Nonek

Sorry but no that's ridiculous, it'll take at least millenia from the far reaches of the Milky Way, and that's travelling far in advance of C, and assuming no phenomena disrupt the message. And if it does travel this fast then what's to stop another galaxy hearing it? No thats no real argument i'm afraid. Now discounting my allusion to alien technology being actually alien for once, there are a hundred other posiibilities for yet another big bad introduction, they could be slumbering like say the Necron and awoken by the colonisation attempts, they could be abiding by some ancient treaty with say the Reapers or something, to not intrude on their relay network, they could be secluded by the aforementioned space phenomena such as a massive nebula of birthing stars, they could be a symbiotic entity that needs flesh to manipulate, they could be psychic vampires that no nothing of technology or flesh. There are near infinite posiibilities. Some nebulae are not small at all, and if they're another big band they'll have the usual plot superiority. Edit: I'm obviously not advocating for anything so unimaginative as another big bad, but I expect no better from Bioware, being creatively bankrupt as they are.

You're not going to operate an active stellar empire in the Milky Way in Mass Effect without everyone past a certain tech level noticing you. Their transmissions and sensors are FTL with fantastic fidelity. If your new villain isn't technology advanced enough to pick up your TV signals, they're not a big threat. Even FTL travel takes time, and the Milky Way is vast, plus you could have this hypothetical stellar empire using unknown tech that cannot be detected (aliens being for wont of a better word alien) or be hidden behind a large nebula of birthing stars or other phenomena tha kicks out too much interference. The possibilities are endless.

Sounds like a plus to me, humans with bumpy foreheads was one of my main pet peeves with Star Treks aliens.

Is Farscape any good? You don't need a new galaxy to introduce another big bad however, space is big, you could fit any number of vast stellar empires into the same one.

Oh yes I think thats exactly why they're using Andromeda to wash their hands of any player choice in the last games. However in terms of closest viable colonisation they still have the 99% of the Milky Way to explore beyond the relay network, which would have worked just as well at insulating the game from its forebears, and make a lick of sense. Space being big they'd still even at near C velocities be effectively beyond communication with the previous worlds. Look at what 40k can fit in the Milky Way, a near infinity of species and mysteries, yet the idiots at Bioware think that a hundred billion worlds is not enough, as i've said before moronic.

Because it's there. So's the rest of the universe, if distance is now irrelevant why settle for Andromeda? Send a colonisation mission to the MACS0647-JD galaxy in the UDF. Edit: Yes they could give it a catchy name when they get there.

Captain Ahab's Log, 10,005th year of the expedition to the Andrmeda galaxy: Today we passed the 7,473rd habitable planet that we have detected in this remote area of the Milky Way, perfect for life and abundant with resources, no native sapient species but there was rich flora and fauna. We will of course press on in this colonisation mission and ignore this planet as we have all of the others.

In order to promote harjmony in the thread i'd just like to say one thing: Sensuki.

Nah they've explored a miniscule amount of the Milky Way centred around the relay network, ignoring a hundred billion worlds, when they know nothing about them and have never even been there. It's not like the Vikings not venturing further into Lapp/Sami territory, or Columbus not exploring the African kingdoms, it's a complete ignorance of the local area and far distant reaches of the Milky Way, and then deciding that they need to colonise another galaxy. It's moronic. "Land ahoy." "Keep going, its too near."

Worked for Moorc*ck (I detest this filter,) though he also had the balance and the state of metaphysical freedom that Tanelorn/the Grail represented.

No, He climbed the highest mountain that's never been climbed before. That's a fairly important distinction, because if He just climbed the higher one, your argument would make a lot more sense. Naturally, He couldn't climb Olympus Mons if he wanted, since it was not technically possible. You still didn't answer the question of how was he skipping all the other unscaled mountains logical, by the way. Similarly, while colonizing the Earth, we could have hardly taken off to Moon as we didn't have the technology to do so. Argument can be made that humanity would not develop technology necessary for extragalactic travel unless this was absolutely necessary, but developing technology was also never what Mass Effect dealth with, considering it's been found ahead of natural curve, not developed. One of the primary defining factors of sci-fi is asking "What if?" and what entire Mass Effect is trying to deal with is a (rather tired) trope of "What if humanity found technology it wasn't prepared for?" What if 16th century Britain was given means of relatively easily reaching Moon or Mars? Yes, going for them would be illogical - yet our own history is filled with examples of exploration or expansion that's been fueled by very different motives than logic, like disastrous Terra Nova expedition or Napoleon's ill-conceived invasion of Russia. While you are correct about overal tendencies of human development were those of incremental progress as that's the path of least resistance (and Mass Effect isn't actually refuting this, considering the universe shows humans at large still wanting to colonize more of Milky Way), there are also many examples of highly unorthodox and dangerous ventures, which often ended up in a disaster - and that's what Mass Effect: Andromeda seems to be drawing from. It naturally won't use the principle to its actual potential, which would be turning the game into fairly hardcore survival in harsh conditions, but... I'm not about to buy it anyhow, so hey. Sorry but no, Everest was still on Earth and the climbing of it was a logical next step, it bears no relation to skipping a hundred billion worlds to spend millenia (at the least) travelling to the nearest galaxy. One is ambitious the other is moronic. This is obvious. Edit: To use Mr Rosbjerg's examples it would be like these explorers sailing past Greenland/the New World and continuing on until they all died of old age from continuous circumnavigation.

