285 réponses à ce sujet

[Barquiel]

JeanLuc761 wrote...

They trust him implicitly and would follow him to hell and back; what possible reason would they have for leaving?"

BW also found a way to sideline our ME1 or DA:O LIs. I doubt Garrus or Tali would be a problem (if they want to sideline them).

[JeanLuc761]

Barquiel wrote...

JeanLuc761 wrote...

They trust him implicitly and would follow him to hell and back; what possible reason would they have for leaving?"

BW also found a way to sideline our ME1 or DA:O LIs. I doubt Garrus or Tali would be a problem (if they want to sideline them).

Valid point though I'm sincerely hoping that Bioware realizes that was a big mistake on their part (at least with how they were handled).

[Collider]

Barquiel wrote...

JeanLuc761 wrote...

They trust him implicitly and would follow him to hell and back; what possible reason would they have for leaving?"

BW also found a way to sideline our ME1 or DA:O LIs. I doubt Garrus or Tali would be a problem (if they want to sideline them).

This is the last game in the trilogy. Ashley Kaidan and Liara were sidelined so they can survive to have bigger roles in ME3. This way of handling them also levels the field for the ME2 romances - the ME1 and ME2 romances will both have two games to them.

[WarlordFil]

I would just be really disappointed if we didn't get squad mates from the first two games back in ME3.



Bioware did so much character building that I have come to like those characters, and want them back.



I think if you got a lot of people killed in the final ME2 mission, your team should be smaller in ME3...with the smallest perhaps being you, Ashley/Kaiden, and Liara.



And if you have a lot of other allies...like the quarians, the rachni, the krogans, etc....the game might still be winnable with a small surviving team.



I mean, considering even SHEPARD is killable, BioWare has to have a contingency plan for someone who got Shepard killed.



I hardly think they're going to not use Shepard just because S/he is killable.

[ratzerman]

jlb524 wrote...

Ecael wrote...

I've also noticed that Liara fans (especially) have some kind of latent pessimism about the returning squad in Mass Effect 3.

We've been burned once...why should we let it happen again?

Exactly.  Look at what Bioware did to Liara (and Ash/Kaidan).  Our pessimism is warranted.. 

[Collider]

ratzerman wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Ecael wrote...

I've also noticed that Liara fans (especially) have some kind of latent pessimism about the returning squad in Mass Effect 3.

We've been burned once...why should we let it happen again?

Exactly.  Look at what Bioware did to Liara (and Ash/Kaidan).  Our pessimism is warranted.. 

This is the last game in the trilogy. Ashley Kaidan and Liara were
sidelined so they can survive to have bigger roles in ME3. This way of
handling them also levels the field for the ME2 romances - the ME1 and
ME2 romances will both have two games to them.

[jtav]

What I find interesting is that Liara fans seem much more cynical than Ash/Kaidan fans. Wonder why?

[Ecael]

ratzerman wrote...

jlb524 wrote...

Ecael wrote...

I've also noticed that Liara fans (especially) have some kind of latent pessimism about the returning squad in Mass Effect 3.

We've been burned once...why should we let it happen again?

Exactly.  Look at what Bioware did to Liara (and Ash/Kaidan).  Our pessimism is warranted.. 

Another uncooperative Liara fan... read my responses to jlb524 to answer your statement.

[Yeled]

Collider wrote...

Barquiel wrote...

JeanLuc761 wrote...

They trust him implicitly and would follow him to hell and back; what possible reason would they have for leaving?"

BW also found a way to sideline our ME1 or DA:O LIs. I doubt Garrus or Tali would be a problem (if they want to sideline them).

This is the last game in the trilogy. Ashley Kaidan and Liara were sidelined so they can survive to have bigger roles in ME3. This way of handling them also levels the field for the ME2 romances - the ME1 and ME2 romances will both have two games to them.

I've heard these points brought up quite a bit, but honestly I don't think either is valid. 

BioWare sidelined the ME1 LIs because they needed them to survive, but sidelining them wasn't the only way to accomplish that.  There could have been story reasons to take them out of the actual suicide mission, for example, insuring they survive.

And regarding leveling the playing field...does that really make any sense at all?  Is BioWare making its story decisions based on fairness?  I honestly hope not.

