Reapers should have been stopped in ME1

[Zangetsu]

You know with the whole the citadel is a mass relay to darkspace, there was a signal to the keepers to activate it, the protheans stopped it, and sovereigns entire mission was to manually reactive the citadel. Which you stopped

If it was as easy as manually flying from darkspace, why didnt sovereign just fly back and tell the reapers its go time we got to manually fly back?

2 years later ME2 starts, and ill give it 1 year (being generous) for the events of ME2. Which puts the reaper invasion 3 years after sovereign was defeated.

Didnt virgil (the VI on illios in ME1) say this would trap the reapers in darkspace and this would end the cycle?

ME3 while being the best progression and combat system is by far the worst story. Magic artifact discovered last second on mars, earth is screwed, repears invade, and unite the galaxy to activate it. We dont need to get into the star child problems but honestly I wish the game gave up on the reaper plot and had them as defeated after ME1. Yes I know shepards outtake in ME1 warned the council the reapers are coming but still I think it would have been a better game without them.

[Zangetsu]

Grampire eredeti hozzászólása:

The actual Reaper confrontation was never going to be an interesting or really engrossing event IMO. It has about the same contextual impact as a Godzilla/Mothra battle in a Spaghetti Western. Cool from a distance, but it could never really participate in the Tavern gunfight for obvious reasons.

It's an awkward fit, but it's the backdrop to the Shepard journey which is really what the trilogy is all about anyways.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of the Reaper Arc is that you don't get to use their presence to make a decision over whether you completely annihilate the universe you just participated in or not.

They had to come up with the star child at the end I think is enough said. My point was ME1 established and laid the groundwork for the reaper threat being over. Yes I know that shepards outtake was that it wasnt foreshadowing the reaper theme in games to come, but take that out and the threat could have been stopped with virgils plan.

I think the reaper threat takes away from the main game. With ME2 being pointless besides the arivial DLC to stall the reapers for 6 more months. ME3 boils down to building the secret magic weapon and using it and then the star child. ME1 just stalled the reapers for 3 years give or take.

Who knows what the game would have been like if they went a different direction but I think it would have been for the better

[Booba]

Eratis eredeti hozzászólása:

Well lets be honest here, lot of people didnt like DA2 (exluding other reasons), because it didnt feature end of the world epic adventure. Result was that god awful DAI opening (thanks for refund, EA).

This is the first time I'm hearing this complaint about DA2. The other reasons, the ones we're excluding, were the the main criticisms repeated time and time again: mechanical changes to combat and inventory, limited player character and companion options, being stuck in a repetitious Kirkwall -in short, the fact that the game was a bastardized stamping of the Mass Effect template. (Another point in favor of Grampire's views on the whole corporate mentality, developer/publisher, BioWare/EA relationship. And it's a biggun. ♥♥♥♥.)

[Grampire]

Zangetsu eredeti hozzászólása:

Grampire eredeti hozzászólása:

The actual Reaper confrontation was never going to be an interesting or really engrossing event IMO. It has about the same contextual impact as a Godzilla/Mothra battle in a Spaghetti Western. Cool from a distance, but it could never really participate in the Tavern gunfight for obvious reasons.

It's an awkward fit, but it's the backdrop to the Shepard journey which is really what the trilogy is all about anyways.

Perhaps the most disappointing part of the Reaper Arc is that you don't get to use their presence to make a decision over whether you completely annihilate the universe you just participated in or not.

They had to come up with the star child at the end I think is enough said. My point was ME1 established and laid the groundwork for the reaper threat being over. Yes I know that shepards outtake was that it wasnt foreshadowing the reaper theme in games to come, but take that out and the threat could have been stopped with virgils plan.

I think the reaper threat takes away from the main game. With ME2 being pointless besides the arivial DLC to stall the reapers for 6 more months. ME3 boils down to building the secret magic weapon and using it and then the star child. ME1 just stalled the reapers for 3 years give or take.

Who knows what the game would have been like if they went a different direction but I think it would have been for the better

Sure, that's one way of looking at it, but that cuts both ways. What Mothra and Godzilla are doing in the background doesn't necessarily have to drag down what's going on at the OK Corral either.

