113 réponses à ce sujet

[themikefest]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

No thanks, I'll stick to human ladies.

[eyezonlyii]

 Well here is an interesting argument. My personal opinion is a little contradictory. On one hand, I'm of the opinion that the "plumbing doesn't fit" so to speak, but on the other hand, as a gay male, the same could be said in my situation as well. *shrugs* I'm just not xenophilic. 
That being said, I would love to romance a male Kissoth (Qunari is the term for someone in the religion). But in the MEU, I can't think of a male alien species that I would want. Drell might be a possibliliy, but they have that skin poison if I remember correctly. If Turians and Quarians can't share our food, how in the world are we going to handle bodily fluids? And Krogan...that just seems awkward. Bakara even says tha Krogan/Kogan sex is awkward, no way am I throwing myself into that scene. Salarians are more of the "lay and spray" type from the description in Citadel and not visually interested in an Asari. 

Though a Geth platform might have some good uses...

[RogueBot]

I'll stick to humans and humans that just so happen to be blue.

Now, I wouldn't be against people having the option to romance a super-intelligent dog or whatever the hell some people want, but it has to be human for me personally to find it attractive.

Modifié par RogueBot, 21 janvier 2014 - 11:13 .

[Reorte]

RogueBot wrote...

I'll stick to humans and humans that just so happen to be blue.

Now, I wouldn't be against people having the option to romance a super-intelligent dog or whatever the hell some people want, but it has to be human for me personally to find it attractive.

It doesn't have to be completely human for me but so similar that the odds of it actually existing are incredibly remote. Hence asari and quarians are fine with me (and some other fictional non-human but pretty much entirely human races from other fictional universes), but vorcha, elcor, and hanar are not. Turians are a bit inbetween, I could envisage being close to one without wanting it to be physical.

[Grizzly46]

Mr Massakka wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
*Sigh* I probably shouldn't have said anything. People never understand. But to clarify:

What is ridiculously implausible is exactly the fact that species unrelated to humans have human-compatible triggers for sexual attraction. There isn't anything more species-specific than this in biology, and not even our closest biological relatives have it.

As an example, imagine how differently we would perceive the asari or quarian females if their breasts were positioned 50cm lower, or their body shapes did otherwise deviate from the exact shape of a human woman, like inverting the hip/waist ratio. Infinitesimal and functionally completely irrelevant changes in fact, yet so very significant when it comes to physical attraction. The ME universe is beyond even the remotest credibility in this.

Edit:
Actually IMO the developers know this was silly and didn't care, and they were right since so many players don't care either, but for me this kind of biological nonsense is an unacceptable kind of artistic license, and even more so since it's completely gratuitous and irrelevant to the plot.

Edit2:
I am somewhat of a worldbuilder by calling, and I have this principle that you don't compromise the plausbility of a fictional world for something irrelevant to the story. That's why the equally silly explanation for FTL passes the radar, since we couldn't have the story we have without it, and I only complain about the fact that the rationalization doesn't even make sense in the MEU's own terms.

Well, now I see it. Perhaps you shouldn't have phrased it in a way that basically said "being attracted to ME aliens is silly" 

Though I partly still disagree:
1. Those bodyparts can be developed by chance. It's not exactly contradicting facts that one intelligent alien species has similar triggers than humans. It may be unlikely, but it's there.  I can go with it.
2. It's not like the designers "didn't care". It's a BioWare game and people expect romances. I can't imagine how dissappointed the fanbase would have been if the big sci-fi BioWare game only came up with species that are completely unattractive for the player. Many BioWare fans want "alien" romances and they got it.

I understand and to some extent agree with Ieldra2 here; what you are talking about (1) is what could be called physionomy: that two species evolves to a similar look without them being the same. An obvious example would be cats and dogs: they both have a torso, head, forward-facing eyes, tails and so on, but they are not the same, and you can easily tell the difference between them.

It can also be said that some physiological traits evolve the same way everywhere because it's the most effective. Breasts are developed on the chest pretty high up so that the mother can carry an infant with one hand while moving on two legs. The fact that there is also only two breasts on most females in the ME universe suggests that each birth generally only is of one child (which makes it easier to carry it around on one arm while standing erect). Compare this to animals with more breasts, like cats and dogs: they move on four legs, can't carry their offspring easily - and the mammary glands are developed on the belly instead.

To have a female from an alien species with breasts anywhere else but on the chest would in other words be quite silly - even if I do suspect elcor females evolved like that.

All this said, the reason we have blue space babes and females with distinct female features is just because Bioware knew most of the fan base would be teen boys, and they do happen to like them ******. And just because Bioware did something for the wrong reasons, doesn't mean they didn't get it right anyway. Even a blind hen and so on.

