905 réponses à ce sujet

[Barquiel]

KawaiiKatie wrote...

We could've had action-girl Tali! Teamed up with Archangle! IT WOULD'VE BEEN GLORIOUS.

Why am I not surprised...

[AngelicMachinery]

Han Shot First wrote...

I think Bioware should ignore the whining and slap plot armor on Liara again.

If the Mass Effect universe lives on beyond Mass Effect 3 there should be at least one character to link the different stories together, and Liara would seem to be the obvious choice. She's a very young member of a species that often lives over a millenia, and as the Shadowbroker she's the most powerful information broker in the galaxy. Even if Mass Effect 4 were set 500 years after the events of the Shepard trilogy, you could still have Liara return as that game's Flemeth, saving the main character early on, providing him/her with some crucial information, and setting up the main plot for that game.

My biase makes me approve +100

[ladyvader]

Barquiel wrote...

Xalen wrote...

again, "favoritism" is not about the amount of screentime/dialogue, it's about the role Liara plays in ME story.

I disagree. I believe that dialogue is the most important element of the game.

1) Some characters are walking encyclopedias about their respective species
2) Some characters advance the plot
3) Some characters talk about themselves

I would prefer more #3....and I think it's not exactly "favoritism" if a character only talks about #1 and #2



I think you can complete the game and avoid Liara completely. But I am not sure...

As I said in another post, you can not get to Illos without Liara, now with that said, you can skip Illium and finish ME2, you just will just have two less people for your squad and if Jack dies while on the Normandy, you are screwed with no biotic to do the bubble without someone dying.  You either talk to Liara and get the intel you need or deal with what comes from not talking to her.

[Ryzaki]

Liara is not needed actually I prefer if *no one* knows the true story because BW will just end up retconning things out of existence. And that's not fun or cool.

On the other hand if it's all shrouded in mystery nothing important will be likely to be retconed. We can just say the historians got it wrong. Heck it could even be amusing if they exaggerate the hell out of certain events.  

"And then Shepard took out a Reaper ON FOOT!" 

"What? No way!" 

"Says so right here *points to datapad*" 

"Give me that!" 

Modifié par Ryzaki, 11 juillet 2011 - 08:46 .

[Xalen]

@Sshodan
Okay, let me rephrase it: why make the story that puts heavy emphasis on characters and their development and then make a character that has such plot importance that outshines them by default.
It's not an issue that we have such a character, it and issue with why did we even need such a character.
You said it youself:

The fact that there is a plot character who has to stay alive through all 3 games for the purpose of the plot

My problem is not with "unkillable" or whatever, my problem is with plot structure: why was the story written to include such a character in the first place.

Oh god, this day has come: I complain about BioWare writing... BSN, what have you done.

[KawaiiKatie]

Han Shot First wrote...

Even if Mass Effect 4 were set 500 years after the events of the Shepard trilogy, you could still have Liara return as that game's Flemeth, saving the main character early on, providing him/her with some crucial information, and setting up the main plot for that game.

*shudders*

NewCharacter: Alright, time to start my quest! Better get some information from the Shadow Broker!

Liara: Welcome to Hagalaz! Are you interested in purchasing information, or are you here to drink deep my vast, vast knowledge of Commander Shepard.

NewCharacter: You knew Commander Shepard? Hells yeah, tell me more!

[seven hours later]

NewCharacter: You survived all of that? Even the nuke on Virmire?

Liara: Yup.

NewCharacter:  Saren's attack on the Citadel?!

Liara: Clearly.

NewCharacter: And, and when Shepard went on a suicde run through the Omega-4 Relay, you-?

Liara: Oh my, I was thousands of light-years away from that nonesense, filing paperwork and hacking terminals.

NewCharacter: And when the Reapers finally arrived, and entire planets were exploding, children were getting massacred in plain view, and Shepard's companions were getting left behind every other mission, you-

Liara: Survived. So that I could pass along information to you, dearie. Doesn't it do wonders for your immersion?

