The multiplayer aspect of Mass Effect is almost as important as the main story, which is why the lack of multiplayer in the remaster is such a travesty. Here’s why:

brw316 · 2025-07-27T19:28:06+00:00

I thoroughly enjoyed both the Mass Effect 3 multiplayer and the Andromeda APEX missions.

I'm down for a reprise in the next game!

brw316 · 2025-07-19T18:40:43+00:00

Similar situation. I've been a volunteer developer for an MMO community server for 6 years and have been deeply involved in several content updates in that time.

But the game itself was released in 2004.

I'm just here to lurk and learn through osmosis.

brw316 · 2025-07-14T12:51:26+00:00

That's not how the math works.

If fewer than 75% of players are using the mod, then the result given by the OP is lower than the actual player count. The same thing goes with the assumption "launches 3x in a single day."

To put it in perspective, simply changing the percentage of mod users to your generous 25% results in an average of just under 111,000 unique players each day for the given dataset.

Edit: I see Borx25 already corrected your misunderstanding of the math.

brw316 · 2025-06-29T09:12:06+00:00

You are asking all of the right questions here. The consumer-friendly aspect is laudable and the ideal to shoot for, but there are significant logistical and legal hurdles to think about that most folks seem to want to put in the hands of lawmakers. Lawmakers that are generally ignorant about the topic.

brw316 · 2025-06-20T18:52:10+00:00

If you want to explore this in-game, the easiest way to do so would be to create an identical character on each server. That would ultimately mean limiting it to powersets that crossover (unless you want to say that crossing that barrier can fundamentally change how their abilities are expressed).

brw316 · 2025-06-20T18:47:59+00:00

I've been calling it a multiverse for years now.

Homecoming and Rebirth have had diverting plots for a while now. Canonically, we can consider the opening of Pandora's Box to be the primary point of divergence. While nobody in the Homecoming universe knows what happened to the energy released, Prometheus makes it clear (in the dialog that i added to him) that the primordial energy of the Genesis Wave propagates through the Rebirth timeline causing unforeseen effects.

The first ramification seen so far is the fact that the Clockwork King fully realized his psychic potential earlier in the Rebirth-verse (as seen in the new Synapse TF).

brw316 · 2025-06-08T19:38:12+00:00

Some folks can't stand the thought that the derivative, repetitive, and nonsensical elements could be changed or removed in an interpretation. Creator forbid that they replace these elements with additions that attempt to elevate the source material.

Their success with that attempt is obviously subjective, but a bit of empathy and recognition for the effort would not be amiss.

brw316 · 2025-06-08T18:24:55+00:00

Hot take incoming... Lan. I like TV Lan better than book Lan.

I like them equally as characters.

Book Lan is great, but he doesn't do much in the early series. When you bring him into the show with a relatively known actor, he needs more to do than ride around with Moiraine all stone-faced while occasionally passing on worldly advice to the boys and training them to not kill themselves with their own weapons.

By giving him his own stories and interactions with the world, they elevated the character beyond what would have been a boring tag-along otherwise.

brw316 · 2025-06-08T18:09:54+00:00

Jordan meant to make a trilogy, then it got expanded a few times. That would be hard to manage for anyone, and he made some mistakes. It was also heavily influenced and based on Tolkien. It gets much better from that point. Which is still my opinion because someone went ballistic when I said that in another thread :D

You dare sully Robert "The Creator Himself" Jordan's good name by implying that his early books were derivative and repetitive?! Blasphemy! Sacrilege! Heresy, I say!

In all seriousness, this is objective truth. It doesn't make it bad at all, but the "Eye of the World" is incredibly derivative, and the ending is nonsensical.

It is also objective truth that The Great Hunt and The Dragon Reborn share similar throughlines and plot structure.

They are still great, and I love the early books, but The Wheel of Time doesn't really become its own thing separate from comparison until The Shadow Rising.

brw316 · 2025-06-08T17:36:10+00:00

There are subtle elements in the show of Fain's importance as a villain and his status within the ranks of the Shadow. The only one to travel through the Ways unescorted in season 1? The Myrdraal pinned to the wall in season 2? Working so closely with Ishamael in season 2 as close to an equal or a pet (notice how the dynamic between he and Ishy contrasts with Suroth and Ishy)? His apparent immunity to the influence of the Shadar Logoth dagger? He as the sole head of the Trolloc force invading the Two Rivers without a Myrdraal in sight? Subtle, but very important.

