019 12:46:01 GMT
Maybe the fighters were outside the ship fighting off what kett ships they could. How do you know they weren't? We're never shown the outside of Hyperion to know what was going on or around the entire Nexus. Somehow, Nexus did survive the attack and only Hyperion was taken. Why wasn't Nexus utterly destroyed? Maybe those fighters put up a better fight than you give them credit for doing. How many fighters were on each ship when leaving the Milky Way? I would guess as big as the Nexus is, it would have more fighters on it. I will guess each ship have 5 fighters while the Nexus had 10. So if the salarian ship is included, since it was docked at the time the kett showed up, there could potentially be about 20 fighters to deal with the kett. With that many at the time, one would believe that at least one kett fighter, maybe even a kett ship, would have been destroyed, yet there is no debris seen near the Nexus after gaining Meridian. Depending on the playthrough, the asari ship could be docked as well adding to the number of fighters available to deal with the kett. Isn't true that ships on the Nexus meant for the pathfinder were all damaged/inoperable except the one Ryder uses? If those took damage, is it possible for fighters to have taken damaged as well making them inoperable? So instead of being able to deploy 10 fighters, maybe half were operational. When facing the kett, at the end, how many fighters showed up? Look at what the kett were doing to the ships before Ryder used the scrouge? The kett were having their way with Ryder and the others. When the kett show up at the Nexus, they may have done something similar to what they did to the tempest when they faced each other. They were able to lock the navigation systems of the tempest. Without the sam thing, the tempest most likely would have been destroyed. Since the Nexus didn't have a sam, they were powerless to do anything. As far as the Nexus taking any damage? The Archon was so focused on getting to Meridian, he didn't care about the Nexus. He just wanted to get the other Ryder. I don't agree with the action he did. Had it been me, I would have left a few ships with the Nexus to force Ryder to choose between saving the Hyperion/getting Meridian or the Nexus.
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Post by Cyberstrike on Jun 29, 2019 14:39:52 GMT
The first Mass Effect made quite a few references to political and socioeconomic issues of the 2000s.
For example you come across an xenophobic isolationist political party reminiscent of the American Tea Party.
You can also hear the protestors shout no blood for aliens. That is a mention for a popular anti Iraq war slogan called no blood for oil. There is also an inspection by an Alliance Admiral in ME1. He disparages the Normandy calling it can over designed piece of tin.
Some American politicians have criticized the F-22 and F-35 as overpriced and unneeded. McCain called the F-22 a "corroding hanger queen".
On the last visit to the Citadel you are asked by a negotiator to go over the legal limit of a legal drug.
There were numerous anti drug efforts in the 2000s.
Do these references add flavor to the universe? Do they make the universe and characters relatable? Or is it too heavy handed?
I don't know if I would want the problems of the 2010s to be referenced in a video game. Fake news, terrorism, economic inequality, mass shootings, and political demagogues.
Given that many of the sci-fi franchises, (most noticeably Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5, and Battlestar Galactica) that influenced Mass Effect were and still are highly political shows and movies, no matter what the idiot crowd saying "leave politics out of my video games" thinks they always have and continue to reflect our world and it's problems. So yes, I do want them to address the real world problems and what I don't is for BioWare to be like Ubisoft a bunch of chickenshits by saying "they're non-political" when they use political images, terms, and themes to sell their games.
