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(XL) Was the Ending a Hallucination? - Indoctrination Theory Mark IV!

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Post by KneeTheCap Fri Apr 28, 2017 12:04 pm

"Whatever happened was 600 years ago"

I suppose we'll never find out :/
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Post by Terramine Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:06 pm

Personally I could have tolerated Andromeda if it was meant to give humanity and the rest of the species an actual technological edge over the Reapers. It wouldn't have been a bad way to end things. Say that the whole point was to lose in the MW. That Shepard was leading a doomed cycle but one that signified somethin. With the arks and the fact that the reapers were ultimately delt a massive blow.
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Post by Terramine Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:09 pm

Destroy to me symbolically represents that we can go out guns blazing and we will probably lose but in the war we wage, we blow the Reapers a new asshole about 2/3 the size their fleet used to be.
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Post by Terramine Sun Apr 30, 2017 8:29 pm

Personally my theory about the crucible and the catalyst is that these are obviously all Reaper constructions and they are named based on their importance to Reaper planning.

That is exactly what those names sound like. These devices sound like they are part of some large scale plan. In the ending to the Matrix Trilogy we see somethin that resembles Synthesis and Destroy combined into one. With Neo sacrificing himself to destroy Agent Smith.

I believe the Catalyst is the catalyst to the Reaper's whole plan. The Crucible bein the delivery system upon which the fate of the Reaper's plan is decided. Remember what it says bout the scourge. It comes from a weapon that TARGETS A SPECIFIC KIND OF TECHNOLOGY.

That is really quite funny because to me it is like bioware bluntly trying to say that the Crucible doesn't target the Geth like Reaperboy Wonder claims. It also oddly fits with that concept drawing for the ending that mentioned the crucible was tied to a weakness in Reaper Anatomy.

Does anyone remember what we have been dealing with the entire game? Sub plots of biological viruses and how they have to be specifically designed to target a specific species' anatomy. Same thing for Computer Viruses and AI. We even had those lines blur at times.

To me it is full well possible that the device really does target Reaper tech. Think bout it nothin can beat the Reapers unless every bit of Reaper tech is destroyed. So maybe it is a fail safe. Reapers are at least Half technology. In fact that is kind of the point because Shepard and the Reapers represent 2 overlapping technological branches. The Reapers are tech dominant. The biological systems are dependent upon the higher machine system. Whereas Shepard is a primarily biological being with tech implants and such.

The Reapers' weakness is that if you can shut the tech off. The biological systems cannot continue. Regardless of what the deal is with the Leviathans. We see they can turn Reapers off. Odds are they built in a fail safe. It one giant key to the Reaper plan.

Synthesis cannot be forced. That more than comfirms that synthesis is to enter the Reaper Matrix. Because it was utopia that could not be forced upon humans in The Matrix. The Matrix itself could not be forced upon people as there started to be people naturally disconnected from the matrix.

It was those dumped individuals that represented the rebellion against the system. Where The One would ultimately come from. So it makes sense that Synthesis is the "ascension" the Reapers indoctrinate people to believe in.

It is fridge horror because one day people woke up and the harbingers of death have come to steal and trap away your soul.
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Post by dorktainian Tue May 02, 2017 7:12 pm

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Post by DoomsdayDevice Sat May 06, 2017 8:39 pm

Terramine wrote:Personally my theory about the crucible and the catalyst is that these are obviously all Reaper constructions and they are named based on their importance to Reaper planning.

That is exactly what those names sound like. These devices sound like they are part of some large scale plan. In the ending to the Matrix Trilogy we see somethin that resembles Synthesis and Destroy combined into one. With Neo sacrificing himself to destroy Agent Smith.

I believe the Catalyst is the catalyst to the Reaper's whole plan. The Crucible bein the delivery system upon which the fate of the Reaper's plan is decided. Remember what it says bout the scourge. It comes from a weapon that TARGETS A SPECIFIC KIND OF TECHNOLOGY.

That is really quite funny because to me it is like bioware bluntly trying to say that the Crucible doesn't target the Geth like Reaperboy Wonder claims. It also oddly fits with that concept drawing for the ending that mentioned the crucible was tied to a weakness in Reaper Anatomy.

Does anyone remember what we have been dealing with the entire game? Sub plots of biological viruses and how they have to be specifically designed to target a specific species' anatomy. Same thing for Computer Viruses and AI. We even had those lines blur at times.

