User talk:SunyiNyufi

Hi, welcome to Mass Effect Wiki! Thanks for your edit to the Forum:Question about ME3 ending page.

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Your welcome:) Enjoy:) Seriously, that guy is either trolling or actually being serious, but regardless, the true talent for fortune-telling always shines. Have a good day XD

Hey and thanks for the video! Great find! This guy actually had some brilliant ideas, though I disagree with him about redeeming Cerberus. They were terrorists from the very begining of their existenece, and humanity has N7 to protect it. A legal and official state organization. Just as the STG, Commandos or batarian SIG (while it lasted) were state organisations. On the other hand, if redemption was included as one of several options to decide Cerberus' fate, the game would only benefit from that.

A bit more about possible Miranda's involvement... I'm game-mastering a table-top RPG in ME setting, continuing the events of ME2 (we started it long before ME3 was released). Actually the whole plot consists of players being employees of a colonial development corporation. Throughout the events of the game they discover, that there's much more to their place of employment... As their duties often involve searching for prothean artifacts, discovering habitable planets as far as possible from the mass relays, seeing that the corporation's security force is rather small, but armed with military-grade hardware, and often conducts downright black operations. And then some encounters with Cerberus happen, which Cerberus side does not survive:) So guess who's running the show? The lucky owner of the perfect genes:) Was glad to see, that if she survives the events of ME3, the story is very similar. BTW, good chatting with you!-Algol- 23:00, March 24, 2012 (UTC)

I think I have to disagree about N7 being just a premiere premier school for leadership. The lore describes N7 as "The "N" designates special forces and the "7" refers to the highest level of proficiency." furthermore N7 "recruits officers from every branch of Earth's militaries". The term "special forces with the highest level of proficiency" is suitably and conveniently broad enough to describe, well, almost anything. Ranging from elite soldiers with exceptional skills (like Shepard and, to some extent, James Vega) to spies, intelligence analysts and covert/black operators. In this case N7 is akin to Asari Commandos, arguably the most powerful special force in the galaxy, and protectors of asari race. Yet I have to agree, that N7 doesn't create the impression of versatility, as with Cerberus or STG, who have, for example, scientific divisions. Then again, Amanda Kenson, a scientist, worked on a highly classified mission sanctioned by Hackett. The N7 involvement was never stated, but, hey, why would a special force even state it? This sounds like head-canon, but doesn't it make some sense? So overall, back to the topic of Cerberus' possible redemption, I'd rather co-opt some former members into official organizations (read: create N7 sub-divisions), then reinstate the old organization, but with new methods. IMO the old Cerberus has too dark and morbid backstory to function in future.

To return a favour with the video, so to speak, have you ever read this comic. I think you probably did, but just in case. It's hilarious:)

And BTW, I'm curious abuot your ME preferences, if I may. Like, favourite race, class, character or maybe a whole moment in the game (games)?-Algol- 13:17, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

"I think the best solution would be then to take people, who worked for Cerberus because they wanted to serve humanity, and integrate them somehow. I mean Miss Perfect Genes would pretty easily get the N7 designation if she wanted too that's for sure :D" - That! Definitely:)

Yeah, Mess Perfect is great. I, for instance, just love parodies:)

Just a few thoughts to comment yours... I like reptiles too, so I agree on the cuteness. Wrex and Eve are even-tempered, and hell, they visionaries, who can change the krogan, but... Guys like Wreav or Gatatog Uvenk are there too, if not in the majority. If krogan really are naturally agressive, I can't blame them for being true to their nature, but they may become a problem in the future, if people like Wrex and Eve do not manage to educate them. Nevertheless, I was never hesitant to cure the genophage, primarily because I just couldn't fail Wrex and Mordin, my friends. Abut Liara knocking herself up without Shep knowing... :) Well, I personally think, that asari take these matters more seriously. It is described, that the melding can also be done with close friends, so it's not alway procreation... Besides, Liara didn't seem to knock herself up, while joining minds with Shepard to interpret the Cypher back in ME1. Anyway, I think those, who romanced Liara absolutely don't mind "lots of little blue children":) And yes, Mordin. I like him a lot for the very same reason and utmost respect for his intellect, but it was so sad to watch him die, even if his death was necessary. And the ay he handled it... I think the krogan should consider building some new statues.

About the favourites... I find it hard for myself to come up with something 100% definite, but:

Race: Quarians and asari. In the case of quarians, they often remind me of "Dune" fremen and I deeply sympathise with both. i just loved how tightly-knit and friendly their community is, and how they look out for each other (with some exceptions, like Tali's court case in ME2). To illustrate this, the scene from "Ascension", that depicted a quarian market in one of their ships just stunned me. In a pleasant way. And of course, there's always Tali. In the case of asari, I just admire their culture and their observant mindset, wisdom and patience (qualities I sorely lack myself:)). Besides, having a 1000-year lifespan is just awe-inspiring. I also like their inclination towards peace, cooperation and diplomacy - think about it: having twice the number of religions in their history, comparing to humans, but never having a religious war. That's... something one should learn from. And the secret behind their history as revealed in ME3... I actually tend to believe, that despite being so heavily uplifted by the protheans, they nevertheless chose their own path of evolution. The one, that made them who they are "today", so to speak:) Ah, and I just love getting into those arguments whether they're female or not. Short version of my opinion: definitely not:)

Characters: That's were it really gets complicated. I liked all of them in some way, except for Javik. And yes, you're absolutely right about Kaidan and Jacob. I'd also add ME2 Jack: if you don't romance her, you can't break the wall, period. Though ME3 Jack is just great! I like what she has become so much. Yet the most favourite would probably be Tali, on the claims of LI:) Closely followed by Liara, Garrus and Miranda. Then Mordin, Wrex and EDI... Ah, and if we talk about non-companions, I also liked Aria a lot. Or is it Aleena? Or whatever name she wishes to use right now:) BTW, you're totally right about Liara. The progress this character made was just tremendous! Though simetimes I feel, that she became much more... sad. Don't even know how to describe it. Ah, and sometimes she scares me a bit. Like: "with a few clicks I can start a war" or "I will flay you alive... with my mind". So yeah, nerdy people ftw, I definitely agree with you and share this trait myself:)

Class: And here I finally can provide a definite answer: Infiltrator. There's a bit of a backstory behind it. I somehow envy Ashley Williams. She had received genetic enhancements including in-utero vision correction, because of her predisposition for nearsightedness. Now she's one of Alliance's best sharpshooters. I have inborn nearsighttedness myself, but since I don't live in the 22nd century, without my contact lenses I'm blind as a bat:) My star sign is sagittarius, to add to the irony. That's why I always tend to play snipers in shooter games, archers in fantasy settings etc. To compensate, so to speak:) Besides, I'm somewhat a perfectionist, so seeing someone's head blown off with a one, clean perfect shot between the eyes is the most satisfying feeling I get from ME combat. And I just hate playing a vanguard XD. I get it why (and know many) people like that class. Guess it's just not for me. I mean, I highly value my private space and don't want enemies to be that close and personal:) BTW, the vanguard's Nova+Charge combo is really overpowered, but, hey, it's a decent pesponse to their infiltrator "antagonists", who had Assassination Cloak+Widow in ME2. The Widow. The finger of God, as someone called it in a demotivator.

Moments: A whole lot of them! Talking to Sovereign and flipping off TIMmy, while getting away with his ship and money, renegade interrupt with Kai Leng are priceless. Mordin singing during the last moments of his life. Normandy crew setting foot on the Collector Base. Their hasty evacuation after the Human-reaper was destroyed. Liara in the very moment she takes over as the new Shadow Broker. Then the whle situation on Rannoch made me teary-eyed with joy - Tali taking off her mask to watch the skies of her home, and her brief, simple but very touching exchange of phrases with Shepard, if there's a romance between them. The aligned fleet coming out of the mass relay for the final battle. The last dialogues between you and your companions. Well, I'm totally replaying the game next weekend.

Many thanks for the comic! That one I didn't read, so I'll fix that:)

Sorry if the whole text was too long.-Algol- 16:09, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

"So I think it would be a win-win situation for Liara anyway." - Totally. Actually, that's exactly the mindset you get, when you become a Shadow Broker. Cold calculus. Ability to extract useful opportunities from every situation. Just kidding:) Little blue children with predisposition for leadership and awesomeness from Shep's genes and immense intellectual abilities from Liara's genes are exactly what their children should be like. And as of her sadness and pessimism, her voice actress, Ali Hillis, said in an interview once, that "in ME3 Liara has become more... human." I guess not only asari are capable of slow but sure cultural takeover. There was also this one thing I liked about Liara in ME3, is that she becomes so secretive, refuses to discuss asari behaviour with EDI, and yet has no problem unraveling other people's secrets and even sharing them with Shepard. I mean, classified documents! Private correspondence! Mischievous Shdow Broker is so mischievous:) The line I always wanted to have in a dialogue with her is something like: "Liara, could you remove your surveillance cameras from my quarters. I can only imagine how much lulz and money you can make from a vid, featuring me and Tali, but, pretty please, don't. Let "Vaenia" an "Blasto" hold records for the largest audience in the galaxy". Anyway, Liara is awesome.

''“Every time the world is about to end, I think how mad you'd be at if I didn't do anything about it. I couldn't do it without you.”'' - Wow... Just... WOW!!! Great piece of dialogue.

BTW is there some special dialogue, when Liara shows Shepard her warning device for future races, and asks Shep for his/her input, if you romance her? I have a FemShep character, who romanced Liara in both ME1 and 2, but I'm too curious and impatient to wait, when I'll have time to start this playthrough:)

"Too bad that in ME3 they become a bit retarded and more aggressive, especially in those geth video footage from the past." - That actually disturbed me in their portrayal. I get this feeling, that it doesn't exactly tie with the lore, established in previous games. Nor it seems logical. I mean, sure, in ME1 quarians were good, geth were bad etc., and then in ME3 it all took a 180 turn. How about the part, that quarians git booted from the Citadel, not only because they created a possible threat to all organic life, but also for the fact, that geth killed members of other species from the very begining, during the Morning War. There was this asari on Illium in ME2, who told, that her bondmate (another asari) was killed by the geth, while being on Rannoch and studiyng quarian culture. So I think think the truth is somewere in between, both quarians and geth are guilty and innocent at the same time. Yet, when quarians attacked geth in ME3, I found myself in dire need to beat my head against the wall. They could have make a deal... With Shepard, Tali and Legion as mediators. But no, Han'Gerrel and Daro'Xen had to go all nuts, and Shala'Raan had to go all conformist. To quote Mordin, "Pointless, pointless waste of life". Organic and synthetic alike.

"Actually I like the asari now better, that we learned about their secret, because it makes them a bit less innocent and peaceful in my eyes." - you say it like being innocent and peaceful is a bad thing:)

"About the gender thing: it's stupid to call them females, since that is a term used by non-mono-gender species." - Exactly so. But the Galactic Codex itself calls them "An all-female race." Many people tend to forget, that the Codex was written for humans, by humans. It only reflects human perspective, not necessarily the truth.

"Though I have to admit I think the possible TalixGarrus pairing is really cute too :D" - Well, at least they can share a romantic evening with a meal and beverages... You know, dextro-amino style.

About sniping, I have this passion to the extent of sniping with the Phalanx in ME2, and equipping all heavy pistols with presision scopes in ME3. A mini-sniper rifle. Hey, it actually works! BTW, what's your Vanguard's loadout? Disciple and Locust, I take it? Just on a side-note: I also look forward to play as an Engineer. It was a class for lazy people in ME2, but now they have turrets to add to drones and hacked enemies. I recall playing "Overlord" as an Engineer, with Tali and Legion as squadmates. Drones all over the place, geth are fighting themselves, the squad sits in cover, eating pop-corn and watching the show. Good times:)

You know, I wanted to tweak the game-files too, for my second playthrough, but then I asked myself, what for? To get 5000 EMS and survive (apparently)? No use to me, I'll never choose the "Destroy" option. I'll always choose "Control". If you're interested, here's the logic: for me, the main idea and philosophy behind all Mass Effect games was the diversity of life. Life takes form of many species, and even some synthetics are alive too. This diversity is what makes life so bright and beautiful, and that's exactly what Shepard is fighting for. So no, I won't wipe out the geth, because without them, there will not be this kind of diversity. And no, I won't merge, because, again, it takes away diversity - all become the same, organics and synthetics. Seems to me, that controlling is the only option and I don't have a choice in this perspective. *Sigh* I hope they fix the endings the right way in April.-Algol- 19:41, March 25, 2012 (UTC)

That dialogue with Liara is just priceless... Totally replaying with my FemShep, who has a relationship with her. A bit of an afterthought: don't mess with Liara. She's quarter-krogan:)

On the quarians and their stupid admirals... At least Zaal'Kris and the youngest and newest member of the admiralty board are not like that. Tali could have been a visionary to quarians, much like Wrex and Eve (excuse me, Urdnot Bakara:)) to krogans. Just because of her ability to think outside the box, because of the experience, gained from travelling with Shepard. But no, they didn't listen. Shala'Raan didn't seem stupid too, but she was too indecisive, lacking any initiative, and submitting to the will of the majority. Those things are unacceptable in any leader. Well, at least now the 300-year hatred is over, and everyone can relax and rebuild. And remember the lives lost, in order not to repeat the mistake.

Sometimes I think, that having less interesting races or characters, who don't have dark secrets is very good in a setting, where everyone else has dark secrets. I mean, at least someone wouldn't start causing trouble, when you're already in deep sh*t, trying to fix the problems, everyone else's dark secrets caused. For example, that's the main reason I liked Bethany in DA2. People call her uninteresting, because she always agrees with you, and has this overall niceness, without any flaws. Well, I have enough crazy people in my party: one the elves suffers from severe depression, the other is socially oblivious, then there's a nymphomaniac, a schizophrenic, a religious fanatic and a compulsive liar. It's nice to have someone kind, well-mannered and rational, for a change:)

"It was perfect for when an enemy was out of charge range" - thinking like a true Vanguard. The primary weapon of the Vanguard is... the Vanguard herself!!!:) Don't really know about submachine guns, though. What I saw in the Locust was pretty much like in ME2: a hybrid between a submchine gun and an assault rifle, having relatively low rate of fire, but gaining mid- or even long-range versatility, and virtually no recoil. I think it would benefit the Vanguard very well, as weight-reducing mods are SMG-exclusive, but it can shoot over much longer distances, than a shotgun, if you suddenly feel like shooting and not charging. Or if it's a banshee against you, in which case even a Vanguard would like to keep distance.

Unfortunately, the game doesn't give us other real options, then to trust the weird kid and assume direct control, sorry, assume, that everything he says is true. I mean, Shepard can be alive after the "Destroy" option, but EDI is not present. In the other two options, she is present. We have to deal with what we have:( A question: is that picture... your work? It is great! Loved the dialogue and the sketch-style.

About those fixing or not fixing the endings... Well, there's the only way to find out: sit and wait. Until the next DLC comes out. If it's the endings - good, they learn. If it's Aria retaking Omega... Well, I like Aria, but with all due respect, we have much bigger problems, than Omega. I understand why you don't have high hopes, that they'll fix the endings. Your arguments make perfect sence, yes. My ratio tells me the very same things. Yet my heart tells me to believe and have hope.-Algol- 00:10, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I think if Bethany was around more, not just Act1, the final battle and the DLC's, we could see some more of her personality and hear some interesting stories, like "How to escape a templar: pro-tips":) Comparing to Jacob, he's with you from the very begining of the game, and Legion is still much-much more interesting character, despite being recruited last (w/o mods).

Well, I'll be replaying soon, so I'll choose something more suitable for an SMG (probably adept or engineer) and we'll see. Though the Hornet kinda confused me: a burst-fire SMG? That's ridiculous. Good for squadmates, though. Ever used it? About the banshees... Totally right! Scary as... well, banshees. But properly challenging, which is good. My second playthrough was with a Soldier on insanity. And during the battle with the Destroyer, prior to entering the Citadel and encountering Marauder Shields, the hero of ME3, they send three of those things at you. With a swarm of other critters. I didn't even try to shoot the banshees, it's pointless. Managed to lure two out of three under the Destroyer's beam, though.

''Actually a lot of people said that EDI can be present after the Normandy crash even with Destroy, because the people who come out after Joker are your LI and your most used squad mate, and if you used EDI the most, than it's her. Nobody knows if it's a bug (like dead Tali showing up for romance scene) or intended.'' - you know, that's very interesting. I'd better do some serious digging on this topic. Because if it's not a bug... Then the kiddo is really full of crap, and the whole ending seems even more ridiculous. If that's even possible for it to be more ridiculous. BTW, remember the faces, flashing before Shepard right before the ending? It's Anderson, Joker and, in my case, Liara, though I've seen videos with other third characters. Is that the most used squad-member (aka BFF) too?

Laziness is perfectly understandable (by me, at least XD), but I wish you inspiration nevertheless:)

Yeah, the only way to find out, what will happen in April, is to wait until April. BTW, about that enchanced edition... What exactly will they enhanced? 'Cause I'm not big on enhanced aditions anyway - the story's already told, and trying to add seeming replayability to a game, which has been already out for a long time, is just... Well, milking the game EA-style:)-Algol- 14:56, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

"F*ck you Anders" in 3am? Lol, nice!!! Though I don't always get, why people are so upset with him. I mean, it was kinda obvious from Act2, that eventually he will resort to something drastic. Whether he was right or wrong is a topic for a completely different discussion, but he really was easy to read, so why so surprised?

Well, Hornet... It does pack some decent basic damage. And since the squadmates can't stay on target even if they lives were depending on it, firing the whole magazine, but only hitting with a first few bullets, I think it's a choice for Liara and EDI. I always equipped them with the Hornet, and they even shoot stuff. Sometimes:) I don't know if I'll be using the Paladin though... Good old-fashioned Carnifex seemed ok, and to throw away 200.000 creds on a pistol... It's a good pistol, probably the best pistol, but still, it's just a pistol. And no, I won't be tweaking the files and adding money, economy is an important part of the game too:) BTW, about the brutes on Tuchanka... We Infiltrators get sneaky-sneaky, and just walk between them giggling:)

"for example if you don't have Ashley on the Normandy as squad mate, the engineers Gabby and Ken won't have any banter between them for some reason." - So... No kisses between them without Ashley on the ship? That's... weird:) Ah, and the patch... I am I the only one with the feeling, that the game doesn't register all the assets you collected? The descriptions are all there, but the actual score is somehow smaller, than it should be. And the bug on the Citadel, when you resolve an argument between two C-Sec officers. One insists, that C-Sec shouldn't bother so much with trivial crimes, like bar brawls etc., an tighten security to counter larger crimes and terrorist acts (this is was right after the cerberus coup atempt), the other is against. I supported the first one twice, and got "C-Sec is focusing more on small crimes, unable to deal with larger threat blah-blah-blah" twice. WTF?

"new epilogue, new quests, new locations and new characters" - wow, really? That's good! I thought it was something like BG's enchanced edition - new graphics and, well, nothing important more. I'll definitely try it out. Not a big fan of "The Witcher" games, though. They are very good games, yes, but I think I just like the book too much, and imagined things differently, as I'm seeing on the screen... I strongly dislike all the games, based on LotR, and there are dozens of them.-Algol- 18:45, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

Well, stupid and counter-productive... Yes. How about assassinations? Subverting and bribing the templars with lyrium? Tricking people with magic to hear the voice of Andraste, saying, that the Chantry is now corrupt? Flawing enchanted items, made for the templars to slowly kill them with magic? You know, the civilized stuff. Though I like good explosions, I'm a bit of a pyromaniac:) But one thing I don't get... what civilians? Where? When? Do people even take time to analyze the whole situation?

"...and then said “f*ck it”, and became a pirate with Isabela" - considering how many people choose the same option, Isabela may have the largest army in Thedas now:)

You can always buy useless gifts in the hospital:) BTW, what are they for? Tennyson's poems are for Ashley, and the others?

"She would never just stand there and try to shoot Kai Leng. She would charge him, and then re-organize his face with a heavy melee. Would be priceless!" - remember, that Kai Leng has plot armour:( No matter what you do, you won't get anything realistic, and that saddened me. What I wanted is a similar situation: Kai Leng jumps from a ceiling to engage the salarian councillor... and falls down with a new hole in his head. So who's the assassin now? Really hated that guy and his plot armour. What do you think about his character?

Well, I had the salarian fleet, not that it helped much... And multiplayer? I won't be playing it until they fix the endings, if they will even do that. That's on principle.

About that refugee... As I recall, Shepard doesn't directly state, that the patrol will open fire, just that they are authorized to do it. If you choose to support the clerk, the war assets will improve, and it will be stated, that many refugees were redirected to Thessia, were they found safe haven. Then again, considering what happened to Thessia... Then again, considering what happened to the Citadel later... It's hard to survive, while Reapers are on the loose:)

"the will to see Geralt bang as many women as possible" - and with that I was profoundly disgusted. It was rather cheap, really. Though in tune with the novels. Besides, I imported the save to TW2, where my character was with Shani, but the game still implies Geralt and Triss are lovers. I don't even like Triss. At all.

Those LotR games are really funny. A good share of them are real-time strategies. Which probably amuses me the most, because Tolkien's battles usually start with strategy and planning, but end with miracles and heroic interventions. The other good share are action games with visceral combat. Again, the exact thing Tolkien focused in his books (sarcasm). Ah, and there was this one game, which basically repeats the storyline of LotR. You're playing Frodo. Main objective: get rid of the One Ring. During your travels you encounter, surprise-surprise, Aragorn and the others... Can't people just read books? Especially great books?:)

"The only MMORPG I'm looking forward to trying is World of Darkness (if they ever finish it that is)" - I'm monitoring that thing too. But judging from the current progress, it would take asari lifespan for us to start playing. -Algol- 22:31, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

This just came as an afterthought... You've said "unless you edit coalesced.bin, which could result in you being banned from Origin for modifying a game file". Okay... Now, okay. EA wants people to play their multiplayer. People, who don't want to play multiplayer edit the file to get the "best" ending. After getting it, they theoretically can move to multiplayer, just out of curiosity, knowing, that their single-player experience is secure. Now EA bans them, thus removing a possibility for people to play multiplayer. The logic... Where is it?-Algol- 23:08, March 26, 2012 (UTC)

I always imagined, that after aquiring the famili mansion, Hawke threw a huge party with all the friends/rivals and after a few rounds of drink said, that the mansion is ok, but this huge chantry building is blocking the view from on of the windows... Poor Anders took it a bit too serious. He just wanted to help XD

"If you have Kaidan, the only gift you can buy is alcohol" - O_o does he still have migraines in ME3? Because if he does, I wouldn't recommend alcohol. Doctors Michel and Chakwas probably wouldn't recommend it either.

Well, back in "Deception" Kai Leng took a shotgun blast to his legs at point blank range. And he wasn't wearing armour. I always thought, that in this case a blast from a 22nd century shotgun turns your legs into some kind of a crimson mist, and you die from shock and blood loss, but no, the guy crawls away, boards a shuttle and flies back to TIMmy. So much for realism. My second problem with him in ME3 is his sword and ninja jumps. Seriously, does that even fit into ME-universe? If they'd given him a very upgraded omni-blade for melee, and mini-biotic charges (like the banshee's) for movement, that would be much more in-tune with the setting.

About MP... Well, I watched the videos and it may be even fun, but really, Alien Swarm, Gears of War horde mode and, hell, even CoD Zombies or Survrival mode is much more fun. And all the disk space it took, they could you use to include something worthy. Like "From Ashes" in the core game or normal endings. Damn you EA.

About Geralt in the game... Especially in TW2 it is heavily hinted, that Geralt wants to find his true love, Yennefer, and bring her back. Apparently it doesn't impede him from banging anything that moves. Not my type of character:)

"Thinking back, it is funny how I couldn't piece a sentence together yet knew the word headquarters already" - Awww, that's so cute:)))

Ever played the table-top WoD and VtM? Didn't play it much myself, but it rocks. And yes, "Bloodlines" were epic. hope they will be continuing the tradition in the MMO. Would love to play as my favourite Tremere again.

We're having a game session today, so I'm off to my players, who are about to walk into a Cerberus facility with all love and warmth of an M-451 Firestorm:) See you!

^that was me XD -Algol- 13:08, March 27, 2012 (UTC)

I definitely gotta have a playthrough of ME3 with Kaidan, if he's becoming more... twisted. It's like all biotics become somewhat more twisted at some point of their lives O_o

About Kai Leng - definitely. There were so many ways to make him a life-like assassin, but nooooo, they made him a stupid ninja-wannabe, who makes one tactical mistake after another and still survives due to plot armor, while supposedly being "cool". That's not cool, that's as irritating, as a star-kiddo. Or maybe it was "artistic" depiction of Kai Leng, I dunno. "And that's the biggest problem with Bioware games as of late IMHO, they're not build up logically which leads to way to many plot holes and space magic" - that's so true. I think the reason behind this is their damn appeal to the "broader audience". Back in Baldur's Gate 2, if you cast a spell in the city, first time you get a warning, second time you go to jail, because that part of the game-world has this rule. In Kirkwall you can use blood magic right in front of a templar and... nothing. It seems to me, that the broader audience doesn't care for plot integrity or the world they're playing, they just want their "button awesome". *Sigh*. That's sad. Other people do not have to suffer from this.

"A Mass Effect MMO, but not like SWTOR, rather something like what they are trying to do with World of Darkness, where you could actually roleplay characters who are not necessarily soldiers out to save the world" - and again, a broader audience just once to shoot and slice stuff, than get teh lootz. That's why I highly doubt something like this will ever happen, at least while EA owns the franchise. So by now, you can only try fan-made forum RP's or tabletops. A few thoughts: playing soldiers out to save the world is highly implied in the ME setting, as it is today, because it's pretty much a story of a wholescale galactic war. The Reapers are coming, everyone, not necessarily being a soldier (like ME1 Liara or Diana Allers, or Kelly Chambers) has to contribute just to survive. Now, if it's a setting based after the events of ME3 (I heavily imply "true" endings, not the starchild bullsh*t), there would be much more freedom of choice: space exploration, in- and interspecies politics and diplomacy and many-many more. Not that role-playing a soldier cannot be compelling, if you're actually role-playing. From my, rather vast, experience: think about PTSD, being scared sh*tless when you encounter some Reaper-made horror, a conflict between duty and consciousness, moral dilemmas, when you realise, that your airstrike just levelled civilian buildings with collateral damage... Role-playing a soldier isn't just shooting stuff.

Yeah, amnesias are always complicated:) But I'm still not comfortable with Geralt supposedly loving one person, and sleeping with a dozen of others. I object to it morally:)

Choco-dragon? Nice:) BTW ever played GURPS? That's the system I use the most. many people find it too complicated, and they are probably true, but on the bright side, if it's complicated, you can really dig into it.

Thanks for the video! Loved it the whole series! Especially the 4-th episode. I swear it was TIM's ghost XD

And the most important! My intel shows, that someone is having a birthday today:) So best wishes, lots of time and willpower, if inspiration is never a problem, lot's of fun, have a great party and, well... whatever you want to wish yourself! Ah, and also I wish you, that those guys in Canada will come to their senses, and your pleasant gaming experience will be back! -Algol- 15:09, March 28, 2012 (UTC)

Does Kaidan go all Ash-like and bugs you about your involvement with Cerberus all the time, even if you just killed a dozen of their troops, disrupted their plans and destroyed one of their facilities? Because with all my sympathy to Ash, she started to get on my nerves a bit. It was like Horizon all over again. I'm currently replaying ME3 with a FemShep engineer (think I'm gonna bring Tali and EDI on Rannoch, hehe. BTW engineers are very interesting, if you just want to eat pop-corn and watch the screen), but later, when I have more time, I think I'm going to do a full ME1-ME2-ME3 marathon. Chances are, I might go crazy after that, expecting people to call me "Commander", waiting for a shuttle to go somewhere and seeing dialogue whhels each time, when I talk to someone, but hey, It'll be fun:) Ah, the good old ME1... I didn't minde the Mako at all BTW and was perfectly ok with its handling. And no thermal clips, yes!!!

