111 réponses à ce sujet

[Solas]

Agree on Turians, they do look quite alien despite technical humanoid limitations, but Tali was shown to have human-like face already in ME1, so it has nothing to do with romance. They were space dalish since the beginning.

The humanoid-looking facial structure you can kinda see if you zoom close to the mask or use tools to look "under" it etc? Always just took that for a placeholder tbh.

 

Anyway I get that the "bald elf"-type options shown in some concept art is not that much farther away from human-like than the purple elf stock photo look, but some of the ideas shown were a bit more distant at least - lack of nose, head ridge, that kind of deal. In contrast to what essentially amounts to "purple human". Even Asari have their skull ridges going on while Quarians apparently have hair after the manner of humans.

[Vortex13]

Actually, the conversation with the rachni queen and my "relationship" with her throughout the series was one which held a lot of emotional weight for me. I would say I felt just as much of a connection to, respect for and obligation toward the rachni as I did with relation to the asari, turians, salarians and all the rest. One being less anthropomorphic than the others had nothing to do with the matter.

 

The hanar not so much, but not because they were insufficiently anthropomorphic. They were simply underdeveloped and mainly used for comic relief, much like the elcor (especially past the first game). A lot of my impression of the hanar comes from Thane. I want to know more about them, anyway.

 

 

Same here. 

 

I would have to say that the Rachni and Hanar are my favorite species of the setting, followed closely by the Elcor and the Thorian, and I hope to see more of them, or something similar to them in future titles. 

 

Side-note: I'm definitely in the minority here, but I would love to see the Rachni, Hanar, and Elcor make as playable options in MP. All of them could be implemented, and all could have a serious if specific role on the battlefield (no Blasto knockoffs).

[Quarian Master Race]

 

Legion did have a personality, though not in the way organic characters do. Its personality is a representation of the geth as a collective rather than as an individual (although the line between Legion's gestalt consciousness and geth as a larger population is sometimes unclear in conversation). This is consistent with the nature of the geth as revealed in conversation and leads to some interesting discussions, especially with respect to the Reapers and self-determination. Why would I judge geth by the standards of an organic individual only to find them lacking?

 

And your dismissive characterization of fan appreciation of Legion reveals more about your own biases than theirs.

So basically, it was a terminal of the geth consensus with no difference from any other random gestalt amalgamation of programs? Got it. Good thing too, I was beginning to question why it, not Legion and Geth VI are all exactly the same character with minor variations in dialogue based on whether they know Shepard or not.

What biases specifically? My analysis is correct. The platform describes itself as a "terminal of the geth". It's practically a non-character in relation to the geth consensus at large apart from it's ability to vocalize and (nonsensically) make facial expressions, a literal drone.

[LightningSamus]

Admit that you just want tentacle sex.

[Guitar-Hero]

Admit that you just want tentacle sex.

I'll be the first to stand up for people expressing their sexual desire and the quest for octopussy. 

[dragonflight288]

 

 

So basically, it was a terminal of the geth consensus with no difference from any other random gestalt amalgamation of programs? Got it. Good thing too, I was beginning to question why it, not Legion and Geth VI are all exactly the same character with minor variations in dialogue based on whether they know Shepard or not.

What biases specifically? My analysis is correct. The platform describes itself as a "terminal of the geth". It's practically a non-character in relation to the geth consensus at large apart from it's ability to vocalize and (nonsensically) make facial expressions, a literal drone.

 

 

I think that for fans, an emotional connection was built up with Legion because we had a Geth terminal that was given a name and could interact and provide information to us, and showed a very real motive in its actions, and like organics, had a strong self-preservation instinct. 

[Sartoz]

Admit that you just want tentacle sex.

                                                                                                      <<<<<<<<<<()>>>>>>>>>

 

Eeww !!

[ComedicSociopathy]

Admit that you just want tentacle sex.

 

I just want to be able to romance an A.I...

 

[Il Divo]

I don't recall anyone specifically calling BioWare racists for their depiction of fictional beings, then again I am not super abreast on BSN craziness. No one is racist for relying on established tropes, but that's not to say that some of the established tropes are based on some rather questionable stereotypes.

