523 réponses à ce sujet

[Juniper Mucius]

overbite wrote...

The Free Jaffa wrote...

To suggest an accent is pandering, in a game that hasn't pandered to race or ethnicity before, is ignorant. It shows a lack of attention to the game itself, honestly. I'm sick of everyone crying "pandering" when they are forced with something new. Was Samesh pandering?

go back and play the first game and listen to the logs on ilos .

remeber the grabled message that said "cannot be stopped!" ah....yeah  the recording didn't sound jamaican.

of course bioware is pandering for market demographic .

which isn't wrong and the voice is ok ,i just wish they went with canon and left the protheians dead cept trying to sell dlc .

KazuyaWright wrote...

overbite wrote...


go back and play the first game and listen to the logs on ilos .

remeber the grabled message that said "cannot be stopped!" ah....yeah  the recording didn't sound jamaican.

of course bioware is pandering for market demographic .

which isn't wrong and the voice is ok ,i just wish they went with canon and left the protheians dead cept trying to sell dlc .

thank you dude, i was beginning to think i was going insane. 

 

No.  Do you realize how moronic of an argument that is?  Here's the same logic for you two.

Go watch Doctor Who.  Then go watch Stargate SG-1.  Yeah, Stargate SG-1 doesn't sound British.  Of course MGM is pandering for a market demographic.

You're essentially saying that, since 3 prothean voices don't have an African accent, no single prothean can have an African accent.  It's purely a lame argument.  BioWare is breaking from the mold and saying, "hey, our aliens are diverse from themselves, not just humans."  There's nothing pandering about that, unless you're absolutely dense.  BioWare has clearly tried to break away from tropes while embracing them.  One of those tropes is that aliens can be just as diverse.  Not only are they not put into specific roles based on their race (all asari can be biotic, but not all asari care to use biotics), but they can also have different accents as well.  Though not totally different, Samara has a slightly different tone and accent from other asari.  Liara as well.  

But suggesting that not a single prothean could sound like the squadmate because the first three voices we heard didn't use an African accent (though remember Vigil translated himself. Whether it was English, or a turian language, we don't know)., is prepostrous.  It's a downright silly statement.

[deimosmasque]

@The Free Jaffa... You're my hero!

That was literally the argument I have been trying to figure out how to put into words for days.

[Xeranx]

KazuyaWright wrote...

overbite wrote...


go back and play the first game and listen to the logs on ilos .

remeber the grabled message that said "cannot be stopped!" ah....yeah  the recording didn't sound jamaican.

of course bioware is pandering for market demographic .

which isn't wrong and the voice is ok ,i just wish they went with canon and left the protheians dead cept trying to sell dlc .

thank you dude, i was beginning to think i was going insane.

But then that doesn't mean anything.  Just because the recording sounds that way doesn't mean that every single Prothean would sound similar.  The Protheans were all over the galaxy at one point.  I don't sound like someone who was born and lived in Jamaica.  Likewise, I don't sound like an African descendant who was born and lived in: Barbados, Britain, Nigeria (where my family is from or any part of Africa really), France, Spain, Italy, etc.  Heck, I don't even sound like some of the black kids I went to high school with.  Yet we are all the same and what's more, we're all human.  Expecting the Protheans to sound the same when we (humans) have different affections in how we sound when we speak is close-minded.  And I honestly think that making any reference to mass marketing is insulting considering all that's gone on for advertising.

I'm not in the business and I've never read a book on the subject, but I can't believe that the Prothean's voice is being used towards mass market appeal since the Prothean was slated to be revealed this past friday.  Less than two weeks from launch day for both the US and UK which would probably have the largest market of blacks of whom would buy the game?  That doesn't make any sense to me.  In order to please the people you or anyone says the Prothean was given the voice for, they would have to buy the game first or more to the point: they would have to be following the game initially.  That would mean that the people intended for this mass market appeal would have found something interesting in Mass Effect to draw them in to begin with.  And if that's the case, what's the Prothean's voice have to do with mass market appeal?  Again, that point of view makes absolutely no sense to me unless Bioware has data that identifies what number of any particular ethnicity bought ME2 (since we know they tracked how many people played soldiers vs other classes) and Bioware were concerned that they might be losing a significant portion of that demographic.

My point is that the idea of appealing to the masses only becomes a focal point when advertising is actually done for any particular demographic.  Female Shepard didn't get her long promised (and overdue) video until a few weeks ago yet this was something that was sought after at least since ME2 was released.  That's three (3) years ago.  How many more female gamers are expected to buy ME3 with that kind of marketing?  For now, the only market that Bioware actually made a statement about in reference to Mass Effect is the shooter crowd and some of them still won't touch the games.  My brothers won't and one actually tried it out.  He didn't like all the dialogue.

