Mass Effect 2 *spoilers around pg 29/30*

[caladein]

Keep in mind who female Shepard is though: Alpha Bitch. Whether you're Paragon or Renegade, you are one STRONG personality that nobody wants to fuck with. Vulnerable feminine side isn't in your vocabulary, waiting for a strong man to sweep you off your feet. To hit it home, I don't expect to ever see female Shephard in a dress.

Doesn't this new Kasumi DLC thing include an undercover mission and mingling with rich snobs? For some reason that makes me imagine Shepard in evening dress attending event like the opera from 5th Element. And no, can totally see her pull off the look.

Yes, I definitely got that "party heist episode from Alias or Leverage" vibe with the first announcement.  At some level it could just play out like a longer version of the end of Garrus's loyalty mission and I'd be set.

[Lantyssa]

As far as the dress goes, I think you're right in saying it would be wishful thinking. I for one would love to see female Shepard in a dress, but it's really unlikely given the direction Bioware took with ME2. They seem to be gunning for a melodramatic space opera, not some in-depth psychological exploration of an emotionally scarred war veteran. The dress would be an unnecessary complication.

I was mad there weren't casual dress options.  Military, military, military medic, or grease monkey.  Shepard might be a bad-ass, but that is her job.  It doesn't mean she can't be feminine at times.  So no, not really wishful thinking in my eyes.

If the writers share my inexperience with romance and human interaction, then I wouldn't be surprised that the male leads came off the way they did.

We know at least one of the writers is married.  I'll wager most or all of them are.  I don't want to pick on you, however you are at an extreme on the social interaction scale.  Good writers have a lot of life experiences, are well read and thinkers, and a rich imagination to draw from.

[caladein]

I was mad there weren't casual dress options.  Military, military, military medic, or grease monkey.  Shepard might be a bad-ass, but that is her job.  It doesn't mean she can't be feminine at times.  So no, not really wishful thinking in my eyes.

Thinking back on that last outfit, I think it was the party outfit you see at some of the bars/clubs.  Same thing with the non-military outfit for guys.

Why the future wears burlap, I do not know, but that's what it was (will be? is?).

[Lantyssa]

From the first game, it was what all the techs on Feros and a few other places were wearing.  The three-hole dress was the fancy wear.

Maybe the clubbers were.  Either they were having a drink after work, or it's some bad fashion trend trying to emulate being working class.

[LK]

We know at least one of the writers is married.  I'll wager most or all of them are.  I don't want to pick on you, however you are at an extreme on the social interaction scale.  Good writers have a lot of life experiences, are well read and thinkers, and a rich imagination to draw from.

It's why I'm resigned to the fact that being a good writer will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for me.

OH NOES EMO SHIT INCOMING. QUICK SHEPARD, PULL LT!

[Lantyssa]

It doesn't mean you'll be a bad writer, it just means you might be at a disadvantage if you try to write Harlequin romance novels.  (And that's not actually a bad thing.)

[Ratman_tf]

It's just the male romantic leads in Bioware games that really get me down. They all seem to be cut from the same homogenous boring cloth: There's the doormat, or the doormat with jokes. Take your pick.

I just avoid the romantic subplot stuff in CRPGs. I can't imagine a bunch of sweaty nerds (I AM ONE) writing a romance that isn't goony or skeevy.

[Merusk]

I was musing about ME2 in the middle of doing some extra-boring CAD maintenance work today and got to thinking about Samara.   I recall someone commenting about how awful "Good" characters are to write, because they're so boring and predictable.  Writing a Paladin, they said, would be the worst, most boring character ever because they're so fucking 2d.

However, her story IS that of a Paladin and she's not boring at all.  Following a code, a lifelong quest, a duty that has to be done.  Sure, they threw the boilerplate Maiden-Assari stuff at her (I was a tramp, a scoundrel and a wild child.) but her Matron story was more interesting to me.   Its let me to decide the assertion about hard line moral characters being boring is just a reflection of that writer's own limits.

[schild]

Paladin's aren't above-the-law serial killers.

More like holy crusaders that take the might of god and strike down justice on the non-believers.

In other words, paladin's are still boring, rule-following-serial-killers are not.

