323 replies to this topic

[BloodyMares]

They already changed the Prothean image, now they'll change the Asari. Biotics are not good to your health, man.

[Urizen]

When do you think qunari were rebooted? DA2 or DAI?

 

He most likely will say DA2, given it was the game where their draconic influences were shown first, not knowing that Sten should have looked like this already in DAO, but that look was scrapped due to engine limitations.

 

They already changed the Prothean image, now they'll change the Asari. Biotics are not good to your health, man.

 

Did they change the Protheans? Was it a retcon? Given that we only see one living Prothean and that he clearly states that the empire was comprised of many species, it´s not far fetched to think that the images on Ilos were just a different Race, no? Oh wait, scratch that, that was just too reasonable for this forum. You grab the pitchforks, I´ll get the torches!

[KirkyX]

 

'We do not discuss it with outsiders.'

 

And that'd be more than enough of an explanation for me. If our equivalent of the TOS -> TNG Klingon shift is the Asari growing some eyebrows, then those of us who're actually bothered by stuff like this got off so easy.

 

(And I really do mean 'more' than enough of an explanation--for all seven seasons of TNG, and a fair bit of DS9, it wasn't even commented upon, and that was fine, too. Sci-fi's always been full of this sort of thing, and I generally find it's best not to let it bother you too much.)

[BloodyMares]

Did they change the Protheans? Was it a retcon? Given that we only see one living Prothean and that he clearly states that the empire was comprised of many species, it´s not far fetched to think that the images on Ilos were just a different Race, no? Oh wait, scratch that, that was just too reasonable for this forum. You grab the pitchforks, I´ll get the torches!

From wikia: "In The Art of the Mass Effect Universe, BioWare explains that the Ilos statues do in fact depict Protheans, but their design was intended to be vague because the writers had not yet decided what role Protheans would play in the games. As the Collectors' backstory fleshed out in the second game, their basic look ended up influencing the final Prothean design seen in Mass Effect 3."

This is clearly a retcon (started in ME2). If you look closely on the vision from the Beacon in ME1 then you can clearly see these ctulhu-like species being stuffed with tech. From Ashes however changed this vision and replaced the ctulhu species with the new Collector-like design. Saying that every subservient species calls themselves "Prothean" begs new questions like "Was it really the Protheans who conducted research on Ilos or was it the Inusannon and Protheans didn't accomplish anything on their own except being good at conquering"?

[Sir Froggie]

Klingons were the first thing I thought of after seeing some of these threads.

[Patricia08]

 

 

 

Now these are eyebrows  . 

[KirkyX]

Klingons were the first thing I thought of after seeing some of these threads.

Honestly, this change is so minor that the first thing I thought of wasn't even the Klingons. 

 

The slight redesign they gave the Bajoran nose ridges between TNG and DS9 seems a closer equivalent, and even that's more noticeable--at least to my eye.

[UpUpAway95]

You did NOT just compare that thing they called an Asari to the Mona Lisa, while comparing BioWare to DaVinci in the same sentence.


*Sculls bleach burps fire and charges a Thresher Maw nest in a lava pit on Therum*

 

Get real.  I did not compare the art... I compared the right of the "artist" to not explain their art.  Just the action... nothing else.

[MelThorn]

I think the only thing about the "eyebrows" that bothers me is that they don't seem to have body hair anywhere else. Humans have hair everywhere. Asari never really did look very alien compared to people. So giving them "no eyebrows" did manage to separate them a bit from humanity, since otherwise, they were a little too similar.

 

However... I think I prefer "real" eyebrows over ones that have been mascara'd on.

 

 

Although picturing Liara doing this to herself to make her seem more human would have made her more interesting to me.

[ZipZap2000]

Get real. I did not compare the art... I compared the "artist" not explaining their art. Just the action... nothing else.

Well when you put it like that I feel inclined to offer you a sip of my Ryncol.

[CronoDragoon]

I see Synthesis is having some minor side effects.  

 

[capn233]

I see Synthesis is having some minor side effects.  

 

 

Yeah.  Nobody had the right amount of war assets, so instead of fusing tech and organics it just gave Asari eyebrows.

[Beerfish]

Asari don't have eyebrows. They have facial markings which may resemble eyebrows, or which might be tattooed on above the orbital ridge of the eye, but they do NOT have eyebrows.

 

And for those of you saying "It's just a game" or "It's fiction" or "why do you even care?" there is a very important answer.

 

In previous games, asari did not have eyebrows. None of them did. Not a single one. Not even Liara. The artists of those games could have established asari as having eyebrows through the same tricks that made it look like Shepard has eyebrows, but THEY DID NOT. Therefore, asari do not have eyebrows.

 

This new trailer shows that this asari does have eyebrows. Look closely, there is a difference between the raccoon smudge across her face and the delicate feathering that shows very clearly there are eyebrows.