Mass Effect and Dragon Age were and still are their heart political stories, and IIRC on the making of featurette on Dragon Age: Dawn of the Seeker one of heads of the DA team even stated that it was a political story dressed as a fantasy video game. At this point complaining about not wanting politics in a BioWare game, like the ENTIRE Mass Effect series (including games comics, novels, and other media) is like complaining that you don't want romances in it. It's NOT Mass Effect without politics and romances.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2019 15:34:17 GMT
Maybe the fighters were outside the ship fighting off what kett ships they could. How do you know they weren't? We're never shown the outside of Hyperion to know what was going on or around the entire Nexus. Somehow, Nexus did survive the attack and only Hyperion was taken. Why wasn't Nexus utterly destroyed? Maybe those fighters put up a better fight than you give them credit for doing. How many fighters were on each ship when leaving the Milky Way? I would guess as big as the Nexus is, it would have more fighters on it. I will guess each ship have 5 fighters while the Nexus had 10. So if the salarian ship is included, since it was docked at the time the kett showed up, there could potentially be about 20 fighters to deal with the kett. With that many at the time, one would believe that at least one kett fighter, maybe even a kett ship, would have been destroyed, yet there is no debris seen near the Nexus after gaining Meridian. Depending on the playthrough, the asari ship could be docked as well adding to the number of fighters available to deal with the kett. Isn't true that ships on the Nexus meant for the pathfinder were all damaged/inoperable except the one Ryder uses? If those took damage, is it possible for fighters to have taken damaged as well making them inoperable? So instead of being able to deploy 10 fighters, maybe half were operational. When facing the kett, at the end, how many fighters showed up? Look at what the kett were doing to the ships before Ryder used the scrouge? The kett were having their way with Ryder and the others. When the kett show up at the Nexus, they may have done something similar to what they did to the tempest when they faced each other. They were able to lock the navigation systems of the tempest. Without the sam thing, the tempest most likely would have been destroyed. Since the Nexus didn't have a sam, they were powerless to do anything. As far as the Nexus taking any damage? The Archon was so focused on getting to Meridian, he didn't care about the Nexus. He just wanted to get the other Ryder. I don't agree with the action he did. Had it been me, I would have left a few ships with the Nexus to force Ryder to choose between saving the Hyperion/getting Meridian or the Nexus. That's the point... you're guessing. We weren't shown, so we don't know. We both know that Bioware didn't make huge before and after changes to environments so that they would not have to make sets for both before and after for all the applicable quests to that setting that the player could choose to do before or after the event. ME3 had a more linear construction, so we see evidence of the damage done after the Citadel coup... but even so, it was odd that there was no evidence of other changes after that point - broken glass getting cleaned up and such. Even the fires continued to smoke right through to your last visit to the Citadel.
I disagree that the Archon would have just ignored everything else to get Hyperion. We are told he has plans for turning all the Milky Way species into kett and shown that he has been actively testing specimens to determine what traits the various species can contribute to improve the kett. If Nexus was such a sitting duck, why didn't Archon at least leave some kett soldiers on Nexus to finish taking control of it so that he could use all those juicy specimens after he got through with taking over Meridian? The fighters obviously put up enough of a fight that Archon couldn't do that. He had to flee with all his troops.
I also don't recall them actually saying that other ships for pathfinders even existed. Tempest is touted as being something of a unique prototype designed by Kallo. It may have been the ship Jien Garson originally intended for herself or just for Alec as lead pathfinder, rather than there being one like it for each and every pathfinder. We were never shown all areas of Hyperion and certainly never saw all the areas of the other arcs either. Even the Cryo Bay we explore on Hyperion is totally insufficient to hold 20,000 cryo pods. The arcs and Nexus are much, much larger than the small areas we see of them. There could be many more fighters in storage and the issue as to why we don't see them is that their pilots were still in cryo... and they couldn't release them yet because they couldn't feed them, etc. Why not release all the pilots first? Well, they also needed a certain number of engineers, technicians and botanists, etc. just to keep the lights on. Everything was running with skeleton crews.
Nexus had, at that point, three other SAMs on board = one operating in each head of the Asari, Salarian, and Turian pathfinders. SAM of Hyperion was "the most advanced SAM" but not the only one. Each Arc had a SAM node. We are shown the one on the Turian Arc clearly and Ryder clearly orders that SAM to be moved to the Nexus so that the transfer to Avitus can be made more safely).
The bottom line here is that you're invoking the head canon that suits the opinions you want to have about it all... and I"m doing the same. There is more that we don't know and just haven't been shown by Bioware. They haven't revealed what ideas they had planned for where they wanted to take this story as they set it up. We do know that Bioware loves to try to insert plot twists into their games (and have had varying levels of success in doing that). Until they give us more of the story going forward (or even if they get a chance to), we're all just speculating away... pulling numbers and concepts out of our arses.
At least we should be able to get away from the misconception that there were no armed ships along for the ride... because there obviously were some armed ships with the Initiative in Andromeda.
