your sultry voice makes me think for a second that you're not evil
TIM is a good fellow. I don't know why everyone thinks he's so evil. Don't be naive and foolishly idealistic. He's willing to make hard choices for the good of humanity, and thus the galaxy.
My conclusions lean toward that train of thought as well. Still, I'm not ruling out the possibility that his idealism won't eventually lead him to become space Hitler.
That's probably the right word, idealism. His is just a different kind of idealism, based in naked practicality. If anyone's ever played Planescape: Torment he reminds me a bit of the practical incarnation. Everything that could have a purpose is saved and made use of, and the means are completely irrelevant so long as the ends are reached. Morality isn't an issue to him in any decision, which makes him just as dangerous.
If you read Ascension, you'll see how big a fucking asshole he is. And, well, everything you learn about Cerby on ME1 is fucking awful too. Cerberus might have lofty goals, but their methods are a hundred times more renegade than renegade. And they always come up with the "they went rogue" excuse whenever Shep finds out about their douchebaggery.
Never read the books, but agree about ME1, which is why I could never trust Cerberus for anything. People seem to keep forgetting about what happened to Admiral Kohaku and his crew.
That said, his decisions aren't made out of malice but out of expediency. Which is why whilst I can't necessary call him directly evil, that doesn't change the fact that he's frikkin dangers and not to be trusted.
10-1 odds are that Joker's letting the AI loose is going to come back to bite the crew because of whatever hooks TIM's got in it. Not really the AI's fault, it doesn't really know about it, and as far as TIM's concerned it's just an additional protection on his investments.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Shepard's got a built in kill switch on him. Or one was intended for him but he woke up too soon before it could be implanted.
Is it easier to do an insanity run fresh with a level 1 character? Ive heard that playing a + game scales enemies and makes it too hard. Also Im playing my first paragon run as a soldier, whats a good class for insanity? Preferably something with incinerate cos I need that ahievement.
Its kind of funny I found myself getting annoyed at my squadmates for taking out enemies shields before I got a chance to overload them, what have I become?
Just like I posted above tangentially, Insanity scales to your level so that it's possible to play through it from level 1. I did Insanity with my adept from level 5. It is different than level 30, the game does account for the fact you don't have all the powers evolved and such.
As for which class to play through, that's a matter of taste. Soldier and Sentinel have an easier time going through it. Adept and Vanguard not as much. Engineer is a mixed bag.
They're all do-able though, so that's not really an issue.
your sultry voice makes me think for a second that you're not evil
TIM is a good fellow. I don't know why everyone thinks he's so evil. Don't be naive and foolishly idealistic. He's willing to make hard choices for the good of humanity, and thus the galaxy.
My conclusions lean toward that train of thought as well. Still, I'm not ruling out the possibility that his idealism won't eventually lead him to become space Hitler.
That's probably the right word, idealism. His is just a different kind of idealism, based in naked practicality. If anyone's ever played Planescape: Torment he reminds me a bit of the practical incarnation. Everything that could have a purpose is saved and made use of, and the means are completely irrelevant so long as the ends are reached. Morality isn't an issue to him in any decision, which makes him just as dangerous.
If you read Ascension, you'll see how big a fucking asshole he is. And, well, everything you learn about Cerby on ME1 is fucking awful too. Cerberus might have lofty goals, but their methods are a hundred times more renegade than renegade. And they always come up with the "they went rogue" excuse whenever Shep finds out about their douchebaggery.
Didn't read Ascension, and didn't pay much attention to non-main story items in ME1. *shrugs*
It's not like being 100x more renegade than renegade is some sort of inherit bad thing. It's not like choosing Paragon over Renegade is a choice of good over evil, or right over wrong, after all. And people DO go rogue from time to time, after all. Particularly when they're working in isolated cells with broad mandates, and little-to-no specifics in regards to ethical bindings on getting the job done.
As I said above, they are complete monsters. But in the current galactic climate, they're needed.
your sultry voice makes me think for a second that you're not evil
TIM is a good fellow. I don't know why everyone thinks he's so evil. Don't be naive and foolishly idealistic. He's willing to make hard choices for the good of humanity, and thus the galaxy.