I personally think BW opened a huge can of worms with their story decisions in ME2.   They've painted themselves into a corner they may not have anticipated, with no real way out.

[Collider]

BioWare sidelined the ME1 LIs because they needed them to survive, but sidelining them wasn't the only way to accomplish that.  There could have been story reasons to take them out of the actual suicide mission, for example, insuring they survive.

Of course it wasn't. The question is, is it worth having them be prominent in the storyline yet not squad mates? How would you justify Ashley and Kaidan helping Shepard but not fighting with Shepard? Ultimately the goal was accomplished - Ash Kaidan and Liara all had justification not to join Shepard, thereby in the process surviving. For Ash and Kaidan it's not much of a stretch for them not to want to join a terrorist organization. Liara's traumatic experience with the Shadow Broker has her wanting revenge.

And regarding leveling the playing field...does that really make any sense at all?  Is BioWare making its story decisions based on fairness?  I honestly hope not.

It's clear that Bioware makes storyline decisions in conjunction with other goals and considerations.

I personally think BW opened a huge can of worms with their story decisions in ME2.  
They've painted themselves into a corner they may not have anticipated, with no real way out.

You said it yourself - Ash Kaidan and Liara didn't have to be sidelined, Bioware had it within their power not to sideline them. Yet there's "no real way out" for ME3...?

Modifié par Collider, 15 mars 2010 - 04:32 .

[Ecael]

Barquiel wrote...

JeanLuc761 wrote...

They trust him implicitly and would follow him to hell and back; what possible reason would they have for leaving?"

BW also found a way to sideline our ME1 or DA:O LIs. I doubt Garrus or Tali would be a problem (if they want to sideline them).

Dragon Age: Origins? You mean with the rushed-in-four-months-by-EA expansion pack?



The team working on the Dragon Age expansion is too busy destroying the main plot and ending of Dragon Age to worry about romance options in the expansion. No company rushes an expansion out in 4 months, not even for EverQuest (up to 16 expansions now) or even for The Sims (epitome of pointless recycled content). There is no point to comparing Mass Effect to Dragon Age, which hasn't even seen an expansion (yet).

Mass Effect 1 romance-ables were technically sidelined to keep them alive for ME3 and to reduce the number of plot possibilities for each character.

[Multifarious Algorithm]

WarlordFil wrote...
I hardly think they're going to not use Shepard just because S/he is killable.

If Shepard dies the game doesn't make a save. It's not an importable playthrough - you really have basically "failed" the trilogy.

[Ecael]

Yeled wrote...

I've heard these points brought up quite a bit, but honestly I don't think either is valid. 

BioWare sidelined the ME1 LIs because they needed them to survive, but sidelining them wasn't the only way to accomplish that.  There could have been story reasons to take them out of the actual suicide mission, for example, insuring they survive.

And regarding leveling the playing field...does that really make any sense at all?  Is BioWare making its story decisions based on fairness?  I honestly hope not.

I personally think BW opened a huge can of worms with their story decisions in ME2.   They've painted themselves into a corner they may not have anticipated, with no real way out.

I suggested once that BioWare could have made you choose between Ashley/Liara/Kaidan in ME2, and then have them kidnapped with the rest of the crew for the final mission (and, like Dr. Chakwas, have them survive regardless of how long you take).

Like I mentioned in my previous post, this opens up way too many plot possibilities to write for in ME3 - thus, they're not opening a can of worms, they're trying to contain a can of Thresher Maws.

Unless you have a better solution than that, it's a sound argument.

[Tlazolteotl]

To be fair, it's not really going to be an expansion pack.

I doubt there'll be enough content .. they're just calling it that 'cos it's too expensive to be DLC.

[Ecael]

Tlazolteotl wrote...

To be fair, it's not really going to be an expansion pack.
I doubt there'll be enough content .. they're just calling it that 'cos it's too expensive to be DLC.

Exactly. Greedy business strategy, but it works.

Large DLC = Expansion! Costs only 40 dollars! No romance or most characters available!

After playing Return to Ostagar, I cancelled my pre-order for the DLC expansion.

[Barquiel]

Collider wrote...

