52 réponses à ce sujet

[SAmaster01]

 Alright, so I was thinking about the dissappointing reveal for how !uarians look, and how it could have been handled better, and I was thought; maybe they should give it a second go around for the next game?

I was thinking, maybe they should do like in Dragon Age 2 (a game I have not played), wherein they ade the elves and dwarves look less human, for the next mass effect game they should do likewise for the Quarians. And while they're at it, maybe the rest of the galactic species. The Asari look too human for comfort. 

The more 'animlistic' aliens like the Elcor and Hanar probably don't need it, though I think they could still be given an upgrade in the design apartment, likewise for the Turians, though I like them as they are now. Batarians to a lesser extent as well. 

The Asari and Quarians are the ones in the biggest need for a design overhall.

The Asari should still be beautiful, but in a more exotic way, perhaps something more like a runway model, taller, more elongated, certain proportions be off or exaggeratted.

The Quarians meanwhile probably need the most attention. Logically the galaxy would have a rough idea what they look like, and since the audience also have a rough idea, there is no real need to hide them. I don't have many suggestions, other than I believe the fanart got it better.

Meanwhile, other humanoid aliens, such as the Drell, and Batarians could also probably get a once over, I think seeing a shirtless Batarian, purely for anatomical reasons, would be intersting, same with the Turians, but perhaps the Batarians could be given a rather gruff or leathery appearance, likewise for the Drell, who should perahps be given a more lizardesque- or dinosaur-esqu appearance to their anatomy, slightly different proportions, or maybe thinner and more lean frames. 

Also, I like to think to myself that Humans are the only species with five fingers, with Batarians and Asari with four, and Turians and Quarians with three, with Drell having five finger bones, but four fingers. I know it's a little thing, but I think it would be a nice touch. 

I've been away from the forums for a while now, so if someone has already discussed this, or you think it belongs better someplace else, let me know. Also share your opinions of how you would redo the different species. 

[o Ventus]

Drell already have leaner frames than humans, and already have a lizard-esque look to them. Accordig to the codex, their internals are also fairly different than humans. They don't have hemoglobin, and their muscles are more tightly woven and are more wirey. 

Modifié par o Ventus, 12 août 2013 - 09:20 .

[SAmaster01]

o Ventus wrote...

Drell already have leaner frames than humans, and already have a lizard-esque look to them. Accordig to the codex, their internals are also fairly different than humans. They don't have hemoglobin, and their muscles are more tightly woven and are more wirey. 

I was specifically referring to the outsides, we can assume the insides are completely different, and sure in canon the Drell are leaner, but the character model is the same as a human, which is what I meant.

[David7204]

I somewhat frown on making aliens exotic for the purpose of being exotic.

Making a super-ultra exotic alien is the easiest thing in the world.

Making an alien that humans and the audience can identify with, be friends with, fall in love with...that's difficult.

There's a reason all the important alien characters are humanoid.

Modifié par David7204, 12 août 2013 - 09:47 .

[SAmaster01]

David7204 wrote...

I somewhat frown on making aliens exotic for the purpose of being exotic.

Making a super-ultra exotic alien is the easiest thing in the world.

Making an alien that humans and the audience can identify with, be friends with, fall in love with...that's difficult.

There's a reason all the important alien characters are humanoid.

They can be humanoid, yes, but a good example of what I'm talking about are the Turians and Salarians.  Garrus is as ugly as all hell, but we love him like the adorable puppy dog that he is on the inside. 

[Joken]

I would contest that they should make an effort to have reasonable numbers of species not be humanoid. It's certainly possible to have relatable alien looking creatures, just look at how often very non-humanoid animals are successfully personified.

The Krogan for example, some slight changes, such as giving them four legs and putting their nostrils on their chests would go a long way to making them more alien. The Asari could be partially shape shifting, looking very plain while young, but mostly settling into a shape of their own preference once they get older and have developed sufficiently strong biotics that they didn't need to hide (in plain sight) from predators. Their culture would have a bias towards settling in a roughly human female form (reason; Prothians), but some would look Salarian, some almost Turian and all sorts of weird and wonderful combinations.

