782 réponses à ce sujet

[Seboist]

The illogical and downright bizarre Tali/Garrus romances are two good reasons why devs shouldn't listen to fans outside of gameplay considerations. Bioware put careful consideration into ME1 about how and why Asari were the only viable interspecies option, only to turn around and ignore their own lore about Quarian immunity deficiencies(Tali should've died as a result of the "romance") and Turian biology(pursuing casual sex with a bird-lizard with a literal boner sure doesn't sound creepy).

[Gramorla]

As far as i know from the old forums, it was orignally planned to made a romance for all companiens in ME:1 (Yes inc. Wrex o0).

This was been taken out becouse of time and cost reasons.

 

All alien LI in ME are a bit strange. But aslong there optional ... who cares what other do in there singelplayer game. This romances have a huge fanbase and its raison d'être in a SIFI setting.

[Chealec]

 

...

 

I'm also wondering how turians, which appear to be a land-based-cloacal-avian-like species, have a mammalian penis

 

...

 

 

Turians:

 

They're more like (certain species of) ducks

 

 

* I work alongside an Ornithologist ... it's weird what you can learn.

[Dantriges]

Bioware put careful consideration into ME1 about how and why Asari were the only viable interspecies option, only to turn around and ignore their own lore about Quarian immunity deficiencies(Tali should've died as a result of the "romance") and Turian biology(pursuing casual sex with a bird-lizard with a literal boner sure doesn't sound creepy).

 

I agree, it´s really more than a bit strange. We don´t even know if turians/quarians or turians/humans have compatible parts. For all we know it could be that turians copulate by french kissing.

[Fixers0]

People demanding things like romance quotas should be aware that characters are generally not written specifically for their romance, it's  really just a by-product considering romance itself is entirely optional. standardizing the amount of romances per demografic will inventiably lead to characters being specifically written with a certain romance in mind; this will lead to situation like: "Character X must be our male Bi and character Y must be our female lesbian". Stuff like that gets contrived very fast.

 

The chance that out of six characters two of them are straight, one male and one female, two of them are gay, once again one male and one female and another two are bi, yet again one male and one female  is nigh unbelievable. A writer has certainly room to implement multiple romances types but not when it is blatently obvious it's an appeal to demografics, in this case asymmetry is a necessity for immersion and believability.

[Jester]

Everyone is on about distribution of romances among sexes and orientations, number of LIs, nudity and whatnot...While there are serious issues with BioWare romance models (especially i nrecent games) that need to be adressed first.

 

1. Get rid of those heart icons. Seriously. They're immersion breaking, role-play breaking and just goofy above all. 

2. More conversations, especially AFTER romance is activated/locked in or whatever. Some sort of conflicts or arguments would be a good thing as well.

3. Sex should not be a final moment of the relationship, happening before the last mission, after which you barely have any conversation with your LI. That's not how relationships work at all. It is artificial, silly and worst of all - makes it look like the sex scene is some sort of weird reward for completing a romance questline. Stop it. 

4. More reaction from your companions regarding decisions you make. Not just -10 approval with one comment. These should affect romances and also your relationship with not romanced characters. For example, Wrex should not be okay with releasing the Rachni queen (to the point when you cannot gain his loyalty on Virmire for example) and Kaidan or Liara should not be so keen on romancing Shepard who gunned down entire Feros colony, despite having those nerve shock grenades (those are only examples).

 

Those are the main issues. Not the number of romances or their distribution, but fundamental mechanics that make them feel artificial and dull (DA:I and it's romance fetch quests take the cake here). 

[karushna5]

People demanding things like romance quotas should be aware that characters are generally not written specifically for their romance, it's  really just a by-product considering romance itself is entirely optional. standardizing the amount of romances per demographic will eventually lead to characters being specifically written with a certain romance in mind; this will lead to situation like: "Character X must be our male Bi and character Y must be our female lesbian". Stuff like that gets contrived very fast.

 

The chance that out of six characters two of them are straight, one male and one female, two of them are gay, once again one male and one female and another two are bi, yet again one male and one female  is nigh unbelievable. A writer has certainly room to implement multiple romances types but not when it is blatantly obvious it's an appeal to demographics, in this case asymmetry is a necessity for immersion and believability.

 

To be fair its actually incredibly common for a random group of people to be very mixed sexuality wise. Maybe like calls to like somehow, but when I met with my friends, we slowly came out to each other, and now only 2 people in our circle are straight (a guy and a girl). We met over videogames and roleplaying, but who knew we were a bunch of LGBT.

