184 réponses à ce sujet

[Vazgen]

snip

I agree, all I said was that this bias is present throughout the whole trilogy, not only its last installment. It is indeed smaller than in other sci-fi but that doesn't mean it's non-existent. 

[Vortex13]

Before the Citadel was moved to Earth, the human home world was completely insignificant in the grand scheme of defeating the Reapers and saving the galaxy. It would have been nice if the narrative focused more on the forces of the galaxy coming together to build the Crucible, than "Take Back Earth".

 

 

I would have loved to see Shepard get shut down by Victus when he/she tries to recruit the Turians to re-take Earth. The new Primarch would just point to the continent-sized inferno raging across Palaven and say "What makes Earth so important again? Because last time I checked we were still holding our ground here, while your home world is completely decimated. If anything you should be sending your remaining ships here to help hold the line, instead of asking me to abandon my home world to come to the aid of yours."

[katamuro]

I agree, all I said was that this bias is present throughout the whole trilogy, not only its last installment. It is indeed smaller than in other sci-fi but that doesn't mean it's non-existent. 

 

Yeah and what I am trying to get to is that you can't really get rid of the bias unless you get rid of the humans totally. Because we are biased to write ourselves as we would like to see us, especially in science fiction like that where hope and future play a big role. Which is why we got the Alliance, Shepard and some other humans as the "good" part of humanity and then Terra Firma and Cerberus as the bad one. 

I just don't understand why it bothers people so much. I get it if they would have made humanity like the most powerful, saviors of the galaxy type. Like Stargate for example(I love the show but a lot of times it makes me cringe). 

Also I think part of why ME3 was so focused on Earth and Cerberus and humans was because they tried to make the game the starting place for new people. So Reapers invade Earth shows how bad they are and immediately you get whisked away to show how bad cerberus is at Mars. And we keep getting slapped with "cerberus is bad" through the game. Even though what the salarian dalatrass did could be considered worse, or what asari did considering they had thousands of years to figure it out. So yeah...

[Vazgen]

Yeah and what I am trying to get to is that you can't really get rid of the bias unless you get rid of the humans totally. Because we are biased to write ourselves as we would like to see us, especially in science fiction like that where hope and future play a big role. Which is why we got the Alliance, Shepard and some other humans as the "good" part of humanity and then Terra Firma and Cerberus as the bad one. 

I just don't understand why it bothers people so much. I get it if they would have made humanity like the most powerful, saviors of the galaxy type. Like Stargate for example(I love the show but a lot of times it makes me cringe). 

Also I think part of why ME3 was so focused on Earth and Cerberus and humans was because they tried to make the game the starting place for new people. So Reapers invade Earth shows how bad they are and immediately you get whisked away to show how bad cerberus is at Mars. And we keep getting slapped with "cerberus is bad" through the game. Even though what the salarian dalatrass did could be considered worse, or what asari did considering they had thousands of years to figure it out. So yeah...

Agreed. Some bias is understandable, especially when writing alien characters and races - the audience has to connect with them which is impossible if they don't have human traits. But presenting humanity as "better" than other races - this should not be the case. ME1 did it by giving humanity all the power it had. Realistically, in the scenario of the First Contact War humanity should've been utterly defeated by the Turians and left as a vassal state at most. Instead, Council decides to grant them an embassy because reasons. ME2 did it in Mordin's dialogue on his loyalty mission. ME3 did it by making Shepard constantly tell everyone that he needs their fleets for Earth. That's what I refer to when talking about "humans are special".

What irks me personally is the number of humans in ME3, especially during Priority: Earth when the whole galaxy was supposed to fight alongside us. That's why I love that aspect of Omega DLC - there are only a few humans out there and you get that sense of a truly alien environment. Menae and Thessia too but those are single missions while Omega is a combination of several missions and has more impact. 

[katamuro]

Why are people so stuck on the whole "genetic diversity". It doesnt make humanity better. Just because humanity has more combinations in outward appearance doesn't mean they are better. It means simply that humans haven't interbred so much as the other species. THATS IT. 

Also a humanity's win over a turian expeditionary force is not that far-fetched. They didn't send a whole fleet, they believed Shanxi was it along with the few ships they managed to destroy. So when a human fleet arrived they retreated. There were 623 human lives lost and slightly more turians. That kinda shows how big the incident was. Then the council intervened and brokered peace. Then in 2165 humanity is granted the embassy. 