They should also try to add more. The law implies several dozen races, far more then we are presented with. Add in mobile plants, things the see by echo location, or thermal only, or that are adapted to a much lower gravity situation and so need powered suits on the Citadel and similar.

They should also add more

[Han Shot First]

Continuity is more important than interesting design choices, IMO.

I'd rather the already established species return in their familiar forms. That isn't to say that there isn't room for some more alien-looking aliens, just that those sorts of design choices should only be reserved to newly introduced species. The only exception for me would be the Quarians, as they never got a true reveal. I wouldn't mind a retcon of that stock photo.

It is a big galaxy, and by Mass Effect 3 only about 1% of it had been explored according to the lore. That leaves plenty of room for the introduction of a new species or two.

Modifié par Han Shot First, 13 août 2013 - 01:09 .

[Dunmer of Redoran]

Han Shot First wrote...

Continuity is more important than interesting design choices, IMO.

I'd rather the already established species return in their familiar forms. That isn't to say that there isn't room for some more alien-looking aliens, just that those sorts of design choices should only be reserved to newly introduced species. The only exception for me would be the Quarians, as they never got a true reveal. I wouldn't mind a retcon of that stock photo.

It is a big galaxy, and by Mass Effect 3 only about 1% of it had been explored according to the lore. That leaves plenty of room for the introduction of a new species or two.

I think a good choice would be to use the "alien" appearances for some uncontacted races, like ones that struggle in the fabric of space to make much civilization for themselves.

It'd make sense, too, since aliens with weird/unusual shapes are going to have a more difficult time engaging in more "human" tasks (like shipbuilding).

[MrFob]

DaftArbiter wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

Continuity is more important than interesting design choices, IMO.

I'd rather the already established species return in their familiar forms. That isn't to say that there isn't room for some more alien-looking aliens, just that those sorts of design choices should only be reserved to newly introduced species. The only exception for me would be the Quarians, as they never got a true reveal. I wouldn't mind a retcon of that stock photo.

It is a big galaxy, and by Mass Effect 3 only about 1% of it had been explored according to the lore. That leaves plenty of room for the introduction of a new species or two.

I think a good choice would be to use the "alien" appearances for some uncontacted races, like ones that struggle in the fabric of space to make much civilization for themselves.

It'd make sense, too, since aliens with weird/unusual shapes are going to have a more difficult time engaging in more "human" tasks (like shipbuilding).

Well, I wouldn't say that ship building is necessarily a "human task". The ships would just look very different as well. That's one of the main problems with exotic species. It's not enough to just make the guys themselves exotic but in order to do it well, you have to think it all through. How would they design things according to their physiology and ergonomic characteristics? What kind of interfaces would they use? What kind of technology would they develop? It's much harder than just come up with a weird body shape.
You do have a point though, in the sense that all advanced technology builds on what was left behind by the reapers and the protheans. Obviously, thac technology caters to a humanoid species and one with a completely different outlook on the world would probably have a harder time grasping their concepts.

Overall, while I am all for exotic aliens,I tend to agree with Han. Most important thing is not to go too far, ti fast. A new and exotic alien species that we meet in a mission or two would be great but introducing too many new things in one go would conflict with what's already been established about the ME universe.

[JMTolan]

I am generally a fan of humans being humans and aliens being... Well, not, but if I was going to wish for more alien aliens, I would want innovation more in the direction of non-humanoid variants--Something like the Keepers, with multiple arms or legs, that was still capable in a relatively normal capacity in a fight, rather than the Elcor or Hanar, which, while more alien, are also not really combat normative. The main reason not to do this, though, is that it is infinitely more expensive, both mechanically and in terms of animation and modeling, which is why they made all of the major races humanoid in the first place--that way, they could all share roughly the same animations, and even some art assets, at least in ME1.

That said, for as many humanoid races as there are, I think they've done a pretty good job being as diverse as they can. Turians, Salarians, Quarians, and Krogan all look sufficiently alien to me. Asari and Batarians are both humans with special heads, which is unfortunate, but the Batarians weren't seen enough to make it an issue for them. That leaves the Asari as the main too-human race, and I don't think it's bad to have one major race in a multiracial game be a bit more human-like. Evolution can produce surprisingly different species, but it can also produce surprisingly similar ones.