 

The perfect example of this being the Ferengi, Watto's race, and (potentially) the Volus being based on a very particular caricature of Jewish Bankers. Short, usually cowardly creatures with an exaggerated facial feature (big nose for Watto, big ears for the Ferengi, or exaggerated almost constantly out of shape breathing in the Volus' case) that love money grubbing and/or being shrewd businessmen. 

 

I will say though, that I thought that BioWare's decision to turn the Hanar and Elcor (the Hanar especially) into one dimensional caricatures in ME 2&3 was extremely lazy and could be considered racist if it would have been something like James Vega being depicted as a stereotypical hispanic person; a ME version of Speedy Gonzales; just for cheap laughs. 

 

 

 

 

 

Legion and the Geth in ME 2 weren't some earth shattering depiction of an alien life form, and yes Legion was a bit on the info dump side of things as far as a companion went. But the nature of the Geth and their consensus was pretty different from anything else in the setting. More importantly the Geth (in ME 2) were a synthetic life form that was willing to work with organics that didn't want to become just like us; which if you think about it, is actually extremely rare in science fiction. You either have your Skynet-esque murderbots, or the Commander Data human wannabes no middle ground.

 

Also the Geth in ME 2 weren't whitewashed as the blameless victims of Quarian aggression like they were in ME 3. Legion acknowledges that the Geth did great harm to the creators, but it never attempted to make excuses for their actions it or apologize. The situation was much more muddled in ME 2, and one could see both sides of the conflict.

 

Legion, while an info dump, was no worse than ME1 Tali in this regard. Though Legion's excuse was that he's a robot. I'm not so sure what Tali's excuse was. I still maintain that, BG1's cast aside, she's likely Bioware's worst character, at least in terms of her ME1 conversations.

[Chealec]

Legion, while an info dump, was no worse than ME1 Tali in this regard. Though Legion's excuse was that he's a robot. I'm not so sure what Tali's excuse was. I still maintain that, BG1's cast aside, she's likely Bioware's worst character, at least in terms of her ME1 conversations.

 

I'm prepared to forgive BioWare just about anything with regards to Tali just because of the Emergency Induction Port scene which is my favourite non-Grunt moment in the whole trilogy

[Vortex13]

I tend to prefer the "info dump" companions as a general rule of thumb. Sure they can drone on at times, but you get some interesting lore, and usually the info dump is to introduce the more 'alien' characters.

 

I'll take lore and plot exposition over "daddy issues" any day. 

[Il Divo]

Personally, I'm not a fan of that approach. If the character exists as an info dump, they should simply be relegated to a codex entry, it would certainly take up less space clearing resources for other features.

 

On the other hand, I don't think info dump just means "someone tells me about their culture". If we take Wrex as an example, he relates Krogan culture through his personal experiences pretty often. Tali, as I recall, never does this in ME1. The most I recall is her briefly mentioning her father being really busy, while all her dialogue options involve "Tell me about Quarian economics", "tell me about Quarian politics", etc.

[Ahglock]

Personally, I'm not a fan of that approach. If the character exists as an info dump, they should simply be relegated to a codex entry, it would certainly take up less space clearing resources for other features.

 

On the other hand, I don't think info dump just means "someone tells me about their culture". If we take Wrex as an example, he relates Krogan culture through his personal experiences pretty often. Tali, as I recall, never does this in ME1. The most I recall is her briefly mentioning her father being really busy, while all her dialogue options involve "Tell me about Quarian economics", "tell me about Quarian politics", etc.

 

They do go into the rite of passage quest she is on and why it is important which is fairly personal IMO. Also I think you got a lot of personality form all of the ME1 characters if you took them with you and listened to them while walking around or in elevators. Also the quality of the voice actor determines a lot about info dump style characters because the emotions shown in those conversations about potentially touchy subjects gives you a good idea about the character

 

In a sense every character is a info dump, whether its about their culture or themselves they are just dumping info. You don't get along with your father? "insert info dump about how you are a genetic experiment" They are all info dumps, its the quality of the acting that makes it or breaks it.