[Mangalores]

Grizzly46 wrote...
...
All this said, the reason we have blue space babes and females with distinct female features is just because Bioware knew most of the fan base would be teen boys, and they do happen to like them ******. And just because Bioware did something for the wrong reasons, doesn't mean they didn't get it right anyway. Even a blind hen and so on.

They however bothered to justify it. It only becomes silly when they suddenly make it general after at least accepting that for halfway hard science fiction (I would consider Mass Effect on the level with Star trek of trying to use sciency subjects and parameters and then using technobabble to justify any deviation from those limits) they should give a reason why.

And if that quote from some other post of a writer "Well, if we want then we can always say Protheans" is  true, it is so worrisome as that's just lazy writing. However cool one considers Javik is as a character, his appearance pretty much breaks that element of Mass Effect lore and cheapens a lot of elements in universe with the above excuse.

BW writers should learn about how to keep secrets aka not every mentioned nook and crany needs to become a big expositional part of the story. They did that with virtually ever catchword mentioned in ME1.

LagoonaLahaana wrote...

To be honest (and I do like Liara,
Aethyta, Samara, and Aria as characters) the idea of someone getting
inside your brain is terrifying to me. I'd rather have a rash or chafing
than to think someone put suggestions in my head or took memories away,
or saw things I wanted kept secret. Asari mating is creepy IMO.

*lol* Consider the reverse. Asari should be pretty grossed out by these icky acrobatics humans do. They should find it pretty shallow as well when their reproductive system involves sharing your minds and thoughts.

Being a sadistic old fart I love the idea that Asari sex actually means the human is lieing comatose in a corner hallucinating everything while the Asari gets off on rummaging through your brain and afterwards tells you "Sure, you were great! ... whatever."

Even Liara is a century old  so to them dealing with anyone but possibly an aged Krogan is like dealing with naive children. "Oh, you are eighty? Cute!"

[Grizzly46]

Mangalores wrote...

Grizzly46 wrote...
...
All this said, the reason we have blue space babes and females with distinct female features is just because Bioware knew most of the fan base would be teen boys, and they do happen to like them ******. And just because Bioware did something for the wrong reasons, doesn't mean they didn't get it right anyway. Even a blind hen and so on.

They however bothered to justify it. It only becomes silly when they suddenly make it general after at least accepting that for halfway hard science fiction (I would consider Mass Effect on the level with Star trek of trying to use sciency subjects and parameters and then using technobabble to justify any deviation from those limits) they should give a reason why.

And if that quote from some other post of a writer "Well, if we want then we can always say Protheans" is  true, it is so worrisome as that's just lazy writing. However cool one considers Javik is as a character, his appearance pretty much breaks that element of Mass Effect lore and cheapens a lot of elements in universe with the above excuse.

BW writers should learn about how to keep secrets aka not every mentioned nook and crany needs to become a big expositional part of the story. They did that with virtually ever catchword mentioned in ME1.

Agreed - Bioware's writing sometimes leave a lot to be desired, like quality, but that's kind of a bigger issue than just the subject here.
The fact that Bioware did try to justify the evolution of females to the extent we have seen (quarians and asari mainly) is a symtom of that, and one reason I'm very wary of a ME-Next, since they might try (or will be forced to, or need to) retcon the **** out of it. And then we'll be served something stinky in a nice wrapping.

And it basically boils down to this:

Most characters use the same skeleton model, used after humans, because it's simpler and more cost-effective. I saw a video were one of the staff said that outright, and the only deviations they could make would be at body level, increasing the krogan hump over the head (which wouldn't impose movability) or shrink the chest of salarians, which doesn't affect movement either.

This also shows why so many species only have three fingers: it's cheaper and more cost-effective to just animate three fingers instead of five.

This is why we have three species with the same body model (humans, asari, batarians), and three with the three-finger variety (quarians, krogan, turians) - two body models, six species. The latter also sporting the same leg model, but with the same skeleton frame as humans.

Is it lazy? Yup. Is it cheap? Damn straight.

[Mangalores]

They'd have my blessing to _not_ introduce a single new race. To me Asari, Quarians, Salarians and Turians would be entirely sufficient as characters.

In essence not wasting time on cool aliens but making cool characters of aliens they have. Introduce that blue and purple Asari actually come from different cultures, that the face markings mean something (maybe they can tell which planet they are from), same for Turians etc.
Add different mannerisms and characters and you are gold.

Overall the only worthwhile addition were female Turians because it was weird as hell that they were everywhere and have a seemingly egalitarian society but no women around.

Someone like Thane served no purpose in my eyes. They could just as well have added a different race of Turian with a strong devotion to an anarchic religion other Turians laugh about and it would have been the same thing.

Modifié par Mangalores, 22 janvier 2014 - 11:02 .