This is the last game in the trilogy. Ashley Kaidan and Liara were sidelined so they can survive to have bigger roles in ME3. This way of handling them also levels the field for the ME2 romances - the ME1 and ME2 romances will both have two games to them.

Well, Dragon Age isn't a trilogy and who returns as a companion in Awakening? the only character who can't die

http://social.biowar...index/1315492/1
(3rd post)

[Blackveldt]

JohnnyDollar wrote...

Collider wrote...

Johnny, you have NO idea who the default Shepard will have alive in ME3. The only precedence we have is Wrex. The ONLY one.

All squad members can be killed in ME1 and ME2 except for Liara.  Wrex is no more of a precedent than any of the others.  Why is he a precedent seperate from everyone else?

Under your assumptions, it would be Liara's story instead of Shepard's--Shepard can die as well.  Possibility does not equate actuality.

[Collider]

Barquiel wrote...

Collider wrote...

This is the last game in the trilogy. Ashley Kaidan and Liara were sidelined so they can survive to have bigger roles in ME3. This way of handling them also levels the field for the ME2 romances - the ME1 and ME2 romances will both have two games to them.

Well, Dragon Age isn't a trilogy and who returns as a companion in Awakening? the only character who can't die

Dragon Age isn't Mass Effect.

[spacehamsterZH]

Here's another simple fix for this purely hypothetical "but they can all die, so why would they be in ME3" problem: with an imported save, you get whoever survived. With a new character, you can choose up to, say, six squad members to have survived, the rest are considered dead. This way a new player could access all of the content in the game easily in two playthroughs, nothing will have gone to waste, it all makes perfect sense story-wise and there isn't even a need to establish much of a canon ending for ME2. Ba-dam, problem solved, everybody calm down already.



I'm not saying I know that's what's going to happen, of course, my point is that I can easily think of a number of ways this could be handled so that it doesn't have to be a problem, and we've been told that ME2, unlike the first game, was put together with the third part of the trilogy in mind, so it's pretty weird to assume BW somehow accidentially painted themselves into a corner with the feature (i.e. the Suicide Mission) that the whole damn game is built around.



But yeah, I know, Liara's not a squaddie in ME2, so obviously they can't get anything right and will screw it all up because waah waah, I want my tentacle porn. *eyerollgasm*

[Barquiel]

Collider wrote...

Dragon Age isn't Mass Effect.

I know; but it's a Bioware game;)

[Collider]

Dragon Age never had the whole "import your Character" thing going for it. Awakenings is also not the end of the Warden's adventures so far as we (or I) know. Whereas Mass Effect 3 is the end of Shepard's story.

Modifié par Collider, 15 mars 2010 - 04:51 .

[Ecael]

Barquiel wrote...

Collider wrote...

This is the last game in the trilogy. Ashley Kaidan and Liara were sidelined so they can survive to have bigger roles in ME3. This way of handling them also levels the field for the ME2 romances - the ME1 and ME2 romances will both have two games to them.

Well, Dragon Age isn't a trilogy and who returns as a companion in Awakening? the only character who can't die

http://social.biowar...index/1315492/1
(3rd post)

Do you simply ignore previous and future posts that do not fit your argument?

You can make Oghren have -100 disapproval, ruin his love life with both Branka and Felsi, kill him several times through gameplay (once in camp too!), and THEN tell him to leave your party permanently before ever seeing Fort Drakon. Yet they're still bringing him back. Why? Probably because Steve Blum was just finished voicing Mass Effect 2.

The expansion writers don't care about what actually makes sense - like I said, they're too busy taking a hammer to wreck the ending in order to get the DLC expansion out in time.

I should guess your pessimism is warranted. Looking at your signature, you're fairly adept at setting yourself up for disappointment.

[ratzerman]

Ecael wrote...

ratzerman wrote...

Exactly.  Look at what Bioware did to Liara (and Ash/Kaidan).  Our pessimism is warranted.. 

Another uncooperative Liara fan... read my responses to jlb524 to answer your statement.

Uncooperative?  Who am I supposed to be cooperting with?

