1249 réponses à ce sujet

[von uber]

No, the problem is them retconning the Mars archives, and also having Liara as the only character guaranteed to be alive in ME3 (ironically due to her being neglected in ME2).
And regardless of whether other researchers knew of it, only Liara saw Sheps visions and combined it with her own research.
Incidentally the whole Javik thing is ludicrous when you think about it - only a moron would not have seen the similarity between the asari statues and known representations of the protheans.
Like a lot in mass effect it requires people to basically be really, really thick for it to work.

[Ralfufigus]

That one volus who's being an ass to the quarian on the Citadel in ME2. I hate that guy...

[Han Shot First]

Funny really, I completely disagree. I thought Tali went practically nowhere compared to Liara or Garrus.
I like her as a character, Tali, but you can pretty much write her out and not miss anything.
Of course you can do the same with Liara in ME2 (which they originally did of course; some writers pet there!).

 

I always thought the complaints about Liara being a writer's pet fell flat because she had originally been written near completely out of Mass Effect 2. The only reason she returned in LotSB was due to fan blacklash, and her popularity also likely had a part to play in her expanded role in ME3. 

 

People who don't care for the character are still entitled to dislike her of course, but they'd be better off blaming her expanded role on fanservice than writer preference.

 

If you look at which characters across the whole trilogy had the most content, it lines up exactly with the characters' popularity. Liara, Tali, and Garrus appeared at the top of of every fan poll with a significant number of votes on this site, with only their order varying from poll to poll, and Liara was the most used squadmate in ME1 and ME3 according to Bioware's own metrics. Liara & Garrus had the most screen time of any of the squadmates in ME3, Liara was the focus of one of ME2's DLCs, and Garrus and Tali were squadmates in all three games.

[goishen]

Liara isn't the only Prothean researcher in the galaxy who knew about Ilos can be accessed through Mu Relay.  [snip]

 

The Crucible plans was already inside the Mars Archives for decades but instead they choose to make Alliance look incompetent.  [snip]

 

 

Transpose those two sentences and tell me what you come up with.  I'm imagining it would be something like, "Liara can't be the only person to know about the Crucible plans inside the Mars archives."  Which would be correct.  TIM knew about them as well.  Anybody with direct access can find out about them.  The only problem is that sometimes it takes years for these papers to get peer reviewed.  There prolly have been papers written and just tossed out because of the sheer incredulity of them. 

 

Liara didn't really care about getting success and accolades at the time that she went to Mars.  She just wanted to find a way to stop the reapers.  Whereas with before this, she had only studied and reviewed peer reviewed stuff.  And while she was looking for answers, she was also looking for at least a modicum of success to keep funding her digs.

 

The entire galaxy isn't a one way train of thought. 

[themikefest]

If you look at which characters across the whole trilogy had the most content, it lines up exactly with the characters' popularity. Liara, Tali, and Garrus appeared at the top of of every fan poll with a significant number of votes on this site, with only their order varying from poll to poll, and Liara was the most used squadmate in ME1 and ME3 according to Bioware's own metrics. Liara & Garrus had the most screen time of any of the squadmates in ME3, Liara was the focus of one of ME2's DLCs, and Garrus and Tali were squadmates in all three games.

How different would those polls be if ALL squadmates were available in all 3 games and if the they were available for all of ME3 and not for half the game? I'm sure those polls  would be different

[aoibhealfae]

Transpose those two sentences and tell me what you come up with.  I'm imagining it would be something like, "Liara can't be the only person to know about the Crucible plans inside the Mars archives."  Which would be correct.  TIM knew about them as well.  Anybody with direct access can find out about them.  The only problem is that sometimes it takes years for these papers to get peer reviewed.  There prolly have been papers written and just tossed out because of the sheer incredulity of them. 

 

Liara didn't really care about getting success and accolades at the time that she went to Mars.  She just wanted to find a way to stop the reapers.  Whereas with before this, she had only studied and reviewed peer reviewed stuff.  And while she was looking for answers, she was also looking for at least a modicum of success to keep funding her digs.

 

The entire galaxy isn't a one way train of thought. 

 

The Shadow Broker already knew about it and its unlikely he's the only one. From Homeworlds, Liara only found the clues from the Kahje's Prothean site which identify several Prothean sites around the galaxy with the Crucible information but she choose Mars instead. Wouldn't it be interesting if the Kahje give the location of the beacon on Thessia and Liara didn't realize the significance.

 

The Mars Archives is the Rosetta stone for all advances in human's recent history. It was a military research center and still functioning as an active research site (one of the datapad mentioned, some of the scientists unearth more Prothean ruins deeper underground). Its nonsense that they only care about to get recognition through publishing research works when the Citadel Council themselves policed all research about the Protheans. Even in ME1, Anderson and Nihlus talked about how it can be dangerous if someone else get the hand on Eden Prime's beacon that could hold dangerous information... like a frickin superweapon. Leviathan DLC clearly show that Alliance scientists are resourceful about finding an ancient alien race and yet on Mars, it seems the only thing Bioware want to show was how incompetent Alliance was next to an Asari maiden and a megalomaniac's intellectual superiority.