To me it is full well possible that the device really does target Reaper tech. Think bout it nothin can beat the Reapers unless every bit of Reaper tech is destroyed. So maybe it is a fail safe. Reapers are at least Half technology. In fact that is kind of the point because Shepard and the Reapers represent 2 overlapping technological branches. The Reapers are tech dominant. The biological systems are dependent upon the higher machine system. Whereas Shepard is a primarily biological being with tech implants and such.

The Reapers' weakness is that if you can shut the tech off. The biological systems cannot continue. Regardless of what the deal is with the Leviathans. We see they can turn Reapers off. Odds are they built in a fail safe. It one giant key to the Reaper plan.

Synthesis cannot be forced. That more than comfirms that synthesis is to enter the Reaper Matrix. Because it was utopia that could not be forced upon humans in The Matrix. The Matrix itself could not be forced upon people as there started to be people naturally disconnected from the matrix.

It was those dumped individuals that represented the rebellion against the system. Where The One would ultimately come from. So it makes sense that Synthesis is the "ascension" the Reapers indoctrinate people to believe in.

It is fridge horror because one day people woke up and the harbingers of death have come to steal and trap away your soul.

Some interesting points... as far as the Leviathan goes, maybe when it shuts down a Reaper, it actually affects the organic component, instead of the synthetic component? Because the Leviathan specifically have this ability to influence organics.

(Though in all honesty I still have problems taking the Leviathan seriously. It could just as well be the illusion of an organic creature brought to us by an actual Reaper. In a Wizard of Oz kind of way, if that makes sense. Though saying it like this does make it sound rather scary door, at the very least you could say they don't seem very trustworthy.)
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Post by DoomsdayDevice Sat May 06, 2017 9:23 pm

So, my buddy went on vacation and decided to drop off his Xbone at my place, so I could play the ME:A campaign. (Because I refused to buy the game - let alone buy a platform to play it on; my PC is outdated and as far as consoles go, I only have a 360.) He really wanted me to play it because he really wanted to discuss the game with me. So I blazed through the campaign in two weeks time and here we are. Thing is, I'm not really sure what he actually wants to talk about.

What can I say? It's a double feeling. It's not as utterly terrible as I thought it would be, but at the same time it totally fails to move me like the trilogy did.

The main thing that I -REALLY- missed was the paragon/renegade dynamic. The new flavours are all kind of meh, and although the P/R dynamic isn't always implemented ideally in the trilogy, it was still a large part of what made Mass Effect for me. I was afraid getting rid of it wouldn't work out so well, and playing the game only confirmed this for me.

The new combat system has its positives and negatives. Overall, it is good, and I thought it was a good idea to get rid of the power wheel and incorporate the "you-can't-pause-this" three powers gameplay style of the ME3 multiplayer. It's fun to be able to combine any power you want with any other, you can make some really crazy sets of overpowered builds this way. On the other hand, getting rid of the classes kind of takes away the replay value.

The open world aspect works in some ways, and not so much in others. I think it would be better if it was actually exploring and discovering stories on the spot instead of walking around on the nexus for 30 minutes and ending up with a gazillion map markers that you'll end up clearing in geographical order, with only a vague idea (or none at all) of why the fuck you're doing what you're doing.

But all that is just details, really. What matter most is the story, and well, while not utterly terrible, it just doesn't really deliver. It's interesting in some ways, and it could go to interesting places, but for now it really doesn't (and maybe it never will), so it doesn't really satisfy.

I also feel like the choices we get to make don't seem all that significant, and even if some are, I doubt they'll have any significant consequences somehow.

I also missed the big plot twists. There was one, I guess. It was interesting, but I'm not sure what it will mean in the long run.

I think it's telling that the only slightly emotional moment I experienced was when the moment came that Shepard and the Reapers were mentioned. (By the way, the way they did this, was exactly what I had expected. I expected nothing more and nothing less, and they did exactly that.)

It just doesn't have that same epic feel that the trilogy had. Though in all honesty, in my personal opinion it's probably impossible to ever come up with something that tops Shepard & the Reapers. It seems most people were fed up with the Reapers after ME3, and glad to get something different, but not me.