I have to disagree with those saying the Quarians aren't alien enough. First, the only face-shot we have is one of Tali, and one face does not a representative sample make. Second, even with their human-like face, they still have digitigrade legs and three-fingered hands; they're not exactly human carbon-copies.

Drell are too human only because we never see them using their throat-sac, which is highly unfortunate, but not an unforgivable sin. If that ever gets rectified, I'm quite confident opinions will change.

-Tolasn

[Fixers0]

Not quite agree one visuals, but from a narrative perspective certain Alien species certainly should be Alien, in the Original Mass Effect the only "true" Alien species we encounter are the Rachni and the Thorian. as the manner in which they behave and reason is totally beyond what we humans are used to.

[Dean_the_Young]

David7204 wrote...

I somewhat frown on making aliens exotic for the purpose of being exotic.

Making a super-ultra exotic alien is the easiest thing in the world.

Making an alien that humans and the audience can identify with, be friends with, fall in love with...that's difficult.

There's a reason all the important alien characters are humanoid.

Animation difficulties, primarily. It's the same reason ME1 used the same body-types for human females and the Asari. All the major races were selected and designed to be usable with established human body type designs that would need only minor adjustment: even the Krogan are effectively People in Power Armor.


I'm not too sold on the appearance angle: there is a huge miggle ground between 'deliberatly grotesque' and 'romanceable ****** bait,' and with precious few exceptions the ME series settles on the ****** bait. It's outright explicit with the Drell, and so heavily implied with Tali and the final Female Turian design that it's eyebrow-worthy. It's sad that the most alien looking designs are the Reaper monstrosities, the Rachni Queen, and the Vorcha. And the Thorian, but we were forced to kill the most alien thing in ME1.

A lot of different sci-fi series have shown you don't need human-dominant facial characteristics to be personable or enjoyable to an audience. Halo is exemplary by comparison: sure, there's a lot less Master Chief/Arbiter porn out there compared to Quarian/Asari/Turian ****** bait, but Halo is able to establish a number of species with personalities and identities without needing to make them conventionally attractive. Even ME2 was able to do it with EDI, arguably even better than the hamfisted approach in ME3.


Once you avoid the point of the deliberately grotesque, there are a lot of better ways to flesh out a supposedly diverse universe than to make almost every species conventionally attractive, romanceable, and with conventionally human political, ethical, and cultural viewpoints. Even with humanoids: let's see some side-opening mouths, non-human proportioned faces, or florescent/glowing compound eyes. Let's have sentient elementals, 'thinking rock' robots created by a sentient biosphere. Let's have a species in which the 'body' is an exoskeleton with a soft inner core, or even a hybrid species in which greater body is little more than a trained animal piloted by a symbiotic partner/master.

Heck, let's have a conventionally attractive species that doesn't find us attractive, since they have different types of sensory organs and standards of beauty that leave Humans, to be polite, incredibly ugly.


Let's try for some actually alien cultures while we're at it, with views we may not even be physically equiped to appreciate, rather than charicatures of 'space lesbian liberalism', 'space roman militarism', or 'space government conspiracy... conspiracyism.'


Exotic for exotic's own sake isn't the end-all-be-all. It shouldn't be the goal for everything and everyone. But for a setting that claims to represent a diverse assortment of races and beliefs, the ME universe has pretty superficial differences: even the Robots just want to be individuals, and take their own Pinochio bodies.

It really needs some aliens.

[Bendigoe]

Quarians just need to stay in those suits, it's one of the things that makes them unique as a race.
They should just make it so that we never see their faces from now on. I'm completely ignoring the fact that Tali's "face" was shown.
Drells could do with having slightly longer more elongated faces.
There's lots of things they have the opportunity to change now, starting on a new engine means they have to develop Skeletons from scratch as well as appearances, we could very well see some decent changes as long as they don't get lazy and decide to use the human skeleton model as the basis for the most prominent alien races.

[The Heretic of Time]

I advice the BioWare writing staff to carefully read this entire page and use it as a guideline for designing new aliens in their future games/projects:

http://www.projectrh...cket/aliens.php

[Seboist]

David7204 wrote...

There's a reason all the important alien characters are humanoid.

Cause it's easy to create costumed humans with Terran stereotypes.

[Seboist]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

SAmaster01 wrote...