My conclusions lean toward that train of thought as well. Still, I'm not ruling out the possibility that his idealism won't eventually lead him to become space Hitler.
That's probably the right word, idealism. His is just a different kind of idealism, based in naked practicality. If anyone's ever played Planescape: Torment he reminds me a bit of the practical incarnation. Everything that could have a purpose is saved and made use of, and the means are completely irrelevant so long as the ends are reached. Morality isn't an issue to him in any decision, which makes him just as dangerous.
If you read Ascension, you'll see how big a fucking asshole he is. And, well, everything you learn about Cerby on ME1 is fucking awful too. Cerberus might have lofty goals, but their methods are a hundred times more renegade than renegade. And they always come up with the "they went rogue" excuse whenever Shep finds out about their douchebaggery.
Didn't read Ascension, and didn't pay much attention to non-main story items in ME1. *shrugs*
It's not like being 100x more renegade than renegade is some sort of inherit bad thing. It's not like choosing Paragon over Renegade is a choice of good over evil, or right over wrong, after all. And people DO go rogue from time to time, after all. Particularly when they're working in isolated cells with broad mandates, and little-to-no specifics in regards to ethical bindings on getting the job done.
As I said above, they are complete monsters. But in the current galactic climate, they're needed.
Not really. There's ways to skirt the lines of renegade actions while retaining the humanity you're trying to save. TIM just doesn't give a crap, nor does his organization. With some light prodding, even the Council in it's current state could be made to keep everyone safe (as seen in the first game). You don't have to rely on an organization seemingly bent on galactic dominance to save you.
A product of the times I'd say, especially since there's a lot of things the council is outright just not dealing with.
I mean their solution to AIs is to ban it, to genetic engineering is to ban it. They don't regulate things that have caused problems in the past, they just try to pretend they don't exist. The Krogan are an ongoing testament to this - they've never answered what to do about any fast-replicating species.
EDIT: Hell take it further
The bartender on Illium notes the Asari showed no interest in building their own Mass Relays, whereas it's something you'd think the species should be very very interested in.
It's the same story with the Citadel - everyone living on it, yet overall interest in how it works is non-existent. Hence the entire threat of Mass Effect 1. The Council races simply aren't trying to drive technology through it's dangerous points (with appropriate regulation) to advance themselves, they're just banning everything they don't like.
your sultry voice makes me think for a second that you're not evil
TIM is a good fellow. I don't know why everyone thinks he's so evil. Don't be naive and foolishly idealistic. He's willing to make hard choices for the good of humanity, and thus the galaxy.
My conclusions lean toward that train of thought as well. Still, I'm not ruling out the possibility that his idealism won't eventually lead him to become space Hitler.
That's probably the right word, idealism. His is just a different kind of idealism, based in naked practicality. If anyone's ever played Planescape: Torment he reminds me a bit of the practical incarnation. Everything that could have a purpose is saved and made use of, and the means are completely irrelevant so long as the ends are reached. Morality isn't an issue to him in any decision, which makes him just as dangerous.
If you read Ascension, you'll see how big a fucking asshole he is. And, well, everything you learn about Cerby on ME1 is fucking awful too. Cerberus might have lofty goals, but their methods are a hundred times more renegade than renegade. And they always come up with the "they went rogue" excuse whenever Shep finds out about their douchebaggery.
Didn't read Ascension, and didn't pay much attention to non-main story items in ME1. *shrugs*
It's not like being 100x more renegade than renegade is some sort of inherit bad thing. It's not like choosing Paragon over Renegade is a choice of good over evil, or right over wrong, after all. And people DO go rogue from time to time, after all. Particularly when they're working in isolated cells with broad mandates, and little-to-no specifics in regards to ethical bindings on getting the job done.
As I said above, they are complete monsters. But in the current galactic climate, they're needed.
Not really. There's ways to skirt the lines of renegade actions while retaining the humanity you're trying to save. TIM just doesn't give a crap, nor does his organization. With some light prodding, even the Council in it's current state could be made to keep everyone safe (as seen in the first game). You don't have to rely on an organization seemingly bent on galactic dominance to save you.