We just have to sit and wait until EA/Bioware's next installment. If they learn from DA2 and ME3, there still may be hope. If they don't, then Bioware is pretty much done for.

Well, about this post-ME MMO... If the setting is going to be in the far future (in which case species will have long ago evolved into something), or the galactic civilizations found other means of transportation, don't you think, that it's not going to be very ME-like? Because mass relays, the Citadel and different species, such as they were presented in ME1-2-3, are trademarks of the whole game-world. ME wouldn't be itself, these are changed too much. So yes, we want normal endings, mass relays intact and the galaxy rebuilding:) BTW, you know, good-old text-based online RPG's can be somewhat rare to find these days, but they still exist perfectly well. So take your pick, or wait for WoD to be finished (I wouldn't, because patience isn't really my virtue:))

"The dialogues are so lacking in options, it boggles the mind really" - you know, I have somewhat mixed feelings towards this. One one hand, they DO lack options. On the other hand, ME was never intended to be a classic example of an RPG. With so much stuff to wrap up from previous two parts, they just can't fit all possible dialogue options into the disk space, especially because sound files do take a lot of disk space. In this matter a voiced protagonist is sort of a setback, but hey, I just can't imagine Shepard not voiced. Plus "hit the upper choice or the blue one, and everything will be alright" doesn't work anymore, and that's good. After all, even with all the flaws regarding diaogue, I can hardly name a more successful mixture of a shooter and an RPG. Ah, and even with lacking choices I find ME dialogues richer, then Skyrim's or the recent KoA Reckoning's.

"I sort of stopped going after other women in TW1 once I gave Alvin to Triss, and never cheated on her in TW2 either...which might not be Geralt-like, but hey he can change too, right? :)" - definitely. I mean, if Geralt can abandon the Witcher Code (da Rulez), like, completely, a bit of chastity is not that big of a deal:)

Munchking rules:) I just love it.

Hope you enjoyed the cake!:)-Algol- 12:33, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

Yeah... Kaidan seems so nicer to Shepard, then Ashley. I'm not surprised though. Back in ME1 Shepard always described Kaidan acting with his mind and Ashley acting with her heart. Guess that is the thing I like about her. So I can forgive the grumpiness:) My choice of team is always biotic specialist and tech specialist, pretty much no matter class I'm playing and no matter the difficulty. So basically it's Liara/Tali in ME1, Samara/Tali in ME2 and Liara/Tali again in ME3. But I think we'll reenact "Overlord" this time on Rannoch, and build ourselves a geth army out of the geth army *wicked grin*

About the First Contact War... Well, 1) Your choices will not really matter, so not much ME, just as you said 2) The "Evolution" comic already made it clear, what was the dark secret behind the whole war, so not interesting enough... 3) It would be hard to hate the turians, already knowing how nice they are, so it would make role-playing the conflict kinda weird and unrewarding... I think the next installment in ME universe should definitely be post-ME3, but again, that implies proper endings:)

"He built a really big dwarf town around a mine filled with dangerous gasses, where is the logic in that?!" - O_o I fail to see the logic. But sometimes dwarves in fantasy settings really build their cities near the most hazardous objects... and then have their consequences. Ever played "Dwarf Fortress"?:) As Isabela said, "Dwarves are funny".

About voice actors - I'm totally with you! Jennifer Hale rules. maleShep may be the poster character for all the videos (well, not all, they did the FemShep trailer), but everyone knows, that FemShep is voiced better:) Not that I didn't like Mark Meer's voicing, it was good, but I had this feeling, that Meer is doing a good job, but Hale is not only doing a good job, but also pours her heart into it. And Ali Hillis... I just love the interviews with her. BTW IRL she doesn't sound like Liara (an example, showing that she's a very good actress). And also I was surprised, that Morrigan, Daro'Xen and Aethyta are actually voiced by the same person, Claudia Black (again, the same example). I'd also add Liz Sroka, Brandon Keener and Seth Green to your list. Just can't go without mentioning Tali:) And Traynor... What do you think of the character? I think she's just awesome: the accent the intonation, the intellect, the humour and of course, the toothbrush for 6.000 credits. That just won my heart. She especially shines among the other new crew members, who were, let's say, not so good. IMO Vega and Cortez were a bit bland, and Allers was close to becoming ME3's own Tallis.

"And they should really work on what that dialogue circle actually says. There are still times when I have no idea how Shepard will react, cos that one word synopsis isn't accurate. They should do it like in Deus Ex Human Revolution, use a one word description, but when I leave the cursor there it would show at least a short sentence Shepard will actually say" - Yes, Deus EX HR system was very good, but Bioware's dialogue wheel exists one the main purpose of being very-very console-friendly. They made it perfectly clear, that they want to encompass as many platforms, as they can, so I guess we can only view the wheel as a necessary evil. Not very heart-lifting, but still...-Algol- 18:54, March 29, 2012 (UTC)

You know, playing engineer a bit more, slowly turns almost every mission in a sit-back-and-watch scenario... Fully upgraded drone + fully upgraded turret w/flamethrower + hacked enemy turrets, and that's when I don't have Tali yet, playing on Hardcore. Seriously, engineer is a class for lazy people.

Well Skillian Blitz is a much better setting, but I'd vouch for Shepard as an NPC. Though I'm afraid this would turn out into a whole-scale shooter, without any RPG elements at all. I mean, what RPG elements, if you're just expected to rack as big batarian body count, as possible? And other other service histories give even less leeway. Akuze "everyone dies" scenario would hardly be compelling. So I guess that leaves us a post-ME3 setting...

Those dwarves... In LotR the Balrog is just a few floors below, in Warhammer FB skaven and greenskins are just one floor below, in DA the darkspawn are just out of the door... Dwarves just can't have themselves a non-hazardous neighborhood:)

I can't really imagine ME without Liara anymore - that. It would be hard time for me replaying ME2. Seems like in ME universe everyone wants Shepard! - except for Kasumi and Samara :P One of the wants jacob, and the other is too cool for that stuff:) BTW I always thought Kasumi and Jacob should be up to smething together n ME3, but, strangely, no. I mean if they hooked up Tali and Garrus, if Shepard isn't romancing either of them, Kasumi and jacob would be a logical progress. "I've stolen your heart", or something like that:) Just a question... "my FemShep offered her to take a shower [...] thought that it's just a reward for her excellent work.". So, does your Shepard rewards her subordinates with some food and water, when they do an excellent (good doesn't count) work? I mean, rewarding people by allowing them to fulfill their basic needs? That's tyrannical!:) I can imagine: "Ok Garrus, you torn an Atlas mech apart with your bare hands, you may have a meal now, but only a small one" XD

So back to Traynor. Glad you had fun, that scene is just great! Some argue, it's the best romance scene in all ME's, but I'll just stick with Tali's in ME2. And others... Well, I feel for Cortez and his loss, but I'd appreciate, if he talked about something else for a while. For example, a discussion about means to transport yourself to the enemy: Mako, Hammerhead, Kodiak, Tomka, vanguard charge... He only has one line about that. I didn't expect much from Vega, but sometimes he really doesn't make sense. As you said, Cerberus agent working for the Collectors is weird (maybe it was a double-agent of the previous Shadow Broker) and the fact, that he actually was present on a mission to fight the Collectors... In ME2 Anderson explicitely states, that the Alliance cannot send combat squads to Terminus colonies, as they are out of Alliance jurisdiction. Covert/black ops maybe? But Vega was just a marine, nothing is implying he's a special operative. And Allers... I can't believe they killed off Emily Wong just to allow Allers to exist. Emily was a well established (and liked!) character already:( And BTW, about previously established characters, I wanted Shiala, Kirrahe or Kal'Reegar as a squadmate. What about you?

Well, the cursor (rather the absence of one) may be the main problem on consoles... But I don't care:) Hope Bioware impements this (or similar) dialogue system in DA3.

As far as I know about ME1 development, primarily it was developed for PC. That's the main reason it's not even a port for PC. Xbox was ME1 second platform, and only later they released the PS3 version. So no surprise ME1 is so good on PC. Now ME2-3 are a completely different story: they were made primarily for consoles to encompass the larger audience, and then ported to PC. But hey, porting ME2-3 for wasn't as horrible, as, say, porting Skyrim. The only platform it worked good on, was the Xbox. Though I still can't stand, that in ME3 one button has too many functions.

I can imagine the feeling:) "If only you knew, what will happen in a couple of years, you wouldn't be sending those drone swarms and erecting those annoying barriers":)-Algol- 15:22, March 30, 2012 (UTC)

I always thought, that Shepard's involvement in the Skillian Blitz was a bit... embelished by a ME Varric:) By no means I wan't to belittle Shepard's heroism, but he couldn't stop the whole invasion, you know, single-handedly. Sure there were other people too, who played their vital part and performed their own feats of valour. That's why I always choose the dialogue options "I didn't do it alone" and "Others deserve their praise just as I do" whenever someone expresses gratitude to my Shepard for saving the day. I play modest Shepards:) But you're right, playing Skillian Blitz as someone else, and not Shepard, was a bad idea. And those suggestion from the podcast are pretty decent. a C-Sec agent investigating some murder cases on the Citadel - maybe some Garrus' involvement. I mean, he was a C-Sec agent, investigating murder cases on the Citadel, dr. Saleon and all that. It's like Citadel Noire:)

I always liked Samara's character for showing, that Shepard is a mere human, and not all-powerful mind-controlling wizard, who can seduce whoever s/he wants. For the same reason I liked Tela Vasir. She showed, that despite being hailed a hero and a saviour, Shepard's hands are still elbow-deep in blood, because of the people he associated himself/herself with. "Spectres do not blow up buildings, full of innocent people! - Sure we do." And "Don't you dare judge me". Those ones were priceless. Wish there was an option to save her life. "And I feel sorry for everyone romancing Jacob" - there weren't many of them XD Though there were many of those, who romanced Thane... "But naming the kid 'Shepard' is funny :D" - I guess with that many heroic deeds and saved lives, there are a lot of kids in the Galaxy named after Shepard. Remember that turian shopkeeper from ME2 - "I'd name my first-born after you!" A turian Shepard... Wait, that's spelled "Garrus":)

"“So, does your Shepard rewards her subordinates with some food and water, when they do an excellent (good doesn't count) work?” - C'mon, you know that's not what I meant :P" - I know. That was a joke XD Though I do think, that Shepard's shower is about as big, as the shower in the restroom on crew deck. Now, if Shepard hd a hot tub in his/her quarters... Wait, Normandy is not an asari ship.

About the Paragon Lost anime... I'll wait till they release an English version of Dawn of the Seeker, and see with my own eyes, that it is as bad, as many people say... Now, given that Paragon Lost (Renegade Won?) is made by the same people, I don't have high hopes:(. "one would think that since Chobot works in the media, she can read breaking news with enthusiasm" - she always tells about another colony and thousands of lives lost, as if she was delivering a weather broadcast. Totally not in tune with the whole story. "It's funny though that Liara and Samara are based on RL people too and they look really good" - asari always look good:).

"Not making Tali a badly photoshopped stock photo" - Oooh... Low blow. It's a... Let's just say, sensitive matter. I have, like, very mixed feelings about that. On one hand, it really was a badly photoshopped stock photo. On the other hand, I liked it. Seriously. Back before ME3 was released, I didn't want them to reveal Tali's face at all. Some mysteries should remain mysteries. But then, I was just content, that they didn't reveal her face in the actual game process, like you know, during a dialogue, or something like that, and showed just a photo. I'm glad. Now, with just a li-i-itle bit of head-canon, the stock photo isn't so bad.

They killed Kal'Reegar... And I wanted him as a squadmate, or at least as a war asset, leading Quarian Marines (BTW, where are they?). You bastards!:( So, you don't like the Council? I kinda do:) They are as political, as a politician can be, so that's why I always save them. It pays off in ME3, BTW. Tevos (the asari) is too cautious and indecisive, but at last she finds some will, and tells you about the asari secret. Better late, than never. I nearly cried, during a dialogue with her after Thessia. Her reaction... *Sigh*. Sparatus (the turian) was the biggest arse of them all, but at least he delivered some lulz - "Ah, yes, Reapers..." YES!!! Effing Reapers! In ME3 he's the one, giving you a lead on primarch Fedorian, and that turned out to be invaluable. And Valern (the salarian)... Well, the guy gives you the salarian Fleet, despite the Dalatrass forbidding. And that's in society, in which males have no political power. Besides, the Council made Shepard a Spectre, gave him/her all the power and resources (I like the stuff from Spectre Requisitions in ME 1 and 3) and all that. So I'm good with them. "there is this one turian NPC on the Presidium who bumps into you every friggin time if you go to the financial district with rapid transit. Every. Time. I wish I could just shoot him." - he's a fan. Like Conrad Verner. But he's just too shy to ask for an autogpaph. He admires you silently:)

"But wasn't it released for Xbox like half a year before the PC version?" - it was. I just recall some interview with from from the dev's team about ME2, and there were many things said, that ME1 was, in its' core, PC-oriented. Sadly, I can't remember which one. Well, the journal... I like to listen and read the Codex:) I already know what tasks do I have, even they are piled up in that horrible way.

“How about you don't try to kill us with poisonous gas, and I will let you shag my pilot 3 years from now on?” - that reminds me of how many Joker fans wanted him to be romanceable in ME3... He was, but not by your character:) (Change the letter "o" to trollface in the word "Bioware")

P.S. Oh, and were are turian females? Turian female as a squadmate would be nice:)-Algol- 15:34, March 31, 2012 (UTC)

Let's not forget that Shepard also has a strong willpower, otherwise s/he would go nuts about the Prothean beacon on Eden Prime back in ME1 and... Well, imagine how things would develop in that case. And also Shepard has a very charismatic personality, which allows him/her to talk indoctrinated people into commiting suicide. I want to be like Shepard too!XD

About the part with Vasir, I wasn't talking primarily about Cerberus. I was talking about the Spectres. There's not a single person, who ever worked at special forces or intelligence, and had a perfectly clean consciousness. Spectres do maintain galactic peace, but do not hesitate to sacrifice innocent people for it. Sometimes they commit ruthless deeds. Sometimes they commit atrocities. And you're part of them. Secondary is about Cerberus. Of course you can say you used them, that you planned to betray them and all that. It doesn't matter. You already helped them more then once, and because of you, they advanced their influence. At the cost of who knows how many broken lives and horrible deaths. An example: remember that Reaper tech you were salvaging throughout ME2? You gave it to Cerberus, and they paid you nice money. How do you think, how did they used that tech? In ME3 we found out. They outfitted their soldiers with implants, made from the tech you delivered. And then those soldiers slaughtered their way through colonies, planets and the Citadel, killing how many innocents? Vasir's body count pales in comparison. Their blood is on your hands too, because you were the one, who willingly made Cerberus more powerful. You were not the one using Cerberus, they were using you. So that's exactly why I admire vasir's statements: she didn't new all the facts, but her logic was so true. Oh, and when I wrote "you", I didn't mean you specifically, rather, that I'd say those things to Shepard:)

"Well yeah, since Shepard means hero in krogan..." - Wait... Really? O_o

I always wondered, why in ME2 both men and women restroom are accessible by a character of either gender (with EDI warning you about walking into the wrong restroom), but in ME3 one of the bathrooms is inaccessible by the opposite gender... Hmmm, there maybe some sinister plot behind this...

"Also she has a lot of hair... I wonder how she can keep it clean under the helmet... do they have a built in hair washer or what?" - they are different species, so the answer may lie in their biology. For example, aquatic birds release thin layer of fat to keep their feathers dry.

In the matter of dealing with the Council in ME1, my Shepard goes with a standard military procedure (after all s/he is a soldier): in case of emergency, evacuate high-valued personnel ASAP. Whether we defeat Sovereign and his fleet is irrelevant: soldiers are the one to carry the brunt of battle, and defeat civilians with their lives. That's what they signed up for, and they know it. So... lucky Council:) And about renegade choices... I never do them much, mostly because too many of fundamental renegade choices are plain foolish. One good example with the whole Council situation: establishing a human-only Council, if you have a huge renegade bar. That's... idiocy. A direct usurpation of power (which it is) will put humanity in conflict against three former Council races. And each of them can defeat the Alliance even without siding with other two. Want to piss off the turians? They have more powerful military, then the Alliance, especially as of 2183. Want to piss off the asari? If they embargo Alliance goods, it's economy will cease to be (as directly stated in the Codex). Want to piss off the salarians? Krogans pissed them off once... Who wants a human-tailored genophage? Nah, I'd rather be friends will all those people.

The Joker-EDI romance was a bit weird, but hey, ME2 already had some strong implications, so I had myself prepared:) Anyway, I'm happy for them both.

"Actually in retrospect the council's chambers in ME1 could be full of salarian females, cos they are wearing the same type of cloth that dalatrass does" - I thought that those hooded robes they wear are unisex... Aren't salarian females stated to be permanently residing on their planets? Well, the Dalatrass in ME3 technically left the planet for the summit, but the Normandy was nearly orbiting (I use the world loosely) Sur'Kesh, so it doesn't matter that much.-Algol- 17:50, March 31, 2012 (UTC)

By no means I condone Vasir's actions or want to justify them, just telling, that she is right about Shepard. Somehow this adversary brings up more warm feelings, understanding and even sympathy in me, then some "allies".

"She shuts down project Overlord, uploads encrypted Cerberus data to the Alliance, blows the Collector base up." - Overlord wasn't among their main objectives, and the situation with it was contained anyway, so it's still beneficial for them. Encrypted data would take years to decrypt, so it doesn't harm them at the slightest. Now blowing up the base could be a real setback for them, but, as you pointed out, thanks to Mac Walters it wasn't. Sadly, the disabled Collector Cruiser was littered with Collector tech, which wasn't Prothean anymore, it was the Reapers'. And Shepard salvages it for Cerberus, so not just IFF. "So then does Cerberus have lots of ships with reaper code, because they clearly took things from the destroyed base" - they might have copied the IFF, since it is a program. And then the Reapers upgraded the IFF, so they can identify the Normandy and attack it in ME3. But back to who used who, sure TIM sounds very irritated, if you blow up the base, but still TIM wasn't betting all his money on Shepard. He used him/her to defeat the Collectors, and learn about the Reapers as much as he can, and then TIM is ready to discard Shepard as a used tool. Remember the "I don't need you anymore" on Mars and "Cerberus thanks you for your hard work" on Thessia? No matter what choices Shepard makes, s/he still advances Cerberus' progress incomparably more, then hinders it. What bothers me, that in ME3 Miranda turns on Cerberus no matter the ME2 ending... Now, why she didn't tell Shepard, or at least the Alliance, where Cronos Station was, when Cerberus became too much of a problem? I mean, she was physically present there, I can't believe she doesn't know the location.

"Obviously because Javik doesn't get the separate bathroom thing." - with this logic, Liara shouldn't understand the separate bathroom thing either. But nonetheless the doors are shut even if Javik isn't on board. I think it's TIM hiding in whatever bathroom Shepard isn't supposed to go, and eavesdropping on Shepard's plans:)

"I always felt that in that situation politicians aren't really that important, and possible galactic extinction is" - I thought at that point, that if Sovereign really managed to manually activate the relay to dark space, the galactic extinction would happen anyway, regardless of Alliance fleet being previously undamaged, or the Destiny Ascension being undamaged. Now, if Shepard averts that, then having friends among other races and the Galaxy's most powerful dreadnought would be much better, then a human-led council, which will cease to be human-led, like, the next day. Because Saren was somehow right about the "humanity needs to learn it's place" part. The whole idea of the Council is that it's not being "led" by anyone. That had proven to be perfectly right, comparing to the Prothean Empire, which favoured one-race domination and went extinct partially because of that. Now, if we take assets into consideation, saving the Council in ME1 gives more assets, then letting them die. No preferences, just logic. About "your Alliance war assets outweigh the turian ones by far" - I don't know, turians don't get that attention Alliance does. There are several separate spacesips, that somehow give extra points to their fleets, while turians do not have such stuff, a good number of NPC's 10-25 points each, while turians supposedly do not have anyone remarkable, colonist forces, while turians supposedly do not have colonies, and other services, rendered to you by your human crew-members (like rogue fighter pilots), while all Garrus has to present is himself. It's not that Alliance is stronger, the game just doesn't focus much on the others.

"What still bugs me is that EDI pretty much walks around the ship naked" - Oh. My. God... never thought about it that way, but I cannot unread this... Now i can't think any other way :D

"So you can never know... maybe they are female...maybe they are not... there is only one thing that we know...that they used to eat flies :D" - Totally:D

You know, I overheard this dialogue between Garrus and Liara, where Liara asks him whether it is true, that Garrus killed three mercs on Omega with one bullet? He only killed two with one bullet, and a third one died from heart attack, so... I have a new obsession now!!!:) I just got to kill three with one bullet! I killed two husks with one bullet, but now it has to be three to break the record! Ah, and also it has to be a triple-headshot!-Algol- 22:04, March 31, 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Sorta continuing the "naked EDI" topic... Read this, I lol'd -Algol- 22:21, March 31, 2012 (UTC)

The fact, that Chronos Station is always next to a star, despite supposedly moving, is one good hint about TIM's secrecy being seriously blown out of proportion. Okay, it moves and hides from scanners because of the star's radiation. But it's still in the same system. A decent patrol would've scoured around the star in a shortest distance possible, pinpointing any incoming/outcoming vessels. But I forgot, Alliance is full of idiots, as you promptly noted:) And about that Cerberus stuff... What annoys me the most, is that despite being absolutely incompetent (Kai Leng as TIM's right hand indicates it perfectly), these guys are shown really overpowered due to, well, nothing. The whole situation on Sur'Kesh. Okay, Cerberus had an inside source. And despite of that, they still bump into the base heads-on and guns blazing. As soon as Padok Wiks says "unidentified vessels incoming", the AA guns should have torn Cerberus Mantises and shuttles to pieces. Because really, going against STG', people who compete with Asari Commandos for the title of most powerful special force in the galaxy, and going with a frontal assault? Who thought this can possibly be a good idea? And I won't believe the "Cerberus hacked into their systems, so nothing was working" explanation for a minute. Any decent secret facility (and we're talking STG here!) would have back-up systems, not linked'' with the main ones. The whole idea of back up. Not even speaking, that the main system, taking salarian deviousness into account, could have been a decoy, and the only guy who knew about it was Padok Wiks, the commanding officer of the facility. Well, he was not indoctrinated. The situation on Citadel is even worse. Ok, Udina gave them the codes. Good for him. the cold hard truth, is that people who are tasked to protect high-ranking officials (Spectres, C-Sec) do nut trust them at the slightest. mainly because a high-ranking official can do something stupid out if incompetency, so the security services have to make everything foolproof. I'm not speaking that they knew Udina was a traitor, but they surely knew Udina was a pompous fool, so they were bound to have measures to save him from any attack, even if he doesn't want to be saved. Now, any decent law-enforcement, moreover counter-terrorist, organization has literally dozens of protocols on how to act in any kind of attack, with any of their electronic systems going offline, and with means of low-tech communication, in case of absolutely everything goes dark. We're talking about C-Sec here, the best law-enforcement service in the Galaxy. These guys are bound to have snipers overwatching the Presidium on a daily basis, especially after batarian terrorists tried to release a biological weapon, geth attack and, well, a big war going all around. I can't possibly imagine how Cerberus caught them off guard, but even if they did, C-Sec just raises a few Mantises in the air, and smears the walls with Cerberus troops, as they advance through the Presidium. But noooo. Be advised: Cerberus forces are wearing heavy plot armour:(

About Liara and the bathrooms... I was mostly kidding. Sure she would understand the concept, after speaking with a human for an hour. She worked with humans extensively, so of course she is familiar with such basic concepts of human behaviour. But the Normandy SR-1 not having bathrooms... Hmmm, Shepard served there for a while, before Anderson gave him/her command over the ship, so... Maybe it's the explanation why Shepard has such strong will? XD

"never ever trust Udina with that post" - yeah, I wasn't surprised, when he turned traitorous. At all. But about Walters... I really don't envy him in this situation. What was he supposed to do? the whole flow of events in the book dictates, that the human councillor must take part in the story. I guess Mac just flipped a coin to decide who will it be.

Good kill with that krogan:) Sometimes I just wonder how cruel biotics can be, playing billiards with their victims:)

And the broodmother thingy... It is stupid. It is so absurd, that actually gave me a good laugh.

Nice picture! Especially liked the "Manguard" option:)-Algol- 11:31, April 1, 2012 (UTC)

Ooops, guess up I messed up the text in the first part of the post.. Sorry:) But even it wasn't half in italic, it would still be unreadable XD -Algol- 11:33, April 1, 2012 (UTC)

"You should read some other 4chan theories about the asari" - I'd rather not. I like the asari, and that's why I don't want to read anything related to them on 4chan or somewhere similar. Because for every sensible topic, there are dozens, which are plain sickening. "It also works as a support group to help others get over the endings, and I'm not kidding with that" - Shepard: "Good luck!" - Grunt: "I don't need luck, I need ammo". I don't need support, I need normal endings.

Really it isn't explained anywhere, except for the books, how exactly Udina becomes councillor etc. But let's think this way for a while: who the target audience for ME3? Either ME geeks like you and me, or newbies, who start playing ME from ME3. Now, for ME geeks, like you and me, they don't really need to explain this stuff - we read the books, done our homework, and know the universe better, then some of the writers. And as for newbies, they don't really need to explain this stuff either, because newbies do not care. One sentence in the Codex is perfectly fine for them. Same thing with James - geeks have read the mini-comic, and for newbies, he is as new character, as some of the ME veterans - Ashley/Kaidan and Liara. So newbies will think about him pretty much as they'd think about every other character: this guy knew Shepard at some point, ok.

"Frankly I think that in a franchise like ME they shouldn't do books that are set after or during the games." - I agree and disagree both. On one hand, plot holes and lore inconsistencies are bad. On the other hand, these very books, set after and during a game, partially create the aforementioned ME geeks. We dig through the lore, we scour for inconsistencies, we discuss, we create explanations, we care. And it's good to be a ME geek :)

"Vanguard: A gentlman's guide" - that I saw. Sometimes I wonder how funny and how true things can be at the same time:)

Congratulations on completing your walkthrough! Importing to ME2 now? About the Onyx... I think it's that very armor, in whih the designers put the best efforts into! To bad combat-wise it's not very good XD And BTW, I'm currently engeneering my way through ME3 and discovered a combo: singularity + sentry turret w/flamethrower. The enemies just float helplessly, while the turret fries them. Looks funny. It's like a Cerberus barbecue!

P.S. Yes! The music!!! Love it. I think ME2 OST would be my best. You like it? or you like ME1 better?-Algol- 10:20, April 2, 2012 (UTC)

Bioware already promised us an endings DLC in April. Sort of. That recent interview with Muzyka, who told stuff about "clarifying the endings", "closure" etc. He wouldn't admit a galactic-scale failure, of course, but at least he showed, that guys at BW are scratching their heads now. The whole problem is, that he kinda wants to placate fans a bit, but still "maintain the artistic integrity". Something tells me, they will not be able to do both, don't you think so? They'll have to choose. If it would be the first, we can hope for something actually good with the endings. If it would be the second... A lot of people will go bloodrage, and I'm not blaming them. Let's wait.