 

Either way, Liara's importance into this narrative insertion was quickly diminished the moment she handed over Crucible plans to the Alliance. She then only act as resource broker to support the Crucible's personel and construction but not much else because she already served her purpose. Meanwhile, the Alliance quickly interpret the data and make it practical and almost immediately began its construction, which really contradict the narrative treatment on Mars about how clueless everyone was. You don't start building the tallest building in the world with only after a few weeks researching about how it works... unless Hackett knew about everything and the Alliance was already building them in secret for years and using Liara as a decoy for the council to authorize his secret superweapon project.

[von uber]

aoibhealfae the problem with your theory is that it abuts the massive retcon Mars got. It starts out as a small cache and then turns into some massive complex.
Trying to make sense of mass effect is impossible at times because the writers changed established facts on a whim, to better suit their unplanned plot.

[BaaBaaBlacksheep]

Ooh I cannot stand Ashley ol' ******-ass. She gets on my goddamn nerves about how she don't like aliens and dumb enough to say "I can't tell the difference of aliens to animals." She's corny, bitchy, close minded, and stupid. Thank God and for BioWare giving me the option to kill her on Mass Effect I did my happy Harlem Shuffle dance after I killed her.

[ZipZap2000]

You do know that Liara is just a perfect manic pixie dream girl. She's the virginal offering and a wish fulfillment fantasy whose her entire existence and personality is central only to Shepard who she worship. She might make an enjoyable game romance but in reality, you're asking for crazy girlfriend. She's the literal female equivalent of Edward Cullen...

She's not real though and neither is Cullen so that makes both those things perfectly fine in an rpg.

[Mordokai]

She's not real though and neither is Cullen so that makes both those things perfectly fine in an rpg.

 

 

Words here.

[Jawsomebob]

Why isn't Kai Leng everyone's answer?

 

Because its mine for sure. And I don't understand how anyone on this planet could not feel the same way.

[Laughing_Man]

Words here.

 

With Liara there exists the possibility of Ménage à trois (she did seem to be open to the idea...), so she is inherently superior...

Also, she is not a fake emo sparkler, so that's another huge advantage in her favor.

[Lucca_de_Neon]

With Liara there exists the possibility of Ménage à trois (she did seem to be open to the idea...), so she is inherently superior...

Also, she is not a fake emo sparkler, so that's another huge advantage in her favor.

She is also a scientist, a biotic, an archaeologist, an information broker and it's not sniffing your clothes or whatever when you are not looking     (i think...wouldn't mind tho). Go, waifu! lol

[legbamel]

I strongly suspect she was sniffing your clothes when you were on missions and keeps whatever armor she salvaged before she turned you over to Cerberus just for that purpose.  As someone who had to be mean to her to avoid the ninjamance and still couldn't avoid freaky mind-melds, her obsession was all the creepier. 

[Lucca_de_Neon]

I strongly suspect she was sniffing your clothes when you were on missions and keeps whatever armor she salvaged before she turned you over to Cerberus just for that purpose.  As someone who had to be mean to her to avoid the ninjamance and still couldn't avoid freaky mind-melds, her obsession was all the creepier. 

Wouldn't have it any other way! jajajajaja

[Dean_the_Young]

Different characters annoy me for different reasons, but I think 'hate' is a wrong word. Disappoint?

 

Across the entire trilogy, Liara is probably the character I least like- not least because she changed for the convenience of the plot, was an ill-fit, and came off as a stalker when I really wasn't that in to her. It was less her than the writers' handling, but she never had much of an appeal in any of her incarnations. To this day I still wouldn't put it past her to use that last 'Embrace Eternity' scene to get preggers, even though Shepard was happily single and kept distance at every opportunity.

 

Greatest disappointments go to Udina, who had a respectable showing in ME1 as someone who was confrontational, but who had valid points and who you could agree with (and could agree with you). He went from a foil for Anderson to a made-to-hate, always antagonistic person for... well, not much reason, except for the broader theme of politicians are incompetent obstructions to the military.

 

Jack was probably the biggest miss for me though. I don't buy into the Woobie archetype, and her backstory was kind of stupid-evil quite frankly, but the subsequent development just missed my station entirely. I think ME3 is improved by her absence, frankly.

[legbamel]

I actually loved Jack's loyalty mission, where she and Miranda both had their visions of their places in the universe upended.  (As a bonus, it validated my loathing of TIM and the freaky organization he'd helped build.)

