120 réponses à ce sujet

[-Skorpious-]

didymos1120 wrote...

-Skorpious- wrote...

didymos1120 wrote...

-Skorpious- wrote...

Plus, the Yahg's technology is nowhere near that of other galactic races, meaning, they have a greater chance of succumbing to the reapers mind-control (plus, they probably lack the technology to actually combat a reaper, let alone a fleet of them).

How do you reach  that conclusion?  From everything we've seen, if you're an organic, you're able to be indoctrinated, period.  It has nothing to do with how good or sophisticated the machines you build are. 

I imagine its hard to fight a reaper with 20th century tech and survive. Shepard, the Citadel Fleet, the Alliance - they were able to fight Sovereign and (undenialably) escape indoctrination that would have followed if the reaper would have succeeded. The reason? Their tech was advanced enough to pierce the shields/armor of a reaper.

The Yahg, despite their overwhelming strength and girth, simply do not posess the technology required to combat an invading reaper. Hell, they can't even leave their own planet with their current technology. In short, the Yahg are screwed if the reapers decide they are worth invading.

All of which completely fails to address how lower tech gear makes you more vulnerable to indoctrination in and of itself.  I wasn't asking how lower tech gear makes you more vulnerable to getting your ass kicked the old-fashioned way, and thus unable to avoid exposure to it in the short-term.  That's obvious (and also a bit of cheap semantic trick).

I never said that they were more or less physically susceptible to indoctrination; I only pointed out that their lower tech meant that the Yahg are easy pickings for the reapers. Its kinda like pitting a caveman against a tank - there is no way in hell the caveman is gonna win. In short, the Yahg cannot fight back against the reapers, resulting in their eventual destruction/indoctrination.

To reiterate my point, my previous arguments had nothing to do with how susceptible the species is against indoctrination, but rather how equipped the Yahg are against dealing with a reaper threat. If the Yahg cannot defeat the reapers they will be indoctrinated. End of story.

Modifié par -Skorpious-, 10 septembre 2010 - 03:39 .

[adriano_c]

didymos1120 wrote...

OK, Salarian due to the Broker being a super quick study (though not quite as quick, and without the lifespan issue).  Batarian because of the eight eyes, I suppose (which is a really shallow sort of similarity, especially since Batty's only have the four.  As well complain asari, turians and salarians all have just the two).  Krogan for being big, physically aggressive, and strong (none of which are patented by the Krogan.  Humans and turians are also quite physically aggressive when they feel like it, for instance).  Vorcha because of.....um, what makes the yahg particularly like the vorcha?  Other than two arms, two legs, and a head with a mouth and some eyes, that is. 

Was talking strictly in visual design.

salarian - the horns
batarian - all those beady, black eyes
krogan - large
vorcha - lipless, with bad teeth

[didymos1120]

Eternal Density wrote...

I thought the yahg fight was not so standard, what with the shooting+melee and the red shield thingy.
As for Vasir, I played a Vanguard so double the Biotic Charge is double the fun. But I'll agree that pretty much every fight is dodging and pumping lead into things, not a lot that can be done about that. Though on the outside of the ship, tactical use of lightning made for some less standard gameplay.

Fighting the Broker as a Vanguard is quite fun too.  You can easily stay out of cover pretty much the entire time up to at least up to hardcore difficulty (haven't tried an insanity run-through yet).  Makes the "red shield" phase a lot easier to deal with too, as charge completely opens him up to a point-blank Claymore+Melee combo chain.

[Fhaileas]

searanox wrote...

The yahg are pretty neat, design wise, but their background is positively anemic compared to the other races.  They have potential to find a meaningful place in the story but I really don't see them becoming a staple like some of the other races.

Regarding the Shadow Broker, it's very obvious that BioWare had no real idea who he/she even was until they got around to making the DLC.  I was genuinely surprised to find that the Shadow Broker wasn't an established character, but rather... a big ugly alien who you fight in a boss battle.  Really?  Is that the best they could do?  It's a total ass-pull, and while the Shadow Broker doesn't have to be an established character, the way it was done feels random, lazy, and incoherent.  Certainly someone suggested better ideas.  They must have.

