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Post by cmdrshep2183 on Nov 13, 2023 3:22:57 GMT
Sure a race of robotic alien squid were coming to kill everyone but there was exciting and optimistic stuff like exotic technology, space colonies, translators that could decipher languages in seconds(From Mass Effect Ascension), extended human lifespans, FTL space travel, and being a part of an intergalactic community full of all kinds of cool looking aliens.
Plus the aesthetics of this world is the best of any sci fi I have ever seen.
For some reason the world of the OT as well as the OT novels felt like optimistic 2000s sci fi.
Andromeda felt like 2010s sci fi.
What made the OT feel like it came out of the 90s and 2000s while Andromeda felt more 2010s?
Should the next ME capture that same vibe again?
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Cyberstrike
N4
is wanting to have some fun!
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by Cyberstrike on Nov 15, 2023 19:45:04 GMT
What are you smoking and where can I get some?
Although seriously maybe you should watch and check out some sci-fi TV shows and movies like: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Aliens, Predator, Blade Runner, The Transformers, Farscape, Stargate SG-1 and James Bond 007 because all MET was the shows and movies thrown into a blender and turned an ultra grimdark war story, with little optimism, extremely cynical even borderline nihilistic overtones, and about saving a broken and dying civilization before Shepard even starts. Even the aliens and tech was versions taken out of those shows and movies.
Now MEA was a dark story that turns into an optimistic story filled with hope and excitement for the future. I want a "hope punk" sci-fi vibe more like MEA than the brutal nastiness of another ultra grimdark sci-fi story (if I want to watch that I'll watch BSG and Torchwood) sorry but I have more than my fill with the ultra grimdark sci-fi war crap. I want more sci-fi like Transformers: Cyberverse, Transformers: Earth Spark, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Doctor Who sci-fi that can be dark, light, thought provoking, dumb as box of rocks but is most of all one thing above all else: fun.
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SwobyJ
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by SwobyJ on Nov 23, 2023 23:27:25 GMT
I didn't take ME1 as especially optimistic. I took it as a setting that was highly inspired by the most optimistic scifi (that didn't go outright mega posthuman/divine), but it quickly, on all levels by the end of the game, let alone the trilogy, revealed the darker, neigh evilest cyberpunk/horror underbelly or even normal existence of most alive.
It came off as a galaxy in denial. That as long as they had their structures and systems (barely to totally indirectly provided by the REAPERS), they'd be fantastic. That past near-exterminations, well they survived that so they're okay. The AI revolution over there? Well just ban AI over here and get racism on against the creator people. Class inequality? Paper it the hell over and barely mention it. Religious disputes? Not in the public square, please and thank you. Attacks from the 99% or whatever of the galaxy that hasn't been properly mapped? Let just mostly ignore that in utter hubris, until we absolutely have to give it attention.
I felt it was a galaxy full of people who hadn't truly (socially, intelligently) evolved to the level of tech of decades or even centuries ago. It had people who FELT, with some REASON that they had, like at least asari and salarians and perhaps turians. But it also showed how utterly behind even these Council races actually were - this was the point of the Reapers.
The setting absolutely had some true optimism included. Even some outright reasonable hopes - the point of the Normandy really. But I didn't feel this was a setting that was consciously and deliberately working to be worthy of its miracles it was developing. In fact, there's a technophobic subtext in it, and the novels, that something went too far, and we now can't go back - the Devil has woken, and it'll force us into the Ascension we were foolishly attempting to trigger anyway. And now we have to make the best of it, we have to grasp at what we can, with the greatest heroes we can muster, to manage some kind of a supposed win instead of a total defeat.
MEA actually felt like more bright eyed positive scifi to me, personally. Yes, they TECHNICALLY included auras of suspicion and dark histories etc etc, but I had like, almost no sense of dread. Even when I think I was supposed to. Since there was so little blowback to anything done with tech in this story, I just assumed the gist was that anything was ripe for the taking. Maybe it'll blow back majorly in a later game, but right now, its a colonization story where the writers have to be careful about the aliens (Angara), but NOT the Remnant tech all around. The robots were hostile, but I experienced it mostly as a fun shootemup rather than something costly to people in universe, just a hinderance in moving forward. There was no major trap, just tools to figure out. No huge cities were being rapidly built, but everything was leading towards a future, even just 10-20 years, where people are starting to live in great comfort. It just sucks.. for now.
