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Post by Clint Johnston on Apr 16, 2012 6:46:05 GMT 1
Brilliant maneuver!
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Post by jklinders on Apr 16, 2012 12:04:12 GMT 1
Well I contend that the ending fiasco was about money and time. Artistic integrity is a smokescreen for that. The EA overlords wanted a return on their investment, they already waited an extra like 10 months for that so they wanted it now. So they cheaped out. It's gonna happen regardless of your intent or integrity.
DAy one DLC on the other hand...
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Post by Mister Buch on Apr 16, 2012 12:38:36 GMT 1
I have to admit you have a point there Linders.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 16, 2012 12:59:30 GMT 1
True about the time and money Linders. However, all that time and money would be saved still if they just make once last fixture before releasing it. Like a delay or so. That way they didn't ended up wasting MORE money and time with spinning campaigns and forcing to 'release' a free DLC to soften the blow. Instead they would work on another DLC to milk it's money's worth. Just saying in a designer's perspective with a black hat.
Still, you're quite spot on about using "Artistic Intergrity" as a way to cover a few things up.
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Post by jklinders on Apr 16, 2012 14:54:31 GMT 1
Hindsight is 20/20. No one could possibly have foreseen that so many people would get so angry over this. Frankly I was only mildly put out by it. I mean people have gotten a little pissed over endings in the past but nothing quite like this.
I still see the whole fiasco as being good for the industry. Now developers know that they can't just pass the ending to the B team with a shoestring budget and a couple of days to wrap it up. Now they actually have to put effort into it. Bioware and EA will be an object lesson over this.
This will actually also take resource away from gameplay budget and interactive design, so really we need to decide what is more important. A good ending or well designed gameplay. Sometimes you can have both, sometimes not. The scale of the ME storyline and all the minor possible outcomes was difficult to express. I really can't blame Hudson for trying the safe route first. It blew up in his face but hopefully at least in private he knows better.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Apr 18, 2012 19:48:31 GMT 1
I could be spiteful and go...
IM BACK BABY!
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Post by jklinders on Apr 20, 2012 4:10:27 GMT 1
At risk of re-fanning the flames here I found this essay tonight. I can't say I agree with some of his closing remarks but I have to acknowledge that everything up to that point was some pretty insightful stuff.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 4:41:46 GMT 1
I'm trying to read through at the moment, in detail instead of skimping. It's difficult, even I'm a pretendous accademic snob myself. His closing remarks were a bit holy than thou from my quick read through, when I did check over last night from the stinky den that is known as the BSN forums. And I have issues with anyone who acts holier than thou attitudes, especially if they are proclaiming themselves to be accademics.
I have no comment about this for now, this time not for good reasons, mainly I'm tired with the ME3 ending debate. It's getting old and sadly I'm starting to move on as well. As Patrick Weekes already mention before, it was a rush ending, I don't see the point in giving an insight to things that are rushed, especially if it was admitted by someone. There are better things the needed more insight, such as another eassy about the Trojian Women play by Euripides, or proper philosophy about post-modernism. Or hell, why don't people like him use their mind for more productive things like trying to get mankind going into a Spacefaring Era, instead of trying to convinced us that the ending is good and calling us ignorant.
...I'm sorry, Linders. Didn't mean to sound heated. While I accepted the way the endings are... it doesn't mean I have to like them. Give me a few years and I'll give a proper accademic discussion about it in this thread again. I still need time and space to get fully over it.
Speaking of which here's another talk about the aftermath of the endings for the lore, by a pro-ender, who looks at the bright side of things from the said stinky den. I've copied and pasted onto here because I know some of you really hate going to that place. Credits by Ieldra2.
What this is about: With the end of ME3, Bioware plunged the galaxy into a dark age where galactic civilization is fragmented. I don't want it. I'm sure there are quite a few others who don't want it. We can't make it go away, but we can try to keep it short. This is an attempt to provide a plausible framework for the rebuilding of galactic civilization in a reasonable timeframe for each of the three "Earth is OK" endings. Everyone is invited to participate.