The quick expansion of the humans is quite easy to explain, humans have been expanding into space for decades, a Lunar colony has 4.1 million people and was established in 2069, Mars, 3.4 million and 2103 respectively. Earth has more than 11 billion people living on it. Considering how crowded its getting I would imagine each country would try to ship as many people away as they can. 

Basically it would be like today's economy, its stagnating because there is only so much business to go around, resources are harder to extract, everything is getting more expensive and yet the amount of people who need feeding and jobs is increasing. There are 7.3 billion people on Earth now, there were only 7.15 in 2013, which means 150 million extra people in just over a year. Because no one is exploiting space right now the economy of the world is in a rut, and its going to stay there until the leaders of the countries which have the technology will get their heads out of their asses and start doing something.

So fast forward to 2148, space exploitation is going, people are working in space but all of it is quite expensive. Lifting stuff to orbit is not easy. So then ME technology is discovered, suddenly getting to orbit is way easier. But eezo is not found in Solar system, so to sustain the new technological ability humanity needs as many outposts in other systems as they can send out. So a huge effort to go and colonise is funded. That doesn't slow down after the incident with turians because now they know space is full of aliens so they need to establish as much industry and population outside of Sol as possible, plus they need to create a fleet to defend themselves. All that spending goes to create an economic boom which further fuels the human expansion. And council is quite ready to let humans expand into the Traverse and Terminus to stabilise the area and keep batarians in check. 

True it would have made sense if they discovered the technology in 2120 or something and started using it in 2140's with the discovery of the first relay. 

 

EDIT: changed 2040's to 2140's

[themikefest]

The other thing why the Citadel was taken to Earth is Anderson. If the Citadel was taken to another homeworld, Anderson would not play a role. If the Citadel did go to Thessia, would it be an asari that leads the assault to the beam? Is it an asari that goes up the beam and seen talking with TIM and Shepard? Would we see only asari being killed by Harbinger while running to the beam?

[StealthGamer92]

The ME trilogy played into the "humans are almighty important" of many space sci fi stories. I hated how humans seemed to be the Mary Sue of the ME universe.

Do you think ME4 will be a bit more diverse in terms of racial importance? Or will humans once again hyjack the plot and?

Chances are yes, unless they go ahead and make multiple playable races. I like the "you(the player) are the most impotant" games to a degree, but I also tend to love games like Elite Dangerous even more because it makes me feel like an average nobady then I have to MAKE my own succes or failure.

[katamuro]

Chances are yes, unless they go ahead and make multiple playable races. I like the "you(the player) are the most impotant" games to a degree, but I also tend to love games like Elite Dangerous even more because it makes me feel like an average nobady then I have to MAKE my own succes or failure.

 

Elite dangerous is not an rpg. You as a character might as well not play because you do not have an impact. It really would not matter if you were or were not there for the rest of the galaxy. RPG's depend on the need of someone in the story for the player character to be there. Or pretty much any other game that is more or less story based requires the character to be there. You can't make the player completely superfluous in a game like Mass Effect. Or DA, or Skyrim or GTA or.... well you get my point

[saladinbob]

That part of the Story was done rather poorly imo. I felt that ME's story was terribly human centric as well and it really bothered me in ME2 and 3 how effortlessly humanity made ist way to the top after just 30 years of being part of the galactic community. It just seemed unrealistic, unneeded and Mary-Sue-ish. Why not let them deal with the other species as the underdogs they started out as? Would have been way more interesting if you ask me.

 

I really hope that humans don't play that big of a role in the next game, they're one of my least favorite species in the ME universe.

 

We'll have to agree to disagree on that then because that's what I liked so much about it and frankly, where ME to follow the Dragon Age route, given how fucked up the last two games in that series have gone, it would be enough to make me never buy another ME ever again.

[Rannik]

I'd love to see the original Mass Effect direction back, a human centric game in a non-human centric galaxy.
 
And if they're not willing to bring back the silent PC the last thing I'd want to see is wasted resources on multiple playable species.
 

First of all skyrim has no character.

 
The **** am I reading?
 
Skyrim is an actual roleplaying game, you create the character.
 