Spoiler:

ZerebusPrime wrote:Well, dork, like I said in another thread, only this time with minor grammatical corrections:

The Scourge is the result of an interstellar (possibly galactic) scale dark matter super weapon designed to target the technology of an advanced alien race that treats their galaxy like a laboratory and whose motives may be unknowable.

Sound familiar?

ME:A may be the worst Mass Effect game of all four Mass Effect games sans DLC so far, but shades of ME3 are littered throughout it.

I will point out that the Scourge Event seems to have occurred within a hundred years of when the Crucible would have been activated.  The particulars of both things are murky; we can't trust what we see at the end of ME3 and the codex on the Scourge is stated to be an estimate.  Nevertheless, that's a huge amount of dark energy being slung around in a pair of neighboring galaxies in a relatively short time frame.

This can work out in a number of ways, narratively:

A.  Not at all.

B.  The dark space relay could easily be part of a relay system bridging the gap between the two galaxies, in which case the Crucible event chain could chain react into Andromeda and screw up the Jardaan because reasons.  In this case, Andromeda has been scorched because of our actions at the end of ME3.  I will note that no one has mentioned anything about mass relays in Andromeda thus far, so this is a long shot.

C: Both the Scourge Event weapon and the Crucible are based off of similar designs.  The Reapers and Jardaan are connected, at least at the tech level.

D: Something I haven't thought of.

In both B and C, the Milky Way may now be filled with Scourge.

Yeah, this is probably the most interesting aspect of the story. My alarm bells went off when Liam said that thing along the lines of  "The Kett are bad, but the ones who made the scourge, those are some real motherfuckers."

I really thought that line had some real significance.

I mean, it almost has to be linked to the crucible and the endings. They left for Andromeda and all looked fine, they get there and some time after they left the Milky Way this thing has happened. Doesn't seem coincidental. But if the crucible energy did travel that far, it doesn't seem to have done anything to the Arks. At the very least the equipment aboard the arks should have picked up something of an energy surge.

So yeah, great point ZP, but just like you, I wonder/doubt if this will ever play out at all.

As far as IT references go, I must say I haven't really picked up on anything significant, though honestly I wasn't really looking for it either. I'll be happy to see what others have found.

For now it's back to ME3 multiplayer for me, haha. ME:A multiplayer seems underwhelming. ME3 MP is a lot better, I think. Though  I haven't played ME:A with a good maxed out kit yet, which may make a difference. But there you have the problem: the griiiiiiiiiiiiind! And I thought ME3MP was a grind, hah! At least you could level up your kits relatively quickly. Ye gods, ME:A is terrible in this respect.
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Post by ZerebusPrime Sun May 07, 2017 2:37 am

I got burned out on ME:A multiplayer relatively quickly. The lack of joyful Krogan heatbutting was a major problem for me.
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Post by DoomsdayDevice Sun May 07, 2017 5:01 am

Well yeah, there's headbutting, but there's no maniacal laughter and all that. It just feels very off.
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Post by KneeTheCap Sun May 07, 2017 12:24 pm

DoomsdayDevice wrote:

Yeah, this is probably the most interesting aspect of the story. My alarm bells went off when Liam said that thing along the lines of  "The Kett are bad, but the ones who made the scourge, those are some real motherfuckers."

I really thought that line had some real significance.

I mean, it almost has to be linked to the crucible and the endings. They left for Andromeda and all looked fine, they get there and some time after they left the Milky Way this thing has happened. Doesn't seem coincidental. But if the crucible energy did travel that far, it doesn't seem to have done anything to the Arks. At the very least the equipment aboard the arks should have picked up something of an energy surge.

So yeah, great point ZP, but just like you, I wonder/doubt if this will ever play out at all.

As far as IT references go, I must say I haven't really picked up on anything significant, though honestly I wasn't really looking for it either. I'll be happy to see what others have found.


Spoiler:
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Post by DoomsdayDevice Sun May 07, 2017 12:50 pm

KneeTheCap wrote:
DoomsdayDevice wrote:

Yeah, this is probably the most interesting aspect of the story. My alarm bells went off when Liam said that thing along the lines of  "The Kett are bad, but the ones who made the scourge, those are some real motherfuckers."

I really thought that line had some real significance.

I mean, it almost has to be linked to the crucible and the endings. They left for Andromeda and all looked fine, they get there and some time after they left the Milky Way this thing has happened. Doesn't seem coincidental. But if the crucible energy did travel that far, it doesn't seem to have done anything to the Arks. At the very least the equipment aboard the arks should have picked up something of an energy surge.