Proposed ground rules: (1) Put a positive spin on things. We want to get out of the dark age, not wallow in it. Most intelligent organic life in the galaxy destroyed because of the relay explosions? Doesn't happen, the Crucible didn't work that way. Dextro-protein-based species starving? Find a way around it (see below for an example). (2) All endings are good endings (as far as any one can be considered good). Don't try to force a negative interpretation of endings you don't like. Instead put a positive spin on endings you do like. (3) Keep characters out of things. This is worldbuilding not fanfic. Who does what isn't important, only that it's done, and players' endgame scenarios are too different in that regard anyway. (4) No Reaper actions. The Reapers are either dead or gone. In Control and Synthesis, they may have left a few goodies behind, but I don't think it's in the spirit of the story that just ended to posit something like "The Reapers help rebuilding the mass relays".
Now into the details....
Solutions to problems common to all of the three "good" endings:
(1) The planet in the stargazer epilogue ....is a lost colony. The Normandy can't be the only ship whose crew observed what happened and got caught in-transit. Anyway, whether you think it's the same planet the Normandy stranded on or not, it's just one planet. It says nothing about how the rest of the galaxy recovered from the war. Otherwise, the fate of the Normandy is not a topic we're dealing with here.
(2) The state of Earth Most of Earth's big cities will be depopulated. Many will lie in ruins. However, there's no reason to assume they'll all lie in ruins, because it's the fighting that does the damage. As Anderson said, the resistance abandoned the cities early since the Reaper presence there was too strong. Which means that quite a bit of Earth's urban infrastructure will be largely intact or easily repaired. The Reapers weren't interested in destroying infrastructure, they were after people. Also the rural areas, which produce most of the food, will likely remain mostly intact. Earth's population will have dropped by a few billion people, and while that's a sad thing, it also means there is enough space for the survivors and the people of the allied fleet. See below for more about that
(3) Turians and quarians and dextro-food. Food problems? Quarian liveships will be able to provide food as they always did. I'd think they could be convinced to share with the turians. Apart from that, Dextro-aminoacids shouldn't be that hard to produce, even in industrial quantities. There will be some shortages - there always are after a war - but the problem will be surmountable.
(4) Communication There will be no instant cutoff of galaxy-wide communication. Why? QE devices. Many ships will have them and some will exist on Earth, too. While refueling them will be impossible for the foreseeable future, many of the non-humans and colonials will be able to call home, tell the story of what happened in the Sol System and be told what happened in other places. Vidcomm will be restricted since that uses too much bandwidth (bandwidth is one-time for QE devices), telegram-style messages will remain possible for some time, depending on how strictly the restrictions are enforced. The people in the Sol System will probably have the most complete picture of what happened around the galaxy it is possible to have under these circumstances.
(5) Star travel, short-term perspective Non-relay FTL still works (the line about Destroying destroying "most of the technology you rely on" is restricted to low-EMS endings. We are not talking about those here). A "typical" travelling speed is 12ly/day (source: ME:Revelation). Logistics problems are addressed as follows: (1) Eezo makes up the drive cores and is not consumed as "fuel". Source: Codex. There is mention of ships using the same core for two decades and not mention at all of attrition. (2) Fuel: starship thrusters use antiproton drives (combat only) and fusion torches. Antiproton drives will most likely be not viable for long-range expeditions because antimatter production needs gigantic facilities. Fusion torches need only helium-3, though, which can be found at any gas giant and collected using a refinery ship. (3) Drive core discharge: can be done at any gas giant or any other celestial body with a magnetic field. (4) Food: a long-range expedition fleet would need to be accompanied by a liveship-analogue. The quarians can build them, so others can, too. The Sol system is in an area with low stellar density, which is about 0.003 stars per cubic light year. That *still* means there are more than 2500 star systems within a range of a 5-day voyage. Since most stars have planets and most planets are gas giants, that means there are plenty of opportunities for drive discharge, refueling and restocking raw materials for repair. That way, a long range expedition fleet can sustain itself from resources found along the way and travel the galaxy. Though it would take at least 23 years to cross the galaxy. (I would also remind everyone that because of Newton's first law, the fuel needed by a ship is independent from the distance travelled. Acceleration and deceleration are the limiting factors. There would still be some continuous fuel consumption to maintain the ME core charge and for life support, but not for propulsion. The implementation in the games is just game mechanics)
(6) Resettling our allies. Perspectives for going home. The only ally with an immediate prospect of going home are the quarians (I wonder if the writers ever thought of how cruel it is to deprive them of a homeworld they just regained for another 30 years). Mid-term, there may be some asari or krogan who would want to put together a long-range expedition fleet (see above) and go home). Nonetheless, I'm going to assume that most of the allies will be stuck in the local area or decide to stay instead of taking a 30-year trek. So what are we to do with them? You know, the idea of settling, say, the krogan, on Earth is..er....unsettling. Read on...