I think this really is endemic of a problem with Mass Effect 2 and the direction the series is going as a whole.  I'll just come out and say it, the new writers they have for the series are okay when it comes to dialogue, and awful when it comes to producing coherent stories.  Everything in Mass Effect 2 feels like it was made up along the way, and we're expected to excuse characters with poor motivations, illogical events, and stupid decisions in the name of big explosions.  I was hoping Lair of the Shadow Broker would be something that moved in the right direction this way, but nope.  The individual elements are fine, but the way they come together is just sloppy, and in a relatively small DLC add-on, that's pretty inexcusable.

Kudos! A glimmer of light amidst the encircling gloom of mindless sycophancy.

[didymos1120]

adriano_c wrote...
Was talking strictly in visual design.

salarian - the horns
batarian - all those beady, black eyes
krogan - large
vorcha - lipless, with bad teeth

OK, well, the Salarian horns aren't actually horns, just somewhat pointed bits of flesh.  The yahg's are much more elaborate, actual horns and look quite different than the rest of the skin.  Both do slant towards the back of the skull though, so I guess there's that.

Batarians: again 4 vs 8, and in rather different arrangements.  Eye color is purely superficial, and lots of things have black eyes: varren (when light isn't reflecting from them),elcor, keepers, pyjaks, some rachni castes, some krogan, many salarians, frisky asari, Thane most of the time, shifty-looking space cows, the space hamster, etc.  The shape is similar, but then that's true of all eyes, pretty much. 

Krogan...yeah they're large. Then again, so's an YMIR mech and an elcor.  Still, yahg are seemingly larger than krogan, and shaped fairly differently too.  Especially the limbs (though I'll grant they do share the same digit-count on the hands.  But then that's true of turians and quarians and salarians and volus and elcor and vorcha as well). 

Vorcha...are indeed lipless.  Their teeth however are more like those of a batarian than a yahg: in both cases they're quite long and needle-like, though batarian teeth aren't as close-packed as a vorcha's.  Neither are a yahg's.

Besides which, if you had to single out one feature of the yahg as the most unique, it'd definitely be that tripartite mouth with somewhat venus flytrap-style spikes. I'm not even sure they're proper teeth as they seem to actually be growing right out of the lips (of which there are three, BTW.  Though a better term might be "flap" given how different the mouth is).  They also reminded me of sharks, as yahg have multiple rows of them (that's another unique feature not shared by any other race).

And then there's all the other ornamentation on the head, which isn't exactly like that seen on asari, or turians, or...well you get the idea.  Point being, if you're gonna insist on being purely superficial and not pay any heed to the details, every species can be viewed as just a mishmash/copy of the others (and if that's how you're gonna do things, there are far worse offenders than the yahg. I'm looking at you, asari).  The only exception would be the hanar...but then a lot of people say they look just like the Reapers (which of course, they don't.  They're just superficially similar in some respects).

[didymos1120]

Fhaileas wrote...
Kudos! A glimmer of light amidst the encircling gloom of mindless sycophancy.

Ah, so anyone who's perfectly fine with the Broker being a yahg is a mindless sycophant then?

[GnusmasTHX]

didymos1120 wrote...

Fhaileas wrote...
Kudos! A glimmer of light amidst the encircling gloom of mindless sycophancy.

Ah, so anyone who's perfectly fine with the Broker being a yahg is a mindless sycophant then?

It's even better because if the SB was someone we knew, we'd be discussing how it was so cliche to turn X into the bad guy, how obvious it was, and counting how many people "called it" etc.

[didymos1120]

-Skorpious- wrote...
To reiterate my point, my previous arguments had nothing to do with how susceptible the species is against indoctrination, but rather how equipped the Yahg are against dealing with a reaper threat. If the Yahg cannot defeat the reapers they will be indoctrinated. End of story.

OK, I misunderstood your point, but you have to admit that just saying "greater chance of succumbing" was not exactly clear about that.  I still somehwat disagree:  I think better tech mostly just buys you a little extra time before it's indoctrination city.  It certainly didn't help the protheans much, and they were definitely more advanced in many ways than the current, um, crop of races.  Saying that "If [insert race here] cannot defeat the Reapers, [insert race here] will get indocrinated" is really just a tautology: of course they will, because the [insert race here] lost and the Reapers won, and that's what Reapers do when they win. 