"This “ME3 is the best place to start the series” shit. It doesn't make any sense!" - it's a marketing ploy. Sure every-effing-one knows it's not true. BW, newbie players and veteran players alike. But what do you expect them to say? "If you didn't play ME 1-2, you won't understand a solid half of the game, and its' story." Which is true, but very inconvenient. Better to say "ME3 is the best place to start": you'd call it a blatant lie, I'd call it a blatant lie, but nowadays it's called "advertisement".

"but wouldn't it be in the best interest of EA and Bioware to make a compelling enough story, so that those people will buy the other two games too?" - It may be unlikely and not very lucrative financially. Let's say, you read a third part of a novel, which consists of three parts. If you liked it, you sure would be interested in reading the first too, because things like writing style, which you liked, didn't change much. Now, videogames are different. They are more virulent and mutable. People, who liked ME3 might not like ME1, because "combat is slow, we want more tweaks to game's engine blah-blah-blah, that game is outdated". You and me may not care about this stuff, but, sadly, the majority, who makes up the larger portion of sales, cares. They are more easily attracted by a shiny multiplayer, then by compelling stories.

"Also James' character doesn't get explained like at all in the one-shot" - for newbies, he's as much unexplained, as veteran squadmates, like Ashley/Kaidan and Liara. They just think, that this guy knows Shepard previously, and that's all they really need. So what's to explain? Considering his character, for me he's ME3 Jacob: very loyal, and not very bright or interesting. That's why I never stick around with him, apart from first two Priorities, in which I don't have a choice.

"Loved her way more than Revan, even though the ending to that game was crap too." - I cannot help not to make a sad remark: you call it crap, I call it crap, BW probably calls it "artistic". But still, don't you think, that ME-verse would be lesser, without "Redemption" or "Retribution", which follow the game's timeline? There are inconsistencies, there are plot-holes, but they still make the gameworld rich. I liked to know, that a lot of stuff is happening in the galaxy without Shepard's involvement, because the galaxy is so big.

What I liked about ME1 singularity, was pulling not only enemies, but also furniture and other movable objects. More realism, more in-game involvement. Sometimes I think: which philosophy is closer to perfection: Infiltrator's victory with a single shot, or Adept's victory without firing a shot?..

Hmmm, you're watching Battlestar Galactica? Enjoy:) ME drawn quite a lot of inspiration from it, I'm sure you'll recognise familiar concepts:)

Vigil theme was great, but I have to confess, I'm more inclined towards heroic epic ones: "Grunt", "Tali", "Normandy Reborn", "Suicide Mission", "The End Run" and "Heart of Courage". Hey, it's a futuristic epic tale:)

And about those sex scenes. They were very good, but people always have to make a fuss about something, especially, if it includes nudity. It's like that deleted broodmother picture on DA wiki. Rumour has it, that Kalissah Al-Jilani was included in the game as a pun on reporters. With an option to punch her:) BTW, do you punch her?:)-Algol- 00:20, April 3, 2012 (UTC)

Just went back home from a gaming session... Well, the actual session was the day before, but then my players blackmailed me into GM-ing another:) A theoretical question: how would you react to storming a Cerberus facility, filled not only with soldiers, but also with scientists and other civilian staff, and your command gives a "take no prisoners" order?

With that Muzyka's interview... Casey Hudson was talking about "You'll have 16 distinct endings in ME3, you will not have an A, B, C ending, multiplayer won't affect the outcome of single-player blah-blah-blah". That stuff would be very funny, if it wasn't so sad. I think they do understand, that the more they say, the more people will hate them, if that turns out to be another lie. I think they do understand, that they have to be very effing careful about whatever they say after so many lies and created distrust. "you wouldn't ask Leonardo to change her smile just cos you don't like it" - if Leonardo charged money for viewing Mona Lisa, while promising me, that it will be painted in a certain way, and, well, was alive, then I actually would ask him to change her smile. Soon we'll see what the smug idiots are up to, and then we'll have our "closure": either closure with ME, or closure with Bioware, or both.

"They could have done fine without it, they should have just constantly used the phrase “re-take Earth” and “war”, and ME3 still would have gone gold before release" - there is no such thing as "too much money". Well, not for EA. if they didn't state the whole "ME3 is best to start the series" stuff, they wouldn't have so many pre-ordes. Sure ME3 would still gone gold, but not so gold, as it could have been, without blatantly lying. The number "3" in a game title can alienate many players, who didn't play "1" and "2", but you remember the whole "broader audience" policy.

"Then again, for me the combat in ME1 was great really. No cover hugging, just running and gunning and using biotics" - for you, yes. But there are a lot of people, who consider it bad, or slow, or somewhat else, and they are... the "broader audience". Same thing was with DA:O combat and DA2 combat. They guys at the marketing department just sit and calculate who to placate. Sum up the number of old-school players, sum up the number of potential new players, and then compare the two numbers. If the second turns out to be larger, then then the first, we get "action mode" in ME3 and "hamsters on amphetamines" in DA2. Now, in the case of DA2, the guys at the marketing department should be fired, flogged and summarily executed, because DA2 sales were lower then DA:O's. In the case of ME3 the marketing department didn't f*ck up, and "flashy multiplayer and stuff" still was more profitable, then compelling story. You and me hate this decision, but EA guys just sit and count teh moneyz. I wonder if they actually bathe in them, like Scrooge McDuck?

Ah, just on a sidenote, I like cover hugging. It gives me more realistic feel to combat, where your primary objective is staying alive, and only secondary is making someone dead. I tried airsoft. It's mostly about cover hugging, and I'm perfectly good with that.

That stuff with shepard's arrest... You're perfectly right. I couldn't agree more. Same thing was bugging me in ME2. Why if you freaking die, only Liara tries to retrieve your sorry arse and give it a proper funeral? What if I romanced Ashley? What if I befriended Wrex or Garrus? Don't they care? On a bright side, the gratitude adds to the whole awesomeness and love for Liara's character. But back to the original topic, I think it's the same story: veteran players will come up with their own explanation of "where did everyone go?", and newbie players do not care. Guess the disk space was already filled with multiplayer to include additional cutscenes or dialogue:( But at least they could add it as text in the "Known Associates" part of the Codex. Like, "After Commander Shepard was apprehended, Miranda ran off/tactically withdrawn, fearing the same fate" or something. Text doesn't take too much disk space.

I think "Retribution" was actually good. I liked the whole "Adventures of K.Sanders and D.Anderson" mostly because it shows, that Shepard is not alone, who acts, while the whole galaxy sits and watches the deeds of illustrious hero. There are other heroes. Who'd you suggest to be a replacement for Anderson in the novels? If they need a charcter, that is important to the game-world, familiar to fans, but not Shepard, Anderson fits just fine. Not that he actually makes Shepard's choices unimportant or inconsistent, Mac Walters sometimes does. Anderson didn't salvage tonns of tech from the Collector Base, when you had blown it up in the game:)

"but then there are games where playing without shooting anyone is more interesting and challenging" - precisely. That's why I loved Fallout 1-2 as a perfect example of RPG, and was very surprised to see Fallout 3 as a shooter, where you either are running-and-gunning with an SMG, or popping heads with a sniper rifle. Thanks, I have Call of Duty for that, why the sudden shift? Ah, I forgot, "broader audience" again.

So how's Battlestar Galactica going?:)

And about Kalissah... i never punch her too. I just love that Paragon interrupt in ME3, and how she's trying to help the situation during Cerberus attack on the Citadel. Making friends feels so good:) Wish I could say the same thing about Allers.

BTW still having hope for indoctrination theory to work, those nightmares Shepard sees... There are voices of dead squadmates during them. I don't know for sure, but I think hearing voices of dead people, even in a dream, is a nice indicator of going insane. So how do you think? Is The Kid only a figment of Shepards imagination, or he actually existed? I mean, noone sees him except for you, Anderson didn't see him on Earth, noone seems to notice him and help him board the evacuation shuttle... Then again, there is a picture of him at the memorial wall in the docks with "last seen on Earth" sign... What do you think?-Algol- 23:03, April 4, 2012 (UTC)

An interesting notion about disobeying an order on moral grounds. What if your character saw for yourself the atrocities, commited by Cerberus in that facility? Like experimenting on people, outlawed horrible implants and similar things? Would it bring up anger or hatred, and in that way justifying killing unarmed people? I just want to study different reactions a bit:)

EA voted the worst company of the year (the Golden Poop award:)) was like music to my ears. BTW, here's a nice summary, with a few interesting links . Oh, and EA's responce was somethin like: "We're sure that bank presidents, oil, tobacco and weapons companies are all relieved they weren't on the list this year. We're going to continue making award-winning games and services played by more than 300 million people worldwide." Look at the arrogance. I sincerely hope, that EA loses the court case vs Activision in May. Activision (also known as Moneyvi$ion) are scumbags too, but still...

Actually that's exactly what I like in ME combat: it provides an enjoyable experience for those, who don't use cover extensively, and for those who do both. Different playstyles are always good. Oh, and add to replayability:)

That crash... How many people from the Normandy died in it besides Shepard? And the Alliance doesn't do anything for two years. That must have created a public outcry from their famillies, but still nothing. "But then again, Mac Walter is only good at writing Garrus, so he wouldn't really be able to create a compelling new character" - true:) maybe that's why he uses the old character, Anderson?:) And thought just came to mind: I liked Kahlee sanders more during the five minutes she was in the game, then during several books. Probably the voice actors do a much better job, then some of the writers (but by no means all of the writers). Still, Walters was the guy, who created a bulk of the gameworld, so I can forgive him because of that:)

Sure I played New Vegas. I agree, it was so much better. Probably because Bethesda used a lot of stuff, created by Obsidian for the cancelled Van Buren. New Vegas had much more atmosphere to it, and quite a few very good characters (something, that is not Bethesda's strongest, I could only name ThreeDog in Fallout 3). Can't believe, that veronica and Tallis were voiced by the same person. But yeah, the bugs... I know, that Bethesda could never make anything without a whole load of them, but seriously, too much is too much. And then Skyrim came out, yuck:(

"even machines deserve some respect and care so they can function. Like how I always take care of my computer, even though she very often acts like a stupid bitch pats PC case" - be careful:) One day she might ask, if she has a soul!:) Not to spoil anything in BG, but have no fear for cylons! You'll see;)

i was constantly thinking, that the kid will turn out a husk or some other Reaper abomination, thus symbolizing possible fate of all Shepard is fighting for... Kinda obvious, but still scarier, then bursting into flames. And then we realise, that better he turned uot to be a husk... he turned out something much worse, the biggest plot-hole in ME series. *Sigh* April 5, give us the "closure" already!

Many-many thanks for the links! You're awesome! Just this one thing: why the "Outreach" geth refers to itself as "it", instead of "I", even if you've chosen peace between the geth and the quarians, with Legion providing individuality to all geth? Am I not getting something, or the "Epilogue slides" have a minor mistake?-Algol- 10:47, April 5, 2012 (UTC)

So many people and so many opinions. That's exactly my kind of enjoyment, while GM-ing a game. I have three players, all of them complied to the order of killing the scientists, and each of them had different feelings afterwards. The first thought, that guns are not the only thing, which can make people dangerous (he's the one who knows, as he's a biotic). Remembering how a previous Cerberus agent they encountered had an explosive device strapped to her, which nearly killed one of his squadmates, who tried to restrain the agent, and severely wounded another, my first player thought, that killing these "bastards, who are not human or even organic anymore", was a big favor to the galaxy. Another player is lawful, upright and faithful to the ideals of democracy, much like your Shepard. She wanted to arrest them. Nonetheless, she carried out the order, because, well, it was an order, and because she greatly respects her command and finds them very capable in such sort of things, so if they do stuff, they do it for a good reason. Needless to say, despite all that she suffers from severe case of PTSD now. The third player's character is more of a tactical mindset. He thought, that under that specific circumstances it is better to clear out the whole facility ASAP, rather then taking time to sort the seemingly innocent (and possibly indoctrinated), from the guilty, as the place might hold Reaper tech. But afterwards, he asked a question to himself, his squadmates and his command: don't you think, that while killing unarmed people and denying them official trial, we enter a slippery slope of becoming Cerberus ourselves? As I said some time ago, role-playing a soldier isn't just shooting stuff, it can be challenging and rewarding too.

"At least 20 and the Alliance didn't even bother to recover their dogtags" - BTW, that's were I see an inconsistency between the "Normandy Crash Site" DLC, and the core game. In ME2 Tali says during the conversation about the original Normandy's demise, that "Pressly and a few servicemen from the lower deck didn't make it." A few. 20 people dead do not correspond with that estimation, and I'm more inclined to believe Tali. For obvious reasons:)

"“the other most important person in the ME universe”" - Oooh, oooh, that's like "the most important person in Thedas" advertisements! XD

Well, I guess Bioware just had to stick with Walters, after Karpyshyn left. The new guy they hired for writing "Deception"... Well, no comment. Better if Walters wrote it, seriously, even for all his flaws. But yeah, Weekes is just great, should have given him more parts to write. How about the endings? *sarcasm*

About who's going to PAX? Cowards, sure, but perfectly easy to understand. If Walters, the lead writer, goes there, he will be flooded with questions about the endings (mainly, like, WTF???), which Bioware doesn't like to answer. If they send Hudson... Well, he would probably be lynched on the spot, for promising "you won't be getting A, B, C endings", "Multiplayer will not affect single-player experience" and all that. Rumor has it, that he was the one, who came up with our beloved "artistic" endings. So better send someone, who doesn't suffer from public ire so much, so they would talk about how Bioware loves their fans and blah-blah-blah and "we listen" and, you know, other stuff, that perfectly matches the definition of "bullshit".

You probably are a very lucky person, encountering 3 bugs in Skyrim. I had to access the game console to manually get rid of items, who were stuck in the inventory, pretty much every ten minutes, enjoy the pinnacle of idiocy of friendly AI, who gets stuck in the enviroment, starts lobbing spells at enemies, who are standing to floors below, behind three walls, drowning epically and dying most elaborate ways possible in general. Not to mention, that the trading menu had a 60% chance of closing, if you select stuff you like (poor port is poor). I wonder why Bethesda doesn't pay PC players, who are doing the tweaks in the console to get rid of bugs, thus doing the job of their lazy developer team. But really, my main problem were not the bugs, but that I was bored to death with that game. I feel myself lucky, that I had uninstalled it before one of the brilliant "patches", that made dragons fly backwards came out.

"there is some girl from the ruling family of the other city, who claims to be my bride... the fact that I'm a woman too doesn't seem to bother her... she is really keen on getting married for some reason :D" - maybe it's love? XD

Having such keen empathy with computers? Are you sure you're not a quarian?:D Because reading the personality of PC's... Wow! Just... wow!:D "Also don't get your hopes up about this closure stuff. It is very likely that BW will disappoint you once again" - I don't have my hopes up. They died quickly and violently after this. What's your opinion?

I wonder if future fledgling civilization will build temples, devoted to Shepard... And then some human comes, and blows the bubble. Like, hey, this guy/gal was punching reporters, drank up to the point of not being able to walk, and had dance moves worthy of a short-cirquited LOKI mech XD

I've read that Vanguard guide, it was hilarious!:) Wonder if some day Weekes comes up with similar stuff for each class. "I wonder if she's from Hungarian origin, cos her family name suggests so..." - pretty much looks like that, write her a letter! You know, I had this feeling of pride, that Zeschuk, Muzyka, Karpyshyn and a lot of other people at Bioware are my compatriots (given the family names), but now... Well, you can imagine the mixed feelings:)-Algol- 12:02, April 6, 2012 (UTC)

Interesting story of yours. That's kinda the main reason I'm not that int online text-based RPG's, and prefer real-time tabletop. To see people eye to eye, feel their emotions, and most importantly, playing with people you know, your friends. In that way players can keep a perfectly friendly atmosphere, even if their characters might be at each others' throats. Though there's a downside: real-time takes a lot of time, coordination and such. Oh, and role-playing romance scenes can get very awkward XD

That particular quote was really Joker's, but Tali said some similar things too. I'm playing the Geth Dreadnought mission now, and I'm just thrilled how do geth have medi-gel on board (even if some of them have organic pats, I doubt it will be useful for them), or Shepard going in a breather helmet, because there's no atmosphere, but Ash doesn't even put a breather mask on. Not to mention, that there isn't supposed to be any sound at all.

The Dark Brotherhood questline was the only thing, that shined in Oblivion, and I find it the only good one in Skyrim. I expected much more from the Thieves Guild, and The Companions... Plain awful. Instead of joining the Fighter's Guild, which is a serious organization, renowned in all Tamriel, I'm joning a bunch of cave-people, who are freaking werewolves, and I must become one myself just to advance through the questline. I played Bloodmoon, you know, and I'm well-versed, that werewolves are mere pawns of Hircine (who is one of my favourite Daedra Princes, but still a demented psycho), and if wants to start the next Wild Hunt, all werewolves become mindless slaves of him. Thank you very much, I don't want to be anywhere near The Companions, and I'd better join the Silver Hand and freaking kill them all. At least vampires have free will. Not to mention, that the whole vampires vs werewolves thingy is getting, like, really old. Still, my main problem with Skyrim, is that I want to play a person, not a surface-to-air missile turret, and knock over 9000 dragons out of the sky. I got bored after the third one, and really, I killed more dragons, then freaking mudcrabs, collecting enough dragonbone/scales to equip half of Tamriel. Seriously, Bethesda downright bastardized the whole concept of a dragon in fantasy RPG's. I love Morrowind, and it's one of my favourite games ever. Oblivion and Skyrim... Not for me.

"that one chick from her past whose name I already forgot" - I failed to notice any remarkable characters in KoA, so no surprise:)

Jessica Merizan seems a reasonable person to me, judging from her tweets and forum responses, but so did Casey Hudson. After the supposed 16 distinct endings, I'm not believing a word they say. A quote, which I like very much, from one videogame character: "Loyalty does not go on a sliding scale. It's a safety: ON or OFF". Same thing for me. I was hoping for the best until the very recent moment - an official statement, which snuffed the candle: they will not give us new endings. My loyalty went OFF immediately. Because if they decided to support their writers, who f*cked up a royal, instead of supporting their fans, why would I continue to support Bioware? And a few other things:
 * survivors won't starve - how nice of Bioware. Problem is, that all three people, which are left of their fanbase, will starve till summer comes. And if they imply, that Joker, possibly EDI, your LI and your best friend are all, who constitute survivors from the Normandy crew... F*ck that.
 * rebuilding the mass relays is possible - you are perfectly right, it doesn't tie with the grandpa, and retcons are bad for artistic integrity they claim to defend.
 * and Shepard can reunite with his/her squad - riiiight... If you play the damn multiplayer, may it rot. Thanks for shoving it down our throats even further.

I'm looking forward to how would they try to weasel themselves out of eyes-deep in sh*t situation, but I still think, that people already hate them enough for stopping buying their products, and that's good. Denying EA their money is always good.

"thank you BW for Energy Drain bonus power" - correction, thank you Tali!:)

"Oh this reminds me, Feketekuty is working for the DA team now, so DA3 will have at least one competent writer lol" - you know, they had quite a few competent writers in DA2 and, surely, DA:O (Mary Kirby would probably be my favourite), but with Gaider's attitude... I don't know. He did some brilliant stuff, but the attitude and no real power to defy EA masters (Orsino going nuts just because the designer wanted a mage boss-fight) doesn't exactly inspire hope for DA3 story.

"So why is it that while in the book it was considered something bad, it's something good in ME?" - hell if I know. Maybe because darkspawn are bad and synthetics are not? Religion? Old grudges? Not that I want to get deep into some of the writer's logic, might be bad for my sanity:)

I just... need to install a VI, who'd remind me to sign my posts with a voice of a krogan in blood rage state. That was me:)-Algol- 19:19, April 6, 2012 (UTC)

Liara is quarter-krogan, she isn't afraid of headshots:) Ashley's new look... Well, Bioware is into "iconic look for characters", so each one of them can be unique and non-customizable at the same time. It's DA2 companion armour all over again. At least she does look unique, and you won't confuse her with anyone:)

"I'm not so well informed with the Elder Scrolls lore" - I am. I played TES since Daggerfall. And was shocked how hard they raped the lore in Skyrim. Like every other mine having ebony ore, while it was explicitely said, that ebony forms in one place out of the whole Tamriel: Vvardenfel island. Dwemer ruins litter Skyrim like nobody's business, while actually dwemers lived only in two places: Morrowind and a little island near Hammerfell... I could continue the list on and on... *end of rant*

"And being a vampire in Skyrim really sucks...even more than werewolf, unless you use mods" - who plays a TES game without mods? O_o

"do we have terraforming in ME at all?" - yes and no. Yes it does exist in a game universe, and mentioned a couple of times in planetary descriptions, but it is very mild, long-term, and dare I say, very realistic. It usually consists of introducing new gases to atmosphere, new algae or more advanced species to biosphere, moving asteroids closer or further from the planet to alter gravity, so nothing fundamental. But no, it's not GECK:) Therefore, no planet in the Sol system could be terraformed, as we don't have suitable candidates. Besides, those green leaves, trees and clear blue sky is present even if your EMS is very low, and the Earth is pretty much charred. So I'm not inclined to believe it was Earth. Normandy escaped the Sol system... through a gaping plot-hole!:)

And ME at this year's PAX... From what I've collected so far... WHAT. A. WASTE! I really had this feeling, that people there, who asked questions, clapped their hands and usually acted like joyful idiots, I don't even... Either they didn't play ME3, or were handsomely paid by EA, or were indoctrinated (though the latter two options are pretty much the same). Because seriously, the only display of public outcry was when Gamble started a poll which game the fans liked best, and when ME3 was called out, there was this thunderous "boooing". Why the fans didn't react to a pretty much solid half of stuff, that was said, in that particular way? "Resurgence Pack", really? Is that what they need right now? Funny fact: there was already a DLC called "Resurgence Pack" for multiplayer of... Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. So is this where we're heading now? Is this what Bioware draws inspiration from?

But about the possible survivors on the Citadel... if that was the most disputable part of the whole stuff, I'd be a happy Algol. I actually don't have problems with people on the Citadel surviving, mainly because I want them to survive, like, very-very much. The Council, Aria, Kelly, Aethyta, Bailey, Kalissah and millions of other people, my Shep was sworn to protect, were there. So... just a few thoughts:
 * "if all we see are dead people" - if you're talking about Keeper ducts, were Shepard appears after regaining consciousness, no reason to assume those were Citadel residents, those people might have been transported from earth for reprocessing via the same beam Shepard and Andeson used.
 * "and Shepard and Anderson imply that they probably tried to build a new human reaper in there?!" - they also tried to build a Human-Reaper at the Collector base, and there still were survivors, if you come in time.
 * "And it blows up pretty badly in red and green ending...like into pieces" - not exactly. There were explosions, big ones, but they didn't actually tear the "arms" off or something.
 * "but they sure as hell will die there later, because they will have no means to ask for help or get off the station by themselves" - the allied fleet was right next to the Citadel. They were bound to send rescue teams and search for survivors, right after the Reapers no longer were a problem one way, or another.

But I digress, my main problem with the Citadel still remains unsolved: the very fact of it apearing in the Sol system means a series of global cataclysms. I don't recall anyone asking about that:(

Though I caught a very interesting moment: They admitted, that the extended cut was not planned. From which we can deduce the next:
 * They are either too arrogant or too deluded (or both) to understand, that including that load of bullshit they call "artistic endings" in the first place, was the worst idea they ever came up with. I cannot possibly grasp, how could they think, that current endings would work, and they won't be needing a DLC to fix them.
 * Considering, that planned DLC comes out in 3 days, but the not-planned comes out somewhere in summer (August 31? lol), they already have a planned schedule of DLC's. It would be a safe bet to assume, that the Extended Cut will be either the last DLC, or at least the last before they make (if they even will) others.
 * If they didn't plan the Extended Cut, the Indoctrination Theory is pure fanon, with no chance of being implemented officially.
 * I already have my closure. With Bioware. I'm going to a bar to commemorate it. Like Zaeed said, "I need a drink".-Algol- 11:20, April 7, 2012 (UTC)

To be perfectly frank, I'm not strictly and wholy against non-customizable armour. Yes, in some ways it is more convenient, yes, in some ways this "iconic look" of the character makes sense, but still, I prefer customizable armour, because it gives more freedom to, well, customize, refine your tactics and come up with very interesting builds, like tanking Morrigan in massive armour and shapeshifted form, back in DA:O (seriously, she rules even with that build!). Though I'm ok with most of ME3 outfits, but not most of DA2. Five seconds of battle in Fenris' or Isabela's outfit, and you're a goner. As for Ashley... Maybe they gave her a costume to represent, that she has moved from the rank-and-file assault rifle covering fire role, to the role of designated marksman, which usually are more experienced soldiers, and do not have to rely on protection as much. While Kaidan is still invaluable as a Sentinel, so he needs to be armoured in order to represent, that Sentinels are walking tanks.

With Skyrim, Bethesda didn't care much about veteran TES players, so better make it shiny and with dragons, then think about such trivialities as lore inconsistencies. I mean, who needs well-thought lore, when you can go "imma shouting fus-ro-dah!!!111one".

"But-but, we could use space magic to terraform a random planet in the Sol system in minutes, couldn't we? :D" - only if it's done in "artistic" way *sarcasm*

Well, EA really wants CoD audience, and their greed goes ahead of common sense. Each time new Battlefield comes out, they try to beat CoD in sales so hard, and each time they fail epically. I wouldn't be surprised, if the next game set in ME universe turns out to be a pure shooter, akin to Halo. BTW, I can give you this hu-u-uge list of how many stuff (and not only combat-oriented) in ME was implemented more or less from CoD. With that in mind, I'm kinda glad ME3 was the last in the series, otherwise things would get even worse.

"Dragon Age" at PAX was as pathetic, BTW.

"So if you indeed destroyed the geth, they should have shown that. If people survived on the Citadel, they should have shown Bailey getting people on shuttles and stuff" - maybe such stuff does not seem "artistic" enough for them *sarcasm again*. But if we are officially left for headcanon, then at least in my headcanon these (and many more) things have definitely happened.

"Instead we will get an “explanation”, because we aren't smart enough to figure out BW on our own. They are condescending really. Just like Gaider was regarding DA2" - absolutely. As I've said before, there are two reasons for that: arrogance and delusion. EA's reaction to being proclaimed the worst company of the year was pretty much "we don't care, millions of people will still buy our crap". Same thing with BW and their "artistic vision": "No matter how much DA2 sucked, we still have our sales due to DA:O success" and "We might as put a sweet rickroll song instead of a proper ending in ME3, but we still have our sales due to pre-orders alone". That sort of "strategy" will bite them in the ass in future, and I'm only will be very happy to gloat.

That Intoxication Theory... I saw the vid before, and while it was funny for me for the first two minutes, I realised something just a few seconds after that. That I'm in pain. It is painful for me to see, that ME3 was so disappointing, so ridiculous because of the endings, to allow such bitter sarcasm to exist. It was like looking on the shards of a shattered hope. So all the fun went away very fast for me.