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Post by themikefest on Jun 29, 2019 16:23:18 GMT
That's the point... you're guessing. At the number of fighters they have? Of course I am. Hence the word guess, right? Again with the trilogy comparison. ME3 had about 2 years of production time. MEA had what, 5 years? What's their excuse? I never said the Hyperion. I said Meridian. Here is what he said after Ryder escapes Archon's ship. I agree as I noted in my post. Yep. Another reason why there were no fighters to deal with the kett when they showed up. Since you keep comparing things to the trilogy, and of late the defenses of the Citadel, why wouldn't the Nexus post a few fighters around the Nexus to patrol the airspace? It could have been done after an outpost was put on Eos. At that point, they were waking folks up. They could shuttle supplies back and forth to the Nexus. It seems like no one cared about that. That must be the reason why none of the ships had any defense systems installed on them before heading to Andromeda. The bottom line is you have a problem with folks who say something they find wrong or they don't agree with in MEA that you have to go on a long winded rant about something that happened in the trilogy yet you have no problem with it happening in MEA. You treat the game like its the best thing since whatever.
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Post by Polka Dot on Jun 29, 2019 17:11:10 GMT
What does your alternative design for the Arks look like? How much armament? How many colonists do you trade off for that armament? Remember, this is a permanent tradeoff of total AI colonization stength for weapons which will only be useful in a very narrow band of potential outcomes, since in most cases the AI will either be totally superior to the locals or totally at the locals' mercy whatever weapons the AI brought. It wouldn't even change anything abut the ME plot. If Leusinia or Paarchero had been armed, the kett would have just brought more forces to the attacks. The Tempest-class is a different question. There's nothing to trade off, so making the ships armed means making them bigger. OTOH, they're not likely to have been a very big part of the total AI budget. What do you mean trade off? I assume you mean total mass of the ship? The Arks (and Nexus) are already huge. putting even a dreadnought sized barrel into/onto the ship is more a question of design than bolting something heavy onto it. I'd assume a trade-off would be minimal. And then, why wouldn't there be a trade-off with the Tempest? I am not sure how you are coming up with these constraints.
And no, it might not have changed anything about the plot. That's not the point. The point is credibility of how such a venture might be planned and conceptualized, especially if species like humans and turians are involved.
If you go back to actual MET lore, space combat typically takes place at ranges in the the thousands of kilometers. I've never been entirely sure exactly how they acquire targets at that range, but always suspected that comm buoys/sensors or smaller craft that got in closer and transmitted the bearings may have had something to do with it. Everest class dreadnoughts fire 20kg slugs, which would imply a need to carry a supply of ammo onboard. Kilimanjaro class dreadnoughts carry broadside mass accelerator cannons, which would require maneuvering. Nevermind that the Arks were not designed to remain as separate vessels; they were designed to travel individually, but dock with the Nexus upon arrival. The Arks were outfitted more like Carriers, with hangar bays carrying fighter craft and shuttles aboard. The Nexus, too, apparently had hangar bay(s), as it housed the Tempest and some shuttles at the very least. That can't be the case. Unless dreadnoughts have enough empty space to fit thousands of colonists, a dreadnought-sized ship can't both have dreadnought capabilities and be an ark. Check out that blueprint of the geth dreadnought for example. The barrel and firing mechanism are a fairly small part in the middle of the ship. From the looks of human dreadnoughts, they are not that different and the quarians could just convert their live ships to dreadnought-like weapons without too much trouble. Note that the quarian fleet was 50,000 strong. They had plenty of other ships of all sizes, many of which were primarily combat vessels. I'm not quite sure how a lone wolf dreadnought would fare in actual engagement.
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2019 18:20:53 GMT
That's the point... you're guessing. At the number of fighters they have? Of course I am. Hence the word guess, right? Again with the trilogy comparison. ME3 had about 2 years of production time. MEA had what, 5 years? What's their excuse? I never said the Hyperion. I said Meridian. Here is what he said after Ryder escapes Archon's ship. I agree as I noted in my post. Yep. Another reason why there were no fighters to deal with the kett when they showed up. Since you keep comparing things to the trilogy, and of late the defenses of the Citadel, why wouldn't the Nexus post a few fighters around the Nexus to patrol the airspace? It could have been done after an outpost was put on Eos. At that point, they were waking folks up. They could shuttle supplies back and forth to the Nexus. It seems like no one cared about that. That must be the reason why none of the ships had any defense systems installed on them before heading to Andromeda. The bottom line is you have a problem with folks who say something they find wrong or they don't agree with in MEA that you have to go on a long winded rant about something that happened in the trilogy yet you have no problem with it happening in MEA. You treat the game like its the best thing since whatever. Again with the "there were no fighters to deal with the kett" - You're not shown the outside battle, how do you know there were NO fighters? You don't, it's as simple as that. You're guessing. You admit it on one hand and then deny it on the other. That's the problem I have with your arguments. Your observations about me are also inaccurate... If I had a problem with people criticizing ME:A, why do I myself criticize it in places as well?