 

And I know several others who this is true of as well. It sorta happens. People generally don't share that they are Out unless they think its completely safe to do so (socially/physically/financially) but when you come out, people generally do so back. So when I came out, I found out that My cousin was gay, that my fiance's Aunt was a lesbian, that my neice's other Aunt was a lesbian, that one of my long time friends was Trans, That my ex-stepdad was Bisexual and so on. Its like a secret and when people realize you are one too it just sort of tumbles out. Heck my fiance didn't even really think of herself as Bisexual until she started crushing on me, and realized there has been a certain pattern to how intense her girl crushes in the past were.

 

So, yeah, it isn't too strange for their to be 2 bisexuals and 2 gay people in one group of straight people. Add in that the non romanceable crew members are usually straight, and it adds up just fine. Especially in a future where being gay is no big deal. Add in a species like the Asari and it makes even more sense. Heck add in another species at all, and the whole thing is off course since in nature there are animals with a much higher percentage of gay sex (like giraffes) and others where society is inherently bisexual (bonobos)

[daveliam]

There are a lot of other places where you have to suspend disbelief as well, outside of sexuality.  What are the odds that Ashley, Liara, Miranda, Jack, Tali, Kelly, Samantha, and Diana all happen to be stereotypically attractive females that are within +/- 10 years of Shep's age (or the equivalent for their species) and all single and open to a relationship at the time that they are serving under Shep?  One of the primary reasons why is because it would allow those characters to be romanced by Shep.  So it's not really that much of a stretch for there to be 2 bisexuals (one male and one female) and 2 gay people (one male and one female) who the new PC will be able to romance.  Part of it relies on reality (Is it really hard to believe that there will be 4 LGBT people on the crew of this ship?  Probably not.) and part of it lies within the 'suspension of disbelief for game mechanics' side.  Not really a big deal.

[Quarian Master Race]

Rightfully disciplined? Wrong address. In most cases you were a spectre unless you declined or blew up the council and chose Udina. And the proper council procedure would be to send another spectre to put a bullet in your head. If you actually paid Bioware extra to commit a war crime. Anyways, my point was, that Shep didn´t turn over his new ship, built using secret military design, until he was done. The Normandy never was a real warship following military guidelines. Wrex said it correctly, it´s a circus or freak show full of highly dangerous freaks armed to the teeth but still.

 

This is still completely irrlevant but no, that's absolutely untrue. Shepard's Spectre status is never revoked by the Council after Arahtot, and why the hell would it be? Even before we consider the fact that the sacrifice of those 300,000 lives (most of them slaves with no prospects other than a short and brutal life of hard labour and horrendous abuse at the hands of their captors) is ultimately unintentional, saves dozens of billions of lives elsewhere, and thus is a bargain that one would have to be stupid not to take, the Council has no diplomatic relations with the Batarian Hegemony, so why should they care if one of their slaver camps suddenly disappears at all? Your moral outrage is irrelevant. Hackett endorses the decision, the Council never comments on it let alone sends a Spectre after Shepard (and they've no reason to), only the Alliance Parliament is outraged because of the political trouble it stirs up with their traditional territorial rival.
 

Ah well Tali is admiral when you meet her, ambassador on the citadel and as I said it doesn´t have the same meaning anyways as civilian/military authorities are more entangled in quarian society. We also haven´t got a mail from anyone in ME 3 confirming her second transfer. So is this mail from daddy six months ago relevant?

So? Civilian/military authorities are heavily entangled in lots of Earth governments and societies. How does that make the official members of those militaries any less official? Principles of independent civil and military structures is arguably a quite modern and thoroughly Western political concept as is, only as old as Napoleon's first French Empire. You can find examples of civil/ military structures analogous to the quarian ones in many modern authoritarian states, particularly ones based on similarly collectivist ideologies. That doesn't make the people who inhabit those positions any less legitimate members of those militaries.

