Mass Effect 2 *spoilers around pg 29/30*

[WindupAtheist]

They're gonna make a precious big deal out of this femshep thing and like put her on the front of the ME3 box, and then they're gonna look at their stats and see that 80% of everyone played broshep again, and tears will be drunk.

[Stormwaltz]

They're gonna make a precious big deal out of this femshep thing and like put her on the front of the ME3 box, and then they're gonna look at their stats and see that 80% of everyone played broshep again, and tears will be drunk.

Twenty percent of 3 million players (my own conservative sales projection) is still 600,000 FemSheps.

[tmp]

I think they view it as more of marketing gimmick opportunity, not exactly expecting or caring whether it has any impact on the stats.

[Kitsune]

MaleShep did way better in ME2 with his delivery, compared with the performance in ME1.  Especially in the Shadow Broker DLC, hearing him bicker with Liara while driving the air car was just priceless.

"Shepard, there's a truck."
"I see it."
"It's getting really close."
"I see it!"

[Sky]

I'll probably do my renegade run-through before ME3 comes out. I said a while ago how jarring it was the first time I tried the renegade run-through, because I was trying to play Lamont Shepard, the badass black saviour of the universe...because a) I identified the voice with my pale white blond/blue Shep and b) the voice sounds like a pale white blond/blue Shep, not a brother with a fro. Sam Jackson renegade path Shep would've been superior!

So I think I'll do female trooper femshep renegade path, just to get the new VO.

[Sjofn]

MaleShep did way better in ME2 with his delivery, compared with the performance in ME1. 

Yeah, I understand the "wooden and bored" complaints about ME1, but ME2 he was much better. Still not super emotional, of course, but he sounded more "right" for what Shepard is supposed to be than he did in ME1. I prefered him in ME2 to LadyShep, personally. But I hate playing renegade (I did it once on a LadyShep, and yes she was very good at it), so that might be part of it. Frankly, she sounds pretty wooden and bored herself as a paragon.

They are both absolutely wretched in their romance scenes, though. MANSHEP sounds condescending and smarmy, LadyShep sounds creepy. Awful!

[rk47]

I'll probably do my renegade run-through before ME3 comes out. I said a while ago how jarring it was the first time I tried the renegade run-through, because I was trying to play Lamont Shepard, the badass black saviour of the universe...because a) I identified the voice with my pale white blond/blue Shep and b) the voice sounds like a pale white blond/blue Shep, not a brother with a fro. Sam Jackson renegade path Shep would've been superior!

So I think I'll do female trooper femshep renegade path, just to get the new VO.

I did that from ME1...man, he was butt ugly in ME1. But it slightly improved a bit in ME2. Here's to exporting him to ME3!

[Fabricated]

What goes for Tali transcends creepy, i think. If someone updated the geek hierarchy flow chart it'd be right next to the people who write furry star trek fiction.

or below.

This pretty much. Someone made a detailed writeup on the chemical nature of Tali's sweat on the official forums.

[Velorath]

They're gonna make a precious big deal out of this femshep thing and like put her on the front of the ME3 box, and then they're gonna look at their stats and see that 80% of everyone played broshep again, and tears will be drunk.

You don't think they already assume that most people will be using the same characters they played through the last 2 games?  Anyhow they already made a point of noting that femshep would be on the cover of the Collector's Edition (manshep will be on it as well).  I think they're just putting a lot of focus on femshep right now to appeal to the people who have always complained that all the marketing and promotional videos for the previous ME games always featured manshep.

[Sjofn]

I always felt the marketing for both ME and DA being so GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH ALL MEN ALL THE TIME MANLY MANLY MANLY sort of sad, because they are the most empowering game experiences I've had. I have never felt so FUCK YES about a game as I did when I shot Saren and then slung my boyfriend Carth Kaidan over my shoulder and carried him to safety.

[Reg]

Did Carth get a decent romantic role in ME 1?  I just did a fem-Revan playthrough of KOTOR and the Carth romance totally sucks compared to what manRevan has with Bastilla.

[Fordel]

Sjofn says it's okay, but I don't believe her. 

[TripleDES]

The Femsheps that won the vote looks like some animu. Manshep is based on a real person, the new Femshep looks like the result of letting an asian nerd dick around with 3D-Studio and let his fantasy free reign.