As far as ME3 having a shorter production time than ME:A... that doesn't account for a production philosophy of not radically changing environments over the course of an open-world game. It doesn't account for limitations in their budget and where they set their priorities when allocating how much of that budget goes to creating dynamic scenes that would have to be sensitive to what individual players had already done or not done relative to the main story.
As far Archon's dialogue, there is nothing there that says we ignore all "freebie gifts" of easily captured and exalted subjects to pursue only Meridian. He's even looking at a screen marching the Salarians in a line likely to be exalted. Even though he's focused on Meridian, he's still been pursuing study of the other species. If all it would have taken was to leave a few of his minions behind to secure Nexus, he would have... but he apparently wasn't able to do that. My "guess" is that Nexus put up a bigger fight than you give them credit for doing because you still want to keep saying that there were "NO fighters" around instead of the more likely scenario that there was an outside battle occurring that we just were not shown in the cinematics.
Ryder does say at one point that Nexus is unarmed... that doesn't necessarily mean that she's completely undefended. She has no guns. As far as we can see in ME1, the Citadel has a few turrets and possibly a few bigger guns. There is no indication in ME1 or the subsequent games of the Citadel itself having significant ground to air defenses (guns). So, there is a basis of a possible philosophy among the Council races of not fortifying their seat of government in that particular way. Yes, the Citadel is defended by a significant fleet that the Council had centuries to build. The AI hasn't had those centuries. Their "fleet" is probably not large... although it may well be larger than we currently saw in ME:A (pilots in cryo, fighters in storage). A larger number could appear in a subsequent game without disrupting the lore of ME:A itself. Ryder also has gained access to a fleet of dreadnoughts, so again, going into a sequel, we could see a larger fleet presence than we saw in ME:A. That is all.
When I mentioned the dreadnoughts, you shot back saying they wouldn't have been effective without the Scourge. Well, similarly, we never see the DA being particularly effective in battle, do we? In ME1, she's fleeing the battle with the Council and we don't get to see her fire that massively OP gun she's supposed to have. In ME3, we see a close up of her (or another similar class ship) but we don't see her later wiping the skies with Reaper casualties either. It's a comparison... that's all.
You're the one wanting to focus everything towards "how stupid the AI was, etc." Go ahead. It's a pointless argument at this stage, IMO. So, the AI was stupid and naive... biggie do... They are there in Andromeda. They made it and we could go forward from that point with a story that grows in military focus... that depends on what Bioware wants to do.
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Post by sassafrassa on Jul 1, 2019 0:20:28 GMT
A lot of good science fiction has tackled political issues of the day. I think it is appropriate and welcome as long as it is subtle enough not to pull the player/viewer/reader out of the fictional setting as well as being nuanced in its characterization of the issues. Mass Effect is mostly good at this, though it slants a bit to the Left on many issues. I think enough depth is left behind however that many sides in any given issue can still be argued out reasonably within the confines of the Mass Effect setting.
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Post by operationathena on Jul 1, 2019 2:00:35 GMT
I think as long as it isn't blatant and they incorporate it into the world it could result in some interesting plot choices, particularly if it ties into choices you would make as the playable character.