"did you read that extremely stupid explanation from PAX that they used a real life model for Tali's face because they used real life people for other characters as well, so they thought that Tali “deserves the same treatment”" - don't even ask... Some of Tali fans are very... let's say dedicated to their character, so BW guys seriously consider their physical safety, after saying that load of bullshit.-Algol- 19:15, April 7, 2012 (UTC)

"but then they would need a better system to sort through all equipment, so that you would get to see really easily was is good an what is shit" - wich can be quite tedious developing it for consoles. A PC has a mouse, so you can sort/set your inventory to your taste. Consoles do not. BTW, as BW said long ago, before even ME2 came out, that was the main reason they adopted the non-customisable companion armor for ME2 and DA2. And about "So sad that it is a mod, and not something actual developers came up with" - hey, some developers learn!:)

"Yes, rainbow in space...it's maaaaagic! *sarcasm*" - oooh, can I have a rainbow-coloured varren with those cu-u-u-ute puppy eyes, please? And rainbow reapers, the existing one look kinda grim and dull. Oh, and guns shooting flowers!.. Holy crap, I just imagined all that stuff O_o

"Honestly, I never played any CoD title, so I would be sort of interested in the list :D" - You didn't lose much:) The list (stuff is mostly from many shooters, not only CoD, but still, it's the most iconic one):
 * The usage of military slang has overally increased in ME3.
 * The whole multiplayer type - Gears of War has Horde Mode, CoD World at War and Black Ops had Zombies (yep!:)) and Modern Warfare 3 had Survival. Same thing: you hold off against waves of enemies, increasing in difficulty, only in ME3 the waves are finite.
 * Hitmarkers - those white "second crosshairs" and distinct sound, when you hit a target with bullets.
 * Engineer's remote turret - also comes in variety.
 * Enemies throwing grenades at you - just like in CoD, on Insanity every little shit has indefinite number of grenades and will spam them at you, if you stop moving for three seconds or so. Except in CoD you could throw them back.
 * Grenades rolling off the surfaces - which is freaking annoying in ME3, because I was used to ME1 grenades.
 * Sticky grenade in multiplayer - In CoD World at War even the name is the same. Black Ops, MW 1-2-3 had semtex, which is the same.
 * Smoke grenades and scopes, that see through smoke.
 * The whole weapon customization thingy - most of CoD titles allow you to put maximum two mods on a weapon, with the same effects as in ME3, though CoD has larger variety.
 * Surface penetration - bullets can penetrate certain surfaces, certain weapons do it better, then others, and there are weapon mods/ammo types, which can augment that.
 * Low lighting - works for Black Ops, set in the 1960-s, but I was puzzled to see flashlights in 2186
 * Stationary turrets - every decent CoD mission is bound to have a mounted machine gun somewhere on the map, from which you can cut down, like, scores of enemies and feel yourself a hero.
 * The mission to rescue Zaal'Koris on Rannoch - Modern Warfare 1-2-3 all have a mission (or two), during which you fly an aircraft and rain death from above to cover ground forces.
 * About air support - sometimes friendly air support covers you, but usually dies heroically, as we see on Thessia.
 * Both you and your enemies can use proximity mines.
 * Map verticality.
 * Weapon weight - in CoD it affects your movement speed, in ME3 your recharge speed.

Should I continue? I can, if you like, but something tells me you're bored already XD

"some squad mates die" - I'd be very interested in who exactly, why and how.

"I place my hopes for RPG in Wasteland 2 and a potential Kickstarter project from Obisidian" - yes, I hope for Obsidian too, always liked them. What bugs me though, that these guys never have enough money to truly shine. But that's better, then selling yourself to EA. I have this dream, that Obsidian takes Dragon age from Bioware (something like KOTOR 2 case) and Fallout back from Bethesda.


 * Sigh* and still can't get over the anger and disappointment. But at least I have my tabletop, and there I can fix that, which I saw wrong. And share it with other people. "Not the same, but it's a living":)

Thanks for the mod, btw it's my favourite fanart depiction of Tali, but... I guess I better stick to the original version. Let's leave it at that. Also, if you're interested, there is a mod here (, giving what seems to be the original link), which sets your readiness rating to 100%. Basically, the game thinks, that you've played multiplayer, gives you related achievements, and all that. I found simple tweaking of files and giving some war asset an astronomical number too brute-force and cheaty, and was delighted to find this stuff. It allows to play the game the way it should be played. Be advised: while this stuff doesn't delete previous saves, in my case it has reset all previous achievements and earned bonus powers, except for the one I was currently using. No big loss, I think, all of that can be earned back in one playthrough.-Algol- 23:57, April 7, 2012 (UTC)

"I also still don't get why ammo powers are class skills and not weapon mods like in ME1" - well, they've thrown out of the window all weapon customization in ME2, so what do you expect from them? That they would make up interesting and brand new class skills, to replace ammo powers, which have gone to weapon mods? Nah, they're not that hard-working:) BTW I mostly liked weapon customization in ME3, even despite the lack of variety. I just don't get why did they put a 4x zoom precision scope on assault rifles, because a 2x zoom pistol scope would be far more convenient for most AR's, except for Sabre and Mattock, probably. But with all the new features, the AI didn't improve much:


 * We have surface penetration now, but enemies never use it against you. I didn't see any squadmates using it even with piercing mods, A-P ammo or Javelin equipped. (BTW I lo-o-oved the Javelin! my favourite sniper rifle)


 * Again, we have surface penetration now, but dumb enemies still have the tendency to stick their heads out of cover with obvious results. Who needs a few shots, when you can kill with just one?


 * I never saw a squadmate scoring a headshot in three playthroughs. Even with precision scopes. Even with sniper rifles. Even with both. Garrus, y r u so cool only in cutscenes?:(


 * A bit out of place here, but I miss squadmates' battle chatter from ME2. They only talk while taking orders. Jack's "Hello, dead people!", or Samara's "Scored a hit!" (with that calm voice, as if she was playing bowling and not killing people) were awesome. Oh, and Grunt stating about what exact species he belongs to:)

Remember we had this talk about the Hornet SMG? I actually liked it O_o Enormous damage for an SMG compensates the three-round burst, and the delay between bursts is easy to mitigate with a fast enough trigger finger. Recoil is high, but very predictable and goes upwards, making headshots easier. And despite the description, that it was designed for long-ranged combat (I don't know which crazy indoctrinated Cerberus freak came up with that idea, it sucks at range), very good up close.

"in most stories boring people don't die XD" - most stories do not end with... ok, I'll shut up already about that:) So why those? I understand Javik is not very keen on living, but others... I always wanted to save them all, as I did in the Suicide Mission. It should be very hard, yes, but possible. Ash and James will still make very good soldiers in the Alliance/N7, BTW, someone needs to mop up the remaining pockets of indoctrinated creatures, after the reapers are defeated. And Samara... I get why she thinks, that the Justicar Order will cease to be, as they will need to throw themselves against the direst of threats, but in case she survives, she might no longer be bound by the Code, as the Order as a whole is no more. i always wanted her to return to her daughter and finally have a happy family life she deserves, and I guess, wants.

"So I would say that if they get enough money through Kickstarter they could do something really great. Hope it happens :)" - since now Bioware has, like, five people remaining of their fanbase, I think a good portion of RPGamers will look Obsidian's way, especially the older generation, who remembers all their works good. So let's hope!

"Zaeed gives me 5000 war asset points, and I think that's an accurate number for him :D" - half of the points go to Jessie! XD

I'm about to do some weird stuff. I'm having a game session tomorrow, and create pictures of some NPC using ME3 face-builder. Usually I just take photos or drawn pictures from the internet, but this time I feel like staying close to the very core. A pity, that the face-builder is only for humans, now, if they had such thing in multiplayer, I might have considered clicking on it.-Algol- 15:59, April 8, 2012 (UTC)

"why do I expect logic from Bioware?" - it's a habit, I guess. They had logic for a long time, but now...

Those waves... Ok, not even mentioning, that this is completely illogical, there's also another thing. I can understand Reaper forces arriving via drop pods and geth just falling from the sky. They are invulnerable during the period of their arrival, and they do it very fast. Now cerberus and their shuttles... They are exremely vulnerable (singularity+chain overload+concussive shot, then warp for the finishing touch, and no one gets to the ground), slow to the point you can shoot them in mid-air, while they're jumping off the shuttle (that's fun) and no-one even tries to cover them. I can imagine a turret on the shuttle, or a Mantis following it, but nooo... As if Cerberus' "tactics" weren't ridiculous enough.

Tali cannot be that depressed, not to bring Chiktikka vas Paus along. I miss my fourth squadmate:)

Just finished my playthrough with an Engineer FemShep... Think frying Kai Leng with a turret flamethrower was humiliating enough. Oh, and I discovered, that equipping James or Ashley with a Falcon basically gives you mobile artillery. But the romance scene with Liara prior to Cerberus HQ assault... Just WOW! Beautiful! That is art, not... some other moments of the game.

About killing characters off. It's a very good tool to further emotional impact. Probably the strongest tool. And of course it fits the setting completely. "And the others are all veteran warriors who either don't have much to live for, or are just simply the type, who would not back down, even if they are only ones left on the battlefield, and I think situation likes that most likely did occur on Earth" - I always thought Zaeed was a reasonable one, unless Vido Santiago is involved. His survival instinct can drive him away from a hopeless battle, only to fight another time. Samara, for instance, holds saving the innocent higher, then punishing the guilty. Theoretically, if faced with a situation of wether continue to fight, or evacuate survivors, she may have choose the latter. But I don't know... I just want to save everyone, becouse I had enough emotional impact with all the millions dying, and Thessia was the last straw. In my headcanon, chances are, that my surviving Shepard ends up in a mental institution after the war was won.

Brilliant thoughts in that interview! Avellone just rules. That "On art – I feel games can be art. I want games I work on to be fun and entertain first, with art being second, but I’m going to shoot for both and have always tried to do so" - brilliant. Entertainment first, art second - simple and true. A certain game developer should learn from this.

"Last time I played an orc, forgot to look for a pic, so had to do a last minute sketch to satisfy the GM :D" - suits an orc really well! XD -Algol- 10:11, April 9, 2012 (UTC)

I just zipped across the whole room and punched in the face before you could even try to move away - it appears to me, that Kai Leng was so unable to see Shepard during the vanguard charge, that he just thought, that Shep's standing in one place. guess the visor was broken or something. I always wondered, how Kai Leng nearly managed to sneak up on Shepard after the fight. Exuse me for this comparison, but while Kai Leng crawls and walks towards Shepard, he's making sound like... as if he was taking a huge dump, but it just won't come out. Excuse me again:) So how Shepard didn't hear him, let alone made a finishing shot after the fight? They've double-checked Saren's body back in ME1... Well, a perfectly ridiculous lieutenant, for a perfectly ridiculous enemy army, so away with him.

Yes, you're so right about Liara. I'd never betray Tali, but since Tali is not romanceable by a FemShep, there is a loophole:)

"my FemShep would never wear that kind of underwear" - I wonder why there wasn't an N7 logo on the underwear... Really, they slap it on pretty much everything, that's possible. same thing was in ME2: underwear must have had a Cerberus logo on it. I mean c'mon, that scene with Jack on Purgatory, when you get to the exit. Jack: "I'm not going with you, you're Cerberus". My Shepard: "How the F did you know that??? Oh... Oh, I get it. There's a huge Cerberus logo on my ship, that must have tipped you off, derp..." Later on the Normandy: "Miranda, get that cleared right now, I thought we're working in secrecy, for crying out loud!!!". What else what they wanted me to do? Get a Cerberus tattoo on my private parts? Same thing with james getting an N7 tattoo in ME3. At first, I told him to go for N7. Then I realised, that he's not fit for it. N7 operatives often work in secrecy. S-e-c-r-e-c-y. Look it up on the extranet. It means not showing your identity and affiliation. Imagine, you're captured by an enemy and being interrogated. The enemy wants to know who you work for, you resist, and then they find an N7 tattoo... Crap, you know what would be even better? A tattoo, that says "I'm NOT with N7!!!". James, you're dumb.

Same thing was with Javik. You bring him to places, and people just say, "wow, you're a prothean, cool". I can imagine, that bringing him on the Citadel would cause a great panic, C-Sec going right after him and the Council probably demanding him to be brought for questioning. Sheesh, people are really picky: even a living prothean doesn't seem to impress them.

"you can feel the “I will make you proud mom!” vibe of the whole scene" - definitely! I was once again pleased to see, that loyalty really means a lot. BTW, what I always liked in ME, is that only you gain the loyalty of your squadmates, but also they can actually gain yours. I for instance, cured the genophage not primarily for krogan people, but for Wrex, Eve and Mordin. mainly because of that, I want all characters to be saved:)

"he is no good as a Fire Team leader in ME2" - well, Miranda is a perfect cheerleader, whoops, Fire Team leader:) in ME2, but... Half of the team mistrusts or downright hates her, and that's not what does good for squad performance, especially in that situation. Intimidating one into obedience, when he hates you, only works good for krogan. Though about Zaeed, you're right, that he doesn't seem to have much to live for, but on the other hand, maybe taking Blue Suns back?

That article (-es) on Forbes was very good. Fans in the "Retake" movement make perfect sence. Indoctrination theory makes perfect sense. Releasing a retcon DLC and charging money for it is immoral, but still making sense. Eveything makes sense, except for Bioware. They're indoctrinated, I tell you!-Algol- 17:04, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

Mind you, the very same katana pierced the metal roof of a skycar (holy shit!!!). With all tose forced Kai Leng puts into getting on his feet, he might as well crush the floor beneath him, and get spaced. "In Arrival, she goes to Project Base alone, which is the stupidest move ever" - I can think of an Infiltrator class sneaking alone, but Soldiers can get very noisy with those Revenant bursts. Ah, and neither Shepard, nor Kasumi are asari, they can't join minds to share knowledge about flawless solo infiltration. So yep, the stupidest move ever:) Then again, it was necessary for the story's continuation, of only Shepard being court-matialed, and everyone else getting away. Then again, Shepard may have only told hackett s/he went alone.

"I giggled and thought how funny a double date with them would be :D" - we have a hawke-eyed sniper, a brilliant technician, a biotic goddess and a Shepard. Taking what these people usually do for fun into account, a double-date will include scores of mercs/Cerberus/heretic geth/reaper monsters/whoever is unlucky today being joyfully slaughtered XD

"You see, that's why I never really thought that N7 is like STG" - that's where the game contradicts the lore and common sense. Not that it's the first time:) "it seems like the salarians are the only ones able to work in secret" - turian Blackwatch also does. Actually they do it so good, that we only hear about them in the third game, and only if we visit some backwater planet:) But about Vasir, it's stated in the Codex, that Specters can choose whatever methods they deem necessary, and do stuff their way. Some of them can be very open about their identity, if they wish to. Maybe Vasir wanted to trick Shepard into trusting her with being so open about being in the same organization. And then she had no time to put paint over the logo, when things didn't go the way she planned. "Fun fact, Shepard's dogtags in LotSB don't have N7 logo on them, yet they do in ME3 ending" - in this case, either LotSB or the ending is illogcal. How do you think, which one? :D I think it's actually a proof, that N7 operates in secrecy at least sometimes, why put their logo on dogtags?

"Miranda and Jacob wear the same uniform, but don't have Cerberus logo anymore" - EDI still does. Look at the left side of her chest [] Maybe... it is a joke?:)

"once you take him to places his racism stops being funny" - for me it was never funny at the first place. After Thessia, I was sorry I didn't have an option to shoot him.

Perfect continuity of decisions, in case of the genophage. I also liked how re-writing the heretics in ME2 bites you and the quarians in the ass. I mean, I didn't like quarians having trouble at all, but I liked the logic and continuity of decisions.

"And I love how she cuts off that video chat with TIM at the end of the base" - her dialogue with TIMmy was just... perfect:)

About Zaeed, I didn't mean taking the Blue Suns out, I meant taking them back to his command. On the other hand, in my case they're under Aria's (and my) command now... I just want him around with his voice and that reassuring "Let's gut the bastards!", when you're talking to him via comm on Earth. Awesome!

"Imagine, if Bioware actually released a different ending DLC, with at least 3-4 new missions, new planets, maybe a ground vehicle, and epilogue cut scenes tailored to every choice you made in the series, and would sell it for 10$" - I'd pay 20$. Okay, you greedy EA scumbags, I'd even pay 30$, just release it, dammit! But nooo, instead they release DLC's for the multiplayer and promising "more context" in summer. Ri-i-ight. More context. Those ending need to be re-written completely, because giving depth to the existing ones will only raise more questions and create more plot-holes. Which this video points out quite nicely. Really, why give us more stuff we hate, instead of giving us stuff we like: logic, consistency and lore accuracy. There's also a link in the description of the video, and I personally think, that the real "context" of the endings would be very much alike. Funny script though.-Algol- 23:51, April 10, 2012 (UTC)

"However, going to Project Base doesn't" - I can come with only one remotely logical explanation: The Project itself was an Alliance black op. Any leak would cause a turmoil that could rival the deaths of 200 kilobatarians. That's why Hackett and Kenson only allowed Shepard to enter, because Shepard was the only person they could trust. Because Mordin, who still has ties with STG? Miranda, who is the second person in Cerberus? Samara with a sore sense of justice? Those people could leak what they'd saw in the facility, and the Alliance would be in big trouble. Plus, Kenson would specifically insist, that Shepard went alone, for obvious reasons. And Shepard wasn't expecting combat, so s/he might let his/her guard down. I actually find infiltrating the prison alone much less logical. Though fighting alone, while playing an Adept on Insanity + the timing, returned me the forgotten sense of challenge in ME2 combat:)

Yeah, I know they probably won't go on a good old-fashioned killing spree during a double-date. "Garrus would teach Shepard's little blue daughter how to shoot a gun in the backyard" - I'd recomment the M-920 Cain. Kids just lo-o-ove fireworks XD

"but the breath taking is really Shepard" - yep, it's really Shepard, supposedly surviving entering the atmosphere and burning to little bits of ash, crashing from a who-knows how high altitude, accelerating to the speed, on which all innards start going out of the nostrils... Yep, it's really Shepard, according to Bioware:) I just can't believe it was the Citadel in that "breath cutscene". The Citadel doesn't have concrete... right?

About Spectres. Some of their tasks do not necessary include intelligence, counter-intelligence, investigations of crime, counter-terrorism etc. These tasks need undercover work, so you're totally right. The main objective of the Spectres, however, is maintaining galactic peace. This can be done in a multitude of ways. The Codex itself states, that Spectres may also act as diplomats, envoys or mediators. If a Spectre specializes in this particular field of work, then s/he needs an open identity. You only can build a reputation with an open identity, and reputation is vital for a diplomat. Think of the Jedi in Star Wars.

"Guess it's like a tattoo for her, and she couldn't remove it?" - I don't believe you can't remove tattoos in 2186, or at least scratch it from a synthetic surface. EDI repaired the whole platform, which was as charred, as barbecues I tend to make, but left the logo for some reason. I tell you, it was a joke:)

"Sort of like with Thane. I found him really interesting when I first played ME2, but he got annoying really fast" - hmmm... Why annoying? I mean he was kinda moody, but at least he was polite, civil, and didn't get on anyone's nerves. Looking at Javik or ME2 jack, it's a virtue:)

"So my Shep destroyed them. Free will is more important for her than anything really" - I agree. And so thinks my Shep, but... My Shep always finds himself/herself in a very unpleasant position, from a role-playing point of view. Problem is, I've met Legion too late in the game, and I don't have a good insight, or at least a solid knowledge on how the geth actually think. Without knowing of how they actually think, and how they percieve a threat of brainwashing, I cannot fully think through the decision. I lack perception, and Legion does not provide it. That's why I choose to preserve them, using this logic: destruction is irreversible, while brainwashing is not (probably). I am afraid to do harm, which cannot be undone later, so I do not want to destroy them. And then I damn myself for making this decision each time I hear about quarian casualties in ME3:(

Sure, such a DLC would rock, and Bioware would be hailed as gods of game-design, though EA would still be despised as greedy scumbags. Everything in order, really. Like in the good old days. But suddenly Bioware lost all, which is even related to common sense, and there we have it... The only explanation I can come up with, is that the real Reapers played the demo, decided to come a bit earlier, and indoctrinated Bioware into making that load of bullshit, so everyone loses hope O_o

"That “leaked script” made me laugh though :D" - Liara's lectures were priceless:)-Algol- 15:47, April 11, 2012 (UTC)

1.How couldn't they tell Shepard? I mean... it's Shepard! The all-knowing game protagonist!:) 2. About the number of guards, well, they are surrounded by 200 kilobatarians in the system, so I'd like to have some manpower too, despite of the secrecy. Just in case, you know.

But yeah, Shepard missing for two days... I bet Tali would suspect, that my Shep is cheating on her, and plasma-vent the whole base with a few clicks on her omni-tool XD Just kidding.

I agree, from what I learned the hard way in ME2 by playing a Vanguard on Insanity, is that Barrier is a must have bonus-power. If things are different in ME3, then I will definitely heed your advise, when the time comes for me to play a Vanguard in ME3. It will look something like that: Sitting in cover and sniping for the most of the battle, and when only one enemy is left, okay, okay, I'll charge. Imma vanguard!!!:D

But yes, Energy Drain ftw for everyone except the Engineer or, to some extent, Infiltrator, especially on higher difficulties. Having a buff, a de-buff and an are attack at the same time is one perfect example of quarian ingenuity:) BTW, about that... maybe Chiktikka (or is it Chik'Tikka?) vas Paus changed her career to Defence Drone? So she doesn't go for the eyes anymore, and is more like a guard dog?

Awwww, such a cute picture! Thank you, I'll save it to my collection! "Look how much happiness a little firepower can bring to a child!" (c) South Park. It's almost like Jack can have a little childhood too.

The Projector was very good, yes. Wonder why this Arc Pistol didn't have chain ability? Maybe only one more target after the first, like chain overload, but still. It would actually make it useful. Though with heavy weapons in ME2, I was always true to The Cain. Need to take down three YMIRs at once in that mission from Aria? Bring the Cain. Can't to finish a fight with a Thresher Maw or the Human Reaper? Bring The Cain. Oh, and carrying a big red "kill'em all" button on your back bolsters morale like never before!:)

Those turian soldiers... I always thought that some gesture akin to fist-to-the-heart, and then saluting with it, like in the Roman Empire, would be more appropriate for turians. Maybe some of the designers, responsible for movement mechanics was lazy, and just reused the most common one you encounter in the game. *Sigh* if only it was the biggest problem.

"But anyway, I would really like to play a spy in ME universe" - making other games in ME unverse is still an open question. So maybe something like Assassin's Creed will really happen. Though I wouldn't trust Bioware with it too, not their field of expertise.

"Usually I sort of try to counter it with him wearing his alternate outfit, and suddenly because of the sunglasses and piercings everything he says sounds less moody and more hilarious :D" - definitely! Cheer up Thane, your wife's dead, your son screwed up, you have a terminal disease, but hey... you got sunglasses!:)

That whole quarian-geth thingy... I had this one big (and any small) questions in ME3: so if geth supposedly didn't pursue the quarians leaving Rannoch, how all of quarian colonies became overrun? I mean, Haestrom and other colonies implied in the game? I find it unlikely, that the geth had such a powerful communication line to contact other units far away from Rannoch, because it was always implied, that geth operate good only in close proximity to each other, with Legion being a unique platform, able to work in "autonomous mode". Did they sieze quarian communication network? Then why those quarians in the colonies didn't just cut it off? It's really suspicious, and i don't believe, that geth were really so innocent, as they are portrayed in ME3. I'm not implying that quarians are, but still, if we take one game, ME3, advertised to bigger audience, who might not have played the first to games, then depicting the whole conflict in such a one-sided and pro-geth way is... unjust and incorrect. Has nothing to do with that argument on DA wiki, however, that one was a little study about why people want to see drama, like... everywhere. Regardless of the supposed drama coming from lack of knowledge, not primarily from emotional tension.

"I miss the different news broadcasts in ME3" - yeah, those were priceless! BTW, I wanted to try out this 'Sophist' biotic implant Serrice Council so heavily advertised to me:) Their armour is very good, so where's the implant? But nevertheless, I think that less humor in the broadcasts was actually very logical. I mean, the war rages, broadcast channels must focus all their efforts on combat data and morale-supporting propaganda, and, sadly, the biggest news at that time were casualty lists and lost colonies. So I'll just replay ME1-2:) I kinda wonder what class to choose... Suggestions?:)

A thought just came to mind: the only thing I liked in Cerberus, is their combat chatter in ME3. "Holy shit, it's Shepard!" Yep, it's Shepard. And you're about to get sheparded!:)-Algol- 11:20, April 12, 2012 (UTC)

My little problem with Liara romance is that she doesn't call you out for cheating on her in ME2 or ME3 (I didn't cheat, but read this stuff on the forums). I mean, no reaction at all, and that's while Ashley can't stop to bug you for cheating on Alliance with Cerberus... Great speech though! very... touching, I'm serious.

"Snipping with Vanguard in ME3 is really a waste" - I know it's a waste. It's a waste in ME2, in ME3 and generally a waste however you think of it. But you can't teach the old Infiltrator dog new tricks, can you?:D And about insanity difficulty... i have 8 playthroughs of ME1 and ME2, 7 of them are on insanity. i liked ME2 insanity best, because it's challenging and smart at the same time. Every little f*cker has some sort of protection, so you must take it down, prior to dealing with the little f*cker himself. I wish they had retained this system for ME3, because in ME3 it gets really tedious. Instead of relying on armor/shields/barriers (which make sense), every little f*cker goes into battle "naked", yet has a ridiculous number of hitpoints. The freaking Widow only kills an average Cerberus trooper with a headshot. Really! No headshot, no frag. Armed with the Revenant (a freaking death-machine in ME2), you must pretty much empty the whole magazine into someone's ass to kill him. Squadmate's performance suffers from this severely, especially for those squadmates, who rely on guns, rather then powers. Give Ashley or James a Falcon w/Incendiary ammo on Veteran, and they tear the enemy apart, but on Insanity they can barely scratch them. So I'm sticking with hardcore in ME3 after two Insanity playthroughs.

"Or maybe, she learned to go for the optics right away, so Tali doesn't have to yell at her anymore :D" - maybe, sadly, enemies do not pay much attention to drones in ME3, rendering drones less useful. Turrets are very good though. Sabotaged enemy turrets are evn better. In one of the recent fights, I took out a wave of 2 centurions, 4 troopers and 1 engineer with their own turret, and the whole squad did nothing except sitting in cover and watching the show. That was on Insanity. Engineers are lazy:)

I only used heavies for special occasions too, but I liked to carry the Cain around. It's like "the most useful thing in a nucear weapon, is a threat of a nuclear weapon". cain isn't exactly a nuke, but still. Guess they removed heavies from your loadout in ME3 because it would mess up the whole weight system.

"Assassin's Creed in space. I would love to play that, way more than playing an AC game set in revolutionary America >_>" - there is the latest Deus Ex... Not in space, but still futuristic. Yet, an action game like AC (and with the quality of AC) in a space setting would probably be one the most challenging, but rewarding, undertakings in game design. Who's up?

"I thought the geth didn't pursue the quarians once they abandoned their whole system, not just Rannoch" - didn't the female quarian pilot in the recording say, that they are leaving Rannoch? more importantly, she said, that they are nearing the mass relay, and more importantly, Dholen System, in which Haestrom is situated, does not have a mass relay. The only explanation left, is that geth drew away the quarians from their colonies before they drew them away from Rannoch. But I don't find it logical, because of communication issues I spoke about earlier. But it doesn't matter anymore, I'm just glad that they made peace with each other at last.