NewCharacter: .....just give me my data.

Liara: Of course. Now, run along! But don't forget to come back soon.... I'm a love-interest again!

[AngelicMachinery]

KawaiiKatie wrote...

Liara: Of course. Now, run along! But don't forget to come back soon.... I'm a love-interest again!

Hawt!

They should have done this with Leliana,  they completly destroyed the romance in DA2.   My Femmehawk should have been able to get her into bed.

[KawaiiKatie]

Barquiel wrote...

KawaiiKatie wrote...

We could've had action-girl Tali! Teamed up with Archangle! IT WOULD'VE BEEN GLORIOUS.

Why am I not surprised...

Pffft, I'm no where near Team-Detxro. I've never romanced Garrus or Tali once. In fact, I'm very much a Kaidan/Ash loyalist.

But even I think that it would've been far more interesting to read about the adventures of Tali and Garrus (especially after how antagonistic they were towards one another in ME1!) than about the "redemption" of Liara and her maybe-maybenot crush.

Modifié par KawaiiKatie, 11 juillet 2011 - 08:56 .

[HTTP 404]

of course Liara isn't the only one who could never die. Why do you (OP) think of Liara protected by plot shield?

and with that, here's to Liara dying no matter what you do in Me3. cheers!

[Sshodan]

@ Xalen
Because it is how character driven stories get written? They although include TIM, Anderson, Udina and so on, if you change the roles constantly you get chaos after a while, with people having trouble remembering who did what, and why they did it. Keeping track of several key plot chars is much easier, people remember them and don't have to go search some wiki just to remember "which one was that?"
Shepard is although a character who has to stay alive in all 3 games. Sure he/she can die, but that ending is the only one that is not canon. Should we have different protagonists to? We can, but will it make the game better? Hardly - we had main character swaps in hundred of old games, and non of them steered up as much interest as continues story of Mass Effect has

[KawaiiKatie]

AngelicMachinery wrote...

KawaiiKatie wrote...

Liara: Of course. Now, run along! But don't forget to come back soon.... I'm a love-interest again!

Hawt!

Especially if Liara has Shepard's daughter (which she'll totally do even  if you weren't her love-interest because she's obsessed with Shepard and can't take no for an answer) and she's a love-interest, too!

Hitting on both the mother and daughter at the same time? Best "You have to pick ONE of us!" conversation EVER.

They should have done this with Leliana,  they completly destroyed the romance in DA2.   My Femmehawk should have been able to get her into bed.

Not gonna lie, I'm calling this for DA3! I'm guessing that we'll be playing a Seeker and that Leliana will be a major character, and possibly a love-interest again. And if your Warden romanced her, Leliana will spend most of her time shouting, "No, no! I cannot!" but, as usual, the lady doth protest too much and she ends up in bed with your character.

[AngelicMachinery]

KawaiiKatie wrote...



Not gonna lie, I'm calling this for DA3! I'm guessing that we'll be playing a Seeker and that Leliana will be a major character, and possibly a love-interest again. And if your Warden romanced her, Leliana will spend most of her time shouting, "No, no! I cannot!" but, as usual, the lady doth protest too much and she ends up in bed with your character.

Eh seemed like the relationship just fizzled out,  felt like for some reason it was assumed that I followed Morrigan through the magic mirror.  I don't want any Drama,  I just desired to continue the character interaction.  Point in fact,  it seemed like if you didn't romance Morrigan you're warden was **** out of luck in DA2.  

With that particular line of thinking I suppose I do get your problem as Alistair and Morrigan were both absolutely important to the plot while Leilana and Zevran were sort of just there.

[Han Shot First]

KawaiiKatie wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

Even if Mass Effect 4 were set 500 years after the events of the Shepard trilogy, you could still have Liara return as that game's Flemeth, saving the main character early on, providing him/her with some crucial information, and setting up the main plot for that game.

