Weird. I saw it just before I posted.
I was actually going to offer up a small addition to it. While you're absolutely right that who lives at Virmire was a player choice, only a little over 50% of ME2 players imported ( pre-PS3 figure). That conceivably could hurt Kaidan's stats, since male Shepards default to killing him and femShep is so much less popular.
And is that any different than if her job would have been to retrieve Shepard's corpse? That would be a job for her as well.
It's a response to her not having an investment and giving up two years of her life. Whoop-de-woo, I have no investment in projects I work on (apart from being paid) but I have to give up however many years they take to do so.
Shep to Miranda is a project, nothing more nor less. It's only later on that she decides to sleep with her project.
Liara, on the otherhand, as it is written is the only one from ME1 who goes to look for and save Shep's body (not Tali, not Garrus, not Anderson, not Kaiden or Ash - only Liara).
They also are new players who don't know you can play as a female. They pick Sheploo mostly, and for me I love my female Shepard's.
Wat.
Ok guys, this has to stop. I just posted stats from Bioware themselves in the previous page that showed 80% of people customised their Shepard. They did not mostly pick Sheploo, they made their own faces, which is odd, I know, Sheploo is way better looking than anything you can create. Also, do you think new players are blind or illiterate? Look at this.
When you press "New Game" that's the first thing that comes up, how on earth can anyone not realise that you can play as a woman when it tells you? Seriously, it's the first thing you see.
Sorry if I come off as brash but I'm extremely tired of people using the arguments that the reason Femshep isn't as popular as Maleshpe is because:
1. They don't know you can play as female
2. People just pick default
It's just not true, at all.
These polls were made after the game, so I don't think they were factored in the decision making process.
Taking squadmates could be based on the tactical viability of the pairing, so choosing could have had factors besides likability.
And Liara probably got a huge boost from FemSheps who other wise have a limited market.
Also, we don't know if including the ME2 squadmates could have shattered Liara's and Garrus's lead.
And finally, just because Liara is popular doesn't excuse her inconsistent character development.
That is true. But Bioware had statistics for ME1, and LotSB was widely regarded as their best DLC. Furthermore, the developers have stated in several interviews (both before and after ME3 came out) that fans love Liara, that she is a fan favorite, that Liara is the most recognizable character of Mass Effect, etc. And the ME3 statistics simply show this too (and that her character development can't be that horrible). I mean...what's more likely? That Bioware tried to please a large (maybe the largest ) fanbase...or that she got a lot of content because she is "Mac Walters waifu"... something a few people in this thread obviously want to believe 
That was also just one survey (I chose it because it was the most comprehensive one). But there are other polls/statistics with thousands of participants as well...asking for favorite characters, what squadmates we used in the Leviathan DLC, most popular femShep romance, most popular broShep romance etc., and Liara almost always came out on top (sometimes it's Garrus, and Tali is also rather popular). As for the "inconsistent" character development, I already explained why her character development made sense to me a few pages back. (p.15)
When where these stats released? Was this done during ME2 after the release or whatWat.
Ok guys, this has to stop. I just posted stats from Bioware themselves in the previous page that showed 80% of people customised their Shepard. They did not mostly pick Sheploo, they made their own faces, which is odd, I know, Sheploo is way better looking than anything you can create. Also, do you think new players are blind or illiterate? Look at this.
When you press "New Game" that's the first thing that comes up, how on earth can anyone not realise that you can play as a woman when it tells you? Seriously, it's the first thing you see.
Sorry if I come off as brash but I'm extremely tired of people using the arguments that the reason Femshep isn't as popular as Maleshpe is because:
1. They don't know you can play as female
2. People just pick default
It's just not true, at all.