I was thinking, maybe they should do like in Dragon Age 2 (a game I have not played), wherein they ade the elves and dwarves look less human

Because the redesigned elf appearance went over so well.

Anyway, there are plenty of aliens in ME that don't look human; elcor, hanar, rachni. It's just that none of them are given any real screentime.

That Elcor and Hanar are relegated to semi-joke races doesn't do them any favors either.

[KieranW]

How has everyone forgot the Vorcha?

How much more alien do you want? They have NO terrestrial analogue. The closest we can classify them is to our earth worms, due to their non-differentiated cells. I mean, these guys can survive so much and a pre-eminently adaptable. And just -look- at them. Alien as all hell.

[SAmaster01]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I somewhat frown on making aliens exotic for the purpose of being exotic.

Making a super-ultra exotic alien is the easiest thing in the world.

Making an alien that humans and the audience can identify with, be friends with, fall in love with...that's difficult.

There's a reason all the important alien characters are humanoid.

Animation difficulties, primarily. It's the same reason ME1 used the same body-types for human females and the Asari. All the major races were selected and designed to be usable with established human body type designs that would need only minor adjustment: even the Krogan are effectively People in Power Armor.


I'm not too sold on the appearance angle: there is a huge miggle ground between 'deliberatly grotesque' and 'romanceable ****** bait,' and with precious few exceptions the ME series settles on the ****** bait. It's outright explicit with the Drell, and so heavily implied with Tali and the final Female Turian design that it's eyebrow-worthy. It's sad that the most alien looking designs are the Reaper monstrosities, the Rachni Queen, and the Vorcha. And the Thorian, but we were forced to kill the most alien thing in ME1.

A lot of different sci-fi series have shown you don't need human-dominant facial characteristics to be personable or enjoyable to an audience. Halo is exemplary by comparison: sure, there's a lot less Master Chief/Arbiter porn out there compared to Quarian/Asari/Turian ****** bait, but Halo is able to establish a number of species with personalities and identities without needing to make them conventionally attractive. Even ME2 was able to do it with EDI, arguably even better than the hamfisted approach in ME3.


Once you avoid the point of the deliberately grotesque, there are a lot of better ways to flesh out a supposedly diverse universe than to make almost every species conventionally attractive, romanceable, and with conventionally human political, ethical, and cultural viewpoints. Even with humanoids: let's see some side-opening mouths, non-human proportioned faces, or florescent/glowing compound eyes. Let's have sentient elementals, 'thinking rock' robots created by a sentient biosphere. Let's have a species in which the 'body' is an exoskeleton with a soft inner core, or even a hybrid species in which greater body is little more than a trained animal piloted by a symbiotic partner/master.

Heck, let's have a conventionally attractive species that doesn't find us attractive, since they have different types of sensory organs and standards of beauty that leave Humans, to be polite, incredibly ugly.


Let's try for some actually alien cultures while we're at it, with views we may not even be physically equiped to appreciate, rather than charicatures of 'space lesbian liberalism', 'space roman militarism', or 'space government conspiracy... conspiracyism.'


Exotic for exotic's own sake isn't the end-all-be-all. It shouldn't be the goal for everything and everyone. But for a setting that claims to represent a diverse assortment of races and beliefs, the ME universe has pretty superficial differences: even the Robots just want to be individuals, and take their own Pinochio bodies.

It really needs some aliens.

Yes exactly this. I think Halo is an excellent example, considering the aliens are very diverse, such as the wierd looking but biologically similar Elites, the methane breathing grunts, the alien insect Drones, and the hulking hive-minded hunters.

Of course that applies to new species, I was mostly referring to the existing ones, but I like what you said about bridging the middle ground between horribly grotesque and 'attractive' if I am to paraphrase. While I'm not trying to say that all the aliens should be made ugly and completely weird, going along that bent would have made the whole racism issue much easier to understand. Sure the Turians look intimidating, the rest look odd at best though.

I think that what the current cast needs is just a lot of little things, again I'd like it if humans were the only ones with five fingered hands.

As for new ones, the comments raised do help ignite the imagination. I'd personally like to see an aquatic humanoid race that have to wear exosuits with clear visors, similar to the quarians and volus, like the aliens from Battleship (bad movie I know, but the alien designs were cool)

[SAmaster01]

Cthulhu42 wrote...