I mean, two world wars didn't bring Britain and France together and the French don't even have tentacle heads.

 

It worked with Germany doe.

 

[katamuro]

When I said "it has no character" I didn't mean as in it has no playable character, I meant in as the writers of the game did not give the playable character a character outside of what the player decides it is. They did not have a direction for the character to move, after all you could ignore everything in the game and just skulk around murdering people like a serial killer. Or you could have done anything else. Which is what I was driving at, your character is decided by your actions alone, the game's story does not care what kind of person you are. You might have killed a thousand people but if you still save the city from a dragon you are still a hero. Mass Effect does, it changes depending on your choices, it adjusts and lets you play out how different decisions affect the galaxy. 

 

And while it allows the player a lot of freedom one thing does not change, player character is absolutely vital to the world. Without the actions of the player nothing really happens or changes. And in ME it is also impossible to make the main character a nobody that wouldn't be missed if he died in the middle and yet have a story that involves the character in something quite important. 

And so if the character is human, it is immediately a galaxy through the human centric view, the writers are going to write it by comparing everything to "normal" human stuff. 

It is however important to retain that and yet do not move into the territory where humanity is THE species to be because they are SO awesome the rest of the galaxy just wants to be subjugated by them. 

[Han Shot First]

Humans were made special only in the last game. And what trump card? Turians have a huge empire, they are not as easy to kill as humans(we do not count cmdr Shepard as one), krogans are way harder to kill. asari are all natural biotics and live for a thousand years, salarians are better at science generally because they think so fast. Quarians are natural techies. 

Humans are just middling everything, like in the fantasy settings humans are not exceptional at anything, well unless you count getting into trouble. 

 

The humans are special trope was present in every game.

 

In ME1 you have humanity getting it's first Spectre and being on the cusp of obtaining a Council seat, while only having had made first contact with the Council species less than thirty years before. Meanwhile species like the Hanar, Elcor or Volus, who made first contact centuries or millenia before, have yet to obtain either. In that short span humanity also rose from galactic newb to the fourth most powerful species militarily and economically. 

 

In Mass Effect 2 the Reapers are only attacking human colonies, and the reason revealed for that is humans are supposedly more genetically diverse than the other space faring species. The funny thing about that is that humans aren't genetically diverse at all. We aren't even the most genetically diverse species on our own planet.

[StealthGamer92]

Elite dangerous is not an rpg. You as a character might as well not play because you do not have an impact. It really would not matter if you were or were not there for the rest of the galaxy. RPG's depend on the need of someone in the story for the player character to be there. Or pretty much any other game that is more or less story based requires the character to be there. You can't make the player completely superfluous in a game like Mass Effect. Or DA, or Skyrim or GTA or.... well you get my point

I pointed it out more for how it made me feel average and not starting me off as a super rich or important character. I am average Joe, not rich guy, hero, or most skilled pilot in the universe. I wish more games did that honestly. Also it is a RPG, though barely, since there are multiple careers and ships you can choose from. I can be a Merc who fights for an army as a independent contractor, a trader, or even a pirate or bounty hunter hunting the pirate's. RPG is a genre that includes letting you make your own choices in the game, I choose my ship my career and if I choose to do something else mid game a good RPG let's me. You do not have to cause changes to the game or story to have a RPG, though that always makes it better.

[Mcfly616]

I pointed it out more for how it made me feel average and not starting me off as a super rich or important character. I am average Joe, not rich guy, hero, or most skilled pilot in the universe. I wish more games did that honestly. 

 since it was first announced several years back that a new Mass Effect was in development, my primary hope for the game would be that the protagonist be an average everyday citizen of the galaxy. Or at least start out as one. I just want to explore and experience the  MEU without the constant urgency to save it and everyone in it.

 

 

Hopefully, we get a more personal (smaller scale) story that lends itself to that type of atmospheric experience where we feel like one small insignificant grain of sand in an ocean of stars.

[katamuro]

I pointed it out more for how it made me feel average and not starting me off as a super rich or important character. I am average Joe, not rich guy, hero, or most skilled pilot in the universe. I wish more games did that honestly. Also it is a RPG, though barely, since there are multiple careers and ships you can choose from. I can be a Merc who fights for an army as a independent contractor, a trader, or even a pirate or bounty hunter hunting the pirate's. RPG is a genre that includes letting you make your own choices in the game, I choose my ship my career and if I choose to do something else mid game a good RPG let's me. You do not have to cause changes to the game or story to have a RPG, though that always makes it better.