That is true. But Bioware had statistics for ME1, and LotSB was widely regarded as their best DLC. Furthermore, the developers have stated in several interviews (both before and after ME3 came out) that fans love Liara, that she is a fan favorite, that Liara is the most recognizable character of Mass Effect, etc. And the ME3 statistics simply show this too (and that her character development can't be that horrible). I mean...what's more likely? That Bioware tried to please a large (maybe the largest ) fanbase...or that she got a lot of content because she is "Mac Walters waifu"... something a few people in this thread obviously want to believe
That was also just one survey (I chose it because it was the most comprehensive one). But there are other polls/statistics with thousands of participants as well...asking for favorite characters, what squadmates we used in the Leviathan DLC, most popular femShep romance, most popular broShep romance etc., and Liara almost always came out on top (sometimes it's Garrus, and Tali is also rather popular). As for the "inconsistent" character development, I already explained why her character development made sense to me a few pages back. (p.15)
I don't think any one is really contending that she isn't popular. It's more to do with the story aspects of her character, like how she is unique as one of the few characters Shepard cannot define a relationship with in the later installments or how inconsistent her character is (I found you post to be an explanation on how the transformation was simply plausible, the game never actually shows how such a radical change took place).
Liara certainly isn't unique in this regard, Jack (who is my favorite romance) also suffers from this in ME3; but Liara is the most prominent example and it's sometimes annoying to have such an obvious example of the outside world affecting the story's quality. We can argue all day that Liara is popular but that doesn't mean it should effect the story. It doesn't explain why ME2 and ME3 Liara treats Shepard, and vice-versa, the same regardless of how they treated her in the past (especially in ME1). It's characteristics like this that make Liara moments such a jarring experience to play through.
When where these stats released? Was this done during ME2 after the release or what
The ME3 stats show the amount of new players at best to Me universe that played in the third installment. It's the truth man you showed nothing for ME3 to convince me.
You just posted that new players didn't know they could play as a female Shepard. That's total nonsense, as the screens show. You can't start any ME game without explicitly picking either a male or female Shepard, and then going on to choose between default and custom appearances. It isn't hidden in any way.
And those ME2 stats were compiled months after ME2 was shipped. They're real tracking data.( Those numbers are from a bit before the PS3 release, so the 50% figure for imports doesn't include PS3 players who couldn't import since ME1 hadn't been ported yet.)
Note that 36% of players met Wrex in ME3, which requires an import from ME1, and 39% got the achievement for either an ME2 import or two ME3 playthroughs. I presume people who imported overlap a lot with people who replay; obviously, Bio w0uld know the exact percentage there.
It doesn't explain why ME2 and ME3 Liara treats Shepard, and vice-versa, the same regardless of how they treated her in the past (especially in ME1). It's characteristics like this that make Liara moments such a jarring experience to play through.
I don't remember offhand if ME1 even tracked how you treated Liara. Anyone remember if there's anything appropriate in the save files?
I don't remember offhand if ME1 even tracked how you treated Liara. Anyone remember if there's anything appropriate in the save files?
I think ME3 acknowledges which order you did the main missions in. The game also has an approval gauge for the romance options, but I think it only counts how many times you spoke to them and a flag marking the romance lock in. There are a lot of unused variables though so someone would probably have to dig in to find them.
I think ME3 acknowledges which order you did the main missions in. The game also has an approval gauge for the romance options, but I think it only counts how many times you spoke to them and a flag marking the romance lock in. There are a lot of unused variables though so someone would probably have to dig in to find them.
I rescue Liara after Virmire and treat her like crap, but yet ME2/ME3 , for some reason, believes I'm buddy-buddy with her. Also if you have Kirrahe alive, he and Liara apparently know each other when neither of them ever met.
Like Omega isn't a good DLC.
it's a ok dlc far from a good one, its overpriced and after it completed its like it never happened.
It's a response to her not having an investment and giving up two years of her life. Whoop-de-woo, I have no investment in projects I work on (apart from being paid) but I have to give up however many years they take to do so.
Shep to Miranda is a project, nothing more nor less. It's only later on that she decides to sleep with her project.
Liara, on the otherhand, as it is written is the only one from ME1 who goes to look for and save Shep's body (not Tali, not Garrus, not Anderson, not Kaiden or Ash - only Liara).
