Re: General Chat

[smash016]

Hey there.

Actually, I started a new playthrough of Mass Effect, but I just played the games too often, I guess, I can't get myself to doing all those side missions, while I still absolutely love the main story sequences, cinematics, voice acting, FemShep... One day... I'll do a proper re-play. I'd also love to finish my blog... about afterlife and stuff.

But the suggestion here of Hudson still being involved with ME (I thought he left?) is exactly what we need. We'll see!

[vlad78]

MEA life support unplugged. No solo DLC. Just books and comics and multiplayers.

I can't say I'll shed a tear, yet I would have liked to know where they were going with Cerberus in the storyline and why the leader of the Andromeda initiative (AI is also artificial intelligence, coincidence?) was killed right after her arrival in Andromeda.

New ME not rules out.

EA exact words:
"What we need to be careful though of is, whenever we bring Mass Effect back again, we have to make sure that we bring it back in a really [relevant] way, and in a fresh, exciting place. That' my job, and that's Casey's [Hudson] job, and BioWare and the Mass Effect team's job, to figure out what that looks like, and that we don't know yet, but we will."

http://www.gamezone.com/news/ea-plans-to-bring-mass-effect-back-in-a-really-relevant-way-3456723

I may read between the lines a bit but I think things will unfold exactly as we expected with Casey Hudson at the helm minor EA clumsiness.

[vlad78]

Rumours on the web, there won't be any single player DLC because MEA sales were below expectations. (did they really expect the game to do better than any previous ME game given the lack of polish and tons of bugs and overall a less entertaining game than the trilogy?)

I fear it may be the swansong of the ME universe, my friend.

About my final verdict, it has to be said most quests of previous games made you feel like you were part of a living and breathing universe, most of them gave you valuable informations about the lore, keys to understand of decipher what was going on.

In MEA many secondary quests feels like filling the gaps.

Furthermore, each ME game did put the pressure on the player as if time mattered (when in fact it didn't but i felt as if it was for real) as advancing the game triggered new plots which prevented the player from getting bored.
Finding Saren was an emergency, finding the collector base too, finding the catalyst too and the galaxy was crumbling around shepard making us feel desperate at times. It does not in Andromeda. You have all the time in the world, no time limit, no pressure once the first quests are done. You have all the time in the world to establish your outposts, quests are sometimes very boring a bit like Dragon Age inquisition and there's too many of them. ME1 had boring quests but they were not that many and ME2 quests were also limited in number and really well written and as a ME conspirationist, I really felt like everyone had hints about what was really going on.

They perfectly succeeded in providing a sensation of space, yet it's mostly empty. I prefer to be railroaded a bit from one outstanding plot to another. EA leaned too much over games made by Bethesda and lost a bit of what made BW unique.

MEA is not a bad game, but it will not be a game I'll play through over and over.

The only way to save the franchise now is imho to return to Shepard, reveal what was hidden all along (if there is anything) and offer real closure. If we're right about the hidden story, they are going too far. We should have known at the end of the game why did Cerberus send people toward andromeda. We should have obvious hints this is a dream. They should release something allowing even the dumbest player to question everything that happened before.

[vlad78]

Stuff I forgot, like the above, is incredible, and makes me want to play the game again. Seriously, my afterlife theory is for real.

Works also for the VR theory.

Given that Leviathan or the dream maker is GOD (Maat Theory, ark of covenant in the archive ...) , any dream/VR shepard could be in can be seen as his personal purgatory.


Choose wisely seems to hesitate about the place the AI has in the story. But we've never seen the AI before ME3 ending. And it does no make sense for the AI to be on the citadel. (which led me to believe this is not the AI but levi himself posing as the starbrat) Before that we've only seen Harbinger.

Levi said the AI is using the galaxy as an experiment. But we've only seen Leviathan do that. Collectors were merely collecting samples and building something which could be the vessel where they wanted to put Shep. No experiment done by the collectors.

[vlad78]

If what you say is true, then it seems to me they wanted to tell a new story (perhaps for commercial / marketing reasons) while still keeping the dream (or VR as I'm inclined to believe) plot alive. Such that they may one day reveal it, without it invalidating any one particular release in the ME series.

Ascension is interesting. Is there anything like VR, mind uploading, holograms, death, immortality, or any of those themes I found  curious?

Well, the whole Andromeda initiative advert seen on youtube before the release of the game was all VR. We're on the moon and suddenly the arks and nexus materialize and the hibernation chamber with all pods (where ryder wakes up later) suddenly appears out of nowhere.

