Mass Effect 2

[Aaron]

The Asari flagship is the only of its class. Although we didn't get comparisons from the final cutscene, we do know that the human military is on par with / superior to the Turian military man for man and ship for ship, since we held our own in the first contact war and were only losing because of superior Turian numbers.

Well, kind of hard to argue with that.

[GuppyShark]

The only evidence in the Codex to that effect is that human losses were slightly lower than Turian. This was regarded as 'extraordinary military capability'.

Neither side had accurate intelligence. Turian doctrine is very conservative, and they had logistical issues severe enough to warrant mention in the Codex.

There are many factors that can explain the result of the conflict without imagining humanity's technology immediately reached galactic standard.

We know bugger all about the war so all we can do is make assumptions.

[Gramzamber]

Well there can't have been that great of a disparity or the Turians would've steamrolled them.
And the Turians being conservative? These are a people who not only shot at the humans rather than stop and explain to them why activating mass relays willy-nilly is bad, but then chose to follow the surviving ship back to it's home colony and invaded it.

[adam_grif]

Either way, human tech was within spitting distance of the Turians. Even if we accept moderately inferior human tech and say it was all tactics that put us in front, it's not exactly what strikes me as "1000 years ahead". Think about it, the Turians were space-faring and had FTL travel when we were in the middle ages. The Asari were there circa 1 CE. The Krogan had nuclear weaponry circa 1900 BCE.

Given that there obviously is lots of tech to discover (reapers are so advanced, Protheans were much more advanced, collectors in ME2 have lots of much more advanced tech), this can only be explained as some kind of bizarre technological stasis. Or possibly by further bioware failings.

[GuppyShark]

Weapons fire is the only universal language.

[Gramzamber]

Given that there obviously is lots of tech to discover (reapers are so advanced, Protheans were much more advanced, collectors in ME2 have lots of much more advanced tech), this can only be explained as some kind of bizarre technological stasis. Or possibly by further bioware failings.

Oddly this stasis is expected by the Reapers it seems, who's entire plan is base on new species finding the Citadel/relays/etc. and reaching a level of technology that has been precisely planned for them to have, "you developed along the lines we have laid out" or something like that. In this way the Reapers know exactly what we have and can easily counter it.
Precisely why nobody has ever moved on from that is.. well yes, probably bad writing.

[adam_grif]

Seems to me they could just steamroll around the galaxy while everybody is at an inferior tech level without any concerns. No matter what the reapers are after, it doesn't make sense. If they're expecting people's technology to plateau, they can't be after new tech advances. They already have an ample supply of slaves if they wanted organic labor (god knows why). I don't think they have the balls to rip of the Inhibitor's motives (which aren't that great to begin with).

What the fuck do the reapers want?

[Aaron]

Oddly this stasis is expected by the Reapers it seems, who's entire plan is base on new species finding the Citadel/relays/etc. and reaching a level of technology that has been precisely planned for them to have, "you developed along the lines we have laid out" or something like that. In this way the Reapers know exactly what we have and can easily counter it.
Precisely why nobody has ever moved on from that is.. well yes, probably bad writing.

Sovereign is monitoring them though, is he not?

That was the impression that I got from the game, so he can call in the rest of the Reapers if that starts to happen.

[Gramzamber]

Sovereign is monitoring them though, is he not?

That was the impression that I got from the game, so he can call in the rest of the Reapers if that starts to happen.

I gathered that most of the time, Sovereign was in stasis like it's brethren in darkspace, awakening every few millenia to see if the galaxy was "ripe" so to speak.

[adam_grif]

I dunno. They didn't call in the kill on the Protheans until they were significantly more advanced than the current citadel species were, yet Sovereign tried to wipe them out decades before the events of the game. Supposedly it's just every 50,000 years.

[Gramzamber]

I dunno. They didn't call in the kill on the Protheans until they were significantly more advanced than the current citadel species were, yet Sovereign tried to wipe them out decades before the events of the game. Supposedly it's just every 50,000 years.

