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[Steelcan]

wolfhowwl wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Supposedly Tali fans got butthurt that she wasn't going to be a squadmate and so BioWare changed their minds and made her one relatively late in development


at least thats how I heard it

Not sure if fan demand played a role in his drive, but I know Weekes led the charge for her inclusion.

In the words of Chris Priestly, "...she may not have been made a party member, but fan demand for her after ME2 definitely swayed the devs into making it happen. And people say BioWare doesn't listen to the fans."

They listen, they just normally ignore it

[Seboist]

wolfhowwl wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Supposedly Tali fans got butthurt that she wasn't going to be a squadmate and so BioWare changed their minds and made her one relatively late in development


at least thats how I heard it

Not sure if fan demand played a role in his drive, but I know Weekes led the charge for her inclusion.

In the words of Chris Priestly, "...she may not have been made a party member, but fan demand for her after ME2 definitely swayed the devs into making it happen. And people say BioWare doesn't listen to the fans."

Indeed, I would say Bioware listens too much to their fanbase. That's how we got moronic things like the Tali/Garrus romances and the second Matriarch we bump into "just happening" to be Liara's other parent.

[spirosz]

Seboist wrote...
That's how we got moronic things like the Tali/Garrus romances 

How is that moronic? 

[xKittenKaratex]

I thought EDI could have stayed a simple AI. Honestly I really hate her "body" and how they just copied Miranda's model and slapped on some new textures. At least they should have made her more "military" prepared imo. But what can you do.

[Han Shot First]

Seboist wrote...

wolfhowwl wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Steelcan wrote...

Supposedly Tali fans got butthurt that she wasn't going to be a squadmate and so BioWare changed their minds and made her one relatively late in development


at least thats how I heard it

Not sure if fan demand played a role in his drive, but I know Weekes led the charge for her inclusion.

In the words of Chris Priestly, "...she may not have been made a party member, but fan demand for her after ME2 definitely swayed the devs into making it happen. And people say BioWare doesn't listen to the fans."

Indeed, I would say Bioware listens too much to their fanbase. That's how we got moronic things like the Tali/Garrus romances and the second Matriarch we bump into "just happening" to be Liara's other parent.

Also no Mako.

[Br3admax]

spirosz wrote...

Seboist wrote...
That's how we got moronic things like the Tali/Garrus romances 

How is that moronic? 

All people involved should be dead by the end of them, especially the tummy-ache quarian. 

[spirosz]

Love can go past physicality.

[Steelcan]

spirosz wrote...

Love can go past physicality.

but it didn't

[Br3admax]

It didn't. In fact, most of the ME2 relationships were based around banging, Garrus comes to mind. "Let's relieve stress together. I'm talking about your reach and my...flexibility" Tali was the craziest of them all, with her Vitamins of +9 Immunity.

[spirosz]

Steelcan wrote...

spirosz wrote...

Love can go past physicality.

but it didn't

Sure, for the sake of having a "romance" scene in all their games.  But I still believe my point stands.  

[Dean_the_Young]

chris2365 wrote...

SwobyJ wrote...

chemiclord wrote...

The argument about Garrus shirtless can also be applied to rendering Tali sans helmet.

What is DOESN'T do is excuse some of the very sloppy execution that WAS done, however.

Anddddd completely agreed with this too. The article has a great point that many lazy critics ignore. At the same time, Bioware, sheesh, what was on your minds when you did some of this stuff? Even allowing for some greater artistic/creative reason behind it all (humor me here), it doesn't make a better *product*. It just doesn't!
In this example, really, just leave the helmet on.

Agreed. This article doesn't talk about sloppy execution or just bad ideas. I mean, if you have to remove a feature due to a lack of time, that's fine. If you decide ''well, let's make it half baked and put it out anyways'', that's what isn't right.

Heh. Actually, that's touched on in his (her?) article on DLC. Specifically, the end of KOTOR II.

Plus, there's the general computer design maxim that you can bugshoot and improve a product forever, and always find something to improve. Of course, it will also never ship, which is why you have to make the call of 'good enough.'

Romance content, as far as I'm concerned, deserves to be a good ways down the totem pole of priorities. But then, I don't buy into them for the most part either vis-a-vis the main game.

[Seboist]

spirosz wrote...

Seboist wrote...
That's how we got moronic things like the Tali/Garrus romances 

How is that moronic? 

You don't see anything odd with a human having physical sexual contact with an alien with such a weak immunity that she has to be in a suit all the time and the only negative mirariously being some coughs? Or sex with a bone lizard with a clawhammer with no issues whatsoever(that's on top of the ridiculousness of this "romance" starting off as a casual fling)?

[spirosz]

Dean_the_Young wrote...

