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[JPfanner]

bjdbwea wrote...

All that working for Cerberus stuff was just another forced and actually totally unnecessary idea, just like killing Shepard and swapping out most of the crew. Who had the idea that a simple continuation of the story were be a bad thing? I could easily think up a proper story line for that. But, to answer my own question: It was the people who decided the game should be as open as possible for new players, and that, if anything, only the loudest barkers on the forums should be thrown a bone.

Definitely, too much of ME2 felt like a Choose Your Own Adventure book with options like:
"If you disagree about working with Cerberus turn to page 57." 
"If you agree to work with Cerberus turn to page 57."
"If you don't care and want to get back to shooting crap turn to page 57."

I still kept picking the "not working with Cerberus" and "Cerberus blows" options, but really after awhile I didn't care and was just going through the motions.  It didn't matter what made sense or what my character thought, everything was going to happen the same regardless.  Sadly there is probably less stupid dialog to endure if you just go along and think Cerberus invented sunshine and kittens.
Same with the being reanimated.  Jacob tells you that you were just meat and tubes, that you're probably not a clone, and that you've got some extra bits.  Miranda says you don't have a control chip in you.  And that resolves the whole having been dead issue and reanimated by Cerberus, back to shooting stuff!
The whole scene with TIM at the baby reaper was annoying to me as well.  When TIM's hologram popped up my first thought was, "Uh, I didn't authorize data and real time information about the mission to be sent to Cerberus."  Oh wait, I'm just a spectator here.
I enjoy all the speculation and discussion about possible rational explanations for events and their presentation in the game, but it really gets hard to believe much thought was put into anything when you look at how so many story elements were handled across the board.

[bjdbwea]

Of course you're right, but they just don't want to discourage any possible buyers. And one thing is obvious: They take us and all other existing fans as granted sales (and were of course right this time), so for them there's no real downside to making decisions we don't like. We'll see how this turns out with ME 3. I will refrain from buying it if it repeats the mistakes made in ME 2. How many would do the same is anyone's guess, but there might be a surprise for them. I hope it doesn't have to come to this, of course.

[Phen0m20]

justinnstuff wrote...

Driveninhifi wrote...

It's hard to make people play a 2 year old game though. Games advance so quickly and people rarely play old ones.
They've kind of written themselves into a corner with ME3 though - they can't really start it over - there's too much backstory and what, are they going to kill Shepard again? Plus, they've implied there will be DLC that connects the two games.

Yeah, you have a point. Games aren't the same thing as movies and books. They are a lot more expensive too. You know they could bundle the two together and sell them as a pair as a possibility. I guess it's not as simple as I thought. When I first wanted to play ME2, I bought 1 first before the release to catch myself up, but not everyone can just go out and buy games on a whim.

I hear you there. I'm lucky if I get a new game every 4-5 months. So i'm pretty much gaming on a budget, not to mention I have to renew my  xbox live membership in about a month or 2. 

[Driveninhifi]

Sure there are downsides to making decisions the fans don't like. And it's not like they actively hate their fans. They dropped the ball on the ME1 LIs for sure, but the rest of the game is pretty good.



Hopefully they pay attention to why people don't the portrayal and the actual good, well-thought-out reasons that have been given. It would be easy for them to say "well, they don't know the entire plot and are just mad right now" but there are actual, legitimate reasons the game's handling of those characters was done poorly. I think we've given a decent set of complaints that aren't just "I wanted a Liara love scene" - there are actual major problems with the conversation.

[Spectreshadow]

I still think Bioware has something big planned for Liara after the last Redemption issue comes out.

[Driveninhifi]

Oh for sure. Still, it's very odd that Shepard (to whom only like 2 weeks have past since he was last with her) would not ask where they stand when he/she finds out Liara stole his/her corpse and has been trying to avenge his/her death for the past 2 years.

[Nozybidaj]

To be honest, at this point, I don't even care why they messed everything up so bad, I don't care what this big reveal is, I don't care if she is/isn't working for Cerberus, I don't care about any of it. 

So long as at the end of the Liara expansion she is back with Shep and we are given a satisfying continuation of the relationship I don't care about the rest of it.  I don't think at the expac is going to be enough to make up for not being in ME2 I just want our questions answered.

I'm just sick of feeling jerked around and want this chapter brought a close so I know whether or not I have any reason to wait on the next chapter.

[vigna]

So, how long exactly was it between the destruction of Sovereign and the destruction of the Normandy? To me it seems that there would be time to develop the loving relationship between Shep and Liara in the interim. It also make sit more difficult to buy Shepards stoic reaction when he meets Liara on Illium....WTF?

[JPfanner]

AndroLeonidas wrote...

Wait! Wait! Wait!

The big revelation!! What if Cerberus, TIM in particular told Liara something about a particular person that the SB either has prisoner or supposedly has prisoner. What if he is manipulating her to his ends by saying that he will give her resources and all she needs to find this particular person if she remains out of shepard's life.

That person being her "father"?

Haven't heard that before.