Perhaps the Reapers showed a little bit of sense in their miniscule minds and realised they left the Protheans a little too late, and so the next batch should be taken care of a little earlier.
They were after all on the verge of reverse-engineering mass relays (the Reaper's plans also hinge on taking control of the relays so this wouldn't be desirable), and the scientists on Ilos eventually screwed them over anyway.

[adam_grif]

Perhaps. Not sure I'm prepared to give them that much credit though...

[Ford Prefect]

Humans stole prothean tech, just like everyone else. Everyone is retarded EQUALLY.

What's hilarious is that the Normandy, by far the most advanced vessel in the Verge isp retty much packed full of Turian technology and design and Shepard is pretty convinced it's lightyears better than anything in the alliance Navy. And yet otherwise humans are billions of times more innovative than everyone else. Hilarious, Bioware.

[Vendetta]

Did you even play the game? The Keepers were not a security flaw - the Protheans fixed that.

So, a black box system performing unspecified tasks in sensitive areas in the middle of your seat of government and you think this is not a security flaw?

Hell, merely by existing and being there they're a security risk. You wanna know about what's going on absolutely everywhere on the Citadel? Find a way to bug the Keepers.

[Gramzamber]

So, a black box system performing unspecified tasks in sensitive areas in the middle of your seat of government and you think this is not a security flaw?

Hell, merely by existing and being there they're a security risk. You wanna know about what's going on absolutely everywhere on the Citadel? Find a way to bug the Keepers.

It's an unknown factor, sure. But one that's never harmed them.
There's also the weird attitude the Council races have with the Protheans, that they're infallible space gods.

[Vympel]

Re: the cutscene where missiles are used, that's an error, the animation was completed and it was too late to change it when they told the animators the error they had made, so says 'Word of God'.

[Starglider]

Re: the cutscene where missiles are used, that's an error, the animation was completed and it was too late to change it when they told the animators the error they had made, so says 'Word of God'.

Stark is well aware of that, he just likes bitching about it. Hopefully they will get their act together for the cutscenes in the sequels, at which point the fireball broadsides in the first will be an ignorable oddity. That said, no doubt the cutscenes will still have ships fighting at ludicrously close range, just like all other mass-market visual sci-fi.

[Stark]

That's because it's fucking hilariously incompetent. Nobody checked the cutscenes, ever, or even communicated with the guys they farmed it out to! Why would they? Poor old Bioware, can't even keep their game-irrelevant fluff consistent with their own guys. If only they had a single competent project manager in their entire company?

And frankly under SOD I don't give a flying fuck what some Bioware idiot says. They fucked up; missiles are the primary weapon in Mass Effect, as shown throughout the game. If Lucas said turbolasers were little pictures of bunnies would anyone give a shit?

[Gramzamber]

Having spoken with some of the writers on their forums, I can guess from their attitude that they just changed their minds at the last minute and blame the effects guys for not psychically knowing ahead of time that they should do it differently.

[Stark]

Really? They seem far more enamored with their irrelevant world-building, codex-filling fluff background nonsense than the actual game. It would not surprise me at all if they made up their tech level very early in development and simply assumed everyone was being told what they needed to know.

[adam_grif]

I remember the first time I watched the final battle cutscene, at that point I'd been following the Codex entries pretty closely. I was gobsmacked. They had pages of info about how combat took place at huge distances with big mass accelerator cannons. Then it happens and it's all fuckin' missiles fired at spitting distance. Hugely disappointing.

But oh well. I heard that there will be space battles in 2, but only semi-interactive ones. Apparently battles will go differently based on which upgrades you've made to the Normandy, giving it more battle capabilities. I'm questioning the wisdom of this, nothing is lamer in an action RPG than grinding. And grinding I'll have to do, because I'm paranoid about permanent character death.

[Stark]

If they were smart they'd make it a tradeoff system where you built the ship for a role instead of 'get magic guns = more damage', but it's Bioware so they probably won't. Even with a simple pay-for-ability system Starflight was fine really; it depends what they make available.

[Aaron]

I'm interested to see if they will do the same for the new APC.

[Stark]

Can we say 'pontoons'? 'Ice runners'?

[Aaron]

Can we say 'pontoons'? 'Ice runners'?

Maybe tracks that transform into pontoons, ice runners and wheels depending on the terrain.