Mass Effect 3

[Ingmar]

They might be able to get Towers of Hanoi working on Symbian.

[Lakov_Sanite]

After all the Asari talk I thought you typed Sybian.

[tmp]

Instead we're on day 3 of the "Asari are space sluts" debate.

Sorry, it's just bit difficult to post about how you might win early access to ME3 demo and moar if you spam on Facebook hard enough with all the eyerolling it induces.

[rk47]

You have got to be kidding me. NOBODY wants this shit.

But this...

[Merusk]

The second one would have to be a cross-partnership with Real Doll.com.

Which, shit, for the price of the DLC Dolls, why not just go for broke and do it.  Assari, Miranda and Tali Love-Dolls with super special DLC content!

[tmp]

Well, there's already anime Liara figurine out there, so next logical step would be hug pillows.

Garrus pillow would've to be made from some rough cloth to provide genuine chafing experience, obv.

[HaemishM]

The phrase "Tap the X button on your controller" would take on a whole new meaning.

[Velorath]

FemShep trailer is supposed to be up later today.  They also released 5 new short trailers today.  You can see them all on the Mass Effect home page, but I think the only ones worth watching are:

Customizable Arsenal (The Terminus, Inferno, and Collector's armor are show, suggesting you might carry over some of the bonus stuff from ME2).

Multiplayer (Dibs on Salarian Infiltrator!)

Gameplay


The other two are Story (uses what looks like a fairly minor choice to show how results vary based on your dialog) and Enemies (which has possible spoilers in it as well as using a lot of footage from the other trailers I think).

[tmp]

Couple more hours till the femshep trailer, according to the devs.

edit: or not. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=47RCBRv6m8U

Incidentally, at 0:45 in the gear customization trailer there's odd looking paragon/renegade meter on the left side of stat screen. Wonder if they tweaked that mechanics in some way, or what.

[Comstar]

None of them were as good as the Mass Effect II Trailer. :(

Femshep was the best of the bunch.

[Velorath]

Incidentally, at 0:45 in the gear customization trailer there's odd looking paragon/renegade meter on the left side of stat screen. Wonder if they tweaked that mechanics in some way, or what.

It's the Reputation Bar.  Supposedly it makes it more viable to be a mix of Paragon and Renegade so you don't have to go all the way with one or the other, but I haven't heard exact details of how it works.  Hopefully when the demo drops in four days we'll get an understanding of all the new systems.

[jakonovski]

No playing as the Reapers in multiplayer? Whatta crock.

[Velorath]

They bleached her skin.

When they were working our Ash's design for ME1, I'd really wanted the character to be Hispanic. Casey put an image of Ash's model up his monitor next to a picture Salma Hayek, and pointed out to me that their skin tones were identical.

Some people got the demo a few days early apparently and one of the things that's been pointed out is that Ashley's character model has been improved quite a bit from the early screenshots.

[tmp]

Hmm the "interactive storytelling" trailer thingie shows something i've first spotted in the leaked earth level video -- they seem to have "streamlined" the dialogue system down to just two choices now, and there's no trace of the middle ground option.

I was hoping that was maybe just because the leaked level wasn't finished, but seeing it still present... that's starting to look like permanent change. And if that's the case, it sucks.

[rk47]

Middle ground meant no gains in old ME. You either go red or blue, or gain nothing at all. Yeah, I know it sucked not being to roleplay an indecisive Shepard. But meh, I hate Renegade/Paragons requirements too, seeing that Red option grayed just because I'm not a jerk enough pisses me off in Virmire when dealing with Wrex.

[tmp]

Middle ground meant no gains in old ME. You either go red or blue, or gain nothing at all. Yeah, I know it sucked not being to roleplay an indecisive Shepard. But meh, I hate Renegade/Paragons requirements too, seeing that Red option grayed just because I'm not a jerk enough pisses me off in Virmire when dealing with Wrex.

I'd say that was issue with the alignment system, not the dialogue -- it may seem obvious in hindsight, but it's still mind boggling they'd went with rewarding only some of the dialogue paths when it's quite more sensible to say, colour the middle option green and call that dunno, "Mastermind Shepard" (as the middle options tend to be based on cold reasoning) and then treat it just like the other two.

Would also argue calling the middle "indecisive" couldn't be farther from the truth, as using that route causes Shepard to perform actions just decisively as the other two routes, and advances the plot as result just the same. It's not like when you have the options it's either "kiss them" "kill them" and "i dunno, lol" and the last one makes the game hang up when you pick it.

[Rendakor]

Just a heads up they're giving out demo codes for the 360 version of this on twitter; follow @RPGSite and @Nova_Crystallis if you're so inclined.

[tmp]

Yeah the early xbox demo seems to be out, shared and accessible through different means. relevant neogaf thread, also with pictures, reactions, youtube videos and spoilers, obv.