So yeah, great point ZP, but just like you, I wonder/doubt if this will ever play out at all.

As far as IT references go, I must say I haven't really picked up on anything significant, though honestly I wasn't really looking for it either. I'll be happy to see what others have found.


Spoiler:

Spoiler:
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Post by ZerebusPrime Sun May 07, 2017 1:17 pm

The only thing Cora reveals about her past is that she was raised on a glorified cargo ship.

And that's no spoiler. It is, however, a disappointment.
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Post by TerramineLightvoid Wed May 10, 2017 10:21 am

DoomsdayDevice wrote:Some interesting points... as far as the Leviathan goes, maybe when it shuts down a Reaper, it actually affects the organic component, instead of the synthetic component? Because the Leviathan specifically have this ability to influence organics.

(Though in all honesty I still have problems taking the Leviathan seriously. It could just as well be the illusion of an organic creature brought to us by an actual Reaper. In a Wizard of Oz kind of way, if that makes sense. Though saying it like this does make it sound rather scary door, at the very least you could say they don't seem very trustworthy.)
There's a dead Reaper down there. We know what "dead" Reapers can do. So really, honestly. It is a very, very, compelling possibility. Aside from everything else that happens in the DLC of course. Which makes it somewhat believable that Leviathan actually exists. Without them, we never had it revealed or even so much as touched upon as where the Reapers actually came from. From a writing perspective that is surely necessary to do? Maybe not, shrug.

But how compelling is that? Shepard goes down deep into the ocean. There's a Reaper corpse there. The last time we dealt with a Reaper corpse. As in Shepard getting in close proximity to one. We got hit with nothin but one giant mission about Reaper Indoctrination and how dead Reapers most definitely still indoctrinate. Why do that btw? Why call attention to how Reapers indoctrinate even when dead, if it wasn't actually goin to play any real relevance at all for the rest of the series?

Then in ME3 we go near one again, and Shepard ends up in a "Mindspace" where this being bluntly indoctrinates Shepard allegedly by some primitive biological method. It screams at you really. It is pretty much like bioware bluntly showing a Reaper having significant indoctrination control over Shepard. To the point of conjuring a mind world and people and objects within his/her mind.

If these Leviathan existed at one point. The question is, why did they never mingle in Cybernetic implants? They were the rulers of the universe and had all these species working for them, researching science and everything. But they decided to just be stuck on planets? Better yet... these guys jerked themselves off like they were GODS. Literal fuckin Gods. Yet they weren't concerned with their own mortality? Sure they could live for eons. But they still gotta die sometime right? Here's an interesting theory: Leviathan decided to turn themselves into Reapers for the sake of evolution/technological advancement of their species. As well to solve the rebellion of both "lesser" organics and synthetics. Once the Leviathans turned themselves into "Reapers", there would be no Leviathans left to Reaperize. Thus stagnating their reproductive process. So they added it into their plan that future Reapers would be built from "worthy" species. Species allowed to "Join" the Leviathans on the same level.

Harbinger would be the Leviathan Reaper, hence why he would be the Leader and why all other Reapers would talk like they revolve around him and his word. The design and story of the Reapers got renovated a little. Instead of making each reaper Unique. The Leviathan Reaper would be the only unique one, meanwhile all other "lesser" Reapers would follow a similar design. Slightly off from the original to signify their alien biological source. All non-leviathan sources of biology would be seen as equally Alien. The Reaper core that is designed to look like the species it was built from, is likely to signify that the Leviathans/Reapers have Assimilated/Consumed/Dominated that species. Because in the new rendition of what the reapers look like, you can't even see the core. Not like you were gonna be able to according to concept designs. So now the core is completely covered by the Leviathan Hull.

Leviathan shifted. From merely controlling other species, to outright REPLACING them. As if they believe all other life in existence has no value unless it is replaced with... them.
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Post by TerramineLightvoid Wed May 10, 2017 10:58 am



This scene is the most compelling evidence that Andromeda may have been planned the whole time. This scene was never explained in the slightest. Shep hugs Liara as they both float towards a distant Galaxy.

Bioware did not seem to consider a problem that Liara knew bout the Andromeda Initiative the whole time. So perhaps she was showing Shepard the potential of the initiative. That humanity and most the other species might still survive regardless.