Why does the game have to send you another confirmation email (of a transfer request that took place but you didn't have to file/approve personally, mind you) or make you do paperwork at all? The first one directly contradicts the point you were attempting to make, which is the only reason I included it (really it should be something that the player can figure out is happening for themself based on dialouge and presentation). For a similar example, Shepard has to file incident reports every time s/he is wounded (confirmed in Citadel DLC dialouge with Brooks) yet this isn't done in game for obvious reasons (it is completely irrelevant to the plot and detrimental to gameplay). Not having to personally type up those reports on your private terminal after every mission does not mean they are not happening. The game is about shooting space monsters, and logistical work that one would actually need to be done for this to happen as it does is done offscreen because it is unnecessary for the player to do it, and for the developers to waste time and zots coding it. Do you also assume that Shepard is a mutant who never needs to go to the bathroom simply because you never have to relieve yourself in game? That would be absurd, yet that is analogous to what you are implying (Tali/Garrus didn't go through a legal transfer process to be intergrated into Normandy because we don't see the documentation in game).

 

I just find it a bit hard to follow that it´s such a big thing that two soldiers/friends/whatever violate possible regulations of a military, they don´t beong to, that doesn´t really exist anymore of a nation which doesn´t have any governmental structures left at that time and lost its homeland. The joint chiefs/general staff/defense committee are dead, the parliament is dead, the president, too. The government in exile, councilor Udina turned traitor and got killed, the seat of the galactic government where th last piece of Earth gov was located is in enemy hands. Shepard is pretty much the last one alive who was seen exercising governmental functions. If we look more closely, the Alliance Navy doesn´t really seem to be a military anymore but a resistance movement. Anderson putting up a fight on earth, Hackett doing fleet operations&magic lollipop construction and Shepard doing politics.

At least now you are admitting it is your opinion. I don't see how the status of the CoC in an official military changes simply because territory changes hands or some people die, and indeed that would defeat the primary purpose of having a flexible CoC. Charles De Gaulle (and the entire French Military) didn't suddenly become a civilian in WW2 because he was leading a legitimite (according to the Allied powers and the majority of foreign states) government in exile due to the Free French being pushed out of their territory by a foreign army. If the people of the Alliance and the galactic community recognize the Alliance (and by extension its armed forces) as legitimate, that is all that is required. Your argument to incredulity is irrelevant.

 

You are about to engage an enemy outnumbering you a 100 to 1 and they have far superior tech. At the eve of what could be the last sign of futile resistance two people look for comfort in each other´s arms. I´ll let it slide even if it was in violation of something I stopped caring about three years ago and which doesn´t exist anymore.

So? Why should I care about their personal feelings? I would argue that before such an important operation where absolutely everything must go right to have any chance of success is the last time one should be concerned about getting their rocks off, especially if it could and has a high probability to cause grave health complications that could jepordize the chances of said operation's success via injury or incapacitation to valuable team members. According to previous characterization they should act with at least a modicum of professionalism and wait until after rather than fraternizing on duty. Since you are playing the vessel's captain, you have the right not to care (though it is objectively a terrible call), I'd simply ask that those of us who do have the right to voice a different opinion as well (just like one can do with all the other on ship romantic relationships in all 3 games, both PC and NPC) . However "doesn't exist anymore" is an objectively untrue statement when talking about the regs of an official military that still has legitimacy. You can ignore them, but you can't simply pretend they don't exist in the game's universe, because it is explicitly stated that they do.

Either way, most of this is extemely off topic, and I don't actually care that much about this. If you continue to think that a cheesy, throwaway scene in a role playing game done for comic relief that breaks in universe regulations and has two characters previously portrayed as intelligent, duty oriented, highly professional people suddenly acting like hormone driven(even though it physically makes no sense either), horny juveniles with no grasp of the potential consequences is fine by your interpretation of the universe, while the PC is for some reason given no input into the situation other than approval unlike with all other similar instances, go right ahead. Given the military nature of previous games, if future ones are similar I'd like the option to always influence such things without intentionally missing content and have elucidated many reasons as to why.

[Gramorla]

I think what was missing in ME 1-3 romances was the feeling that die LI and the Mainchar have become some kind of social unit.

To establish a close relationship in rl changed so much in everyday life. Ig it is just another dialog in 5h gameplay.

It has a marginal effects on the playthrough. The so far LI is there more a casual visitor.

In Citadel (DLC), there don't camp in the apartment, who has enough room for ca. 50% of the crew. You don't now what there are doing on shore leaf apart from the party. Somehow the impact of a LI is missing.

[Panda]

That said, turians and humans have most likely been having romantic (hopefully non-sexual) relationships before femShep and Garrus were a thing, or at least an interest has been hinted. Two scenarios I can think of: 1) Go to Chora's Den and let femShep get hit on by the turian (click on him a few times) watching the asari stripper 2) Before you enter Afterlife's front doors look to the right and see a turian and his human girlfriend snugging up together on the couch.