 

This detail matters. It matters a great deal, because it shows very clearly that Bioware's artists are not paying attention to the established facts. And the only reason that Bioware's artists would not be paying attention to these established details is because the management, the producers and directors of the game, do not care about details.

 

The primary hallmark of any good science fiction is paying attention to the details, however small. If you establish something as a rule, you keep to that rule or point out exactly why it is a violation of the rule, and that explanation had better not violate another established rule.

 

Something as simple as one character having eyebrows who *shouldn't* have eyebrows shows a deep inability to pay attention to the details on the part of the people who are presenting the story. It is a prime indicator of how trustworthy the storyteller is.

 

This asari having eyebrows is a very good indicator that you cannot trust this storyteller, these writers, these artists. They don't care about consistency. They only care about the 'rule of looking good', and that always produces a crappy story.

 

Either that, or they just gave away, in an E3 trailer, this character's story twist that she is actually a human who's been surgically modified to look like an asari.

Actually your bolded part is the part least correct in your post.  The hallmark of sci fi is to do what ever the hell you want any time you want as a game maker /author becasue it's sci fi.  And a new design should come as zero surprise to anyone, BioWare has made changes to establish races/characters in most games they make and can easily explain anything away becasue they are the authors.  (See hornless Sten)

[Monk]

New drinking game!

[von uber]

This just makes them even more humanlike, as well as looking ridiculous. Why would they even have eyebrows and no hair anywhere else?
Why even make the change? Whats next, Turians with beards?

[The One True Nobody]

From wikia: "In The Art of the Mass Effect Universe, BioWare explains that the Ilos statues do in fact depict Protheans, but their design was intended to be vague because the writers had not yet decided what role Protheans would play in the games. As the Collectors' backstory fleshed out in the second game, their basic look ended up influencing the final Prothean design seen in Mass Effect 3."

This is clearly a retcon (started in ME2). If you look closely on the vision from the Beacon in ME1 then you can clearly see these ctulhu-like species being stuffed with tech. From Ashes however changed this vision and replaced the ctulhu species with the new Collector-like design. Saying that every subservient species calls themselves "Prothean" begs new questions like "Was it really the Protheans who conducted research on Ilos or was it the Inusannon and Protheans didn't accomplish anything on their own except being good at conquering"?

 

The statues on Ilos were initially meant to be the Protheans but, yes, were retconned into being a race that the Protheans themselves had built upon. Javik names this race at one point. That the Protheans would have built a lab on in a highly classified site that contained extensive ruins left by the race that had come before makes more than enough sense. A retcon is only worth complaining about when it contradicts itself within its own existence, and since the Protheans were long dead, no one prior to the discovery of the Collectors had any way of confirming what a Prothean's body looked like. They, like the player, may have simply assumed the statues at Ilos were accurate, but Ilos was also the only place these statues were found; none of the other Prothean ruins in the game displayed them, which makes sense if the statues were there before the Protheans built their labs. It may not have been the original intent, but within the creative work, it makes sense.

 

The Asari suddenly deciding to have body hair is like Velociraptors in Jurassic Park 3 suddenly deciding to grow feather mohawks or the Qunari changing appearance between DA: O and DA: II. Maybe there's cause for the change, but it's a jarring aesthetic shift and trying to reconcile the two works simply involves acknowledging that one is copy-pasting over the other. This isn't like the Protheans, where the creators simply decided to go in a new direction from where they were already at. This is a deliberate change to what has already been confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt, and which probably won't make any attempt to reconcile itself with existing material.

[BloodyMares]

I think the only thing about the "eyebrows" that bothers me is that they don't seem to have body hair anywhere else. Humans have hair everywhere. Asari never really did look very alien compared to people. So giving them "no eyebrows" did manage to separate them a bit from humanity, since otherwise, they were a little too similar.

 

However... I think I prefer "real" eyebrows over ones that have been mascara'd on.

 

 

Although picturing Liara doing this to herself to make her seem more human would have made her more interesting to me.

"But we're all hairless".
 

[The One True Nobody]

Actually your bolded part is the part least correct in your post.  The hallmark of sci fi is to do what ever the hell you want any time you want as a game maker /author becasue it's sci fi.

 

An actually good writer adheres the principle that "If anything can happen, it's hard to care what does." That's why the idea of establishing consistent rules within your own work is a hallmark of the genre, both in sci-fi and in fantasy. It's even more important in a videogame, because you also need to establish the limits within which a player must operate, and then integrate those same limits into the story and lore so as to avoid causing the gameplay to feel too limited compared to what is theoretically possible within that world.

[Sir Froggie]

The gif of Liara's eyes made me realize that while she doesn't have eyebrows she does have eyelashes. So she does in fact have hair, just not on her head.