(apparently the first casualty of "different animations for Shepard depending on gender" is female Shepard running. Hillariously bad)

[Velorath]

Middle ground meant no gains in old ME. You either go red or blue, or gain nothing at all. Yeah, I know it sucked not being to roleplay an indecisive Shepard. But meh, I hate Renegade/Paragons requirements too, seeing that Red option grayed just because I'm not a jerk enough pisses me off in Virmire when dealing with Wrex.

I'd say that was issue with the alignment system, not the dialogue -- it may seem obvious in hindsight, but it's still mind boggling they'd went with rewarding only some of the dialogue paths when it's quite more sensible to say, colour the middle option green and call that dunno, "Mastermind Shepard" (as the middle options tend to be based on cold reasoning) and then treat it just like the other two.

They more or less did that with Dragon Age 2, but I think at this point Mass Effect is kinda locked into the Paragon/Renegade thing.  Looks like they've changed how it works slightly, but I wouldn't expect anything too drastic until the next game.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, I think they probably felt like they had to stick with the paragon/renegade stuff even though they had figured out a way to make it work a little better in DA2. I'm sure there's an even better way to do it that doesn't make you sound like a crazy person occassionally (Hawke would go really schizo sometimes, especially if you were an "aggressive" Hawke) that they'll figure out. :P

[tmp]

I had a cautious look at the Bioware social forum, and there was supposedly a post from one of the devs regarding that:

Jessica Merizan wrote...

OK, to answer the main OP's question:

The renegade/paragon dialogue system is much more fine tuned. You won't be either kissing babies OR killing them in this game. So what you saw was only part of a much bigger system that I think is very cool. So no there are not only two choices.

extremely vague and i can't say the bits from the demo gave me a matching impression (Shepard having dialogue choice(s) of "let's discuss this diplomatically" and "bow to mah authority OR ELSE" doesn't strike me as something "much fine tuned" in comparison to previous installments) ... but i suppose will have to wait for the full game to get a better idea of that 'much bigger system' and see how it works in practice.

[Tarami]

You've brought up my main issue with Bioware RPGs. The tabula rasa methodology of RPG writing just doesn't work for me. I can't sympathize with a character that is only characterized through plot points.

I say character, eventhough it's "me", because I can't actually roleplay a character that's consistent. I get to pick between starkly contrasting options which, put together, are supposed to make some sort of character, but characters and people aren't the average of all the opposing choices they've made. People behave rather predictably and it's the subtle changes in attitude/behaviour that give them depth. Choosing to eat the cat twice and saving the cat once doesn't make me 33% good, but 100% a cunt. "Well, he didn't eat ALL the cats..." isn't a redemptive argument.

My counter-example is Witcher (2, haven't played the first), where the character already exists and the choices you make are more practical. Side with these guys or those guys, help this guy or that guy or neither guy and so on. You don't have to pretend to have reason to do so, because let's face it, the in-character reasons are fuck-stupid in almost every RPG. Geralt (the Witcher) rather has reasons to do all the things in the game that are largely consistent with his own character (in the game, I doubt it's very consistent with the books) rather than one you're trying to impose on him.

Also, the character not trying to reflect my choices, and vice versa, gives me a lot stronger sympathy for his/her story. Trying to save Triss and their messed-up relationship is far more engaging than any romance plot I've ever had in a BW RPG, because I never really care shit about any of those people. They cease to exist when I leave the scene because they're only there to stroke my ego and appear to have no lives of their own. Geralt? He fucks shit up no matter what I think of it. I can't stop him even if I liked to. (But who'd want to?)

I think that the bottom line is that roleplaying doesn't really work the way BW generally tries to do it. The games have decent storylines (cliché as they are) but have never engaged me much on an emotional level. It feels more like your first D&D adventure than anything character-driven, complete with overelaborate NPCs written by an equally overzealous GM. There's so much dissonance between the characterization of the protagonist versus the supporting cast and how they respectively seem to relate to the game world. The main character can act but not feel, while the secondary characters can feel but not act. It feels inherently flawed to structure a narrative like this.

Maybe it would be better if you got to pick your characteristics at game start and the game could adapt the dialogue options. Two points in Narcissism, two points in Greed, one point in Cowardice.

[Margalis]

Systems where you are strongly materially rewarded for dialog choices rarely also work as role-playing systems. Especially systems like Bioware uses where you are awarded for cumulative similar choices. Although the game may present you with 200 choices over the course of it realistically you make one binary choice at the start.

FemShep running is hilarious. It's like she's an awkward NFL running back.

[caladein]

Systems where you are strongly materially rewarded for dialog choices rarely also work as role-playing systems. Especially systems like Bioware uses where you are awarded for cumulative similar choices. Although the game may present you with 200 choices over the course of it realistically you make one binary choice at the start.

