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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Jun 20, 2010 11:19:23 GMT 1
Fair enough Knight, besides there's a reason I won't be writing a Sci-Fi original fiction anytime soon since I'm quite bad at comprehending science elements tightly, I'm only making a wild guess. Also you guys probably can tell I've dabbled with EVE online a bit a while ago. For an MMO, I like it's lore, more so than WoW.
While going off topic about ME3, there's one thing I would like to see somewhere in the ME series, a shout out to a certain game called "Star Control 2". I want to see a couple of aliens, probably the batarians, calling humans down right ugly in Shepard's face. As I've recalled in ME2, the way the game has portrayed that humans seem to be attractive to other aliens, so seeing the other side of the opinion where humans are "hideous to the point that the batarian parents tend to punish their kids by showing a picture of a human, to scare the crap out of them" is a refreshing change for me. Bonus points if you run into a batarian who took an interest in you due to his fetish with... the ugly perverted side of the human features. It reminds me of Admiral ZEX from Star Control 2.
Anyways, back to the topic, I've canceled out the MMO speculation for now since bioWare is already working on an MMO and MMO games take a great of effort to produce, more so than a usual single player game. So it's either an RTS or another RPG spin-off that is based a few centuries after after the events that Shepard and Co. jerked around the galaxy. I would love to see another RPG game based on the ME universe but RTS is fine... if BioWare can pull it off.
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Post by jklinders on Jun 20, 2010 11:22:44 GMT 1
True, but we saw what one reaper did to the Arcturus fleet. And Sovereign wasn't even really paying them any mind. I'd be pissed about some kind of black hole weapon myself, but some kind of crazy tech will be needed.
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Post by Knightfall on Jun 21, 2010 2:43:54 GMT 1
EVE Online was pretty cool, but a lot of it went way over my head. Really great visuals though!
And I agree, Till, I would much rather see another RPG than an RTS. Though, depending on how the third one sells, they'll likely try all sorts of things.
And the writers definitely have their work cut out for them. Ending a saga like that is no easy task. Not even Star Wars could get it completely right.
/waits for Buch's eventual rebuttal
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renegadepoint
Lieutenant
Lets all take a step back from the weird alien impaling devices...
Posts: 188
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Post by renegadepoint on Jun 21, 2010 7:56:14 GMT 1
I want them to do a game where you start your own merc group. And you choose either crime lord contracts, or do contracts for various governments. You use credits to buy yourself better weapons and armor, as well as outfit your troops, whom you have to recruit. Something like what Brutal Legend tried to do, but better. (Only using Brutal Legend as an example. I think that game could have been awesome if it wasn't so... well if you played it you know)
We all have our fantasys. As long as they don't go the Halo route its fine with me.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Jun 21, 2010 12:16:04 GMT 1
That kinda reminds me of Wing Commander: Privateer 1, with the whole merc, factions and shady stuff.
Yes, I've played Brutal Legend, I know what you're talking about.
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Post by Mister Buch on Jun 21, 2010 12:34:37 GMT 1
Ending a saga like that is no easy task. Not even Star Wars could get it completely right. /waits for Buch's eventual rebuttal Actually, I agree. Return of the Jedi is a great movie, but definitely sub-par to the others. I love Luke/Vader's ending, and the space battle is good, but the whole Ewok thing is bad, and Han's character is reduced to comic relief. Could have been better. And I too wonder if the oh-so-busy BioWare will find time to write a fitting end to the series. The fact that they're planning further games only makes me worry more - like though this is Shepard's end, it's not the end for them... so maybe that will make their third act less dramatic. -- Till - I totally agree about the 'ugly humans' / Admiral Zex element - ME could use some of that. And less mineral collecting. Seems like Bioware took all the wrong elements from those RTS games. Till got me playing that game (Star Control 2) recently, and it was wierdly similar to ME2 in regards to the galaxy map and mineral gathering. (And the synth-style soundtrack too) Makes me think Bioware got some inspiration from it, or at least from similar examples of the genre at the time.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Jun 21, 2010 15:27:27 GMT 1
Strangely enough, if BioWare got their inspiration from Star control 2, then why not make a shout out to the VUX race, Admiral ZEX and the whole deal of "humans are butt ugly" in ME2? Since we have the idea of aliens getting attracted to humans, so why not have the opposite end, showing that humanity isn't always pretty like every other fricken Space Opera. Hopefully BioWare can rectify that in ME3.
The closest you can get to that is the romance sub quest with Garrus. If you look closer to the subtext of his dialogue, it implies that humans seem to be... alien at best when it comes to his aesthetic senses and at worse as Shepard puts it when it comes turian appearances... ugly.