Edit: Apparently, Jaffa beat me to this.  Damn.

Modifié par Xeranx, 27 février 2012 - 08:49 .

[Juniper Mucius]

Xeranx wrote...

KazuyaWright wrote...

overbite wrote...


go back and play the first game and listen to the logs on ilos .

remeber the grabled message that said "cannot be stopped!" ah....yeah  the recording didn't sound jamaican.

of course bioware is pandering for market demographic .

which isn't wrong and the voice is ok ,i just wish they went with canon and left the protheians dead cept trying to sell dlc .

thank you dude, i was beginning to think i was going insane.

But then that doesn't mean anything.  Just because the recording sounds that way doesn't mean that every single Prothean would sound similar.  The Protheans were all over the galaxy at one point.  I don't sound like someone who was born and lived in Jamaica.  Likewise, I don't sound like an African descendant who was born and lived in: Barbados, Britain, Nigeria (where my family is from or any part of Africa really), France, Spain, Italy, etc.  Heck, I don't even sound like some of the black kids I went to high school with.  Yet we are all the same and what's more, we're all human.  Expecting the Protheans to sound the same when we (humans) have different affections in how we sound when we speak is close-minded.  And I honestly think that making any reference to mass marketing is insulting considering all that's gone on for advertising.

I'm not in the business and I've never read a book on the subject, but I can't believe that the Prothean's voice is being used towards mass market appeal since the Prothean was slated to be revealed this past friday.  Less than two weeks from launch day for both the US and UK which would probably have the largest market of blacks of whom would buy the game?  That doesn't make any sense to me.  In order to please the people you or anyone says the Prothean was given the voice for, they would have to buy the game first or more to the point: they would have to be following the game initially.  That would mean that the people intended for this mass market appeal would have found something interesting in Mass Effect to draw them in to begin with.  And if that's the case, what's the Prothean's voice have to do with mass market appeal?  Again, that point of view makes absolutely no sense to me unless Bioware has data that identifies what number of any particular ethnicity bought ME2 (since we know they tracked how many people played soldiers vs other classes) and Bioware were concerned that they might be losing a significant portion of that demographic.

My point is that the idea of appealing to the masses only becomes a focal point when advertising is actually done for any particular demographic.  Female Shepard didn't get her long promised (and overdue) video until a few weeks ago yet this was something that was sought after at least since ME2 was released.  That's three (3) years ago.  How many more female gamers are expected to buy ME3 with that kind of marketing?  For now, the only market that Bioware actually made a statement about in reference to Mass Effect is the shooter crowd and some of them still won't touch the games.  My brothers won't and one actually tried it out.  He didn't like all the dialogue.

Edit: Apparently, Jaffa beat me to this.  Damn.

Yeah, but you're nicer about it than me.  I follow political commentators, so even though all the logic is there, I'm more used to going on the attack.

[Juniper Mucius]

KazuyaWright wrote...

No you're right, Bioware did it because "It's cool"

Or maybe, just maybe, BioWare did it because they wanted to.  I'm working on a story set in the distant future.  The main character is a 40 year old female, with Scottish and Black-American ancestry.  She's a black woman with green eyes and a red tint to her hair.  Maybe I'm pandering to the few black Scots out there with green eyes and red hair?  (They do exist.)  Or maybe I'm the Woden-damned creator of the world and I do what I want to, because it's my world.

So yeah, I think you answered your question.  The creators thought it would be cool to make the prothean have an African accent.  Or are you going to sit there and honestly say that it's impossible?  That this character was created to appeal to the many, many Black Africans out there that play Mass Effect?  

The creators decided to go with an African accent for this character.  Who.  The frell.  Cares?  I'm sick of you people that complain about anything new or different.  "What!? The Teen Titans have a new gay hispanic character? This is just pandering!"  Yeah, because a creator can't create something he likes.  A creator and just do something that he wants to do.  Gods forbid we gays/bis have comic book characters.  Gods forbid a voice actor gets chosen because the creators like him for the character they created.

[Manny_619]

cancelling my pre-order

[Juniper Mucius]

KazuyaWright wrote...

Why the F**k do you both keep bringing up Blacks and Africans? I NEVER said they made the character to appeal to Blacks or Africans.