Because the Reapers are so disjointed from the trenches in which Shepard is operating, you could make the argument that said trenchwork could be easily transplanted into other subliminal plot devices. If anything, I'd argue the biggest problem said "Star Child" presents is that it robs these unrelated characters' arcs of closure.

If the journey stinks/is great, it could just be because the writing was bad/good. For me, the ending is bad because it barely exists and is too busy being cringingly pseudophilosophical to care about the stories it should be attempting to resolve.

[Zangetsu]

Grampire eredeti hozzászólása:

Zangetsu eredeti hozzászólása:

They had to come up with the star child at the end I think is enough said. My point was ME1 established and laid the groundwork for the reaper threat being over. Yes I know that shepards outtake was that it wasnt foreshadowing the reaper theme in games to come, but take that out and the threat could have been stopped with virgils plan.

I think the reaper threat takes away from the main game. With ME2 being pointless besides the arivial DLC to stall the reapers for 6 more months. ME3 boils down to building the secret magic weapon and using it and then the star child. ME1 just stalled the reapers for 3 years give or take.

Who knows what the game would have been like if they went a different direction but I think it would have been for the better

Sure, that's one way of looking at it, but that cuts both ways. What Mothra and Godzilla are doing in the background doesn't necessarily have to drag down what's going on at the OK Corral either.

Because the Reapers are so disjointed from the trenches in which Shepard is operating, you could make the argument that said trenchwork could be easily transplanted into other subliminal plot devices. If anything, I'd argue the biggest problem said "Star Child" presents is that it robs these unrelated characters' arcs of closure.

If the journey stinks/is great, it could just be because the writing was bad/good. For me, the ending is bad because it barely exists and is too busy being cringingly pseudophilosophical to care about the stories it should be attempting to resolve.

Yes taking agency away from shepard and killing suspension of disbelief was an issue. I mean its super techno advanced AI that have been around for millions (?) of years. Of course any resolution that stopped them is suspect and them wiping us out with nothing we can do would also be an issue. They wrote themselves into a corner but the reaper threat should have been resolved in ME1 is the point with virgils plan. The story was pointing to it coming to a close with only minor foreshadowing with the last thing you said to the council (If you saved them).

[Simple Kind of Man]

Zangetsu eredeti hozzászólása:

Grampire eredeti hozzászólása:

Sure, that's one way of looking at it, but that cuts both ways. What Mothra and Godzilla are doing in the background doesn't necessarily have to drag down what's going on at the OK Corral either.

Because the Reapers are so disjointed from the trenches in which Shepard is operating, you could make the argument that said trenchwork could be easily transplanted into other subliminal plot devices. If anything, I'd argue the biggest problem said "Star Child" presents is that it robs these unrelated characters' arcs of closure.

If the journey stinks/is great, it could just be because the writing was bad/good. For me, the ending is bad because it barely exists and is too busy being cringingly pseudophilosophical to care about the stories it should be attempting to resolve.

Yes taking agency away from shepard and killing suspension of disbelief was an issue. I mean its super techno advanced AI that have been around for millions (?) of years. Of course any resolution that stopped them is suspect and them wiping us out with nothing we can do would also be an issue. They wrote themselves into a corner but the reaper threat should have been resolved in ME1 is the point with virgils plan. The story was pointing to it coming to a close with only minor foreshadowing with the last thing you said to the council (If you saved them).

YA ITS DEFF BETTER to wright off the main bad guy game one......and make up a new one every game, nothing bad about that right? still the minority if you did not like it ;P

[Simple Kind of Man]

This would be like asking LOTR to just fly the ring to Mordor in the 1st move then come up with some filler for the other 2....If your going to make a game( or move) with the intent of having 2 or 3 more you wright it to have a good theam or connection for all the games

Not many moves or games did well when they lost there directon or there one good antagonist....IE ME 123 worked most liked them(dos not mean you had too)MEA was a flop(for plenty of things) but mostly cuz it lost its self identity they could have called it another name and it proly would have been fine.

