Mass Effect Series Catch-All

LarryC wrote:

I think the expectation was in people despite the actual content in the game. Shepard not having that much agency is all over the thing from ME2 forwards.

Heh, we've had this conversation many times--talking about my own expectation was that there was going to be more of a pay-off for all the 'mythology' (to borrow a term they use for a TV series with a long, mysterious story like this). Sorry for the confusion from jumping into the agency discussion.

With the name "Shepard" I wasn't very surprised when it ended with a fatalisitc sacrifice. ; D

Ed Ropple wrote:

I get why people didn't like the ending, sure. I was plenty frothy the last time around because I was as convinced as folks still are that the game had blown its promises. But at this point, I find myself intensely skeptical of the claim that the series created those missed expectations. It strikes me as similar to the ending to BSG: it makes a great deal of sense given what you've been shown, not what you may have brought to the table that colored your view of them.

Separating my own projection from the actual media is hard. As I get older I find it more and more worth it when I am able to do so. A couple of years' distance from the hype around the series has done me a lot of good and I feel much better for it.

I think the problem is you're still projecting, just now you're projecting your expectations onto others. My expectations sound a lot different from yours, and the things I brought to the table mostly happened to be right, but in the end I still didn't feel like it all really 'fit' together.

And it's also possible I projected my expectations on to other people, too, and that by and large most people are more like you and less like me. But I still wonder how much of an effect people framing the discussion in negative terms like "wish fulfillment" wound up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, as people trying to get a handle on what their expectations were exactly found themselves influenced by the way others were describing the issues.

I think wish fulfillment gets a bad rap. I said it before that I wouldn't have minded babies on Rannoch or Thessia; and that's not necessarily a bad way to go. Lots of fanfic goes that way, certainly. I'd say the majority I've scanned goes that way. Nothing wrong with that.

The way it's been written feels more powerful and consistent to me, so that's how I prefer it. I usually project a bunch of "possible outcomes" based on hints and metadata, whether in a game or in a movie. We all do it to a greater or lesser extent. How things shook out fell within my expectations. There were many things that clicked, especially the references to old scifi era stuff. It's in many JRPGs, too. Indeed, many anime devolve into incomprehensible crap because they keep trying to do that big reveal near the end that still makes sense. ME3 does it with aplomb, IMO. Could have been indoctrination. There was material for that. Could have gone with a dark matter thing. But the way it turned out was in the cards.

Replaying the series, Shepard was in a suicide mission on Virmire, on the Collector Base, and finally on Earth. Third time's the charm, apparently. Or not depending on how you view transcendence.

Ed Ropple wrote:

I get why people didn't like the ending, sure. I was plenty frothy the last time around because I was as convinced as folks still are that the game had blown its promises. But at this point, I find myself intensely skeptical of the claim that the series created those missed expectations. It strikes me as similar to the ending to BSG: it makes a great deal of sense given what you've been shown, not what you may have brought to the table that colored your view of them.

Separating my own projection from the actual media is hard. As I get older I find it more and more worth it when I am able to do so. A couple of years' distance from the hype around the series has done me a lot of good and I feel much better for it.

I was assuming you'd place a filter of subjectivity on anything I say in regard to the discussion. I guess I didn't do well enough establish self-awareness in regard to my frustration and rage about the endings.

I am sorry you took that particular line as a direct and serious suggestion to you or to those who hold that opinion. The only person I really meant to directly address was Larry, and I think Larry and most others with my opposing view came to an understanding about this a long time ago. At least I hope so.

-redacted- (yeah and I had slipped into kicking up the conversation again)

Besides, Krogans.

CptGlanton:

Finally, someone else notices!

It's true that they really have just one or two models for each race - All the Salarians, krogan, turians - all look the same. What I noted is something that possibly not many have - nearly all the aliens in the game - even the decor NPCs - are male. Which is completely weird. To me, anyway.

The krogan have reasons, but both the Salarians and the turians, too? They have incidental reasons for why we see 0% female species representation?

