50122 réponses à ce sujet

[P. Domi]

I gave Ash the Black Widow as soon as I saved enough money to purchase it. Ash did particularly well with this weapon in Priority Earth, since the ravaged London landscape has plenty of open terrain and excellent line of sight. Although Garrus is the "king of the bottle shooters", I think Ash is the better marksman

[RZIBARA]

I gave Ash the Black Widow as soon as I saved enough money to purchase it. Ash did particularly well with this weapon in Priority Earth, since the ravaged London landscape has plenty of open terrain and excellent line of sight. Although Garrus is the "king of the bottle shooters", I think Ash is the better marksman

 

Ashley is a beast

[DWH1982]

I started playing ME3 again (even though I said I wouldn't) and I already miss her, since she's still in the hospital.

 

It's just not the same without the sound of her Revenant. She can really do some damage with that thing when she's leveled up.

[themikefest]

I would like to have Ashley on Sur'Kesh to hear her dialogue with Kirrahe(if alive). Ashely, Kaidan and Tali are the only ones guaranteed to see Kirrahe on Virmire. I did a playthrough where both Garrus and T'soni never met Kirrahe but talk like they did. I would also like to hear what her dialogue would be on Tuchanka when you cure/sabotage the genophage. 

[DWH1982]

I think Ash would have more or less the same reaction to the genophage cure as most of us - a little more willing to accept it if Wrex and Bakara are alive. Given that she knows Wrex, I think she'd be willing to give him a chance to pull the krogan together.

[P. Domi]

Williams reactions in the Tuchanka missions involving Lt. Adrien Victus and the turian platoon are very interesting and show how far from the truth the fallacy of her racism is.

 

https://www.youtube....?v=SBWbMkeTSsI' class='bbc_url' title='External link' rel='nofollow external'> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBWbMkeTSsI

[Discrepancy]

Whoooops. Sorry! Uploaded the wrong image. Here's the Ashley fan-art I made:

 

[DWH1982]

Nice picture. Always glad to see Ash fan art. There was a time pre-ME3 when it didn't seem like much was available, but I do think that has improved somewhat.

[Discrepancy]

Thanks! Ash is highly underrated and too easily brushed off as a xenophobe; I don't quite agree with that (although vastly more popular, Miranda's often just represented as a sex object). I'm currently working on a series of Mass Effect character portraits, which is quite fun. 

 

http://snarkybookworm.tumblr.com/ -- there are some other renders here.

[DWH1982]

All of those pictures are quite good. Funny to see Voyager mentioned, too - I've been watching that series on Netflix.

 

And, yeah, Ash is pretty misunderstood among the fan base here. She was always my favorite character, so I was surprised to see how so many people react to her when I came to BSN for the first time. It's been a point of discussion before, but I'm not sure the new writers really understood her either. There was some good stuff for her in ME3, but what was there focused on a few small parts of her character, and at times she felt more like a background character than a ME1 squadmate and carry over LI: She doesn't go out into the Normandy and interact with the crew, she has little to say after missions, you can't invite her to the apartment in the Citadel, etc...

 

I wish Ash's original writer had stayed through ME3. It would have been good for Ash. As an added benefit, probably Thane, too.

[RZIBARA]

I would like to have Ashley on Sur'Kesh to hear her dialogue with Kirrahe(if alive). Ashely, Kaidan and Tali are the only ones guaranteed to see Kirrahe on Virmire. I did a playthrough where both Garrus and T'soni never met Kirrahe but talk like they did. I would also like to hear what her dialogue would be on Tuchanka when you cure/sabotage the genophage. 

 

Yeah, it would've been nice to have her talk to Kirrahe on Sur'Kesh. Have you ever tried taking her on the Tuchanka Bomb mission after Tali has been recruited? She actually leaves the observatory

[P. Domi]

- snip -

 

And, yeah, Ash is pretty misunderstood among the fan base here. She was always my favorite character, so I was surprised to see how so many people react to her when I came to BSN for the first time. 

 

My thoughts exactly

[themikefest]

Yeah, it would've been nice to have her talk to Kirrahe on Sur'Kesh. Have you ever tried taking her on the Tuchanka Bomb mission after Tali has been recruited? She actually leaves the observatory

I know you can recruit Tali before doing the bomb mission I just never done it. I have taken Ashley on the bomb mission numerous times where she mentions Kaidan. After the mission you see her standing in front of the memorial wall.

[RZIBARA]

I know you can recruit Tali before doing the bomb mission I just never done it. I have taken Ashley on the bomb mission numerous times where she mentions Kaidan. After the mission you see her standing in front of the memorial wall.