Eh. At least they were needed.
And as for the Council? Sure.
Given the last shot at the end of the game, they'll probably come around to Shepard's way of thinking. Though i'm sure Udina'll still try to deny it.
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
I kind of wish games did away with the "set your own difficulty", and someone programmed in an automatic adjustable difficulty, so that the game auto-scales based on some basic parameters regarding how quickly the player is going through the game, how many times they're getting hit, being out of ammo, how many times they die, etc. and simply do the difficulty thing in the background.
Somewhat similar to how the game scales towards your level (Insanity at level 5 is not the same as Insanity at level 30) automatically without ever asking you.
Though I'd assume that would be a tad harder to balance and implement.
Oh well.
Isn't that what the AI director in the Left 4 Dead games does? Gives you more ammo and health when you're doing badly, then sends hordes of zombies to rape you as soon as you've healed yourself.
Some of the ways they do things is, but definitely not the whole ideal they represent I don't think.
Also, I believe ME2 paints Cerberus and the Illusive man as monstrous as the Reapers.
Dominance of a species at any cost. With the comments from Legion regarding different paths to the same objective, and the Heretics as the juxtaposition of the Perseus Veil Geth, Illusive Man is one of the Heretics.
I kind of wish games did away with the "set your own difficulty", and someone programmed in an automatic adjustable difficulty, so that the game auto-scales based on some basic parameters regarding how quickly the player is going through the game, how many times they're getting hit, being out of ammo, how many times they die, etc. and simply do the difficulty thing in the background.
Somewhat similar to how the game scales towards your level (Insanity at level 5 is not the same as Insanity at level 30) automatically without ever asking you.
Though I'd assume that would be a tad harder to balance and implement.
Oh well.
Isn't that what the AI director in the Left 4 Dead games does? Gives you more ammo and health when you're doing badly, then sends hordes of zombies to rape you as soon as you've healed yourself.
Yes, I believe so.
A version of that in single player games would be good for some experimentation regarding difficulties and such.
A product of the times I'd say, especially since there's a lot of things the council is outright just not dealing with.
I mean their solution to AIs is to ban it, to genetic engineering is to ban it. They don't regulate things that have caused problems in the past, they just try to pretend they don't exist. The Krogan are an ongoing testament to this - they've never answered what to do about any fast-replicating species.
RE: The Krogans
That was more a Salarian issue than a Council issue. Mordin's pretty blunt about it. The Salarians uplifted the Krogan's far too early, before they were ever ready to take their place on the galactic stage. It was a move borne of desperation, but it still meant that the Krogan's were never given the chance they needed to develop as a society. That lead to problems later on, and the Salarians had to enact another imperfect solution in order to try and bring the situation back under control
And the council is no less a product of its time, just in a different direction to organisations like Cerberus. It's easy to dismiss them for what they haven't done in the context of the games, but they've done far more to maintain galactic cohesion in a universe that by all rights probably should've torn itself apart under a dozen racial and imperialistic wars a long time ago.
It's hard to evaluate the council because we don't really know anything about the pre-council era (if indeed there really was one; the first game left me with the impression that after the asari found the citadel they formed a government pretty similar to what exists now, and just added the other races as they arrived on the scene. That being said the council hasn't exactly ushered in an age of peace and harmony, they just made the factions that were fighting bigger.
(also I still would like a good explanation of how a war actually goes down in the ME universe, without it involving the defensive side just mining/camping out on the mass relays and waiting for the opposition to come through and get popped.)
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
The Council may be a pain in the ass, but it's still better to work together with other aliens to defeat the reapers than to essentially espouse ultra-genocide of all species of anything that isn't human. Oh yes, that is the TIM agenda once the reapers are gone.
It's hard to evaluate the council because we don't really know anything about the pre-council era (if indeed there really was one; the first game left me with the impression that after the asari found the citadel they formed a government pretty similar to what exists now, and just added the other races as they arrived on the scene. That being said the council hasn't exactly ushered in an age of peace and harmony, they just made the factions that were fighting bigger.