[LK]

I disagreed with their decision to allow her to be a romance option, even if she rejects you. It would have been nice to bag two different Asaris and start building a reputation, but Samara warming up the way she did seemed out of character for her based on what I saw of Justicars.

Shepard practically forced herself on Samara if you follow it to its conclusion. Lotta "No means Yes" ideaology. That or when she does reject you, they wanted to make it clear she was completely off-limits.

I'd think The Code would have covered romance: "Any commitment you have is to the Code" or some such shit.

400 years of Justicar life and discipline only to be undone or strained by several days with Shepard?

[NowhereMan]

I wouldn't characterise Samara as a rule following serial killer since her actions are utterly dictated by this code she follows. She's not killing people because she enjoys it or even because she think it'll get her what she wants, she does it because that's what the rules say she should do. They're bad people so they get killed if they don't give up. The bit with her daughter is the only time you see her having to actually deal with it seriously, which doesn't mean she's never given a fuck about killing people only that by the time you meet her she's been doing it so long that it takes something pretty fucking drastic to evoke those reactions.

Someone dedicating their actions to a universal code of ethics and abandoning their personal morality makes for an interesting personal conflict (imo at least) and it doesn't seem unreasonable to write a Paladin this way. They've found something to believe that transcends their own view of right and wrong, what makes for boring to read characters are those who don't have any problem doing this and whose actions never force them to do anything you'd really strongly disagree with.

On the romance thing, she's had what's probably been the first real hard emotional experience in a while. She's hugely off-balance and you've already shown you're a pretty exceptional individual so it doesn't seem ridiculous that she opens up more than you'd expect. I'd somewhat have preferred having her knock Shepard on his ass if you keep pushing it though, the option to be a dick about it really is there.

[Merusk]

D&D basic Paladins, perhaps.  D&D 2nd edition advanced rules and other materials have Paladins following a specified code that dictated their actions.   A more traditional story-based and less game-centric role. The whole Lawful Good thing was an abstration to dictate the strict adherence to laws and the interests of others above your self. (As Evil was meant to be self-interest above the good of the many) Somewhere along the way that alignment got as bastardized as "Chaotic Neutral" meaning "I'm a dick who can do wahtever I want."

She's not a serial killer, she's a protector/ enforcer of that Assari code. She's a Paladin in the traditional sense, not the convoluted game rules sense.  Roalnd and Galahad weren't boring literary characters, IMO, but then you have to respect and revere total dedication to a cause and duty above other concerns particularly the self.  Not a popular sentiment these days (or in the US, ever, really) I'll grant you.  Doesn't mean they're not interesting character studies.

[Velorath]

D&D basic Paladins, perhaps.  D&D 2nd edition advanced rules and other materials have Paladins following a specified code that dictated their actions.   A more traditional story-based and less game-centric role. The whole Lawful Good thing was an abstration to dictate the strict adherence to laws and the interests of others above your self. (As Evil was meant to be self-interest above the good of the many) Somewhere along the way that alignment got as bastardized as "Chaotic Neutral" meaning "I'm a dick who can do wahtever I want."

She's not a serial killer, she's a protector/ enforcer of that Assari code. She's a Paladin in the traditional sense, not the convoluted game rules sense.  Roalnd and Galahad weren't boring literary characters, IMO, but then you have to respect and revere total dedication to a cause and duty above other concerns particularly the self.  Not a popular sentiment these days (or in the US, ever, really) I'll grant you.  Doesn't mean they're not interesting character studies.

Also, I hate to hold up Dragonlance as an example since it's not exactly great writing, but I think Sturm (essentially the Knights of the Rose were the equivalents of Paladins) had some interesting characteristics.  In particular the fact that he adhered to the code, while the actual Knights were largely dicks and hypocrites who don't really take the Code seriously except when convenient or when it benefited them.

[Khaldun]

Anybody ever read Billy Budd by Melville? It's a good model of what you can do with a character who is driven to follow the rules or the law even when he knows in one case that the consequences are morally dubious because to not follow the rules opens up a widening range of more morally dubious events or consequences.

[Tannhauser]

One of the best paladin examples in film is Casey Affleck's P.I. in "Gone Baby Gone".  Specifically his final choice. 