The Asari are weird in this way - aside from being the "female" race of the galaxy, being predictably all of the one sexy-focused model, their presence in context implies that only in an all-female race would there be equal representation of women in galactic affairs. I say "equal" in the sense that all the other aliens are have nearly 100% male representation.

Their focus on being sexytimes people, covert, indirect, and not particularly forceful seems to stem from their female race identity - something I found vaguely unsettling and inconsistent with their powers. With their natural and powerful biotics, Asari mentally have the pure physical brawn to outmatch krogan on the field. Why don't they have a powerful ground military? With an army of Yodas, you could dispense with small arms and have each soldier cart around their very own artillery piece. Indeed, with their biotics, they ARE their very own artillery piece.

Have you ever faced an Asari Commando before? Few people have.

BadKen wrote:

Have you ever faced an Asari Commando before? Few people have.

Win.

On a more 'serious' note, I always thought that it had a lot to do with them being just kind of 'too lazy' to work out female models, acting, and etc.

It was such a jarring thing that I just kind of forgave and dismissed it as an outcome of resource/technological limitations. These games after all are pretty damn old. Mass Effect 1 was pretty early in the last gen cycle, wasn't it?

Yeah, I remember reading (or viewing) some Making Of thing where they mentioned that they were limited in the number of different character models they could put in the game. That's why no female aliens. There wasn't even a female Turian model until Mass Effect 3.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/IUue8DR.png)

A female turian doesn't have to look different from a male one to us. I'm sure they can distinguish each other just fine in-species, but to us they could look perfectly identical - like many birds or snakes. A different model was simply not necessary for that. Certainly, the female Salarians don't look different. Why don't we see more of them?

And why not have the dominating presentation be female in a mostly two-polar gender race? Maybe the guys are at home managing planetary administration.

Female krogan took three games for them to finally pony up and design (and they had a good lore excuse too).

Salarians.... the only one they did introduce was covered in a headcover and also only came in on third game.

And I think female turian is a code they never cracked.

I really do think it's laziness and/or lack of resources, and not really being able to settle on what they wanted the female look to be.

Quarians, when it was pretty easy because you had no face.. bam. EASY. Same humanoid model, huge helmet, goat feet. Done.

Sure, make it all about the humans. Sure, I guess Shepard was alright, but then it's all "humans this" and "humans that" and then they get a seat on the council, and they won't shut up about it. So it's no surprise that the game has character models for both varieties of humans, because of developer bias in a game made by humans for humans. Then again, not like the Turians make any good games these days. The Salarian version might be fun, but they'd probably also condense the whole trilogy into a couple hours of gameplay.

Pikey26 wrote:

Female krogan took three games for them to finally pony up and design (and they had a good lore excuse too).

Salarians.... the only one they did introduce was covered in a headcover and also only came in on third game.

And I think female turian is a code they never cracked.

I really do think it's laziness and/or lack of resources, and not really being able to settle on what they wanted the female look to be.

Quarians, when it was pretty easy because you had no face.. bam. EASY. Same humanoid model, huge helmet, goat feet. Done.

They did have Nyreen, female Turian in the Omega DLC for ME3, but yes, I agree with you that it was a lack of resources the reason we didn't get them before. At least, that's what my mind told me, and I was able to play the game without having that disconnect.

Makes me think though, those tech limitations were/are interpreted by other people as deliberately not including those models for X reason. Maybe they're right, but I guess it's woth adding them in, and its a win win for everyone. Fans won't complaint about their absence (they will complain about their aesthetics though), and the devs have an even bigger, richer, more detailed universe.

I'd sacrifice a couple of N7 missions for that, although i'm sure the buck ratio isn't the same.

I always liked to think Shepard was running across member of both genders from the other species, she/he just never realized it because, really, how would he/she know?

LarryC wrote:

If what you want is more content, then choosing a different path through the game IS "winning" - you're winning more content that you've never seen.

I agree. That's why I said "my play-to-'win' instinct" with "win" in quotes; knowing that I was conflating my in-character goals with my goals as a player, which is natural, but ultimately became counterproductive to fun or to seeing additional content.