(7) New worlds? They exist. They can be reached. Wait.....Isn't it a fact that there aren't any habitable worlds but Earth in the local cluster? Not so fast. The fact is that there aren't any such worlds in a short distance from where the Sol relay was. We are never given travel times, but the sequence of events throughout the games suggest that it can't take more than a few days to travel from a relay to the most remote world in a "cluster" (which isn't really a star cluster, just an area named for convenience). Now suppose we extend the time we're willing to travel from...hmm....five days to 30 days. Never thought of that? That's how the relays made galactic civilization decadent. 30 days of typical FTL means 360 light-years.....
Star density around Sol is about 0.003 stars per cubic light year. This is LOW, most regions of the galaxy are more densely populated. That means, given a travel speed of 12ly/day, that there are more than half a million stars in reach of a one-month trip, with about 5% of them being G-type stars and another 7% K-type stars. Almost all stars have planets. Plenty of places to refuel, restock raw materials and discharge drives, and it's quite possible there are a few dozen habitable worlds orbiting some of those 70000+ candidate stars.
(8) Rebuilding relays: Rebuilding a mass relay is a massive undertaking. I would think that it would take a developed world about a century or more, if it's possible at all. Knowledge is not a problem, resources are. Remember, the energy equivalent of a star is bound up in a relay. You could posit it needs a civilization of type II on the Kardashev scale to build a relay. None of the civilizations in the ME universe - even pre-apocalypse ones - are of that type with the possible exception of the geth. I would posit that in the Destroy endings, rebuilding relays is not viable for the foreseeable future, in Control, the relays are only damaged so they may be repaired, and in Synthesis it might be possible that the post-Synthesis civilization acquires the capability to build on that scale rather fast. The question is will they need it or will they find another way. Synthesis is something of a wild card.
Mid-term effects of the final choice on star travel and rebuilding galactic civilization:
Here I'm going into full speculation mode:
Destroy: I don't think it is in the spirit of the Destroy ending to posit that they'll just rebuild the relays at some point. Instead, I'd propose that the existing technology for FTL travel will be refined to increase its speed by increments, gradually increasing the size of a possible cohesive civilization throughout the centuries. The same will happen with most surviving developed worlds of the pre-Disaster civilization, like Sur'kesh. Contact between the different spheres will exist, since there will always be people who'd risk decade-long travels if they can be reasonably certain there's a habitable place at the other end. Eventually, the different spheres will reconnect to have common "borders". What happens then is anyone's guess.
Control: I think the best possible setup for Control scenarios is to assume that the relays are damaged and nonfunctional for the foreseeable future but not destroyed (several threads have hinted at this as a possible interpretation of the differences in the ending cutscenes). After a functional infrastructure has been restored, the surviving developed worlds will this focus their efforts on repairing the relays. Eventually, the civilization that emerges from this scenario will look very similar to the one destroyed by the Crucible. It is also possible that something valuable in terms of technology or knowledge will be salvaged from the Reaper debris flying around in this scenario.