[Hoax]

I only read to page 32, here's my complaints about ME2 which I loved because I love scifi and I enjoy rpgs.  The biggest testament to how much I've enjoyed these two games would be they are the only ones I actually finished of all the good rpgs I've played in the last 3 years or so.

-Most of all, I hated the loyalty missions, it would have been much better if loyalty was raised through what Shepard did not just by doing a particular quest, I'm going to do a replay where I skip all that bullshit the second the IFF is installed because that's what my Shepard wanted to do but I felt like I was going to get owned.
-I just couldn't play the way I wanted because I wasn't given nearly enough opportunities to tell Cerebrus to fuck off.
-Scanning/Mining?  What the fuck.  Who said that was ok?
-The ammo system was worse then the old heat system for my money.  Did it even make sense?  I didn't stop to think about it but I'm guessing no.
-There was too much worthless fanservice to ME1, it sort of grated on me how every person I met was from ME1 like including random npcs at every locale.
-I really wish it let you use multiple teams and control them both a lot more often if I'm going to get such a huge cast, it felt so pointless that the whole game was recruiting and loyalizing people I never could use on any missions.


Now here's where I type out how my game went, not because I expect anyone to read it but because after 25 hours (per Steam) it feels nice to put it down somewhere.

I played the same Shepard that I did in ME1, ends justify means, brash, likes being in control etc etc.

I was the class w/ Charge (sucks until you get it to 4) and Shockwave, I kicked ass because I'm good at shooting things, I played it on Veteran which was a solid difficulty, quite enjoyable with only a couple wow this is bs fights that were mostly due to me picking different teams for every mission and making the mistake of trying power usage off in ME2 which was lame and required more pausing to use well then I was willing to do since they refresh so fucking fast now.

So I did all the loyalty missions except Miranda (I did it, she wasn't loyal fuck if I care I never trusted her and was never on her side) and Legion because I felt really really shitty for putting off saving my crew for that goddamn long as it was.

For my specialist I picked Legion because the only other person well suited was Tali and tbh I wasn't sure she could handle it and I knew it would.  My fire team was led by Jacob (obvious choice when Miranda is in your dog house) and the computer picked Thane and Jack to go with him (Jacob & Jack is redundant so I was annoyed with those selections).  I took my best performing team with me which meant Mordin and Garrus (did anyone else find Mordin to be by far the best team member?) and we fucking rolled over everything while hitting all the vents.  Legion got boom headshotted anyways at the door cutscene which sucked because he was interesting and I liked his VA.  So on to part 2, my biotic shield is Miranda (I was trying to protect Samara) and I took my best team again.  I got through that section np except I fucking lost Garrus to the bugs at the end, that was insanely not cool.  Garrus was my main man, my most trusted ally from ME1 and I'm still very bitter about that.  So now I needed a team to take on the final challenge, I took Mordin and Jacob this time and Miranda died in vanguard action.

3 killed, didn't save any of the crew (lost Chekwas which sucked I really liked her but I couldn't spare anyone to escort wtf) and oh yeah I let Cerebrus keep the station.  Big bad evil might need big bad evil to combat, honestly it makes sense.  I'm not a fan of him having it, would have given it to the Council if I could but there was a limited amount of options.

I will be doing two additional playthroughs, which is a first for me.  One will be the exact same scenario but I'll blow the station since clearly not blowing it was stupid and means that somehow I give it to Cerebrus and tell nobody else about it or some bullshit.  He can't even get there without the IFF but whatever fuck the way that turns out.  The other I'm going to reload from when I got the option to use the IFF (no loyalty missions done) I'm going to hack my resources to max to get all the upgrades and then go fucking straight to Omega like I wanted to, same teams, except I'm going to escort the Doctor since its not like I'm using everyone for whatever the fuck reasons and we'll see what happens.

Oh yeah, I fucked Jack, or Jack fucked me, depends on who is telling the story I guess.  That was pretty hot.  I also got Tali hot and bothered without trying to and avoided having sex with her (said we had to focus on the mission lol, kept the possibility open) and was working on Samara as best I could with some success when I beat the game.

Last thing, I never woke the Krogan up.  I fucking hate Krogan.  I killed them whenever I was given the chance with extreme prejudice.  I already wiped out the Bug Queen fuckers and I'd probably do the same if I didn't enjoy hearing them lament how infertile they are.  Fucking invincible berserker fuckers.