[JJDrakken]

Liara's "father" is the Bartender at illuim.





JJ

[didymos1120]

JJDrakken wrote...

Liara's "father" is the Bartender at illuim.


JJ

Wow.  Way to be on-topic.

[-Skorpious-]

didymos1120 wrote...

-Skorpious- wrote...
To reiterate my point, my previous arguments had nothing to do with how susceptible the species is against indoctrination, but rather how equipped the Yahg are against dealing with a reaper threat. If the Yahg cannot defeat the reapers they will be indoctrinated. End of story.

OK, I misunderstood your point, but you have to admit that just saying "greater chance of succumbing" was not exactly clear about that.  I still somehwat disagree:  I think better tech mostly just buys you a little extra time before it's indoctrination city.  It certainly didn't help the protheans much, and they were definitely more advanced in many ways than the current, um, crop of races.  Saying that "If [insert race here] cannot defeat the Reapers, [insert race here] will get indocrinated" is really just a tautology: of course they will, because the [insert race here] lost and the Reapers won, and that's what Reapers do when they win. 

I can see how you took my "greater chance of succumbing" sentence out of context.

And I am assuming that, you know, the current Mass Effect species will triumph over the reapers. Would would be the point in playing the games otherwise? =p

[WARGASM300]

-Skorpious- wrote...

I want the reapers to land on their planet and indoctrinate the entire species. Think about it- an entire army of indoctrinated Yahg would make incredible foot-soldiers/enforces for the reapers.

Plus, the Yahg's technology is nowhere near that of other galactic races, meaning, they have a greater chance of succumbing to the reapers mind-control (plus, they probably lack the technology to actually combat a reaper, let alone a fleet of them).

The council has quarantined they're planet, and i'm pretty sure they'd keep a sentry or sumin to inforce tht quarantine, so if th reapers did go to Parnack (Yahg Homeworld, yes i codexed it ) to indoctrinate them i doubt the council would sit on they're ass and let them aquire huge tanks made of skin for theyr cause.  

[Kavadas]

didymos1120 wrote...

Fhaileas wrote...
Kudos! A glimmer of light amidst the encircling gloom of mindless sycophancy.

Ah, so anyone who's perfectly fine with the Broker being a yahg is a mindless sycophant then?

No, just someone with lower standards.  The Yahg SB was completely random and, as others have said, a total "ass pull".

LOTSB was perfect until that reveal at the end.  My only thought when I first saw him was, "WTF is wrong with this Salarian?"  Then it zoomed in a bit, Liara started talking about Yahgs (she just randomy knows the entire species' history?  Mmmkay...), and... ooh, we fight.  And he has a shield and seeing that made me roll my eyes.

LOTSB was great.  The SB himself was pretty lame and nonsensical.

SB should really have been Miranda's dad.

[WARGASM300]

i like your idea of it having been Miranda's dad, but i also really like the idea of a new race of giant apex predators, i like the yahg nd loved LotSB, can't wait for the next substantial dlc.

[aksoileau]

Having a new species as the SB is much better than throwing an asari/turian/human in the mix. That would have been lazy. I was satisfied with the yagh because it was definitely something different. If you want lazy, look at witch hunt, LotSB was a gem.

[Vicious]

Frankly I steered clear of the boards so when I found the shadow broker sitting in the shadow and not looking recognizable at all, I was like 'uh oh...' When I saw him I thought 'holy crap!' and when Shepard went hand to hand with it I thought 'HELL YEAH!'

Which is what I am thinking that they were shooting for. Not this over-analyzing BS that is rampant here.

Mass Effect 2's worst DLC story is as good as Dragon Age's best DLC story. Sad.

Modifié par Vicious, 16 septembre 2010 - 11:19 .

[implodinggoat]

searanox wrote...

The yahg are pretty neat, design wise, but their background is positively anemic compared to the other races.  They have potential to find a meaningful place in the story but I really don't see them becoming a staple like some of the other races.

Regarding the Shadow Broker, it's very obvious that BioWare had no real idea who he/she even was until they got around to making the DLC.  I was genuinely surprised to find that the Shadow Broker wasn't an established character, but rather... a big ugly alien who you fight in a boss battle.  Really?  Is that the best they could do?  It's a total ass-pull, and while the Shadow Broker doesn't have to be an established character, the way it was done feels random, lazy, and incoherent.  Certainly someone suggested better ideas.  They must have.