(also I still would like a good explanation of how a war actually goes down in the ME universe, without it involving the defensive side just mining/camping out on the mass relays and waiting for the opposition to come through and get popped.)
Is it really relevant though?
An ever persisting world, species waking up from their primordial soups left by the Protheans and countless other races - evolution without co-operation, wouldn't there be constant war without any kind of an agreement on how to live together?
Some form of the Council is necessary, no?
Also, Krogan nuclear'd Turian colonies from orbit, that's one way to go about it.
The wikia provides useful glimpses into how war is handled in ME, especially by different species.
The Council may be a pain in the ass, but it's still better to work together with other aliens to defeat the reapers than to essentially espouse ultra-genocide of all species of anything that isn't human. Oh yes, that is the TIM agenda once the reapers are gone.
Not genocide, dominance. There's a difference.
The elimination of all other species isn't the necessary goal, human dominance in that sphere is. Eliminating the other races, aside from being impossible, is wasteful and impractical.
It's hard to evaluate the council because we don't really know anything about the pre-council era (if indeed there really was one; the first game left me with the impression that after the asari found the citadel they formed a government pretty similar to what exists now, and just added the other races as they arrived on the scene. That being said the council hasn't exactly ushered in an age of peace and harmony, they just made the factions that were fighting bigger.
(also I still would like a good explanation of how a war actually goes down in the ME universe, without it involving the defensive side just mining/camping out on the mass relays and waiting for the opposition to come through and get popped.)
This is actually explained in ME2.
You can't camp a relay, because the relays are not precision instruments and they're not controlled instruments. They accept commands from anyone, and transit whatever mass they're told to. They do not do it accurately - they shoot people into volumes of space that are arbitrarily large in the target system - millions of km's across. That is a huge volume of space to try and mine or defend, and ships can go FTL immediately once they arrive.
It appears to take an extremely careful use of the Mass Relay, or special code - in order to be accurately targeted. I would take a guess that it's possible to tell a Mass Relay to be less accurate if you want.
I kind of wish games did away with the "set your own difficulty", and someone programmed in an automatic adjustable difficulty, so that the game auto-scales based on some basic parameters regarding how quickly the player is going through the game, how many times they're getting hit, being out of ammo, how many times they die, etc. and simply do the difficulty thing in the background.
Somewhat similar to how the game scales towards your level (Insanity at level 5 is not the same as Insanity at level 30) automatically without ever asking you.
Though I'd assume that would be a tad harder to balance and implement.
Oh well.
Isn't that what the AI director in the Left 4 Dead games does? Gives you more ammo and health when you're doing badly, then sends hordes of zombies to rape you as soon as you've healed yourself.
No, the AI director controls spawns, item placement, etc. to make it more cinematic . What he's saying is the difficulty scaling which would give the enemies more/less health and better/weaker guns depending on how well you're doing.
also that certain mission you get from TIM a little while after you finish horizon gave me some trouble on insanity. The only way I finally got through that first ambush was
after picking off all the collectors and with my squad dead, slowly whittling both the scions down to slivers using incinerate so that I could kill them one after the other right before the last platform shows up. After that though, it wasn't too bad.
does anyone have a reliable list of locations of upgrades? insanityfiltrator really needs another couple sniper rifle upgrades so that I can get the +50% headshot damage upgrade
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
it was the smallest on the list but
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I kind of wish games did away with the "set your own difficulty", and someone programmed in an automatic adjustable difficulty, so that the game auto-scales based on some basic parameters regarding how quickly the player is going through the game, how many times they're getting hit, being out of ammo, how many times they die, etc. and simply do the difficulty thing in the background.
Somewhat similar to how the game scales towards your level (Insanity at level 5 is not the same as Insanity at level 30) automatically without ever asking you.
Though I'd assume that would be a tad harder to balance and implement.
Oh well.
Isn't that what the AI director in the Left 4 Dead games does? Gives you more ammo and health when you're doing badly, then sends hordes of zombies to rape you as soon as you've healed yourself.