He didn't tho, did He? Before Mount Everest, the highest mountain He has climbed was Mount Cook in New Zeland, nowhere near the second highest mountain in the world. By your logic, before attempting to climb Mount Everest, He should have first focused on other mountains which were not scaled to date, and there was quite a few. Because that's logical progression. So why didn't He? Why did He instead make the illogical step of attempting for the highest one? I can pretty much guarantee you 'logic' wasn't part of the equation. Challenge, curiosity, prestige - those most certainly were. In fact, this is an excerpt from interview with the man himself: Source So we're back to my original question, aren't we? What exactly was logical about being the first man to climb highest mountain in the world that isn't logical about attempting to be the first man to do just about anything? As for the more in-narrative reasoning, and this is a bit of a spoiler, Reapers proved to be more than capable of scaling extragalactic distances after the events of the original Mass Effect. ... aaand we're back to ad hominems. Stay classy, Nonek. By the way, I don't really like Mass Effect series all that much. Except Mount Cook was a mountain on Earth, on the same planet and not a planet or more away. Ignoring any of Earths mountains as I originally stated and aiming to climb Olympus Mons without any experience would be more akin to what Bioware is doing. So Mr Hilary followed the laws of logical progression and climbed a higher mountain that hadn't been climbed before, a simple logical progression rather than skipping to another planets mountains without first learning how to climb or even walk. After all we didn't reach the moon until most of Earth was explored and mapped, we didn't begin on a single island and then go straight to Lunar landings, to argue that we did is simply denying reality and basic logic like a blinkered fanboy. Edit: Yes I know that it's not fondness for the Mass Effect series that makes you argue with me.

No doubt, they could at least make their primary motivation at least coherent though. They could have simply set the game beyond the relay network and explored space, and the distance would still serve to insulate the new game from anything done in ME3, while making a lick of sense. Though I realise asking for sense or coherence in one the three Big B games is pointless.

Well if we're making silly guarantees, I can guarantee you that first Mr Hilary would have climbed Earths mountains as he did, and that if we had the means to go to another galaxy we'd have first explored more than a fraction of the Milky Way. It's a logical progression, though I realise thats an unwanted thing for games these days. Exploration has always been logical, new lands, new opportunities and a slow steady expansion, this is the rule. We spread from Africa in predictable patterns, we didn't go straight to Mars or Triton, as this is just as stupid as this Andromeda silliness when only a miniscule fraction of the Milky Way has been explored and only a tiny bit is endangered by the space big bads who stick to their tiny relay network. You have after all a hundred billion planets and more than twice that in suns to explore and colonise after all, which any explorer worth his salt would want to investigate first. Taking issue with none of the Milky Ways species exploring even a little bit of their home is hardly illogical, it's a valid concern of the narrative and undermines the very raison d'etre of the game. Only a blinkered fanboy could excuse such poor plotting and lack of logical progression.

Looking is different from travelling to and colonising obviously, and we've looked well beyond the Milky Way. All of the mountains Mr Hilary climbed were still on Earth, not on Mars or a similarly stupid destination. It's called progression.

Have they given any reason for trying to explore the next galaxy when in ME they'd only explored 1% of the Milky Way? With potentially a hundred billion planets to explore here this seems rather illogical, it's like Edmund Hilary deciding to climb Olympus Mons and skipping Everest and earths mountains. Mind you typical Bioware idiocy.

