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Ratya48
Ratya48
Join Date 09/2007
+3

Mass Effect Doesn't Have Spells, it has Biotics

Get it straight

March 2, 2010 1:14:42 AM from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Why does everyone feel it is necessary to write "biotics(spells)"? They are not spells, they are biotics. They are not magic, they are a scientific, if fictional, biological ability. Everyone who writes about ME seems to have an irresistible urge to wrongly and incorrectly label biotics as spells. Nobody did this for the Plasmids in Bioshock. Imagine you developed a game for which you came up with the concept of little people that cling to your arm and fling themselves at enemies at your command. And the press, instead of lauding your creativity calls it a gun. Have some respect people.

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Ratya48
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #1 March 2, 2010 1:26:50 AM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Star Wars also has magic.

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Ratya48
tesb
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #2 March 2, 2010 1:34:29 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

actually people did say spells or magic to plasmids

 

just because the magic is accompanied with technobabble it doesn't make it any less magic

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Ratya48
awuffleablehedgie
Join Date 04/2009
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Reply #3 March 2, 2010 2:26:18 AM
from Demigod ForumsDemigod Forums

I call everything "mana". Including Eve.

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Ratya48
DraekAlmasy
Join Date 09/2009
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Reply #4 March 2, 2010 3:04:14 AM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

As the lead guy of UT3 put it with regards to the game's Field Lattice Generators: "if it looks like a flag and waves like a flag, it's a flag".

So yes, Mass Effect's biotics are spells, Left 4 Dead's infected are zombies and Torchlight's Alchemist is a freaking wizard. Just accept it and move on.

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Ratya48
Tridus
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #5 March 2, 2010 6:04:34 AM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Because they function exactly like spells do in every other game? Next thing you know they'll be upset because the Normandy isn't a spaceship, it's a space whatchamadoozit!

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Ratya48
OMG_Jongalt26
Join Date 05/2009
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Reply #6 March 2, 2010 9:36:18 AM
from Demigod ForumsDemigod Forums

The defining line between sci-fi and fantasy is the obedience to the laws of physics. 

So does it matter if it's the force, plasmids or spells?

However augmentations are based on physics

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Ratya48
CraigHB
Join Date 06/2006
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Reply #7 March 2, 2010 7:46:22 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

I've never played a fantasy RPG, in fact, Mass Effect 1 & 2 are the first games I've played that even carry an RPG label.  To me, the game is simply a 3rd person shooter with a lot of dialog and story in front of it.  Right up my alley. 

The biotics just seem like more weapons.  You fire one, a ball of something goes flying, it hits a target and goes boom.  That's simply a weapon in my book, some of the projectiles even look just like the plasma rifle projectiles in Quake 4. 

I think people calling them spells are trying to tuck ME into that RPG genre.  It's really not an RPG at all, not that I would know, but from what I've read, a classic RPG plays nothing like Mass Effect.  That's fine by me.  However you want to label Mass Effect, it's just a really fun shooter with a great story and great voice acting in front of it.

One of the things I really loved in Far Cry was the sniping.  Mass Effect delivers all that and more.  I just love all the awesome sniper action in ME 2.

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Ratya48
tesb
Join Date 03/2008
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Reply #8 March 2, 2010 8:49:52 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting CraigHB,
reply 7

The biotics just seem like more weapons.  You fire one, a ball of something goes flying, it hits a target and goes boom.  That's simply a weapon in my book, some of the projectiles even look just like the plasma rifle projectiles in Quake 4. 

A fireball is a spell and does the same thing, altough you could label it a weapon as well, i guess it depends frm which genre you are coming from.

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Ratya48
ozo
Join Date 04/2006
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Reply #9 March 15, 2010 1:31:59 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

It doesn't matter what game or genre, a "resource" bar will be inevitably called "mana" and the abilities that use a resource are called spells.

Starcraft is a perfect examply. Technically units have energy and abilities (psionics) yet everyone, including devs, talk about mana and spells.

Mass Effect universe doesn't have magic... but gameplaywise biotics fill the role of magic (like the Force in Star Wars) and so biotic abilities can be called spells. I don't see much difference beetween Force Lightning, a biotic warp or a fireball. Name and looks are different, to suit their respectice worlds but the effects are identical, damage to the target.

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Ratya48
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #10 March 15, 2010 3:51:58 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

And lets not forget that witches don't cast spells in the real world. They are incantations or invocations. TOTALY different stuff.

