787 réponses à ce sujet

[xScarecrowX]

Visii wrote...
The letters are all going into a lovely, Mass Effect-themed binder with pictures of the LI's on the front. Can't wait to show it to you all!

Can there be a pic of Joker and Vega in there? I would love you forever!

[Visii]

Of course, find some pic and get the Artists permission and it's a go.

[xScarecrowX]

Hey, Visii, my name on the OP is spelled wrong.

[djmagic]

Visii I will whip up a letter soon after I finish my college paper. It would be addressing Ashley and also include some Vega/ Jacob content. Do you want me to break this up into two separate letters?

[CptData]

Visii: you just got that requested letter.

And: it's "CptData", not "CPtData" - you spelled it wrong ^^
*nitpicker is nitpicking*

Modifié par CptData, 04 avril 2012 - 11:30 .

[Visii]

djmagic wrote...

Visii I will whip up a letter soon after I finish my college paper. It would be addressing Ashley and also include some Vega/ Jacob content. Do you want me to break this up into two separate letters?

Leave it as one letter, that's fine!

[MageTarot]

Letter sent to you via PM. Subject line: PAX LI Letter to BioWare.


Thank you for doing this!

[CrutchCricket]

Miranda and Kasumi letter done. Actually felt good. Thanks for organizing this!

Edit: Holy formatting errors Batman! Fixing...
---------------------------------------------------------------
Dear Bioware peeps,



First off many thanks for making one of the most immersive and narratively (it's a word now) awesome game series of all time. I am a relative newcomer to the Mass Effect universe having only discovered the games in August of last year but from the moment I first started off on the SR-1 I was hooked. You've created an incredible world, a ridiculously compelling story and absolutely astounding characters. No scratch that, people. You've literally created awesome people (the fact that they're fictional is merely a technicality). I am a fan of many things across genres and media but Mass Effect is the only one that's made me compulsively participate in its online community day in day out. I mostly stick to the character forums because I think the characters are the best part. This little memo then is all about characters, or specifically two of them: Miranda Lawson and Kasumi Goto.



I'm sure you've heard plenty of feedback on Miranda already so hopefully nothing I say will really be news. However I do want to emphasize these points because I strongly believe in them. So... Miranda. You know what I'm going to say. Her role appears rather... "token" and really, for the sake of appearances. Let's look at Miranda in Mass Effect 2. How to describe this enigmatic woman in just a few words that do not include "dat" and "ass"? Cerberus chick, cold, calculating, pragmatic, genetically engineered, brilliant operative, good biotics, goals of human advancement, loving sister, daddy issues, potential lover. And of course hothothot (I'd be dishonest if I didn't mention that). More or less right? Now how much of that carried over in ME3? The bit about the sister, the romancing, some sort of daddy issue resolution and... that's about it. There really shouldn't be any need to spell this out here. When your entire role in a story is defined by other characters and their states, you're probably missing something right? Of course. We're only see a bit of Miranda here guys and according to a lot of long time fans, not even the most interesting bits. It's like going to see Die Hard and only watching John McClane making fists with his toes. Funny scene, definitely memorable. But where's the action? Where's the Alan Rickman? Where, my dear game developers is the yippee ki-yay (motherf***er)? Miranda caring about her sister is mundane. It's real life. It's already been done. That's not why we signed up for this ride. What happened to the woman who brought us back from the dead? Who rooted out a spy and shot him in the face all within the opening act? Who, as we've been told, spent most of her adult life with a group of questionable reputation just because she thought she was making the world a better place?

I'm not criticizing Miranda's actions regarding her sister in ME3. Hell it's natural to care for your family members. And hey like the good salarian doctor says, the galaxy's too big, too impersonal to focus on. So yeah protect your sister first. But if you isolate all of Miranda's lines, I'm not sure she's even aware the Reapers are invading beyond
asking Shepard what he's been up to. So why is that? Why does Miranda do nothing else but rescue Oriana and only incidentally stops the whole Sanctuary business (you know, because she happened to be in the neighborhood and thought what the hell)? Why doesn't she even mention doing something else at some point that hopefully helps prevent all organic life from getting it up the ass; an occurrence that I'm pretty sure would be counterproductive to advancing humanity- you know, the goal of her life? Why doesn't she have anything to say regarding the bat**** crazy direction the Illusive Man's heading? That's a rather glaring omission. It's pretty much like if Vader had lived after Jedi and all that EU stuff with Palpatine coming back went down and he had absolutely nothing to say on the matter. Would anyone think that was normal? No justifying or condemning past or present actions, not even a hint of denial or self defense? What if Shepard had been the kind of ****** that goes "Oh, remember when you wanted me to join Cerberus? Yeah great idea. End up like these guys right?" as he pulls the mask from a dead indoctrinated soldier? What would Miranda have done, comment on the weather?