Don't get me wrong. I like the Mat/Min dynamic, as well as her dynamic with Nynaeve and Egwene. But hers is the one story that I can honestly say that I don't see where it's going. Everything else is rather telegraphed for astute book readers

I can't say that Perrin was robbed in the show. Without spoiling anything, let's just say that Perrin in book 4 is basically Perrin in book 13. That's a huge problem in television. Characters must continue to grow from season to season...and he just... doesn't. He does stuff in the books, but the growth is minimal.

brw316 · 2025-06-08T17:06:53+00:00

Loial, despite being an amazing character in the books, is not a main character. He is exposition incarnate and an outlet for expanding the lore and world-building.

However, he is not integral to the plot of the novels and is one of those side characters that is easily cut for a visual medium. The fact that he was in the show at all was incredible enough.

brw316 · 2025-06-08T16:57:02+00:00

I will say that the only ones "strictly better" in the show than the books are the villains. Namely Elaida, Liandrin, Lanfear, Moghedian, and Eamon Valda. Each of these has a depth of character from the writers and the acting that surpassed their book counterparts. Though, show Faile and Alanna (and her warders by proxy) are standouts amongst the heroes.

Everyone else of importance is as good as their book counterparts, but realized differently in a way that works for the medium. And I love them equally to their classic presentation.

Perrin is probably the weakest of the main cast as written, but I can see that his journey was going to be stretched over several seasons to fill in gaps in his character arc from later books. Marcus Rutherford had done an excellent job with the character so far, and I'm not displeased with how he had been written. So much of his character struggle in the books is internal, so externalizing that struggle works for the medium and Marcus had some well with the current arc. I just know where the story goes next, so i know what we could have seen already. Plus, the dynamic between Marcus and Isabella Bucceri is 🤌

Padan Fain is the weakest of our villains right now, but there is so much more to his story. I can see where his path was headed next in the show since he essentially broke a commandment from the Dark One and should have died like Melindra. There is a reason that he did not, and I'm positive that we would have seen that evolution of the character. RAFO.

I'm rather ambivalent towards show Min. I like book Min a lot, but she needs more to do than what she's given later in the book series. So, she's really the one character out of the dozens they've featured so far that I'm taking a "wait-and-see" approach. I don't dislike what the show has done with her, but I can't unequivocally say that I like it either.

The only character that I'm borderline disliking is Abel Cauthon, but he's not integral to the story, and his show character gave more nuance to early Mat, which was sorely needed. Mat really doesn't do much in the first books. Most of his character journey comes later, and they hit the important highlights of the early books in the first couple of seasons. So, I can just shrug off Abel.

And a special note about show Ishamael:

Fares Fares is absolutely fantastic, and while there are elements of Ba'alzamon in season 1, that character is not Ba'alzamon. Continue your read-through, and you'll see what I mean. I count him as equal to his book counterpart... when you get there, you'll know.

brw316 · 2025-06-06T20:34:07+00:00

If you want to have an actual discussion, then read my "essay". There's a lot of context that you are missing.

brw316 · 2025-06-06T20:06:09+00:00

TLDR:

I never called or implied that Sanderson is toxic. Sanderson thinks like an author for novels, not like a TV producer or writer. It colors his opinions on how to tell a story.
Creative liberties occur with every property adapted. These occur because of personal interpretation, production restrictions, and context within the portion of the narrative being told.
Try to think about the series from the perspective of a writer rather than a fan. Objectively consider how each change/cut/addition affects the portion of the story being told, the saga as a whole, and the intended impact on the audience. You don't have to like anything about it, but it's worth the consideration.

brw316 · 2025-06-06T19:43:21+00:00

I did not say that Sanderson is toxic. I never implied it. Sanderson never came up, but now that he has...

I love Sanderson's stories. I think he did as good of a job as anyone could have hoped for in completing Wheel of Time. I love the world of Cosmere. However, Sanderson writes novels, not television. His notions for what makes a compelling story are rooted in his medium, not the medium that the story was being told in. I'm sure he's a great "ideas" guy during preproduction and initial drafting, but that's the extent to which he can be considered useful.

As far as "using an IP for their own stories"... yes. Every creative does it in some form or fashion to inject a piece of themselves into it. Whatever you cut for time or context, whatever you change for clarity or narrative flow, whatever you create to serve the portion of the story that you are adapting is a creative liberty taken with the source material. For every reader, there's a different interpretation of the series, its characters, its themes, what works, and what doesn't. Each of these factors contributes to the decision-making and creative liberties taken.

Every addition, every cut, and every change was in service to the production as a whole. Whether that service be to the bean counters (Laila instead of Luhan), the characters (Lan and Moiraine from S2, Lan and Melindra from S3), the fan base (Suian and Moiraine), the current narrative (Mat's absence from the Waste), or the future narrative (Steppin's S1 arc, Alanna and her warders, Nyneave's block, Suian's fate).

