88 réponses à ce sujet

[warblewobble]

Okay, so debating this is purely academic at this point but I had some ideas on a few changes that could’ve been made to allow Liara to seem more effective in her role as the Shadow Broker. Namely, what if Traynor’s position was more similar to Kelly’s in ME2 and Liara was instead the one feeding you info on potential missions?
I know there are some Liara-haters out there who would be absolutely disgusted with having to interact with her socially any more than the game already requires, but maybe Traynor could’ve been given those mandatory interactions instead. If part of her job was to monitor the crew’s mental health then it wouldn’t be so unreasonable for her to approach Shepard to find out what’s on his/her mind, and Liara’s exchanges would instead revolve more around passing on info from her intelligence sources.
While I personally happen to like Liara, I did find myself wondering why she was made Shadow Broker in the first place when she contributes little to the war effort on that account. Meanwhile, Traynor manages to come up with important leads pretty much on the fly. Anyway, I’m curious to hear peoples’ thoughts on that idea.

[CynicalShep]

I'm afraid Liara ended up being a very bad Shadow Broker

[KiwiQuiche]

Lol Liara is a fairly lousy Shadow Broker- Wrex even calls her out on this on Sur'Kesh about the fertile females XD

Sam and Liara should swap jobs.

[Indy_S]

The Shadow Broker was a poorly realised opportunity, used maybe twice(?), Only once in the main plot (to find the Crucible) and once afterwards (to point at the monastery). Did I miss one?

And I'm of the opinion that her off-screen work doesn't count.

[Linkforlife]

Sorry Liara, Samantha is still better with information.

[MacroSpamMK]

Doesn't matter, I love my blue ****es more.

[LordMarrick]

well Liara does tell you that the larger part of her forcese are helping with the crucible and she has lost alot of her agents when the reapers hit, and also most of her off-screen time is spent with her looking for people to assist with the crucible(not that it gives you war assets though) and spying on shepard so she can break up with him/her if you so much as cheat once. damn liara's a possesive LI but meh I would not have her any other way if only we could get our sheps to show liara some of that possesive love sometimes.

[DevilBeast]

From what I´ve heard many of the things Sam does was originally meant for Liara. But since they couldn´t have Sam become Kelly 2.0, they gave Sam those tasks.

[matt-bassist]

I have it on good authority that there was an interrupt that was cut from the original game. After Liara begins giving you information on the Monastery:

*KANYE INTERRUPT*

YO LIARA, IM HAPPY FOR YOU, IMMA LET YOU FINISH YOUR BROKER RESEARCH BUT TRAYNOR HAD THE BEST INFORMATION OF ALL TIME!

[Steelcan]

Yes yes Liara is useless

[AlexMBrennan]

While I personally happen to like Liara, I did find myself wondering why she was made Shadow Broker in the first place when she contributes little to the war effort on that account. Meanwhile, Traynor manages to come up with important leads pretty much on the fly.

Because Bioware is making up stuff as they go along; Liara becoming the Shadow Broker is the end of the Redemption comic ark, and I seriously doubt that the writers had planned out ME3 when they made LotSB.

Having said that, Liara never set out to take over as SB (her motivation was revenge and/or rescuing Feron) - she just took the unexpected opportunity when it presented itself. As such, it's not inconceivable for her to be bad at it.

On an unrelated note, intelligence has a role in warfare, but it's not gonna be all that helpful if the enemy is everywhere overtly killing everyone.

[SlottsMachine]

BringBackNihlus wrote...

I agree. Liara wrote all of her own content in Mass Effect 3. She didn't do a very good job of it.

Has anyone ever had the bright idea to criticize the people who wrote the content, and not the character(s) itself?

Of course, you'd likely get banned, but the lot that usually frequents these kind of threads probably should.

Well, unless she was intentionally written that way. TBH, it makes sense that she was a lousy Shadow Broker but I don't imagine that was the writers intention. 

Its funny how selective people are when it comes to criticizing the writers. Some of it is more innocent, people just not looking at the big picture but other times people are usually trying to push some weird agenda they have. 

[The Night Mammoth]

Poor Liara, no one seems to care you used your Shadow Broker resources to find, and then help build, the Crucible, that thing that saved the galaxy.

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 13 janvier 2013 - 05:59 .