No, the AI director controls spawns, item placement, etc. to make it more cinematic . What he's saying is the difficulty scaling which would give the enemies more/less health and better/weaker guns depending on how well you're doing.
I haven't played Left 4 Dead, so I wouldn't know exactly.
But you get the idea of what I was going for.
I mean - the same kind of changes that you select manually when you select Normal, Veteran, Hardcore, Insanity - but seamlessly in the background being chosen for you depending on how good you are at playing the game.
your sultry voice makes me think for a second that you're not evil
TIM is a good fellow. I don't know why everyone thinks he's so evil. Don't be naive and foolishly idealistic. He's willing to make hard choices for the good of humanity, and thus the galaxy.
My conclusions lean toward that train of thought as well. Still, I'm not ruling out the possibility that his idealism won't eventually lead him to become space Hitler.
That's probably the right word, idealism. His is just a different kind of idealism, based in naked practicality. If anyone's ever played Planescape: Torment he reminds me a bit of the practical incarnation. Everything that could have a purpose is saved and made use of, and the means are completely irrelevant so long as the ends are reached. Morality isn't an issue to him in any decision, which makes him just as dangerous.
If you read Ascension, you'll see how big a fucking asshole he is. And, well, everything you learn about Cerby on ME1 is fucking awful too. Cerberus might have lofty goals, but their methods are a hundred times more renegade than renegade. And they always come up with the "they went rogue" excuse whenever Shep finds out about their douchebaggery.
Keep in mind TIM doesn't micromanage that much, he takes people he thinks he can trust and says, Go do this. Gives them the drive and means, but doesn't seem to keep super close tabs. He gave me
A new life
A new ship
A new Crew
and said, go save Humanity. Now if I took that ship and attacked the Citadel, is that TIM's fault? Or did I go Rogue?
Not defending TIM by any means, but just saying, he kinda sets people up so they can go Rogue easier. And with the Human Condition the way it is, I'd figure it'd happen mroe often then not.
also that certain mission you get from TIM a little while after you finish horizon gave me some trouble on insanity. The only way I finally got through that first ambush was
after picking off all the collectors and with my squad dead, slowly whittling both the scions down to slivers using incinerate so that I could kill them one after the other right before the last platform shows up. After that though, it wasn't too bad.
does anyone have a reliable list of locations of upgrades? insanityfiltrator really needs another couple sniper rifle upgrades so that I can get the +50% headshot damage upgrade
you dont, i managed to get through the game on insanity without upgrading with an infiltrator, soon as you get the widowmaker its game over man.
does anyone have a reliable list of locations of upgrades? insanityfiltrator really needs another couple sniper rifle upgrades so that I can get the +50% headshot damage upgrade
Here's DVG's spreadsheet again. He made a mining list, and on the other tabs lists of upgrades.
Stele on
Love. You can know all the math in the 'Verse, but take a boat in the air you don't love, she'll shake you off just as sure as the turning of worlds. Love keeps her in the air when she oughta fall down, tells ya she's hurtin' 'fore she keels. Makes her home.
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surrealitychecklonely, but not unloveddreaming of faulty keys and latchesRegistered Userregular
edited February 2010
I mean their solution to AIs is to ban it, to genetic engineering is to ban it.
Game is super crashing on me at the moment - what does it say?
I'm not sure exactly, been a while, but I think it mentions something like how medigel was originally to be banned, but turned out to be too useful to do so. (at least in the first game). Because it apparently modified your genetics in some manner. Just modification in some ways in the womb seemed ok, and various enhancements are still allowed and even encouraged, as seen in the side-quest of the first game where you can talk a mother into either giving her child genetic treatments or not.
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
Game is super crashing on me at the moment - what does it say?
I'm not sure exactly, been a while, but I think it mentions something like how medigel was originally to be banned, but turned out to be too useful to do so. (at least in the first game). Because it apparently modified your genetics in some manner. Just modification in some ways in the womb seemed ok, and various enhancements are still allowed and even encouraged, as seen in the side-quest of the first game where you can talk a mother into either giving her child genetic treatments or not.