Ryder sees everything that matters through the scanner of his IA. Without it, he can't figure what things are.

The dream or VR is also present there, people always talk about their dreams, what they expected. Funnyly, they were all having a more or less normal life and suddenly found it dull and wanted desperatly to join with the Andromeda initiative.

Immortality is a bit more tricky. We don't know enough about the kett. Kett leaders seems to be immortal. (not sure but foreign DNA is constantly added to theirs which suggest they live quite along time)

QEC is there of course.

Now the game is so vast, it's difficult to focus a a particular theme.

[smash016]

Stuff I forgot, like the above, is incredible, and makes me want to play the game again. Seriously, my afterlife theory is for real.

[smash016]

If what you say is true, then it seems to me they wanted to tell a new story (perhaps for commercial / marketing reasons) while still keeping the dream (or VR as I'm inclined to believe) plot alive. Such that they may one day reveal it, without it invalidating any one particular release in the ME series.

Ascension is interesting. Is there anything like VR, mind uploading, holograms, death, immortality, or any of those themes I found curious?

[vlad78]

Have you finished the game? What is your verdict?

Not totally finished but near the end.

Value of the game : below all other Mass Effect episodes but it is not the failure the other forum think it is. It's just a bit less engaging.

Hidden story : definitly there.

I now buy Choose wisely analysis about the game being potentially another dream, another simulation. But they fail to see the symbolic part of it. All Bioware writers (at least senior writers) have degrees in litteracy yet CW sticks to factual analysis, this is a mistake because it is incomplete and they are still stuck with the point of convergence theory which led them to believe everything in ME1 2 3 is false, the dream beginning right after the triggering of the prothean artifact by Shepard.

ATM I need to finish the game to watch how the builders of the remnants artifacts are portrayed.

CW has good ideas. The notion of the Andromeda initiative being a dream is repeated everywhere. First by daddy pathfinder starting the first mission with something like "you're keeping the dream going..."

Daddy's memories are strange and warped. if we analyses them thouroughly without any preconception, it seems he himself made up the idea of going to Andromeda.

see the one starting at 16:07


Another CW great idea = we visit leviathan past. Remnants maybe akin to the protoreapers. It's not designed to uplift organic species.

The ennemies, the kett do steal genetic sequence of species encountered and integrate them in their own bodies. They use the exact same words as the collectors lead by Harbinger. (especially the word ascension when changing them) Yet they are not organized like them. They have a galactic empire and the leaders seems to be capable of having individual thoughts and ambitions, the one you fight in the game in borderline rebellious with the central authorities.

But when you look are them, they look like bodies twisted by tumours. I wonder if this is not litteraly the case, the kett being an unforseen consequence of former experiments gone wrong and disturbing other plan which would explain why the andromeda initiative is sent there, a bit like my shadow broker theory and why a Drell and an asari (presumed levi thralls) did bring shep along to put the SB down.

[smash016]

Have you finished the game? What is your verdict?

[vlad78]

Angara is a stream in siberia. It's also the equivalent of a place of exile. I don't know if this derived definition made by google is meaningful or not, yet the angara are the only sentient species in the heleus cluster.


According to the storyline, the angara were created by the Jardaan civilization and made to use remnant machines.

Remnant machines have 2 widespread symbols = honeycomb and triangle and a symbiosis of both.

[vlad78]

Those are angara, native species of the heleus cluster in Andromeda.



And this is a pharaoh mask.

[vlad78]

Angaran depicted by themselves. If this picture does not clearly have an egyptian vibe, I'm blind.

[vlad78]

Game is good. Really entertaining despite all its flaws.

[vlad78]

Interesting to see themes being dragged over into Andromeda.

I never was too big on the hive mind thing, but I remember you were... right?

This still rings Sovereign's speech from ME1 -- we are each a nation. A collective of organic minds powering a supercomputer.

Totally.

I think the drop of the paragon and renegade system is clearly an indication Shep had something special allowing him to sway people.

Ryder is different, his computer can change him/her whenever needed, can change what he knows, his skills, his physical and mental abilities.

Received the code allowing me to download the game today.

[smash016]

Interesting to see themes being dragged over into Andromeda.

I never was too big on the hive mind thing, but I remember you were... right?

This still rings Sovereign's speech from ME1 -- we are each a nation. A collective of organic minds powering a supercomputer.