[Samtheman63]

the shadow broker buys and sells some of the galaxys most dangerous secrets, why would she feel the need to constantly tell shepard what she finds? other than the crucible obviously, which turns out to be pretty damn important

samantha informs shepard on things that help the war effort or stop cerberus, why people compare the 2 and say samantha is better than lirara i don't know, they have 2 different jobs

[Argolas]

Liaras work on the crucible is pretty important, also she has to look after their agents and in her free time, she takes a gun and jumps into battle herself, all that while she is under heavy emotional pressure. I'd say she does not bad given the circumstances.

[SilentK]

Hmmm. I don't feel the need to know about every single thing that Liara does in order to believe that she is working. Just like I didn't feel the need to know what Miranda did every day when she was on the Normandy in ME2 being my second in command. I trust that Liara does her job, and we get little comments and signs like that the man looking for metal, then getting a delivery from the Shadowbroker, "Thanks but I'm checking my computer for bugs".

[DWH1982]

Liara's not a very good Shadow Broker for two reasons:

1. She lost a lot of resources and people to the Reapers, and she's focusing a great deal of the resources she has left on the war effort.

2. She's dividing her time between being Shadow Broker and being part of Shepard's squad.

I can't help but feel that this is something that Shepard and Liara should have had the chance to talk about. Maybe there should have been the opportunity to tell her to leave the squad and focus full time on being Shadow Broker, where she would have been more useful to the war effort. Kind of like you can do with the VS after the coup attempt.

Modifié par DWH1982, 13 janvier 2013 - 07:06 .

[SilentK]

Hmmm.. I think it would be difficult not to lose people and resources during a reaper invasion. But I still think that she is working for the right thing. If she is spending her resources to help build the crucible then I am happy. She is still the Shadowbroker but the needs placed on her are different now so as long as she puts her resources to the best use all is good.

edit: rewrote because I misread an earlier post =)

Modifié par SilentK, 13 janvier 2013 - 07:14 .

[warblewobble]

DevilBeast wrote...

From what I´ve heard many of the things Sam does was originally meant for Liara. But since they couldn´t have Sam become Kelly 2.0, they gave Sam those tasks.

This is interesting because's that was basically my idea. I'm not sure why she couldn't have a similar role to Kelly, other than (and I guess this must be the rationale) that it would cause people to deride her as a Chambers clone. (Still, Kelly simply wasn't going to be bouncing back after what happened to her and at any rate could easily be dead for some players anyway.)

Also, I do know that Liara helped in some ways and discovered the plans for the Crucible, etc. It's just that the Shadow Broker is built up to be practically omnicient and such a huge deal that I guess I expected more. I think the worst of it was not being able to find the Illusive Man's base. Giving her that contribution would've gone a good way toward establishing her credibility.

I agree (forget who said it, sorry) that it kind of fits to expectation that the mousey archaeologist wouldn't have made a good Shadow Broker but that this was probably unintentional on the part of the writers.

Of all the (squad) characters in ME1, who do you think would've been best suited to be the SB? The worst? Maybe someone would've done worse than Liara, but she seems like probably the least likely choice to me at least in terms of personality.

[warblewobble]

Another thought- I don't adhere to the 'show, don't tell' school of storytelling like it's a strict law. I'm willing to believe that Liara is doing some work, but maybe they could've at least thrown more SB war assets our way periodically over the course of the game? I know she points you in the direction of at least one (a Wet Squad, I think), but suppose the general war asset requirement had been raised but that you automatically got some points every so often as a SB resource? Even if you don't care about the points (I really, really don't want to start that debate here) it would at least give you the occasional reminder that Liara is doing something.

As for DWH1982's idea (have a choice to take her or direct her to work full-time as SB) I think it's interesting but it might present a few logistical problems. I think they'd have to introduce another mandatory squadmate since that could potentially leave people with just James and EDI. I'd never leave Liara behind but I actually would feel better if I were telling her to let her subordinates handle the SB stuff and help out my Shepard full-time. (Selfish? Eh, maybe a little. She's still the Prothean expert, though. Glad to see that there were some tie-ins to her ME1 character since in ME2 she seemed completely different to me. The artifacts in her apartment in LotSB were a nice touch, though.)

[SNascimento]

Liara can't be a good SB by definition. You have to change the whole character... which wasn't a problem from ME1 to ME2 actually.

[Han Shot First]

The Night Mammoth wrote...

Poor Liara, no one seems to care you used your Shadow Broker resources to find, and then help build, the Crucible, that thing that saved the galaxy.

This.