 

I believe she actually talks to Tali over the comms as well if she is recruited at the time.

[Star fury]

My thoughts exactly

Yes. Even YES. Lots of them are sadly not very bright and I'm sick and tired of the same crap about racism...

[RZIBARA]

Yeah, there are a lot of ignorant folk on these forums, thats for sure

[DWH1982]

I've largely given up on trying to argue the point with Ashley. Best to just ignore it or leave the thread if you see someone acting up and staying things about Ash.

 

In fact, between the Ash stuff and the ending arguments, for a long time I wasn't even posting outside of the Ash group. It's still somewhat rare that I post in other threads.

 

Some of the hostility also seems to be that people aren't used to having an NPC who dares to question the player character's actions. Personally, Mars is among my favorite missions in ME3, if only because someone finally calls Shepard out for working with Cerberus. I consider Ash to be one of the few people who have a realistic reaction to Shepard's activities over the past few years. The fact that she's willing to voice her opinion is one of the reasons I like her so much - and one of the reason my canon Shepard likes her.

[CptData]

Well, all I can say is: Ash lacks some redeeming features / scenes / younameit in ME3 - especially if you started playing the series with ME2. All you know about her is her quite straight forward character. If you have difficulties accepting such characters, you won't invest too much time to get in touch with said character. In ME3, it's easy to dismiss Ash/Kaidan - and ignore them entirely by missing their hospital story arc. Result is Ash/Kaidans death / departure for good in the Coup mission.

 

Some Ashley fans (including myself) think, Ash would have found more fans in ME3, if BW had brought back Chris L'Etoile, spending more lines on her plus giving her back some of Ashley's original character traits, like her religious side (one dialogue was dedicated to that point and got scrapped), her slightly flirty side (Ash is still flirting, but rather blunt in some situations), the poetry part (uhhh ... only those who had her as LI knew about the book present in ME3!!!) - all that. The only thing that remained of her character for most of the game was her distrust of others, especially Cerberus and Shepard as well. And someone loved the idea to make her a drunkyard, sexed her up by one cup-size and non-standard catsuit (hey, didn't Ash say 'I'm not like Miranda' or something?) - all that.

 

As I said several posts (and therefore years *g*) ago: I couldn't like ME3!Ash without the knowledge how she was in ME1. That Ash, the one from ME1 is the image I still have in my mind: a slightly tomboyish, rough-edged soldier, but also a woman with a flirty, romantic part - who also loves to go into close combat with the right opponent. So to speak. *cough*

[DWH1982]

I think Ash had a lot going against her when it came to ME3. A lot of the fans were vocal about how much they dislike her, and I can't help but wonder how that impacted her role in the game. Because of the Virmire decision, she was interchangeable with another character, meaning half of all players would never get to see any content they made for her. And she had a new character writer, which always carries risk.

 

Someone else on here says Mac Walters admits he doesn't really understand her that well, too. The original, "leaked" script reflects this, I think. It did not treat the Virmire Survivor well at all. I don't know why they changed that part of the script, or who convinced them to, but I'm glad they did.

[P. Domi]

Yeah, Mac Walters himself said in an interview about his comics (that I refuse to buy) that he had to consult with Jay Watamaniuk about Ashley Williams because he didn't know much about this character. Unfortunately, the two human characters from ME 1 got shafted and misunderstood in many different ways.

 

In a game trilogy that was so strongly advertised as immersive, dangerous space exploration and interaction with cool different alien species, it was easy to overlook the fact that humans were introduced as newcomers and underdogs in this fictional universe.

 

The comparisons to Star Wars and Star Trek were inevitable. While in these two franchises humans seem to be perfectly adapted to the big scheme of multicultural organisations and all that jazz, Karpyshyn and L'Étoile presented a quite different premise in the Mass Effect timeline that Commander Shepard experiences first hand. While the casual or serious ME player was amazed by the presence of exotic looking aliens (who acted and emoted exactly like humans, I might add); then he/she would be surprised to find out that some characters (Williams, for example) are not so excited about what intergalactic society has done to humanity or the price that was to be paid.

 

A simple quick read of the Codex would have helped to understand why many humans held grudges against the turians, or why many aliens had misgivings about humans, their aggressive nature and their expansionism. Executor Pallin and the Volus ambassador are two examples of this attitude towards humans. In fact, the aliens themselves have problems that pre-date the First Contact war, such as the krogan rebellions and the open hatred Wrex expresses towards those who have condemned his race to a slow extinction.