I haven't played an ME recently, but I remember plenty of choices that weren't Paragon/Renegade.  Moreover, in the case of ME2, you had room to pick the other choices at times, especially with the interrupts.

As for Tarami's points, I disagree that it's inherently flawed for the medium.  The strength of a modern BioWare title is that it's constantly prompting me with choices.  Those choices often don't have any game mechanical impact, but they define what my character is like.  And because they're full voiced and hide the full responses I don't pick, the only version of that character I'm seeing is my own.  How far they are down one bar or another is just one aspect of them, along with how they respond to this or that group or how diplomatic or flirtatious they are in general.

The binary "eat puppy"/"save puppy" choices are still important.  They're often a fun payoff for whatever you've been working on and as you frequently see them opposite each other, the contrast heightens the stakes.  But judging a game just through them is like watching a condensed game on League Pass or MLB.tv, you're only getting the broad and important strokes.

Each conversation or interrupt prompt lets me shape my character and thus reaffirm my connection to it.  Yes, I'm going to be respectful to this Sith.  No, I'm not going to stop Garrus from shooting this witness.  Over and over again until I don't have the concept that I started out with.  I just have "my" Shepard (or Agent or Warden).

I'll never have my Geralt or my Dovahkiin or my Vaan, even though I like all of those games quite a bit.  There's just a different relationship with those games.  They're not asking me what I think about what's going on the vast majority of the time, just if I want to keep going (in general or down one of many paths).

[Kitsune]

The conversation in that bar somewhere in ME2 that all males see the Asari as looking like particularly attractive versions of their race, just with head tentacles, was an interesting bit.

Wait, seriously?  That, if true, would make them quite a bit cooler in my estimation.  It'd go a long way towards explaining why other species seem happy to hook up with them, and why they're so very human-looking.

[Sjofn]

Yeah, it's the bachelor party dudes in the Ilium bar, you have to click on ... something, probably the dancer, to keep triggering their conversation.

[UnSub]

Yes - it is obviously a bucks' party between some guys who aren't really friends and they get to talking about the Asari.

It raises an interesting idea about Asari being psychic manipulators... who then apparently exist solely as eye candy for the males of the universe.

[tmp]

It raises an interesting idea about Asari being psychic manipulators...

Not really, unless these psychic manipulation powers get somehow transferred to any and each mechanic/electronic system which happens to take a picture of some Asari (as well as the individual pictures that get printed out, video feeds transmitted across half of the galaxy to the viewers said Asari isn't even aware of, etc)

[Lakov_Sanite]

You're overthinking it.  It could have simply being that one asari manipulating the table to get better tips.  In fact, it's probably what a lot of their dancers do, or possibly when looking to find a mate.

"Hey you look different than most asari I've seen"
"That's because my father was krogan tee-hee"

It doesn't have to be a lasting lie, just long enough to get whatever they want.

[tmp]

"Hey you look different than most asari I've seen"
"That's because my father was krogan tee-hee

It doesn't have to be a lasting lie, just long enough to get whatever they want.

"Wait, didn't you look completely different just a moment ago, when you were serving the other tables?"

It just isn't something that has a chance to last at all without becoming public knowledge. At which point it becomes part of the codex and something other species are aware/afraid of, rather than idle speculation of drunks at the bar.

[Lantyssa]

If you buy the mystery drink, the bartender's appearance changes.  You can go through three or four changes this way.

The entire subtext of that bar scene is to make you wonder if there is something odd going on with the Asari.

[Kitsune]

I think it's a safe bet that the general body shape of Asari is constant; otherwise things like fitting into 'Asari-sized' vacuum suits would provide an immediate problem.  But I could believe that they're faceless, Protoss-looking things, and you see a face on them that corresponds with your species.  A lot of personality and beauty is perceived in the face and expression, after all.

[Merusk]

What I took away from it was they were all focusing on features common to an assari that happened to parallel their own species.

The Turian Mentions her 'head fringe'  The salarian .. well he just appreciates her limberness..  The Human mentions her belly button but you know it's all about the T&A.

The scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ7r80IOxtE

[Ingmar]

What I took away from it was they were all focusing on features common to an assari that happened to parallel their own species.

The Turian Mentions her 'head fringe'  The salarian .. well he just appreciates her limberness..  The Human mentions her belly button but you know it's all about the T&A.

The scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ7r80IOxtE

Yeah it isn't any more complicated than this IMO.

[tmp]

If you buy the mystery drink, the bartender's appearance changes.  You can go through three or four changes this way.

Given the change involves sudden acquisition of whorish makeup and such, i took it as just another joke -- the "beer effect" as they tend to put it.