 

Oh I agree, start small, start someone ordinary, getting involved accidentally in something bigger. And no need for a galaxy-shattering enemy or anything that big. In fact I would love something smaller more personal to the character, trying to prevent a war or stopping a Reaper worshiping cult from creating a new reaper or something like that. And yeah I would love something like the starting chapter in DAO. 

[Tex]

"Sigh" all signs are pointing to a human only game that's so sad. Sure I love being able to play female characters it's my favourite thing to do other then spending hours in a good character createor but the thought of playing as a female only race such as the Asari is somthing I've only ever been able to dream of but it looks like I'll have to continue dreaming damn.

[Livi14]

"Sigh" all signs are pointing to a human only game that's so sad. Sure I love being able to play female characters it's my favourite thing to do other then spending hours in a good character createor but the thought of playing as a female only race such as the Asari is somthing I've only ever been able to dream of but it looks like I'll have to continue dreaming damn.

Being cut to humans only (again) would be a major disappointment for me.

I never gave a rats arse about humans in scifi games. Take a look at any sci-fi or fantasy franchise. Humans are ALWAYS the "jack of all trades". Why are humans always so diverse? What prevented other races from becoming so? It's just stupid and, quite frankly, boring.

[lexius87]

I think that as long as we have a human only protagonist, humans will always be "special".

this is probably because it's a somewhat easy way to help enforce the idea that the protagonist is special as well (without using the whole "stumble into space magick" thing...anyone remember that cypher thing from ME1...man that got irrelevant FAST:P)

 

This is in my opinion another reason why an alien protagonist isnt a bad idea(atleast the option for one) as that would lessen the tie between the hero and any one race.

 

As for the whole human perspective thing that Shepard arguably gave us...did (s)he really?

I can't remember anything that gave us an idea of what it's like to be human in the ME universe, sure in me1 aliens would mention you being human in a bad way once or twice but other then that i believe everything we know about humanity, the alliance and their place in the universe is thanks to the codex.

 

Then after we became a hero and got our universe wide fanclub, human perspective went out the window entirely and just reinforced the "Shepard perspective" that the character really gave us.

[katamuro]

How does getting an alien as a hero lessen the tie between the hero and the alien species it came from? It would reinforce them. And do you think anyone would agree on a single alien species to be playable instead of humans? Or do you think getting the whole lot of them? Humans, turians, asari, salarians, krogan, quarians, drell? 

One reason to keep it human only is that while all other species have hundreds of years of history with each other including grudges and all kinds of things humanity came quite late, as such it is more or less a kind of neutral species. 

Well not really but it is far easier to do that than create a dozen different main characters with a dozen voice actors. Imagine the amount of work. How many things Shepard says during the game. Now multiply that amount of work by how many races you want to get.

I would rather them keep focusing on creating a good human character than create 6 or so mediocre ones.

[Drone223]

The humans are special trope was present in every game.

 

In ME1 you have humanity getting it's first Spectre and being on the cusp of obtaining a Council seat, while only having had made first contact with the Council species less than thirty years before. Meanwhile species like the Hanar, Elcor or Volus, who made first contact centuries or millenia before, have yet to obtain either. In that short span humanity also rose from galactic newb to the fourth most powerful species militarily and economically. 

 

In Mass Effect 2 the Reapers are only attacking human colonies, and the reason revealed for that is humans are supposedly more genetically diverse than the other space faring species. The funny thing about that is that humans aren't genetically diverse at all. We aren't even the most genetically diverse species on our own planet.

That was one of the worst offenders by far, "human's are a threat to the reaper's because of their genetic diversity" it makes no sense. Who in their right mind would think a particular species is a threat because of their "genetic diversity". Fortunately the "human genetic diversity" nonsense was never brought up in ME3.

[Heimdall]

How does getting an alien as a hero lessen the tie between the hero and the alien species it came from? It would reinforce them. And do you think anyone would agree on a single alien species to be playable instead of humans? Or do you think getting the whole lot of them? Humans, turians, asari, salarians, krogan, quarians, drell? 

