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Messages - fenrif

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631
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 20, 2012, 07:08:15 pm »
Yeah, biotics are pretty light but it goes into enough detail and makes it almost plausible enough to overlook.

Spoiler: The end (click to show/hide)

It's been my experience from having many discussions about this game with various people that it takes a while for the true and complete badness of the ending to sink in. The more you think about it the worse it gets.

632
Other Games / Re: Guild Wars 2: Re-imagining the MMORPG genre
« on: April 20, 2012, 05:47:04 am »
Cannot wait for the 27th.!

633
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 19, 2012, 01:34:13 pm »
Well most technology is abusing physics ;P

Mass Effect tries to be on the "One Big Lie" Spectrum of Science Fiction Hardness, which means it tries to stick to real world physics but has one or two pieces of phlebotinum (eezo in Mass Effect) that it uses to explain the less realistic aspects.

In comparison, you have things which take known and developing world technologies and try to extrapolate from there, whilst sticking as close to what is possible as they can.

For example, take Ghost in the Shell or Deus Ex Human Revolution, which at least try to take what people are trying to do with real life prosthetics and go from there, assuming "major and sudden breakthroughs" in the whole brain-device interface. Assume we have a breakthrough make a learning machine that can be plugged into the brain so the brain and device can learn to work together like it's a limb, suddenly a lot of Human Revolution's augmentations become more plausible.

And you have soft science fiction which basically shrugs and says "science did it" to explain what amounts to space magic.

Mass Effect, at least the first one, did make attempts to be somewhat "hard" outside of "ezzo did it", especially if you read the codex, so those attempts at hardness can be at least considered and scrutinised.

The Mass Effect series tries to be hard sci-fi in the way that McDonalds tries to be gourmet food.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I admit that the first one made a decent attempt at being hard sci-fi, but the 2nd and 3rd game pretty much do away with the "one big lie" concept. It's pretty obvious that they aren't afraid to retcon anything inbetween games though. And then the third just throws away any pretense of the entire series scientific basis being taken seriously.

634
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 19, 2012, 09:03:55 am »
I like to believe the Rachni behave like those pikmin things, just blindly following anyone anywhere, heedless of danger or self preservation. Maybe on their planet they had no predators or natural dangers, and so never evolved a concept of self preservation or common sense.

635
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 19, 2012, 08:38:04 am »
You know what we need?

RACHNI-BASED FTL COMMUNICATION.

No quantum black box. Rachni box. Rachni-with-a-typewriter box.

That's surely the most unsecure form of communication ever devised?
Spoiler (click to show/hide)

636
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 19, 2012, 07:34:16 am »
Yeah, it's in magic brain cancer world, but it clearly states that it's (ab)using an actual property of quantum physics.  If they wanted to magic brain tumor it, they could.  They used real physics, and therefore they're subject to scrutiny using real physics.

Where and in what game did they say this, out of curiosity? Because the way ME handles technology changes pretty drastically from game to game.

637
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 18, 2012, 11:09:22 pm »
That is not the discussion we were having.  We were discussing real world physics, not magical brain tumor world physics.  Believe it or not but sometimes threads in this forum meander as to their topic.

You're discussing the real world physics of a machine that noone has ever built or has any idea how to build, and which exists solely in the realm of science fiction, though? Or has wikipedia lied to me? (wouldn't be the first time)

638
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 18, 2012, 08:25:29 pm »
Except this isn't mystical mass effects and eezo, this is real life quantum entanglement which we know how it works.  It's like having perfectly normal objects stop following parabolic trajectories or having a binomial distribution suddenly give different values.  It doesn't matter if it's science fiction, this is the science part of that label.

Except it is, because you're talking about how this works within the confines of a video game about banging blue space chicks and shooting bad guys with space magic. They have spaceships that enter and leave atmosphere willy-nilly. They have hard-light hologram knife computers. There is literally a new macguffin element that basically works as a "whatever is cool happens now" device. Arguing about the technology of the ME universe is pretty much pointless anyway, as the writers basically change how and why things work depending on whatever the plot calls for.

Look, all I've ever been talking about is the real life practicality of an ansible or whatever name ME uses for it's ansible analogue.  According to the lore, it uses the real life physics of quantum entanglement.  If you want to say a wizard did it that's %100 a-ok and feel free to do it.  But we aren't discussing that because it's a pretty short discussion.

But I'm fairly certain that a quantum entanglement communications device doesn't actually exist anyway? I just wiki-ed it and got "There is no currently known way to build an ansible." Which I'm guessing means that since they exist in ME then obviously we don't understand everything we need to make one... So essentially you're arguing fiction. Even better you're arguing about what a fictional thing MIGHT do outside the realm of what is stated in the source. Once you're in that territory saying "but it works like this in real life so it can't do that" is missing the point. Especially in a universe like ME that basically throws the "science" part of sci-fi out the window at the drop of a hat.

639
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 18, 2012, 06:42:59 pm »
I have no idea if we're talking about IRL quantum entanglement or Mass Effect quantum entanglement any more.

I imagine it varies from person to person. :P

640
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 18, 2012, 06:17:18 pm »
Except this isn't mystical mass effects and eezo, this is real life quantum entanglement which we know how it works.  It's like having perfectly normal objects stop following parabolic trajectories or having a binomial distribution suddenly give different values.  It doesn't matter if it's science fiction, this is the science part of that label.

Except it is, because you're talking about how this works within the confines of a video game about banging blue space chicks and shooting bad guys with space magic. They have spaceships that enter and leave atmosphere willy-nilly. They have hard-light hologram knife computers. There is literally a new macguffin element that basically works as a "whatever is cool happens now" device. Arguing about the technology of the ME universe is pretty much pointless anyway, as the writers basically change how and why things work depending on whatever the plot calls for.




641
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 18, 2012, 01:26:24 pm »
You can do whatever you want with anything you want because mass effect fields and eezo. :P

642
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 18, 2012, 12:00:41 pm »
If ME3 taught us anything, it taught us that games journalists are generally hacks and are not to be paid any heed. Though we all allready knew that...

643
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 18, 2012, 11:07:19 am »
Are you guys arguing about how fictional technology in a sci-fi space opera universe works as if it was real?

644
Other Games / Re: Mass Effect 3
« on: April 17, 2012, 04:05:24 pm »
It feels like they kind of forgot what the Geth are in ME3. There are a lot of instances where I remember just looking at what was happening and thinking "that's not how Geth work!"

That aside, I think the Geth look the way they do because that's how the quarians designed them, so I imagine the big insect looking ones are supposed to be an extension of that? All the geth ships having cockpits and consoles and whatever is just lazy though.

645
Other Games / Re: Games with "Wizard" mode.
« on: April 15, 2012, 11:00:01 pm »
The first Vampire: The Masquerade game let you do this. AFAIK it was the first game with this mode. I think it's called redemption? The one that isn't bloodlines.

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