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Post by sassafrassa on Jul 1, 2019 4:54:30 GMT
I disagree. Mass Effect 1 hand waved racism as well. Pressly makes a comment and then it boils down to a "I trust you" comment. Ashley made a couple of comments and, in the end, when Shepard talks with the Terra Firma party, he/she basically tells Ashley that it's not worth it and she just stands down... a point-blank hand wave if there ever was one. As I've said before, if trying to roleplay Shepard as a human supremacist, you have no option to not take any aliens aboard your ship. [/div][/quote] I kind of agree with you, but not completely. I actually think that a flaw in ME1 is that it does indeed at certain times let you roleplay as a very xenophobic Shepard, more-so than Ashley has ever been claimed to be (not that I think she is one). If the game isn't designed in such a way as to let Shepard go all the way with this then I don't think the option should be there. Rather Shepard's character should be limited to confines that he has in ME2; he can be brusque and ruthless, angry, ect, but he's never actually xenophobic. In ME1 if you try to roleplay a xenophobe Shepard you'll fail because even if you recruit as few aliens as possible Shepard is still friendly to them and they to him in nearly every interaction. Sometimes even if Shepard is permitted to be a little hostile it's never about their species. I think that this is missing for a good reason and that is that a core theme of Mass Effect, a core piece of its design, is that of a squad based shooter. Thus one of Mass Effect's pillars is that of teamwork. Being able to play a main character who resists these themes wouldn't fit. What would be far more appropriate would be giving the player some genuinely xenophobic party members and tasking the player with getting them to cooperate so as to make the combat segments easier, in narrative terms at least if not in gameplay. The game does touch on this a little with Ashley but as I'm sure many people will agree with me, I don't think Ashley is actually a xenophobe and I don't think the security concerns she brings up about the Normandy are unfounded. Really, I find it very frustrating that there is no option for my Shepard to say, "Yeah, you're right, Ashley, I'll tell Garrus and Wrex to stay out of the CIC and I'll tell Tali to stay out of the engine room." These would be reasonable things to do and this would be especially worthwhile from a roleplaying standpoint if the decision to do this had long-term consequences in the sequels. Everything in life is a trade off and this would be a good example of the player having to make a choice that will, either way, have benefits and costs attached to it. Letting the aliens examine the Normandy freely and learn all they can could benefit themselves and their species in the long run, but at the cost of the Alliance being unable to bargain for access to its tech when it is in desperate need of aid in the future. However in the short-term Shepard would have built a better report with his alien squadmates and even the Council might be pleased. On the other hand, banning the aliens hurts Shepard's relations with the alien squadmates and the Council is mildly peeved, but in the future the Alliance will have the advantage when negotiating for aid with the aliens of being able to offer access to its technology. There may be a reason why there are no guns on the Citadel. Maybe it has guns, in fact, during the walk up the side of the tower I think you see a few. However it is likely that Saren would disable any of the station's defenses when he reaches the control console. As soon as he does this he begins closing the arms and disables the elevators. Presumably he disables lots of other useful things that the defenders might be relying on. The Andromeda Initiative was essentially a hippy commune filled with idealistic dreamers that were ill prepared for the harsh realities that came at them...which is why they got their ass kicked up and down the Heleus Cluster. It was pretty moronic for them to assume that the star cluster would be free of a hostile enemy force occupying the worlds they planned to settle. It's all fine and well to go with "peaceful explorers" but other sentient life may not give a shit when you're vying for the same resources. They are very lucky that they didn't arrive in the Andromeda Galaxy and find out that every single star had been colonized by a sentient race millions of years ago. There's no logical reason this shouldn't have happened. Even without FTL technology of any kind humans in real life could colonize every star in the Milky Way in just a million years or two. Mind you, the Milky Way is many billions of years old and the sun isn't even a first generation star by any means.
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Post by Deleted on Jul 1, 2019 11:39:15 GMT
I disagree. Mass Effect 1 hand waved racism as well. Pressly makes a comment and then it boils down to a "I trust you" comment. Ashley made a couple of comments and, in the end, when Shepard talks with the Terra Firma party, he/she basically tells Ashley that it's not worth it and she just stands down... a point-blank hand wave if there ever was one. As I've said before, if trying to roleplay Shepard as a human supremacist, you have no option to not take any aliens aboard your ship. [/quote] [/quote] That's basically my point. In any game, there are going to be types of characters that fall outside the range that the developer gives us to play. The truly xenophobic Shepard is simply outside the range in ME1. As you say, the devs determined that it was actually outside "the pillars" of what the devs wanted the game to be about. I'm not advocating that we should be able to play a xenophobic Shepard, I'm saying we need to allow Bioware to define those "pillars" as they see fit for that new story (ME:A) just as we gave them slack is setting the limits in the original MET. I agree with you that "if the game isn't designed in such a way as to let Shepard go all the way with this then I don't think the option should be there." Having the options there, results in the concept being ultimately handwaved away. So let's fast forward to ME:A, where the criticisms about Ryder's happy go-lucky personalty run rampant and there's a bunch a sour grapes about not being able to play Ryder as a hardened morose cynic renegade soldier, Why can't we apply the same logic and just say "since the story is design such that the hardened morose cynic renegade soldier doesn't fit and we can't really be allowed to "go all the way with it" then the option to really shouldn't be there... and it wasn't (which might actually be a good thing for the cohesiveness of the story in the long run).