MET was more 'its all good right?' for people in the setting.. but it really wasn't, and now its going to get a whole lot worse. It got very pessimistic, and by the end, encouraged the most drastic actions (RBG) in too rushed a fashion (the Blue and especially Green) to respond to immediate extinction threats. MEA was a broad and open seizing of great technological powers and I rarely felt trouble about it, besides my story theories for the future.
'Better Beginning'
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by SwobyJ on Nov 23, 2023 23:44:20 GMT
What are you smoking and where can I get some?
Although seriously maybe you should watch and check out some sci-fi TV shows and movies like: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Aliens, Predator, Blade Runner, The Transformers, Farscape, Stargate SG-1 and James Bond 007 because all MET was the shows and movies thrown into a blender and turned an ultra grimdark war story, with little optimism, extremely cynical even borderline nihilistic overtones, and about saving a broken and dying civilization before Shepard even starts. Even the aliens and tech was versions taken out of those shows and movies.
Now MEA was a dark story that turns into an optimistic story filled with hope and excitement for the future. I want a "hope punk" sci-fi vibe more like MEA than the brutal nastiness of another ultra grimdark sci-fi story (if I want to watch that I'll watch BSG and Torchwood) sorry but I have more than my fill with the ultra grimdark sci-fi war crap. I want more sci-fi like Transformers: Cyberverse, Transformers: Earth Spark, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Doctor Who sci-fi that can be dark, light, thought provoking, dumb as box of rocks but is most of all one thing above all else: fun.
Just read this after making my post. I'm not really with you on your tastes haha, but otherwise I agree. MET was very cynical in more ways than it may even seem at a glance. It forced a level of brutality in ways I didn't even think always made sense. Buttttt, okay, I also don't want the second list you gave. I do want a somewhat believable setting (most of your list is not that; especially Doctor Who and Transformers, but somewhat the brighter Star Trek). I do want some heavy struggles happening, and dark regions. I do want tech to go very, very poorly and for that to matter for more than an episode or two. I don't want some darkly toned side arc that involves some region of space... optionally too far away for the writing to necessarily truly deal with (like Borg anything in ST). Buttttt MET itself leaned heavier and heaver into edge for its own sake, or Rule of Cool. It wanted to bring in some of the worst AI outcomes (Overlord etc) just for something baddie to shoot. It had *all* politicians as *evil*, and *all* active duty soldiers as *helpful*. It had some critiques of corporations but I kept feeling an undercurrent of 'and its still a good thing' about them, because they're just a fact of life and something to get along with, in the end. It seemed to excuse evil, as long as there was a greater evil. I don't necessarily like that in media, especially a whole trilogy awash in it. There's a big 'life is suck, so suck it up' that doesn't really reflect a greater variety of perspectives, nor a more complex setting. Some of this softens by the end, but the last game or half a game is too late for me. Its like them putting in Synthesis, when 80-90% of direct or indirect themes leading to it was a condemnation or at least a warning against being such a peacenik dreamer. MEA had more of what I was looking for. It just annoyed the hell out of me about how it implemented it, and most other things. But I'm certainly hoping that the NME trailer isn't suggesting we're going to just be say, some cyber assassin focused on the even DARKER underbelly of POST WAR Milky Way, with NO friends and NO optimisim about others and society. Jeez.
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Cyberstrike
N4
is wanting to have some fun!
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
XBL Gamertag: cyberstrike nTo
PSN: cyberstrike-nTo
Prime Posts: 1,732
Prime Likes: 467
Posts: 1,927 Likes: 3,147
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is wanting to have some fun!
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Post by Cyberstrike on Nov 29, 2023 22:08:37 GMT
What are you smoking and where can I get some?
Although seriously maybe you should watch and check out some sci-fi TV shows and movies like: Star Trek, Babylon 5, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Star Wars, Aliens, Predator, Blade Runner, The Transformers, Farscape, Stargate SG-1 and James Bond 007 because all MET was the shows and movies thrown into a blender and turned an ultra grimdark war story, with little optimism, extremely cynical even borderline nihilistic overtones, and about saving a broken and dying civilization before Shepard even starts. Even the aliens and tech was versions taken out of those shows and movies.