Let me add that this could be a good discussion about "achievements." Done well, achievements encourage experimentation; here, achievements that encouraged playing a certain way encouraged me to think of certain paths as "winning." Instead of just giving an achievement for keeping everyone alive and completing a romance, they could give you an achievement for your crew getting annihilated, or for NOT pursuing a romance, or for any other "bad" path that leads to interesting content. (Alpha Protocol is a good example of this.) This might be a digression, I realize.

CptGlanton wrote:

We need to make a more substantial criticism of Mass Effect's treatment of gender than the outfits and camera angles during cutscenes.

I agree, although I'm not sure I have a ton to add. Like many video games, I enjoyed it despite some pandering to heterosexual males, some of it possibly not even conscious. Technical limitations and the influence of source material allow me to forgive some of that, and I think they made an effort to be more inclusive in response to feedback; but ultimately, sure, I think criticism would be warranted. I think I lack the ability to offer quality criticism myself, but I'd read it with interest.

I was under the impression that in the lore, the Asari appear as the same species-ish as the "viewer".

LarryC wrote:

Their focus on being sexytimes people, covert, indirect, and not particularly forceful seems to stem from their female race identity - something I found vaguely unsettling and inconsistent with their powers. With their natural and powerful biotics, Asari mentally have the pure physical brawn to outmatch krogan on the field. Why don't they have a powerful ground military?

I saw it as an influence of the Dune universe: no one had any idea just how powerful the Bene Gesserit were, and they liked it that way. It allowed them to get things done diplomatically if people didn't feel an obvious military threat. Similar thing going on with the Asari.

maverickz wrote:

I was under the impression that in the lore, the Asari appear as the same species-ish as the "viewer".

That was a fan theory based on some in-game dialogue from Mass Effect 2 in a scene involving multiple races at a bachelor party in a bar on Illium. It was debunked by Bioware.

That scene was funny. Small stuff like that is what I loved about the game.

Which got me thinking, how long do Turians live? Are their life spans just as humans?

I know Krogans and Asari live 1000yrs, and Salarians live about 40, what about Turians?

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Pikey26 wrote:

ps. Can we just talk about stuff besides the ending?

Lead by example.

(Let me start by saying that Mass Effect is my favorite series, warts and all, and my "real" character is a FemShep who is loyal to Liara.)

We need to make a more substantial criticism of Mass Effect's treatment of gender than the outfits and camera angles during cutscenes. Yes, it has a strong female lead, but the race that's the most powerful (before the rise of humans), the Asari, is on the one hand gender-neutral but on the other hand has its appearance based on iconic photos of female models who are dripping wet and is the de facto "stripper race." The series manages to simultaneously deny women accomplishment in science/economics/etc (by making them gender-neutral) and hyper-sexualize them (by making them all look like wet swimsuit models).

Discuss! Or not, whichever.

Uniquely, the asari are known to be perceived as attractive to many other species. At the Eternity bar, a conversation occurs between a human, a salarian, and a turian who are watching an asari dancer. The men debate whose species the asari most resembles. Upon each forwarding their own race, the human theorizes that the asari might be using mind control to appear attractive to other species, but it is more likely that the three men were merely focusing on characteristics their species shares with the asari (e.g., body shape for humans, skin color for salarians, head fringe for turians). All three men compliment the asari's flexibility and grace. This conversation implies that asari are considered attractive to many species, which would prove useful considering their method of reproduction. Mordin Solus postulates that the mechanism behind the asari's cross-species attraction may be neurochemical in nature.

There is some conflicting information regarding the gender of the asari. Though they resemble females, at least to humans, asari are non-gender specific, with no concept of gender differences. Liara says her species is "mono-gendered—male and female have no real meaning for us," and, if asked, says that she is "not precisely a woman". Despite this, the Codex states that the asari are an all-female race, and the Galactic Codex: Essentials Edition 2183 explains that "while asari have only one gender, they are not asexual like single-celled life—all asari are sexually female".