SAmaster01 wrote...

I was thinking, maybe they should do like in Dragon Age 2 (a game I have not played), wherein they ade the elves and dwarves look less human

Because the redesigned elf appearance went over so well.

Anyway, there are plenty of aliens in ME that don't look human; elcor, hanar, rachni; it's just that none of them are given any real screentime. There's your problem.

I'm fine with the designs of the Elcor, Hanar and Rachni, though I reckon they could use a visual facelift to give them more personality, and also with the designs of the Turians and Krogan, I specifically meant the more human shaped aliens, such as the Asari and Drell, and to a lesser extent with the Batarians and Quarians. And by that I mean I just was a slightly different shaped model with those, minus the Quarians who are okay in this regard, and slightly more alien looking faces, minus the Batarians, who are good in that regard. 

[Deepsetsoul]

SAmaster01 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I somewhat frown on making aliens exotic for the purpose of being exotic.

Making a super-ultra exotic alien is the easiest thing in the world.

Making an alien that humans and the audience can identify with, be friends with, fall in love with...that's difficult.

There's a reason all the important alien characters are humanoid.

Animation difficulties, primarily. It's the same reason ME1 used the same body-types for human females and the Asari. All the major races were selected and designed to be usable with established human body type designs that would need only minor adjustment: even the Krogan are effectively People in Power Armor.


I'm not too sold on the appearance angle: there is a huge miggle ground between 'deliberatly grotesque' and 'romanceable ****** bait,' and with precious few exceptions the ME series settles on the ****** bait. It's outright explicit with the Drell, and so heavily implied with Tali and the final Female Turian design that it's eyebrow-worthy. It's sad that the most alien looking designs are the Reaper monstrosities, the Rachni Queen, and the Vorcha. And the Thorian, but we were forced to kill the most alien thing in ME1.

A lot of different sci-fi series have shown you don't need human-dominant facial characteristics to be personable or enjoyable to an audience. Halo is exemplary by comparison: sure, there's a lot less Master Chief/Arbiter porn out there compared to Quarian/Asari/Turian ****** bait, but Halo is able to establish a number of species with personalities and identities without needing to make them conventionally attractive. Even ME2 was able to do it with EDI, arguably even better than the hamfisted approach in ME3.


Once you avoid the point of the deliberately grotesque, there are a lot of better ways to flesh out a supposedly diverse universe than to make almost every species conventionally attractive, romanceable, and with conventionally human political, ethical, and cultural viewpoints. Even with humanoids: let's see some side-opening mouths, non-human proportioned faces, or florescent/glowing compound eyes. Let's have sentient elementals, 'thinking rock' robots created by a sentient biosphere. Let's have a species in which the 'body' is an exoskeleton with a soft inner core, or even a hybrid species in which greater body is little more than a trained animal piloted by a symbiotic partner/master.

Heck, let's have a conventionally attractive species that doesn't find us attractive, since they have different types of sensory organs and standards of beauty that leave Humans, to be polite, incredibly ugly.


Let's try for some actually alien cultures while we're at it, with views we may not even be physically equiped to appreciate, rather than charicatures of 'space lesbian liberalism', 'space roman militarism', or 'space government conspiracy... conspiracyism.'


Exotic for exotic's own sake isn't the end-all-be-all. It shouldn't be the goal for everything and everyone. But for a setting that claims to represent a diverse assortment of races and beliefs, the ME universe has pretty superficial differences: even the Robots just want to be individuals, and take their own Pinochio bodies.

It really needs some aliens.

Yes exactly this. I think Halo is an excellent example, considering the aliens are very diverse, such as the wierd looking but biologically similar Elites, the methane breathing grunts, the alien insect Drones, and the hulking hive-minded hunters.

Of course that applies to new species, I was mostly referring to the existing ones, but I like what you said about bridging the middle ground between horribly grotesque and 'attractive' if I am to paraphrase. While I'm not trying to say that all the aliens should be made ugly and completely weird, going along that bent would have made the whole racism issue much easier to understand. Sure the Turians look intimidating, the rest look odd at best though.

