After reading many of the comments surrounding it, I am astonished at the lack of thought people put into their comments. It is because of that lack of thought that I am writing this thread, with the intention of giving people a decent understanding as to why the designers would make the choice to change her appearance and about why people should not look too deeply into it, all from the mind of a huge Ashley fan. There are a couple of large contributors to the arguments, but I shall start off with the simpler of the changes to explain:
Ashley's Long Hair.
The new hairstyle is the simpler issue to deal with primarily because it is the less argued and debated of her new look, that and an argument about a hairstyle is rather ludicrous, especially when you consider that all she has
really done is let her hair down. Instead of an in-depth look at the changes and why people should try not to worry, I'll do it in a bullet point format.
- The length of her hair when down, looks only slightly longer than it would be if she had it tied into that same tight bun as she did in the first Mass Effect game. Considering a few years have passed, and her new station, it is entirely possible that her regulations allow her to have such a length of hair.
- Regarding a few comments on what seems to be a lighter hair colour, how many of you have friends, siblings or parents who often dye their hair and who often change the shade? I'm willing to bet that almost everyone knows -someone- who has and does. If we do it this easily now, then in 100+ years’ time, it will likely be even easier and more common.
- Considering this is the end of the Shepard storyline, it is likely Bioware want Mass Effect 3 to go out with a big bang, what does this mean exactly? That they are likely to include all the little details we so treasure in our immersion of the game. In all likelihood the hair being down is purely for when you are on board the Normandy or for the trial at the beginning of the game. Considering her personality, I'd be shocked if she didn't have her hair up in combat situations. But, even if not...
- This is a Space Opera, and though Space Operas may have some written scientific lore surrounding them, it is still the story which is the most important factor. Though in the real world, she would obviously have her hair held back and a helmet on top of her head, we have to remember that a Space Opera will generally care more for the character being in a certain place and pushing along the story than getting facts right. Take the world’s best known Space Opera, Star Wars; the end of Episode 3 had Anakin and Obi-Wan fighting on top of a platform less than a meter above a raging river of lava. Did any of us care that such proximity to the lava would be unbearable, or were we more focused on the story between the two? If she is without her hair tied back in combat, big deal, we've had Shepard travelling around without a helmet on for two games and s/he has done just fine.
Ashley's Body Shape and Freshly Equipped Twin Bazooka's.
And this is the point where people start to whinge and whine, and complain far more excessively than is absolutely necessary. So, it is now time to try and explain why this new appearance makes sense and is generally a good thing. Let’s start with the technical and graphical reasons, before moving onto loreful reasons. Here we go...
- Let’s start with Mass Effect 1, where we first saw, fought beside and inevitably romanced Ashley. It was a wonderful game in immersion, story, gameplay and visually... or was it? On the rest, I agree, but visually? Not entirely. Let’s take a look at the character models to begin with. Almost all the female models in the game used exactly the same build (except for Tali and Matriarch Benezia), meaning that each and every model had exactly the same sized and shaped breasts, bum, etc. Commander Jane Shepard’s body shape was identical to Ashley's, whose was identical to every other random Human female in the entire game.
- Mass Effect 2 stuck mostly with the same body physiques for all the females once again, although they introduced the buxom Miranda, Morinth and Samara, along with Tali and Kasumi who had a different body shape to other people. It is even claimed that Liara's body had changes to it as well, including a different bust, which I'm afraid I can't confirm but it does not surprise me. It's obvious that the major players in the game were given differing appearances than the standard models of their species, which is blatantly obviously done to help differentiate them more. Ashley would have gained such an upgrade if she had been in the game for more than two small cut scenes, but they did not upgrade her as frankly it is a "waste" of space and time to work on a new model for a character who appears for a couple of minutes. Even as a great fan of hers, I understood why they did not upgrade her appearance to be in line with the Squad members we have in Mass Effect 2.
- It makes sense that in Mass Effect 3 that when they bring her back for what is possibly her final appearance in any Mass Effect game, that they would decide to bring her appearance in line with the other unique models for the other Squad Members. Not only to make her stand out more against the normal models, but because of the fact that this is the final part of the trilogy and they want it to be as visually appealing and stunning as possible. People seem to regard this model change as some kind of betrayal, but it is almost certain that if they had given all the characters a unique body shape in the first game that she would have ended up closer resembling what we see in the GameInformer preview than the "small" chested version we saw for Mass Effect 1.
- It is entirely plausible and likely that she was originally envisioned as having a more buxom appearance, just as it is plausible it was done to add sex appeal in the same method that Miranda brought it to Mass Effect 2. Either way, it is a retcon which makes sense due to the graphical limits of the original Mass Effect games and their inability to have too many variations in people. It is also plausible that they used Miranda's model as the basis to start work upon Ashley and would make a lot of sense considering Miranda's model is superior as a graphical model than that of the original Human female models.
- We also should remember that the game is 7-8 months away, which means that what we see of Ashley now is in all probability going to change in some way before the game is released. We should remember that it is essentially a beta version of what we'll see.Regarding the "cat suit" or "bodysuit", I think we can draw enough conclusions from it to understand that it is either her out of armour uniform, her garments beneath her battle armour, or her formal military attire. Ashley was a Soldier, in both Mass Effect 1 and 2. The kind of suit she is wearing would make sense in battle for a character that is of another type, such as a biotic or an engineer. She's a Soldier through and through, so it’s obvious she'll be outfitted like one.
this new design is closer to her original conception in the minds of those at Bioware. But, let’s look at this from another viewpoint for hypothetical reasons; is it possible that Ashley had herself altered to look this way?
- Though Ashley is as confident as they come, it is also known that she has her weaknesses, and just like every person in the world she likely has parts of her own body which are not quite to her taste. Now let’s take the hypothetical view that her appearance in Mass Effect 1 was exactly how she was intended to look, down to breast size, height, etc. It is entirely plausible that a) she was uncomfortable with their size, and
that she had them altered. It's not outside of the realms of possibility that by then it could be the norm to do such things, especially with the advanced levels of biological engineering mankind seems to be capable of now (what with drugs which claim to help in those departments), let alone in 100 years’ time. Society 100 years from now could take physical alteration as being perfectly normal for all levels of society and be at a cheap enough level for any and all. If they can build a "perfect" woman from a man's cells (Miranda), they could manage that. - In the less hypothetical circumstance, it is entirely possible that this sudden bust increase is due to the clothing she is wearing. There are already bras out there which give the illusion of a bigger bust, so it’s possible that what she is wearing in the Mass Effect 3 picture is an illusion created by the clothing she is wearing at the time. This could even come from the bodysuit itself.
I'm not sure if I can come to a true conclusion over the Ashley situation, other than that people need to look more closely at the previous games graphics, tech and lore in order to find some method of explaining why they have altered her appearance for the final game in the Mass Effect Trilogy. I personally am happy with her new look, as it finally differs her from the clone bodies of other female Humans in the game and makes her more unique. The only thing I personally worry over regarding the character is whether they keep to her slightly xenophobic and poetic manner along with her slightly macho soldier moments, but I have faith that Bioware will not let me down.
I hope you enjoyed reading, and hope it makes you think more on their design decisions.
Modifié par Sil, 11 avril 2011 - 09:35 .
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