Nothing this month as i'm sending a rather large amount to family who've been affected by a natural disaster, oh tell a lie, Great Ormond street childrens hospital as well, usual monthly donation since they lost the rights to Peter Pan. Have to concur with Hurlshot, local church work is a very direct and effective form of donation.

Much obliged gentlemen, think i'll wait for a goty version, doesn't seem to be up my alley.

So a few questions if I may: Is there any environmental interaction? NPC schedules? Day/Night cycles? Spells that are useful outside combat? Alternate methods of transportation? Can one really be evil? Sadistic, racist, speciesist, sexist, depraved, murderous etcetera. Can one serve as a good loyal hound for this Kyros chap, putting down any hint of doubt, rebellion or sedition with enthusiastic brutality? Is there a good brother like character in the game such as Daakon, quiet, stoic and massively useful, but also an interesting introduction to an aspect of the gameworld such as the Zerth was for the divided Gith and one side of their culture? Are any of the characters the usual squeeing morons that are so popular in gaming, and can one kill or avoid them if so? Are there any peculiarities of culture, religion, dialect and country that are reflected in the game? Do you get to fight in the midst of a phalanx, an opportunity that any game quoting a Bronze Age setting must surely take advantage of? What unique weapons and armour of the period are available, I assume the spear and Argive are still kings of the battlefield, but what of the small swords/knives of the period, the pelta and javelin, and other unique parts of the panoply? Can one complete the extinction of the Beastman species that has pushed them into the Tiers, and make sure only humanity dominates Terratus?

Will a new pyramid be raised by the Nile soon? Commiserations on the bothersome business of moderation.

Finished Battlestar Galactica, the ending was foreshadowed in some respects (which I personally believe may be a remnant of the original script,) but it's quite clear that the writers were pulling most of the ending out of their collective rectums. Unsatisfying and dispiriting to me, the same with all shows that fall back on predestination and Deus Ex Machina rather than examining something more. I had high hopes for the series at the beginning but when it came to the end I was a little nonplussed. Mrs Nonek seemed most put out about the colonists total abandonment of technology, arguing quite sensibly I think, that a culture could not just give up such things as medicine, the scientific method and all the advances they enjoyed with such ease. This had not ocurred to me but thinking about it I agreed, the predestination bit about technology inevitably begetting children that will destroy the creator just seems like fear mongering, and how will the colonists feel when their innate diseases and microbes strike dead most of the native population of Earth, or their children are dying of easily solved conditions? I didn't like this fear mongering subtext, or the thoughtless condemnation of scientific advancement. The divine aspect I could live with, but the arch conservative bias seemed strange indeed. Altogether a well made show with great performances, a compelling aesthetic and interesting narrative, but it could have been so much more. Though I acknowledge this as a better produced piece of media I still think it pales in comparison to Babylon 5, the arcs both character and plot wise in that show were far more satisfying and well thought out than anything I saw in BSG.

I've stated this before but it bears repeating I think, a little quality voice acting can go a long way: The IE games proved this, one can easily imagine many of the characters lines voiced even if they are not, a strong introduction and distinctive personality and this is aided immeasurably. Thus for low budget RPGs i'd say take advantage of this aural trickery, and make the few lines that are spoken so distinctive and characterful that they resonate throughout the game. Arcanum by Troika also stands out here, who can forget Torian Kels description of the battle between the Molochean Hand and the Grey Legion of the Derian Ka, or verbally sparring with the worlds smartest Orc over his preference for black tea. That said i've played games where characters almost leap off the screen without a single spoken word, the Avatar's Companion trio from Ultima, Gorath and Owyn from Betrayal at Krondor thanks to Mr Halfords fantastic prose, Christine the young mute lady from the Sierra Madre, Some designers can transmit themes and impressions very powerfully with the simplest tools, the cave painters of the modern age? Yet another angle to look at this is games where voice acting is an intrinsic part, the Legacy of Kain series springs to mind, here the prose is thick and strong as it holds a good portion of the game together. Are these games, or interactive visual novels? Another example would be the barks from RTS games, perhaps the finest example in terms of consistent quality being the Dawn of War series. Tl/dr: It depends on the game and implementation.

Ditto. (Ditto? Ditto, you provincial putz!)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm48ytQIt9o The over dramatic text is actually real, I hope such people never face real tribulation.

It's such pathetic demonisation and conspiracy theory crafting that makes me laugh, when Brexit results were announced and now, the desperate need to blame voters who don't align with their own smug elitist positions is always absolutely hilarious. One wonders how such people deal with the real world where not everyone echoes their inane tweeting.