[ManOfSteel]

Asari are fine. They're essentially mystical blue human women, after all. Other than that, I'll stick to the humans.

Modifié par DoomHK, 22 janvier 2014 - 11:08 .

[Lawrence0294]

MassivelyEffective0730 wrote...

No thanks, I'll stick to human ladies.

[Ultim Asari]

Humans, Asari, maybe Synthetic? Um.... maybe a turian?

[Nitrocuban]

XxproknifaxX wrote...

 Female Prothean Romance is what I want

Would be interesting if they only have 4 eyes.
Javik never talked about this unfortunately.

[Barquiel]

I suppose I'd have to see a female drell first...but I'll probably stick to Asari and Humans (unless we get an alien protagonist )

[jamesp81]

As addendum to my earlier post...though I will tend to stick with Asari, Humans, and Quarians, that's as a human protagonist. If my protagonist was Turian, it would be an entirely different calculation.

[Reorte]

Grizzly46 wrote...

Is it lazy? Yup. Is it cheap? Damn straight.

Whilst there are some areas I would criticse as lazy and cheap this comes across more of one of practicality - given that you've not got infinite resources for creating a game, where do you spend money and where do you save it?

[Ieldra]

Grizzly46 wrote...
All this said, the reason we have blue space babes and females with distinct female features is just because Bioware knew most of the fan base would be teen boys, and they do happen to like them ******. And just because Bioware did something for the wrong reasons, doesn't mean they didn't get it right anyway. Even a blind hen and so on.

I think they got it wrong. While I am willing to suspend my disbelief for a prevalence of humanoid shapes - after all, we don't know enough about the laws of biology on other planets, and it might just be that the humanoid shape is one of the most efficient ones anywhere - we actually do know something about how sexual reproduction works, and that species evolve to have very, *very* species specific triggers for sexual attraction because being attracted to another species doesn't result in children, so those with more widely recognized triggers don't have any offspring if they mate outside their species (supposing the plumbing is compatible). Those traits tend to disappear fast wherever they might appear by mutation except in some symbiotic relationships, and those are the result of co-evolution which can't happen between species from different star systems who've never met.

Anyway, I do know and accept storytelling comes first and scientific plausibiliy second, but this is not a storytelling matter but a matter of pandering. I find the fact that they compromised their world-building for no better reason than to pander to the T&A subgroup of their target audience rather insulting to everyone who actually gives a damn about plausible worldbuilding. It's bad enough that common sense flies out of the window as soon as sex enters the picture, but encouraging such attitudes is really the last straw.

[Daemul]

Less aliens more humans please.

[Armass81]

Ieldra2 wrote...

cap and gown wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

 More specifically, portraying aliens as if they could plausibly be physically attractive to humans is silly.

Oh, come on. Who doesn't want blue alien space babes?

Everyone who gives a crap about the plausibility of an SF universe.

The asari would be acceptable if they had human ancestors, abducted from Earth by aliens some ten thousand years ago. But as an independently-evolved species they are ridiculous.

And the quarians?

[AlanC9]

Armass81 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
The asari would be acceptable if they had human ancestors, abducted from Earth by aliens some ten thousand years ago. But as an independently-evolved species they are ridiculous.

And the quarians?

As long as you never do Tali's romance they're fine.

[thehomeworld]

 Introducing breastless fem aliens for male hero's LIs would be fine by me. I don't like how BW just slapped on breast to a Turian and said, " See its a girl!" I hate that! It doesn't make sense for the design at least they didn't do that to Bakara as far as I can tell.

A fem drell would be neat but again I'm worried BW will just slap em' onto her why not try making her a lovely gradating color or simply just have her talk I remember we all freaked out over that one odd voiced Krogan hoping it was a woman just make them wear something cool, believable for their job and space environments, and give her a higher voice then the male.

For me to pick a LI for my male hero she's got to be more interesting then her body I really liked Tali fast because of her stories, her voice, and her eyes when she became an LI option I jumped on it because I thought she was an awesome fit for him and she was the one person in the whole galaxy he trusted (next to Garrus) and she wasn't out to use him.

Shiala (Feros girl) was awesome because of her backstory, her plum skin and tattoos made her standout over the other Asari, and between her switching sides and kissing my male hero I thought if she was an LI for him that'd make life interesting would she betray him and hand him over to the reapers or would she be a real LI who wants to help him?

BW shouldn't go crazy though with LIs this round pick like 5 for the whole game, sequel, or trilogy we had like what? 9 for male shep that was way to many LIs and it showed how BW couldn't make them all high quality. Fshep had less options but they then started hacking what few she had out to push for others the only quality romance she got was Garrus.

Now where's the thread for us femplayers asking us about male alien and human LIs?