However asari gender is defined, they are innately different from humans, for asari can mate and successfully reproduce with any other gender or species. Although they have one gender, they are not asexual. An asari provides two copies of her own genes to her offspring, which is always an asari, regardless of the species or sex of the "father", and in the case that the offspring is of two asari, the father is the one who does not give birth. The second set of genes is altered in a unique process called melding, also known as the joining.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Asari

Males and females do not differ greatly in physical appearance, but female turians lack the crest of horns found in the males of the race.The lifespan of a turian is comparable to that of a human.

http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Turian

This has all been in there since ME1.

What I never really understood about that is... the Asari were originally a race that had a lot of potential in the psychic powers arena, but they were just a normal race that reproduced biologically. Then the Protheans tinkered with them to increase their abilities, right? So the Asari should retain the capacity for plain old biological reproduction, and they simply eschew it in favor of their mind meld thing. Has it been so long that evolution or whatever has simply started selecting out biological differences in favor of other traits? And they all tend towards the female because if every Asari can reproduce then they all presumably need a way to nurture their kid?

complexmath wrote:

What I never really understood about that is... the Asari were originally a race that had a lot of potential in the psychic powers arena, but they were just a normal race that reproduced biologically. Then the Protheans tinkered with them to increase their abilities, right? So the Asari should retain the capacity for plain old biological reproduction, and they simply eschew it in favor of their mind meld thing. Has it been so long that evolution or whatever has simply started selecting out biological differences in favor of other traits? And they all tend towards the female because if every Asari can reproduce then they all presumably need a way to nurture their kid?

Protheans tinkered with their evolution, but no mention of tinkering with their reproductive methods. They definitely gave them gifts of language, math and stuff ('wisdom') like that.

Their home planet is rich in Element Zero, so many forms of life on their planet exhibit biotic traits.

2 was my favourite. Very closely followed by 1. 3 was meh. I didn't mind the ending but the gameplay was infuriating. To name just one issue I lost count of the number of times I pressed the "cover" button and the game decided that what I really wanted to do was dodge roll into the line of fire and die.

Yeah that sounds about right. Adept is pretty darn op, and one of the best ways to plays especially towards harder difficulties (in me 2 and me 3 anyway).

I can't believe he got past the early parts of me1 doing that though. That could not have been very fun.

nel e nel wrote:

http://kotaku.com/5895616/mass-effec...

One of the first comments is from the ME3 audio lead. I also noticed this background music during my initial playthrough of 3.

That's a nice find.

One of the best things about my last replay of the series was catching and appreciating the great many small things that the audio team did throughout the series that really made the world, the characters, and the story come alive. People like to talk about how important Casey Hudson and Drew Karpyshyn were to the creation of the Mass Effect universe, but it was Jack Wall, Sam Hullick, Christopher Lennertz, Sascha Dikiciyan, Cris Velasco, Rob Blake, and all of the rest of the audio team that gave it its soul.

complexmath wrote:

What I never really understood about that is... the Asari were originally a race that had a lot of potential in the psychic powers arena, but they were just a normal race that reproduced biologically. Then the Protheans tinkered with them to increase their abilities, right? So the Asari should retain the capacity for plain old biological reproduction, and they simply eschew it in favor of their mind meld thing. Has it been so long that evolution or whatever has simply started selecting out biological differences in favor of other traits? And they all tend towards the female because if every Asari can reproduce then they all presumably need a way to nurture their kid?

Well, in the wiki entry it indicates that they still gestate their young, and all the DNA comes from the Asari mother and the other partner plays some role in randomizing the DNA. More generally presuming they are essentially mammilian when it comes to bearing offspring they would all be female in that any Asari can carry an offspring to term (put another way all Asari produce the egg cell required for making a new Asari).

cheeze_pavilion wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Their focus on being sexytimes people, covert, indirect, and not particularly forceful seems to stem from their female race identity - something I found vaguely unsettling and inconsistent with their powers. With their natural and powerful biotics, Asari mentally have the pure physical brawn to outmatch krogan on the field. Why don't they have a powerful ground military?