[ZipZap2000]

The statues on Ilos were initially meant to be the Protheans but, yes, were retconned into being a race that the Protheans themselves had built upon. Javik names this race at one point. That the Protheans would have built a lab on in a highly classified site that contained extensive ruins left by the race that had come before makes more than enough sense. A retcon is only worth complaining about when it contradicts itself within its own existence, and since the Protheans were long dead, no one prior to the discovery of the Collectors had any way of confirming what a Prothean's body looked like. They, like the player, may have simply assumed the statues at Ilos were accurate, but Ilos was also the only place these statues were found; none of the other Prothean ruins in the game displayed them, which makes sense if the statues were there before the Protheans built their labs. It may not have been the original intent, but within the creative work, it makes sense.

The Asari suddenly deciding to have body hair is like Velociraptors in Jurassic Park 3 suddenly deciding to grow feather mohawks or the Qunari changing appearance between DA: O and DA: II. Maybe there's cause for the change, but it's a jarring aesthetic shift and trying to reconcile the two works simply involves acknowledging that one is copy-pasting over the other. This isn't like the Protheans, where the creators simply decided to go in a new direction from where they were already at. This is a deliberate change to what has already been confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt, and which probably won't make any attempt to reconcile itself with existing material.

If I can stop being deliberately over the top here for a moment. My major concern is she's not even blue, she's pale with purple blue hues and green veins(?) in her forehead.

When she turns her head, her crest also looks strange. Its as if this chick was actually a human male trying to hide as an Asari using genetic modification.

Which explains the mini explosion and the the knife to the head. Highly unlikely though.

Its not just jarring, it's not Mass Effect. It could and I stress could be indicative of their new direction. Or not.

But.

If I'm right about the shape of Krogan heads in these trailers I'm thinking they've also undergone a change.

We've heard something about Salarians as well and nothing about Turians. This game is going to be different if this is the Asari companion. Which I think it could be.

Whatevs, there better be a replacement LI is all I'm saying.

[Mcfly616]

Looks wise, they dropped the ball entirely. The problem is not even that she's unattractive (though she certainly is), it's that she looks like a naive child. Like we haven't already had an asari playing the innocent adolescent role before. Retread. Hopefully we aren't required to recruit her.

[The Elder King]

If I can stop being deliberately over the top here for a moment. My major concern is she's not even blue, she's pale with purple blue hues and green veins(?) in her forehead.

When she turns her head, her crest also looks strange. Its as if this chick was actually a human male trying to hide as an Asari using genetic modification.

Which explains the mini explosion and the the knife to the head. Highly unlikely though.

Its not just jarring, it's not Mass Effect. It could and I stress could be indicative of their new direction. Or not.

But.

If I'm right about the shape of Krogan heads in these trailers I'm thinking they've also undergone a change.

We've heard something about Salarians as well and nothing about Turians. This game is going to be different if this is the Asari companion. Which I think it could be.

Whatevs, there better be a replacement LI is all I'm saying.

How is the explosion justified in your theory?

So we're going now from not being attractive to not being Mass Effect? Nice.

She looks like an asari to me. She looks different from other asari, but I'd recognize her instantly as an asari. I think they mentioned some changes on the species from the MW though in some off-screen conventions though.

As for the LI, she won't be the only LI in the game (if she'll ever be one). Did you romance only Liara in the ME trilogy?

[The Elder King]

Looks wise, they dropped the ball entirely. The problem is not even that she's unattractive (though she certainly is), it's that she looks like a naive child. Like we haven't already had an asari playing the innocent adolescent role before. Retread. Hopefully we aren't required to recruit her.

If I had to bet if she looks the  same or she'll be different at release, I'd bet on the latter.

Personality wise, it's too early to say anything, in my opinion. She does look young though. 

[fizzypop]

Could be a gene project in which she's half human and half asari would explain why she's on a likely secret mission for a human military. Before you cry about how that's not possible...it sure would be with ME technology. Asari aren't magical beings here they reproduce asexually (Parthenogenesis, yes y'all can claim its sexual or w/e I don't care, but parthenogenesis is an asexual process), but beyond that they are still subject to the same biological and technology advances in ME. So this could be one of the first produced by sexual means via manipulating their DNA or through a genetic project substituting some human DNA with asari DNA.

[The Elder King]

Could be a gene project in which she's half human and half asari would explain why she's on a likely secret mission for a human military. Before you cry about how that's not possible...it sure would be with ME technology. Asari aren't magical beings here they reproduce asexually (Parthenogenesis, yes y'all can claim its sexual or w/e I don't care, but parthenogenesis is an asexual process), but beyond that they are still subject to the same biological and technology advances in ME. So this could be one of the first reproduced sexually by manipulating their DNA or through a genetic project substituting some human DNA with asari DNA.

Considering we got a krogan and a salarian on the team, I don't see how this would be necessary.