[quote]PoliteAssasin wrote...
Please don't say it's too much time or expensive if you don't know about game development. Because judging by your comment, you don't. The reason wrex wasn't in your squad isn't because it would cost too much money, or too much time. (Actually had a good laugh at that) it was because he had to unite the clans under urdnot in order to get ready for the reapers.
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I do know about game development, and working in Unreal, and software development. And it is too much time and expense to have 12 optional + (#) new squadmates, unless ME3, like ME2 is going to be all about squadmates. I'm quite sure that's not going to be the point of ME3.
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I love how people just assume that Bioware's a typical lazy developer who's going to subject everone in the game to cameos because "it costs less". Your absolutely wrong. Just becayse they subjected one character to a cameo, doesn't mean they're going to do it to all of them. That kind of thinking is flawed.
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No one's accusing BioWare of being lazy on their characters.
It's much simpler to have cameos, like LI's, because they have zippedy doo da with the plot of ME3. Unless it's going to be just like ME2, where character vignettes are the point, and we have loyalty+ missions or something? Is every one of 12 ME2 characters going to have a personal mission directly related to the main plot? Simply put: No. Why? Because they're completely optional.
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Mass Effect 2 is all about your companions. Besides the Horizon, Collector Ship, and Collector attack missions, the game is all about the squad mates and gettingt o know them, getting their loyalty, and completing the suicide mission. Bioware is not, and let me say that again IS NOT going to make a game where the squad is central to the plot just to cast them aside in the third act. Why? Because not only would it be a very cheap copout, it would ****** off the fans, and it would take some serious righting skills to give each and every one of the survivors of the mission a reason to leave. Which they have none.
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1. The characters in ME2 are not essential to the main plot. They're just along for the ride. If they were central to the plot, they'd be supporting Shepard's role. They were "main characters" in
their own plots, and had nothing to do with the main plot.
2. How is it a "very cheap" let alone a "copout"? They can either 1) die, 2) not be involved in ME2 at all.
3. How would ****** off the fans? Having a whole bunch of people for absolutely no reason aside from popularity? If that was the case, Wrex should've been a squadmember in ME2 (unless my fanboy sense is off.). Liara lovers are pissed off, but they're getting DLC.
4. Aside from Tali and Garrus, every character has one or many reasons to leave, namely: The Suicide Mission is over.
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Jacob/Miranda have no where to go.
Garrus has no where to go.
Tali, depending on how you did her loyalty mission, has no where to go.
Grunt has tuchanka, but I'm pretty sure he'll stay with shepard. He's the most loyal out of them all. He wants to fight. He's pretty much staying.
Samara may leave, but then again like I said, why go when the reapers are on their way? The most important objective is to stop them, then part ways.
Thane is pretty much dead.
Kasumi and Zaeed most likely won't be there in Mass 3. Or if anyone will get cameos, it'd be them. Why? Because in Mass 2 they're not fully developed characters. Although given their popularity, that might change in Mass 3.
Legion isn't going anywhere.
Joker isn't going anywhere.
Mordin most likely isn't going anywhere. He's the ship's doc. Without him there are no upgrades and such. He's most likely staying.
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And they can all die. Heck, most don't even need to be Pokémon'd before going on the Suicide Mission.
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That's about all of them. So if you think Bioware is going to give these squad members cameo roles in Mass 3 just because some lazy people could get them killed, then your completely wrong.
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Do you even understand what you're writing? So now you think we believe that BioWare's lazy, but the players are also lazy? It takes effort
to get everyone killed. But they can
still be killed.
If they're dead, they're not coming back.
If they weren't recruited, they have nothing to do with anything.
If you don't have an import, there's nothing to expect.
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Shepard already has the galaxies most dangerous and talented individuals. Theres no need to recruit a whole new team.
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Recruit for what? More land wars in Asia?
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There might be a few new recruits, but theres no way that All of the squad mates from the first game will be given cameos. It's the last game, they're not going to make it where you see them like 5-10 minutes and its over. They're going to send Mass 3 out with a bang.
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If ME3 is going to be about a "bang", that is, an extravagant, epic storytelling climax and ending, they're going to have to focus on plot. Not characters. There's no need for 12+ characters. And as soon as you think of, let's say Tali, doing some plot-related epic moment: whoops, she could already be dead from your import. Therefore its' either going to be a generic placeholder, or a cameo.
Maybe they will all be back: but they'll have no relevance toward anything.
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Nothing to do with costs, or it being difficult to achieve. I'll list a few developer comments to further prove my point.
Joystiq Interview with Casey Hudson. (Bolded text is Joystiq, regular is Hudson.)
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There have to be a crazy number of permutations for how you can end your story in Mass Effect 2. How much of a nightmare is it for you guys to figure out how to address that for Mass Effect 3? It's ... very hard.