[Il Divo]

They do go into the rite of passage quest she is on and why it is important which is fairly personal IMO. Also I think you got a lot of personality form all of the ME1 characters if you took them with you and listened to them while walking around or in elevators. Also the quality of the voice actor determines a lot about info dump style characters because the emotions shown in those conversations about potentially touchy subjects gives you a good idea about the character

 

In a sense every character is a info dump, whether its about their culture or themselves they are just dumping info. You don't get along with your father? "insert info dump about how you are a genetic experiment" They are all info dumps, its the quality of the acting that makes it or breaks it.

 

One issue with the elevators is their rather limited nature. They're not guaranteed to trigger, often replaced by the auto-transit system, past the Citadel they're extremely rare (only on Noveria for ambient conversations), and in Tali's case, we get her at the tail end of the Citadel sequence. Now if we were talking DA:O ambient conversations, which trigger quite often, that would have been awesome.

 

It's certainly nice having ambient elevator conversations, but putting aside their rather limited nature, Tali shouldn't really have a personality for 15 second intervals, then become the Quarian Codex for long stretches of conversation. That's why I often make comparisons with regard to Wrex, since he also does a pretty good job of evoking Krogan culture, but tends to relate it directly to his own personal experiences/narrative.

 

Good point regarding the nature of info dumps. It doesn't inherently have to be related to a specific topic. Voice-acting does play a big part, but so does the script itself as well.

[KAGEHOSHI-]

I completely agree with this. I'm sure this thread is flooded with "but relatability! human audience!" etc. but not every alien has to be relatable, that defeats the whole point of making aliens, plus you can still have something far from human be relatable and likable without being even close to human (look at the Wall-E) robot. Anyone who makes these arguments is just underestimating the audience for the sake of excusing lack of creativity.

[Il Divo]

^I was actually thinking about Wall-E with respect to Legion. Also, it's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember District 9 also doing this very well.

[KAGEHOSHI-]

^I was actually thinking about Wall-E with respect to Legion. Also, it's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember District 9 also doing this very well.

YES! District 9 is a perfect example.

[Jorji Costava]

In regards to the OP: I do think it would be nice to have aliens that are far less human, culturally speaking. The aliens of ME are shockingly similar to early 21st century Westerners in some highly unlikely respects: They like to go to bars and get drunk, dance at clubs, play video games, watch vids, etc. (I'm no evolutionary biologist, but the probability that all of these practices would have co-evolved independently on entirely different planets, let alone different galaxies, strikes me as pretty low). I don't think this is going to fly in a game about exploring an entirely new galaxy, as one would think that a game about exploring a new galaxy will feature the idea of encounters with the unfamiliar as a key theme.

[Vortex13]

^I was actually thinking about Wall-E with respect to Legion. Also, it's been a while since I've seen it, but I remember District 9 also doing this very well.

The most popular character in Star Wars is a bucket with wheels that speaks via beeps and whistles.

[Solas]

The most popular character in Star Wars is a bucket with wheels that speaks via beeps and whistles.

and he isnt even romanceable 

[Il Divo]

The most popular character in Star Wars is a bucket with wheels that speaks via beeps and whistles.

 

Also one of my favorite characters, well played. ​

 

Actually, hell, we could point to the companion cube from Portal. I've actually known players who do get pretty attached to that thing.

[RZIBARA]

its hilarious how people are taking this guy seriously.

 

g8 b8 m8, i r8 8/8

[Omnifarious Nef]

There is your problem.

 

The inherent problem of writing an alien is the writers and the audience are human.

This exactly.

[RatThing]

There is your problem.

 

The inherent problem of writing an alien is the writers and the audience are human.

 

While it may be more difficult, it 's certainly not impossible to write "non-human" aliens. The Mass Effect writers proved that themselves with the Rachni and the Leviathan (and to some extent with the Krogans). Those species were very different from humans and to me that made them more interesting. 

I guess the problem is what aliens are usually written for. In Mass Effect they're not supposed to be a mysterious and exotic civilization for you to discover, they´re supposed to be buddies and even lovers. So they make them act like humans, so the player can connect emotionally with them. 

At least they should not let them using distinctive behaviour from human culture. For example, in ME3 I've seen Turian soldiers salute. Really made me cringe. I don't even think every human culture does that.

[9TailsFox]

Admit that you just want tentacle sex.