Sidenote: If Andromeda was planned the whole time. It would explain, if the Geth WERE actually destroyed by the Destroy choice, why they were. Because at the end of the day the MW was doomed anyways. But if you choose destroy, the Reapers are fucked and humanity thrives in Andromeda anyways.
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Post by dorktainian Wed May 10, 2017 12:31 pm

I would stop analysing MEA for IT to be honest. It does not hold enough information for IT to be valid.

As for the Milky way being doomed? People forget how huge the milky way is. I never got the feeling we were really doomed even if it had turned into a straight forward firefight between us and the reapers. Remember the codex regarding Indoctrination and the section about viewing the reapers with awe? For me the reapers are beatable still. We have been shown that this may not be the case in game but life would find a way to defeat them.

Then again the mass relays blowing up pretty much doomed all races that relied on the relays for travel. Which holds to the Refusal ending being the legit ending because the relays are still active allowing us to continue the fight or escape.



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Post by KneeTheCap Wed May 10, 2017 11:26 pm

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Post by ZerebusPrime Thu May 11, 2017 12:05 am

I read that earlier, KneeTheCap.

And only on the internet can one expect to say "I read that earlier, KneeTheCap."

Ahem.

I think too much is being read into the story. EA has been reworking all of BioWare into a more mobile, lean manufacturing type of outfit that can retool itself on the fly as needed to bring different products to market. Battlefront II is a humongous cash crop that will need all the help it can get so I'm not surprised it is sucking away personnel and pushing back other projects. I would also not be surprised if MEA DLC comes out of different studios entirely.
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Post by dorktainian Thu May 11, 2017 8:23 am

ZerebusPrime wrote:I read that earlier, KneeTheCap.

And only on the internet can one expect to say "I read that earlier, KneeTheCap."

Ahem.

I think too much is being read into the story. EA has been reworking all of BioWare into a more mobile, lean manufacturing type of outfit that can retool itself on the fly as needed to bring different products to market. Battlefront II is a humongous cash crop that will need all the help it can get so I'm not surprised it is sucking away personnel and pushing back other projects. I would also not be surprised if MEA DLC comes out of different studios entirely.

according to 'The Know', Bioware montreal has been slapped down by EA now and relegated in terms of game development.

I should bloody think so.
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Post by TerramineLightvoid Thu May 11, 2017 8:32 pm

dorktainian wrote:I would stop analysing MEA for IT to be honest.  It does not hold enough information for IT to be valid.
Yet there is no point in analyzing MEA at all outside of IT, or at least without acknowledging the circumstances of ME3. Considering that makes it the writing equivalent of a bag of shit lit on fire.

Besides, I'm just an unnecessarily analytical person and I am bored. If I am gonna seriously watch a MEA playthrough, I am gonna HAVE to be constantly analyzing it for IT symbolism and such as much as possible to not just end up shooting myself in the head.


As for the Milky way being doomed?  People forget how huge the milky way is.  I never got the feeling we were really doomed even if it had turned into a straight forward firefight between us and the reapers. Remember the codex regarding Indoctrination and the section about viewing the reapers with awe?  For me the reapers are beatable still.  We have been shown that this may not be the case in game but life would find a way to defeat them.

Then again the mass relays blowing up pretty much doomed all races that relied on the relays for travel.  Which holds to the Refusal ending being the legit ending because the relays are still active allowing us to continue the fight or escape.
When I say the Milky Way, I mean the current cycle. Fact is, it takes roughly 50,000 years for meaningful civilization to manifest within the milky way. It has only been 600 years since Andromeda was reached and all the events of the new game take place. So whatever happened with the Reapers happened, and if it was fridge horror then reality is the milky way we knew and loved was annihilated.

That is what I am talking about. That Shepard, his crew, and everybody else we knew and loved in the ME trilogy. Are now dead/Melted into Reaper goo and uploaded into the Reaper Matrix.
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Post by DoomsdayDevice Sat May 13, 2017 6:43 pm

I was planning to share my thoughts on the plot of ME:A with you guys, but I've had a few beers and this is probably not the right moment.

Posting this just as a reminder for myself to do this later.

Damn, typing is hard.
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Post by Maximus Mon May 15, 2017 2:53 pm

Finished Andromeda.
That was... dissapointing. : |
I'd give this game 5/10 in my personal subjective philoshophical rating, based on personal subjective phioloshophical empirical experience with the game.