For example when the nameless ones were woken from their terrible slumber under the desert sands it was an invocation that brought them to this world. Indeed magic was useless against them in general. Spells are not going to work here.

Another famous example was the first opening of the hell gate under the site the Vatican is currently built upon. This was an ritual approximatly 200 hours long and involved the blood of many innocents. This was not a spell. I repeat NOT A SPELL. It was an serries of incantations which prepared for the main ritual invocation which unsealed the gate.

Obviously they never manged to open the gate under Jerusalem. But this one would be opened, again, NOT by a spell but by another - altogether more powerful - form of magic.

 

I think its really important to get this stuff accurate when you abstract it into computer games.

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Ratya48
Wintersong
Join Date 07/2006
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Reply #11 March 15, 2010 4:38:24 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting Aractain,
reply 1
Star Wars also has magic.

Star Wars is fantasy, ergo is logical they have magic.

Quoting tesb,
reply 2
just because the magic is accompanied with technobabble it doesn't make it any less magic

Photographs are magic. Airplanes are magic. Guns are magic. Even men riding horses can appear as mythological creatures to some. Depends on the point of view and knowledge of the viewer.

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Ratya48
ozo
Join Date 04/2006
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Reply #12 March 15, 2010 7:05:58 PM
from Gamers Bill of Rights ForumsGamers Bill of Rights Forums

What did A. C. Clarke say...? "Highly advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic" or something like that...

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Ratya48
DraekAlmasy
Join Date 09/2009
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Reply #13 March 16, 2010 1:18:27 PM
from Stardock ForumsStardock Forums

Quoting Wintersong,
reply 11
Photographs are magic. Airplanes are magic. Guns are magic. Even men riding horses can appear as mythological creatures to some. Depends on the point of view and knowledge of the viewer.

And the author in question. Compare for instance the technologies of Asimov's Foundation series or the Alpha Centauri games, which are so well explained and grounded in our current knowledge some scientists have even claimed they'd be possible to replicate during this century.

Meanwhile, all the explanation we get from Mass Effect's Biotics is "A Wizard Scientist did it", so if the author wishes we stop calling it "magic", he can go die in a pyre for all I care.

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Ratya48
Wintersong
Join Date 07/2006
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Reply #14 March 16, 2010 1:56:57 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Jules Verne?

Quoting DraekAlmasy,
reply 13

so if the author wishes we stop calling it "magic", he can go die in a pyre for all I care.

You can name it "e-peen" if you want, it doesn't change the fact that there is no real magic, only possible and impossible. If in the game universe it is considered possible (real) then it's not magic (as usual understood). Unless you are in a fantasy game in which you must name it "magic" of fear the hordes of grognards (as in French for "grumblers") even if wizards are obviously scientists that work under rules appropiate to their fictional world. So if I must call "magic" as magic in a fantasy setting, I must say that it's not so much to ask as the OP does, to call "science (fiction)" (even if so soft that it's just opera) as science and not as magic. People being lazy asses is a whole different story with too much influence.

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Ratya48
Aractain
Join Date 05/2008
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Reply #15 March 16, 2010 4:15:39 PM
from Sins of a Solar Empire ForumsSins of a Solar Empire Forums

Quoting Wintersong,
reply 14
Jules Verne?


Quoting DraekAlmasy, reply 13
so if the author wishes we stop calling it "magic", he can go die in a pyre for all I care.

You can name it "e-peen" if you want, it doesn't change the fact that there is no real magic, only possible and impossible. If in the game universe it is considered possible (real) then it's not magic (as usual understood). Unless you are in a fantasy game in which you must name it "magic" of fear the hordes of grognards (as in French for "grumblers") even if wizards are obviously scientists that work under rules appropiate to their fictional world. So if I must call "magic" as magic in a fantasy setting, I must say that it's not so much to ask as the OP does, to call "science (fiction)" (even if so soft that it's just opera) as science and not as magic. People being lazy asses is a whole different story with too much influence.

Okay. If magic isn't real - how do breasts become so enthralling?

 

Magic.

 

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Ratya48
RavenX
Join Date 10/2008
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Reply #16 March 16, 2010 4:32:51 PM
from Elemental ForumsElemental Forums

Quoting Aractain,
reply 15

Okay. If magic isn't real - how do breasts become so enthralling?

Magic.

LoL so true. Nice ones are so Hypnotic and Enthralling. How do you think my wife finally got me to "settle down"?!?! hehe

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