*shudders*

NewCharacter: Alright, time to start my quest! Better get some information from the Shadow Broker!

Liara: Welcome to Hagalaz! Are you interested in purchasing information, or are you here to drink deep my vast, vast knowledge of Commander Shepard.

NewCharacter: You knew Commander Shepard? Hells yeah, tell me more!

[seven hours later]

NewCharacter: You survived all of that? Even the nuke on Virmire?

Liara: Yup.

NewCharacter:  Saren's attack on the Citadel?!

Liara: Clearly.

NewCharacter: And, and when Shepard went on a suicde run through the Omega-4 Relay, you-?

Liara: Oh my, I was thousands of light-years away from that nonesense, filing paperwork and hacking terminals.

NewCharacter: And when the Reapers finally arrived, and entire planets were exploding, children were getting massacred in plain view, and Shepard's companions were getting left behind every other mission, you-

Liara: Survived. So that I could pass along information to you, dearie. Doesn't it do wonders for your immersion?

NewCharacter: .....just give me my data.

Liara: Of course. Now, run along! But don't forget to come back soon.... I'm a love-interest again!

Funny, but it would hardly play out like that.

If Liara returned as the Shadowbroker in a future Mass Effect title she wouldn't be someone your character just visits at Hagalaz.

And her returning would hardly kill immersion. People will survive the Reapers, you know. Billions in fact.

[Xalen]

Sshodan wrote...
@ Xalen 
Because it is how character driven stories get written? They although include TIM, Anderson, Udina and so on, if you change the roles constantly you get chaos after a while, with people having trouble remembering who did what, and why they did it. Keeping track of several key plot chars is much easier, people remember them and don't have to go search some wiki just to remember "which one was that?"

Fine, let's roll with that
So, we have TIM, Anderson, Udina, Council, Saren, Aria etc. etc. - characters that drive the plot. 

I see two issues here: there are almost as many such characters as "plot slots" for companions to replace Liara, so the "don't replace her with another squadmate because it get's confusing" argument isn't really good.

And second: all those mentioned character has one thing in common - they are not squadmates. I see my mistake with the previous post - I should've written "why do we need such a squadmate in the first place", but the core premise is still the same - either admit that we don't and she's just the favorite, or give me a valid reason why  

Shepard is although a character who has to stay alive in all 3 games. Sure he/she can die, but that ending is the only one that is not canon. Should we have different protagonists to?

How...is this even relevant? 
Sigh.
 1) Shepard is player-defined character, not writers-defined.  2) Mass Effect 1-3 is Shepard's story. It is the idea. It was the idea from the beginning. In contrast with..oh hey, another BioWare game - Dragon Age, where the protagonist changes because it's not the story about the protagonist, it's a story about Thedas

[Han Shot First]

Hmm..

Reading back through some of the posts of those who were irritated that Liara couldn't be killed in ME2, it seems that many (most maybe) also don't like the character, which is why they want to be able to kill her off.

This makes little sense to me.

I'd rather characters I liked and cared about were killed, because it would trigger an emotional response.

As an example I think Zaeed is kind of a douche. Don't get me wrong, I love his character and I'm happy that he's a ******. Not every squadmate should be likeable. But if he were killed at some point in my run through ME3 it wouldn't trigger any emotional response, because he was kind of a dick.

Now losing Garrus or Captain Anderson on the other hand...

Depending on how the scene played out that might even tigger some *ahem* eyeball sweat.

OT: Only one game has had that effect on me so far, and it remains one of my favorite games of all time. (Silent Hill 2)

Modifié par Han Shot First, 11 juillet 2011 - 09:45 .