[Lantyssa]

Did Carth get a decent romantic role in ME 1?  I just did a fem-Revan playthrough of KOTOR and the Carth romance totally sucks compared to what manRevan has with Bastilla.

I tried Carth once.  He drove me to the dark side.  Bastilla made a better romance all around.

[tmp]

Did Carth get a decent romantic role in ME 1?

If you mean his Kaidan form, i found him mildly disturbing when he revealed his sob story. And by mildly disturbing i mean "maintain the eye contact, keep smiling, keep nodding and get the hell out". It sort of put the damper on the possible romance.

On the upside, it made the hard decision down the road so much easier.

[Sjofn]

Did Carth get a decent romantic role in ME 1?  I just did a fem-Revan playthrough of KOTOR and the Carth romance totally sucks compared to what manRevan has with Bastilla.

It was OK, certainly no worse than any of the other options LadyShep gets (or MANSHEP, frankly. I don't especially like any of his options either. Tali is way too much of a little sister for me to take it seriously, Ashley is dead, Miranda is a raging bitch, Jack is broken, and Liara is a walking yawn.). I like Carth's voice, though, and that goes a long way. Bear in mind I only played KotOR once and never actually finished it (fuck you, water planet!) so while I still had the "o hai Carth" reaction to Kaidan, I don't have the "FUCK CARTH KAIDAN IS SUCH A WHINY BITCH" baggage a lot of people who played KotOR  more than I did have. Because Kaidan is not actually a whiner. Hell, his whole schtick is how normal and already-worked-through-his-issues he is. Which makes him "boring" to a lot of people. And he's STILL tagged with the "whiner" charge.

And while Kaidan's story about killing what's his face was a little  , it's not like Shepard hasn't killed WAY MORE than his or her share of people, so fussing over Kaidan's little murder felt a bit hypocritical. Garrus has certainly gotten a bit murdery in ME2 and that doesn't stop anyone from humping his no-lips-having self. Morrigan used to lure templars to their death as a game she played with her mother. Thane was an assassin. Zevran was an assassin. Anders is ... Anders. "I killed a dude because he hurt someone I cared about" is so low on the murder scale in an RPG, it barely registers for me.

[Lantyssa]

People fussed over Kaiden killing the bastard of an instructor?

[Sjofn]

tmp did, apparently!

[koro]

So I guess we have a good idea why ME3 was delayed til 2012:


Multiplayer that nobody really wanted or asked for!

The "reliable development source" has since confirmed the development of a four-player co-op mode, saying that it will be built around "original missions made for online", which will be unique from the single-player campaign. The source said that there would "only be a handful" of co-op missions which have been created with the intention of being "played and played again", hinting at the possibility of a Gears of War Horde-style mode.

[Velorath]

I actually doubt that's adding on much development time, as it so far sounds fairly limited in scope, and some have said that it's not even the main ME team working on the multiplayer.

[UnSub]

Why does MP continually feel the need to interrupt perfectly good SP games?

Yeah, yeah, I know, money, but it just feels completely unnecessary.

[Velorath]

Why does MP continually feel the need to interrupt perfectly good SP games?

Yeah, yeah, I know, money, but it just feels completely unnecessary.

What is it interrupting?  Again, it's not even the main team that was working on the multiplayer.  Bioware Montreal, the guys who did the Arrival DLC, had posted job openings for Multiplayer Programmers, specifically for the Mass Effect franchise back in May of last year.

[Furiously]

If a friend can take possession of one of the companions, I'm all for it.

But. if it's 4 Shepards walking around...

[Lantyssa]

If I could play Tali...

[tmp]

tmp did, apparently!

Not that. It was the part that followed that went like

"So, what did the girl say about that?"
"I don't know, i haven't spoken to her since"

and the delivery tone that had me scraping in panic at the airlock door. Could totally tell he still had animu pillow with her print on it in his bunk 

[tmp]

Multiplayer that nobody really wanted or asked for!

The scuttlebutt (and best funniest part about it) is, that's going to be an extra DLC.

[Merusk]

Why does MP continually feel the need to interrupt perfectly good SP games?

Yeah, yeah, I know, money, but it just feels completely unnecessary.

What is it interrupting?  Again, it's not even the main team that was working on the multiplayer.  Bioware Montreal, the guys who did the Arrival DLC, had posted job openings for Multiplayer Programmers, specifically for the Mass Effect franchise back in May of last year.