It's very mediocre, I must say. Not sure if worth one's time, unless they are hardcore Mass Effect fans that would welcome every product branded with these letters in their lives. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I'll be able to finish this game and I know for certain that my brother won't even reach Kadara.

The main flaws of this game are not just about C+ story with predictable ending, one-dimensional SJW characters, generic villains or even infamous facial animations. No. It's complete and utter boredom. There's literally nothing intellectualy stimulating to do in this game, save for those rare moments when you go out there to explore the unknown and it kinda makes you reflect on how insignificant you are in the scale of universe.

Combat and Exploration can be only fun for so long, and even though these elements were well-refined, one quickly discovers there's META, which kinda forces the player into specific build/skill set in order to plow through hordes of bullet-sponge repetitive enemies. Tis ironic, that although Devs gave us more freedoms in selection of Profiles to customize Ryder in and out of combat, at the same time, juggling those powers doesn't really feel rewarding. Remember back in ME2 when you had Overload on cd ~~15s, so you had to really assess the situation in order to use that power in most efficient time and place possible for tactical advantage? Yeah. Felt good. Felt like your every move on the battlefield mattered and enemies were smart enough to capitalize on your mistakes.

Here? It's all about mashing those buttons in tandem with chaotic evasive movements across the battlefield. It's quickly getting tired seeing all those explosions, combos, super-combos, etc. Especially for one's eyes.

Same goes for guns. There is hard and defined META and there's no way around it, if you wanna go toe-to-toe with enemies on Hardcore or Insanity. For example, there's no point in going for one's hypothetically favorite N7 Valiant, because Black Widow deals twice the damage, while handling of these both guns is exactly the same. I pity those hoarding precious Research points and investing them in their fav weapon up to level X, only to find out that there's a superior option outmatching our crafted gun at level I. Very effort. Such crafting. Much Reward. Wow.

Exploration? *sigh* Been to all places, seen it all. Feels like MMO after 5th time you have to visit fucking Voeld, because you've picked up ANOTHER fetch quest that laid hidden on the Nexus after you have fucking completed the aforementioned planet! Why backtracking? Why would I want to go places I've already finished at 100%? That's exactly the opposite of exploration, i.e. discovering the unknown!

Visiting star systems in the Heleus Clusters never felt so much like a huge fucking waste of time. Between these animations player is forced to watch every single goddamn time they want to travel from planet to planet, or system to system, I've managed to catch up on some New Vegas let's play vids. Each episode is ~~20mins, so calculate just how much time your average ME fanboy spends on watching this nonsense. Granted, it has been corrected in patch 1.05, but no patch is gonna fix the main issue here. Which is pointlessness of discovering these worlds, unless you're getting timber simply by watching colorful globes with some random flavor text placed next to it, that some theoretical nucleo-quantum-astrono-physicist put to represent highly hypothetical possibilities of existing worlds. There's just too much of this stuff to see. After 10th system, you just can't give a fuck about reading into this info. Hell, there's no point in clicking RMB to scan the planet, because, in most cases, there's no substantial reward for doing this! AT ALL!

So there they go - Combat & Exploration. Only things I've praised about this game. The more time you spend with this game, the worse it gets. The more tedious and insufferable all these menial tasks become and you just feel like, I don't know, writing down the list for tomorrow's visit at supermarket. The game is plagued by the same disease that currently erodes SWTOR. Lack of proper content and grind. Lots of grind. There's grind in motherfucking Singleplayer AAA game with theoretical emphasis on best character-driven action story ever told. At least that's the catch-phrase they used for ME3, which was a big, fat lie.

Who dafq in the sane mind.... would put a fully-randomized quest... with no quest markers, nor info re: possible locations and amounts of items to collect/destroy required for accomplishment of the quest. Who dafq thought it'd be a great idea to have players spend ~~3 hours rolling around same fucking planet, visiting same fucking places filled with same fucking enemies over and over again until they -hopefully- generate the desirable quest item due to favor of RNG gods??? Fortunately for me, I've given up after some 30mins of fruitless search for quest objectives when I found out that BioWare turned Mass Effect into a bloody MMO. Lame one at that, too. Those poor souls on the internet that thought the quest was bugged, though? I pity them. Whoever designed those quests (Each planet haz one, lol.) should be nail'd down through their testicles to a cross made out of lego...