[Booba]

Zangetsu eredeti hozzászólása:

Yes taking agency away from shepard and killing suspension of disbelief was an issue. I mean its super techno advanced AI that have been around for millions (?) of years. Of course any resolution that stopped them is suspect and them wiping us out with nothing we can do would also be an issue. They wrote themselves into a corner but the reaper threat should have been resolved in ME1 is the point with virgils plan. The story was pointing to it coming to a close with only minor foreshadowing with the last thing you said to the council (If you saved them).

The Reapers were never meant to be present as a horde; that seems clear enough. They were this looming threat in dark space: the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the Council races. Like the legions of Hell, they manipulate the galaxy through their agents and try to open their portal to the mortal realms: Sovereign and Saren, the Collectors and Human Reaper, and finally, in the third game, the Illusive Man and a Cerberus-made Reaper.

At least, I would bet dollars-to-donuts that was the way Mass Effect 3 was originally envisioned. Then one of the writers left (clearly the only one with critical thinking ability) and we end up with Reapers on Earth, a Shepherd blown up to the scale of Godzilla even as Reapers are squeezed into trenches, and way too much salt.

Oh well. At least the vocal "majority" like their poop with peanuts.

[Zangetsu]

Lord_Of_Death eredeti hozzászólása:

This would be like asking LOTR to just fly the ring to Mordor in the 1st move then come up with some filler for the other 2....If your going to make a game( or move) with the intent of having 2 or 3 more you wright it to have a good theam or connection for all the games

Not many moves or games did well when they lost there directon or there one good antagonist....IE ME 123 worked most liked them(dos not mean you had too)MEA was a flop(for plenty of things) but mostly cuz it lost its self identity they could have called it another name and it proly would have been fine.

Not really, game was setup to deal with the reaper threat in the first game. The collectors could have been a theme still for ME2 and ME3 had a whole galaxy of creativity to think of something. As it stands the events in ME2 were pointless besides the arrival DLC to stall the reapers. The collector base had no impact on the reaper invasion in ME3 and nothing changed besides context if you gave the base to cerebus or not.

[Grampire]

Zangetsu eredeti hozzászólása:

Lord_Of_Death eredeti hozzászólása:

This would be like asking LOTR to just fly the ring to Mordor in the 1st move then come up with some filler for the other 2....If your going to make a game( or move) with the intent of having 2 or 3 more you wright it to have a good theam or connection for all the games

Not many moves or games did well when they lost there directon or there one good antagonist....IE ME 123 worked most liked them(dos not mean you had too)MEA was a flop(for plenty of things) but mostly cuz it lost its self identity they could have called it another name and it proly would have been fine.

Not really, game was setup to deal with the reaper threat in the first game. The collectors could have been a theme still for ME2 and ME3 had a whole galaxy of creativity to think of something. As it stands the events in ME2 were pointless besides the arrival DLC to stall the reapers. The collector base had no impact on the reaper invasion in ME3 and nothing changed besides context if you gave the base to cerebus or not.

I think you're right, and that's probably why ME2 is so highly regarded.

You could make the arguement that while The reapers might be driving the Collector's agenda they're still enough of an abstraction to seem like a separate threat, leaving more room for the characters and their less urgent side-quests.

In a way, ME2 is, more or less, an example of what you're asking for I think. Its only "pointless" if you look at the collectors as part of the direct Reaper threat (which is ironically what the writers are asking you to do). But they take a backseat more in 2 than in either of the other games, really.

[Diomedes]

Zangetsu eredeti hozzászólása:

You know with the whole the citadel is a mass relay to darkspace, there was a signal to the keepers to activate it, the protheans stopped it, and sovereigns entire mission was to manually reactive the citadel. Which you stopped

If it was as easy as manually flying from darkspace, why didnt sovereign just fly back and tell the reapers its go time we got to manually fly back?

2 years later ME2 starts, and ill give it 1 year (being generous) for the events of ME2. Which puts the reaper invasion 3 years after sovereign was defeated.

Didnt virgil (the VI on illios in ME1) say this would trap the reapers in darkspace and this would end the cycle?

ME3 while being the best progression and combat system is by far the worst story. Magic artifact discovered last second on mars, earth is screwed, repears invade, and unite the galaxy to activate it. We dont need to get into the star child problems but honestly I wish the game gave up on the reaper plot and had them as defeated after ME1. Yes I know shepards outtake in ME1 warned the council the reapers are coming but still I think it would have been a better game without them.