Now MEA was a dark story that turns into an optimistic story filled with hope and excitement for the future. I want a "hope punk" sci-fi vibe more like MEA than the brutal nastiness of another ultra grimdark sci-fi story (if I want to watch that I'll watch BSG and Torchwood) sorry but I have more than my fill with the ultra grimdark sci-fi war crap. I want more sci-fi like Transformers: Cyberverse, Transformers: Earth Spark, Star Trek: Prodigy, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, and Doctor Who sci-fi that can be dark, light, thought provoking, dumb as box of rocks but is most of all one thing above all else: fun.
Just read this after making my post. I'm not really with you on your tastes haha, but otherwise I agree. MET was very cynical in more ways than it may even seem at a glance. It forced a level of brutality in ways I didn't even think always made sense. Buttttt, okay, I also don't want the second list you gave. I do want a somewhat believable setting (most of your list is not that; especially Doctor Who and Transformers, but somewhat the brighter Star Trek). I do want some heavy struggles happening, and dark regions. I do want tech to go very, very poorly and for that to matter for more than an episode or two. I don't want some darkly toned side arc that involves some region of space... optionally too far away for the writing to necessarily truly deal with (like Borg anything in ST). Buttttt MET itself leaned heavier and heaver into edge for its own sake, or Rule of Cool. It wanted to bring in some of the worst AI outcomes (Overlord etc) just for something baddie to shoot. It had *all* politicians as *evil*, and *all* active duty soldiers as *helpful*. It had some critiques of corporations but I kept feeling an undercurrent of 'and its still a good thing' about them, because they're just a fact of life and something to get along with, in the end. It seemed to excuse evil, as long as there was a greater evil. I don't necessarily like that in media, especially a whole trilogy awash in it. There's a big 'life is suck, so suck it up' that doesn't really reflect a greater variety of perspectives, nor a more complex setting. Some of this softens by the end, but the last game or half a game is too late for me. Its like them putting in Synthesis, when 80-90% of direct or indirect themes leading to it was a condemnation or at least a warning against being such a peacenik dreamer. MEA had more of what I was looking for. It just annoyed the hell out of me about how it implemented it, and most other things. But I'm certainly hoping that the NME trailer isn't suggesting we're going to just be say, some cyber assassin focused on the even DARKER underbelly of POST WAR Milky Way, with NO friends and NO optimisim about others and society. Jeez.
Star Trek has done some very dark series most notably Deep Space Nine and Discovery. DS9 shows the flaws of the Federation, Starfleet, and the heroes do have flaws and do very morally questionable things but it challenges what Star Trek is and stands for and while it does come down on it's side but it's long, hard fought battle and war to get there. It must be said that it's got the greatest villains in the history of the Star Trek Universe with Kai Winn, Weylon, and Gul Dukat.
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Post by hulluliini on Nov 30, 2023 9:40:38 GMT
Star Trek has never felt dark to me though. Maybe it's the overall direction and the way a lot of things end up sorted out in the end. And it's still quite family friendly. In ME1 you have the Remember Me story about a Batarian prisoner who was apparently r*ped by the Batarians. In the world of Star Trek, I can't remember references to sexual violence.
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Post by skekSil on Nov 30, 2023 17:41:49 GMT
In the world of Star Trek, I can't remember references to sexual violence. Gorn
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N4
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
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Post by SwobyJ on Nov 30, 2023 18:06:24 GMT
Star Trek has never felt dark to me though. Maybe it's the overall direction and the way a lot of things end up sorted out in the end. And it's still quite family friendly. In ME1 you have the Remember Me story about a Batarian prisoner who was apparently r*ped by the Batarians. In the world of Star Trek, I can't remember references to sexual violence. I've felt Star Trek definitely had darkness in it from the OG, and ever increasing (until JUST recently) producers that wanted to make it darky dark, but overall it can't and really shouldn't escape a lean towards an idealized setting for humanity and other species alongside us. Mass Effect, if reflecting Star Trek, was reflecting the trend it was going in the 90s-00s with 'yea yea its idealized I guess, but so much edgy dark RIGHT under the surface!'. Cerberus or Spectres was Section 31, stuff like that. But that's still not what audiences more universally loved. Even for DS9, what was more appealing to audiences was the complexities added to the setting, the forms of personal and political interrelationships that the writers were willing to go into, rather than the particular level of darkness at most points. More recent years - not so much the start of Disco and especially Picard, but after - have started to at least superficially (arguably more than that) recognize there's a brighter spirit of Star Trek that shouldn't just like, go away in favor of nihilism, real politik, etc. Sometimes I feel the creators are eyerolling at viewers, but whatever, their problem.