Also i never post on these forums so your comment about " I'm sick of you people that complain about anything new or different..." dude, grow up. This is the first post i've written here in ages, and I'm not complaining, I'm stating that Bioware are using a time tested business model and I'm concerned for the story. Yes, it's entirely possible that originally they thought, "Mmm, what kind of accent would this prothean have?" Then they would've have sat down and discussed the pluses & negatives for the type of feel they went for. Then they put the casting out "this is what we're looking for etc" then they short list the actors, then more discussion, would this alienate people, would this benefit the character? Does it detract form the character etc" This is what I'm talking about - appealing to all demographics... Clearly you have issues with race, Sex etc. I don't. They could have used any accent for all i care, i've read many reviews about ME2 complaining that most of the humans in the ME universe speak with American accents. i never cared about that (and i'm not an american) but this is clearly a marketing attempt to diversify that criticism and make it more appealing to buy the DLC. It's all about marketing. My whole point is i was concerned that Bioware are still focused on the story rather than just making a cool character as DLC generating more profits.

This has NOTHING to do with the Prothean having a Jamaican/whatever accent specifically.

You can post again, but I'm done here. I've tried to be civil and while i am willing to see your point of view and agree with you on things, clearly you're the ignorant one, not willing to see nor understanding the reason behind why it is that BioWare have made certain decisions in ME3. I'm not hating on the game, I'm not trolling the forums, I pre-orded every ME game to date. I'm merely expressing a concern about if the story will be affected due to the *do everything to increase sales" logic going on.

Cheer, clap, whatever, but all you've manage to do is turn off someone you loves the game (me) willing to have real conversations about Mass Effect, rather than get on here a rag on the game for it's run animations, or Femsheps physique or Why Kaiden sucks etc.

Thanks.

Get up there on your high horse and pretend.  I'm ignorant because I'm sitting here saying that this is clearly not a marketing ploy?  That's just plain stupid.  If you had NO issues about race, accents, or whatever, you would not complain about this for a split second.  You would have been telling others how stupid it is to complain about this.  Instead, here you are, pretending you're the big man by crying victim.  People were being civil with you from the start, but you've done nothing but show that you're ignorant.  The fact that you can't see how it's offensive to suggest something as low-key as a character accent is a marketing ploy, boggles my mind.

As others have clearly stated, this character was to be announced what?  This Friday?  The accent probably wouldn't have been known until the game released if it wasn't for the fact that someone dug out the audio file from the demo.  So how can it be a marketing ploy?  It's not even advertised!  Your argument makes absolutely no sense whatsoever.  Maybe they were going to mass market this AFTER the game released?  That's a stupid assumption as well.  If they were going to use this to appeal to other demographics and get in new gamers, they would have announced this before the frelling release date.

Instead, you play victim and act like we have hurt your feelings.  You're not fooling anyone.  Oh, and my comment targeting "you people", if you don't understand that then it's sad.  I'm talking about people, like you in general, that complain about things that are new or different.  It's a figure of speech.  A turn of phrase.  I'm not even singling you out when I say that.  If you're not American, perhaps it's a "lost in translation" sort of thing.

Also, I find the "dude, grow up" comment to be funny.  Especially coming from someone saying something as clearly childish and ignorant as claiming a non-advertised accent on a non-advertised character is used as an advertisement scheme.  I'm trying my best to find out how you got to his utterly flawed logic, and I just...can't.

Also, the character has an African accent, no?  So if it's a "mass market" ploy, who the frell are they mass marketing towards?  People that enjoy the sound of African accents?  Again, your argument != logic.

Modifié par The Free Jaffa, 27 février 2012 - 10:09 .

[Juniper Mucius]

FemaleMageFan wrote...

annnnnnnd this my friend is why i stopped visiting threads talking about a character. Can't we just al get along?

Can we?  Anthropologically, I think conflict is built into our genetics.  Even chimpanzees go to war, and they are our cousins.  So...

And as much as the anthropologist in me says, "respect their opinion, they have a right to it", I also have to say, "but there's a difference between opinion and not knowing what you're talking about."  <---  See, I'm even in conflict with myself!  It's a Homininae thing.

[Radahldo]

The last two pages of this thread has been very good, you guys. My first thought reading this exchange age was 'yay one frothing idiot down!'
You've all mostly expressed my opinions, but I have few things to add

Why the F**k do you both keep bringing up Blacks and Africans? I NEVER said they made the character to appeal to Blacks or Africans. 

You actually brought up George Lucas creating Lando once he realized there were no black people represented in Star Wars.  That analogy was really telling for me (and I assume for the other posters reading the thread).