[NowhereMan]

A few points, ignoring the loyalty missions fucks your chances of having a good ending. It's the deciding point in the suicide mission along with ship upgrades and picking the right people for the job. Skipping straight to the IFF and ignoring them can result in everyone (even Shepard) dying and only Joker making it out (sorry if this is spoiling anything). Your casualties in your mission basically came from sending non-loyal party members for those missions, also I'm guessing you went straight for your crew but you can do Legion's loyalty mission (which is really interesting) before heading off to the Omega relay and kidnappings. It also gives you a lot more opportunity to talk to Legion who has some interesting stuff to say.

Scanning/mining: Get a save game editor and give yourself a shit load of resources, that stuff is such a waste of time.

I like all the ME1 stuff, primarily because I played it through with a new char first and you really didn't get much of that. In comparison with an imported character it felt like you had actually been doing shit in this universe prior to being woken up by Cerberus.

Also not waking up the Krogan was a mistake, Grunt actually manages to be even better than Wrex (imo) as a character. I'd put him up there with Mordin and Legion as great characters.

[Koyasha]

-There was too much worthless fanservice to ME1, it sort of grated on me how every person I met was from ME1 like including random npcs at every locale.

What annoyed me about this was that every one of these damn characters felt the urgent need to introduce themselves to me again.  I don't need a recap of the last time we met, I know who you are.  I mean, if I had the dialogue option to go 'uhh, who are you again?' and then they did that, that'd make sense, but they just do it spontaneously when we meet, which irritates me to no end.

[caladein]

Scanning/mining: Get a save game editor and give yourself a shit load of resources, that stuff is such a waste of time.

I can agree on the Mining, especially early on when everything seems so expensive, but the the anomaly missions were quite varied and fun, so it'd be a shame not at least grab a list of planets missions are on and check them out instead of forsaking Scanning altogether.

[Segoris]

-I really wish it let you use multiple teams and control them both a lot more often if I'm going to get such a huge cast, it felt so pointless that the whole game was recruiting and loyalizing people I never could use on any missions.

I would have liked this a bit more. I'd rather not be limited to only picking the leader though, but being able to choose 2 assistants for them as well would have been great for things like longer missions. Also, I think it would have been nice to cut out some of the hidden anomoly missions and make some of the core missions longer with alternate team selection in progress.
Or, my preference, not have so many damn characters. I never really got attached to any of the characters here. I would have been just fine with about 6 characters tops and have had their characters fleshed out more.

-There was too much worthless fanservice to ME1, it sort of grated on me how every person I met was from ME1 like including random npcs at every locale.

What annoyed me about this was that every one of these damn characters felt the urgent need to introduce themselves to me again.  I don't need a recap of the last time we met, I know who you are.  I mean, if I had the dialogue option to go 'uhh, who are you again?' and then they did that, that'd make sense, but they just do it spontaneously when we meet, which irritates me to no end.

This sums it up for me for the ME1 randoms that you meet in the field. The emails from people like Dr Chloe was a nice touch though imo. It wasn't annoying and was well done.

As for loyalty missions, I found them to be weak. I liked Jack's and Garrus' as I felt they fit the character's and their development well. Zaeed's mission was good but his character wasn't enjoyable for me. Samara's fit her character very well, but I would have liked a bit more added to it. The rest are all forgettable completely.

I'm mixed on the ammo thing. After 2.5 playthroughs, I like it but I don't. With how powerful tech/biotic powers are in ME2 I don't even come close to running out of ammo and I'm a commando right now (running out of ammo with 1 gun is common, 2 guns is semi rare, 3 guns running out just doesn't happen). I think I would have liked the ammo if powers and their combos didn't kill small groups at a time every 10 seconds. That would have required either more strategy on when/how to use the ammo and made me think about if I should empty 2 clips in a krogan without worry of running out. Make ammo more important and make the ammo powers a little more powerful to balance it out, and I would have enjoyed ammo compared to the overheating aspect. Though that is mostly because of heat suppression mods being stackable in ME1. If their bonus was multiplicative and didn't allow for non-stop fire then the overheating would have been the better system by far.

