Mass Effect General Discussion (spoilers)

I want to say the Brotherhood of Steel in every game expect Fallout 3 can rot, but I suspect you dislike the Lyons Chapter as well.

Either way, Tallis was a far worse character than Veronica.

edited 5th Feb '16 3:21:46 PM by VeryMelon

Fun fact: This issue has come up before. Tali was supposed to be a bi option, but Ash Sroka wasn't comfortable with recording it. So they didn't.

So...that argument is kind of null.

My president told me the Brotherhood were a bunch of power armored boy scouts and not to trust them!

edited 5th Feb '16 3:38:22 PM by Nikkolas

You mean the AI that was not democratically elected, not created by anyone democratically elected, and all in all has absolutely no basis for his authority besides "because I said so?"

Except that they did not plan to have Tali be a romance option when they created the character and picked her VA. The issue only occurred after 1. And since all bi options were dumped in 2 anyway...

And changing the voice of a character who has no face is kind of a big deal. Especially since Quarians require limited voice modification compared to other races (krogan, turian or salarian). They just have an accent, except for Reegar (which is another reason I am not a superfan of him - he feels just wrong being the sole Quarian who sounds like he comes from the US).

edited 5th Feb '16 3:42:23 PM by Julep

But at least Ash Sokra wasn't publicly tweeting homophobic comments. I mean, it's okay to be uncomfortable to be acting a character you can't really relate to; it's another thing to completely misinterpret gay marriage and make it about a father having sex with his son.

That too. If I recall, neither was Garrus. It just so happened both he and Tali became such fan favorites that a lot of people were begging for them to be romanceable.

Tali, Jack and Thane were supposed to be bi in 2. Tali's was dumped because her VA wasn't comfortable, and the other 2 were dumped because - I think - either BW or EA got cold feet and decided to avoid making the usual homophobic suspects react. Which is a shame because both would have been awesome gay options.

Tali, Miranda and Thane. I've seen nothing about Jack.

Honestly, it was probably a space issue. I mean, the only reason the recruitment missions come in two waves is because the game had to be split onto two discs for Xbox. And voice acting tends to be one of the more space intensive things about a game.

edited 5th Feb '16 3:48:51 PM by BadWolf21

I am pretty sure the gay lines that were recorded then removed were for Jack and Thane. Like Tali, Jack also kept the gay tease without going further.

Yes but it has become a (litterally) virtual non-issue now that consoles have hard-drives.

edited 5th Feb '16 3:49:49 PM by Julep

And so they ended up teasing us instead with Jack and Tali's lines just hinting at them having some interest with Fem!Shep.

...

Not so much hinting with Jack so much as bashing you over the head with a biotic slam, but you get my drift.

EDIT: Wait, doesn't Jack's history hint at her being involved with a guy and girl at one point?

edited 5th Feb '16 3:50:04 PM by ITNW1989

Wait, what? This is bullshit. Femshep could have been with Miranda?

I was fucking cheated! All of ME I was looking for a relationship that could reach the heights of DA romances but never found one. Miranda and my Femshep would have been perfect....

Possibly. But I'm saying that in terms of out-of-universe reading I've done, Jack has never come up as having been intended to be romanceable by a female Shepard. Miranda, on the other hand, has.

Julep: Again, the game was already being split on the primary platform. That's a thing that happened. The game is huge.

edited 5th Feb '16 3:52:05 PM by BadWolf21

There's a reason why there's so much MirandaxFem!Shep fanfics floating around out there. Surprisingly well written, too, a lot of them are.

I must research this immediately. If you have any recs, I'd be happy to hear them.

My mostly Renegade, cool, professional Femshep was such a kidnred spirit with Miranda. If there's any fanfics out there like that, god I'd love to read 'em.

edited 5th Feb '16 3:54:18 PM by Nikkolas

I know but we are talking about a game that is six years old now. Technology marches on, I doubt the same thing will happen again in Andromeda.

It will probably be back to the old "Beginning, Main hub, Three big hub missions to complete, final mission" formula Bioware loves so much. Aka "Eden Prime, Citadel, Feros/Noveria/Virmire, Ilos".

When was the last time they used that, anyway? Origins?

Anyway, since nobody answered my question, I'll ask again - what kind of personality should a female Turian squadmate have?

Maybe she should be more stereotypically turian. Garrus is specifically as un-turian as possible. Having a turian who is all about obedience and discipline be cool. She would thus be very....formal with your PC, again different from Garrus.

I was just talking about why Mass Effect 2 excised the bi romance options. Andromeda is irrelevant.

edited 5th Feb '16 4:36:26 PM by BadWolf21

Have her voiced by Moira Quirk for extra lulz and top Elara Drone shout-outs.

you can't justify the removal of bi options by disk space issues. Unless of course you want to get the "worst douchebag on Earth" award.

edited 5th Feb '16 4:39:33 PM by Julep

I'm not justifying it, I'm just saying that's probably the reason. "Doubling up on these romance dialogues is putting us over capacity" type thinking.

The way the series has treated its female characters so far hasn't been the greatest (the asari are basically an adolescent fantasy species, and despite the strong female characters, they're still dressed pretty strippery). It's not until 3 that proper Gay Options even exist as a romance option (Liara doesn't quite count, since her species is mono endeared; the interplay of Girl on Girl Is Hot with not technically lesbians ties into my previous point). It's getting better about inclusiveness, but slowly. I'm saying that 2 dropped the ball hard, not for no reason at all, but still a pretty piss poor one.

I feel the opposite. Bi-options are the way to go in milking out the availability of romance options. As long as the dialogue don't rely to heavily on pronouns (i.e. using 'Shepard's' instead of 'His/Hers'), you can easily milk the dialogue. The only issue is then re-animating the scenes to account for the difference.

And, yeah, there's a major difference between being uncomfortable with certain dialogue scenes (There are actors and actresses that have and will step away from rape scenes and I believe Alex Vega stepped away from Devil's Carnival 2 feeling it was too anti-Christianity) and that's fine; not everyone is comfortable with everything.

But there's a difference between that and being actively discriminatory towards people. And, you know, if Bioware didn't have such a big LGBT Fanbase, maybe he'd be fine. But Bioware has such a following that will be at those Con Panels and tweeting voice actors and developers that I feel like it's just begging for controversy and something to go wrong if he were to have a major part.

Like I said, if there's a desire for a former Firefly cast member to be in a Bioware game, go for someone who's comfortable with potential role points (Inara and Kaylee's Actresses have done LGBT roles before), someone who's good with the gaming community (Nathan Fillion is pretty popular) or someone who's known for Voice Acting (Alan Tudyik does A TON of Voice Acting these days).

Why can't we just grab people off Whedon's other shows? We already got Oz, where's Willow and Tara and Wesley and maybe even B and Angel themselves? Boreanaz might bee kind of expensive but he's a good talent and if they could get Martin Sheen, I'm sure they can get him.

My girlfriend would squee to death if Spike showed up and was a romance option.

edited 5th Feb '16 7:36:54 PM by Nikkolas

Money.

Power

Women?