So now let's go on to address the other two points you put into your post (sorry, the quoting is so messed up, I'm not even going to try to actually quote you). We did establish that there are a few defenses shown as we go through the final mission on the Citadel, but we are still not shown a battle involving significant ground to air activity. Compare the scene we ARE show of the ground to air defenses at work on Khi Tasira in ME:A (when Ryder calls upon that city's defenses to bring down the Kett ships). Tracer fire filles the air. There is absolutely no sign of anything like that happening in ME1. Yet people assume in their minds that the Citadel is heavily defended... they've never to my recollection even thought about criticizing the game for having such a key installation show no real signs of being able to defend itself from the attack of 1 Reaper (who they'll also vehemently defend the idea that he was so vulnerable and afraid of such defenses he had to go flitting off to find a Conduit across the galaxy). We're told the DA has a huge gun and yet we never see it in action even as the ship fights for it's very life with the entire Council at risk.
There are fighters clearly aboard Hyperion, there are fighters clearly involved in the battle for Meridian... yet, the rhetoric of the fans instantly an dpersistently becomes that there were "no fighters" and no acknowledgment that, going forward, the AI actually has access to some pretty significant defenses.
Of course the AI was lucky. They made a ton of mistakes and the game's design wanted us to know that... "The clusterf*k began 600 years ago." to use Ryder's own words. They are going somewhere with this theme. It's a "pillar."
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Post by melbella on Jul 2, 2019 1:42:11 GMT
There is absolutely no sign of anything like that happening in ME1. Yet people assume in their minds that the Citadel is heavily defended
There are turrets on the outside of the Citadel. We can activate some of them during the end run. Of course most electronics aren't going to work with the geth jamming stuff all over the place. That's why we have to fix them before they fire on the geth drop ship.
When Garrus talks about Saleon getting away, he mentions giving the order to shoot down his ship that was countermanded for fear of civilian casualties.
In Citadel DLC Joker mentions guns being aimed at the taxi so he has to drop everyone off back a ways from the ship.
Where did the idea come from that the Citadel has no defenses?
Edit: I can't believe I forgot the &$&$*^$* rocket launchers that always kill me at least once while getting to the Council chamber in ME1. I hate those things! So yes, the Citadel is far from defenseless.
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Post by sassafrassa on Jul 2, 2019 2:19:06 GMT
So let's fast forward to ME:A, where the criticisms about Ryder's happy go-lucky personalty run rampant and there's a bunch a sour grapes about not being able to play Ryder as a hardened morose cynic renegade soldier, To be fair, the Mass Effect trilogy has an established tone and archetype for the nature of its protagonist, so changing that is rightly going to peeve some people. It peeved me, in fact. However my ultimate gripe with Andromeda's tone isn't that it has younger crew with more upbeat personalities, but that I don't think it does anything interesting with that cast. I would find Andromeda a lot more compelling if the happy and upbeat crew, being younger and more naive, were forced to contend with the stresses of a desperate situation in which countless lives depend on them and no help from above from without is ever coming. Most optimistic people would break under such conditions... but the Andromeda crew might not. That would be one of the dramatic conflicts in the story; can these people hold it together and preserve their optimistic outlook in the face of such desperation? Can they maintain the fundamentally peaceful goals of the Initiative even as they fight a war for their survival? For me Andromeda falls to the same sad fate as Star Trek: Voyager, it is a great premise that is let down by its writers and directors. So much potential dramatic tension is lost and it is truly tragic because the possibilities were great. If only Andromeda had been a bit more imaginative. While I did enjoy playing a pragmatic and ruthless Shepard, who is a character I can personally identify with to some degree, I'd have just as fun a time role-playing a different sort of protagonist who must struggle to hold on to their lofty ideals in the face of such intense opposition. Another concept that should have been at play ought to have been that the main cast are not well acquainted and might not know or respect one another, clashing due to their insecuries at being thrust into a situation they were not prepared for, but learning to work together and trust one another as the story progresses. Basically, I think the main cast in Andromeda should have been the "B" team of the Initiative thrust into the role of leadership after all the real badasses and knowledgeable leaders got killed off at the start. Then again, re-writing Mass Effect is a hobby of mine at this point.
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Post by melbella on Jul 2, 2019 2:36:04 GMT
Basically, I think the main cast in Andromeda should have been the "B" team of the Initiative thrust into the role of leadership after all the real badasses and knowledgeable leaders got killed off at the start. Uh, isn't that exactly what happened?