Modifié par thehomeworld, 22 janvier 2014 - 10:58 .

[Armass81]

AlanC9 wrote...

Armass81 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...
The asari would be acceptable if they had human ancestors, abducted from Earth by aliens some ten thousand years ago. But as an independently-evolved species they are ridiculous.

And the quarians?

As long as you never do Tali's romance they're fine.

What has been seen cannot be unseen.

[von uber]

Daemul wrote...

Less aliens more humans please.

Well that would make it a bloody dull game. 

[Han Shot First]

Armass81 wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

cap and gown wrote...

Ieldra2 wrote...

 More specifically, portraying aliens as if they could plausibly be physically attractive to humans is silly.

Oh, come on. Who doesn't want blue alien space babes?

Everyone who gives a crap about the plausibility of an SF universe.

The asari would be acceptable if they had human ancestors, abducted from Earth by aliens some ten thousand years ago. But as an independently-evolved species they are ridiculous.

And the quarians?

[Grizzly46]

Reorte wrote...

Grizzly46 wrote...

Is it lazy? Yup. Is it cheap? Damn straight.

Whilst there are some areas I would criticse as lazy and cheap this comes across more of one of practicality - given that you've not got infinite resources for creating a game, where do you spend money and where do you save it?

A lot of material was already cut for no obvious reason, so time and energy was already spent. I do however agree with your point here, where to allocate the resources?

One thing we and Bioware has known for a long time is that the romances are something players in general take seriously (personally I feel somewhat icky with the thought of a CO trying to get into the pants of his subordinates, but that's me), so that's one of the areas where this energy should be spent. Also, as an RPG, it is not more gun fights, more guns or cooler guns that makes us play this kind of game, it's the story. Let's face it, if I want to shoot things indiscriminately, I fire up Battlefield or Call of Duty. If I want an interactive story, I check what Bioware or Telltale Games have in their inventory.

But unfortunately, story has been forced out in some ways during the triology, and some parts of the story (like the romances) have been outright badly done.

Ieldra2 wrote...

Grizzly46 wrote...
All this said, the reason we have blue space babes and females with distinct female features is just because Bioware knew most of the fan base would be teen boys, and they do happen to like them ******. And just because Bioware did something for the wrong reasons, doesn't mean they didn't get it right anyway. Even a blind hen and so on.

I think they got it wrong. While I am willing to suspend my disbelief for a prevalence of humanoid shapes - after all, we don't know enough about the laws of biology on other planets, and it might just be that the humanoid shape is one of the most efficient ones anywhere - we actually do know something about how sexual reproduction works, and that species evolve to have very, *very* species specific triggers for sexual attraction because being attracted to another species doesn't result in children, so those with more widely recognized triggers don't have any offspring if they mate outside their species (supposing the plumbing is compatible). Those traits tend to disappear fast wherever they might appear by mutation except in some symbiotic relationships, and those are the result of co-evolution which can't happen between species from different star systems who've never met.

Anyway, I do know and accept storytelling comes first and scientific plausibiliy second, but this is not a storytelling matter but a matter of pandering. I find the fact that they compromised their world-building for no better reason than to pander to the T&A subgroup of their target audience rather insulting to everyone who actually gives a damn about plausible worldbuilding. It's bad enough that common sense flies out of the window as soon as sex enters the picture, but encouraging such attitudes is really the last straw.

We have to assume that what has evolved so far here on earth is what is the most efficient, since we can't say what would be the most efficient on other worlds.

But was putting two breasts at chest height on alien females pandering? Oh yes. They knew most of the gamer base would consist mainly by teen guys, so that's why we got that, and scenes like the one when we see that asari hooker for the first time - and the first we see is a swinging ass - not to mention **** like Miranda's outfit. I soo wanted my Shepard to order her into a proper uniform.

And that bold part? I agree so much it hurts a little.

von uber wrote...

Daemul wrote...

Less aliens more humans please.

Well that would make it a bloody dull game.

We already have too many humans in the triology, no matter what decision you take at the end of ME1 regarding saving or sacrificing the council. And by my account in ME3, despite horrendous losses the one's contributing the most to the war effort are the humans, with the krogan far away as the second largest contributors. But:

Humans are special.

Thanks Bioware, we got the message.

[Mangalores]

Grizzly46 wrote...
...
But was putting two breasts at chest height on alien females pandering? Oh yes. They knew most of the gamer base would consist mainly by teen guys, so that's why we got that, and scenes like the one when we see that asari hooker for the first time - and the first we see is a swinging ass - not to mention **** like Miranda's outfit. I soo wanted my Shepard to order her into a proper uniform.
...

I find the "male gaze" propagated by movie and game industry more comedic than anything else. Sadly it apparently works which is not really sexist to women but rather men, how stupid are we?