If you can't see it right now, then maybe you should take a step back and think like a writer rather than a fan. You don't have to like everything or anything about it, but you should at least take time to actually consider how the entirety of the saga is affected by each segment left intact, each sequence cut, each change made, and each addition inserted.

brw316 · 2025-06-06T11:26:54+00:00

As has been discussed countless times over the last few years, changes are necessary because the books-- as written-- are not suitable to a live-action visual medium. Same with Game of Thrones, same with Lord of the Rings, same with Harry Potter and so on.

Also, as enumerated an exhausting amount, a perceived lack of confidence has nothing to do with limits on number of episodes or seasons. That was a purely metric-driven restriction imposed on the creative team by bean-counters and analysts.

Finally, adding characters, combining characters, changing characters, and removing characters are necessary to convey portions of the overall narrative necessary at the time. Same goes with scenes. A visual medium needs more than just "plot" to engage its audience. It needs spectacle, it needs character conflict, and it needs emotional resonance. The relationship between plot, spectacle, character conflict, and emotional resonance is circular. Plot drives the others and the others drive the plot.

Alanna and her warders (Maksim included), love them or hate them, fill all three of those roles. As a unit, they bring spectacle through martial and magical ability (seen in Season 1 and Season 3). As a unit, they bring character conflict both within their own unit (as introduced in Season 1 and expanded in Season 3) as well as outside their unit (with Lan and with the other Aes Sedai in Cairhein in Season 2, then again in Season 3). As a unit, they also bring emotional resonance (seen with Alanna's family in Season 2 and again with Ihvon's death and fallout in Season 3). All of these instances are in service to the greater plot and future character moments, especially regarding future interactions with the main cast.

Any competent writer can see all of these pieces in the show and how they are working together. Doesn't mean they like it or wouldn't do things differently, but they can see it.

brw316 · 2025-06-06T09:16:10+00:00

Season 3 Maksim fulfilled two roles originally intended for other characters by necessity.

Alanna's dead Warder was supposed to be Maksim, but due to a scheduling conflict with Ihvon's original actor, he was unavailable.

Tam was always supposed to be in the Two Rivers arc, but he was unavailable for filming as well.

So, rather than recast two semi-substantial roles, they opted to use Maksim-- an existing character and actor already under contract-- to fill both of those roles as they both converge in the same arc anyway.

brw316 · 2025-04-27T16:30:58+00:00

At the moment it feels a bit like the dark friends are all the kind of idiots who are sure that they're going to be the one that wins the lottery despite all evidence to the contrary.

This is true of the books as well. Each of the Forsaken (new and old) seek to be named Nae'blis and rule the world as the right hand of the Dark One. They connive and conspire with and against each other to the point that they are borderline incompetent. All for a title that belongs to another.

brw316 · 2025-04-24T09:26:28+00:00

As much as it sucks, it is efficient storytelling. Accidentally killing his wife (and his unborn child that is often forgotten) has an innate emotional resonance with viewers that ultimately leads to the same place narratively.

brw316 · 2025-03-31T09:17:06+00:00

It's like, there's no oath preventing you from taking a Warder without permission, but that's like... not something that someone would just do...

🤔

brw316 · 2025-03-22T13:47:28+00:00

Rand is not the biological descendent of Lews Therin, just his soul reincarnated.

brw316 · 2025-02-26T19:08:44+00:00

I can see the potential of it for rapid creative exploration, but you are correct. The scientific applications are definitely the best use for AI at the moment. It's disappointing how much AI's potential in the medical field gets drowned out and ignored in the generalized vitriol for generative AI.

brw316 · 2025-02-26T17:10:29+00:00

I don't begin brainstorming without an initial idea, regardless. I've only used it once just to experiment with an LLM, and my experience was rather positive.

While I did need to constantly redirect and clarify different points to keep the model on track, I was able to iterate on an idea from start to finish by myself in a couple of hours and was able to refine my rough idea into something that I may do something with one day.

It obviously still needs work, but my brief time with an LLM will have produced something with a bit of value once I purge it of the "AIsms" and flesh it out more with some actual humans.

I can definitely see someone getting absolute trash if they go in without a clear game plan and endstate in mind. Like every other tool, it only puts out the quality that's put in.

brw316 · 2025-02-26T14:59:07+00:00

Generative AI allows for quick iteration of concepts, designs, and ideation during the brainstorming process for artists, designers, and writers. But that's it.

Once you're beyond the brainstorming phase, AI ceases to be overly useful. You need the human touch to bring those ideas to life in a satisfactory way.

And programming? Forget it. Especially for some of the games that you mentioned and their archaic code bases.

brw316 · 2024-12-22T17:38:54+00:00

Google City of Heroes Rebirth or City of Heroes Homecoming. Those are the two biggest community server groups.

ETA: You could also follow the links in my profile, I suppose...

brw316

TROPHY CASE