Some powers seem to use Sheperd's line of sight. I've positioned group members so they could use their powers on enemies I don't have LOS on, then triggered the power only to have it blocked by objects in my LOS path and not the power user's LOS. That was annoying to get used to and found most commonly when using overload.

Lastly, I do think this needs repeating, fuck scanning.

Even with all of those complaints, I highly enjoyed the game. Enough that I'll finish the current playthrough and then finish another playthrough I started and got to act 2 on before putting it down for a bit. I like ME1 better still, but ME2 is a damn fine game.

[Segoris]

Scanning/mining: Get a save game editor and give yourself a shit load of resources, that stuff is such a waste of time.

I can agree on the Mining, especially early on when everything seems so expensive, but the the anomaly missions were quite varied and fun, so it'd be a shame not at least grab a list of planets missions are on and check them out instead of forsaking Scanning altogether.

The ones revolving around the Blue Suns and what not were ok. But the one where you go turn on a generator, the cooling system, and the shield....why was that put in? That made no sense. I will say though, the one where you find a downed Quarian ship with a survivor almost dead that you have to defend against a bunch of varren was pretty awesome. That was the most challenging fight I had in the entire game (partly due to my char selection, partly because it was just really well designed in its simplicity imo).

[NowhereMan]

On the power LoS, it does seem to use your LoS but on the other hand if you target an enemy and redirect your crosshair the power will launch in the direction you're looking and then home in on the enemy so you can get around objects in the way and negate enemies being in cover. I'd also have preferred either a little more work on some of the anomaly missions or dropping them for more stuff going on in the loyalty missions. Some of the anomaly missions felt like they were setting up some interesting stories but due to a lack of cutscenes or just having any other characters involved in it (even just some random merc boss/ mad scientist) they felt kind of half-asses. I guess I'd have liked a bit more narrative with them.

[LK]

It seemed to me there were far fewer side missions to do in this game, with the bulk of the game's content in the character acquisition and loyalty missions. The side stuff went by so fast... maybe that's why.

[Segoris]

On the power LoS, it does seem to use your LoS but on the other hand if you target an enemy and redirect your crosshair the power will launch in the direction you're looking and then home in on the enemy so you can get around objects in the way and negate enemies being in cover. I'd also have preferred either a little more work on some of the anomaly missions or dropping them for more stuff going on in the loyalty missions. Some of the anomaly missions felt like they were setting up some interesting stories but due to a lack of cutscenes or just having any other characters involved in it (even just some random merc boss/ mad scientist) they felt kind of half-asses. I guess I'd have liked a bit more narrative with them.

Yeah, I love the way some powers arc instead of firing in a straight shot. Things like singularity really shined with that system.

For the side missions, I think some of them would have fit really well if a hint or message was sent saying "something is going on in this system reagarding X faction" and let you figure it out. A lot of them with the blue suns, I think, could have been awesome to bring Garrus and Zaeed to if they were done well.

It seemed to me there were far fewer side missions to do in this game, with the bulk of the game's content in the character acquisition and loyalty missions. The side stuff went by so fast... maybe that's why.

I agree. There were a good number of side missions (probably 15 or so when you count scanning/anomoly) but they were really short and it went fast.

[LK]

Did any of you get anything out of the fluff text on the planets and in the Codex? I read all of them in Mass Effect 1 but skipped a majority in 2 because it had nothing to do with the game. World-building that frankly didn't matter to kicking ass and taking names in the name of galactic peace.

It's all very well written, yeah, but I wanted the game to focus on the game this time around.

[Ratman_tf]

I can agree on the Mining, especially early on when everything seems so expensive, but the the anomaly missions were quite varied and fun, so it'd be a shame not at least grab a list of planets missions are on and check them out instead of forsaking Scanning altogether.

Repost!

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

[Segoris]

Did any of you get anything out of the fluff text on the planets and in the Codex?

With DA:O being so recent, and replaying ME1 just before ME2's launch, I was all out of patience for lore and codexes. As a result, I haven't even opened the codex in ME2.