Think that Binary Helix guy you can talk to in the bar on Noveria says that genetic enhancements to improve traits that already exist are allowed, but more extreme modification that adds unnatural traits are illegal. If I remember that right. I would assume also genetic mods to get rid of disease and stuff would be legal. But then why has nobody fixed Joker.
Game is super crashing on me at the moment - what does it say?
I'm not sure exactly, been a while, but I think it mentions something like how medigel was originally to be banned, but turned out to be too useful to do so. (at least in the first game). Because it apparently modified your genetics in some manner. Just modification in some ways in the womb seemed ok, and various enhancements are still allowed and even encouraged, as seen in the side-quest of the first game where you can talk a mother into either giving her child genetic treatments or not.
Think that Binary Helix guy you can talk to in the bar on Noveria says that genetic enhancements to improve traits that already exist are allowed, but more extreme modification that adds unnatural traits are illegal. If I remember that right. I would assume also genetic mods to get rid of disease and stuff would be legal. But then why has nobody fixed Joker.
Because they don't know how? Mordin says he's working on a cure but his solution would cause liver failure.
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Brovid Hasselsmof[Growling historic on the fury road]Registered Userregular
edited February 2010
But it's the FUTURE
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TrippyJingMoses supposes his toeses are roses.But Moses supposes erroneously.Registered Userregular
A product of the times I'd say, especially since there's a lot of things the council is outright just not dealing with.
I mean their solution to AIs is to ban it, to genetic engineering is to ban it. They don't regulate things that have caused problems in the past, they just try to pretend they don't exist. The Krogan are an ongoing testament to this - they've never answered what to do about any fast-replicating species.
EDIT: Hell take it further
The bartender on Illium notes the Asari showed no interest in building their own Mass Relays, whereas it's something you'd think the species should be very very interested in.
It's the same story with the Citadel - everyone living on it, yet overall interest in how it works is non-existent. Hence the entire threat of Mass Effect 1. The Council races simply aren't trying to drive technology through it's dangerous points (with appropriate regulation) to advance themselves, they're just banning everything they don't like.
The Turians seem interested in weapons tech. After all, they developed the Thanix cannons. The salarians we know for a fact updated the genophage, and genetic modifications are implied to be less than uncommon. The Council has also given licenses to four corporations to develop AI...one of which we know is on Noveria.
My best guess is that it wouldn't be politically expedient for the Council to deal with such issues out in the open, so they do so away from the public eye.
A product of the times I'd say, especially since there's a lot of things the council is outright just not dealing with.
I mean their solution to AIs is to ban it, to genetic engineering is to ban it. They don't regulate things that have caused problems in the past, they just try to pretend they don't exist. The Krogan are an ongoing testament to this - they've never answered what to do about any fast-replicating species.
EDIT: Hell take it further
The bartender on Illium notes the Asari showed no interest in building their own Mass Relays, whereas it's something you'd think the species should be very very interested in.
It's the same story with the Citadel - everyone living on it, yet overall interest in how it works is non-existent. Hence the entire threat of Mass Effect 1. The Council races simply aren't trying to drive technology through it's dangerous points (with appropriate regulation) to advance themselves, they're just banning everything they don't like.
The Turians seem interested in weapons tech. After all, they developed the Thanix cannons. The salarians we know for a fact updated the genophage, and genetic modifications are implied to be less than uncommon. The Council has also given licenses to four corporations to develop AI...one of which we know is on Noveria.
My best guess is that it wouldn't be politically expedient for the Council to deal with such issues out in the open, so they do so away from the public eye.
Well the Turians...
repurposed technology from Sovereign for that cannon. So they didn't invent it.
The Salarians did create the Genophage, although those are virii adapted to a purpose, as I recall.
I think the point is that the Council races are lazy bastards. Even the Salarians get criticized for wanting to explore (stumbling upon the Rachni).
Humans are criticized by trying new things and for colonial efforts.
Really, the Batarians and the Humans are the only races that aren't lazy shits. And the Batarians are too uncivilized to accomplish anything impressive.
They did do a good job painting humanity as being impressive.