I don't mean to attack you with sarcasm and run-on sentences so I'll just summarize a quick list of grievances and an equally quick list of things we'd to see if Miranda content via DLC is ever a reality:

• Miranda does not have character growth in ME3. Rather certain defining characteristicsare surgically removed. Or painted over with the mascara brush of the mundane. See- everything to do with her professional life and abilities.
• Her character has little closure to speak of: 20 years spent with Cerberus? Nothing comes of it. Plagued by origin issues? Never addressed. Even her father, the supposed bogeyman of her entire existence comes off as a literal punch clock villain and is dispatched with all the ease of firing an intern and with about as much reflection
  afterward as that action would entail.
• She has a remarkably well-thought out, dramatic death scene which is quite touching. Her survival scenario on the other hand basically amounts to "Thanks for coming out Shep, see ya around"
• Her contribution to the overall story is incidental- she stops Sanctuary only because Oriana happened to be there. She's the former 2IC of one of our enemies! How does that not count for anything? She doesn't provide any type of intelligence on Cerberus? No list of operatives, no history of sites visited, no data on the type of donuts at the last company meeting? The mention of assassins after her and the email from the Alliance about her leading a fighter squadron are a step in the right direction. But I can't help but mutter that old adage of storytelling Bioware: show, don't tell.
• Romance content- cut to black just doesn't cut it, given the level of the other romance scenes. Hell with clever uses of camera angles focusing on their faces, you don't even need to create "undressed" models. You know what I'm talking about. At least an on-screen kiss would be nice.

Now for some of what might be nice in future DLC. I know resources are limited so I tried to take that into account:

• We've got Miranda Lawson, girlfriend of Shepard and sister of Oriana down pat. Now we need to see some more of Miranda Lawson, badass biotic operative and would be world-saviour. Just a few lines, elaborating on how she deals with the assassins, how's she's undercutting Cerberus whenever possible (and how she feels about that) etc. Required to accomplish: A few extra lines of dialog, some emails sent to Shepard directly about it, maybe a video log recovered from a trashed facility if you're feeling flashy.
• Some type of reflection on Cerberus and her genetic engineering. For God's sake, these things alone define what Miranda is and separate her from generic femModel #27. I mean hell a quest to save some chick's sister that gets you some war assets and damages the enemy somewhat along the way could be a generic N7mission. Why is it Miranda? Because it's awesome? Hell yes. But then let's actually make it Miranda! And since you finally take down Cerberus HQ right after Sanctuary it only makes sense that Miranda be around, either with you or over the radio. Want to see how Lazarus got started? Who better to explain it then the woman who made it possible in the first place? Required to accomplish: A few lines of dialog, minor tweaking of Cerberus base mission.
• More tenderness in the romance: This woman talked about love on the third of fourth discussion into the romance. She actually cries if you dump her (and dies apparently, to boot). We've got something special here. We need to feel it. First time we see her? Paragon interrupt to hug and kiss passionately please. On-screen kiss at some point (separate from aforementioned interrupt) would you kindly. Extended, better quality romance scene (possibly move it to the Normandy in between Sanctuary and the Cerberus base) please and thank you. More tenderness (and significance) to her survival scenario por favor. We just helped her finally free herself and Oriana from her father. We struck a major blow both against our common enemy and her personal demons. We need a
  moment to connect.
• More interaction between Miranda and other NPCs, particularly squadmates, particularly other potentially romanced LIs, domo arigato Mr Roboto.
• As well, the holocomm call near the end feels like she's breaking up with us-that's not needed. But admittedly a minor request and possibly getting into nitpicking territory.

None of this requires moving mountains people. We your friendly and loyal fans kindly ask for these minor concessions.