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Post by hulluliini on Dec 1, 2023 9:15:39 GMT
Star Trek has never felt dark to me though. Maybe it's the overall direction and the way a lot of things end up sorted out in the end. And it's still quite family friendly. In ME1 you have the Remember Me story about a Batarian prisoner who was apparently r*ped by the Batarians. In the world of Star Trek, I can't remember references to sexual violence. I've felt Star Trek definitely had darkness in it from the OG, and ever increasing (until JUST recently) producers that wanted to make it darky dark, but overall it can't and really shouldn't escape a lean towards an idealized setting for humanity and other species alongside us. Mass Effect, if reflecting Star Trek, was reflecting the trend it was going in the 90s-00s with 'yea yea its idealized I guess, but so much edgy dark RIGHT under the surface!'. Cerberus or Spectres was Section 31, stuff like that. But that's still not what audiences more universally loved. Even for DS9, what was more appealing to audiences was the complexities added to the setting, the forms of personal and political interrelationships that the writers were willing to go into, rather than the particular level of darkness at most points. More recent years - not so much the start of Disco and especially Picard, but after - have started to at least superficially (arguably more than that) recognize there's a brighter spirit of Star Trek that shouldn't just like, go away in favor of nihilism, real politik, etc. Sometimes I feel the creators are eyerolling at viewers, but whatever, their problem. I'm currently watching Deep Space Nine and while there are complex nuanced stories, I'm still getting the "all will end kind of well in the end" even when we have just been shown it won't. Or like in Voyager we had an extremely controversial ending to the Tuvix story and no one ever mentioned him again after that episode. Back to work, business as usual. What I'm getting at is that you have to think about the stories on your own afterwards in order to really feel the emotional depth because the shows don't leave room for that before it's on to the next story. I suppose it's part of the "planet of the week" storytelling where you generally don't want to end each episode at a dramatic cliffhanger and then feeling forced to figure out how to make the stakes increasingly higher and higher with each episode. Which is what Discovery did, they tried really hard to show how dark things are but again we didn't have time to ponder on it, things moved on super fast from one crisis to another. But I feel it was very superficially done and the older series were more mature in many ways. The older stories are more subtly dark. So subtly that if you don't really get into it, you're left with the sense that it's very light hearted and optimistic. Old ST is all about philosophical dilemmas and believing in scientific progress while Discovery is about explosions and overacting and forced drama.
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Post by hulluliini on Dec 1, 2023 9:17:39 GMT
In the world of Star Trek, I can't remember references to sexual violence. Gorn I haven't watched the first ST nor Strange New Worlds so I'll have to get back to you on that.
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Post by skekSil on Dec 1, 2023 15:53:56 GMT
I haven't watched the first ST nor Strange New Worlds so I'll have to get back to you on that. Well, not really. Kinda, if you heard the theory that Xenomorph reproduction cycle in Aliens is an allusion to rape (Facehuggers and stuff) and Gorn in SNW are inspired by them. But not really. Otherwise, couple of references that come to mind: -rape gangs that Tasha Yar had to evade on her homeworld during childhood -Tasha Yar becoming a concubine of a Romulan officer after her capture in the past -Bajoran women being taken as "comfort women" during Cardassian occupation Oh and there was this time when Trip Tucker from NX-01 Enterprise got accidentally pregnant.
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Post by Sartoz on Dec 3, 2023 12:11:56 GMT
ME2 with the ALOT mods is visually awesome. You don't need the legendary Edition for improved graphics.
These user/fan mods is what make a game fun to play
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