 

Well relationship can be sexual and even include sex without actual...penetration happening.

[KaiserShep]

The illogical and downright bizarre Tali/Garrus romances are two good reasons why devs shouldn't listen to fans outside of gameplay considerations. Bioware put careful consideration into ME1 about how and why Asari were the only viable interspecies option, only to turn around and ignore their own lore about Quarian immunity deficiencies(Tali should've died as a result of the "romance") and Turian biology(pursuing casual sex with a bird-lizard with a literal boner sure doesn't sound creepy).

Yeah, Tali would have been best as a platonic option, though that's kind of a raw deal when she could just hook up with a member of her own species, albeit very carefully.

As for Garrus, I just get him to talk to that female turian in the bar and leave my headcanon to the rest.

[KaiserShep]

Can you elaborate?

Omni-toys. Quickly shapeshifts to accommodate the orifices of any species.

[Zazzerka]

Can you elaborate?

 

Here is an educational video to help you understand.

 

[Panda]

Can you elaborate?

 

Just use your

'

 

[Dantriges]

You can play the whole of ME 2 without Shepard being a spectre. In my current playthrough the council told me to get lost.

 

The point was that you are member of an organisation beholden only to the galactic governing body with the license to ignore regulations and laws. You can tell admirals to get lost* and admirals who phrase polite requests instead of orders. So the moment you transferred over to Spectre, you left Alliance Navy jurisdiction and the proper way for the Alliance to handle a possibly rogue spectre was to leave it to the council to deal with any disciplinary actions against you or do a "the council can kiss our butts" Which they did. Happens today, too. Would have been interesting to explore but Bioware didn´t. Understandably, it wasn´t really important to the story.

 

*never did because they can´t order you around but withdraw their support in shape of the Normandy

 

So let´s see.

Turian hierarchy: As you said, every turian is part of the hierarchy and in the military. They probably don´t have rules about fraternizing (with the exception of the obvious ones) otherwise they would be extinct.

Quarians: A bit more vague. Ok, after the pilgrimage, a quarian asks a captain of her choice to be part of the crew and this is more or less permanent. The Heavy Fleet is the clostest thing, quarians have to a military. Unless they do an exception for the Heavy Fleet, soldiers have to fraternize or remain single for the rest of their lives.

Fraternizing on alliance ships: It´s a big nono if it´s between alliance personnel, no one had a problem if you got close to the civilian on board who is actually also fighting in your squad. Never heard from anyone that this is unprofessional behaviour and a bad example to the crew or so.

On duty: Good question. Seems to me that transit time is considered off duty at least sometimes. Your squaddies move around in the ship, making eggs and chatting with each other. They really shouldn´t do it in the gun battery but well as you said we never see Shep use the bathroom, we never see another pilot relieving Joker from duty so he can get some rest. We never see where Garrus is sleeping or Tali´s room. I hope she doesn´t have to sleep in that suit 24/7.

 

The whole thing boils down to: We know that the alliance has rules about proper conduct between their personnel but we don´t know about this specific area. And we don´t know if their respective militaries actually have rules in that area. We can tell other alliance members to stop fooling around though.

[DaemionMoadrin]

Wow... this thread has become... educational. Also sick. But educational.

[Gramorla]

yay.... i don't now if this discussion about the exactly shape of alien pants-snakes, and if there exist or not, is so helpfull to improve the quality of ingame romances.

[daveliam]

yay.... i don't now if this discussion about the exactly shape of alien pants-snakes, and if there exist or not, is so helpfull to improve the quality of ingame romances.

 

I respectfully disagree, good sir!

 

[Chealec]

...

 

Nope, I disagree. Ken barbie doll-crotched turians are penis-less. Sorry fangirls/boys! If you want hung alien dudes go with the muscular reptiles like krogans and drell, @Chealec, I hear that lizards have two, so uhh...maybe Thane is up for seconds!

....

 

If you want properly weird try the Spiny Echidna - I'll let you Google Image search that

It looks like a fleshy medieval weapon.

 

... or Kangaroo Vaginas ... they have 3 and can effectively conveyor belt Joeys.

 

Now there's a challenge for BioWare ... put something in MEA that's weirder than real life!

 

 

 

n.b. why is it always Australia that gets all the weirdest sh*t?