[Sshodan]

@ Xalen
Did you ever write a book? A screen play? At last a long plot driven story? (I'm not saying I'm a great writer btw. I just know some lit theory ) I don't think I can explain the purpose of placating a plot driven character near the protagonist without a long winded and rather boring lecture on literature and scree writing. But I'll try to summarize.
1. If you want the story to be dynamic the protagonist can not be the only character that matters, he has to be companied by other plot heavy characters.
2. The amount of plot characters (the one that who individual stories matter and build the plot) have to be at last close to equal on both sides - the "good" and the "bad" should have them in equal measure.
3. The closer the plot lines of thous chars and protagonist intervene the more they are going to matter to the reader one way or another, so it is good to push them together.
4. There should not be to many plot characters, since it makes harder to flash out individual stories and make the reader remember and follow them adequately. 4-6 is usually the optimum number.
Thous are the reasons why we have plot char in our squad, and why the story would be much less compiling if it was Shep centric only. It prevents the world form sining completely around Shep.
Making all chars in to squaddies that are just accessories and can be discarded at any moment will live Shep as the only focus of the plot again.
Making them all plot chars will mean you can't get right of them or ignore them until they do their job, so you have to interact with them no matter what, which lives you with less choices.
Having one plot char is a good compromise - the author has an outlet for all the plot necessary things that Shep can't do himself, yet you do not have to tolerate more than one char that can't be properly ignored.
I like how Mass Effect story is written - it is professional. polished and compiling. I don't have to personally like all the characters, but since there is enough likable once I'll handle the occasional discomfort.
As a note - Dragon Age actually has more plot chars in the party - both Alistar and Morrigan, Isabella, Anders and Verric... And somehow we all live through it I'm sure we can survive Liara.

[Xalen]

Sshodan wrote...

all the words

alright, I guess I can accept this view for now even if I don't completely agree with it (or maybe it's almost 2 a.m. here and I really don't want to argue about lit theory)
One minor thing though:

Dragon Age actually has more plot chars in the party - both Alistar and Morrigan, Isabella, Anders and Verric... And somehow we all live through it

mandatory in one game + optional companion/small cameo in the others vs. mandatory squadmate in one game + neccessary for plot advancement in another + comics + DLC + permanent squadmate in the 3d game. Hmmmm....

Modifié par Xalen, 11 juillet 2011 - 10:49 .

[Barquiel]

KawaiiKatie wrote...

But even I think that it would've been far more interesting to read about the adventures of Tali and Garrus (especially after how antagonistic they were towards one another in ME1!) than about the "redemption" of Liara and her maybe-maybenot crush.

Don't you think it would look like "favoritism" if characters...who are permanent squadmates in all three games...get DLC and comics?

[luzburg]

Hehe. if you romanced liara in me 1-3 and get asari kids. maybe in future me games you can import and play as one of their kids when they have become adults. Just an idea

As for liaras lack of death. shes important to the plot at least in the two first games, and i hope she never dies

[KawaiiKatie]

Barquiel wrote...

KawaiiKatie wrote...

But even I think that it would've been far more interesting to read about the adventures of Tali and Garrus (especially after how antagonistic they were towards one another in ME1!) than about the "redemption" of Liara and her maybe-maybenot crush.

Don't you think it would look like "favoritism" if characters...who are permanent squadmates in all three games...get DLC and comics?

No, because both Tali and Garrus are optional squadmates in ME1 and ME2. Okay, no, Garrus isn't optional in ME2, but you can be a real jerk to him and refuse to help him with his problems, and if you do help him, you can be a jerk about it and chastize him for "letting things get personal" and blame him for the death of his men.

But you have to recruit Liara and you have to mind-meld with her and when you see her again in ME2 you have to embrace her.

So, no, if Garrus and Tali had been th eones to team up and find Shepard's body, and Liara had just gotten a DLC, I wouldn't be calling favourtism either way. But as it stands, all of the important plot-points and required stuff falls on Liara, and it tastes strongly of favourtism.

[Dean_the_Young]

Sshodan wrote...