The Traynor fangirls need to calm down for a second, and realize that the information that Liara does obtain is far more crucial than anything that Traynor digs up.
 
After all it is the Crucible, which like it or not, solves the Reaper problem in one way or the other. If Shepard is foolish enough not to use the Crucible, then it is Liara's time capsules that pass on the Crucible plans to another cycle that doesn't make the same blunder. After Shepard, Liara is arguably the most important character in the series.

All of that being said however, I do think Liara being Shadow Broker was badly mishandled in Mass Effect 3. Other than discovering the Crucible plans, the Shadow Broker doesn't play much of a role in the story. Liara's Shadow Broker status is treated as background information, including the discovery of the Crucible plans, which occurs entirely off screen and before Shepard gets to Mars.

I also think Traynor is a great character. I feel a need to add that last bit, since I don't want anyone to misintepret the first sentence of my post.

[The Night Mammoth]

warblewobble wrote...

DevilBeast wrote...

From what I´ve heard many of the things Sam does was originally meant for Liara. But since they couldn´t have Sam become Kelly 2.0, they gave Sam those tasks.

This is interesting because's that was basically my idea. I'm not sure why she couldn't have a similar role to Kelly, other than (and I guess this must be the rationale) that it would cause people to deride her as a Chambers clone. (Still, Kelly simply wasn't going to be bouncing back after what happened to her and at any rate could easily be dead for some players anyway.)

If Traynor is a yeomen, it seems logical that if the writers wanted her to contribute more to the story they could have made her complete tasks that are connected to her role on the ship, rather than fulfill the probable tasks of another character with an already established role. 

Also, I do know that Liara helped in some ways and discovered the plans for the Crucible, etc. It's just that the Shadow Broker is built up to be practically omnicient and such a huge deal that I guess I expected more. I think the worst of it was not being able to find the Illusive Man's base. Giving her that contribution would've gone a good way toward establishing her credibility.

It kind of opens up an inconsistency in the story. The yahg broker knew what kind of suit the Illusive Man wore, and how many peope he had sex with, but Liara can't even find the guy operates from. Either she loses a bunch of operatives and information, or she's really stupid. No one answer that. 

Of all the (squad) characters in ME1, who do you think would've been best suited to be the SB? The worst? Maybe someone would've done worse than Liara, but she seems like probably the least likely choice to me at least in terms of personality.

Miranda. 

Modifié par The Night Mammoth, 13 janvier 2013 - 08:16 .

[DWH1982]

SilentK wrote...

Hmmm.. I think it would be difficult not to lose people and resources during a reaper invasion. But I still think that she is working for the right thing. If she is spending her resources to help build the crucible then I am happy. She is still the Shadowbroker but the needs placed on her are different now so as long as she puts her resources to the best use all is good.

edit: rewrote because I misread an earlier post =)

I hope you didn't think I was criticizing her for losing people. I didn't mean it that way - as you said, it was inevitable. What I meant was, the loss of people and resources that she took are hurting her ability to function as Shadow Broker. Fewer agents in the field mean that her intelligence operation isn't going to be nearly as effective as it used to be. And, the fact is, necessity requires that the agents that are left devote a disproportionate amount of time to helping the war effort by hunting down resources for the Crucible, which only further harms "traditional" Shadow Broker operations. Not really Liara's fault.

warblewobble wrote...

As for DWH1982's idea (have a choice to take her or direct her to work full-time as SB) I think it's interesting but it might present a few logistical problems. I think they'd have to introduce another mandatory squadmate since that could potentially leave people with just James and EDI. I'd never leave Liara behind but I actually would feel better if I were telling her to let her subordinates handle the SB stuff and help out my Shepard full-time. (Selfish? Eh, maybe a little. She's still the Prothean expert, though. Glad to see that there were some tie-ins to her ME1 character since in ME2 she seemed completely different to me. The artifacts in her apartment in LotSB were a nice touch, though.)

I was originally going to suggest that if, after discussing Liara's issues as Shadow Broker, you decide that she should stay on the squad, she steps down and lets Feron take over at the top of the organization. Perhaps whether this is temporary (Liara goes back to SB after the war) or permanent (Liara goes back to being an archeologist because she decide's it's her "true passion") could be determined through advice/dialouge decisions in later conversations.

The problem with this suggestion, of course, is that Feron is dead in many playthroughs.

Modifié par DWH1982, 13 janvier 2013 - 08:34 .