I think this really is endemic of a problem with Mass Effect 2 and the direction the series is going as a whole.  I'll just come out and say it, the new writers they have for the series are okay when it comes to dialogue, and awful when it comes to producing coherent stories.  Everything in Mass Effect 2 feels like it was made up along the way, and we're expected to excuse characters with poor motivations, illogical events, and stupid decisions in the name of big explosions.  I was hoping Lair of the Shadow Broker would be something that moved in the right direction this way, but nope.  The individual elements are fine, but the way they come together is just sloppy, and in a relatively small DLC add-on, that's pretty inexcusable.

REGARDING INCOHERENT STORIES IN ME2

I agree with you comment that weak stories supported by excellent dialogue is a running theme in ME2 most notably the main storyline itself which is quite weak compared to the epic conflict in ME1.  For example Liara's interest in the Shadow Broker itself is totally random and doesn't fit her character, yet Liara's dialogue in LotSB is exceptional and reminded me why I loved her character so much in ME1.

I'd actually say that the dialogue in ME2 is better than the dialogue in ME1.  Not that the dialogue in ME1 was bad; but some of the minor characters came off feeling like plot devices set in place to advance the story or provide some tidbit of information while in ME2 you don't run into any characters that lack personality. 

But; the ME2 story is very light compared to the epic galaxy shaking events of ME1, the recruitment and loyalty missions which comprise the bulk of the game have little to no connection to the main storyline, and you even have a few glaring plot holes like the entire crew hopping on the shuttle for no apparent reason so that the Collectors can board your ship while you're away.  Plus the way they butchered Liara's character to 1: get you interested in the ME2 love interests and 2: sell comic books and DLC, really pissed me off.

In order for the revelation of the Shadowbroker to be a real shocker there needed to be more lead up to the revelation and the Shadow Broker would have needed to be an established character.  As it is none of the existing established character really fit the role though and since they didn't introduce an appropriate candidate in ME2, I don't think there was any potential for a really shocking revelation of the Shadow Broker's true identity.

I think the Shadowbroker's storyline was something that couldn't be properly resolved in a single mission and really needed to be either a running plotline in ME2 and/or ME3 or the subject of a much larger disc sized expansion pack.

REGARDING THE INTRODUCTION OF THE YAHG IN LOTSB

I actually liked the introduction of the Yahg as the Shadow Broker.  The moment of walking in on him sitting in the shadows and trying to figure out what the hell he actually was, was pretty interesting.  Aside from that it introduces an interesting new species, albeit one that isn't very fleshed out at the moment.

I can't think of any established characters that would have been a logical and appropriatley shocking candidate to be the Shadowbroker (would discovering the Consort is the Shadowbroker really floor you?), so introducing some new character of an established species would have come off as monotnous.  I suppose they could have had the Shadowbroker be an AI; but that has been done to death and really wouldn't have felt like a big surprise either.  Having the Shadowbroker be a Reaper would have been pretty damned startling; but it wouldn't make sense since the Shadobroker's motivations are clearly distinct from those of the Reapers.

Since the Shadowbroker was the subject of only a single mission and there weren't any logical established characters to fill the part, I think Bioware did the best in a bad situation by using the introduction of an interesting new species as a means to create that "What the hell is he?" moment when you first run into the Shadow Broker.  Its not really shocking; but at least its interesting.
 

[clennon8]

Meh. You just can't please everybody. If SB had been a known character, it would have been "predictable" because the identity have been predicted by someone. If it had been an unknown character of a known species, people would have been like "WTF a salarian!?!" or "WTF a krogan!?!" and so on. I think it was a pretty good reveal, myself. The yahg seem pretty badass, and I look forward to killing more of them in ME3.

[implodinggoat]

adriano_c wrote...

Was talking strictly in visual design.

salarian - the horns
batarian - all those beady, black eyes
krogan - large
vorcha - lipless, with bad teeth

I think that was intentional since it plays into the moment where you first run into him sitting in the shadows and you try to figure out what the hell he is.