Because they are machines, and this was their plan that worked all the way up to that point.. The Proteans changed the cycle, that with out them everyone would have been wiped out again.
Vigil was only a Protean program, so they knew barely more than what Shepard knew at that point when it came to the Reapers.. So Vigil could not make that conclusion...
Because it was about wiping out their leadership in one surprise attack, leading to a galaxy that can be conquered far more quickly.... The Citadel, relays etc, is a elaborate set up for the Reapers to harvest people, it was only at the end that Shepard was able to foil their attack in the first game.
There was no reason for Sovereign to do that, it is clear in every game, that the Reapers underestimate Shepard and look down on organics.. That even with the inability to communicate with the Citadel, it was still deemed as a non issue for Sovereign to go in manually.

[Zangetsu]

Diomedes eredeti hozzászólása:

Zangetsu eredeti hozzászólása:

You know with the whole the citadel is a mass relay to darkspace, there was a signal to the keepers to activate it, the protheans stopped it, and sovereigns entire mission was to manually reactive the citadel. Which you stopped

If it was as easy as manually flying from darkspace, why didnt sovereign just fly back and tell the reapers its go time we got to manually fly back?

2 years later ME2 starts, and ill give it 1 year (being generous) for the events of ME2. Which puts the reaper invasion 3 years after sovereign was defeated.

Didnt virgil (the VI on illios in ME1) say this would trap the reapers in darkspace and this would end the cycle?

ME3 while being the best progression and combat system is by far the worst story. Magic artifact discovered last second on mars, earth is screwed, repears invade, and unite the galaxy to activate it. We dont need to get into the star child problems but honestly I wish the game gave up on the reaper plot and had them as defeated after ME1. Yes I know shepards outtake in ME1 warned the council the reapers are coming but still I think it would have been a better game without them.

Because they are machines, and this was their plan that worked all the way up to that point.. The Proteans changed the cycle, that with out them everyone would have been wiped out again.
Vigil was only a Protean program, so they knew barely more than what Shepard knew at that point when it came to the Reapers.. So Vigil could not make that conclusion...
Because it was about wiping out their leadership in one surprise attack, leading to a galaxy that can be conquered far more quickly.... The Citadel, relays etc, is a elaborate set up for the Reapers to harvest people, it was only at the end that Shepard was able to foil their attack in the first game.
There was no reason for Sovereign to do that, it is clear in every game, that the Reapers underestimate Shepard and look down on organics.. That even with the inability to communicate with the Citadel, it was still deemed as a non issue for Sovereign to go in manually.

A plot hole was that it was heavily implied that soviergn tried to trigger the attack a long time ago (a thousand years?) in ME1 but the keeper signal was stopped by the protheans. He was patient and waited to use the citadel mass relay to get the reapers from darkspace instead of taking the 3 1/2 years to fly back and 3 1/2 years to fly with the reapers to invade manually.

The plot hole is that sovereigns destruction just had the reapers lol and come over 3 1/2 years later regardless but sovereign spent a thousand years waiting patiently for his plan.

If ME`1 never happened and ME3 was the only game, while there wouldnt have been setup the mars ruins artifact and uniting the galaxy to build it and stop the reapers could still have happened. Thus making the events of ME1 only serve to buy 3 1/2 years and the events of ME2 besides the arrival to be pointless in comparison to the reaper threat.

What if ME2 never happened reaper invasion would have still occurred and the collectors would have been a minor war asset to the reapers but not needed.

ME2s story could have existed on its own as a separate threat that needed to be dealt with with nothing to do with the reapers if it wanted. If ME3 didnt go forward with the reapers a new threat would have to be created of course but there is an entire galaxy to work with. ME1 set it up so the reaper threat was over and done with is my point besides the last words of shepard foreshadowing them.

[barzai]

Macinjosh eredeti hozzászólása:

The relay in the citadel wasn't the end of the Reapers' plans. It was just a shortcut. Also, it wouldn't have been a 'better game' without Reapers. Once you introduce galaxy-ending BBEGs into the mix, throwing in street-level crime or political intrigue would pale in comparison.