I was OK with Liara not being recruitable.  But the lengths Bioware went to push her fans away  has destroyed any faith I once had in the company.  Not only did they tell you right off the bat that she can't be trusted, they also (seemingly) turned her into a stone-cold killer.  Then they hid her most important cutscene, where she breaks down and explains why she was acting so strangely, behind a one-chance decision on the dialogue wheel.  Miss it, and her drastic changes went unexplained.

Nearly two months after release, I still see posts all over this (and other) forums saying "what happened to Liara?  She's a crazy beee-otch now. I dumped her blue butt, and boned Tali instead. WIN."  Do you have any idea how much that hurts?  To see a beloved character unjustly belittled and mocked?

On top of all that, they made her and Shepard all but ignore their romance.  The only difference in the entirety of her scenes for those who romanced her was an awkward kiss.  There isn't one dialogue option for Shepard that even HINTS at a romance.  How did Bioware go from "She's so important, she can't go on the suicide mission" all the way down to "she's so unimportant, we're going to assume the romance never happened."

Sorry for the wall of text.  I don't want to derail the thread, but I think labeling us a "uncooperative" was a little pompous.  I think you needed to know where our pessimism was coming from.

[Yeled]

[quote]Collider wrote...


Of course it wasn't. The question is, is it worth having them be prominent in the storyline yet not squad mates? How would you justify Ashley and Kaidan helping Shepard but not fighting with Shepard? Ultimately the goal was accomplished - Ash Kaidan and Liara all had justification not to join Shepard, thereby in the process surviving. For Ash and Kaidan it's not much of a stretch for them not to want to join a terrorist organization. Liara's traumatic experience with the Shadow Broker has her wanting revenge. [/quote]

For people vested emotionally in those characters?  Yes, it would have been worth it.  And frankly you could have even made the squadmates if you had wanted to.  Just make them unavailable in the final run by giving them something vital to do that takes them out of harms way.  Now, this might not have fit the formula, but it was doable.

As for Liara's motivation...I'm still very unclear on that point.  Why, exactly, is she obsessed with the Shadow Broker?  Nothing we've seen so far justifies that.  She risked her life to recover your corpse because she "couldn't let you go."  Whether she's your LI or not she is clearly deeply attached to Shepard.  She's the only ME1 squadmate who doesn't move on after you're dead. 

But now that you're actually alive and about to go on a suicide mission from which you could potentially die, she is too preoccupied with other matters to deal with you.  Yeah, that makes sense.


[quote]
You said it yourself - Ash Kaidan and Liara didn't have to be sidelined, Bioware had it within their power not to sideline them. Yet there's "no real way out" for ME3...?[/quote]


[/quote]

Oh, sure, BioWare can do what it wants.  It can contrive any excuse to include or not include anyone they like.  Its simply my personal opinion that their intentions were to not bring the ME2 group back as squadmates, and now they kind of have to unless they want to make all their fans unhappy.  I could be wrong about that.

I think that BioWare doesn't seem to understand (or maybe they do now, but didn't previously), that if you make a sequal most people want the characters in which they are emotionally invested to return.  Your Shep (and mine) have a story, and a world that has built up around her.  This includes relationships (not only romances but friendships, bonds of trust, enemies, allies, rivals, etc.) as well as the results of one's actions.

When they rebooted the story in ME2, they dropped most of that.  Tali and Garrus returned, and those two characters represent the entirety of what you bring with you from ME1.  The alliance is against you, any allies you had simply make cameo's (not just the LI's, but others), the world doesn't seem to react to you or what you've done, etc.  A whole host of new characters are introduced, which is highly unusual for the middle chapter of a trilogy.  Middle chapters are usually about building relationships, not introducing new ones.

Now we are faced with the same problem in ME3.  We have a new host of relationships and a world that has reacted to a new set of actions and decisions...and people rightfully want to see those things carried forward into the next installment.  The question is will BioWare bring them forward, or will they do what they did before:  Prepare a game for a new audience that maybe didn't play the first two games, that starts completley from scratch.

I'm afraid I no longer have faith in BioWare to make solid story choices, and the pessimistic Liara fan side of me believes that a lot of people, including Liara fans, are going to be disappointed by the choices they do make.

Modifié par Yeled, 15 mars 2010 - 04:55 .