Now believe it or not I still want to talk about Kasumi. Don't worry this will probably be a lot shorter and a lot less snarky. I've just about exhausted my sarcastic reserves for the night. I'll have to carefully ration the rest lol. Basically there are two issues I want to talk about regarding our favorite thief and they're actually interrelated. The first is her initial general reaction to working with Shepard again. I was a little shocked (and quite disappointed) that Kasumi in a move that set her apart from literally every other squadmate flat out doesn't want to join you. There are three separate lines where not only does she just say "I don't want to join" (where everyone else says they're busy and offers actual valid reasons) but she seems to actually resent you for the events of ME2. The lines are of course:

•  "What if join up? Last time I did that you roped me into a suicide mission."
•  "It all comes down to the war and you trying to pull everyone into it"
•  "There's no way you're recruiting me to fight in a galactic war!" and "I'm not a scientist"

That's three times she just denies you and in my opinion three times too many. 1 isn't too bad. But 2 and 3? Especially one after the other? I suppose I get the reasoning. Kasumi unlike the others isn't a typical warrior. Being a thief, she's not exactly ready to martyr herself or go seeking glory. But still we bang our heads on the fact that the Reapers are here and anything other than fighting them really isn't healthy for the long term. What really gets me isn't so much that Kasumi isn't willing to fight, but rather that she resent Shepard for a) bringing her along in ME2 and asking for her help now. This is problematic because it effectively barrs the possibility of friendship with her and it does so arbitrarily. Look she was only click to talk in ME2 so it's not like there was much to go on for developing a relationship. But really based on her personality, her perceptiveness, her usefulness as a squadmember and certain quotes in ME2 you could roleplay as developing a closer bond with her than just hiring her to hang around the ship and be a spare gun once in a while. Hell speaking of guns for hire, even Zaeed the selfish mercenery is happier to see you and in certain ME2 playthroughs you were just about ready to kill each other. My concern is that this dialog unecessarily cuts off roleplaying a friendship with Kasumi. It's really the opposite of Liara where you can say anything short of tellingher to f*ck off and she still treats you like a BFF. Some of the lines may slide if they weren't delivered so standoffishly but the way it is right now we can't say Kasumi and Shepard are friends based on her reactions. And this is a terrible shame because despite having little to no extended dialog in ME2 and only a cameo in ME3, Kasumi is still one of the most interesting characters written for the series. If at all possible I would like this looked at in future DLC where either the original lines are tweaked to sound less angry/resentful or some plausible explanation is elaborated on later as to why a friend could say that. And good luck on the latter because I've been trying to headcannon an explanation for it since I finished the game.


The second issue is just a straight up romance request. Pretty much all the Kasumi fans I knew have disappeared from the boards recently but I know a lot of them wanted this. And the more I think about her (which isa lot) the more I'm starting to agree with them. Kasumi is just amazing. She's smart, funny, cute (I think. Maybe an under the hood reveal is also in order?) very insightful and, let's face it a goddamn ninja. She doesn't let strangers in but you can tell from the whole Keiji thing how much she's capable of caring for someone. She's a perfect companion for Shepard both on the battlefield and off. The Jacob crush was funny while it lasted (but come on, femShep herself got dumped. We knew it wasn't going anywhere) but it's time to get serious. A romance DLC would be much appreciated. It could all play out on the Citadel and if we're really going for the path of least resistance, it could all be done in the framework of the Hanar Diplomat mission. Just spread the terminals out so you need to do a few missions in between (easily justified- maybe it takes time for Bau and Kasumi to track down
the info after each terminal is hacked). Meanwhile you do a mission or two, come back, hack a terminal and then see Kasumi face to face instead of talking over the radio. After she fakes her death the romance can culminate- maybe instead of just appearing in that room she appears near one of the apartments after you investigate a "disturbance". It can be done without messing with the structure of the existing game too much and without committing a huge amount of resources either. So... pretty please? Of course you'd have to get through the first problem I mentioned. See, told you they were related.



So there you have it. My huge rant and request for my two favorite Mass Effect ladies: Miranda Lawson and Kasumi Goto. What more can an ol' infiltrator Shepard ask for? Thank you for your time and pardon any offense in the pursuit of humorous exposition and pleas.



CrutchCricket
-Proud Owner and Player of Jim-Bob Shepard, Infiltrator Extraordinare ME1-ME3

Modifié par CrutchCricket, 05 avril 2012 - 02:40 .

[Morale4HATE]

Okay seriously my fellow tali fans who are coming on here and saying "moar tali". Shut the frak up, there was a lot more tali then most of the other romances for maleshep. It seemed to me that only liara had her beat, but there was a good amount of tali. So do your fellow non insane talimancers a favor and go away, hopefully somewhere far. Also as a side note my second sheps romance is Jack and there could have been ALOT more of that romance, at the least just meeting up with her on the citadel a couple more times i.e. when she gets shore leave too, or being able to invite her to take a tour on the remodeled Normandy like you got to do for Liara in LotSB.

[Visii]

Update:

We have hit the 100 letter threshold!