Romance content, as far as I'm concerned, deserves to be a good ways down the totem pole of priorities. But then, I don't buy into them for the most part either vis-a-vis the main game.

I believe this to be true, but I think the problem encoutered with the series is the amount of companions that could be romanced, which is the problem, instead of focusing on developing a romance that could potential intertwine itself within the story itself, which would bring my quality (IMO), like in KOTOR, with Bastila.  

[spirosz]

Seboist wrote...

spirosz wrote...

Seboist wrote...
That's how we got moronic things like the Tali/Garrus romances 

How is that moronic? 

You don't see anything odd with a human having physical sexual contact with an alien with such a weak immunity that she has to be in a suit all the time and the only negative mirariously being some coughs? Or sex with a bone lizard with a clawhammer with no issues whatsoever(that's on top of the ridiculousness of this "romance" starting off as a casual fling)?

No I don't.  

[Dean_the_Young]

spirosz wrote...

AlanC9 wrote...

I'm just replaying ME2 now, and there's an awful lot of dialogues that might as well have been autodialogue. I have to use the wheel, sure, but all I'm deciding is what order to hear the Investigate options in. Better than the outright fake wheel interactions in ME1, though.

No one has every denied that there is a great amount in ME2, but the thing is - it worked so well for me and I never noticed it to the point, like I did in ME3.  The balance was perfect for me in ME2, from the little opening conversation sequences with Thane for example, when we first meet him - where it felt necessary.  That's what upset me in ME3, but on the other side of that argument, I can easily reverse the roles and say ME2 did it worse than ME3, if ME3 worked better for me. 

I hear this alot, but I've never understood it as a defense for the game. When people say that they never noticed a reoccuring flaw, it's always struck me as a lack of awareness and analysis than mitigating the criticism in the other context. Saying 'it didn't bother me then' doesn't mean it's bad now- if anything, it means the oppossite. If you never noticed it in ME2... then autodialogue itself is not the issue. It's the illusion of choice you miss, even if you never had a meaningful difference in the first place. (Which is a Bioware staple: anyone just replay the same conversations in DAO, picking different progression options, just to notice how many times there was a one word difference in the next three to five lines?)

Which is fine, but the solution to the illusion of choice isn't a lack of autodialogue. You already established you enjoyed it in the past when you said you never noticed it before. The solution isn't even divergent dialogue either, if you never had it in the first place. The solution to your issue becomes restoring the illusion of choice, at which point why are we still throwing around the word autodialogue like it means something bad?

This is why I tend not to take criticisms of ME3 that were already present in ME1 and ME2 very seriously. It's not even about hypocrisy, as much as an awareness deficit about what the problem is and how it compared to the rest of the trilogy. Autodialogue, planet scan/scavenger hunt sidequests, linear plots, and so on.

[Dean_the_Young]

Han Shot First wrote...

jtav wrote...

Which doesn't excuse some very odd prioritization. Let's take my favorite character. Miranda did not need five conversations to carry out her actual plot role. Cut the second conversation and you lose pretty much nothing. Frees up the word budget for Ash (same writer even) or Jack or for Miranda to talk about a broader range of topics. TIM's Citadel conversation is too long. And so on. And that's just character stuff.

Also Diana Allers. Did we need Diana Allers?

Wouldn't it have been wiser to spend her word budget instead on giving Ashley another conversation aboard the Normandy? And instead of rendering this entirely pointless character, wouldn't it have been better to spend those resources on giving Tali an in-game reveal?

I agree with most of what was said on that blog, but there were certainly a few areas where Bioware made some poor decisions on where to spend resources.

Need? No. Did she serve a role that Ashley  didn't, and pretty much wouldn't have? Yes. Worth it? Your call.

Diana Allers was an excellent role playing tool for the players by the virture of (re)introducing a device that ME2 had dropped: the post Big Decision public justification. ME1 had it in drips and drabs, from the always negative Council reports to the Anderson/Udina conversation at the Embassies, but for all of Shepard's 'shaping the galaxy' decisions there was always a general lack of public recognition or role playing opportunities for Shepard. Letting Shepard express their views on the major arc events in the interviews allows not only a differentiation between some of the Big Decisions, but also to frame the player character's public stance going forward. Pure role playing character expression.

Diana Allers, media representative, serves three useful roles that giving her time to Ashley wouldn't have.
1) She allows the player a rare chance to publicly express views and reflections of arc progression and some Big Decisions. This not only differentiates choices made (in the Geth/Quarian in particular), but also allows the player an exceptional chance to choose an appropriate P/R fascade (we need to stand together vs. we're going to kick ass).
2) She provides a credible source and conduit for war news and lore that other characters wouldn't necessarily have a basis to provide. That's not to say it couldn't be done- you could turn EDI into a news caster on top of talking about Earth, or have a dozen more reports to the Shadow Broker, but a media representative as a conduit helps avoid over-exposing the already attention-heavy exposition characters.
3) She provides a context for Shepard interacting with the media, which has had an occurance in both previous games. This is a role playing opportunity in and of itself, and can be reflected in your interactions with her.