There's so much more 'meh' about this game and I could bitch for more hours than it takes to complete these RNG quests, so I'm gonna wrap up with some positives.

Graphics were amazing. Cinematics were amazing. Music was good. Reyes Vidal is best virtual bae of all time. 5/7 would date him again, regardless of sexual preferences.

My recommendation? Complete this game's story on Normal or lower difficulty and do it like Flash, at a light-speed pace. No point indulging yourselves with lazy MMO mechanics that were only meant to artificially prolongue the gameplay.

That's all.
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Post by crash23 Tue May 16, 2017 12:06 am

ZerebusPrime wrote:The only thing Cora reveals about her past is that she was raised on a glorified cargo ship.  

And that's no spoiler.  It is, however, a disappointment.

The Cora stuff is written like she may have been considered to overtly be related to TIM's story (not necessarily 'daughter'), but even if she was, it was scuttled at some point. But that's a lot of Cerberus-y things, including how the Hornet exists in the Ai.

That said, Cora is also written like she could very well be related to more things from the trilogy than she initially appears. Really all we get from her is the asari commando focus - perhaps that's nothing, but it is also to an almost suspicious degree.

Her cargo ship parents, for example, could super easily be like (adoptive?) parents of a(n experimented on?) mutant in X-Men, for all we know. Very vague.

Similar case with other characters, like Vetra, for example.

I do have a personal wish for Cora to start a spiritual Neo-Cerberus. I don't mind a softened version of them, as long as it grapples with morality and capability (isn't 'Mary Sued', nor dumb ME3 mooks), and doesn't use the 'Cerberus' name (but another mythological one would be acceptable). I think an outright 'is TIM's daughter' story might be really lame, actually, but something that touches on similar lines could be really intriguing.

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Post by crash23 Tue May 16, 2017 12:20 am

Maximus wrote:Finished Andromeda.
That was... dissapointing. : |
I'd give this game 5/10 in my personal subjective philoshophical rating, based on personal subjective phioloshophical empirical experience with the game.

It's very mediocre, I must say. Not sure if worth one's time, unless they are hardcore Mass Effect fans that would welcome every product branded with these letters in their lives. To be honest, I wasn't sure if I'll be able to finish this game and I know for certain that my brother won't even reach Kadara.

The main flaws of this game are not just about C+ story with predictable ending, one-dimensional SJW characters, generic villains or even infamous facial animations. No. It's complete and utter boredom. There's literally nothing intellectualy stimulating to do in this game, save for those rare moments when you go out there to explore the unknown and it kinda makes you reflect on how insignificant you are in the scale of universe.

Combat and Exploration can be only fun for so long, and even though these elements were well-refined, one quickly discovers there's META, which kinda forces the player into specific build/skill set in order to plow through hordes of bullet-sponge repetitive enemies. Tis ironic, that although Devs gave us more freedoms in selection of Profiles to customize Ryder in and out of combat, at the same time, juggling those powers doesn't really feel rewarding. Remember back in ME2 when you had Overload on cd ~~15s, so you had to really assess the situation in order to use that power in most efficient time and place possible for tactical advantage? Yeah. Felt good. Felt like your every move on the battlefield mattered and enemies were smart enough to capitalize on your mistakes.

Here? It's all about mashing those buttons in tandem with chaotic evasive movements across the battlefield. It's quickly getting tired seeing all those explosions, combos, super-combos, etc. Especially for one's eyes.

Same goes for guns. There is hard and defined META and there's no way around it, if you wanna go toe-to-toe with enemies on Hardcore or Insanity. For example, there's no point in going for one's hypothetically favorite N7 Valiant, because Black Widow deals twice the damage, while handling of these both guns is exactly the same. I pity those hoarding precious Research points and investing them in their fav weapon up to level X, only to find out that there's a superior option outmatching our crafted gun at level I. Very effort. Such crafting. Much Reward. Wow.

Exploration? *sigh* Been to all places, seen it all. Feels like MMO after 5th time you have to visit fucking Voeld, because you've picked up ANOTHER fetch quest that laid hidden on the Nexus after you have fucking completed the aforementioned planet! Why backtracking? Why would I want to go places I've already finished at 100%? That's exactly the opposite of exploration, i.e. discovering the unknown!