"About the DA wiki argument, it was an interesting read. Made me laugh a couple of times too :D" - I sincerely hope you weren't laughing at me:)

"if I walk around the Citadel, all I hear is drama and sadness almost everywhere" - guess it was Bioware's artistic vision, but I really don't blame them for that particular part. I comfort myself with the humour I can find aboard the Normandy. Still... After the first playthrough, each time I hear people talking about going to Sanctuary, I just want to grab them and yell "NOOOO!!!":(

Guess I really stick with the Sentinel. The class I explored the least. I'll have shiny armour, yay:) You can't go all Batman and "dark-protectory" in shiny armour, can you? O_o

“Pistol? How about trying a real man's weapon!” - each time you cloak, krogan get ve-e-ery nervous XD "Show yourself!" "Fight like a warrior!". He-he. "And in retrospect the ME1 chatters is hilarious XD" - that! The way they yell "Enemy is everywhere!" makes me think I have a freaking army instead of two squadmates. Oh, and "Hold the line!". It never gets old:)

I like when you're full of links:) You provide the most hilarious ones, so thank you! That "biology+hardware=bioware"... So Bioware are husks? I'd say "husks of former selves".-Algol- 18:16, April 12, 2012 (UTC)

"f*ck you Bioware, if I had a relationship for 2 games now, I don't want to go for someone else, no matter how sexy Traynor's voice is!" - please notice: but you were tempted, weren't you?;) But yeah, ambiguity just sucks. That reminds me of good old DA:O, were you could talk to people in a party camp and sort things over. I just loved to talk whenever I wanted and kiss whenever I wanted. Starting from ME2 we have calibrations, engines, thanks for coming by and all that. I'm sure we'd all be glad to listen to our favourite characters over and over and over again. "I mean, sure some romances seem to just casual sex at first" - oh, and that would be a huge mistake with Jack in ME2. I actually liked the way that romance was implemented. What I didn't like, however, is that if you don't go for her, it's "f*ck off" for you. On the bright side, ME3 Jack was great! The only thing I wanted to see in addition is her sorting out stuff with Miranda.

"I like higher difficulties in games like DAO, where I can really tell the others what to do and how to behave, cos it's pretty much the most important part of it, but that doesn't really work in ME series" - well, you can fully control the use of powers, but... Those guys and gals, who rely on shooting can't do jack (sorry, Jack XD) on higher difficulties.

Yep, those engineers! Why do it yourself, when tech can do it for you? Crafty little bastards, love 'em:)

Human Revolution was good, but... There's a problem. Many people, who played the first game (or games, depends) look at HR as an attempt to revive a 10-years old corpse with a liver transplant. I thought bringing life to the series will do good, but having played the old Deus Ex, I somehow understand those people. Too many time has passed, the audience has changed and things became too different... Maybe HR would be better as a standalone game in a similar, but not the same setting and story, considering all good stuff it had?

"though I wish the hubs would have been bigger" - that reminds me of ME3. I wish they were hubs besides the Citadel. I understand, that in this war homeworlds are warzones and primary targets, but still... Sur'Kesh and Tuchanka weren't hit that hard, and I would just love to visit Thessia before the attack to see its beauty.

"Well it could be that the rebellion started in the colonies first and reach Rannoch last?" - as far, as I recall, Legion's recording in ME2 ("does this unit have a soul?") names Rannoch as the place it was taken in. The Codex states "The geth soon overran the quarian homeworld Rannoch along with their other colonies", placing Rannoch first. It's not definite, by any means, but still doesn't look like Rannoch was the last.

I agree, in order to not hit the planet, the ships should have been flanking it and the Reapers. "and every shot that doesn't hit it's target, will ruin the day of someone somewhere in the galaxy sometime" - and if they won't fire, there wouldn't be a "sometime". Noone cares about possible collateral damage in situations like this. But, if they were depicted flanking, this wouldn't reflect the drama of head-to-head battle. So it's drama over common sense.

"Oh and that salarian guy who got his new armor just around the time his human friend sold her car. That was cute :)" - I always thought I was... not quite getting something in that dialogue... What adds to the depression is people crying at the hospital and in the docks. The sounds, the looks... Damn war.

"Well there is a mod for ME2 that let's you change the color to something less shiny" - nah... Think I'll do without. Enemies just have to see clearly who to shoot, that's the humble duty of the Sentinel:) And when the shiny armor goes off, he-he...;)

I actually liked geth stuttering sounds. Much more intimidating, then some poor sod yelling "I will destroy you" with a voice, that clearly indicates panic.

Yeah, those Bioware husks. I wonder how they screw up the next Dragon Age this time. Assuming there will really be a Dragon Age 3.-Algol- 22:21, April 12, 2012 (UTC)

About those romances! Jack's romance was really well done, but "and I like that while she seems to be bisexual, she is not an option for FemShep" - a lot of female players do not like it:) i was stunned by the sheer number of them, who wanted to romance Jack. I mean, look at Mess Perfect 2! Every other comic freaking cries about it! XD Pretty much the same was with Tali - as someone wrote somewhere, "If we are already different species, does it really matter what gender are we?" If we talk about DA:O and Morrigan... The numbers, the sheer numbers!!! Do... male romances suck that bad, or what?:)

But DA2 romances... I just don't get some of of them. Would Isabela really wait 3 years to get her hands on Hawke? Rivalmances? Don't even start, they would be funny if they weren't so sad and ridiculous. BTW, about Merrill, I wasn't that surprised of her going for girls. Sure, the Dalish appear to be very traditionalistic, and given their constant need of procreation, and all that stuff, but... It's Merrill!:) If someone persuasive enough tells her, that babies come from two girls or two boys, they just don't tell anyone, she might believe it, really. Plus, given her "unparallelled aptitude" in all matters social, she might as well be completely oblivious about "how it's all done". Even more, she seems to become close friends with Isabela, and is always interested in Isabela's stories, especially the spicy parts of them. So we may also say it's Izzy's influence:)

"And damn you DA2 that Merrill and Carver never get together!" - I was very glad! :P i adore Merrill and hate carver with passion.

"But what ever, ME is a shooter not really an rpg anyway :P" - not that it was intended to be an RPG. Back in ME2, Christina Norman, lead gameplay designer, defined the genre as "Shooter RPG", with shooter clearly coming first. ME is ME! A great trilogy with artistic ending!:)

"But I think considering everything, it is a good game" - couldn't agree more! it's a good game. About that terrorist in the sewers: not that you killed him, think of it as an unfortunate accident XD

"“You get to visit the homeworld of the council races!”" - I don't recall visiting Palaven. The view from Menae moon was nice, but I don't recall visiting it.

History remembers quite a few examples, where uprisings started in metropoly, and only then spread to th colonies. I even inclined to believe it was exactly the case of Rannoch. To operate effectively, geth need numbers and relatively close proximity to each other. I doubt they would that effective in colonies, whereas Rannoch, the most advanced planet, must have had great amount of geth platforms, all kinds and purpose. Simply because it had the largest population of quarians, who used them, seat of their military, which used them, agriculture, which fed the population, and, again, used geth, or even higher life standards, allowing the use of luxury platforms. If it's a war between organics and synthetics, think of geth tactics close to that of the Reapers: husks, relatively weak, but numerous units, are most effective in heavily populated areas, because while weak, they can harass civilian population. But... I guess we'll never know.

"why are they missing?" - funnily enough, they might not be missing at all. I never saw a cutscene, when a ship misses and hits something friendly instead. The projectiles just disappear. Maybe, given that allied fleets had enough bitter practice to study the Reapers, they discovered, that ships of certain classes (lighter ones), like frigates, corvettes or fighters simply cannot damage the large Sovereign-class Reapers, so they are firing at someone else behind the Reapers. Like smaller-class Reapers, ground targets on planets, those Occulus-thingys, but these relatively small targets can't be seen in cutscenes, because they are. well, small:) I know it sounds more like an excuse, then an explanation, but still...

"Though I think they can't fail as much as ME3 did, mostly because with DA3 everyone will be really cautious" - I don't know if they be cautious. They seem to be so self-centered and arrogant right now that might as well consider DA2 their pinnacle of artistic integrity.

Well, I can't expect links from you every time! I can only hope :D -Algol- 12:23, April 13, 2012 (UTC)

Morrigan sort of... grew up in a swamp, so I think she prefers things to be... natural, for the lack of a better word? But with all my love and dedication to Morrigan, I can understand people. Morrigan is a goddess, deities are not limited by such trivialities as gender:) About male romances, I was mostly referring to ME romances:) Are they that bad? Because Jack, Tali, even Ashley (!), oh, and Miranda too: from what I read, female players (in the majority) either hate her, or want a romance. It seems to me, that the only male romance being popular with fans is Garrus and, to some extent, Thane.

"Tried to romance Merrill with same Hawke once, and my God was that awkward! And that elf underwear yikes!" - I always romanced Merrill in DA2. Despite of the underwear, she's so cute and adorable... And the voice! And her stories!

The picture... Guess that's why Shepard sees those weird nightmares O_o Or maybe Joker's idea of teaching Reapers how to love, actually worked out.

Warden or no, family or no, I have only one mage playthrough out of five, so Carver is in family archives most of the time. Then again, from role-playing point of view: my Hawke goes into the Deep Roads for several weeks. I wouldn't leave my aging, grief-struck mother alone in a new (and crazy) city. Well, not alone, with Gamlen, but that's even worse. So I'm always leaving the sibling to stay with Leandra. That's why neither Bethany nor Carver become Wardens. Bethany I can understand: she was literally dragged into the Circle against her will (God, I wanted to kill Cullen since DA:O). Carver, though... Willingly joining the Templars to persecute people like his father and his sister, spitting on their memory. And becoming a Templar, he moves from young and butthurt idiot to a full-fledged idiot with power, which is far worse.

What should be included in an imaginary "perfect DLC for ME3", apart from bearable endings, of course, are hub locations, that you can visit before shit hits the fan. ok, Palaven is out of question, it gets hit from the begining. At least we have an idea of how it looks from "Evolution" (lame as it was:)). They can freaking recycle Tuchanka from ME2, just add some quests, NPCs, good background dialogue (I know you can still do that, BW), maybe some shops with overpowered items. Ok, last one was sarcasm, but still I don't see why multiplayer has a monopoly on overpowered stuff? I mean, Asari Justicar class, really? A launcher, that takes out an Atlas in one shot? Why don't the Reapers just give up? But I digress. Shooting pyjaks from an anti-material stationary turret is always fun:) Thessia too. Visit museums, palaces, universities, maybe some aquatic voyage or an underwater station (liked that mission in KoTOR)? *Sigh* If only...

"And then I go to youtube and watch cute cats doing cute things to cheer myself up :D" - my cat seems to cheer herself up watching me playing Mass Effect:) She always seems so interested:)

Oh yes, the cutscenes with generic weapons... What bugs me the most, is that sometimes they show actual weapons you have. And squaddies... Something like this:)

Yeah, players definitely will get more cautious with DA3. Wonder how many pre-orders will it get? 3? Or maybe 5? Because multiplayer is exactly what you need in a new game, while trying to win back the fanbase, disappointed with DA2. As someone wrote on DA wiki, "so now we have to gather War Assets and Military Strength for the Mage-Templar War?" -Algol- 18:06, April 13, 2012 (UTC)

Ah, Miranda romance... The place. I mean, really. "I always choose the best". Uh-huh. A cold, hard floor of the Engineering Deck, with Mordin overwatching the whole place from the window in his lab. When Miranda has a king-size bed in her office. Or in Shep's quarters. Maybe she wanted to prove, that she's as tough, as Jack? I don't know. But seriously, the place!

"Not really, she is actually happy to go to the Circle and be around other mages, and is okay with all this, so that the family doesn't have to hide just because of her" - the very moment she was dragged out of her home, she didn't seem that happy. Sure, she did it for her family, but only found herself comfortable around other mages later, as she writes in her letter. "and I think that's why Carver joins" - maybe. But being colleagues with people like Meredith, Alrik, Karras, Otto... I wonder how many raids on innocent people's houses he performed? Like that templar squad, cornering a defensless girl, while all she did is fed dinner to her relative, without even knowing, that the relative was apostate. I think quite a few, because Carver always sorely lacked a backbone, to be able to disobey such orders. Never saw him in Thrask's conspiracy group. I have a theoretical moral conflict with him joining, but what's more important, I will not forgive him staying. And yeah, being a Earden doesn't turns out good for Bethany, but playing DA:O and knowing the Wardens inside out - I'm hardly surprised.

"You help Aria take it back from TIM, and then it becomes a hub?" - count me in! I think... we're going to deploy violence:) Hub, good old "Afterlife", vorcha, bringing Garrus there and spooking the shit out everyone... Good times! Also, possibly meeting Maelon (if alive). Maybe... Aria as a squadmate? In gratitude for reclaiming the throne? I always wanted a more vanguard-type agressive biotic a squadmate in ME3 in adition to Liara, the controller-type biotic. Because Javik kinda sucks. Weapon selection is good, but powers... Dark Channel is next to useless, imo, and Slam is a good as additional damaging power, but not the main one. So... Aria as a squadmate: Warp, Shockwave, Warp Ammo (give Liara a Barrier instead), Slam/Reave. Weapons: assault rifle and shotgun/heavy pistol. What do you think?

Actually my cat tends to carefully watch the screen and sometimes reaches with her paw, trying to grab something on the screen. Or jumps onto the table blocking the view:) Cat's like Mass Effect too. Oh, and this:)

You know, that co-op in DA3 may as well be a test of how many people will actually play it, and then a first step to turn DA into MMO (EAware already entertained this idea). What do people find in co-op, when there's a good single-player, I don't even... Well, relatively good single player. -Algol- 20:42, April 13, 2012 (UTC)

"Miranda has more pillows than Shep does. This is an outrage! My FemShep demands more pillows!" - I think pillows and genes may be connected:)

Also there was this huge Pride Demon right under Kirkwall and also that Desire Demon Xene-something, and, oh, also there was Corypheus nearby. Nice city to emigrate to, really. But...

"and one of those accidentally made all the female templars naked XD Killing them while they were in their undies was so much fun :D" - I have three questions about this:
 * 1) Accidentally? Are you sure? XD
 * 2) "all the female templars naked" AND "while they were in their undies" - I thought "naked" implies not having undies... But did the undies have a templar insignia? Or maybe Andraste's face?
 * 3) "Killing them while they were in their undies was so much fun" - O_o sometimes you scare me, you know that? XD

Ashley has the bonus power, that is quite useful to the player: Marksman. James can give Carnage, and this thing is a beast! But in battle... On lower difficulties, choosing weapon damage bonuses and giving them the Falcon, especially with Incendiary or Cryo ammo, turns them into mobile artillery, so not that bad, actually. Yet, EDI is as good at soaking damage and has Overload and Incinerate, so Soldier squadmates are sort of overshadowed. Liara not having anything vs Shields is good for keeping balance. Because if she was able to bring down shields, she would turn into an unstoppable death-machine, and from quarter-krogan to double krogan:) Direct damage - check, crowd control - check, best debuff in the game - check, squadmate buff - check. maybe someone else can do the anti-shielding stuff, so Liara wouldn't have to win battles all by herself? Not to mention that her "best debuff in the game" is arguably the best bonus power in the game.

"Though it only works if you completely disregard the fact that everyone on Omage will die anyway with the current endings" - with the current enings, there's a good chance, that everyone everywhere will die anyway. So at least we may have some fun before dying. I also find it curious, that Aria's story with Wrex isn't wrapped up. It has been confirmed, that Aethyta is Liara's father, wich was heavily suspected, but not Aria-Aleena. Yet. Maybe there will be a DLC involving her after all?

There are also quite a few empty spaces on the Normandy, so maybe we'll see another squadmate? I mean, if the Extended Cut DLC wasn't planned, as they told, and is going to be out in summer, they can't just stamp DLC's for multiplayer all the time until then. That would be stupid even for Bioware in its' current state.

"Really, EA/Bioware should stop trying to turn singleplayer games into multiplayer ones, and just create a friggin multiplayer IP on their own, if the want it so much!" - they sorta tried... With TOR. And it's crashing down in flames right now, as people tell. Who's the next victim after KoTOR? Dragon Age? NWN multiplayer wasn't bad at all, but it was more like a tool kit to create your own adventures and play them with friends. That's too charitable for EA. i like co-op too, but I like it in CoD Zombies, TF or something similar. I just can't get people actually supporting co-op in DA. Especially after ME3 multiplayer, that has "no impact" (just what we were promised) on singleplayer. Nope, no impact at all.-Algol- 23:12, April 13, 2012 (UTC)

BTW, have you seen this? There are very good videos. Wonder if BW deserves such dedication.-Algol- 23:25, April 13, 2012 (UTC)

Marksman may come in handy to people, who play almost any class, but can't shoot XD "but just shooting stuff is boring" - I find myself very excited, when one of the squadmates actually kills anything with a shot. Because it happens so rarely:) "Oh look there are a bunch of Cerberus mooks standing next to each other and they don't have shields!" - see, that's why I like Insanity in ME2. Because you have to actually work your way to perform such combos. "The Atlas guns her down often" - wow! At least the most powerful non-boss enemy can do something against her!:) Atlas mechs tend to be my favourite enemies, though: hijacking is fun.

If they haven't really forgotten about Aria, I'd suspect they may left the story with Wrex out, because he may be dead after ME1. Then again, what's the point of those teasers in ME2, as he may be already dead. "the quarians not being “as soft as humans”" - I don't really understand what Grunt meant by that. Quarians supposedly have scales? The envirosuit acts as armour? Or "soft" was related to a personality trait, not physical abilities. Like they have more resolve or stronger will.

You certainly have a point about "beyond stupid", but seriously, I'm curious. Whether they were planning single-player DLCs or not. Let's wait and see.

"I'm pretty sure that I read somewhere about NWN MMO" - wasn't that DDO? I even played it for a while. Short while. Then I remembered, that D&D is really about role-playing first, cutting down flora and fauna second.

Well, sure those videos arent't even near to something created by a professional, but neither they're intended to be. Not their league. For a fan-made stuff they are decent. I was mostly referring to the amount of work and dedication people have put into them, and for what? Artistic endings? "Sure as hell will never ever do that again!" - why not?:) -Algol- 02:20, April 14, 2012 (UTC)

Oooh, Geth Dreadnought! You can understand how I love that mission and feel completely in my element:) Plus, bringing Tali and EDI/Garrus can make you rely solely on powers, if you're not comfortable with sniper rifles. Hacked rocket troopers and hacked primes can do the work for you:) Oh, and you can always bring a scoped pistol, not a sniper rifle, in order to maintain a good power recharge bonus. BTW I recently got a double-headshot with my Engineer, using a scoped Paladin w/armor-piercing ammo. That was on two retreating Cerberus mooks on Tuchanka: Bomb. *Sigh* A triple headshot still awaits. I replayed the Tuchanka: Cure the Genophage several times, because there are a few groups of husks running out on you in a straight line, but didn't manage to get a good angle. I won't give up, Garrus' record will be broken:)

Nice picture:) BTW. But as I wrote above, I'd prefer to shoot something more interesting, then bottles, to "settle it once an for all" *does the Grunt laugh*.

About the "scaly" quarians... This gets tricky, as we don't know what period of history regarding quarians is imprinted into Grunt. If it was before the Krogan Rebellions, when Krogan were relatively docile, I doubt they'd had many encounters to be able to test quarian softness. Now, if it was after the Rebellions (read: afer the Genophage), when many krogan became pirates, who attacked anything that moves in space, it is a completely different matter. Because it may as well happen less then 300 years ago, when quarians already wore suits. Mind you, Grunt is comparing quarians to humans, who showed up, what, only 30 years ago? Remember the krogan technician on Tuchanka in ME2? The guy, who was repairing a Tomkah, and gives you a quest to find some parts? He says "What, you think we kidnap quarians to do the repairs? Not anymore." I doubt they kidnapped quarians before the Rebellions (who would let them?), so all this might as well happened after quarians were exiled from Rannoch, and Grunt was referring to their suits. Because as we see mostly in ME1, quarian armor is indistinguishible from suits, and offers the layer of protection Grunt may have found "not so soft". He might as well think, that the suit is inseparatable from a quarian, which is, basically, true.

Neverwinter MMO... how about this one, then. This is old news, but still... I wonder how would they deal with the fact, that the whole City of Neverwinter got blown up in the 4th D&D edition? What's the point of playing, then?

"But back to the video themselves... well they did to get stuff" - lot's of people make videos out of dedication, it may or may not be connected at all with promo stuff. I'm sure a lot of people didn't even submit their videos to participate. I like this one, for example.

"There was this one vid that was 2 minutes long, and was more than 700 Mb in size" - WATH??? OMG. Did they... do it on purpose to mess with you?:) But I get it, you made it all perfectly clear. If by any chance someone asks me to be a judge in a video contest, I know what to do. Run!!!:)

Oooh, new Archengeia video, thank you! What I liked one of the most, was "there are people, who try to take a middle ground, and say, that the endings weren't horrible, they just weren't conclusive". As you rightly pointed out, when we discussed PAX, "people are such sheep". I get, that "fight or flight" instinct has been hardwired in humans through countless generations, but what separates people from animals (in our case: sheep) is ability to overcome instinct and think. F*cking think! Didn't the krogan story in ME teach them anything? That's why I highly doubt I ever understand ending-apologists.-Algol- 12:51, April 14, 2012 (UTC)

"I spent most of the time commanding Garrus and Tali" - well, you're Commander Shepard, right?:D I guess that's what commanders do. "I'm rooting for you!" - thank you very much! A question: would it be fair to lock two out of three enemies in Stasis (Liara + bonus power), or a shot has to be taken without any assistance? I guess Garrus did it without any assistance, but on the other hand, he only shot two, the third died of heart attack... And I didn't hear anything about headshots... Your opinion?:)

It appears, that Shepard is a master of all weapon types, but s/he carefully hides it to feed false intel to the enemy... You're right about QTE, I totally agree. Or at least make shooting the last bottle possible only if you actually used a sniper rifle throughout the game (or games). Or make it possible only for Infiltrators/Soldiers. Oh, and also Shepard appears to be a master of hand-to-hand combat as well, judging from that sparring with James. should have make it something similar to a contest with Garrus. And if classes are involved, exclusive to Vanguards/Soldiers. I can also imagine a hacking contest with Tali, something like, who hacks an Atlas mech faster, and subsequently kills more unsuspecting Cerberus mooks with it? All while sitting in a comfortable chair behind a console and drinking tea (because Engineers are lazy people):D Oh, and biotic contest with Liara. Something like, who deploys a Cerberus mook to planetary orbit from the ground first, using a Lift+Throw combo? (Love doing that in ME1 on open maps :D) Or maybe, who is able to hold a Cerberus mook in Stasis, until it goes insane from being unable to move a muscle? Or I don't know, a Sentinel contest with Kaiden or Miranda, something like, who can eat more direct rocket hits? O_o

Actually, we don't even know when exactly asari and salarians made first contact with quarians. When quarians emerged in the Large Galaxy? Some asari referred to them as a "race with old souls", but that's not nearly accurate. Krogan Rebellions are separated from the Morning War with roughly 1000 years, and the Exile is last 300 of them. Grunts imprints may already include quarians in suits. Besides, Aethyta specifically mentions, that she remembers quarians without suits, so if it's such a prominent memory, Grunt may have mentioned it as well, but he didn't. Sure, his imprints mostly include knowledge of warfare, but a quarian with and without a suit is a big differents in tactical terms. But about their appearance... "And also being very human like in face yet having only 3 fingers and chicken legs, just sort of freaks me out". Ok, bird-like legs with two toes make perfect sense, as they evolved on a desert planet, and such structure is optimal for moving on sand. Three fingers? Most species have three fingers, but the book mentions Kahlee amazed how Lemm'Shal could operate with three fingers much faster, then a human with five, so no real difference with humans in this matter. (reminds me of a picture...) They have hair, makes sense too, it gets cold in the desert at night, but the rest... I always thought, that regardless of original skin tone, their skin should be very pale, because the suit doesn't let sunlight through. Everything else - c'mon, asari and batarians look very human-like too, but noone complains:) Especially about asari:)

"the salarians and the asari aren't that much above slavery themselves" - hmmm... I'm not sure. Salarians are smart enough to figure out, that slave labour is simply ineffective, they rely on mechs, and kidnapping other sentinent beings for experiments (like the yahg in ME3) is very different from slavery. Asari culture values individuality and freedom very highly (they don't even have a single planetary government), so I disagree about them being not much above slavery. Illium is an exception. It is not even part of asari space, it's a single planet with legalized slavery, and it was populated specifically to escape and defy official policies and common ideals in favour of material gain. A lot of humans are slavers, but humanity on the whole abhors slavery, especially after encounters with batarians.

"there is never any mention of Shepard mental state in the game after he/she comes back, which is soooo stupid" - I hear you! the only thing related to this happens during revelations on Chronos Station, when Shepard asks "or maybe I'm just an advanced VI, that only thinks, that it's Commander Shepard". And even in that case it sounded more like sarcasm, then a serious consideration. But maybe the concept of mental state was showed in the game after all, problem is, that it was shown artistically in a real, Bioware meaning of the word:) Because seeing weird boys, while nobody else doesn't, hearing wispers of the dead and seeing tree stumps, while a moment ago you were running on barren concrete, might give a hint, that Shepard is losing it. Headcanon: if Tali, Liara, Garrus and Samara won't be able to do some serious counseling, after the reapers are dealt with, my Shepard definitely ends up in the institution.

A thought just came to mind... If BW copied so much from CoD to ME3, the whole thingy with the Kiddo looks very-very familiar to CoD Black Ops plot. With imaginary people and the protagonist going nuts... I can elaborate, if you wish.

"Cos being an admin suck even more than being a judge :D" - I don't know, I had adminship rights once... and liked it! Problem was, that noone else liked it XD But it wasn't my problem! XD

"If you think about it, it's quiet funny, that most people who protect this “artistic” ending of ME3 are the ones who don't really think, while art and literature are meant to make you think" - *Sigh* yeah... Would be funny, if it wasn't so sad. Nowadays they'd call any piece of crap in a shiny wrapping paper "art".

A pleasant conversation you had!:) Really, asking a ME fan about ME3 these days is an example of refined sadism. Thank you BW, now we are uncomfortable to talk to people on certain topics! I just... ok, so which exact buildings Ezio can climb, then?

I had a similar conversation with my players, two days after ME3 was released. I asked them to let me finish it first, so I may explain which new things in the game will influence our story, and which can be overlooked. Then we met. And they said, "Hey! We know you already finished ME3, you've waited it for so long! How was it? It was excellent, right? It couldn't be anything else, but excellent! We love this gameworld so much... Wait? Why are you so silent? Why aren't you laughing, jumping, screaming, like you always do, when you're excited? Something in the game... went wrong? It couldn't have..." I won't be able to forget this feeling any soon. I was ashamed to look them in the eyes.

BTW, I've made those pictures of NPCs using ME3 face-builder, and the players even said, that two out of six weren't horrible XD Guess I suck with face-builder too XD -Algol- 00:02, April 15, 2012 (UTC)

"I say, you should try with stasis first, and if it worked, then try to do it on your own :)" - ok, let's stick to that. Maybe just one Stasis will be enough, who knows?

"Shep got so many upgrades in ME2, that she is like terminator at this point, only with human brain :D" - some of the implant names in ME2 just scared me... Heavy Skin Weave, Skeletal Lattice, Microfiber Weave... I mean, what I'm turning myself into, really? They might have added the Syntheseis ending to ME3 specifically for Shepards, who are confused with their real identity.

"cos remember all the imprints are like “holding a book for a child, just remember this”, he doesn't have a real connection" - and that is exactly why I don't give his words any credit regarding some obscure moments of lore. Because he may interpret the imprints incorrectly, put something out of context, so I'm still inclined to believe, that "not so soft" could mean anything possible.

