Mass Effect

[Syt]

Mako didn't piss me off nearly as much as those elevator load times, especially the one on the Normandy. I hope ME2 will let me load the game to the hard drive.

I have load times in elevators FROM the HD.

[Ancient Demon]

Isn't there supposed to be another patch for Mass Effect coming out soon?

[Queequeg]

High Singularity+Bunch of people+level 6+ grenades=lots of dead people.

It is awesome. 

[Neil]

High Singularity+Bunch of people+level 6+ grenades=lots of dead people.

It is awesome.

Singularity was always fun in those cookie-cutter sidequest trailers, with all the stuff lying around.  When you could get a giant hurricane of crap in the air, it was super-fun.

[Syt]

I just realized that the Mako with its 6 flexible wheels, jump thrusters and gun driving over bumpy surfaces reminds me a lot of Moon Patrol:

[Cerr]

I reinstalled this last night, haven't played it in nearly a year. I've tried installing the bring down the sky dlc, my serial code for the dlc is fine but after running the installer for it I get an EA screen with this message:

The game can not start.
The game needs access to the internet in order to verify ownership of this game. Please ensure that your computer is online and try again.

After that it says installation failed.
I can still run mass effect but I don't think the dlc or the patch have been enabled.

I'm using vista. Have an internet connection. I've tried disabling my anti-virus and firewall software but that hasn't made a difference.

Any ideas what could be the problem?

[viper37]

Is internet actually working when you try to install the game?
I have Vista, and it worked perfectly fine last winter when I played this.  Have you tried rebooting?  Did you get it from EA download manager or on a DVD?

[Cerr]

Is internet actually working when you try to install the game?
I have Vista, and it worked perfectly fine last winter when I played this.  Have you tried rebooting?  Did you get it from EA download manager or on a DVD?

The game is installed fine. I can play the game as it is. It's the downloadable content 'Bring Down the Sky' that fails to install and brings up the message about no internet connection. The internet is definitely working when I try to install the DLC. I have the DVD version of the game.

There were some possible solutions posted in the bioware mass effect forum but they didn't work either.
I can't think of anything else to try. It's only about an hours worth of content so I think I'll give up trying at least until they release a new patch.

[Cerr]

I finished the game a couple of days ago.

Possible spoilers ahead:






I enjoyed the game but I didn't find the explanation given as to why the Reapers do what they do convincing. The Sovereign seems to be far more advanced than any other technology in the game, so why would the Reapers need to aquire tech from organic civilisations?
Also if the Reapers use organic life as a resource to consume, why do they have to wait till it reaches a certain technological point before harvesting it? They'd be better off setting up farms instead.
And if they simple don't like advanced organic life, they could have wiped it all out long ago.

[Syt]

We don't know about the Reapers' "metabolism". Maybe 50k years is a normal feeding cycle for them (on earth some snakes can go for years on one meal)? In which case the galaxy itself would be the farm.

Re: tech - maybe they acknowledge that organic life is more creative than their machine intellect? If so they may gamble that some species may come up with something new every once in a while.

[Cerr]

It's not like they go about their business after feeding. It says in the game that they basically go into a sort of hibernation. They hide in dark space, asleep, waiting for sentient organic life to progress to a certain point again.

The Reapers are long past the technological point they allow organic life to reach, I doubt there'd be much (if any at all) new tech that could be taken from the organic civilsations they destroy.

[Neil]

The Reapers are taking tech from the organics?  It seems to me that they ration their own, hyperadvanced tech out to the organics, until they kill them all.

[Queequeg]

I don't think it was ever explained how people could communicate in real time across the galaxy, or why nanotechnology hadn't reached the point where most raw materials could be fabricated, or why people aren't more heavily augmented technologically, or why the Asari all look like hot females, or why female quarians are so different  that they need a space suit in all climates healthy for Humans-Asari-Turians, but they still have titties. 

[Drakken]

I think the universe showed some promise

I completely agree. They had other mythologies to draw from with KOTOR and Jade Empire. Creating a whole new mythos and filling it in to the level they did was great, I got so lost reading those encyclopedia entries. I hope they explore the Salarian/Krogan conflict more, and the Quarians.

Nobody bought Jade Empire

I did. It's sitting next to my copy of Psychonaughts and Beyond Good and Evil.

But you haven't played KOTOR have you?  It's amazing. Best Bioware game EVAH!

It is, but the problem is that the game is way too short after completing side quests. 30 hours?! Come on! 

[Neil]

I don't think it was ever explained how people could communicate in real time across the galaxy, or why nanotechnology hadn't reached the point where most raw materials could be fabricated, or why people aren't more heavily augmented technologically, or why the Asari all look like hot females, or why female quarians are so different  that they need a space suit in all climates healthy for Humans-Asari-Turians, but they still have titties.

There's a guy whose job it is to answer all these questions.  The writers/designers/art people walk up to him and say something like 'we want our FTL drive to produce large amounts of feathers when used.  Explain this.'

That said, some of your questions (nanotechnological advancement, technological enhancement) are stupid, as the improvement in those fields isn't self-evident.  Others are obviously fiat.  PC races look like sexy chicks because that sells.  Why would the quarians not have mammaries?  They're pretty similar to people, except for their weak immune systems (that's the reason they wear the suits).