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Post by jklinders on Jun 21, 2010 16:13:10 GMT 1
OK Tillian, I'll bite.
I'm really not convinced that humans are considered beautiful by the other races in the ME universe at all.I never read the books, and from the games I saw very little direct reference on any scale of attractiveness.
i'll Start with the easiest for my own speculation, the Asari. Easily the most human like in appearance. But attractiveness from an Asari standpoint seems to be on a strict Darwinian scale. "Does this person have good genes to give my daughter the best edge" While Asari can be monogamous by choice, there is no cultural requirement for it and since their standards are not superficial based on looks alone we can actually completely discount their opinion. After all all races are 'beautiful to them.
Almost as easy are Batarians. I did get a direct reference from somewhere that they consider humans to be hideously ugly. Could be sore loser syndrome, but they also feel that 2 eyed species are inferior to them (straight from the codex). These xenophobic fellows are conditioned to see themselves as superior and other to be ugly.
Krogan, I have no choice but to speculate on the very limited info given. They seem to value strength and size (indicating predatory success) first. And a very close second would be likelihood of fertility because of how twisted around they are by the genophage. Aside from size and aggression, I doubt looks come into it at all.
Garrus makes it clear that turian standard of attractiveness are very different from human. Furthermore, the turian standard is mutually exclusive from the human standard. Turian waistlines differ from humans and humans do not have a metallic fringe. I don't doubt that Turians find humans every but as ugly as humans find Turians.
Salarians treat their reproduction like a legal contract. I honestly do not think there is any call to go more in depth than that. No marriage, no love no sense of what beauty in the sexual sense is.
At the end of the day I expect the whole humans are attractive angle comes from the writers of the media being human and writing for humans. I really doubt that if aliens were to show up we would find them attractive or vice versa. Beauty is as much a cultural standard as it is a physical standard. 100 years ago having some meat on your bones was a sign of health and wealth. now it is considered by some very pig minded people that if a woman has more than 90 lbs on her body she is "fat" and "unattractive". This is only a small stretch of time in our own species. Take this a few hundred steps further, different planet, different culture different species and you can see why it is close to impossible to understand what an alien races sense of beauty is.
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Jun 21, 2010 17:21:58 GMT 1
I was probably exaggerating about the ugly part within Garrus' Romance sub plot, but you're right about sapient ideal beauty within the Mass Effect universe. I suppose the reason why I've thought humanity was being "under the impression" of one of the attractive species is due to the fact, we're playing within a human perspective, creating an unreliable narrator PoV. There's a few things that does made me pondered about other aliens being attracted to humans.
First of, the quarians. To be fair, getting into a relationship with another species as a quarian is unothodox at best. I've would have forgiven the Tali romance sub-plot if it weren't for the fact that she mention that she have an absolute crush on Shepard since the day they met, instead of having an idea where Tali's trust on Shepard grew to the point of she wanted to take the relationship into the next step, like the Garrus romance. And It's not just Tali, there's also that other quarian in the Eternity bar, who bitches about her human boyfriend. So, what do quarians sees in humans? Either BioWare is doing a Retcon or there's a certain attraction with humanity.
As for the krogans, to be fair, despite my laments about getting unwanted harem with my FemShep with other species trying to get into her pants... especially with the Krogan women after she and Grunt killed a Thresher Maw on foot, it had nothing to do with looks as you said. They fancied battle scars more than simple aesthetic beauty. So yeah, you're probably right, the only reason why one of the Krogan women ask a request to "breed" with Shepard is due to her/his prowess in the battle. Again, as you said, it's all about strength and battlefield prowess that attracts krogan.
Thinking carefully through about this, I suppose at the end of the day, humanity is on the same boat with the other species when it comes to aesthetic appeal. Mass Effect might not be perfect but at least it still takes the idea of interspecies relationships in a more believable tone. As for the unwanted harem, I've particularly blame Shepard him/herself for being a Memetic Sex God/dess. You gotta admit that Shepard attracted a lot of people during the course of the game.
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Post by jklinders on Jun 21, 2010 17:38:22 GMT 1
Well the tali romance in general was a bit of a retcon. The writers had no concept that the fans would be into a character "with chickenfeet". I'm guessing the Garrus romance may have been fanservice as well, but unlike Tali I have not heard or read an interview to back that up. just goes to show how obsessive some guys can get with the whole "I wonder what she looks like under the mask" thing.