"the quarians used to carry pollen on themselves in the desert...so shouldn't they be actually hairy?" - they might have been such at some point of their evolution, pretty much like humans were. Or at least the majority of scientists says, that humans were:) But more importantly, that would depend on the pollen. It may be different, then Earth pollen, even if the flora we see on Rannoch looks similar to Earth flora. For starters, it sure was dextro-amino pollen. Then, it may stick to their skin or body hair, with exact amount of body hair present-day humans have. So... The only thing we know, that "primitive quarians were considered attractive":) (mind you, Javik even considers EDI's body attractive O_o Guess lying around for 50.000 years really spurns certain... instincts)

"Especially the asari, cos then they would stop being the “blue space babes” race" - more or less. Though I think I should point out, that if each and every sapient race considers them physically attractive (even the salarians, who don't have appropriate hormones), it means, that each and every race sees them through their own perception and according to their own standards of beauty. Much like Shepard sees quarians masked in the Consensus, while in objective reality they are not masked. So asari appear "human" to humans, "turian" to turians etc. Assuming that the character and the player are human (they are... right?), the result is obvious. There even was a conversation about this in Eternity bar in ME2.

"which could be considered slave labor, once the mechs gain awareness like a certain other mechs created by a certain other race ;D" - also salarians are good at learning from others' mistakes:) But really, I don't remember a salarian slaver in any of three games.

"As for the asari, they are really more morally ambiguous than any other race imho. Sure slavery they don't protect slavery out in the open, but yet allow their young to go out in the galaxy, be slavers, mercs and what ever for centuries, and then come back an settle down" - I disagre. Humans allow their young to become slavers and mercs too, does that mean, that humans are inclined towards slavery? Sure, asari slavers live much longer, but they are hunted and killed just as their human, or any other race, counterparts. Mind you, the majority of asserted scum we meet in three games, like slavers, smugglers, mercs and other criminals are... human. Asari are not nearly in the majority even in Eclipse, an asari-founded organization. And once again, regarding slavery, Eclipse is not involved in it, and it is specifically stated. But Blue Suns are, and they are human-founded. And you say allow their young to [...] be slavers, mercs whatever, like it's a state policy or something. Or I don't know, like every young person, regardless of species, who goes out in the galaxy becomes a slaver. Asari may live long theoretically, but the life of their slaver-career may be as short, as anyone else's. To be very specific, if we're not counting Illium (an exception), I recall only ONE asari slaver, Nassana's sister, in ME1. Even Aria is not named a slaver. But how many humans are? Or even turians, for crying out loud? (Blue Suns mercs, I'm looking at you) Really, if we're trying to find a race with real moral ambiguity, all we have to do is look in the mirror.

"Then again, I might have been just tainted by 4chan, cos there was that one thread about how asari probably would love to keep human females as slaves" - Whoah, really 4chan-style theory, yes:) I would be lying, if I didn't admit I'm idealizing the asari a bit, but that? A bit too far, really. Especially with "probably" and "would" being operative words.

I was referring to Hale's voice in that scene:) meer's voice doesn't give any clues, what Shepard was feeling, like, at all:)

"Seriously, I wished Kelly was on board, so that she could give therapy sections to Shep, and help her deal with this stuff" - sadly, Kelly sorely needs a therapy herself, to deal with her own stuff. At least Shepard is not the only one with nightmares.

Basically, the whole plot of Black Ops is that the protagonist escapes a labour camp with his trusted friend. later, he meets his friend throughout half of the world, talks, recieves advice or even physical help from him, fights alongside him etc. Noone else sees or hears the friend. Nearing the epilogue, it is revealed, that the protagonist was brainwashed and suffering from severe multiple personality disorder as a result, and the real "friend" died six years ago, during the escape from the labour camp. All that time, he was just a figment of the protagonist's imagination. Now, if we just substitude a "friend" with a weird kiddo, and brainwashing with indoctrination... You know what I mean:)

Nice photo! Loved the architecture! I bet Ezio would love it too, for his own reasons:)

"Well yeah, telling others about ME3 is...painful" - my best friend and I strted playing the same day. He's not as big of a fan, as we are, but he likes the series in particular, and good old Bioware games as a whole. He knew I'll finish the game earlier. And knowing me as good as he does, he could imagine my reaction. When we met, he didn't ask me anything, we didn't talk about ME3 at all. A whole week later he asked me... "So, any news about DLCs?". "And my friend even made me play DA2 again, cos she said she couldn't romance Fenris for some reason, so I have to check what's wrong lol..." - so, you'd be romancing Fenris? My condolences XD

Yeah, 'Epantiras' is in her element - rage!!!:) Btw, she illustrated very good why I'm inclined towards "Control" ending. Oh, and she romanced Traynor, no surprise either:) It's like Traynor being the saviour of all those, who didn't like any of ME1-2 romances.

This question bug me for a long time... What's is the blood colour of different sppecies in ME? Quarians have red blood. Turians had dark-grey blood in ME2, but suddenly turned red in ME3... Asari don't seem to make a choice between red, like in core ME2, or blue, like in LotS... Though blue is ok with me, I mean, what other colour should asari blood be? Salarians seem to have green. Then, Garrus' quest to capture Dr. Saleon in ME1 mentions yellow blood, whose that? Maybe krogan? Something like hemolymph, which can explain krogan sturdiness and regeneration?-Algol- 16:13, April 15, 2012 (UTC)

"But then again, human DNA shouldn't be able to mix with any other kinda of DNA" - except for asari DNA. It's pretty much how asari reproduce: copying DNA strains into their own. But yeah, "it's a voodoo magic!":)

"I mean, I could see Liara asking Javik to have a child together For Science!, but I really can't see them actually having sex. Yikes..." - I actually don't believe she'd do it even For Science!, because science would gain nothing useful from the genes of a full-fledged retard, even if he is the last surviving prothean. Really, "I have one rule: if a machine talks, shoot it!" Both prothean VI's apparently do not count. *Sigh* Imbecile. I wonder why that scene after Thessia had a Paragon interrupt to stop Liara, but didn't have a Renegade interrupt to beat some sense into Javik. I'm afraid it's the last resort.

''“Hey guyz, let's uplift the yahg to make us more dominant in the galaxy, nothing wrong can come out of that, am I rite? Lulz”'' - yep, Council ban on visiting Parnak and prohibitions to conduct experiments on sapient beings do not seem to bother them, apparently. I was shocked, that Mordin or Kirrahe didn't react to experimenting on the Yahg!

"it's not a human tradition to say to your kid: Hey let's go out on adventures and do whatever you want, and when you had your fun, come back, and try to be a decent person! Because that's pretty much the asari tradition" - I didn't recall it stated anywhere. Humans have families, schools, society, religion and many more to teach young people to know right from wrong. But so do the asari. In the exact same way, if not more actually, because Siari, their dominant religion teaches peace, co-operation and value of each individual. What makes you think, that humans do not say exactly the same to their young? Like see the galaxy, learn and come back. It is not implied, that a human or asari becomes a criminal as soon, as s/he flies into space. Criminals are deviants in almost any galactic society, what you're implying sounds like asari encourage their young to become criminals. I'd say compare crime rate on Thessia and on Earth. As of Terminus Systems, where crime flourishes, compare the numbers of asari criminals to everyone else, except for volus, hanar and elcor. I really can't understand what do you mean by "asari tradition"? And about Aethyta. Her main point wasn't, that, quote, "our daughters spend their maiden years as strippers or in merc bands", her main point was, that asari should focus on develping their military. So those, who go off to space, could join the army or build fleets instead. She didn't want them to become better or something, she wanted them to deicate their time to war effort. That's all. Mind you, that Aethyta wasn't even implying, that maidens become either strippers or mercs, there are countless other possibilites, as we see in the game. Archaeologists, for example. I'm not even saying, that not every merc band is a bunch of criminals, like the Blue Suns, there are decent and respectable private military companies, like ERCS. "I just meant that asari tradition allows a lot more lets say moral flexibility than others" - with a very few exceptions, all asari we get to know in three games are either paragons of morality (an exaggeration, but still) or vicious killers. I don't see any flexibility here.

Back to humans. "but still it's obvious Bioware was just lazy" - yes. Still, we have what we have. Humans are by far the most dubious race with it's heroes and it's bastards, but also with everything else in between. I would call that a perfect example of moral flexibility. Or take salarians, for example. the concept of morality itself is very far from them, still, they have to comply to that concept, because other races share it. But look at their military doctrine. Look at their science. These guys are as flexible, as an amphibian can be, literally and metaphorically.

"how come that in ME3 suddenly the Blood Pack means vorcha only?" - remember Wreav on Tuchanka? He was backed by a good number of krogan in Blood Pack armour. I guess krogan clan-chiefs summoned Blood Pack krogan back to Tuchanka, promising them good battles: either against clan Urdnot, or against the Reapers (sure Wrex's education about them must have meant something), or both. And vorcha were simply left behind. Actually, they are able to form something loosely resembling a warband, just not for long. The Codex sorta implies. "Also while the Blue Suns were human founded, the batarians muscled in pretty soon, hence the salvery I would say" - they didn't muscle in. They were invited to join. By a human. Oh, and how about Elanos Haliat, the mastermind behind the attack on Elysium, which was as much a slave raid, as it was a territorial war. The guy was human too. I don't think, that "evil batarians corrupted good Blue Suns", Vido's part of the Blue Suns didn't mind slavery already.

"I like innocent looking races with dark secrets :D" - aren't Ardat-Yakshi and the prothean legacy enough?:)

"Dammit girl, if you knew, then why did you stop the kiss on Illium with shaking your head?!" - What??? She does that? Never saw it in my playthroughs O_o

Oh, gifts in DA2! "Marvelous, really"(c) Morrigan. Remember the "Gifts and pranks" DLC for DA:O? They just had to pervert it:) One gift now has to be able to promote both friendship and rivalry. Example: you give a ship model to Isabela. On a friendship path she says "Oh, how cute, a little ship, but that's a start!". But on a rivalry path she says "Are you mocking me?" When it's the same effing ship! The same!!! Logic. Where is it? Even a friend can make a bad gift, that hurts your feelings, and you might even accept it and thank your friend to remain civil, BUT! Companions in DA2 react to it with genuine delight. That's one of the many reasons I don't like the friendship/rivalry system. In any case, not how it was implemented. Might have been good in theory, but they handled it so poorly...

"Well she certainly has a thing for chocolate brown women with a sense of humor, cos she romanced Isabella in DA2 :D" - don't forget hair colour and length:)

"Wasn't turian blood grey-blue?" - it looked dark grey to me, but it may have been the lightings. About that krogan... Probably husk blood. I always thought, that husks don't even have blood remaining, but then Henry Lawson enlightened us, that adrenaline is the tool of indoctrination, so the victim needs blood to distribute it faster. Sick f*ck!

"It's funny how that greedy little volus actually saves that human girl, cos he convinces her not to go to Sanctuary" - well, turned out, that Citadel wasn't much safer. Oh, but wait, Walters said, that there can still be survivors on the Citadel! I always thought, that on PAX people talk about future games, not explaining stuff, that should have been explained in the past game. In a rather pathetic way.

''“I'm a woman?! Omg, where did these tits come from?! Were they cloaked?! Are they infiltrator tits?!”'' - are you... Implying something?:) Because if you do, I will proudly respond, that Infiltrator tits only cloak with entire Infiltrator!:) There can be no partial cloaking!:) But yeah, good dialogue! Sometimes girls just don't understand that guys are... Well, guys... I was embarassed, that it took me two playthroughs to figure out, that two smugglers on the top floor of Purgatory actually trigger an authorization on Spectre Terminal, that nets 7 precious points.

About Infiltrators... Can't stop at laughing while playing through interview with Allers after the Cerberus attempted coup. That dialogue! The renegade description: "Infiltrators are everywhere!" What I wanted to add is "There even is an Infiltrator right here, in this very room!!!"

Oh, I just created my Sentinel for ME1. Never played a Sentinel in ME1, so don't really know, how it would turn out... One thing I was sure about: put Snifles as a bonus talent!!! XD -Algol- 20:39, April 15, 2012 (UTC)

Blue print, yeah:) I liked that t-shirt on Illium, "are you blue-shifting already?" Also "pureblued" and blues:) gues it's their favourite music genre:)

Your welcome! I am very glad to provide entertainment in these dark days of post-ending stress disorder:)

Yes, you're totally right about Mordin and Kirrahe, I at lest imagined, that they must have thought about better means of securing the yahg, so they won't run all over the place after the slightest structural damage. But never mind, the whole base doesn't make sense to me at all... Though Shepard + Liara + Garrus comments on the yahg are great!

"For example there is that one human soldier on the Citadel, who married an asari, and got disowned by her family for it" - I always thought it was an exception. it was mentioned quite a few times, that a lot of humans admire asari and their culture regardless of their stance on other aliens. Remember, blue propaganda is a devastating weapon. Oh, and I admire it too... all of it, the asari, the culture and the weapon:)

"Bioware is sometimes just really stupid with ME lore" - and yet we have to swallow all that inconsistency, like with the Blue Suns, because canon is canon. Though I never consider spin-off books on any franchise a true canon. Learned it the hard way with Warhammer 40K.

"and lets not forget about how everyone hates us" - I didn't get the impression, that everyone hated the humans, except for the minority: batarians and some turians, like Saren. Turians held a grudge, yes, but it wasn't burning hatred. And about the others:


 * The Council intervened and stopped the turians from launching an all-out war, that would undoubtedly crush humanity. I guess we owe it to the asari, who are the leading peace-makers. Think of it: we pretty much owe our freedom, or even existance, as it is, to them.


 * The Counsil gave the Skyllian Verge to humans. Not batarians, who were around for who knows how long. Not batarians, who have a very powerful military and established diplomatic relations, but to fledgling upstars, who the Council chose to support.


 * Humans were granted an embassy the fastest of all known species in history, after the Council was formed. That means responsibility, but also trust.


 * Even before the outcome of ME1 humans were treated with respect. Also with caution, which is natural, but also with respect, while they still didn't do much to deserve it. To compare, quarians, who discovered the most mass relays, vital components of galactic civilization, were treated like "criminal scum".

So yes, with all that in mind, I love aliens, they are so nice! With a few exceptions. Oh, and I always save the Council.

"I don't even recall properly what my original point really was" - originally it was "...the asari aren't that much above slavery themselves". But you're totally right, let's leave it at that. You don't remember the whole flow of the discussion (who would?), and I am extremely protective of my two favourite species, and that clouds my judgement.

"Which reminds me, the salarian fleet never triggers for me as a war asset, even though Hackett says that the councilor commits the entire fleet to the cause" - actually Hackett's dialogue is a bug, teh wiki says: Requires: Saving Destiny Ascension in Mass Effect and helping the salarian councilor survive an assassination attempt during Priority: The Citadel II. You have both genophage cured and salarian 125-133 (w/ sidequest) points. Did I mention, that I always save the Council? ;)

Yeah, the whole stuff with Elanos Haliat doesn't make sense at all... And we still have to swallow it: it's in the game. What bugs me the most, is that Elanus Risk Control Services and Haliat Armoury are weapon-manufacturing firms. Both of them... turian. Has your mind exploded yet? O_o

"I like my blue space babes real dirty :D" - each time I see this picture, I always imagine a finger there. Like, "here you go, Reapers, that's what we think about you and your damn invasions!!!"XD

The vid... No, no, no, it's some kind of mistake, misinterpretation, probably her assistant just walked at the door, and Liara was shy, or tried to deceive her... it's not what she really meant, can't be true!

"because blood magic is bad!!!" - why? ;)

"Or did we see batarian blood somewhere?" - all over Torfan XD *does the Grunt laugh*

“hey just because we didn't show you anything but that bodies, and later explosions along the wards, that obviously doesn't mean that everyone died horribly, how could you even think that?!” - I actually didn't think that. I gues it was psychological defence mechanism. Do not acknowledge the horror. Do not believe in it. And I make up as many explanation, as needed, as to why did they survive. Because I want them to survive. No more death. As Shepard said on Rannoch "noone else dies today". Regardless, this thing should have been explained in-game.

"Imagine there was! :D You could freak out people by cloaking everything except for your head..or hand..or whatever. I would totally do it :D" - me too!:) Even cooler with a partner. something like: "Can I give you a hand? Oh, here you go!"

"Actually, I would say regarding naughty things, girls are way worse than guys" - I know. Learned it myself. Now, I think you can understand why guys sometimes want to be among their own kind, when it comes to drinking and strippers. There is only so much dirty:)

"Ah, I miss that adorkable robot"... who has a soul.

About that e-mail... I suppose someone is trolling hardcore. I hope so. Because for a minute I imagined this was legit. the concept of "blood rage" suddenly stopped being so alien...-Algol- 00:43, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

"Then again, I base this purely on how humans are today, so they could be different in the future..." - I always got the impression, that humans, living in human-colonies are scared and mistrustful of everything, that moves, even their fellow humans. Something like Ashley/Kaidan's situation on Horizon, there were treated with disdain even before the Collectors hit. Another example, that shows a good share of racism in humanity, is that Terra Firma was narrowly able to block the vote on allowing option classes on studying alien languages in schools. But it only shows, that human-supremacy isn't state-policy, and the majority is quite open-minded.

"Except that after taking back Shanxi, we were turning the tide, so it is really questionable, who would have won" - it is really not questionable. It took entire human second fleet to liberate Shanxi from a turian patrol fleet. Again: patrol. If turians were to bring their main forces (which they intended, but the Council stopped them), humans would be annihilated, let's admit it. At that time humans didn't even have a single dreadnought.

"like you know, if it's not a rachni ship, try to talk to them first instead of shooting" - the Council laws were perfectly logical and proper. Talking first was EXACTLY what turians did, if you remember the whole story. But, since human-turian translation programs were not created yet, they simply couldn't understand each other. Yet the turians had to react quickly, before humans open a relay and possibly unleash another rachni or whatever onto themselves and whole galaxy. "Either way, humanity was pretty much innocent in the start of it" - I disagree. Humanity was pretty much reckless at the start of it. They had already confirmed by that time, that alien civilizations exist, yet the idea, that they also maybe hostile and more powerful apparently didn't cross their minds. So, they learned it the hard way, and it was their own doing.

About turian military force - Bioware's mistake for not showing it properly. Because turians really are the most powerful military in the galaxy. Numbers of war assets in ME3 mean absolutely nothing, because the Alliance has a ton of special named strike teams, ships, NPCs an colonies. Supposedly turians do not have anything or anyone remarkable, which is bullsh*t. Even my asari war assets outweigh the turian ones, and the only way I can explain it, is that the majority of turian force is bogged down on Palaven, Irune and other places, so they are unavailable. Otherwise, we could multiply the number of turian assets by 2 or even 3. The only good thing is that they bogged the Reapers down too.

"she knew, so she did it because she felt guilty about her deal with Cerberus and how she couldn't let go of Shepard at all" - that!

"However, you have to make a deal with a demon to do it" - not necessarily. You can learn it from a book or another blood mage. A deal with the demon is just the fastest and the esiest way possible. There is even a hint, that ancient elves were taught blood magic by the Creators. So I'm ok with blood magic. If you're doing it right, but that's as with any other magic.

"So I would say, bloodrage is on!" - I always wondered why J. Hepler was receiving hatemail, and not EA CEO's.-Algol- 11:30, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

"I'm sorry, but humans as general being open-minded is something that I feel is very unlikely in pretty much any kind of setting" - well, in most settings, especially, fantasy settings, most humans are, in one word, scum. But if we take ME setting, humans there pretty much resemble present-day humans, with the only difference, that numerous human cultures mixed. So I'd say in ME most humans simply don't care. It's alien, if it's not shooting at me, I'm ok with it, or even good if it's alien, and I can trade with it. There are polarities, there are racists, like Terra Firma, or xenophiles (like me XD), but the majority of ME humans just live day by day, and take aliens as a simple fact, nothing more, nothing less. Until the Reapers arrived, he-he.

About those human-turian conflicts... 1) I'm sorry if I wasn't clear enough, I didn't mean "You're saying that like the whole fleet was almost lost to the turian patrol fleet, which it was not", no. What I meant, was that, in general, human forces were no match for turian forces at that time. Even if Bioware didn't make it clear enough etc. Because: the construction of the first human dreadnought began after the First Contact War, while turians have a dozen of them. Or more. It is kinda obvious, that turian fleet as whole was much-much larger, because they were tasked by the Council to patrol all known galaxy, same goes for their military, because turians, again, were tasked to be the Council Races main military arm. What did humans have? They never even fought anyone else before. Next, military tradition. How many soldiers could the Alliance mobilize? Incomparably less to turians. Turians can virtually mobilize every single citizen past 20, and all of them already have military training. Lastly, turians experience in fighting all-out interplanetary scale wars is immence. They fought themselves, other races we didn't hear of, and most importantly, they fought krogan, and were narrowly winning. In comparison, humanity discovered the big galaxy, like, yesterday. Their experience equalled zero. We have to admit, if it turned into a wholescale war, humanity didn't stand a chance. But the Council saved us, yay!

"Honestly, I don't remember the beginning of the Evolution comics" - wasn't in Evolution, I was referring to Mass Effect: Revelation. I know, that I don't consider books to be real canon myself, BUT! This one was by Drew Carpyshyn, the creator of ME setting itself.

"I mean, how could have humanity slip under the radar so much that they could have ships in a system patrolled by turians, and go as far as trying to active a dormant relay, without the Council races noticing them way before that?" - Good question. Council races might not knew about relay 314 themselves, turian patrol might have discovered it roughly the same time humans were about to activate it.

"I would say that isn't true, since when you bring Javik on board, the marines say protocol is “assume hostile”" - I didn't mean that. I meant the bigger scale. Pure consideration: if there is one alien race confirmed, there may also be others, and there is absolutely no guarantee, that they won't be hostile. I'm not blaming humans, no, but by opening that relay, they brought everything they'd got on themselves.

"You know, I get the feeling the Mass Effect lore is interesting and all, but one shouldn't really look too closely at it, cos you start noticing the wholes and stretches" - geeks will always look closer:)

"Gameplay wise also not worth it" - I'd argue. Puppet Master is extremely useful. Depends on individually preferred tactics, of course.

Good choice for Shepard! I like that song too. I'd go with... the good old one:) -Algol- 16:01, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

"I just have an extremely negative outlook on humanity as general" - I share this thing... I always imagine, that if, say, 300 people were to vote on a start of a nuclear war, 3 will be for, 1 against, and 296 abstain. There we go, thanks to three bastrds we have big problems. So yeah, humans suck. That's why I like aliens:)

"I don't really understand while the Alliance doesn't make military service past 18 or 20 mandatory" - that would make sense. Now imagine the riots. People don't want to seve in the military. Especially in conscription-based military. I tell you this as a male:) Besides, the Alliance does not have power over the goverments of Earth. They are independent. Though it is not sted directly, I can imagine, that in ME Earth most states evolved into democracies. Can you imagine mandatory military service in a democracy? I can't. People will just riot or say "Screw you, we're off to live with aliens, you damn opressors!" If we're talking about colonies, the Alliance has control over them, yes, but the colonies themselves are not densely populated even in 2186. if Elysium has only 8.3 million people, despite being one of the largest colonies, and all 18-20+ (I imagine boys and girls both) go to military service, who would work?

"but if only around 3% of the people is in the military, who will defend them?" - the turians XD That's why you go to Palaven first in ME3 XD

"Oh the “Council”....yeah, we dismissed that claim. (joke ;P)" - c'mon, admit it, the Council saved us! (joke ;p)

"Did they really say that in the book?" - as far as I recall, yes.

"Riiiiight, so the council races weren't able to detect a dormant relay in their systems in addition to fail at noticing that human ships, while the humans did know it was there. Doesn't really make any more sense imho °3°" - it doesn't. The only thing I can add, is that humans stumbled upon the relay accidently, and Council races cannot maintain a constant overwatch over the fringes of their space. Patrols come and go regulary, yes, but they can't scan every second.

You're right about lack of detail. But that can be said about pretty much every every videogame lore (if it has one), if books are based on videogames, and not vice versa. Still, we can fill the holes and tweak the inconsistencies with headcanon and become closer to total geeks:) I, for once, do not have the slightest doubt about how exactly asari reproduce or how exactly the genophage effects krogan pregnancy. BTW why these details people do not agree on, always include reproduction? XD

"Thing turned so, stupid...so really, really stupid.." - couldn't agree more. But many people call it dramatic. Some might even call it artisic :D

"And I find that the force mage + spirit healer more useful" - Ah, the force mage! Always reminded me of biotics in ME. "I will destroy you!!!" XD really makes you think about parallels between ME and, especially, DA2. Take the characters, for instance: TIM and Flemeth, Morrigan and Miranda, Tali and Merrill...

BTW, you mentioned, that you didn't get the salarian fleet in ME3. I got it and had the points, but when the allied fleet sends reports during the cutscene before landing on Earth, salarians do not report or show up on the screen. Yet, on Erth itself, during Hammer's advance towards the conduit, there are two salarian soldiers in cutscenes. Might have been Spectres or STG guys, though. Did you see them?

"I really need to play something besides Mass Effect, cos replaying ME3 is getting more and more depressing" - play an Engineer. You may watch a comedy or read jokes, while drones, turrets and hacked enemies do all the work:) I, for instance, find solace in replaying Rannoch or finding new ways to deliver Kai Leng the most humiliating death possible. Bludgeoning him with the butt of a rifle - check. Sticky grenade slapped on his chest - check. Flamethrower barbecue - check. I tried for half an hour to freeze and shatter him, but the little f*cker doesn't seem to freeze. What a pity. I want to laugh at the cutscene of him getting on his feet, when I just shattered him to tiny bits a second ago:) At least Vasir could theoretically levitate back with biotics, if you throw her off the balcony. Oh. and I'll start replaying the first two games soon.

But more importantly, i find solace in my tabletop. No matter how depressing ME3 may be, I have my own theme park, I mean, Mass Effect:) The PCs are off to vacation, course Citadel-Elysium-Earth-Thessia-Citadel, next session:)-Algol- 22:08, April 16, 2012 (UTC)

"and then we will be stuck with people who don't even know how to fire a gun" - that's why i play airsoft from time to time. Too bad it doesn't simulate recoil, but everything else, like weight and tactics, is very life-like. But actually, real problem will arise, when every country makes military service mandatory. Then everyone will start killing everyone. Sometimes everyone not knowing how to fire a gun is better, then everyone knowing how to fire a gun. Besides, it's still more, then a century and a half, before we discover mass relays, so we can relax now :)

"Then again, I should rather not gain power, cos I have a tendency of not really tolerating stupid people, so..." - I don't like stupid people either, but they are necessary. It's much harder to control smart people. Oh, and smart people have this tendency to build master-plans and intrigues against each other to decide who's smarter. It's like Salarian Union:)

"sure if they didn't know that the relay was there, then ok, they don't scan all the time..." - wait... Did they know?

I was frantically searching for the link, where a group of IRL scientists discussed ME lore... And, sadly, didn't find it. But the basics were, that only two things were deemed unrealistic, in relation to present-day scientific knowledge: existence of Element Zero and existence of FTL speed. Everything else was ok with them, including various alien species. Well, despite of those two things being pretty much what ME setting stands on, there are only two of them, right?:) So this setting has so much potential... Which Bioware squandered. Oh, and about creation and updating an official lore site: that's called lazy. The think we have the wiki for that. Seriously! Walters said in an interview once, that he consults this wiki from time to time, when he forgets something about the lore. Of course we are wikians, and this gives a huge bonus to our self-importance, but he's the lead writer for crying out loud! XD

"Seriously the cylon in-fighting is the most logical and believable thing that happened in this series as of late" - just watch it till the very end. No spoilers from me:)

"Also, I just remembered that someone on BSN pointed out, that if Bioware is so big on “artistic integrity”, why are they changing the Deception books?" - oooh, but that was before they started the "artistic burying their heads in sand" crap. Deception was the last straw! We can't take it anymore! Boo hoo, you're violating our artistic integrity, so we'll defend it! You see, if someone changes something s/he previously did, they are basically admitting, that they screwed up. But you can only admit that so much, because if you screw up each time, everyone will stop taking you seriously. And BW wants so-o-o-o much to be taken seriously, that puts arrogance and wounded pride ahead of common sense. Let's say, Hudson, comes out and says: "I wrote those stupid endings. I screwed up. I admit it." His career would be placed in great peril, if he really did that.

