1814 réponses à ce sujet

[CynicalShep]

@ CronoDragon

Miranda

[vandalDX]

Seboist wrote...

Even DA2 is a way better example of BW companion interaction. Not only do companions talk to each other but it also had some neat dialogue options where you can ask a companion for his input on something.

Merrill and Isabela.  A great party for contrasts, and one with some of the best dynamic in any BW game today.

[CrutchCricket]

CronoDragoon wrote...
It just means you were considered about as much as any other fan.

Uh no it doesn't, as my ****ing and whining certainly didn't get the results that a Tali or Garrus fan's did.

There's no real reason to arbitrarily insert irrelevant characters into the main story of ME3, especially when they're less popular than other characters (who I believe are already more relevant, with which you disagree and are clearly not looking to change your mind) who are available to fill those roles.

No, but by all means arbitrarily make some characters more relevant beforehand, so you have something to hide behind when the questions start coming.

Which ME2 characters were just as well liked as ME1 characters?

Really? Ok, here's a few to start you off:
Miranda
Jack
Thane
Mordin
Legion

And only two of those got anything close to a satisfactory appearance and incidentally are also the two who got the least in Citadel.

Not really. The first thing Tali does on board the Normandy in ME2 is question Shepard being with Cerberus, but that's not the focus of her plot relevance. Contrast this with the VS, whose interactions with Shepard ALWAYS center around Cerberus, and the climax of their characterarc is during a Cerberus coup. Anderson is tied to Cerberus, but I wouldn't go so far as to say it's his purpose to contrast with Cerberus,though that's clearly his purpose in the final confrontation.

Even if that's true it's just one more example of an artificial connection being made arbitrarily while a real one (Miranda, Jacob etc) is ignored. And a rather poor one at that, if all that connection is amounts to "wah I don't trust you". There is no reason it had to be the VS because the reasoning wasn't "we need the best character to do x" but rather "we need to give this character something to make them super important". And I'm not judging that second way. I think it's valid. But don't then turn around and tell me it had to be this character.

You...want me to elaborate on how Liara was relevant to the Reaper plot in ME1?

No I want you to elaborate how she has continuing ties to the Reapers. As far as ME1 goes, she has roughly the same importance as Shiala. Less actually as Shiala was the only one who could give Shepard the Cypher, while helping him piece together parts of the vision at plot-mandated times could've been done by any asari. Indeed it would've made more sense if Shiala did it since she actually does have lingering ties, one being the Cypher, the other being her state as previously indoctrinated. And seeing as the Cypher stops being relevant after ME1 with the exception of Javik's recruitment mission, that's the last chance right there.

So really, if I think about it as far back as ME1 Liara shouldn't have been on the squad (young, naive and inexperienced) and Shiala would've been a better choice (commando with more knowledge on the enemy, perhaps seeking revenge/wanting to atone). They probably could've actually merged their roles and it would've been more poignant: the initial fall of mother and daughter, Benezia leaving her daughter for the thorian, the confrontation on Noveria. But that's getting into story what-ifs.

The entire reason for her becoming the Broker was to help Shepard find a way to stop the Reapers. I'm shocked that anyone's surprised that exactly this happened in ME3.

Again you're refusing to address the more fundamental question, namely what the hell is the shy reclusive bookworm doing brokering in the first place? The transition from ME1 to ME2 is the real culprit, taking out the Shadow Broker is chump change after we've accepted that initial chain yanking.

But say we do this your way: how the hell is personally crawling through vents and risking her life, not to mention risking the collapse of her entire network (which is an asset to the resistance) every single time the Normandy flies into Reaper territory helping Shepard stop the Reapers? Despite the fact that apart from the stupidity of finding the Crucible on Mars, the Shadow Broker fails to deliver any other relevant piece of information throughout the game, lore-wise at least it's still supposed to be helping. And she's going to risk it to go galavanting beside Shepard on the front lines? That's one of the dumbest things I've ever heard this side of the ending.

Sure it is. The question is whether or not there's a reason to NOT sideline them despite having fewer connections to the plot. Your claim that fan desire is a valid reason actually works against you in this sense since the ME1 cast is more popular.

And what evidence do you have for that conclusion?

[guydodge]

I for one think the endings were well thought out.they were imaginative and very surprising.and tied up the lose ends.not that I liked its finalization but I believe they already knew they probably would not continue with these characters.and as it turn out their not.but they did leave just enough off a hole,so who knows just maybe in the future.i for one don't see how they could possibly even could consider it.they need to rethink it before its to late.this is the best game series ever made and nothings going to match up.

[AlanC9]

Has anyone else lost the thread of the CrutchCricket-CronoDragoon argument? I'm not seeing any topic except that one of them likes Miranda and doesn't like Liara.