[vlad78]

This one is interesting, and full of indoctrination sounds.

[vlad78]

Yeah... we figured already, right? Why wouldn't Cerberus be involved... they were involved with everything in ME1-3 and are Mac Walters' favorite plot point.

Of course, TIM is behind everything. We already knew that.

Further along in the video is a woman specifically coining the term "salvation" in connection to the Reapers... This was the Reaper's euphemism for genocide. Only I thought they were actually saving us by granting us eternal virtual life. I can read into this if I want... "Shepard made it real" the woman says... OR DID SHE? For us and for Shepard, it sure as hell felt real at the time...

The MADE IT REAL makes me think of what would happen if the dream theory is real. If Levi has experimented all outcomeq and used shep to simulate a solution to the cycles, what would happen next, would it let the story unfold to the ending we chose?

[smash016]

Yeah... we figured already, right? Why wouldn't Cerberus be involved... they were involved with everything in ME1-3 and are Mac Walters' favorite plot point.

Of course, TIM is behind everything. We already knew that.

Further along in the video is a woman specifically coining the term "salvation" in connection to the Reapers... This was the Reaper's euphemism for genocide. Only I thought they were actually saving us by granting us eternal virtual life. I can read into this if I want... "Shepard made it real" the woman says... OR DID SHE? For us and for Shepard, it sure as hell felt real at the time...

[vlad78]

Big spoiler. Watch from 24:39 if you dare.

Spoiler:

[vlad78]

The battle of the citadel happened with Saren as the rogue specter who led geth attack on the citadel.

So much for the theory we once had about the battle of the citadel not happening. (unless this too is only a dream but that would be far-fetched ATM)

Yet, the Andromeda initiative starts exactly before Shep waking up after the destruction of the Normandy. ( I think)

[vlad78]

About the game in general, i have mixed feelings. The animation (especially the characters) is between totally awful and sometimes good. Cinematic are good, ingame animations are not. The writing is not consistent, at all, you have some wonderful scenes, really, and some awful WTF moments totally cliche and stereotypical. I feel BW really wanted to offer a wider game and concentrated over the open world and fighting and gave less thought about everything else.

The way characters move is not much of an improvement over ME3. And the  modelling is also totally inconsistent. The stance the characters take are totally unnatural, It has always been so with BW games but you would thing they could imporve over the years. They just don't. Ryder's elbows move always weirdly. Take Cora Harper, the last romance scene is just awful, her body is ugly, the motions feel not natural, and the realisation is just awful, it's almost porn, and she has 2 hot air ballong instead of her ass, proportions are off it's ugly. if they wanted to go the Witcher road, at least they could try to reach the same quality as the witcher. i fear it might make the immersion into that game more difficult whereas it was ME strong point hitherto.

and on the other hand other scenes are much better just because they are better written. It's just an opinion born from watching vids, I'll have to play it to feel the athmosphere.

But there won't be groundbreaking revelations in the main game imho. We'll see.

[vlad78]

We 'll find native species there, especially the Angarans .
And Jal, an angaran will be a squadmates. They too have honeycombs, over their armor and Jal has some on his eye targeter.


Kett want to take control of the cluster and of the remnants and Angarans oppose them.

[vlad78]

Not sure what you're getting at?

I don't want to spoil everything as I'm looking at videos on youtube before getting my copy of the game. But let's say during the final fight, the bad guy is using those remnants which work like  a network to attack ryder. A construct of some sort emerges, and it is called = a conduit.


The Andromeda initiative is sent in another galaxy, precisely on a tiny cluster, where each planet marked as inhabitable has some very ancient structure capable of terraforming it with honeycombs on them, triangles and a sort of honeycomb with 3 larger sides which in fact is a cross between the 2 former geometrical shapes.
No alien living in that cluster knows how to open them, only the pathfinder knows.

i haven't found any information ingame over the builders of those remnants nor on the kett yet.

[smash016]

Not sure what you're getting at?

[vlad78]

Turns out I can barely run the game... Man, did time go by fast... last time I checked I had a supercomputer.

I am pretty excited to play it. But not excited to buy new hardware for it. My system RAM and graphics card are just the minimum requirement... Quite an investment for a single game.

I feel your pain.

SAM's code comes from the shadow broker.

The symbiosis with SAM seems to teach the pathfinder how to interact with the old remnants present on all golden worlds = ancient tech able to terraform them. Do you believe in coincidences?

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