Well, I definitely remember one salarian guy with a sniper rifle, when ground forces charge out of forward base (the first cutscene after your final choice of squaddies), and one salarian with a Skorpion, taking prone position in one of the buildings, from which ground forces fired on the Destroyer. They participated too!:)

"Or work on of my projects I have only half done..." - *is curious about the nature of projects*

"Pff, hope they have a better shore leave on Elysium than my War Hero Shepard did :D" - and my:) Besides, one of the PCs was there too, when the sh*tstorm started. I can imagine him having flashbacks. Like, the whole party sits in a cafe, drinking coffee, politely discussing art and listening to relaxing music... And then the guy suddenly jumps on the table and screams "batarians at two o' clock, we need backup, arrrrrrr!!!" XD

Have you seen this? Hope you like it:) -Algol- 00:21, April 17, 2012 (UTC)

Just came back from the gaming session:) I consider those gaming sessions good, that have the least stuff reminding of Darths & Droids in them. Why do people drop their jaws and spend 15 minutes in trance, each time they land on Thessia?:)

So, why the stuff we discussed reminds of the Evil Overlord List? Because certainly, this list was written by smart people, for smart people. Which makes me wary, as there is bound to be some catch, some trap. Because the one, who created it must have followed your logic of killing too smart people too:)

"Bioware would do themselves a favor if they actually made a wiki-like site, or hell, helped this one to expand, or something" - you know, good idea! For us, not for BW. "Listening to fans' feedback" is a great marketing ploy. But doesn't mean they actually intend to live up to it. They would have re-written the endings, if they really listened, but muttered about "artistic integrity" crap instead. Now, maintaining a site would give them too much feedback, more importantly, rational and logical criticism, that they don't like, and rational and logical improvement suggestions, that may not bring desired amount of money nevertheless. Paying lipservice on BSN is much more convenient. Oh, and tweeting those important aspects of lore they have overlooked. Helping expand the wiki? Nobody would pay money for it, why bother?

I assume you have may have watched Battlestar Galactica by now? How did you like the ending?:)

"issuing a statement where Bioware as a whole came out and sad “Sorry, we messed up, but we will fix it, I promise!” without pointing out whose fault it is, would have been acceptable" - from what we can assume now, not acceptable for EA, BW's puppet masters. Let's face it, on the whole, EA's products suck. Even if having good ideas behind them, EA's products are meant for making as much money, as possible. and people even know EA's products suck, but they don't have many alternatives, because EA buys or sues those alternatives. Openly admitting, that their product is flawed, would mean, that EA loses credit even if they mitigate this flaw, because harm to their reputation was done already. so no, better send e-mails, glorifying ME3 and it's endings... BTW, heard any news about that thingy? Did it turn legit or no?

Hmmm... drawings. Has been a while, since I was drawing something, should look into it. Oh, and modeling too.

"Let's hope, he doesn't accidentally kill someone...or spills the coffee or something :D" - he didn't. Just saluted and dropped a few manly tears near the memorial. That was sad. But nobody would forgiven him spilling the coffee! XD Panel 1 XD

About Liara and Shepard video preferences... Honestly, I don't think, that Liara wouldn't like to watch "50 best prothean dig sites" after her enlightening experience with Javik. As well, as Shepard wouldn't like to watch action movies, because one can endure only so much violence and death. Better to watch something relaxing for both... So "Vaenia" it is!:) But about "problems" of living together... First question: where? Earth or Thessia is not an option, it's a fresh wound. Citadel too, if it even continues to exist (I hope it does). So probably, as in that dialogue, they would fly off to some place far away. Especially given Liara's reclusive nature. Second question: food. Sure they are both levo-amino, but that doesn't mean one cannot have an allergic reaction to alien food. Liara was able to eat human food on the Normandy, but I suspect, those were military rations, designed to have only basic organic matter, be nutritious, but taste like cardboard. Probably that's why Shepard is definitely a better cook, then Liara: s/he served in the military for a long time, and it takes a lot of skill (and spices) to make those rations remotely edible:) Oh, and Liara's free time, or should I say, the lack of it, may be a "problem". Liara is always so busy with shadow-brokering, that Shep should sometimes remind of attention:)

Shepard and Tali, by comparison, would have bigger problems... Food, of course, comes first, then place, given quarians social nature, while Shepard would definitely need some time away from people... At least movies won't be a problem, they could watch virtually anything, given that quarians are curious about any form of entertainment. On second thought, life on a ship isn't such a bad idea, as long as you have places to dock!-Algol- 19:43, April 18, 2012 (UTC)

Oh, and did you read this? Liked many parts of it. -Algol- 10:31, April 19, 2012 (UTC)

"Remember how it felt to drive the mako in ME1? I certainly stopped from time to time, just because the skybox was so pretty :)" - I'm doing exactly that currently:) And driving the Mako is fun. Why all those people complain about the handling? It's an APC, not a sports-car. Besides, I find it fun to make this thing turn over (but apparently the squadmates don't :D), or get out of there, and kill thresher maws and geth colossi on foot. BW must have thought, that putting you against a thresher in Grunt's mission, and a colossus in Tali's mission, on foot in ME2 supposed to be challenging? Pfffff, been there, done that.

"Btw thanks for the comic, didn't know that one :D" - your welcome! Glad to have helped, the thing is a marvel! Also, there is kind of a prequel to it here, in LotR setting. Very good one too!

" Which shows that the “new audience” they try to get is not supposed to be interested in the universe itself" - sadly, it is really so. The new audience is interested in multiplayer and button-mashing combat (reminds me of DA2), they don't need the lore. The lore may be too difficult to be understood by 12 y.o. kids, so they didn't even bother to think of lore inconsistencies in ME3, or, to a bit lesser degree, in ME2. It's all about multiplayer now. "because if the protagonist of the games dies, and people don't give two sh*ts about the universe, they won't buy new games with the same setting" - again, multiplayer. The "new audience" doesn't care about protagonist dying, as long as they can shoot dummies in multiplayer. If there ever be new games in the same setting, I imagine it will be something like Battlefield, which sometimes has a campaign, or an outright MMO. Seems that Ea just sat and counted, that they can make more money out of multiplayer stat whores, then of us geeks, who like the lore. Since those two audiences are incompatible for a single game, the choice is clear.

"no company can go on like that" - that we will see in the nearest future. A company, who has sheep, unable to think and unable to analyze what exactly they have bought, can go on very long. Again, the "new audience" they were talking about in ME2-3, DA2 was meant to replace old Bioware audience, who definitely would rather fund Kickstarter projects. The cost of this "replacement" were the franchises we loved:(

Ah, BSG:) That's why I didn't want to make any spoilers. Seriously, the parallels between ME3 endings are striking. Especially with the synthesis ending. Lazy BW is lazy.

"if Liara is pregnant by the end of ME3, they really shouldn't move away from civilization, cos that's not good for a child" - definitely, especially given the fact, that asari are very social by nature. Even Liara's reclusion was mostly because she is pureblood, but the child won't be, so I guess they'd really go to some small world. Is it doesn't even matter human or asari, since the child will have plenty of time to study both cultures. Maybe asari is slightly better, because they teach biotics at schools. Though Liara and Shepard may teach the child biotics themselves.

"I wonder if Shepard knows the asari language" - I was always curious about languages in ME, mostly because linguistics is my hobby and, at times, source of income. The only reason for Shepard not to know the asari language in this case, is that it simply may be unpronounceable by humans. I doubt that for several reasons: 1)Asari and human physiology are very similar - build and lung capacity seem to be the same, so why not have the same or almost the same vocal organs. 2)The only example of language, that is unpronounceable by humans, we fnd in the lore directly, is salarian (figures:D) 3)Cerberus Daily News mentioned studying alien languages in schools on Earth. Knowing the asari, they'd be the first one to share their language. You know, blue propaganda and stuff:) The only problem I can think about currently is that asari language may be very complex and difficult to learn. Considering their long history, numerous ancient dialects mentioned in the game, and very diverse and independent cultures of their city-states, it would be hard for them to select a dominant language, such as English is for humans to ME, even despite of asari constant need of communication and dialogue. So I guess the only way for them was to build their current languages from different parts of other ones, which surely would result in a very complex structure. But I guess not that difficult for "the Shepard":)

Also I think it is very possible for humans to learn Khelish, because when the translator doesn't translate some Khelish words (probably because of quarian isolation and lack of updating translator programs), these words are still pronounceable by humans. We know a few already!:)

"Well, Mess Sargent Garner made it sound like that human food and asari are really compatible in ME2 :D But I'm pretty sure, my Shepard has at least one asari-human cookbook downloaded to her omnitool" - he was saying, that that dish was only "based" on asari recipe, and seemed to be unshure even about that, but I'm confident, that something both delicious and compatible exists! Screw military rations! XD BTW, where is Gardner in ME3? O_o Or did they think, that making Normandy crew eat military rations will get them more angry to fight the Reapers?

That dialogue between Shepard and Liara! Great dialogue, great fun and great voice acting! Pieces like these comfort you, when you get closer to the endings. Oh, and the dialogue about little Liara digging for ruins in a park! Sooooo cute!:) I always liked Liara, because we have much in common!:)

But as of place for Shepard and Tali... I absolutely wouldn't mind a house on Rannoch ("a house on Rannoch" was pretty much my main objective in ME3, before its release), but since Tali isn't big on it... Maybe the Citadel, then? Shepard will rest in the Presidium parks (I heard lakes and trees are very good for relaxing and easing your mind. Well, at least for me) and Tali will become a fully official quarian ambassador, as this will allow her not only to guide her people, but actually represent them very well, as she has probably learned about other species more, then any "present-day" quarian. maybe the quarians even become a Council race soon. They seem to like politics:)

"Btw it's not fair writing me another message, while I'm trying to post you a message XD" - if only I knew the exact timing!XD But yes, the guy definitely wrote a very good one. I was talking about "voting with your wallets" in some of the threads here, and I won't be tiring of talking about it any soon.-Algol- 17:14, April 19, 2012 (UTC)

"I liked the tresher maw in Grunts mission, but the colossus was so damn easy, even for the first time" - hmmm, I always found it vice versa. The thresher was very easy, even if it can destroy cover, even without the use of heavy weapons, since pistols and snifles pack a good punch against it, especially with a-p ammo, but the Colossus... I considered it the toughest fight on "Insanity" in the game. Not the colossus itself, rather getting to it, if you're not an Engineer. You can get in a crossfire very easily, and a good variety of enemies doesn't make life easier too. Oh, and the sun:) But still, that ambush in ME1 was tougher, even if there isn't a colossus, just an armature. I go to it first every time too, we need Liara asap:)

"Yeah, but ME multiplayer isn't that good actually, since it still doesn't have much map variety" - from what I watched, it isn't. Yet map variety is something, that can be overcome easily - I bet they would stamp new maps on a monthly basis. "Resurgence" already has two of them. But about multiplayer lasting long, I don't know... It may, or it may not. In almost any multiplayer you can imagine, the main thin, that keeps people in it is completionism. You may play it for a week and know all the maps better, then your own house, but you still want to unlock all the stuff, perform certain killstreaks or other accomplishments and it kinda sucks you into it. Then they release DLCs and it all continues. Such things may seem boring, and they really are, but from my rather vast experience in CoD, a lot of people are into it. Of course, the fact, that many, if not most, ME fans do not expect this in ME, which is renowned for completely different things, like story and character interactions, is completely different question. I am puzzled, how people, who opposed the very fact of multiplayer in ME3, even if it would be good (and it is not), now all go "immma charging my krogan vanguard", as someone wrote on DA wiki. Hypocrite bosh'tets.

"Imagine a blue little kid, finally learning to pull things with biotics...man, Shep would need to clean up after her all the time :D" - it always puzzled me on the whole... If asari teach their children biotics from a very early age, no matter how wise and patient adult asari may be, children are children. With biotics, they are walking machines of destruction. It's like giving a gun to a child, except for this is worse, then a gun. Maybe their biotic talents come with age?

I really don't know about asari language (-es). It's hard to predict. On one hand, you make perfect sence with DAF analogy. On the other hand, asari do not even have a full-fledged planetary government on their homeworld, and reject this idea in favour of individuality, diversity and independence of their city-states. Asari Republics, plural is there for a reason. I'm nt even sure, that there is such thing as Thessian dialect or Thessian language, as virtually, there is no such thing as Chinese language or Chinese nationality - it counts dozens of dialects and nationalities, all of them are very distinct. So I doubt, that asari created a simple adaptation of their many languages to other species, mostly because, for example, Serrice and Armali, probably the most prominent city-states, are sorta rivals, and there are many others, who want their input. So the matriarchs must have been creating such language for centuries, and if asari are always determined to include every opinion in some way, this language should be complex, if it even exists. "it's probably doable, but will surely sound odd at bit for asari" - as a loose analogy, I have an asri NPC in my tabletop, who is a professional xenolinguist, and can speak human English without a translator. Humans adore her just for that, despite that she sounds more then a bit odd. So I don't think accent would cause any problems, if we talk about members of different species.

"I always wondered why the translator never translates Keelah' selai, cos I'm pretty sure someone at some point knew what it meant" - given Tali's translation in ME3, this saying undoubtedly developed after the quarians were exiled, and cut ties with other species. So the translators might not have been updated. Especially Shepard's translator, as Shepard is relatively new as human, and his programs surely do not possess rich vocabulary. Plus, people, who visit spaceports are asked to enter a certain zone to update the translators, but since quarians on Pilgrimage are probably dragged away by spaceport security instantly, they don't have much time to update them. And someone has to write those translator programs and translate newly created words and phrases into other species languages, but the galaxy does not care about the quarians:( I think "bosh'tet" is not translated for exactly these reasons, because if you already are percieved as "criminal scum", being polite and not swearing is a sound strategy. "But I wonder what exactly the word Keelah meant, cos Tali often uses it instead of “omg”" - I think this particular world means "ancestors" or "by the ancestors", as quarians rever them, Rannoch is "home of my ancestors" and it was used in many situations, in which a human would say "omg" or asari would say "by the goddess". Or newly translated as "by those prothean dicks, good riddance" XD

"What I would really be interested in is how hard it would be to learn krogan" - spoken krogan may be very easy, because you can substitute some words you forgot with occasional headbutting :D Seriously though, I think it would be very difficult. Though native krogan words we hear are usually short and quite simple, krogans have completely different physiology, which undoubtedly will lead to completely different structure of vocal organs. As for their writing (and thanks for the picture! Good one and totally in tune with pictures in the Lost City), that would be easier to understand, I think they would use pictography too. Maybe even not because of three fingers, but because they tend to reflect their surroundings in a literate and realistic, not symbolic, method. For example, when visiting the Presidium, Wrex says, that he doesn't fancy the Relay monument (which other species percieve as symbolic, and are about to learn how wrong they are, hehe), but he likes the Krogan monument, which is realistic. It says "this is a krogan warrior", no room for varied interpretations. Sure, Wrex is frustrated about the Krogan monument for different reasons, but I think this can provide an insight into krogan perception of the world surrounding them. I guess they were very practical people even before the nuclear war, so they reflected the world around them in as much realistic fashion, as possible. Surely that would have influenced their writing.

Oh, and for this topic, I always wondered, were the symbols inside liveship Rayya in ME2 Khelish letters, or quarians use hieroglyphs? Because those symbols may be either of them - relatively simple hieroglyphs, or relatively complex letters. Since we know, that quarian three fingers are as (if not more) nimble, as human five, quarians may use either (or both) types of writing.

Sometimes I have a thought, that ME writers should take a close look on the stuff we write here... XD

"Oh yeah, and if wasn't obvious by now, linguistics is more than a hobby for me, though I don't have any more classes in that area anymore, thank god! :D I like literature theory much better <3" - is that because literature theory does not have such strict rules? :)

"The ships is really just too quiet" - now we can put ourselves in Tali's shoes... Or suit, I suppose:) It took her time to get used to that. Sarah and Bethany guarding the door against sudden insidious enemies delivered some good pieces of dialogue, like that question of why are they guarding a door and "Black ops are always bad. If you have to deny an action, it's a crappy action", which I always remind myself and my players:), but on the whole... Lazy BW should have made more dialogue with everyone, because "calibrations" were back from ME2. "I miss the Cerberus crew" - let's just say... Shepards crew in a wrong uniform:)

"I remember that in kindergarten there was this really big tree, and we dig out its roots, and pretended they were dinosaur bones :D" - I liked to do similar stuff as well. BTW dinosaur bones can come that close to surface too, particulary after landslides or earthquakes. So it all was realistic:) I liked to build stuff, using anything at hand. Passion for history and archaeology came later, though it never become education or profession. Though I have a friend, who is an archaeologist, and he took me with him into an expedition once. I found an arrow tip!:) So I always considered Liara a colleague XD

"Cos you know, it's all about being equal and stuff :D" - well, tbh I always thought the Council was all about having guns and stuff :D So 4 old races fit, quarians and geth fit, krogan fit, but hanar, elcor and volus can enjoy an embassy. By no means they should be considered "lesser" or something like that, it's just that they really can't fullfill the peace-keeping function.

"Which is wrong because if people don't complain, then nothing will ever change" - there was this guy, who used an argument against changing the endings, while totally buying the "artistic integrity" crap. He wrote "would you ask Leonardo da Vinci to change Mona Lisa?" Well, I can sit and draw a nice picture, that I would even risk to show someone, but that doesn't make me Leonardo. But that's not even the point: if I asked Leonardo to create Mona Lisa in the way I specifically wanted, and he charged money for that, and later it turned out, that Mona Lisa wasn't that, what I was expecting and payed for, I would ask him to change it. People need to remember, that they are homo sapiens, not ovis aries.

That instrumental!!! Great! Thank you so much! Looking forward to return the courtesy, as soon, as I find something interesting.-Algol- 23:39, April 19, 2012 (UTC)

The wiki says, that geth thingy in the ambush prior to going underground was realy an armature. There was a colossus, but prior in the mission, during the vehicular part. Guess being up close and scary made it look like a colossus:)

"Though once the Extended Cut fails, I don't think EA will put out more free DLC for MP, so they will need to pay" - I'd even say they wouldn't wait that long, until summer. I'd even say the next multiplayer DLC will already cost money, no time to lose:) Some people will get tired of being swindled out of their money, but that potion of "multiplayer kids" will not, because it's not their money. At least there is no doubt, that the Extended Cut fails. I don't know if it is good or bad.

"So it's not like the kid would be able to do more than maybe try to lift things up in the air, and 10 seconds later already whatever she lifted is already on the floor" - or whoever, that's what I'm cautious about most. Then a relatiely weak Lift can be followedby a relatively weak Throw to achieve very "not weak" results. But I guess asari must have developed some coping mechanisms with their "little blue children" over the ages, so I guess it will all turn out good. Speaking of Shepard, Liara, and little blue children, I'm sure you have already seen these pictures, but just in case, this and this.

"I disagree on that, mostly because complexity in this matter isn't practical at all" - we're talking about asari here, they are not always renowned for being practical:) But yes, I should agree, since unity and need of communication hold defining roles in their culture as species overall, there must be something more or less general among their languages.

"still buy tech and stuff from other races, which require negotiations, so I doubt that that the translator doesn't get updated at all" - my bad, didn't make myself clear enough: I meant, that it gets updated, but very selectively and only with certain vocabulary to facilitate trade negotiation, technical terms etc. Nobody writes translator programs for quarian culture, for example, because other species do not care about it. So translators do get updated, but we cannot call those updates encompassing Khelish even remotely.

"Though it really could be, that the Alliance bought some shitty translator software that isn't up to date. Wouldn't surprise me, they are a government after all :D" - good one! Wouldn't surprise me, that it was also an L2 translator. Like, L2 biotic implant in your head gives you migrains, and an L2 translator in your tooth gives you toothache XD

"so you can really only guess from the context and the tone that it is swearing :3" - mmmm, nice! I'd love it. So many things you can tell people, like, what do you think of them...

"For some reasons that quarians strike me as people who would have complex letters just for the sake of beautiful penmanship :D" - considering their manual dexterity, looks very much like it. I'd say they would sure develop calligraphy to substitute for some other forms of art, not convenient for a ship. Like sculpture, architecture or parks. yet they can do pretty much the same with hieroglyphs, because if my 4 years of trying to learn Japaneese taught me anything, is that those people have quite a good bunch of hieroglyphs just for the sake of writing them:) Also the quarians have old souls!

"Though I love sociolinguistic (guess that was obvious too)" - it was:) Guess it's another example of sociolinguistic working even in remote communication. "Also I just love literature way too much. I blame my father for that, cos he turned the house into a small library over the years :D" - same thing here! After I started building my own library, I snatched quite a few books for it:D

"Cool :D Wish I had an archaeologist friend..." - on the good side, you can go with this friend to find your own Crucible blue print, on the bad side, when this friend gets carried away in a trivial conversation, there is no way of stopping him:) But as for spoiling movies and comics - is blissful ignorance preferable to bitter knowledge?:)

"For example, the volus are all about finances, but they are better at that than anyone else, so I would say they earned a spot on the Council" - I never got this idea of volus trying to get into the Council in ME1. Vol Protectorate isn't even an independent state (the name kinda hints), it's a part of Turian Hierarchy. They have their turian councillor, what else do they want? Not that they were conquered or something, they entered into a voluntary pact with the turians. Give them an embassy separated from the elcor, and they will do just fine.

"Btw Shakespeare changed his screenplays all the time, yet none seem to complain about that..." - Conan Doyle decided to continue the "Sherlock Holmes" series (love 'em) after numerous complains from his readers. noone seemed to complain about that, on the contrary.

"Thinking that an artist makes things just to express themselves is a nice sentiment, and while it's partially true, it's not the whole truth" - if we are talking about videogames in particular, the very statement of videogames being art is debatable. Using broad definitions, virtually any aspect of human activity, which involves at least some degree of creativity can be called "art". Using narrow definitions, construction and technology cannot be called art, because they have strict limits and certain functions, that impede creativity. Creating a new strain of bacteria or writing a computer program is not art by this definition. And videogames are pretty much computer software, even if they may have a story in them. But that is not even relevant for current situation - art or no, videogames are products, first and foremost. If there is a demand for a product, the consumers enter into agreement with the manufacturer to pay money for those exact things they want to be manufactured. They may even demand a refund, if the product did not meet their demands. Just sayin':) That's why the developers would surely call their videogames "art", as it allows them to get away if they fail horribly with the game. I don't want to give them that chance.

"Also I think this whole series was actually just a very long love story between Bill Adama and Laura Roslin, yep that was my favorite plot in the whole series" - my would be the whole cylon part and how to deal with cylons, but yes, dark age or no, love is always love. There were rumors about a "romance pack' for ME3, wonder if this turns out to be true. Because if it does, that would be a failure again, given the current endings and dead Shepards.-Algol- 11:33, April 20, 2012 (UTC)

"It was an intense fight even with the dated combat mechanics of ME1" - playing with imported characters, I always had trouble to find challenging fights, when I have a Spectre snifle X w/ two scram rails and high-explosive rounds. It's like carrying Mako's main cannon with you:)

Biotics are not very well explained, but think about it: even lifting a mug with biotics means enveloping said mug in a field of zero gravity. Even a slightest push of a finger will accelerate the mug to a speed, on which it could hurt someone it hits. Now, pushing it with a biotic throw effectively makes it a mug-shaped bullet. If several asari kids get in a fight, there will be lots of collateral damage:) "It could even be that asari have some tech that keeps homes safe from little blue biotic attacks :D" - Awwwww, little blue biotic attacks! That's so cute!:) Like that picture too. If this little asari is playing with dogtails, while still being a toddler, I wonder what will she be playing with in adolescence? The Cain? It's like Aethyta's gift to Liara:)

"I can totally see it: a bored quarian regularly updating the translator on the extranet as a freeware thing, and intentionally not translating bosht'et :D" - yep, the freeware comes with "Thanks for downloading, bosh'tets!" and a geth virus as a bonus application XD Fear the bored quarians!

"MS-DOS! I loled so hard it really hurt XD" - oooh, I can totally understand you! I'm not working for the government myself, but I interact with them quite often, mostly filing tax reports. So this last time I was standing in a lo-o-ong queue (I hate that! I have mild ADD :D), waiting to deliver my tax report, and suddenly it just stopped moving. So I asked people in the front what was the problem, and they told me, that something went wrong with the tax inspector's database. When I finally got into the office, I saw this nice tax inspector lady sitting behind the type of hardware, worthy of Museum of Technology, with MS-DOS. Guess they are too cool to use newer hardware and at least Windows.

"Which reminds me of Mordin singing that krogan song for Eve, that was cool :D" - the song wasn't exactly krogan... Well, it was about krogan, but not of krogan origin. It was a sort of a remake, like "The scientist salarian":) But yes, different species music would be very interesting. We hear about krogan battle-songs, so I guess those would involve percussion, and salarian music is bound to be ve-e-e-ery fast. I wonder if Expel 10 is multispecies, or originates from some single culture.

"I have books, cds and dvds all over my room. *looks around* I should really tidy up" - when people tell me, that they are really worried, if someone had an attempt of my life, because my room looks as if someone threw a grenade in it, and that I should probably clean this mess, I proudly respond, that "this mess" is my artistic vision of order XD

"Can't we have something like “selective knowledge”? So that I could shut it off, and enjoy the movie, and then turn it on again? :D" - now that's not very... organic, isn't it?:D

"Did you talk to the volus ambassador in ME1?" - sure, and that was exactly my point. I don't get him. Humanity is an independent race. The Alliance is an independent state. If we draw parallels with today's world, only independent states can get a membership in those world organizations, that actually govern something. Not to say, that these states should also meet some economical+social+military standards. The cold hard truth is that the volus lack most of them. His only argument is that they have been in the large galaxy long enough. Sure they invented the unified trade systems, and still the asari have the most powerful economy. But as we see with humans, time is not the criteria, other things are. But it's not even my main point, Vol Protectorate is not independent, and you cannot be "a bit more" independent - either you are fully independent, or you are not. So no Council seat for the volus:)

"more members would mean that making decisions would take longer..." - what I especially like about the Council, is that how are they suddenly presented with a certain choice, which demands a decision, and they don't even talk it over. They just look at each other, nod to each other and BAM!, they have a unanimous agreement. That's my type of government, as long as I'm in that government:)

"BW hiding behind the “art” defense really just shows that they either are too arrogant, or too stupid to know what is art" - I'd say they are too arrogant to think, that we, the fans, are too stupid to believe their bullshit. Funnily enough, they are not that wrong, there's a good number of white, fluffy, docile four-legged domestic animals in human form, that actually believe it.