I am avoiding spoilers like the plague so I am steering clear of all those Show Spoiler bottons and their meaty goodness. I almost got into the game before finding out about the events at the start (darn the GameTrailers review!)...
Anyway, on a more general note I played Mass Effect as a paragon and it was pretty easy to do so. Those white knight, defender of weak, supporter of a multi-cultural society choices never seemed difficult to make... Saved the council, earned humanities place, etc, etc...
Imported the character and started of as a paragon again and kudos to Bioware, the choices aren't always as clear cut now... Sometimes the paragon choice feels like weakness or appeasing some individual who would benefit more from a slap upside the head...
Even the "paragon" choices get a little darker sometime...
In other words, it's awesome!!!
Anyone else having a little more difficulty with their conversation choices in ME2?
Posts
Never read the books, but agree about ME1, which is why I could never trust Cerberus for anything. People seem to keep forgetting about what happened to Admiral Kohaku and his crew.
That said, his decisions aren't made out of malice but out of expediency. Which is why whilst I can't necessary call him directly evil, that doesn't change the fact that he's frikkin dangers and not to be trusted.
Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Shepard's got a built in kill switch on him. Or one was intended for him but he woke up too soon before it could be implanted.
Just like I posted above tangentially, Insanity scales to your level so that it's possible to play through it from level 1. I did Insanity with my adept from level 5. It is different than level 30, the game does account for the fact you don't have all the powers evolved and such.
As for which class to play through, that's a matter of taste. Soldier and Sentinel have an easier time going through it. Adept and Vanguard not as much. Engineer is a mixed bag.
They're all do-able though, so that's not really an issue.
Not really. There's ways to skirt the lines of renegade actions while retaining the humanity you're trying to save. TIM just doesn't give a crap, nor does his organization. With some light prodding, even the Council in it's current state could be made to keep everyone safe (as seen in the first game). You don't have to rely on an organization seemingly bent on galactic dominance to save you.
I mean their solution to AIs is to ban it, to genetic engineering is to ban it. They don't regulate things that have caused problems in the past, they just try to pretend they don't exist. The Krogan are an ongoing testament to this - they've never answered what to do about any fast-replicating species.
EDIT: Hell take it further
It's the same story with the Citadel - everyone living on it, yet overall interest in how it works is non-existent. Hence the entire threat of Mass Effect 1. The Council races simply aren't trying to drive technology through it's dangerous points (with appropriate regulation) to advance themselves, they're just banning everything they don't like.
And as for the Council? Sure.
Isn't that what the AI director in the Left 4 Dead games does? Gives you more ammo and health when you're doing badly, then sends hordes of zombies to rape you as soon as you've healed yourself.
Some of the ways they do things is, but definitely not the whole ideal they represent I don't think.
Also, I believe ME2 paints Cerberus and the Illusive man as monstrous as the Reapers.
The Illusive Man: You want him on that wall. You NEED him on that wall.
Yes, I believe so.
A version of that in single player games would be good for some experimentation regarding difficulties and such.
RE: The Krogans
And the council is no less a product of its time, just in a different direction to organisations like Cerberus. It's easy to dismiss them for what they haven't done in the context of the games, but they've done far more to maintain galactic cohesion in a universe that by all rights probably should've torn itself apart under a dozen racial and imperialistic wars a long time ago.
You have to admit, it's a good way to say
Cue final boss, eternally respawning Illusive Man =/
Oh, and re: genophage, kind of related
With the direction Wrex is taking the Krogan (if you let him live), I feel it's pretty justified to start working on a cure.
(also I still would like a good explanation of how a war actually goes down in the ME universe, without it involving the defensive side just mining/camping out on the mass relays and waiting for the opposition to come through and get popped.)
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Is it really relevant though?
An ever persisting world, species waking up from their primordial soups left by the Protheans and countless other races - evolution without co-operation, wouldn't there be constant war without any kind of an agreement on how to live together?
Some form of the Council is necessary, no?
Also, Krogan nuclear'd Turian colonies from orbit, that's one way to go about it.
The wikia provides useful glimpses into how war is handled in ME, especially by different species.
Not genocide, dominance. There's a difference.