Letters: 105

All/General: 14
Ashley: 6
Jack: 18
Jacob: 6
Thane: 32
Miranda: 23
Samara: 3
Vega: 2
Kaidan: 1

Thanks for the contributions everyone! I probably won't be updating the first post with users that have submitted letters (things are getting kinda hectic on my end)- You know who you are!

In addition to spreading the word about this project, we were hoping to receive some Fan-art to put in with these letters. Doesn't have to be anything new, but if you have some fan art or know someone who has some and wouldn't mind showcasing it, please post here or PM me a link to it.

If it is not your work please get permission from the artist. Nothing explicit, please. Time is of the essence, we don't have much of it left!

[Nightwriter]

Morale4HATE wrote...

Okay seriously my fellow tali fans who are coming on here and saying "moar tali". Shut the frak up, there was a lot more tali then most of the other romances for maleshep. It seemed to me that only liara had her beat, but there was a good amount of tali. So do your fellow non insane talimancers a favor and go away, hopefully somewhere far. Also as a side note my second sheps romance is Jack and there could have been ALOT more of that romance, at the least just meeting up with her on the citadel a couple more times i.e. when she gets shore leave too, or being able to invite her to take a tour on the remodeled Normandy like you got to do for Liara in LotSB.

+1

[cielosorasky]

I just PM you my letter, Visii! Again, thank you for all the effort you have put into this project.

[CptData]

Seems Thane and Miranda have their fans

Good job, Visii. Is there any chance we'll get a PDF with all the stuff you collected?

[Visii]

CptData wrote...

Seems Thane and Miranda have their fans

Good job, Visii. Is there any chance we'll get a PDF with all the stuff you collected?

Oh, I could definitely do that! Nice idea!

[CptData]

Visii wrote...

CptData wrote...

Seems Thane and Miranda have their fans

Good job, Visii. Is there any chance we'll get a PDF with all the stuff you collected?

Oh, I could definitely do that! Nice idea!

I just had that idea since you're going to create one hardcovered book (or at least that's what I understand) and hand it to Bioware. At some point you have to create that PDF ... or whatever you use for creating the content.

It's the easiest way to publish your book to the public instead of using good ol' paper *g*

[Daashi]

Would you accept letters asking questions about character design? Because I have got a lot of questions about the designs of the LIs and how some of the LIs are impletement are some things I would really like answers too.

[alec1898]

I know this seems selfish, given how badly most other ME2 romances got shafted, but I found the fact that bioware just made a quick stock photo edit and put it out and said "There you go, that's Tali's face" was very frustrating to me. I found it incredibly obvious that Bioware wanted everyone to romance Liara, she got the most attention from them romance wise. I mean, the fact that the final character that is shown during shepards flashback in the ending is Liara and not your LI (If you didn't romance Liara, ofc) is a pretty frustrating too. I mean, I almost never even talked to her in my playthroughs, why would my shep's last thoughts be of her and not my LI?

Also, my support to all ya'll fighting for better Thane and Jack romances in ME3, those were done lazily as hell.

Edit: Miranda only got a hug? Hot damn, that's the biggest shaft of em all! Lazy bioware, laaazy.

Modifié par alec1898, 05 avril 2012 - 07:34 .

[Visii]

Sneak peak of how the book is coming along! Haven't added the fan art we have collected so far, but it's coming soon!

Modifié par Visii, 05 avril 2012 - 07:37 .

[alec1898]

Visii wrote...

Sneak peak of how the book is coming along! haven't added the fan art we have collected so far, but it's coming soon!

Not bad, friend! Love how you added the minimal logos on the front page, that was a nice touch.

[imp187]

For your time and efford you putting into this, there is not enough "thank you" @ Visii

I really hope there are pictures/video when bioware receives this and i am really eager to hear/see/read how bw reacts...

[Teamsleeper]

JACK !!!!!!

[kumquats]

Visii wrote...

Sneak peak of how the book is coming along! Haven't added the fan art we have collected so far, but it's coming soon!

Thank you, it looks great.

[Stalker]

Visii wrote...

Sneak peak of how the book is coming along! Haven't added the fan art we have collected so far, but it's coming soon!

Much better than I could have imagined. Looks great!

...and could you please add my name to the list in the OP? "MrMassakka", without space.

Modifié par Mr Massakka, 05 avril 2012 - 01:02 .

[CrutchCricket]

Hey OP would you kindly add my name to the contributors and also update your character list to show Kasumi getting some love?
Thanks!
/attention whoring.