168 réponses à ce sujet

[Dean_the_Young]

While restating for the record that I'd rather introduce entirely new NPCs as companions rather than use ME2 characters...


I actually think Jacob could be leveraged into a ME3 companion without diverging far from the ME2 character. Just rephrase the ex-Cerberus mission into more of a mass defection by those not yet indoctrinated, and Jacob could go from defection-organizer to squadmate pretty easily while tying into the MP lore.

I'd sell it like this- starting with the ME2 LotSB cue that Jacob is a high-value operative/leader within Cerberus, say that post-ME2 Jacob sticks with Cerberus and becomes a leader within Project Phoenix, which is Cerberus's project on advanced biotics. Jacob's uneasy about the indoctrination-implant troopers, but Pheonix is entirely composed of volunteers and he figures Illusive Man has a game plan for beating the Reapers and Humanity coming out in the end. The Genophage arc doesn't count as a moral event horizon because, well, trying to keep the Krogan from overrunning the galaxy after the Reapers is sensible.

Jacob's line, and the line for Project Phoenix as a whole, is the Citadel Coup and TIM's attempts to indoctrinate personnel within the project. While the Krogan might have been a long-term issue worth fighting, a galactic coup for no good reason or goal is not, and so Jacob and Project Phoenix lead a mass defection of Cerberus scientists and groups afraid of being indoctrinated and huskified. Cue revised mission, which is less 'small defenseless techies' and more like 'Cerberus civil war.' Shepard comes in, Alliance links up with defectors, and much tech and intel sharing for all. Jacob, being the highest level Cerberus defector to date and firmly on TIM's **** list/hit list, jumps about the Normandy (if Shepard accepts) rather than be the most desired assassination target on the Citadel.

Jacob provides a secondary biotic with the Phoenix-Vanguard skills, and much fun. While ME2 reoccuring companions trust him more, most of the Alliance crew is far more suspicious about him, and take issue with how a 'moral' person could stand by Cerberus as long as he did. For his part, Jacob provides a moral-renegade viewpoint (which is to say moral rationals for Renegade actions), and for Cerberus in particular he laments on how cruel-but-useful technologies have been subverted from justifiable uses (implant troopers for soldiers to fight the reapers) to fighting for a cause with no end-game (TIM's directionless goals).



But that's just me.


Second character... I think Legion should have been a companion. You could even justify it as being regardless of the Geth/Quarian outcome. Given that Geth are copy-paste programs, there was never any convincing reason that Legion's 'sacrifice' had to play out any more than, say, Legion dying on the Suicide Mission- with a memory reload. If you side with the Geth (or peace), Legion gets a new body/backup and comes along- fine and dandy. If you side against the Geth, however, Legion is still brought back... as a re-shackled AI, as the Quarians are using to take advantage of all the Geth technology.

It could be interesting to see the differences in another perspective between a 'free' AI and one that is clearly shackled. Shackled!Legion could, per programming, heavily side with organics on any themes or issues of Organic/AI conflict. Regular!Legion is, if not hostile, takes a less submissive and more autonomous approach. Hostile!Legion, (Geth VI) is outright suspicious and defensive in the event of conflict, and considers the Geth's historic isolationism to be dangerously leniant to the potential threat of organics to synthetics.

Same character, different viewpoints. Probably a writing nightmare, but meh. Imaginary word budgets.



For characters taken away in ME2... I'd say Tali and Thane. Thane because, well, lack of role, and Tali because I never felt she belonged. She was always too shoehorned in for the throwback appeal, but I'd honestly rather have new characters instead of re-inventing a lackluster one from ME1.

[Dean_the_Young]

osbornep wrote...

Douglas n7 wrote...

Tali and Garrus in mass effect 2 they don't really seem to contribute much to the story as they did in the first one and are just there for there fans. as for 3 Miranda could have added a lot more to the Cerberus arc same goes for Jacob.

As much as I'm not a fan of Tali or the Quarian content in general, I have to admit that Tali was probably essential for ME2; she's our way "in" to the Quarian perspective on the Quarian/Geth conflict, and that turned out to be one of the few elements of ME3 that ME2 did at least a reasonable job of setting up.

Tali is about as essential to the Geth/Quarian plot as Wrex and Mordin are to the ME3 genophage plot... which is to say not at all. She's sufficient, but hardly irreplaceable... especially since they had to continually readjust her backstory or standing in Quarian society to make her fit.