Synthesis: This is something of a wild card. I'd say it would be in the spirit of this ending to have things go into new and totally unexpected, even exotic directions. In my thread on the Synthesis ending, I have proposed some effects on individuals, but the big picture has largely been ignored. How would a galactic civilization emerge from the Synthesis which is still recognizably "Mass Effect" but radically different from those emerging from the other two scenarios? I'm still working on that. Ideas welcome. The legacy of the Old Machines (who aren't Reapers anymore in this scenario) might come into play in unexpected ways. Whatever they left behind may still be "live", but not hostile any more.
All right, I think this is a good jumpoff point. Now it's everyone else's turn.
To be fair, I'm not dismissing everything about the current ending. In fact I've took a few advice from Buch and Cali and decided to let the relays destroyed (hence the title of the prologue, End of an Era). I've using this Speculation page as a basic ground work for the rest of the my comic's arc. However, I still have to temper this whole positive spin with a some negativity by acting a realist here. While Weekes was positive enough that the galaxy is still lively according to his unofficial interview, in my opinion: Before the galaxy is back on it's feet... there is war.
Not many people agree with me on this, but I have parents who had to endure more than one wars back in my homeland. Hence I know things goes in life sadly.
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Post by jklinders on Apr 20, 2012 4:49:30 GMT 1
I like that.
As for the pretentious fellow whose closing statements neither of us liked...maybe he was on a coffee break on some project when he typed that out. Pretty sure scientists have leisure time too. See the show Big Bang theory for details.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 5:00:03 GMT 1
If he is, then he shouldn't have written that piece in the first place, not without make more than one checks to see if his essay is alright and not sounding too subjective to the point that readers have an excuse to dismiss it.
(Note when writing an accademic arguement eassy: DON'T USE THE 1ST PERSON VOICE. It makes you sounded too subjective. Best way to write convincingly is to use 3rd person. That's what my professor taugh me in uni. That guy is using too many 'I' in his essay, no accademics, no matter what school you're verse in should avoiding using "I'. Even us game designer accademics know this basic. )
Although, to be fair. I still believe there's a way for all galactic life thrive and survive, but it will take a lot of effort to get where they had came from before the Reaper Crisis. And that struggle usually means more war and/or social discord. There's no way I can see them holding hands and calling it peace. There's gotta be another conflict that involves survivalbility and racial agenda, the way ME3 ends in the end.
Maybe it's just me being bias here. (I'm working on the comic's arcs that based around that now, I'm going to explain the issue in a deconstructive manner... things has changed since I've first planned out.) At least I admit that.
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Post by Mr. Glow on Apr 20, 2012 5:50:46 GMT 1
Wait, why are people saying controlling the Reapers is the Paragon choice, now? Because it's blue?
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 6:19:35 GMT 1
Wait, why are people saying controlling the Reapers is the Paragon choice, now? Because it's blue? Probably it is the colour. As one of my characters from " Paragons of the Renaissance" said: "Speak softly and always carry a big hardcover book. You need to hit them on the head, just to get the message accross how stupid their ideas are." Unfortunately there's a few people in this sorry ass debacle that needs to have that message. Not aiming at anyone in this forums in particullar. A few idiots outside of it.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Apr 20, 2012 9:30:51 GMT 1
Im still going for that the Catalyst was screwing with your head. i mean TIM being a Paragon option? no dice. No friggin' dice.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Apr 20, 2012 10:34:18 GMT 1
Especially a 20 sided Dice. No one wants to hand that over to some guy like that pretendous intellectral over there.
And most table top RPG players know how special that dice is, too.
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Post by Warhammer Gorvar on Apr 20, 2012 13:53:18 GMT 1
Bastard dice keeps giving me bad rolls.... Space Marines are OP! What, i got like fifteen fire warriors and a couple of vespid firing at a squad of six marines and not one of them gets hurt?! Bullshit man!
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