Wouldn't this scenario have to depend on the fact that the Shadow Broker and TIM are both capable of finding out guarded personal information on an asari matriarch that her own daughter wasn't aware of for over 100 years?  Plus it also assumes Liara would value someone who threw her away and didn't want anything to do with her for her entire life over Shepard.
I don't want to seem argumentative or anything, but why are people so obsessed with Liara's father?  It just seems to me that Liara was capable of finding out on her own if she really wanted to long before she ever met Shepard.  She brings it up once during the discussion of her being a pureblood and she believed that either Benezia's partner died or didn't want anything to do with Liara.  To me Liara seemed accepting of that and dealt it with it a long time ago.

[Driveninhifi]

vigna wrote...

So, how long exactly was it between the destruction of Sovereign and the destruction of the Normandy? To me it seems that there would be time to develop the loving relationship between Shep and Liara in the interim. It also make sit more difficult to buy Shepards stoic reaction when he meets Liara on Illium....WTF?

It's a month or two from the battle of the citadel and the collector attack. It says at the very beginning of the game, I think.
At the very beginning of the first comic there are a bunch of mercs that attempt to basically rape Liara. One of them is scared of doing so because they know she's one of Shepard's crew. Another responds that Shepard's been missing since the Normandy went down a month before. So Shepard's only been dead a month or so when the comics start.

[Debi-Tage]

133 pages! Showing the love!

[bjdbwea]

Driveninhifi wrote...

So Shepard's only been dead a month or so when the comics start.

And at what point of the two years total is the third issue now?

[jlb524]

So, the GDC is next week! I'm getting hopeful but I'm not getting my hopes up too high.

[screwoffreg]

I guess I am the only one sympathetic to the Illusive Man. Yeah, he is a huge ass, but when you look at your list of potential allies, he isn't the worst. The Alliance/Council are paralyzed and most of the Council races, like the Asari, are not even ready for anything resembling a war (look at the Citadel "fleets" performance).



Most influential people in history, especially those we consider "good" usually had some pretty horrible personality flaws or did some unseemly things. As much as you may hate the idea as well, Shepard IS human, and the Reapers are now particularly human focused. A human defeated Sovereign, a human defeated the Collectors, and a human will lead the attack against the Reapers. Cerberus is at the vanguard of humanities efforts to fight the war.



In Liara's case, if Cerberus is protecting her, realize then without TIM, she would be dead and buried long ago. You don't cross the Shadow Broker and live very long (Fist, for example).

[screwoffreg]

jlb524 wrote...

So, the GDC is next week! I'm getting hopeful but I'm not getting my hopes up too high.

Bioware does have a presentation at GDC dealing with ME 2.  With the Hammerhead coming out at the end of this month, I am sure they have something else scheduled soon.  I don't know if it is Liara related, but we know at least Kasumi has to come out some time...

[Driveninhifi]

bjdbwea wrote...
And at what point of the two years total is the third issue now?

Maybe a couple days after that, tops? The first two probably take place over the course of a day or two. The third has them tailing the body before it's sold, so it can't be very much longer after that.

Don't think the comics could possibly go into what happens in the actual intermediate timeframe. They've still got a bunch to cover in part 4 (recovering the body, Feron's death, giving the body to Cerberus)- unless they do a lame montage thing for the last couple pages there isn't enough space.

Which is why her mentioning her "friend" in game is kind of odd. She hasn't known him for any time at all. Unless he survives this mission and gets kidnapped/killed later, but I don't really see that happening (the game seems to imply he gets captured while they get the body). He's got to either make a heroic sacrifice for Shepard/Liara or she has to get him killed.

[Nozybidaj]

screwoffreg wrote...

I guess I am the only one sympathetic to the Illusive Man. Yeah, he is a huge ass, but when you look at your list of potential allies, he isn't the worst. The Alliance/Council are paralyzed and most of the Council races, like the Asari, are not even ready for anything resembling a war (look at the Citadel "fleets" performance).

Most influential people in history, especially those we consider "good" usually had some pretty horrible personality flaws or did some unseemly things. As much as you may hate the idea as well, Shepard IS human, and the Reapers are now particularly human focused. A human defeated Sovereign, a human defeated the Collectors, and a human will lead the attack against the Reapers. Cerberus is at the vanguard of humanities efforts to fight the war.

In Liara's case, if Cerberus is protecting her, realize then without TIM, she would be dead and buried long ago. You don't cross the Shadow Broker and live very long (Fist, for example).

Ah, come on.  Their "paralysis" is just as much a plot device as everything else (and a poor one at that) to force this "work with the devil" situation in ME2.  No individual who has risen through the ranks to reach a position as representative for their entire race to a galactic body of government would actually be as willfully stupid as the Council is portrayed in ME2. 

I think you may have bought into this whitewash they did of Cerberus a little too much.  Don't forget this is the same guy that thought building an personal army of mindless Rachni and husks was a good idea, the same guy that wiped out your entire unit on Akuze, the same guy that was willing to kill millions of Quarians to get his hands on a single kid (kinda iffy on the last one didn't actually read Ascension, all second hand), the same guy that tried to trick you into giving him sole control of a reaper making facility.  TIM is definitely evil, as least if you look at any of the media outside of ME2.