I've always liked the idea someone threw out back in the day that, rather than hero-figure Tali, the treason-tinged Quarian specialist that Cerberus would find for Shepard's dirty dozen would be a rebooted Xen. Say she was exiled for her AI experiments and Geth experiments, which gives her both a claim to 'galactic expert/outcast' to fit among Shepard's crew, and moral ambiguity for the player as they balance her flaws (anti-AI racism, ego, ambition) with her motivations and context (a dark visionary wanting to save her perople- working to master a dark past and history). Xen's loyalty mission could be something akin to trying to overturn her exile by investigating the Alarai experiments that are tied to her original exile.

Then, come ME3 (if she survived), Xen is an established AI expert with experience with Geth and Reaper AIs, which makes her very relevant to countering their new AI developments.


Regardless, point is that Tali in ME2 as we know here isn't the only potential lead-in to the Geth/Quarian polot, and so not a necessity.

[David7204]

Explain to me how exactly Tali's backstory was 'continually adjusted'? I'm interested to hear how her backstory was 'continually adjusted.'

Modifié par David7204, 09 décembre 2013 - 06:02 .

[Jorji Costava]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Regardless, point is that Tali in ME2 as we know here isn't the only potential lead-in to the Geth/Quarian plot, and so not a necessity.

Well, there's a trivial sense in which no character is essential to any plot, since in principle they can always be replaced by a very similar character with a different name that serves the same function. This is pretty much what happened with EDI and Miranda on Cronos; EDI ended up serving exactly the function that one could have expected Miranda to play on Cronos, proving that obviously, Miranda wasn't essential to the Cerberus plotline after all. But if we're going to go with the weaker notion of 'utility' to the overall plot, then I'd still say that in principle, Tali was about as useful to major plots as any of the ME2 squad mates were.

Some interesting ideas on a rebooted Admiral Zen. Perhaps a similar result could have been achieved simply by making Tali actually guilty of whatever awful thing she's accused of during her trial. Don't really know; I'm just firing from the hip here.

David7204 wrote...

Explain to me how exactly Tali's backstory was 'continually adjusted'? I'm interested to hear how her backstory was 'continually adjusted.'

I assume that the reference is to Tali's sudden status as an admiral in ME3, although there might be a couple other incidents I'm not thinking of right now.

[TheMyron]

Why do so few think: The More, the Merrier?

[KaiserShep]

TheMyron wrote...

Why do so few think: The More, the Merrier?

This idea seems nice in principle, but this depends largely on the constraints of the narrative. Too many characters can create a story that is severely lacking in focus. What are all of these characters doing, and how do we give them proper screen time without taking away too much from the central plot? If Mass Effect was a particularly long series of games and had more than one overarching plot, then more characters can work, but as this is strictly a fight-the-reapers tale, there's only so many you can put in there.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 09 décembre 2013 - 10:56 .

[Kel Riever]

Easy: Drop Jacob and Grunt on account of being boring

Add Miranda so you have one of the major ME2 Cerberus characters coming over, and Thane. Also, save Thane for crying out loud.

While you are at it, replace James with an actually interesting krogan (which Grunt is not)

[KaiserShep]

Her role changes, but her back story is not readjusted. From ME1, she already stated that a lot was expected of her on account of being the daughter of one of the admirals. The role she plays aboard the Normandy doesn't necessarily reflect upon the role she plays among the quarians. Of course, the game does "adjust" some of this based on what you do, like if Tali was exiled, she lends her aid in secret rather than becoming an admiral, on account of her being one of the few quarians alive who have firsthand experience with the geth.

Modifié par KaiserShep, 09 décembre 2013 - 05:11 .

[DeinonSlayer]

TheMyron wrote...

Why do so few think: The More, the Merrier?

The more you have, the more diluted their content will be, and the more squadmates you'll have lounging around the ship  who never see daylight. I thought ME2 had too many, but ME3 could have used a few more, especially considering there are only four to choose from in the first half of the vanilla game.

[Dean_the_Young]

David7204 wrote...

Explain to me how exactly Tali's backstory was 'continually adjusted'? I'm interested to hear how her backstory was 'continually adjusted.'

I'm sure you would, David, but  the past has shown you have a poor history of picking up anything you didn't perceive yourself. What would be the point in trying with you?

[KaiserShep]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

TheMyron wrote...

Why do so few think: The More, the Merrier?

The more you have, the more diluted their content will be, and the more squadmates you'll have lounging around the ship  who never see daylight. I thought ME2 had too many, but ME3 could have used a few more, especially considering there are only four to choose from in the first half of the vanilla game.