Resources - time; management; money - spent on one part of a project diminish the other parts out of necessity.  It's not like they're adding a MP team to SP games and increasing the allowed budget and you know it. If that were the case we'd see higher prices on games.

It's the same problem that chasing visual junkies has created on the game play side.  Increasing art budgets lead to decreased development, coding and bug testing and generally an over-all less enjoyable experience as time has gone on. 

Which means your $50 $60 game has to chase a wider market.  Which means adding more features for a broader audience.  Which means decreasing the budgets of the other segments to add the new one.

[Shrike]

Sounds like the first DLC from ME1, just with multiplayer...the one everybody yawned over and hardly anyone bought.

No interest here. Can't bring myself to care enough to look into it any further than this thread.

[Velorath]

Why does MP continually feel the need to interrupt perfectly good SP games?

Yeah, yeah, I know, money, but it just feels completely unnecessary.

What is it interrupting?  Again, it's not even the main team that was working on the multiplayer.  Bioware Montreal, the guys who did the Arrival DLC, had posted job openings for Multiplayer Programmers, specifically for the Mass Effect franchise back in May of last year.

Resources - time; management; money - spent on one part of a project diminish the other parts out of necessity.  It's not like they're adding a MP team to SP games and increasing the allowed budget and you know it. If that were the case we'd see higher prices on games.

You're thinking in somewhat outdated terms as far as budgeting and sales go.  If development started as a side project as many people speculate, then it likely wasn't taking any resources away from ME3's development.  Likewise, if they plan on making money off MP through DLC (map packs, character skins, weapons, whatever), then it's also quite possible the MP stuff is budgeted separately from ME3 (as pretty much any DLC would be).  Also, there's a general notion that having MP components in a game increases its longevity for players and thus keeps them from trading the game in as quickly, decreasing used game sales and increasing sales of new games (whether that works in reality is a whole other topic).

[Ingmar]

Sounds like the first DLC from ME1, just with multiplayer...the one everybody yawned over and hardly anyone bought.

No interest here. Can't bring myself to care enough to look into it any further than this thread.

You mean the second DLC, I assume.

I'm lukewarm on the multiplayer thing, but it might be entertaining.

[Sjofn]

tmp did, apparently!

Not that. It was the part that followed that went like

"So, what did the girl say about that?"
"I don't know, i haven't spoken to her since"

and the delivery tone that had me scraping in panic at the airlock door. Could totally tell he still had animu pillow with her print on it in his bunk 

Uh ... if you say so. Sounded to me he was sad it ended that way and that was it. <shrug>


Oh God a man showed emotion, he must be a creepy whiner that makes dolls out of his old girlfriends.

[tmp]

Uh ... if you say so. Sounded to me he was sad it ended that way and that was it. <shrug>

Dunno, it was the combination of implied FOREVER ALONE, and the fact he wouldn't even try to find out how she actually felt about it. As if he preferred it ended on that note. It just felt too weird.

Oh God a man showed emotion, he must be a creepy whiner that makes dolls out of his old girlfriends.

Nah i got equally freaked out with Merrill's "I LOVE YOU" delivery. Nothing to do with gender

[Sjofn]

I think you are reading waaaaaay too much into it. In both cases.

How do you even start a conversation with someone who saw you murder a dude because of them anyway? I'd rather leave it at that too, frankly. Shit, if I was the girl in this case, I would vastly prefer he leave it at that instead of inflicting himself on me to make him feel better about the whole thing. Plus when you press him on it, he's all "meh, it sucks, but it's the past, I worked through all this shit already." That's hardly Forever Alone Animu Body Pillow territory.


EDIT: Seriously, you want creepy, you don't look to Kaidan or Merril. You want Anders. 

[tmp]

EDIT: Seriously, you want creepy, you don't look to Kaidan or Merril. You want Anders. 

Meh, Anders is totally too overtly psycho to make me feel threatened. And his whine if you sleep with him and then tell him it's just one night stand, it's hillarious

[Maledict]

What I don't get is - how many extra sales are they getting because of multi-player? I mean, bioshock 2, resi 5 and uncharted 2 all spent a huge amount on adding extensive multi-player modes to what were previously single player games. I don't know a single person who bought them for them multi-player, and from what I can see the multi-player lasted a few months and now hardly anyone plays it.

I'm sure all these companies have done their research and multi-player does add extra profit to the game, but I honestly don't see it amongst my circle of friends. I've never met someone who will only buy a game if it has multiplayer.