That was the point of my argument. The exact same point. The point is that Miranda didn't need to be emotionally connected to Shepard to accomplish her goals. She could have secured his body without feeling undying love for him. She brought him back from the death while feeling little more than a bit of disapproval to his motivations and personality.
I never denied the second point. All I did was challenge the writing and criticize it. For which it deserves ever bit of criticism I feel.
I rescue Liara after Virmire and treat her like crap, but yet ME2/ME3 , for some reason, believes I'm buddy-buddy with her. Also if you have Kirrahe alive, he and Liara apparently know each other when neither of them ever met.
I guess it doesn't acknowledge it then.
On a side note I hope the next game adapts something similar to Dragon Age's Approval system.
Bio does collect data from all of your playthroughs in Dragon Age. This was confirmed by David Gaider when the subject of player races came up. All the playthrough data is tagged to the particular login, so they can look at first playthroughs, totals for each player, etc. And since most players don't replay -- hell, a majority don't even finish the game once -- this isn't such a big deal for the analysis.
Note that this doesn't mean that infographic isn't talking about first playthroughs only, though. It conceivably might be. Also, the system can't distinguish between two people who both use the same copy, who will look like one player.
I guess it doesn't acknowledge it then.
On a side note I hope the next game adapts something similar to Dragon Age's Approval system.
I think any person who has played both hopes for this. Along with the character/LI story integration and how each romance affects the story, and class interrupts making a larger prominence, it's one of the things DA did much better than Mass Effect.
I think ME3 acknowledges which order you did the main missions in. The game also has an approval gauge for the romance options, but I think it only counts how many times you spoke to them and a flag marking the romance lock in. There are a lot of unused variables though so someone would probably have to dig in to find them.
I know, Sheploo is way better looking than anything you can create.
Nah, I find Sheploo's haircut quite ugly and it's possible to create a better or equally good looking male character if you spend enough time in the character creator.
That would make for an interesting stat. How long folks took to create the Shepard they wanted.
Interesting, I didn't know that. If this applies to ME3 as well, it would make the stats slightly more credible. However the problems you mentioned and a few others(offline play etc) still make it too difficult for me to accept them as definite.
With such a large fanbase it's nigh impossible to create an accurate statistic I imagine.
True, we don't know that's how ME does the data collection too. OTOH, it's hard to imagine that Bio would want to write tracking code twice.
As for "definite" -- compared to what? Yeah, you take a hit to the level of confidence because people can opt out of data collection, etc. But it's still way ahead of any other method.
That would make for an interesting stat. How long folks took to create the Shepard they wanted.
My creation times might be a little embarrassing. It takes a while to make sure a face looks natural and avoiding having to restart when you find out what Shepard actually looks like in a cutscene.
My creation times might be a little embarrassing. It takes a while to make sure a face looks natural and avoiding having to restart when you find out what Shepard actually looks like in a cutscene.
You're not alone. Shep has to look right.
That would make for an interesting stat. How long folks took to create the Shepard they wanted.
True, we don't know that's how ME does the data collection too. OTOH, it's hard to imagine that Bio would want to write tracking code twice.
As for "definite" -- compared to what? Yeah, you take a hit to the level of confidence because people can opt out of data collection, etc. But it's still way ahead of any other method.
I needed about half an hour for my canon Shep. Based his face off a young Clint Eastwood.
Clint Eastwood is my favorite actor
To nothing really, I don't think there is any real method to compare popularity of decisions effectively.
OK. I think you're just wrong about that. If you've got tracking data from 2/3 of all players -- IIRC the real figure is a good deal higher -- the probability that the actual figure for the entire population would be significantly different is very, very, low.
I suppose it's possible that people who opt out would also be much more likely to hate Liara (or whatever the issue is), of course, but ignoring data because it isn't perfect data doesn't get you anywhere.
For male Shepard in ME1 I almost always use the last preset and make a few modifications to the complexion and eye shape, They always tend to end up with either blonde or red hair, because the game allready got to many people with brown or black hair, but that's just my opinion.
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