I think that what the current cast needs is just a lot of little things, again I'd like it if humans were the only ones with five fingered hands.

As for new ones, the comments raised do help ignite the imagination. I'd personally like to see an aquatic humanoid race that have to wear exosuits with clear visors, similar to the quarians and volus, like the aliens from Battleship (bad movie I know, but the alien designs were cool)

Yeah lets make this game more like Halo. Am i right?

[Dean_the_Young]

Would you argue that Halo has bad alien designs?

[Armass81]

SAmaster01 wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

David7204 wrote...

I somewhat frown on making aliens exotic for the purpose of being exotic.

Making a super-ultra exotic alien is the easiest thing in the world.

Making an alien that humans and the audience can identify with, be friends with, fall in love with...that's difficult.

There's a reason all the important alien characters are humanoid.

Animation difficulties, primarily. It's the same reason ME1 used the same body-types for human females and the Asari. All the major races were selected and designed to be usable with established human body type designs that would need only minor adjustment: even the Krogan are effectively People in Power Armor.


I'm not too sold on the appearance angle: there is a huge miggle ground between 'deliberatly grotesque' and 'romanceable ****** bait,' and with precious few exceptions the ME series settles on the ****** bait. It's outright explicit with the Drell, and so heavily implied with Tali and the final Female Turian design that it's eyebrow-worthy. It's sad that the most alien looking designs are the Reaper monstrosities, the Rachni Queen, and the Vorcha. And the Thorian, but we were forced to kill the most alien thing in ME1.

A lot of different sci-fi series have shown you don't need human-dominant facial characteristics to be personable or enjoyable to an audience. Halo is exemplary by comparison: sure, there's a lot less Master Chief/Arbiter porn out there compared to Quarian/Asari/Turian ****** bait, but Halo is able to establish a number of species with personalities and identities without needing to make them conventionally attractive. Even ME2 was able to do it with EDI, arguably even better than the hamfisted approach in ME3.


Once you avoid the point of the deliberately grotesque, there are a lot of better ways to flesh out a supposedly diverse universe than to make almost every species conventionally attractive, romanceable, and with conventionally human political, ethical, and cultural viewpoints. Even with humanoids: let's see some side-opening mouths, non-human proportioned faces, or florescent/glowing compound eyes. Let's have sentient elementals, 'thinking rock' robots created by a sentient biosphere. Let's have a species in which the 'body' is an exoskeleton with a soft inner core, or even a hybrid species in which greater body is little more than a trained animal piloted by a symbiotic partner/master.

Heck, let's have a conventionally attractive species that doesn't find us attractive, since they have different types of sensory organs and standards of beauty that leave Humans, to be polite, incredibly ugly.


Let's try for some actually alien cultures while we're at it, with views we may not even be physically equiped to appreciate, rather than charicatures of 'space lesbian liberalism', 'space roman militarism', or 'space government conspiracy... conspiracyism.'


Exotic for exotic's own sake isn't the end-all-be-all. It shouldn't be the goal for everything and everyone. But for a setting that claims to represent a diverse assortment of races and beliefs, the ME universe has pretty superficial differences: even the Robots just want to be individuals, and take their own Pinochio bodies.

It really needs some aliens.

Yes exactly this. I think Halo is an excellent example, considering the aliens are very diverse, such as the wierd looking but biologically similar Elites, the methane breathing grunts, the alien insect Drones, and the hulking hive-minded hunters.

Of course that applies to new species, I was mostly referring to the existing ones, but I like what you said about bridging the middle ground between horribly grotesque and 'attractive' if I am to paraphrase. While I'm not trying to say that all the aliens should be made ugly and completely weird, going along that bent would have made the whole racism issue much easier to understand. Sure the Turians look intimidating, the rest look odd at best though.

I think that what the current cast needs is just a lot of little things, again I'd like it if humans were the only ones with five fingered hands.

As for new ones, the comments raised do help ignite the imagination. I'd personally like to see an aquatic humanoid race that have to wear exosuits with clear visors, similar to the quarians and volus, like the aliens from Battleship (bad movie I know, but the alien designs were cool)

This is cool?

The aliens in Star Trek Original Series looked better. Please no, no nononono, nothing like this.

Modifié par Armass81, 13 août 2013 - 09:52 .