@ Dean_the_Young
Yes she can be replaced, but should she be?
There are hundred RPGs out there that have a "seer" usually it's a place or a char you runt and click on once in a while, they don't steer up discussions, emotions, they don't really act on anything. Liara is an attempt to add more interactivity and dynamic to the concept, involve the "seer" in the story more make her a constant presents.
In general you can get right of Liara specifically, but than you have to either go back to "occasional click seer" and no dynamic plot characters in the party, or replace her with someone else, who people would again complain about because they have "plot armor"
I'm not pro or against Liara, but I like the attempt to make the plot more dynamic. So I support the plot char in the4 squad position. I would not want to have all of Shes party to be just squaddies with their lives "moved" only when Shep "moves" them.

If she can be replaced that easily without affecting the main plot, she's not really the sort of character to justify exceptional treatment. And if replacing her could improve other underdeveloped characters and improve transition between sequel and prequel, that's definitely a case for doing so.

[Seboist]

I wish I could have left Liara to die on Virmire instead of Ashley or Kaidan.

[Dean_the_Young]

ladyvader wrote...

@KawaiiKate-You would never had made it to Illos without Liara.

If you think going to a terminal would give you the intel on Samara and Thane, that is just silly. Shepard would had to go to an information broker and paid them to get that intel. Liara gave it to Shepard for nothing.

Yes, because lord knows Shepard and Cerberus can't buy information.

As for Illos, if we're rewriting Mass Effect enough to remove Liara, we certainly can throw in a one-liner about how Saren's beacon tells him that the Conduit is on Illos... information we know it must have had, because he knew where he was trying to go. With the Cypher, we already justify Shepard understanding the very message the Beacon was trying to tell us.

[Dean_the_Young]

ladyvader wrote...

Barquiel wrote...

Xalen wrote...

again, "favoritism" is not about the amount of screentime/dialogue, it's about the role Liara plays in ME story.

I disagree. I believe that dialogue is the most important element of the game.

1) Some characters are walking encyclopedias about their respective species
2) Some characters advance the plot
3) Some characters talk about themselves

I would prefer more #3....and I think it's not exactly "favoritism" if a character only talks about #1 and #2



I think you can complete the game and avoid Liara completely. But I am not sure...

As I said in another post, you can not get to Illos without Liara, now with that said, you can skip Illium and finish ME2, you just will just have two less people for your squad and if Jack dies while on the Normandy, you are screwed with no biotic to do the bubble without someone dying.  You either talk to Liara and get the intel you need or deal with what comes from not talking to her.

Besides the sillyness of treating Liara like the only potential source of information Shepard could find, there's still Jacob and Miranda and Thane, who are all still good enough to hold the bubble for the mission to go through if you let Jack die/go unloyal.

[Dean_the_Young]

KawaiiKatie wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

Even if Mass Effect 4 were set 500 years after the events of the Shepard trilogy, you could still have Liara return as that game's Flemeth, saving the main character early on, providing him/her with some crucial information, and setting up the main plot for that game.

*shudders*

NewCharacter: Alright, time to start my quest! Better get some information from the Shadow Broker!

Liara: Welcome to Hagalaz! Are you interested in purchasing information, or are you here to drink deep my vast, vast knowledge of Commander Shepard.

NewCharacter: You knew Commander Shepard? Hells yeah, tell me more!

[seven hours later]

NewCharacter: You survived all of that? Even the nuke on Virmire?

Liara: Yup.

NewCharacter:  Saren's attack on the Citadel?!

Liara: Clearly.

NewCharacter: And, and when Shepard went on a suicde run through the Omega-4 Relay, you-?

Liara: Oh my, I was thousands of light-years away from that nonesense, filing paperwork and hacking terminals.

NewCharacter: And when the Reapers finally arrived, and entire planets were exploding, children were getting massacred in plain view, and Shepard's companions were getting left behind every other mission, you-

Liara: Survived. So that I could pass along information to you, dearie. Doesn't it do wonders for your immersion?

NewCharacter: .....just give me my data.

Liara: Of course. Now, run along! But don't forget to come back soon.... I'm a love-interest again!

Poor Shepard: reincarnated centuries later, and still can't get away from her!