They could have used any accent for all i care, i've read many reviews about ME2 complaining that most of the humans in the ME universe speak with American accents. i never cared about that (and i'm not an american) but this is clearly a marketing attempt to diversify that criticism and make it more appealing to buy the DLC. It's all about marketing. My whole point is i was concerned that Bioware are still focused on the story rather than just making a cool character as DLC generating more profits.

I don't see how that is 'clear'? 
 Past reviews that lightly criticized the generally north American voice cast and, you assume, that singly influenced bioware to choose this accent? That is absurdly thin and silly reasoning. Is this really where you've been coming from this entire time? Haha, Jesus...
Xeranx also made a very good point about their being no official advertisement of the protheans voice,  even now after announcing the DLC.  It's clearly not a marketing decision cause there is no marketing involved here
 I also question the logic in saying DLC in any case could be 'mass marketed' since it's an optional part of the game  that ultimately  won't be bought by the entire userbase just cause not everyone buys dlc, or has Internet connected console, or any number of things.

This is clearly specifically about the voice sounding African.

[Juniper Mucius]

Radahldo wrote...
*snip*

I'm so glad I wasn't alone in this argument, and that calmer people are here.

[An Irate Hobo]

I like his voice, now I can pretend I have a 50,000 year old Mr Eko on the squad

Modifié par An Irate Hobo, 27 février 2012 - 03:21 .

[Heathen Pride]

Can't stand the voice/accent. He'll be keeping a seat warm in the Normandy as soon as I recruit him. I liked Donovan Hock's accent though, South African.

[scotkrow]

Something else to consider, is maybe those of you talking about marketing should think. Anything that's for marketing (those of you who think this voice is, I don't) is probably EA's fault, not Bioware, Bioware loves their products and fans, but work with EA, who are a bunch of greedy money grubbers who release a new game for every sport every season. Realize that Bioware isn't alone here, and that in all likely hood that they just want to give us a great game, but in having to work with EA, must bow to their demands now and then, even when it angers the fans. But I'm with The Free Jaffa on this, I think Bioware just gave the Prothean this accent cause it sounds coo and they wanted to. It's their Pseudo scifi world they can do what they want.

[SXOSXO]

Everyone arguing that the accent can still make sense because not all Protheans have to sound alike are forgetting one crucial thing, these voices are being heard through a translator, so why is there an accent to begin with? Personally it's not the type of accent that bothers me, it's the fact that there's any accent at all. It's sounds off to me. Whether that Prothean sounded Irish, Russian, Australian, it would sound silly to me.

But beyond the voice, then there's the retconning of the appearance of the Protheans. Bioware did this in the Dragon Age franchise as well, and it was intolerable to me there also, hence why I still don't own DA2. And after the plot holes in ME2, I was afraid where the series would go in part 3, and now I see those fears were justified. In otherwords, I think I'll skip out on this one. I don't need to see another trilogy that started off so brilliantly getting pissed on by its own creators.

[Juniper Mucius]

SXOSXO wrote...

Everyone arguing that the accent can still make sense because not all Protheans have to sound alike are forgetting one crucial thing, these voices are being heard through a translator, so why is there an accent to begin with? Personally it's not the type of accent that bothers me, it's the fact that there's any accent at all. It's sounds off to me. Whether that Prothean sounded Irish, Russian, Australian, it would sound silly to me.

But beyond the voice, then there's the retconning of the appearance of the Protheans. Bioware did this in the Dragon Age franchise as well, and it was intolerable to me there also, hence why I still don't own DA2. And after the plot holes in ME2, I was afraid where the series would go in part 3, and now I see those fears were justified. In otherwords, I think I'll skip out on this one. I don't need to see another trilogy that started off so brilliantly getting pissed on by its own creators.

Not sure about the retconning thing.  Maybe not all protheans looked alike either.  Also, everyone has an accent.  When you don't "hear an accent", it means you grew up learning to speak the language like those around you.  Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 had people with various accents, not just one.  Why wasn't there more people like that?  Probably because they liked the voice actors they got.  Probably because they don't care what accent what character has.  

Here's another thing to remember.  They don't know the prothean language.  So he's going to have to learn one of the languages in the galaxy.  Maybe he uses English, since (I'm assuming) Shepard speaks English.  He learns the language, and that gives him an accent.  It's possibly you're not hearing the prothean be translated, because he's already speaking English.  Everyone else, however, would hear him differently.

Things change and become different as they advance.  There is nothing about this protheans voice that bends, breaks, twists, or ignores canon.