[gottaloveme]

It's Liara. I agree with legbamel in that she is creepy. And you just can't get rid of her. In ME3 she:

 

wakes Shepard up,

interrupts him in the bathroom

practically takes over the mission (or tries)

annoys the other crew members

has glyph alert her to the fact that Shepard has snuck into her room to use her upgrade computer

and then, there's the citadel dlc where if you invite her into the apartment she will settle herself down and STAY

after being attacked at the sushi place she just turns up on her own when she wasn't there. At least the others are rounded up by Joker who was there.

 

she just annoys the hell out of me. I can't say that I hate her but would prefer she take a long look at things and get over the fact that my Shepards are never going to have anything but a professional and slightly platonic relationship with her. Bioware - please, no more foisting romantic choices on us. You feel like my mother.

 

As for the baby question - I always give that to Miranda - she sends someone to nick Shepard's DNA from Lazarus station and makes a Shepard/Miranda baby. This is what she should confess to on the citadel. Some people never learn.

[ZipZap2000]

Words here.

Ah yes meme words.....

[SlottsMachine]

I always thought the complaints about Liara being a writer's pet fell flat because she had originally been written near completely out of Mass Effect 2. The only reason she returned in LotSB was due to fan blacklash, and her popularity also likely had a part to play in her expanded role in ME3. 

 

People who don't care for the character are still entitled to dislike her of course, but they'd be better off blaming her expanded role on fanservice than writer preference.

 

Not that I care, but just to play devil's advocate there isn't any evidence that any "fan backlash" resulted in the Shadow Broker DLC or more ME3 content. What we do know from the comic and the cut content on the ME2 disc is that she was definitely not forgotten.  From that one can make a reasonable assumption that LotSB was in the works from the start. The VS got a raw deal in ME2 but there sure wasn't cut files relating to them. 

[Han Shot First]

Not that I care, but just to play devil's advocate there isn't any evidence that any "fan backlash" resulted in the Shadow Broker DLC or more ME3 content. What we do know from the comic and the cut content on the ME2 disc is that she was definitely not forgotten.  From that one can make a reasonable assumption that LotSB was in the works from the start. The VS got a raw deal in ME2 but there sure wasn't cut files relating to them. 

 

One of the devs mentioned fan feedback as having had an impact on the development of LotSB. It wasn't worded as 'fan backlash over Liara's cameo,' but something along the lines of, 'fans wanted more time with the old crew.'

 

Having a large role in ME3 was also likely linked to her popularity, considering that the two other fan favorites (Tali & Garrus) rival Liara for content across the series. Both are squadmates in all three games, and Garrus actually gets slightly more content than Liara in ME3, albeit with that content being less tied to the main plot. 

 

It also jives with how Bioware usually rolls. Consider the Dragon Age games. Leliana was the most popular companion in DA:O according to Bioware, and she has returned in every DA game thus far. Varric returned as well, and he was a fan favorite from DA2. Cullen in DA:I? Fanservice for a vocal group of fans who have been swooning over the character since DA:O.

 

It also cuts the other way. Consider Jacob's role in ME3. His romance arc was written out of the series due to lack of interest from fans, even though it required a retcon of sorts (Jacob declares he's in love with Fem Shep in ME2) and reduced the character to a stereotype.

[SlottsMachine]

That's news to me. So it seems to truth lies somewhere in the middle as it often tends to. Its clear they had there own plans all along, and it seems likely fan response played some role in how those plans came to fruition. Interesting how things might have played out differently if Liara had been unpopular. 

[Seraphim24]

I guess for me the question is, what are the Asari really? On the one hand, they are sort of transparently Tolkien Space Elves (long lifespan, etc), and the other hand they are... don't know... it's hard to understand their role.

 

Liara is a part of that on some level but isn't, but since I don't even really understand them generally it's even harder to understand Liara's place in it since she references her experiences as relating to the Asari generally all the time.

[Han Shot First]

That's news to me. So it seems to truth lies somewhere in the middle as it often tends to. Its clear they had there own plans all along, and it seems likely fan response played some role in how those plans came to fruition. Interesting how things might have played out differently if Liara had been unpopular. 

 

I've always wondered whether early plans for Arrival might have also included the Virmire Survivor. The gameplay switch from squad-based combat to solo was a bit odd, and the heavy involvement of the Alliance in the main plot of the DLC would seem to be the perfect setup to have the V.S. return.

[legbamel]

I've always found the Asari confusing as well, if only because each one we meet seems to point out how they're the exception and that there's this somewhat monolithic culture we never get to see.  That's part of the reason Shep's reaction to getting Kai-stomped on Thessia made no sense to me.  We're never really given a feel for this species but we're supposed to be berating ourselves for losing a planet we spent all of two hours trying to save?  Pft.  I was far more upset about Thane losing to Kai Lang than I was about his sorry butt calling in an air strike to defeat me.