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This proves nothing, aside from it's very difficult to account for every player action. Hence, it'll be EASIER for them to have static assets that everyone can appreiciate, not ME2 player team-living variation #84.
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Do you have like a whiteboard somewhere, like a multi-faceted –No, it would be impossible, because it's multi-multi-dimensional. You couldn't put it into a 2D flowchart or a matrix –
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I don't even know what this means.
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You need a stereoscopic 3D whiteboard that you can manipulate Minority Report style.It's beyond three or four
dimensions, because you have all the consequences from a certain
playthrough and many different things that happen and different things
that happen within those. But then all those things different for a
different play through and then times your class and times your gender
and all these things. We're pulling in probably over a thousand
variables from
Mass Effect 2 into
Mass Effect 3 if
you're importing your save game.
It's more of an organic approach where
we're opportunistic about how the game can change based on those
variables. So the writers have to experts in what's happened before and
what choices you could have made, and then as they write the story, they
find places where it would be really cool to have different things
happen based on those variables.[/quote]
More proof that things are just way too complicated, and putting in "fluff" is going to add to that production cycle.
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Now ask yourself this.
What type of ending permutations for Mass 2 could significantly affect Mass 3? What other than who lives and who dies? Now I'm assuming you've read the last section, specifically the bolded portion. Now if that's not enough to convince you, your just being stubborn.
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There are, as I recall, thousands of things that will be carried over.
You tell me: what ending permutations from ME2 could significantly effect ME3?
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You say that they're going the cheap way. Well judging from the comments above, they're not. Why? Because going a cheap came rout wouldn't be "hard". In fact, it would be quite easy. What would be "hard" would be scripting the game to react differently based on who died, and who didn't. Determining who's in your squad in the game, who could potentially leave, and what roles they would be given.
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It would be significantly easier to make static assets, like new characters, and do whatever they want with them with the ME3 plot, then to re-use potential assets from ME2 and have them work within the plot. It's not impossible, but it's a hell of a lot of work (
just watch Alpha Protocol's presentation on choices, and how complex those 2D flowcharts are). To satisfy the fans, like what happens to ones LI's, it'd be smart to simply have cameos. I'm hoping they keep Garrus and Tali around, because those seem to be the most popular, but that doesn't mean they will.
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So just because they could die, doesn't mean they'll get a cameo. Wrex could die. The game was different in terms of tuchanka if he did, someone else is the leader, and they're running things differently. That will also affect Mass 3. Now if wrex lives, he's uniting the clans under urdnot. If they can make a plot change like that based on wrex dying or not, just imagine that on a larger scale, but instead of someone who's an npc, a squadmate instead. It's 100% possible. The only thing is, like Hudson said above, is that people will have made different choices, and choices resulting from those choices. And that all cascades and creates a specific permutation for the players game. In my game I may have saved everyone on the suicide mission. But then, Bob may have lost Mordin and Garrus. So if he lost Mordin and Garrus, he won't see them in Mass 3. But I'd get them in Mass 3 because they survived, based off of a decision I made of who's fire team leader, who goes throught he vents, who holds the line, etc... So just because Bob lost them, Bioware isn't going to penalize me and subject my living squad mates to cameo roles because on Bobs playthrough he wouldn't see Garrus or Mordin. So if Bob might not see it, then no need for me to see it. That's not what Bioware is doing.
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Huh? You just explained your counter argument.
It's not that they're going to punish you for doing well. It's how they reward you that's the issue. And nothing says they'll keep everyone as a squadmate. In fact, quite the opposite.
Show some proof that you're right. Cause all I got from that interview with Casey? Is:
1) The permutations are extremely hard to do (including squadmates.)
2) '"I want all my characters back from the
previous game because that's what made the first game great." But when
you think about it, part of what made the previous game great is the
process of meeting those characters for the first time. That has to be
part of the experience too, how you meet new characters.' <-- This clearly addresses your attitude about the characters: you want them back. But
you will meet new characters. That means not all will be squadmates. Just like in ME2.
In ME2, we got 2/5ths of your squad back from ME1. Considering the success and design choices of ME2, you can expect something similar.
Retour en haut
I'm certain it'll happen again, with the Mass Effect 2 expansion, and the issue with the squad mates. 
I know all too well the horrors about modeling. I love it, yeah, but with UV mapping its a pain. Not to mention making the textures, for example a static mesh asset, and then creating the bump map, specularity, then importing it. Creating the material, because the textures aren't applied to meshes in UED, materials are. Depending on your material, you may spend 5 minutes in the material editor up to 30 minutes, possibly even more. Then placing the mesh in game. Now that's a mesh. That isn't a character. 