Visiting star systems in the Heleus Clusters never felt so much like a huge fucking waste of time. Between these animations player is forced to watch every single goddamn time they want to travel from planet to planet, or system to system, I've managed to catch up on some New Vegas let's play vids. Each episode is ~~20mins, so calculate just how much time your average ME fanboy spends on watching this nonsense. Granted, it has been corrected in patch 1.05, but no patch is gonna fix the main issue here. Which is pointlessness of discovering these worlds, unless you're getting timber simply by watching colorful globes with some random flavor text placed next to it, that some theoretical nucleo-quantum-astrono-physicist put to represent highly hypothetical possibilities of existing worlds. There's just too much of this stuff to see. After 10th system, you just can't give a fuck about reading into this info. Hell, there's no point in clicking RMB to scan the planet, because, in most cases, there's no substantial reward for doing this! AT ALL!

So there they go - Combat & Exploration. Only things I've praised about this game. The more time you spend with this game, the worse it gets. The more tedious and insufferable all these menial tasks become and you just feel like, I don't know, writing down the list for tomorrow's visit at supermarket. The game is plagued by the same disease that currently erodes SWTOR. Lack of proper content and grind. Lots of grind. There's grind in motherfucking Singleplayer AAA game with theoretical emphasis on best character-driven action story ever told. At least that's the catch-phrase they used for ME3, which was a big, fat lie.

Who dafq in the sane mind.... would put a fully-randomized quest... with no quest markers, nor info re: possible locations and amounts of items to collect/destroy required for accomplishment of the quest. Who dafq thought it'd be a great idea to have players spend ~~3 hours rolling around same fucking planet, visiting same fucking places filled with same fucking enemies over and over again until they -hopefully- generate the desirable quest item due to favor of RNG gods??? Fortunately for me, I've given up after some 30mins of fruitless search for quest objectives when I found out that BioWare turned Mass Effect into a bloody MMO. Lame one at that, too. Those poor souls on the internet that thought the quest was bugged, though? I pity them. Whoever designed those quests (Each planet haz one, lol.) should be nail'd down through their testicles to a cross made out of lego...

There's so much more 'meh' about this game and I could bitch for more hours than it takes to complete these RNG quests, so I'm gonna wrap up with some positives.

Graphics were amazing. Cinematics were amazing. Music was good. Reyes Vidal is best virtual bae of all time. 5/7 would date him again, regardless of sexual preferences.

My recommendation? Complete this game's story on Normal or lower difficulty and do it like Flash, at a light-speed pace. No point indulging yourselves with lazy MMO mechanics that were only meant to artificially prolongue the gameplay.

That's all.

I almost completely agree. And I went Reyes too, even though I get some of the complaints about him. And I may do 1-2 more playthroughs but that's probably it unless DLC amazes (FemRyder, MainMaleRyder NG+). I'll do Insanity (especially NG+) once there's more content, and I'm assured that later level balancing is better and NG+ quests are fixed.

But I won't have the urge to do several playthroughs, and I'll be glad to leave MEA behind, so far.

Less replayability (in quality and choices) than DAI.

7/10. Only think I'd give it 8/10 if being particularly generous, in a good mood, with good future updates and content.

I'm understanding of 5-6/10, and I'm saddened that I'm even understanding to 5/10s. Damn.

(Though I'm also understanding of 8-9/10s, at least 9s from superfans that really don't feel the mistakes that I feel are there; I won't at all agree though)

Worst ME ever. While surely keeping up with the industry in some ways, sure, it also handicaps itself in chasing for some mythical bigger audience.

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Post by crash23 Tue May 16, 2017 1:21 am

"A lot of people would rather get behind a story than face reality." -Drack
"More of a dream, really. Just one more thing to take apart and figure out." - Jaal
"You must dream of a home of your own." - Ryder
"This is a dream of mine", "I've always dreamed", "keep the dream alive", this is one big nightmare".
"This is what we've always dreamed about..." - Alec

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Post by WeAreHarbinger Tue May 16, 2017 10:19 pm

"Mass Effect Reportedly On "Hiatus," Changes Made At BioWare Montreal"
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/mass-effect-reportedly-on-hiatus-changes-made-at-b/1100-6449945/

Even though this is still rumour, i fully believe this would happen, i expected it...
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