[NowhereMan]

I looked through the codex and journal stuff a bit but then I hadn't played any RPGs properly for a while. I think there was a bit of a problem in that a lot of the entries were really just expanding on stuff that had been pretty well explained in-game. I felt in ME1 they'd had a tendency to just mention stuff in passing that got expanded upon in the codex while in 2 they'd give you a quick explanation and so the codex entries weren't quite as interesting. I read the entries on the Geth though. Though that reminds me that one of the things I didn't like was how Legion was handled because he has some really interesting dialogues on board but by the time you get him you've done pretty much everything and there's really very little time to do stuff to get through those dialogues. There's also a sense of urgency, there's a lot of other stuff going on and the only real reason to go talk to him is if you're in it for completeness. After all once the crew go bye bye why the hell would you be wandering down to the AI core for a chat?

[Ingmar]

The theory I've heard is that it was intended you could get Legion much earlier (he has dialogue in some of the very early missions) but the fact that they had to split the game onto 2 discs for the 360 version meant they had to add some artificial linearity to the recruitment missions in terms of the order you do them in.

[Velorath]

I'm not sure how they managed to screw this up, but I just downloaded the DLC with the Hammerhead, and the control prompts they show on screen when teaching you how to use it don't match up with the default key bindings.  It's telling me to right click the mouse to gather research, and all that's happening is the camera view is changing, so finally I check the controls in the options, and it turns out I have to use Mine with the V button instead.

[Ingmar]

Did you already have your controls remapped for other stuff from the default?

[Hoax]

What's the story on the DLC stuff?  It seemed like I had some DLC but I have no idea what it did and I did not have this extra cast member Zeheed though I believe he must have been the Cerebrus agent I refused to rescue because I wasn't going to run a fucking errand for them when I was already wasting all this time with loyalty missions.

I've never seen a news item on that little right hand screen say anything but random fluff so I don't know when/how/did I already get the free dlc (firewalker?).

[Velorath]

Did you already have your controls remapped for other stuff from the default?

No, I never messed with the controls, and looking around I see other people who had the same problem.  Beyond that though, it just isn't fun so far.  Mind you I've only done what essentially is the tutorial mission, and one other mission with the Hammerhead, and maybe the controls will feel better for people playing on a 360 controller.

Even regular Geth tear through the armor on this thing in a few shots, so combat seems to be just staying back out of their range and shooting them from a distance.  There's no zoom function that I can see, so you can't always tell if there's something small in the way blocking your shots.  Also, the ammo curves somewhat similar to warp, but will often curve towards an enemy other than the one you were aiming at.

Can't save in the middle of a mission from what I can see either, so if you fuck up, you might have to start over.  Mining shit (which you'll usually have to do for several objectives) involves moving to a circle on the ground and holding down the V button, at which point the Hammerhead has a tendency to move around spastically and you have to make sure it doesn't leave the circle or the mining will stop.

Also, while you choose two crew members with you for each mission, apparently there are only a couple of missions where you actually leave the Hammerhead for a small amount of time.

[Lantyssa]

I'm mixed on the ammo thing.

I still hate the ammo.  I'm fine with having a need for reloading by popping a heat sink.  I was not okay with the extremely limited ammo.  "I'm an elite special forces sniper going into an unknown situation and territory.  I think I shall only bring a dozen bullets with me!"

Some powers seem to use Sheperd's line of sight. I've positioned group members so they could use their powers on enemies I don't have LOS on, then triggered the power only to have it blocked by objects in my LOS path and not the power user's LOS. That was annoying to get used to and found most commonly when using overload.

Your powers can arc.  Powers you order your teammates to use are LoS, from you.  So you cannot arc them, however you can have them hit targets that your team would be blocked from hitting if it used their LoS.  They also instantly hit once they activate them, rather than having travel time like yours.

[caladein]

What's the story on the DLC stuff?  It seemed like I had some DLC but I have no idea what it did and I did not have this extra cast member Zeheed though I believe he must have been the Cerebrus agent I refused to rescue because I wasn't going to run a fucking errand for them when I was already wasting all this time with loyalty missions.

I've never seen a news item on that little right hand screen say anything but random fluff so I don't know when/how/did I already get the free dlc (firewalker?).

If you have Zaeed installed, you'll meet him right as you walk into Omega.

As for new DLC coming out, I'm not sure how the notifications go in ME2 as it always tells me something about New Downloadable Content even though I have everything installed, but all your available DLC will be listed here.