Since we are talking about overly attractive humans. ME seems to have precisely two human character models. Seriously take the heads off the models and look at them all all from the neck down. With the exception of Miranda (who is disproportionate to the point of being unhealthy looking) you have the same height, build, musculature as if they were all genetic clones. For the record I do not think this was on purpose. I think it is the game engine limiting creative control over the characters. But when you as a player are seeing EVERY human character to be at the height of physical conditioning, I believe there is no preventing something from ticking over in your brain.
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Post by Mister Buch on Jun 21, 2010 23:56:01 GMT 1
Regarding whether or not Tali and Garrus' romances are fanservice or justified in the plot... it really is just opinion.
I'm always torn on this - but not having played through either one of those romance plots, I can't say for sure. Certainly there was nothing at all in ME1 that indicated Shepard and s/he had any chemistry or romantic interest. But - Tali has changed a lot between games, and hell, Garrus... sure why not. I can believe that.
....
Anyway, the point of the discussion-
Yeah... good points, both of you. I'd also make a point about how humans resemble the universally-loved asari and maybe their aesthetic appeal rubs off on us.
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Post by jklinders on Jun 22, 2010 0:58:19 GMT 1
Regarding whether or not Tali and Garrus' romances are fanservice or justified in the plot... it really is just opinion. I'm always torn on this - but not having played through either one of those romance plots, I can't say for sure. Certainly there was nothing at all in ME1 that indicated Shepard and s/he had any chemistry or romantic interest. But - Tali has changed a lot between games, and hell, Garrus... sure why not. I can believe that. .... Anyway, the point of the discussion- Yeah... good points, both of you. I'd also make a point about how humans resemble the universally-loved asari and maybe their aesthetic appeal rubs off on us. Oh all right, even if it was not their original intentions it does not have to be fan service. Point was there was an interview i read that indicated that Tali was not meant to be a romance option. that's fine, I thought the Tali romance kind of well done as the ME 2 romances went. Garrus' was, well awkward but OK I guess. As for the resemblance to Asari, Well I did kind of mention that in passing a couple posts back, but also remember the bachelor party in the bar in Nos Astra? A human, turian and salarian all said the asari stripper looked like their respective races. Maybe they are using some kind of jedi mind trick to make everyone horny for them. ;D
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Post by Tillian Panthesis on Jun 22, 2010 6:30:45 GMT 1
Actually I've read somewhere a while ago from an interview that Tali was meant to be Romance interest back in ME1 but was later veto due to the fact that BioWare feared that the players wouldn't get interested in her because of the helmet and the chicken legs. Which explains why Tali's romance was decently written, not saying it's ridiculous but I can be a little jaded sometimes.
As for Garrus, it's was definitely for fan service, I can't pinpoint a interview to prove it as well, but I've read at one point from an interview with Casey Hudson that he was quite surprised with the fans attraction to a "bird/dinosaur" guy. So yeah. I agree Garrus' romance was awkward at best, I've even laughed at the beginning sequence to the ending of the romance (flux music, supportive waist... really?), but it's alright, much more better than Jacob's romance. I've kinda forgiven him because he's a turian... and clueless about wooing a human girl. To be fair, I've kinda feel bad laughing at that scene once Garrus just falls apart and spill everything out at the end.
Anyways, with the asari stripper back in Illium, I suppose the aliens sees the aesthetic attraction in a different way, not really a mind trick. Think of like how Krogans were obsessed with big chunk war scars and humans attraction to... certain female parts. Turians seem to be crazy about those head fringes like human women with beefy chest packs on human men :X, while the salerian has a thing with flexibility. Bottomline, alien eyes has... different aesthetic appeal to their taste, same goes to humans as well.
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Post by jklinders on Jun 22, 2010 14:54:22 GMT 1
Thank you so much Tillian for reminding me of jacob's romance. "...but the priiiiizzzee. As for the Tali romance, maybe you saw the same interview I did but we interpreted it differently. And perhaps the universal attractiveness of the asari is explained by them being the only universally accepted species to be strippers.
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renegadepoint
Lieutenant
Lets all take a step back from the weird alien impaling devices...
Posts: 188
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Post by renegadepoint on Jun 23, 2010 8:17:25 GMT 1
You know what I want to see in Mass Effect 3, a bisexual turian with a lisp and his krogan lover. It could be a side mission called "Thug love" or something.
I find it difficult to take any of the romantic sub plot seriously. Love storys are just something I never wanted to see in a video game. And I pretty much only do them for the achievement points.
If I had to pick a favorite, I'd go with Miranda('s ass) for ME2, and Ashley for ME1. At least Ashley's seemed natural.
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