It still find it highley unlikely that TIM would actually care at all about Liara once he got the body back, from his perspective why not just kill her and get rid of the one person who actually knows you have the body?  She is just a loose end and a wildly unpredictable one at that.

If he is the one protecting her its just one more thing that would feel completely out of place and out of character about ME2.

[Driveninhifi]

He's definitely ruthless in the pursuit of his goals, whatever they may be.

On the Liara point: well, we know for sure that he does not kill her. So he must think she has a role to play. He doesn't strike me as the type of dude to throw away something he thinks he can get some use out of, and someone to distract the Shadow Broker would definitely be useful. I'm not sure if that's what's actually happening, but it doesn't seem too out of place and it would certainly explain a lot.

[vigna]

He can get get use out of Liara because she is Shep's friend or lover.

[Nozybidaj]

/shrug I don't really buy it. Her knowledge of the fact that Cerberus now has Shepard's body is enough to make her a danger to his plans. TIM isn't the kind of person to keep her around just for kicks.



For all the vast resources his organization has he already doesn't have a better safe guard against the SB other than a random Prothean archeologist with no particular espionage skills or established clout in the underworld and that has slightly lost her mind to the point she went searching after a dead guy? That's really the best defense Cerberus can find against the SB?

[Sharn01]

Nozybidaj wrote...

screwoffreg wrote...

I guess I am the only one sympathetic to the Illusive Man. Yeah, he is a huge ass, but when you look at your list of potential allies, he isn't the worst. The Alliance/Council are paralyzed and most of the Council races, like the Asari, are not even ready for anything resembling a war (look at the Citadel "fleets" performance).

Most influential people in history, especially those we consider "good" usually had some pretty horrible personality flaws or did some unseemly things. As much as you may hate the idea as well, Shepard IS human, and the Reapers are now particularly human focused. A human defeated Sovereign, a human defeated the Collectors, and a human will lead the attack against the Reapers. Cerberus is at the vanguard of humanities efforts to fight the war.

In Liara's case, if Cerberus is protecting her, realize then without TIM, she would be dead and buried long ago. You don't cross the Shadow Broker and live very long (Fist, for example).

Ah, come on.  Their "paralysis" is just as much a plot device as everything else (and a poor one at that) to force this "work with the devil" situation in ME2.  No individual who has risen through the ranks to reach a position as representative for their entire race to a galactic body of government would actually be as willfully stupid as the Council is portrayed in ME2. 

I think you may have bought into this whitewash they did of Cerberus a little too much.  Don't forget this is the same guy that thought building an personal army of mindless Rachni and husks was a good idea, the same guy that wiped out your entire unit on Akuze, the same guy that was willing to kill millions of Quarians to get his hands on a single kid (kinda iffy on the last one didn't actually read Ascension, all second hand), the same guy that tried to trick you into giving him sole control of a reaper making facility.  TIM is definitely evil, as least if you look at any of the media outside of ME2.

It still find it highley unlikely that TIM would actually care at all about Liara once he got the body back, from his perspective why not just kill her and get rid of the one person who actually knows you have the body?  She is just a loose end and a wildly unpredictable one at that.

If he is the one protecting her its just one more thing that would feel completely out of place and out of character about ME2.

I would have to agree, there is no way the council is an inept as they portray them in ME2, it was a plot device to force you down the working with the devil storyline.  If you have looked into any of the books, the action's of Cerberus in ME1 and ME2 are some of the most tame experiment's they have done, and even these tame experiment's are definitively evil. 

I fully expect the council to be playing dumb and be given a better portrayal in ME3, if they do not it is an injustice to them, they are quite competent in every medium outside of the games.  Do not forget that they will give you back your Spectre status even if Udina is on the council, he hates Shepard and they out vote him, so they do want Shepard on thier side. 

I think they just went over the top on the portrayal to keep Shepard working for Cerberus, the same way they went over the top in not allowing Shepard to call out Cerberus for their actions or have proper dialog choices with Liara.

Modifié par Sharn01, 06 mars 2010 - 02:32 .

[JPfanner]

I think TIM's goals are to stop the reapers at the most cost to everyone else. He thinks Cerberus is humanity, and guess who Cerberus is? That one Renegade option when Shepard lets the Council die and then says that they saw the chance to take them out and took it pretty much sums up TIM's whole gameplan. Stop the reapers but make sure he's in the top position when the smoke clears.

[Nozybidaj]

Sharn01 wrote...

I think they just went over the top on the portrayal to keep Shepard working for Cerberus, the same way they went over the top in not allowing Shepard to call out Cerberus for their actions or have proper dialog choices with Liara.

Yeah I have the feeling that the whole "amped up" slogan was thrown around so much that it really did come to the point that it hurt the story overall.  Of course with the new customer bsae they were targetting maybe they felt sacrificing story consistency and believabilty was an acceptable trade off to make things "cool".