 

I know plenty of well-educated Americans who lived in the 50's and 60's and dislike Russia because of the Cold War tensions with the Soviet Union, would that make them racists? I don't think so. I have met many Australians (65+ years old) who hold grudges against Japan because of WWII, does that make them racists? I don't believe so, it just takes knowing the history and disputes between different nations to know where the bad blood may be coming from.

 

Ashley Williams opinions on how aliens look down on humans are justified to an extent within the fiction the game presents, and the shadow cast by the First Contact war is always present, as her family was particularly affected by its aftermath. If someone did't pay attention to the game codex and simply decided that Ash not linking aliens very much is explained because she must be a racist, it'd be like judging a book by a randomly chosen paragraph in the middle of the story. The "dog and bear" conversation is critical to understand her views, but the figures of speech, literary references and abstractions used by L'Étoile apparently eluded the average player... That's sad.

 

When one compares Ash to other NPC's, Ash can change her views or reach a higher understanding of intergalactic relations and mature as she is given the chance to join a mission that can demonstrate what humans are worth. Some of the most popular ME 1 squadmates don't experience much growth and their conversations mostly seem info dumps, they're mostly 'liked' because of the novelty of their 'aesthetics'. Which leads me to a second fallacy that gets repeated quite often around the BSN: all human characters in the ME trilogy are boring, alien characters are interesting. I have to disagree with this assertion as well.

[CptData]

What I really wonder: how comes Mac Walters had no idea about Ashley? I mean, he was part of the writing team for the entire series, so he should have got an idea about the characters. Of course, it is impossible to keep track for every single character, but given the fact the VS (read: Ashley and Kaidan) was intented as a) the human view on the situation and a co-protagonist in the series, it's a poor statement.

 

Also, James Vega got introduced for exactly two purposes: first, as the "new guy" for the new guys playing the series for the first time, starting with ME3. He's Mr. Exposition, literally, and gives some ideas about what did happen before said game. Also, he gives the "human view" on the situation, Traynor is the other one. D'uh, what did happen to Ash and Kaidan - the both characters intented for that part? Right, they got demoted from "co-protagonists" to "optional crew members" in ME3, sharing the very same position Wrex and Garrus in ME1 and a lot of characters in ME2 had.

 

In a way, Mac Walters did something I would have done as well: reducing the cast to the essentials. Too bad Kaidan/Ash weren't among them, actually, the entire story is carried by Vega, Garrus and Liara. Even Tali's part is neglible compared to what the first guys did. And Kaidan/Ashley are used for drama only in the Mars Mission and the Coup - once that's done, they're nearly-mute extras without any impact on the story - except for the romance part, of course. The "human view" got removed entirely.

[themikefest]

 

 

Also, James Vega got introduced for exactly two purposes: first, as the "new guy" for the new guys playing the series for the first time, starting with ME3. He's Mr. Exposition, literally, and gives some ideas about what did happen before said game. Also, he gives the "human view" on the situation, Traynor is the other one. D'uh, what did happen to Ash and Kaidan - the both characters intented for that part? Right, they got demoted from "co-protagonists" to "optional crew members" in ME3, sharing the very same position Wrex and Garrus in ME1 and a lot of characters in ME2 had.

 

 

What do mean by Traynor is the other 'one'. 

 

With Ashley/Kaidan I believe they didn't have to be injured for the story to move forward. Somebody else could've protected the Council during the coup. I was surprised that you had the option to send them to Hackett when sending T'soni would've made more sense.                 

[CptData]

What do mean by Traynor is the other 'one'. 

 

With Ashley/Kaidan I believe they didn't have to be injured for the story to move forward. Somebody else could've protected the Council during the coup. I was surprised that you had the option to send them to Hackett when sending T'soni would've made more sense.                 

 

Traynor also acts as the "human view" and is also the "new girl" on board. But her view is more the one of a civilian slowly turning into a grunt - while Vega is already a battle-hardened and shell-shocked veteran.

 

Both are very useful to get a different view on the same topic (the war). Something Diane Allers isn't capable of (as a character). Do I have to mention I like Traynor and try to give Vega a role in ME1 in my headcanon? I like that guy. Just saying both took roles Ash/Kaidan were intented for in ME1.

[Sir DeLoria]

I was surprised that you had the option to send them to Hackett when sending T'soni would've made more sense.

*sigh*

I wish that would've been the case

[RZIBARA]

*sigh*

I wish that would've been the case

 

Would've been nice, no more creepy stalker on the Normandy at least