There are also other advantages as well. There's the usage as a fling romance, which would otherwise be absent despite opportunities and implications in ME1 and ME2. There's the convenience in having a role for an established part of the Normandy's space that might otherwise just be empty, and the nostalgic tie-in for having an exposition source in there. There's even the meta-rational that, hey, Jessica Chobot was a Mass Effect fan, and so it could have been a chance for good publicity at relative cost (depending on how much she asked for, which I doubt was more than peanuts).


These are all roles that Ashley, or any of the other established companions, would have been ill-equipped to fill. Ashley in particular can't fill the media role, is already a dedicated romance option, already has a Normandy room, and doesn't work well as an exposition source for topics not even tied to her narrative arc. Daiana Allers is a media-related role playing opportunity, which should have value in and of itself.

Was she the only way to do it? Of course not. Emily Wong gets raised a lot, though without knowing what factors went into the decisions it's not clear Emily Wong could even have returned.

Was she necessary? Of course not as well. None of the individual character interactions we get are necessary. Diana Allers isn't necessary... but then neither is any content she precluded.


Diana Allers isn't a necessity, but she is a trade off for both better and worse. Getting rid of her (the entire on-ship reporter concept) would open up some resources, but also mean giving up other elements.

Personally, I enjoyed them, and suspect Allers was a pretty low-cost way to achieve a type of role playing opportunity I enjoy greatly.

[Dean_the_Young]

Han Shot First wrote...

dreamgazer wrote...

Han Shot First wrote...

Also Diana Allers. Did we need Diana Allers?

Noooope.

*snipped Emily Wong*

If we were going to get an embedded reporter, I'd have gone with Khalisah. As much as I like Emily Wong I'm a sucker for a good redemption story arc.

I'm not sure the posterchild of female battery would be the best one for a 'redemption' arc, since her great crime was... being an ass in ME2? Unfortunate implications, to say the least.

Of course, it's a shame what they did in ME2 because you could get Al'jilani on your side in ME1, or at least respectful, if you were composed, thoughtful, and generally a professional.


I've always wondered about Emily Wong. Did her VA even have a role in ME3? I've always suspected that some of the ME2 carryover issues might have been because VA's didn't want to come back/weren't wanted back. Similar to the VA change for Mordin, whatever rumors you believe in that.

Of course, I can also see Emily Wong not returning because of a general enthusiasm gap between her VA and Diana Allers'. Meta-level considerations could easily favor a prominent fan and a new character over a relatively disinterested minor-NPC VA.

[Dean_the_Young]

AlanC9 wrote...

spirosz wrote...

No one has every denied that there is a great amount in ME2, but the thing is - it worked so well for me and I never noticed it to the point, like I did in ME3.  The balance was perfect for me in ME2, from the little opening conversation sequences with Thane for example, when we first meet him - where it felt necessary.  That's what upset me in ME3, but on the other side of that argument, I can easily reverse the roles and say ME2 did it worse than ME3, if ME3 worked better for me. 

That's kind of what I was getting at. Is it important to include a lot of wheel interactions even if they don't do anything? Break the conversation up so the player thinks he's controlling something?

To some people, absolutely. I'm not one of those people myself, but some people feel that those frequent pauses, and even ME1's false-choices, gave them a chance to role play deliberate intent and inferred tone.

Personally, it's not an issue. One of the big tradeoffs in frequent dialogue pauses is that you can't get a smooth conversation or much motion. I loved the amount of motion, including conversatiosn while walking, that were in ME3's dialogue.

I also enjoyed the relative difference in the dialogue paths of ME3. Sure, there might be two choices, but they were distinct dialogue paths that flowed very well.

[Dean_the_Young]

Han Shot First wrote...

I thought the reporter idea had potential.

Ignoring for a moment the borked character model and subpar voice acting, an embedded reporter on the Normandy could have made for an interesting character if the role was more substantial than what we got in the game. At some point someone should have taken a look at the script however, and realized that if Diana Allers was going to have so small and inconsequential a role, that she was best left on the cutting room floor.

Also, established characters like Emily Wong or Khalisah al-Jilani would have made more sense.

Well, here's a question: what would consitute 'substantial'? And what would qualify for 'enough'?