[CronoDragoon]

CrutchCricket wrote...
Uh no it doesn't, as my ****ing and whining certainly didn't get the results that a Tali or Garrus fan's did.

Yes, because there's a lot more of them. Fairness isn't counting every fanbase's preference equally but rather every fan's.

No, but by all means arbitrarily make some characters more relevant beforehand, so you have something to hide behind when the questions start coming.

Still not seeing why they should arbitrarily make ME2 characters important to the Reaper plot.

Really? Ok, here's a few to start you off:
Miranda
Jack
Thane
Mordin
Legion

So looking at this list (and I'm going to take out Tali and Garrus, since I think we can agree most polls reveal just how goddamn popular they are):

I already agree Miranda should have been a squadmate. Jack, by any poll I could find, isn't more popular than the VS/Liara/Wrex. Mordin and Legion are both quite popular, though not as much as Tali/Garrus, and less than Wrex in a few polls. So the question is why the VS/Liara get in as opposed to Mordin/Legion?

The answer to me seems to be that - at least partially - it's due to Mordin and Legion being assigned roles in ME3 that ultimately lead to their sacrifice. While the VS can also die, that really comes down to player choice, as opposed to Legion who dies no matter what, and Mordin who dies by either gunshot or explosion in 99% of playthroughs.

Since you want to claim that things are how they are because of writer favoritism, your claim would be that the writers gave Legion and Mordin such roles in ME3 because the writers liked them less than VS/Liara. I find this claim dubious and more likely that once it was decided that Mordin and Legion would die because of their respective stories being told, it was then decided that them being made squadmates was a bit of a waste. In other words, you think the decision process was first deciding the squadmates and then hammering out the plot details, whereas I say they hammered out the plot details and then decided who would be squadmates.

[CronoDragoon]

AlanC9 wrote...

Has anyone else lost the thread of the CrutchCricket-CronoDragoon argument? I'm not seeing any topic except that one of them likes Miranda and doesn't like Liara.

CC claims ME2 characters weren't squad members and Liara/VS were purely because of writer favoritism whereas I disagree. This has brought about tangents on character popularity with players along with what determines a character's plot relevance (both alternate explanations for why we got the squad we did).

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 05 janvier 2014 - 08:42 .

[dreamgazer]

AlanC9 wrote...

Has anyone else lost the thread of the CrutchCricket-CronoDragoon argument? I'm not seeing any topic except that one of them likes Miranda and doesn't like Liara.

It all comes back to Liara. Even the ending is Liara's fault, since she found the Crucible plans.

[CrutchCricket]

AlanC9 wrote...

Has anyone else lost the thread of the CrutchCricket-CronoDragoon argument? I'm not seeing any topic except that one of them likes Miranda and doesn't like Liara.

Believe it or not I don't actually dislike Liara. But it's pretty clear she got the best treatment out of all the squadmates so she's bound to come up a lot in these types of discussions.

[Invisible Man]

dreamgazer wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

Has anyone else lost the thread of the CrutchCricket-CronoDragoon argument? I'm not seeing any topic except that one of them likes Miranda and doesn't like Liara.

It all comes back to Liara. Even the ending is Liara's fault, since she found the Crucible plans.

I actually like to think it's either the writers' fault, or ea's. however, that's just me.

Modifié par Invisible Man, 05 janvier 2014 - 09:07 .

[AlanC9]

The only potential squadmate who's guaranteed to be alive for ME3? I'd give her a bunch of lines too. Every plot point I give to Liara is one that doesn't require an alternative version.

If anything, I think the Liara fans have a more legitimate gripe here. Liara should be handling Traynor's function.

[CrutchCricket]

CronoDragoon wrote...
Yes, because there's a lot more of them. Fairness isn't counting every fanbase's preference equally but rather every fan's.

So you have concrete numbers then?

Still not seeing why they should arbitrarily make ME2 characters important to the Reaper plot.

Well they already made ME1 characters abritraily important so why stop there?

So looking at this list (and I'm going to take out Tali and Garrus, since I think we can agree most polls reveal just how goddamn popular they are):

I already agree Miranda should have been a squadmate. Jack, by any poll I could find, isn't more popular than the VS/Liara/Wrex. Mordin and Legion are both quite popular, though not as much as Tali/Garrus, and less than Wrex in a few polls. So the question is why the VS/Liara get in as opposed to Mordin/Legion?

Which polls are these?

Since you want to claim that things are how they are because of writer favoritism, your claim would be that the writers gave Legion and Mordin such roles in ME3 because the writers liked them less than VS/Liara. I find this claim dubious and more likely that once it was decided that Mordin and Legion would die because of their respective stories being told, it was then decided that them being made squadmates was a bit of a waste. In other words, you think the decision process was first deciding the squadmates and then hammering out the plot details, whereas I say they hammered out the plot details and then decided who would be squadmates.