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Post by Deleted on Jul 2, 2019 3:05:30 GMT
So let's fast forward to ME:A, where the criticisms about Ryder's happy go-lucky personalty run rampant and there's a bunch a sour grapes about not being able to play Ryder as a hardened morose cynic renegade soldier, To be fair, the Mass Effect trilogy has an established tone and archetype for the nature of its protagonist, so changing that is rightly going to peeve some people. It peeved me, in fact. However my ultimate gripe with Andromeda's tone isn't that it has younger crew with more upbeat personalities, but that I don't think it does anything interesting with that cast. I would find Andromeda a lot more compelling if the happy and upbeat crew, being younger and more naive, were forced to contend with the stresses of a desperate situation in which countless lives depend on them and no help from above from without is ever coming. Most optimistic people would break under such conditions... but the Andromeda crew might not. That would be one of the dramatic conflicts in the story; can these people hold it together and preserve their optimistic outlook in the face of such desperation? Can they maintain the fundamentally peaceful goals of the Initiative even as they fight a war for their survival? For me Andromeda falls to the same sad fate as Star Trek: Voyager, it is a great premise that is let down by its writers and directors. So much potential dramatic tension is lost and it is truly tragic because the possibilities were great. If only Andromeda had been a bit more imaginative. While I did enjoy playing a pragmatic and ruthless Shepard, who is a character I can personally identify with to some degree, I'd have just as fun a time role-playing a different sort of protagonist who must struggle to hold on to their lofty ideals in the face of such intense opposition. Another concept that should have been at play ought to have been that the main cast are not well acquainted and might not know or respect one another, clashing due to their insecuries at being thrust into a situation they were not prepared for, but learning to work together and trust one another as the story progresses. Basically, I think the main cast in Andromeda should have been the "B" team of the Initiative thrust into the role of leadership after all the real badasses and knowledgeable leaders got killed off at the start. Then again, re-writing Mass Effect is a hobby of mine at this point. ME:A's cast is the "B" team. Tann is the"H" team in fact, nicknamed #8 by Kesh because he was 8th in line to take the lead. That means 7 tiers of leadership were killed when the Nexus hit the scourge. Alec Ryder is killed on Habitat 7, so the Ryder twins are in the same boat. They did contend with the stresses of a desperate situation with the entire Initiative depending on them... Ryder could contend with it through the use of a form a "gallows humor" or by being patient, nice and professional. He/she could not be an aggressive royal jerkoff the way Shepard could be... that personality was outside the parameters set by the game.
Personally, I don't call Voyager a failure. It has some of my favorite episodes from any of the franchises. It lasted almost as many episodes as Star Trek: TNG. It's not generally held in as high esteem as TNG, but I would not go nearly so far as to say it was a failure. The same holds for my opinion of ME:A. I'm not denying that ME fans generally didn't accept it. I personally enjoyed it; and I certainly don't think it was the unmitigated failure that people like to exaggerate it into being.
That it did not develop the story fast enough or far enough is a fair criticism of it. They should have generated more of the cliche "excitement" to meet people preconceived expectations about what a Mass Effect game was going to be. It's not that what the fans were given was all that bad... it just wasn't what they wanted. As a result, a large number never approached it with an open mind, never truly explored the game with the same "heart" that they did with ME1 (when they had no such preconceived ideas about what they expected).
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Post by sassafrassa on Jul 2, 2019 5:04:56 GMT
Personally, I don't call Voyager a failure. Well, sir, you and I have very, very different ways of appraising fiction. That's the source of our conflict here. Probably no way to see eye to eye. That's fine though. I actually would like to see the Mass Effect IP expand into many different media and genres. While Andromeda did not really appeal to me I certainly didn't want it to fail. I want the franchise to say alive and healthy but in my opinion it has been very ill since ME2. For the franchise as a whole to thrive it needed its core media to be solid, but other than the first game it really wasn't. Star Wars would not be what it is today (or what it was, anyway) if the first films were EPS 1, 2, and 3, or the modern JJ Abrams films. For me, the ultimate disillusionment with Andromeda was that my personal investment was in the Milky Way, in all that lore. There was so much of it and so much of it was so great. I wanted to continue on and explore all the conflicts between the species and factions. Andromeda pretty much through all that out (for understandable reasons), but what it replaced it with didn't grab it. It's not written as well as the first Mass Effect, which formed the core of the old lore. It left out my favorite races too and had some others around as glorified cameos.
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