I was going to make that point, but you made it for me! :-)

[Booba]

Mass Effect 1 eredeti hozzászólása:

Vigil: But this time, the signal failed. The Keepers did not respond. Sovereign’s allies were trapped in the void. Alone, it was forced to try and discover what had gone wrong.

Shepard: Sovereign’s the largest ship in the galaxy. Why all this secrecy? Why not just attack the Citadel?

Vigil: Sovereign is not invincible. Revealing its true nature would have united the forces of every organic species against it. Even a Reaper couldn’t survive such odds.

But the Reapers are patient. They will not rush into the unknown. Sovereign could have been planning this for centuries, moving deliberately, gathering allies.

The amount of time Sovereign spent planning his attack on the Citadel is ambiguous but the fact that centuries is even floated as a possibility knocks a Reaper-sized hole in the plot of Arrival and Mass Effect 3.

[Alex_x86]

Scuba Steve eredeti hozzászólása:

The Reapers were never meant to be present as a horde; that seems clear enough. They were this looming threat in dark space: the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the Council races. Like the legions of Hell, they manipulate the galaxy through their agents and try to open their portal to the mortal realms: Sovereign and Saren, the Collectors and Human Reaper, and finally, in the third game, the Illusive Man and a Cerberus-made Reaper.

At least, I would bet dollars-to-donuts that was the way Mass Effect 3 was originally envisioned. Then one of the writers left (clearly the only one with critical thinking ability) and we end up with Reapers on Earth, a Shepherd blown up to the scale of Godzilla even as Reapers are squeezed into trenches, and way too much salt.

Oh well. At least the vocal "majority" like their poop with peanuts.

Yep. My biggest gripe with ME3 (aside from Deus Ex ending) was that it was established in earlier games that Reapers were slowly (few centuries) conquering the Prothean Empire (even Javik says he was born during the war) yet in ME3 they zerg-rushed the whole known Galaxy in a few days.

However the other huge issue I have with ME3 is that if Citadel was a control node (basically this flows from the claims of a Starchild) of the Reapers why didn't it open itself in the 1st game? A bit too convoluted for an all-mighty ancient AI.

[Zangetsu]

Alex_x86 eredeti hozzászólása:

Scuba Steve eredeti hozzászólása:

The Reapers were never meant to be present as a horde; that seems clear enough. They were this looming threat in dark space: the sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the Council races. Like the legions of Hell, they manipulate the galaxy through their agents and try to open their portal to the mortal realms: Sovereign and Saren, the Collectors and Human Reaper, and finally, in the third game, the Illusive Man and a Cerberus-made Reaper.

At least, I would bet dollars-to-donuts that was the way Mass Effect 3 was originally envisioned. Then one of the writers left (clearly the only one with critical thinking ability) and we end up with Reapers on Earth, a Shepherd blown up to the scale of Godzilla even as Reapers are squeezed into trenches, and way too much salt.

Oh well. At least the vocal "majority" like their poop with peanuts.

Yep. My biggest gripe with ME3 (aside from Deus Ex ending) was that it was established in earlier games that Reapers were slowly (few centuries) conquering the Prothean Empire (even Javik says he was born during the war) yet in ME3 they zerg-rushed the whole known Galaxy in a few days.

However the other huge issue I have with ME3 is that if Citadel was a control node (basically this flows from the claims of a Starchild) of the Reapers why didn't it open itself in the 1st game? A bit too convoluted for an all-mighty ancient AI.

Im still playing through ME3 ive beaten ME1 and 2 recently havent played 3 in years though. But its a bit strange that the citadel does whatever it does with the star child AND is a mass relay to dark space AND is designed to be the galactic hub for organics with the keepers being unknowable and keeping them in the dark about the tech.

The fact that the star child would let shepard decide the fate of the reapers to the point of even allowing him to destroy them or control them is mind boggling and asinine. I like the happy ending mod last time I played where there was no star child, no decision at the end. You just plug it in and it destroys the reapers shepard survives and there is a happy ending that sums up all your choices and consequences.