No I would not claim that. I recognize some roles do tie in naturally. Legion and Mordin are examples of that. I disagree that making them squad would be wasteful any more than the unchosen VS being squad in ME1 was wasteful. That and one quote from the devs pre-release was something along the lines of "there is no such thing as permanent squad". To me that implied a rotating squad system where characters would come and go. That I would've been ok with.

[CrutchCricket]

AlanC9 wrote...
If anything, I think the Liara fans have a more legitimate gripe here. Liara should be handling Traynor's function.

If you mean taking her place at the console and off the squad I agree. Though I still think it's foolish having the head and controlling hardware of the Shadow Broker network on the Normandy.

[themikefest]

AlanC9 wrote...

The only potential squadmate who's guaranteed to be alive for ME3? I'd give her a bunch of lines too. Every plot point I give to Liara is one that doesn't require an alternative version.

If anything, I think the Liara fans have a more legitimate gripe here. Liara should be handling Traynor's function.

I will post this again

http://t1.gstatic.co...6YKqlA2PJZNni9V

[dreamgazer]

I can only imagine certain fans' reactions if Liara had more on-the-surface importance to the plot's movement.

[CronoDragoon]

CrutchCricket wrote...
So you have concrete numbers then?

As concrete as voluntary polls with a small sample size can give us:

www.mediafire.com/view/

http://social.biowar...index/1159949/1

http://social.biowar...8/index/3233386

www.sodahead.com/entertainment/favorite-mass-effect-character/question-2480581/

www.quibblo.com/quiz/heNucvY/Who-is-the-best-Mass-Effect-Character-INCLUDES-NON-SQUAD-MEMBERS

Data's hard to find outside the BSN.

(That second link also has some funny observations in it, like Miranda fans rate-bombing Tali and Tali fans rate-bombing Miranda. Classic)

Modifié par CronoDragoon, 05 janvier 2014 - 09:38 .

[dreamgazer]

LOL @ the one vote for Ashley's appearance as the "most humorous" in ME2.

[spirosz]

dreamgazer wrote...

I can only imagine certain fans' reactions if Liara had more on-the-surface importance to the plot's movement.

It would make me happier.  That's the reason I dislike her so called "importance" in the game.  They show it all happening in the background and that doesn't cut it for me personally - I would love to see her be more involved with the core story, but from what we have in game now, she's just there playing hide and seek with Glyph. 

[CrutchCricket]

CronoDragoon wrote...
As concrete as voluntary polls with a small sample size can give us:

www.mediafire.com/view/

http://social.biowar...index/1159949/1

http://social.biowar...8/index/3233386

www.sodahead.com/entertainment/favorite-mass-effect-character/question-2480581/

www.quibblo.com/quiz/heNucvY/Who-is-the-best-Mass-Effect-Character-INCLUDES-NON-SQUAD-MEMBERS

Data's hard to find outside the BSN.

(That second link also has some funny observations in it, like Miranda fans rate-bombing Tali and Tali fans rate-bombing Miranda. Classic)

I can see the problem already.

The EC survey asks about LIs not favorite squadmates. While those that are LI typically get higher numbers. it's not the same thing. And yes I realize that since almost all ME1 squadmates are LIs at one point, this does skew things in their favor. Not that I think favoring LIs over non-LIs is any fairer.

The second link is again a general survey but looking at the "overall best character" question, you have what I'm sure are inflated responses for Garrus and Tali (you have to expect those), followed by Wrex, followed by... Miranda and Mordin beating out Liara and Ashley. So there's that.

The third link has them on a love-like-neutral scale so it's a bit harder to interpret... adding the "love" and "like" responses for each you get:
Garrus
Mordin
Wrex
Legion
Tali
Grunt
Thane
Samara
and so on.

And way near the bottom of the spreadsheet we have "most requested for ME3". The numbers there are interesting. Once again we start with Garrus/Tali inflation but beyond that... Legion Wrex and Mordin are the next top three.

The two outside sources are useless as the results are skewed by other characters and don't contain all the squadmates.

To conclude: Yes it's hard to get accurate data and sample size is never going to be terrific. The BSN is also known not to be an accurate representation of the fanbase at large. So while I can't definitively say the ME2 squad is just as popular or more as the ME1, you can't definitively say the opposite either. But then again I never claimed fan demand was the deciding factor (apart from the Garrus/Tali situation and even then it might've only been the final push). Writer favoritism unfortunately can't be polled.