I saw it as an influence of the Dune universe: no one had any idea just how powerful the Bene Gesserit were, and they liked it that way. It allowed them to get things done diplomatically if people didn't feel an obvious military threat. Similar thing going on with the Asari.

The other factor that I think would come into play is that it is at least implied that a given Asari does not have many offspring. That taken with their long life span I think would make them incredibly averse to any battlefield casualties.

The Krogan however had a crazy high birth rate, and most likely precontact the majority did not make it anywhere close to 1000 years in age.

On the more general subject of gender related issues in the game I think less objectifing moments (e.g. Miranda's outfit in ME2) makes sense. Also I would be perfectly fine with the elimination of any romance story lines for whomever the new protagonist is.

Pikey26 wrote:

Yeah that sounds about right. Adept is pretty darn op, and one of the best ways to plays especially towards harder difficulties (in me 2 and me 3 anyway).

I can't believe he got past the early parts of me1 doing that though. That could not have been very fun.

A point that is very often glossed over is that the combat aspect of the ME series isn't exactly a third person shooter, even though it looks like one superficially. If you play a Soldier, you could conceivably finish the series playing the combat as a third person shooter, and even automate the entire class and inventory build systems to make it more like a TPS. It wouldn't be a particularly great game, though. As is often mentioned, it's just a Gears clone at that point, and Gears is a better Gears.

You can play ME without firing a shot because outside of the Soldier, the ME games are very much a squad-based, tactical, combo-based RPG. Even playing the Soldier, you could actually play it that way and it would be a more engaging experience if you do so. We know this, of course, but I think it stands to be emphasized more in the greater gaming consciousness.

In my most recent playthroughs of ME3 using Adept and Engineer, shooting is actually a rather distant secondary concern. My main concerns are fire arcs, area control, and combo damage.

Garrcia:

The other factor that I think would come into play is that it is at least implied that a given Asari does not have many offspring. That taken with their long life span I think would make them incredibly averse to any battlefield casualties.

Asari are essentially space-elves in blue. Elves, however, are known in fantasy for their powerful armies. There is a gap there.

Are you saying Asari are not known for their powerful armies? Asari Commandos are among the most feared soldiers in the galaxy. The Asari matriarchs we met in the series were known for being the most powerful biotics anywhere, *and* among the wisest leaders. Benezia basically had her own cult built up around her, and her own army of commandos.

LarryC wrote:
Pikey26 wrote:

Yeah that sounds about right. Adept is pretty darn op, and one of the best ways to plays especially towards harder difficulties (in me 2 and me 3 anyway).

I can't believe he got past the early parts of me1 doing that though. That could not have been very fun.

A point that is very often glossed over is that the combat aspect of the ME series isn't exactly a third person shooter, even though it looks like one superficially. If you play a Soldier, you could conceivably finish the series playing the combat as a third person shooter, and even automate the entire class and inventory build systems to make it more like a TPS. It wouldn't be a particularly great game, though. As is often mentioned, it's just a Gears clone at that point, and Gears is a better Gears.

You can play ME without firing a shot because outside of the Soldier, the ME games are very much a squad-based, tactical, combo-based RPG. Even playing the Soldier, you could actually play it that way and it would be a more engaging experience if you do so. We know this, of course, but I think it stands to be emphasized more in the greater gaming consciousness.

In my most recent playthroughs of ME3 using Adept and Engineer, shooting is actually a rather distant secondary concern. My main concerns are fire arcs, area control, and combo damage.

I don't think it's glossed over at all, just talk to all those people that got neck-deep into the multiplayer in ME3.

Even as early as ME2, anyone playing at Insanity difficulty realized ability combo is pretty much the most effective method of breaking down shields and barriers by a mile.

ME1, ability mechanics were not as good as ME2/3 with all their bendy projectiles and what not (plus early combat was not scaled well AT ALL for that style of gameplay).

Also, squad PLAY wasn't that involved imo, beyond having two more primary abilities (one decent from each member) on your bar... at least in my experience. Squad combo was pretty huge and that's about it.