I don't think anyone was under any illusions that the reporter was supposed to be a major plot driver. For one thing, her recruitment is optional. For another, she's basically an expanded version of the previous reporter side quests, which were never particularly extensive. It's not like picking Emily Wong or Al'jilani would have changed this dynamic either.

So if we conceptualize the reporter as an extended side quest of sorts, what amount of content needs to exist to justify it? As it is, the reporterhas a disproportionate amount of dialogue options and reactivity, and lore fluff. Where does it fall short, and what would we need to give up to reach 'acceptable' levels of content? 

[Dean_the_Young]

StreetMagic wrote...

As for characters, we're in the same boat in one respect (both Jackmancers). Although I'd add that it ties to something bigger too. Each character has something tying into the larger themes of Mass Effect. Jack and Kaidan both comprise the story of human biotics. And I don't want just one option (each represents a different spectrum of the story). And I sure as hell don't want to limit my roleplaying to an Asari. The theme is not biotics. It's human biotics. And human evolution in general. It's kind of sad how much this theme got sidelined in ME3, when human endeavor has been important through Drew's novels and ME1 and ME2. ME3 isn't about humans at all. They just went full gusto with the whole Citadel/Galactic alliance take on Mass Effect.. nobody has any real identity left in it though. It's just a big happy family painted in Blue.

Wow.. I'm ranting. And probably talking too much in the abstract. Maybe? Whatever.

Hm, I wonder. It's an interesting topic none the less.

If I had to disagree (and I will, for devil advocate purposes), I'd ask if there was ever a consistent theme across ME1 and ME2.

Take Jack. (Oo-er.) I never saw Jack as 'the Human Biotic.' While that covered Kaiden's role and premise as the mature, exceptional, representative figure who identified with and represented the biotic population as a whole. He was polite, measured, and restrained, just as they had to be. He was well intentioned and defferential. He had an undercurrent and latent potential to want to throw off those self-imposed restrictions, rise above the skeptics and oppressive authority figures, and use that power as he saw best. That was being a biotic in Humanity. That was being Human in the Council system. That was being a Human Biotic.

That was never Jack.

Jack was 'the Cerberus Victim/Experiment.' Being a biotic was secondary to her woobie status: she could have been just about any sort of experimental test subject/runaway without changing her nature. She could have been a cyberbrain-cyborg super-hacker, or a genetically modified supersoldier prototype, or anything else suitably Mad Science. Her abuses and suffering and subsequent isolation and flight were the core of her character and development, and being a Biotic had little to do with the stupid-evil torture or subsequent exploitation. As long as she had power, power she didn't necessarily want but power that others wanted from her, the type didn't matter.

Jack was human, Jack was a biotic, but Jack was never the Human Biotic.


This is the sort of difference I see between ME1 and ME2, let alone ME3. Both games focused on Humanity, but in such different ways that I really wouldn't claim there was a common theme between the two. ME1 focused heavily on the relationship between Humanity and the Council System- Paragons were the ideal of the Council System, deferential and well-meaning and living up to the professed values. Renegades were Renegades by the same standard: aggressive, assertive, certainly not defferential, and living the actual practices of the Council. That wasn't present in ME3, but it being swept under the rug in ME2 when Cerberus stole the the Renegade aspects of the Alliance and left the Alliance to re-consolidate into that vagule Paragadish group that never had its own spirit.

Cerberus was all about Humanity, but what that meant was never what it meant in ME1 with the Alliance. The Alliance was the rising power, with capability and a willingness to act being it's great virtues vis-a-vis the Council. Cerberus in ME2 was the ideologically sound/operationally inept, while turning the Alliance into the Council's inability to act. The Alliance was a dynamic emerging power which didn't have an established public face, Paragon and Renegade in flux: Cerberus never changed, and never had the opportunity to change as a sort of 'what you are in the dark' analog. The Alliance had characters meant to show the various walks of life for Humanity in the galactic stage. Cerberus had... basically people who didn't like how the Alliance changed to be the Council.

I could go on. Point is, I don't see a common theme in Humanity or focus thereof between ME1 and ME2. If anything, I find ME3 closer to most of the themes of ME1 while ME2 rests as the outlier.

[Omega Torsk]

Though the author made some very good points, I'm going to have to disagree with him/her on time extensions. ME3 was a highly anticipated game. It would not have run the risk of going stale had it been given another year of development (which is what it needed). However, his/her point does apply to "fad" games such as DDR, Guitar Hero, and the obligatory movie tie-in games, so I can see where they're coming from...

Though I think what it all boils down to is poor decisions (ie: Diana Allers) and being overly-ambitious. Cutting out multiplayer would've helped, as well.

Also, if we're talking proper usage of financial resources... did we really need to launch six copies of ME3 into space for that pre-release stunt?