[CronoDragoon]

CrutchCricket wrote...
The EC survey asks about LIs not favorite squadmates. While those that are LI typically get higher numbers. it's not the same thing. And yes I realize that since almost all ME1 squadmates are LIs at one point, this does skew things in their favor. Not that I think favoring LIs over non-LIs is any fairer.

You can still compare ME1 LI numbers to ME2 LI numbers. But the results are interesting, since out of the polls I listed this is the only one where Liara had such a strong showing, even after you account for her being a LI for both genders.

The second link is again a general survey but looking at the "overall best character" question, you have what I'm sure are inflated responses for Garrus and Tali (you have to expect those), followed by Wrex, followed by... Miranda and Mordin beating out Liara and Ashley. So there's that.

The one point they make about the data which I like is that Tali and Garrus get a very high rate of "best character" responses, but Mordin has the best overall rating on a 1-10 scale. So Mordin is the most-well liked character overall, but very few consider him their favorite. Meanwhile LI characters predictably get either inflated scores (from their fans) or deflated scores (from their anti-fans). Also, dudes just don't like Kaidan, especially for some reason Tali-LI dudes.

And way near the bottom of the spreadsheet we have "most requested for ME3". The numbers there are interesting. Once again we start with Garrus/Tali inflation but beyond that... Legion Wrex and Mordin are the next top three.

One thing a lot of the data points to is that the VS is pretty comparable to the most popular ME2 characters, but that this opinion is skewed by their poorly done appearance in ME2, shown by the second (I think) link's comparison of ME1 VS opinion vs. ME2. Even accounting for this though and taking the VS's ME1 ratings, they aren't significantly more popular than a character such as Miranda or Legion.

Legion pretty much always gets a consistent showing, though.

[Barquiel]

dreamgazer wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

So "favouritism" kept Liara out of the ME2 SM?

Joking aside, I've heard that theory before: that they kept Liara from being a squad member in ME2 because the SM might kill her.

Casey Hudson said this (a couple of months before Mass Effect 2 even came out). The ME1 love interests were sidelined in ME2 so they would survive to ME3...("we wanted to make sure the love interest can remain an important and integral part of the story, we want that to continue into the third game We have some really important things we want to resolve there. That means we can't have these characters that were your love interests in this suicide mission potentially getting killed and then blocking off that opportunity. They're part of the story. They're part of the ongoing love story but they're not your squad members so that we can be sure that we can bring that love story to its conclusion.")

You have Liara as the most popular love interest; Ashley/Kaidan; Patrick Weekes said they decided to bring Garrus and Tali back, so they could be squadmates in all three games; Vega and EDI for new players (and because it was necessary to have three core squad-mates in the game)...and a DLC character. No big surprises here.

Modifié par Barquiel, 05 janvier 2014 - 11:12 .

[TheRealJayDee]

Greylycantrope wrote...

After reading over some of his ideas I can trace most of my issues to the departure of Christ L'Etoile tbh.

Poor Ash...! 

David7204 wrote...

It's a shame I got banned for that post I made a few days ago (explaining why this forum is filled with people who seem to hate the game and BioWare), else I would copy it here.

I'm... shockingly curious about this post. Guess I've been absent from the ME boards for too long... 

[Iakus]

Barquiel wrote...

Casey Hudson said this (a couple of months before Mass Effect 2 even came out). The ME1 love interests were sidelined in ME2 so they would survive to ME3...("we wanted to make sure the love interest can remain an important and integral part of the story, we want that to continue into the third game We have some really important things we want to resolve there. That means we can't have these characters that were your love interests in this suicide mission potentially getting killed and then blocking off that opportunity. They're part of the story. They're part of the ongoing love story but they're not your squad members so that we can be sure that we can bring that love story to its conclusion.")

:lol::lol::lol:

[dreamgazer]

Interesting! Here's a link to that entire discussion, where Hudson also covers the role-playing in ME2:

http://m.ign.com/art...-and-the-future

[spirosz]

"It's not like the entire game takes on a completely different story with different colors and different locations and things like that. It's more the collection of many different effects all throughout the game. If you let the council die so that human beings can take more control in the galaxy, or if you save them, that's one of the things that you'll see the biggest number of repercussions especially when you go to places like the Citadel where the council was based. You'll hear it as you walk around, you'll see things being different. There are different plots that open up for you."

What different plots opened up? Rofl.

"Because we wanted to make sure the love interest can remain an important and integral part of the story, we want that to continue into the third game. We have some really important things we want to resolve there. That means we can't have these characters that were your love interests in this suicide mission potentially getting killed and then blocking off that opportunity. They're part of the story. They're part of the ongoing love story but they're not your squad members so that we can be sure that we can bring that love story to its conclusion."

lololol.

Modifié par spirosz, 06 janvier 2014 - 01:36 .