I imagine if they added more characters, it would make it even harder to fit in the cameos of the old ones. Heck, I would say that even adding Javik was sort of pushing it.

[Hazegurl]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

TheMyron wrote...

Why do so few think: The More, the Merrier?

The more you have, the more diluted their content will be, and the more squadmates you'll have lounging around the ship  who never see daylight.

Right, it irritates me to have characters hanging back on the ship for the whole game cause I just don't need them. Mass Effect at least puts the somewhere on the ship with a particular job to do but still. Not even the SM mission in ME2 used everybody's skills.  If I could have gotten rid of two or three characters I don't care about to give more content to the ones I do, I would go for it.

[teh DRUMPf!!]

DeinonSlayer wrote...

TheMyron wrote...

Why do so few think: The More, the Merrier?

The more you have, the more diluted their content will be, and the more squadmates you'll have lounging around the ship  who never see daylight.

Co-sign.

[zuckendesfleish]

1) My picks for storyline reasons:
I'd drop Grunt and Kasumi.
Grunt because I never liked the "artificial krogan" thing. Ok, it's sci-fi and Shepard has been resurrected, but still... Meh.
Kasumi: I love her. I really really do. But, come on, she's a thief. Not a soldier, a thief.
Add: Miranda (she needs protection and she's determined to take down Cerberus and the Reapers) and Samara (she can join your team when you meet her in the monastery instead of just saying "yeah, I'll join the war someday")

2) Heart reasons:
Drop Jacob (I know, there had to be at least two Cerberus guys in ME2 and he just needed better writing, but I just don't like him) and Jack (too much of a stereotype, I find her really annoying)
Add Thane and Mordin.

[We'll bang okay]

osbornep wrote...

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Regardless, point is that Tali in ME2 as we know here isn't the only potential lead-in to the Geth/Quarian plot, and so not a necessity.

Well, there's a trivial sense in which no character is essential to any plot, since in principle they can always be replaced by a very similar character with a different name that serves the same function. This is pretty much what happened with EDI and Miranda on Cronos; EDI ended up serving exactly the function that one could have expected Miranda to play on Cronos, proving that obviously, Miranda wasn't essential to the Cerberus plotline after all. But if we're going to go with the weaker notion of 'utility' to the overall plot, then I'd still say that in principle, Tali was about as useful to major plots as any of the ME2 squad mates were.

Some interesting ideas on a rebooted Admiral Zen. Perhaps a similar result could have been achieved simply by making Tali actually guilty of whatever awful thing she's accused of during her trial. Don't really know; I'm just firing from the hip here.

David7204 wrote...

Explain to me how exactly Tali's backstory was 'continually adjusted'? I'm interested to hear how her backstory was 'continually adjusted.'

I assume that the reference is to Tali's sudden status as an admiral in ME3, although there might be a couple other incidents I'm not thinking of right now.

what about garrus i don't see why he is there anyone could have been archangel why him just because he is sick of c-sec and back to tali we are recruiting thet biggest baddest criminals and killers around and tali she is not any of thouse to me she just there but we could of had someone like balak a terrorist who is also a tech so there and if he was a batarian who turns on you and works for cerberus for what you did in arrival so thats all ready better then kai leng  and we could of had tali as a  temp squad member we we try to hep he with her trial so that sets up the geth vs quarian in mass effect 3.
sorry if the grammer is bad i had to get going 

Modifié par Douglas n7, 09 décembre 2013 - 11:05 .

[Jorji Costava]

Douglas n7 wrote...

what about garrus i dno't see why he is there anyone could have been archangel why him just because he is sick of c-sec.

That's a fair question. You might even go further and ask why there needed to be an Archangel character at all. My guess is that the "Archangel" persona was created because of the general trend in ME2 towards characters that are a bit more superhero and comic book-ish, for lack of a better term. There's the Galaxy's Baddest Biotic, the Genetically Perfect Woman, the Galaxy's Greatest Assassin, etc. I think that the "Archangel" persona was a way for Garrus, previously just a lowly ex-C-Sec officer, to "catch up" to these characters in terms of his relative level of badassery.

One alternative might have been to simply have Garrus play the Bailey role in ME2; he's back with C-Sec, but conducts his affairs differently depending on how his conversations with Shepard played out in ME1. He might be a guy with a newly acquired respect for procedure and the rule of law, or he might be looking for more shortcuts than ever, veering a bit closer to Vic Mackey territory.

[eyezonlyii]

Nyreen should have been archangel!