When I first saw his size I thought he was a Krogan.  Then when I saw the horns I thought, damn that's one big Salarian.  Then when I saw the eyes I thought, damn that's one big Batarian wearing some weird hat with horns on it.  Then when I saw the mouth I was just totally confused until Liara explained what he was.

[HakkyounoTenshi]

I personally liked the Yahg. I saw really no way of making the SB a previously established character and having it work, and I also liked how at the reveal moment I had no clue even what the SB was, let alone who. Introducing the Yahg also fleshed out the universe at bit. It showed that there were more species in the galaxy. The Yahg are confined to their homeworld, how many more species are?



Maybe it's because I'm such a large Star Wars fan but I've always found it a bit irking that there are so few known species in the galaxy. We know about 11 species: the humans, asari, salarians, turians, quarians, krogan, drell, geth, hanar, elcor, and vorcha. Adding the Yahg makes 12, and also offers an idea that there might be more.



So I liked the Shadow Broker. Maybe that makes me a sycophant or a mindless sheep or maybe it means I have lower standards, but I'm fine with that. I know what I like, and Bioware delivered.



You can't please everyone, and just because someone disagrees with you doesn't mean you should insult them or say rude things.

[jimmyjoefro]

I think they've hit their new species quota for this installment. 5 is plenty.

[Mudzr]

5? We have the drell, vorcha and now the yahg, and all were pretty well justified as for why we didn't see them in ME1. I guess you can count Collectors, but they're not sentinent, and are basically husks, speaking of which, does anyone count the husks as species?
In ME1 it was made pretty clear that the universe was full of species, and the SB DLC implies that there are other pre space flight species out there,  the dev team just didn't have enough time to make them all, and in all seriousness, if the ME universe is to reach the calibur of starwars or startreck, we're going to need quite a few more species, preferably introduced gradually of course.
Hopefully ME3 will introduce two more species, maybe another enemy species, flesh out pre existing species (like adding females and unsuited volus/ (maybe) quarians aswell as maybe adding the Protheans and the raloi (Which would be awesome, we need some more avian aliens).
Back on toppic, the Yahg may have not been the best possible identity, but it was far from the worse, belive me, I was soooo relieved that it was not a human, expecially TIM, and it wouldn't make sense if it was a krogan (not smart enough), salarian (don't live long enough), Reaper (it works against them), etc.
Plus, we couldn't of ran into the shadow broker before, since he spends of all his time in the ship, and having it as Liara's father would have just lead to ALOT of "Liara, I am your father!" parodies.
*Edit* You forgot the batarians. That makes twelve, and then there is the keepres, but like I said before, I wouldn't really count them, unless they have some secret intelligence or something.

Modifié par Mudzr, 17 septembre 2010 - 02:50 .

[implodinggoat]

jimmyjoefro wrote...

I think they've hit their new species quota for this installment. 5 is plenty.

Vorcha, Collectors, Drell, and the Yahg. 

That's 4, unless you're counting the Batarians; but they were heavily referenced in ME1 and properly introduced in the Bring Down the Sky DLC.  Plus counting the Collectors as new is also iffy since they're Prothean and ME1 referenced the hell out of the Protheans.

Of course I suppose you could be counting the Klixen since you used the term "species" not "race"; but I think HakkyunoTenshi was talking more about civilizations not Non Sapient creatures.

[HakkyounoTenshi]

Thank you implodinggoat. Civilizations is a much better word for what I was going for. It just kind of feels like there should be more variant cultures. I forgot the batarians in my count though.

[jimmyjoefro]

implodinggoat wrote...

jimmyjoefro wrote...

I think they've hit their new species quota for this installment. 5 is plenty.

Vorcha, Collectors, Drell, and the Yahg. 

That's 4, unless you're counting the Batarians; but they were heavily referenced in ME1 and properly introduced in the Bring Down the Sky DLC.  Plus counting the Collectors as new is also iffy since they're Prothean and ME1 referenced the hell out of the Protheans.

Of course I suppose you could be counting the Klixen since you used the term "species" not "race"; but I think HakkyunoTenshi was talking more about civilizations not Non Sapient creatures.

Raloi

Modifié par jimmyjoefro, 17 septembre 2010 - 03:14 .