The elimination of all other species isn't the necessary goal, human dominance in that sphere is. Eliminating the other races, aside from being impossible, is wasteful and impractical.
This is actually explained in ME2.
You can't camp a relay, because the relays are not precision instruments and they're not controlled instruments. They accept commands from anyone, and transit whatever mass they're told to. They do not do it accurately - they shoot people into volumes of space that are arbitrarily large in the target system - millions of km's across. That is a huge volume of space to try and mine or defend, and ships can go FTL immediately once they arrive.
It appears to take an extremely careful use of the Mass Relay, or special code - in order to be accurately targeted. I would take a guess that it's possible to tell a Mass Relay to be less accurate if you want.
No, the AI director controls spawns, item placement, etc. to make it more cinematic . What he's saying is the difficulty scaling which would give the enemies more/less health and better/weaker guns depending on how well you're doing.
does anyone have a reliable list of locations of upgrades? insanityfiltrator really needs another couple sniper rifle upgrades so that I can get the +50% headshot damage upgrade
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
I haven't played Left 4 Dead, so I wouldn't know exactly.
But you get the idea of what I was going for.
I mean - the same kind of changes that you select manually when you select Normal, Veteran, Hardcore, Insanity - but seamlessly in the background being chosen for you depending on how good you are at playing the game.
Keep in mind TIM doesn't micromanage that much, he takes people he thinks he can trust and says, Go do this. Gives them the drive and means, but doesn't seem to keep super close tabs. He gave me
A new ship
A new Crew
and said, go save Humanity. Now if I took that ship and attacked the Citadel, is that TIM's fault? Or did I go Rogue?
Not defending TIM by any means, but just saying, he kinda sets people up so they can go Rogue easier. And with the Human Condition the way it is, I'd figure it'd happen mroe often then not.
New Thread
you dont, i managed to get through the game on insanity without upgrading with an infiltrator, soon as you get the widowmaker its game over man.
the widow doesn't carry enough rounds to be able to waste them doing less than maximum damage
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Here's DVG's spreadsheet again. He made a mining list, and on the other tabs lists of upgrades.
wat why
Game is super crashing on me at the moment - what does it say?
I'm not sure exactly, been a while, but I think it mentions something like how medigel was originally to be banned, but turned out to be too useful to do so. (at least in the first game). Because it apparently modified your genetics in some manner. Just modification in some ways in the womb seemed ok, and various enhancements are still allowed and even encouraged, as seen in the side-quest of the first game where you can talk a mother into either giving her child genetic treatments or not.
Think that Binary Helix guy you can talk to in the bar on Noveria says that genetic enhancements to improve traits that already exist are allowed, but more extreme modification that adds unnatural traits are illegal. If I remember that right. I would assume also genetic mods to get rid of disease and stuff would be legal. But then why has nobody fixed Joker.
My best guess is that it wouldn't be politically expedient for the Council to deal with such issues out in the open, so they do so away from the public eye.
Well the Turians...
The Salarians did create the Genophage, although those are virii adapted to a purpose, as I recall.
I think the point is that the Council races are lazy bastards. Even the Salarians get criticized for wanting to explore (stumbling upon the Rachni).
Humans are criticized by trying new things and for colonial efforts.
Really, the Batarians and the Humans are the only races that aren't lazy shits. And the Batarians are too uncivilized to accomplish anything impressive.
They did do a good job painting humanity as being impressive.
Pluto was a planet and I'll never forget
Anyway, on a more general note I played Mass Effect as a paragon and it was pretty easy to do so. Those white knight, defender of weak, supporter of a multi-cultural society choices never seemed difficult to make... Saved the council, earned humanities place, etc, etc...
Imported the character and started of as a paragon again and kudos to Bioware, the choices aren't always as clear cut now... Sometimes the paragon choice feels like weakness or appeasing some individual who would benefit more from a slap upside the head...
Even the "paragon" choices get a little darker sometime...
In other words, it's awesome!!!
Anyone else having a little more difficulty with their conversation choices in ME2?
http://forums.penny-arcade.com/showthread.php?t=112092
It's time for a new thread, I think.