One reason to keep it human only is that while all other species have hundreds of years of history with each other including grudges and all kinds of things humanity came quite late, as such it is more or less a kind of neutral species. 

Well not really but it is far easier to do that than create a dozen different main characters with a dozen voice actors. Imagine the amount of work. How many things Shepard says during the game. Now multiply that amount of work by how many races you want to get.

I would rather them keep focusing on creating a good human character than create 6 or so mediocre ones.

Well, it would be ridiculous to ask for all species to be an option.  They'd need to limit it to species that could:

• Share the same animations (So no Hanar or Elcor, probably no Volus)
• Double that for cutscenes (Krogan bulk presents a problem)
• Share the same voices (Asari, possibly Turian and Drell if they can just add an audio filter to the existing voices, Salarians have a distinctive speech pattern, which you probably can't produce with editing.  Krogans also have much deeper voices, could also be a problem)

If the only choices we got were Human/Asari/Turian, I would be satisfied.  And if this takes place in a more cosmopolitan mixed future, what distinguishes them in background from one another needn't be so drastic.

[katamuro]

Well, it would be ridiculous to ask for all species to be an option.  They'd need to limit it to species that could:

• Share the same animations (So no Hanar or Elcor, probably no Volus)
• Double that for cutscenes (Krogan bulk presents a problem)
• Share the same voices (Asari, possibly Turian and Drell if they can just add an audio filter to the existing voices, Salarians have a distinctive speech pattern, which you probably can't produce with editing.  Krogans also have much deeper voices, could also be a problem)

If the only choices we got were Human/Asari/Turian, I would be satisfied.  And if this takes place in a more cosmopolitan mixed future, what distinguishes them in background from one another needn't be so drastic.

 

And that would drastically reduce the quality of the game. Shared animations across different species? Shared voice actors simply re-edited? Generic main characters?  Mass Effect was so great because you could feel that the character was your own, the voice work was great, the writing was good, dropping in a few generic characters would be a disservice to the game. 

 

That was one of the worst offenders by far, "human's are a threat to the reaper's because of their genetic diversity" it makes no sense. Who in their right mind would think a particular species is a threat because of their "genetic diversity". Fortunately the "human genetic diversity" nonsense was never brought up in ME3.

 

No one said they were a threat to reapers because of their genetic diversity. The reapers and collectors were simply curious about humanity because of Shepard. 

Also genetic diversity is not the huge difference in DNA, its how our DNA recombines. For example some ethnic groups cannot drink milk, they are lactose intolerant because they lack a gene that activates certain gut flora. Japanese people for example can actually eat certain types of seaweed and digest them while most of the other people around the world cannot, oh we can still eat seaweed but we wont get as much out of it as they do. Then there is the different mutations like albinism, ginger hair, heterocrhomia, and dozens of others. All of that might be present in other species(in their own variants) but because humanity hasn't mixed together as fully as other species we retain a greater diversity of these mutations across the population. Plus compared to turians or asari these different genetic traits might occur more often. That is all. At no point in the game it is said that humanity is better because of it. Just different. 

And yes quite a few animal species on Earth might be much more genetically diverse, or in ME universe varren for example, or pyjaks or whatever animals there is. However out of the species that were currently space-faring in 2185 humans were the outliers. Before systems alliance Earth was not unified in any considerable way, this most likely prevented the mixing of people, inter-marrying between different ethnic groups preserving the more individualistic traits. 

[canarius]

Why do some people here hate humans? You would think they are some other species. I'm pretty sure the majority of the players (like around 100 percent) will be human so there is nothing wrong with the game being human centric.

[KaiserShep]

That was one of the worst offenders by far, "human's are a threat to the reaper's because of their genetic diversity" it makes no sense. Who in their right mind would think a particular species is a threat because of their "genetic diversity". Fortunately the "human genetic diversity" nonsense was never brought up in ME3.

I'm pretty sure that when the genetic diversity thing was out there, it wasn't to set humanity up as a threat, but something that would be the most useful for their purposes, as far as the now discarded dark energy plot was concerned.

[KaiserShep]

Why do some people here hate humans? You would think they are some other species. I'm pretty sure the majority of the players (like around 100 percent) will be human so there is nothing wrong with the game being human centric.

They can't handle the awesomeness of the homosapien.