"Really, if you are copying other works, at least copy them well dammit!" - they sorta did it right in ME1, while copying from Star Trek or Babylon 5 (especially from Babylon 5, I mean, the Citadel!), but something went horribly wrong in ME3 endings... What possibly could it be? Indoctrination by the real Reapers, this thought just doesn't leave me alone O_o

I saw that! Funny narrative, but c'mon, it's not the lore, it's the story! Those guys should do better with lore:) -Algol- 17:58, April 20, 2012 (UTC)

"I mean, she is a spacer, so I guess her mom inherited it? In that case: give me back my credits mom!" - they sorta do it in ME2. If you import a character with a "Rich" achievement, you get bonus creds an resources from the begining. But that was nowhere near the money you had! So I giess TIM was full of crap and didn't invest a single credit into your resurrection. He just stole your money, put into some volus bank, grabbed it and the interest two years after, and there we have it... "I spend 5 billion bringing you back!" Ri-i-i-ight, they were my five billion!!!

Awwww, little Nezzy! That's such a great piece of headcanon! Loved it:) If I get it right, if some human kids started picking on little Nezzy, she will tell them: "Have you seen an asari commando unit in battle? Few humans did..."? Cause the name... You know:) And if she saves the galaxy once (or twice...), we just assume, that it's genetic:) "I'm pretty sure she will be someone with power... spectre maybe...or councilor" - about that... The position of the Shadow Broker might as well become hereditary;)

Oh, and as of hereditary positions, replaying various dialogues with Tali in ME1 is so fun... Like when she talks about her father and says "It's very unlikely I'll get a position in the Admiralty Board ever"... I just wanted to sigh and say "Tali, you don't know the half of it!". BTW the mission on Luna became clearer, after knowing all the details about EDI's history. I always wondered why that VI sends you "HELP" in binary code. Though I doubt BW planned it all along.

"“we already learned everything there is about computers”" - whoah, really? Lame excuse to "unfortunately, students already know about computers more, then available teachers". That was pretty much the situation when I was in highschool.

Wait, is it directly stated, that Expel 10 music crawls into you via tech? I always thought, that the group uses some high-tech musical instruments, not that you have to wear a special headset or whatever, to listen to it. Is it really akin to virtual reality? "Also, any kind of music Morinth likes is probably something I wouldn't lol" - why not?:) Not that drinking brandy will make you an indoctrinated megalomaniacal psycho:) Guess anti-smoking campains should have TIMmy on their posters, something like "if you smoke, you'll get indoctrinated, shoot Anderson and f*ck up the whole galaxy (almost)!" XD

"And I found one of my hats XD" - you like hats? I usually don't wear them, but I just adore my wizard hat:) Friends presented it to me on one of my birthdays, and since then, I always wear it, while in appropriate mood:)

"I'm all for volus independence! They could make a good (and friggin cute) game about it :D" - I wouldn't mind volus independence too, but it seems, that the volus themselves mind it:) But yes, the game wiould definitely be cute! It should involve as much volus dancing, as possible! Cause Doran's dance moves are the best! Even party members (like Ashley in heavy armor) cannot dance that good! Shepard's dance moves... Are best left unmentioned! XD Wonder why they didn't have an option to dance with your LI in ME2... Or did they? O_o

I thik the Council usually discusses everything behind the scenes (like proper politicians do), and when you come to speak to them, they just practice their acting, staring and nodding skills! I love the Council, seriously!:)

"Another thing that I did not like about the council in ME3 was, how suddenly they are taking credit for being at the Battle of Citadel" - well, I saved them, and they don't take credit for it. Moreover, they geniunely thank me for saving their lives, and in case of the salarian dude, twice. So they are very polite, and don't talk bullshit anymore. BTW I liked how Tevos (the asari) was voiced. But about "and their fleet at the Citadel gets destroyed without putting up a real fight"... The quality of you putting up a fight mostly depends on who are you fighting. So Citadel fleet put up the most real fight they could in those circumstances. C-Sec put up a very good fight protecting civilians from geth ground forces, as later revealed in ME2. Not like the Fifth fleet really played cavalry, because they couldn't scratch Sovereign, just as anyone else. Only after you defeat zombie-Saren, Sovereign shields go down and all it takes to finish him once and for all was a shot from the Normandy, which wasn't renown for its' firepower. So using this logic, the Fifth Fleet didn't put up a real fight either, given the circumstances.

Nice post! It really reflects one more way those endings defame the entire series.-Algol- 21:11, April 21, 2012 (UTC)

Nobody robs Commander Shepardof hard-earned (looted) money and escapes! I also wonder what happens to Shepard's home near the Pinnacle Station in ME2. Sholdn't they build a memorial or something? With a guide and all that... Like "here's the console Shepard used to purchase some gear. Here is the bed Shepard used to rest on after hard battles for the greater good. Here's the living room Shepard used to hold council with his comrades-in-arms. Here's the toilet..."

"Liara and Shep would have at least 3 kids, so one could be Shadow Borker, one a councilor and one a Spectre. Seriously, their kids would rule the galaxy in any way possible :D" - You know why I especially like, respect, and somewhat fear the asari? Exactly because of that. You just handed the whole galaxy to them:) In the meanwhile, they will continue with "peace, diplomacy and equity for all" propaganda stuff:)

"Like ya know, even though Tali isn't exactly considered “royalty”, she will damn well be after ME3!" - she was always a quarian princess for me <3

"EDI deep done was still designed by the Alliance and not Cerberus" - well, to be perfectly frank, the defining moment of her personality and evolution from VI to AI was the Reaper code in her. So essentially she was designed by the Reapers. Which does not simply disprove the starchild, this renders him a full-fledged idiot.

"What I really like right now was the Citadel “date” with Kaidan" - I have yet to see this:) This time I plan to "virmire" Ashley, and I'll be feeling bad after this *sigh*. Maybe I should just tweak the save file... BTW a pic:)

"but since they are harder to explain too, most schools don't care" - netiquette and cyberbullying are too close to psychology, and that would be too inconvenient for any school board. Too many school psychologists have problems delivering basic sex education, now, netiquette would be completely alien to them. Or so I think. That reminds me of South Park season 5, episode 7 XD

"As Morinth, I only guessed that because I don't like her personality, and one's personality reflects in musical taste too, also she is a night club person, while I'm more of a rock concert type" - I'm definitely a rock concert type too! Though Morinth may have chosen virtually any genre - crazy serial killer is so damn crazy. It's like TIM and his brandy, the brandy is completely innocent!:)

"While I'm not a smoker myself, the laws against it here are starting to be ridiculous" - yep, and being a smoker myself, and having the same laws starting here, I not only find them ridiculous, I suffer from them!:) That's why I had this idea with TIM and anti-smoking campaign - things wouldn't get worse too much, really:)

Santa hats with bells are great! I just love to ring the bells on them to make people smile with, or annoy them to death, when someone else is wearing a Santa hat XD But you should definitely get a wizard hat too! Or a witch hat, those are like wizard hats, but girl-exclusive. Seriously, when you put it on, the feeling is magical!:) There was this one time me and my friend dressed up as a wizard and a witch on a Halloween party. And spend the whole time bickering about what magic is more powerful - the academic, bookish wizardly-type, or wild, raw witchly-type. She threatened to lay a curse on me, and I threatened to disenchant her broom XD

"Level 1: Do the Shepard → step to the left → step to the right :D" - oh, that would be awesome! Great idea! But something gives me this feeling, that they'll make all the lightings on the dance-floor red, blue and green.

BTW, have you ever suspected, that some volus in three games might actually be female. Cerberus Daily news mentioned a female volus, and with their physique... hard to tell:)

"Then again, I didn't dance in ME1 either" - try it out, Liara has some good dance moves!;) For better or for worse she can't wear heavy armor.

"I mean sure the tried to fight the reaper, but that didn't work" - at least they tried, we owe them that much. The only thing, that actually worked, was Shepard and two squadmates. And Joker, who made the finishing shot. Four people to take a Reaper down. Fleets this, fleets that...:) But as for STG and Spectres preparing for the Reapers, well, it's their job to prepared for any invader, no matter how crazy the theories may sound. Special forces in every country always make plans in case a neighboring country invades. Always. Even if this neighbor never invades in reality. Special forces have to be paranoid, but governments don't. In fact, if governments were just as paranoid, the whole country couldn't function at all. BTW, in ME3, the two government, that were caught completely off-guard and unprepared were batarians (but they got hit first) and... the Alliance. The Alliance!!! Forget Shepard, the Alliance had Anderson, Hackett and Ash/Kaidan to prepare. Other Council races were pretty much prepared. Of course even being prepared didn't help turians and asari, but that is completely different topic.

"had a sniper rifle, shot gun and submachine gun with me, and I still had +175% power recharge bonus :D" - wow, you had a snifle??? Did you fire it? Just kidding;) Well, the Disciple and Mantis don't weigh much, and maybe you used Rosenkov Materials armor, which gives power recharge bonus?-Algol- 23:57, April 21, 2012 (UTC)

"Guess TIM stole that too :D" - with all that, I suspect TIM has developed an unhealthy obsession with Shepard;) He's like Conrad Verner (about as competent), but with power. And then he gets screwed over by the Reapers, who knew?:)

"It's not like that's a good thing though, 3 people owning the galaxy" - that depends on those people and on the galaxy. Seriously, making everyone in blissful illusion, that their opinions matter, while you already control everything, is something... BW would definitely put in their game!!!;)

"As for the asari, I wonder what will happen to the after the reaper war, now that their dirty little prothean secret has been lifted" - about that...
 * 1)First of all, I doubt it was lifted at all. How many people, who are still alive, know about it? Asari Councillor, Shepard, Liara, Javik and possibly another squadmate. Both asari on the list wouldn't cause trouble for their entire race, Javik doesn't care, possible another squadmate wouldn't tell out of respect for Liara and Shepard... And my Shepard definitely won't be flapping his jaw, because I totally supported hiding the beacon.


 * 2)Even if their secret was theoretically lifted, who exactly would punish the asari? And how exactly? By ousting them from the Counsil? Not funny, the Council wouldn't function with them, as their diplomacy in peace-keeping was as important, as turian and human military. Economic sanctions? Not funny, they have the most powerful economy. Or what's left of it after the war, but everyone else has even less left. It's like NATO members trying to punish USA for doing something against the North-Atlantic Treaty - USA did that a lot, but since they run the show, nobody could do anything real about it, except for finger-wagging.


 * 3)But more importantly, all this "asari relying on prothean technology" is seriously blown out of proportion. When Shepard goes all "hey, that explains why asari are so advanced" in the Temple, I facepalmed. No, it doesn't explain anything. Did they have the Cypher to understand prothean transmissions? No. Without the Cypher, they won't be able to understand even the basic details, and if we are talking about technology here, they must have had a full understanding of even the smallest details, because technology simply wouldn't work otherwise. Like, at all. Now, if we look at examples of prothean and asari technology, we can see, that they have nothing in common. Let's talk about weaponry, the best detailed technology. Protheans (and Collectors) used particle-emitting weapons. Asari mostly use conventional mass-accelerator weapons everyone else does. An example of purely asari-made weapon, the Disciple, has nothing to do with particle weapons, as it functions on completely different principles. Basically, it fires Warp fields. The protheans didn't even warn them about extinction cycles, which would be far more logical to do first, and then teach them tech. The protheans didn't do it, or they ran out of time to do it, I don't know, but it doesn't even matter now. The only thing protheans did, was that they created the most comfortable conditions for asari to evolve (which already gives them an edge!), like deflecting meteors and hostile aliens. Yes, they gave them agriculture and writing (note how Javik is actually surprised, that asari mastered writing), but those are basics, to which every civilization comes by itself, the protheans just sped it up. Everything else, literally everything more complex is asari's own merit. So yes, they are pretty much self-reliant. Unlike the humans, who depend on their economy.

Sorry if that was too cluttered, you know I always get very protective of asari and quarians:)

"If you do that, don't forget to set integer 10330 or 10314 to 8, that way the banter in engineering will still happen, even if you have Kaidan instead of Ash" - thanks, I'll do that! Just... got too used to virmiring Kaidan, taht no matter how nice he turns in ME3 (and no matter how "not nice" Ash turns), I just can't do this to Ash. Seriously, doesn't this galaxy have remote detonators?

"I would deny it out of spite, cos as a woman I'm allowed to do that :D" - why do you women always have undisputable arguments?:D

"And while I understand that second-hand smoking is bad, walking down a street in the city full of cars is way worse, yet that's somehow okay" - hell yeah! I overheard a debate on television once, in which an ati-smoking guy came up with an argument, that smoking {brace yourself!} pollutes atmosphere!!! I was freaking crawling on the floor with laughter. Wonder on what type of car that idiot arrived to the studio. Doubt it was a hybrid or an electrocar.

"Not that I really care, volus are like ewoks for me: their purpose is to be small and cute, nothing else really :3" - Awwww, ewoks!:3 With all these parallels with ewoks, I wonder how the volus bombing fleet actually bombed the Reapers... Rocks, maybe?:) Oh, and volus dreadnought (and diplomat) Kwunu! Kwunu is a cute name!

"It must be Cerberus' doing...maybe Shep danced better than TIM and he got jealous!" - TIMmy sure dances very good, when his Reaper puppet-masters are pulling the strins, hehe. Though I suspect it was Miranda who got jealous, and tweaked something in Shepard's dancing apparatus (O_o, dancing apparatus, am I crazy?). Remember her banter in Dark Star? "Care fom a little R&R Shepard?" Guess she wanted to see how the tweaking went.

You have to give the Council species credit for one moment of preparation. In ME2, the Thanix magnetic-hydrodynamic cannon was super-secret and unique, and only the Normandy had it blah-blah-blah... Six months later, every poor sod in the galaxy has a ship equipped with it! The proud and mighty dreadnought Kwunu has broadsides full of them! Even ground artillery vehicles (sic!) have those. So I guess the Councl did prepare. Oh, but all the fleets equipped with it don't seem to fire it, because what we see in cutscenes, while the Allied ships are firing, looks more like "pew-pew-pew", then what was shown in ME2. Or hell, even what was shown when the Reapers fire, because they use the same cannons, only larger.

"I don't use Rosenkov armor, cos I don't like how it looks (cos yes for me that's the most important aspect of the armor! :D)" - is it that bad for your taste? I like the [Terminus Assault Armor] for the looks, but it's freaking useless, so I have to stick with something not so cool, mitigating this by coloring it in makeshift camouflage:) Loved that feature in ME2-3.-Algol- 12:38, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

"And really, I can't imagine that at least Hackett doesn't know, because if he doesn't making an assault on the Cerberus base just because Shepard said so, is really a long shot" - you mean Sanctuary? First, Shepard absolutely didn't need to tell Hackett about prothean legacy the asari have. All Hackett needed to know, is that Kai Leng ran off in a certain direction, and Cerberus needed to be taken out of the picture, because they have become too much of a pain in the ass anyway, Thessia or not. Second, not that Hackett really helped with Sanctuary, Shepard went in only with his/her forces, and Hackett didn't have to divert anything to aid. Lastly, doing something just because "Shepard said so" was pretty much what Hackett and Anderson were doing throughout two games.

"She would do the very same if it were humans holding back prothean artifacts" - and what humans were doing on Mars? Exactly that. Hackett didn't bother to invite Council races delegations to study the ruins further, he only invited Liara, because she is probably the best archaeologist out there, and, most importantly, Shepard trusts her, so Hackett can trust her too. Really, why were all other scientists on Mars human? Maybe because the Alliance wouldn't mind to withhold prothean tech themselves? And only after humans realise, that they do not have brains and resources to exploit it by themselves, they turn to the Council. If asari are to be punished for something, humans are as guilty, using this very logic.

"they determine the amount and nature of punishment after the war when everything is settled, and I imagine that it wouldn't be nearly as worse as it was before the war" - I'm not even saying, that there is absolutely no evidence, that asari where the one, who created the rule "share all the prothean knowledge you find". Maybe it were salarians or turians. Punish the humans for possesing an absolutely official artificial intelligence held at Gagarin_Station. You can say, that humans created it before entring into Citadel treatises, so there can be no retroactive effect of the law. Well, in case of asari, they discovered and used the prothean device long before they even became a space-faring race, so I highly doubt, that retroactive effect of the law should apply to them too.

Did asari withhold information, that was vital to the war effort? In retrospective - yes. In legal terms - no. Because nobody knew even what the Crucible is capable of, until Chronos Station. Nobody. It might as well ended up useless before the Chronos Station and prothean VI there. You can't punish someone for what they didn't know about, or for what they theoretically may have done, or may have not done.

"yet they didn't act, not even after the Cerberus coup, when they started to take the Crucible project seriously" - and they have paid the price. I think the fall of Thessia was enough.

"because that's something BW clearly didn't put any thoughts into, otherwise they wouldn't show everyone using Avanger rifles no matter the species" - I don't see a problem with that. If this weapon has its' merits, and most species have at least three fingers to hold the grip and pull the trigger, all they need is to adjust the stock (which is very easy even today) and use it, if it's so good. Just like in today's world everyone uses the AK, no matter the country.

"Also, you are comparing a shotgun to an assault rifle, I mean particle weapons are beams, a shotgun can't be a beam because it's a shot gun, so not the best example" - errr... First of all, the very term "shotgun", that exists in today's popular culture, is technically incorrect. Shotguns and assault rifles are very much comparable, hold no significant differences in their construction, and almost all of them are rifles. A "shotgun" doesn't even need to fire small shots (projectiles), in fact, most military-grade shotguns fire slugs. Many of them are fully-automatic. Seriously, there is no real differences between shotguns and assault rifles, for example, this thingy lies exactly in between. "I mean particle weapons are beams, a shotgun can't be a beam because it's a shot gun" - so a "shotgun" that fires metal three metal flechettes makes sense to you? C'mon it's Mass Effect:) As for fictional shotguns, that actually do fire beams, Warhammer 40k Meltagun is a perfect example. Believe a die-hard Warhammer geek, that's exactly what you'd call a "shotgun" in ME-verse:) So, really, the Disciple and Particle Rifle are very comparable, and show, that asari and protheans hold significant (if not polar) differences in technology.

"Any yes the councilor says that it was important “to keep the balance of the galaxy”, but that's a bs excuse usually made by people who are in superior position than others" - well... Also the asari are in a superior position, then others, because they can reproduce with every sentinent being. They also don't know how exactly this works. You expect them to teach everyone else how to grow head-tentacles and copy DNA strains? The Counsillor was right about "the balance" in a way, that everyone else would be scared sh*tless of asari, if they found out, that asari have a head start in evolution, and probably would conspire or outright wage war against them. That would be logical. But absolutely unnecessary.

"As for the rest, you can't honestly tell me that you think they didn't rely on the beacon at all" - very close. Not at all, of course, but think about it: without any knowledge of the Cypher, they weren't able to understand more or less complex technology. Probably they saw some blurred visions. What of it? All I can deduce, that they learned about agriculture, writing, maybe architecture, magnetic poles, and most importantly, alien species. These things are vital to progress, yes, but they can be achieved without any prothean aid. Moreover, asari learned about alien species and were prepared to contact them. While the protheans with their "cosmic imperative" uplifted the asari, so they would rule this cycle with an iron fist, just like the protheans did the previous, asari chose a completely different way of existence. Instead, they made peace and cooperation with other species, and this is completely their own merit. Nobody else embraced this philosophy, not even humans. In a longshot, this very philosophy of diplomacy and cooperation won the Reaper war. It was asari's credit, as much, if not more, then Shepard's, because asari founded the Council, asari stopped the turians from crushing humanity, asari maintained cooperation between almost all species, that won the war due to their mutual trust. Now imagine, that turians and salarians found out about the prothean device. They would attack, most surely. And there would be no diplomacy and cooperation.

"So I'm not really sure if the Alliance actually depends on asari economy, or it just adds to it" - to quote this wiki: "Given their political influence, an embargo by the asari would prove disastrous to the Alliance". This Codex entry didn't change in ME2-3, so I assume, that this statement continues to be true. A disaster to someone's economy pretty much means dependence on the whims of those, who can cause the disaster.

"Also you make it sound like the asari are so idependent and don't have to rely on others while everyone relies on them, which is not true" - they do have to rely on others in military strength, but only in global conflicts. Like Rachnii Wars, Krogan Rebellions and Reaper invasion. While the hanar have to rely on drell forces to protect their colonies on a day-to-day basis, for example. Look at World War II. Even those countries, who had powerful militaries were forced to rely on allies. Regardless, that on smaller scales, in "one-on-one" wars they could hold their own.

Looking at this wall of text... Gosh, I really am protective of asari XD

"I think it might have been that fact that Ash called me Skipper" - that! If we look at it from a bit broader perspective, Ashley had a real character, while ME1 Kaidan was more an "interactive object":)

"Btw did you notice that those detonators and the shotgun smart choke use the same model? Friggin lazy Bioware..." - oh, I totally noticed. As if BW was saying "put a detonator in the barrel of your shotgun and fire!" Epic trolling:) Ah, and also ME2 Jack! She had a detonator too. Who came up with an idea of giving Jack a detonator??? Might as well gave her the Cain... Oh wait, it was Shepard! Guess the Serrice ice brandy got in his/her head too:)

"Thankfully I myself don't drive a car" - me too:) I can drive a car, but I'd rather not:) Each person has a right to live XD And yeah, I have similar, but slightly different, reasons to use public transport: car or not, I'll be stuck in the very same traffic jam as public transport. But it is cheap, while fuel for a car is not.

That flowchart... Brilliant, and thank you for it! I wonder if some people in BW reads such fan-made stuff. And what thoughts emerge in their heads afterwards. Because really, the logic, where is it?

"“O_o, dancing apparatus, am I crazy?” - Not any more than usual I would say :D" - wait... what do you mean by "usual"?:D

"the Council didn't prepare enough to defend the Citadel properly, but let's not go there" - but it is a vital strategic... Ok, you're right, let's not go there!:)

"just looking at it one can tell that is an “armor for guys” :D" - okay, now, okay... 1)Why? 2)Can you provide me an example of "armor for gals" in ME2?:)

Also wanted to know your opinion about Mass Effect: Homeworlds. I... don't really care about James, but I fear, that Walters can do something bad to Tali, Garrus and Liara:(-Algol- 19:46, April 22, 2012 (UTC)

The facility on Mars wasn't secret, but it's not about the premises itself. It's all about the knowledge held in there, which was secret, because we don't hear anything about sending reports to the Council. The temple of Athame wasn't secret too, stuff happening in there was, however. "Second I doubt that the Council would have helped anyway if he asked for help against, the “reapers”" - who knows, the Council in ME3 behaves a bit differently from ME2. At least everyone has Thanix cannons now. Yet Hackett could at least try asking for help, which he didn't. Maybe there wasn't anything helpful in the archives, but we're supposed to share prothean knowledge with everyone, right? Like, that very knowledge, which you find among researcher's notes, that proheans were involved in evolution of early humans. Again, Hackett (or anyone else) didn't share it.

"it's about the fact that they did keep it a secret, and they didn't even share the knowledge of it with other races" - were they obliged by someone to share this knowledge? The Council obliges to share knowledge of newly discovered prothean artifacts, that's why corporations attacking Garvug got punished. Anything asari discovered before Counsil treatises is their own business, and they are not obliged to share knowledge of prior discoveries.

About that previous part. I agree, that their withholding of prothean tech was wrong morally. Punish it by morals, whichever way it works. But to punish it legally? I highly doubt that's even possible. The ground for legal penalties is the text of Citadel Treaty. Ok, who wrote it? If the asari weren't a part of those who created it, then this treaty is null and void, because one of the Council species were not involved. However, if asari did take part in creating it, I'm 99% sure they have included specific legal failsafes against possible prothean legacy information leak. There were not the only ones writing the text, true, but only they knew the truth behind it.

"Also weren't humans sort of punished for a different AI research later on it the first book anyway?" - No. Absolutely no legal action was taken. Sending a Spectre to investigate the situation is one thing, but that's not even a repercussion, that's aid. That research, which involved having Alliance staff, should have costed humanity an embassy. Nothing happened.

"As I said, they more likely didn't think the plan would work anyway, so they didn't mention their beacon" - to be perfectly frank, Hackett himself didn't think that plan would work anyway. He was relying on the fleets and was right. The asari were relying on their allies and their aid to those allies and were right. They informed Shepard about the beacon only when they grew absolutely desperate, and that's a perfectly logical thing to do. Shepard himself/herself was as desperate about the Crucible, right until he ended up in the starkids' room. And the fact, that they inform Shepard only after the quarian section - doesn't Perseus Veil impede outside communication and sensors?

"Well my biggest problem would be that Avenger sucks :D I mean really, even Vindicator is better..." - that would depend on your tactics, really. Right until you aquire the Phaeston, Avenger is a very good weapon because of it's great accuracy and almost non-existent recoil. Which is compensated by low damage, but if you prefer to stay on target and "climb up" for a headshot, it is very good. Vindicator is purely a matter of preference, some people like burst-fire weapons and are very good with them. Actually I was using it for most of the time while playing a Soldier. But I digress, we were talking about lore performance of the weapon, not game performance. In today's world the AK-47 kinda sucks, because the recoil can break your arm, yet a lot of different people use it, because of it's other benefits. Same may be with the Avenger in ME. But you're right, quarians with Vindicators made no sense. Yet I was proud, that my favourite Widow was most likely a quarian invention :3

"and find the very idea of that Meltagun extremely silly, no offense :D" - that is silly? I mean yes, it definitely is silly, but you obviously didn't read about some other guns in Warhammer 40k, especially orcish ones:)

"Why would they do that if the asari would be willing to share the knowledge they possess by sharing the stuff from the beacon? Wouldn't make sense" - I see some sense. No matter how good your relations might be with your political ally, there is always a degree of mistrust. It's just how things are. Especially with salarians, who don't trust even their own kind. Now imagine, that asari suudenly declare that they have extensive knowledge about protheans, which they have studied for millenia before they made first contact with another species, and now are willing to share it. The most logical way of thinking, mistrustful, but logical, was, sadly "So they have already grabbed all the good stuff themselves, and now are throwing us a bone? Outrage!" Or "Why would they even share such a treasure with us? Because they are so nice? Can't be possible, one can have only so much niceness, down in your heart, you are always selfish. So they must have kept something in secret to have an edge. Bad" Reactions would be mistrustful and negative, and negative reaction in turian case involves guns blazing.

And I'm not even talking about what exact knowledge was stored in that beacon. Maybe it was asari-exclusive, so other races could not even benefit from it? We can't really disprove that. Most surely protheans uplifted them for a reason, and if they wanted this knowledge to be shared, they might as well put similar beacons on Earth< Palaven, or I don't know, Kahje.

"it rather sounded like “yeah we like to be the ones running the show here, so we have our secrets”" - I didn't get this feeling (maybe because we had different asari councillors), but even if it was her point, who would blame them? Not me, I would have done the same in their place.

"Dude... I think you just went to a strange place with your logic... I mean it doesn't even exactly connect with what I wrote :D" - all I wanted to say, that despite prothean efforts to uplift asari in a certain way, they have chosen their own way, directly opposite to the one protheans tried to implement. That was mostly on the previous topic about how would asari live without prothean technology. Very easy, as they never depended heavily on it.

"She won't even call me skipper anymore, and Shepard somehow always pulls rank in conversations with her, which felt really odd" - totally! I always feel odd when tali, Liara and Garrus call Shepard by rank. I mean service regulations are service regulations, but as Anderson said "Just because I re-instated you doesn't give you the right to go all formal on me":) Imagine Shepard constantly calling Tali "Admiral Zorah" and saluting whenever she comes by O_o

"That's why my Shep says that on Tuchanka “We've done crazier things” before summoning Kalros :D" - they should have summoned Jack to deal with the Destroyer! All you need to say is "this thing works with Cerberus!" That won't even be a lie:)

BTW replaying ME1... Liara on Noveria: "I don't like this place. It's full of dark secrets" I was shocked! Then remembered, that she isn't the Broker yet XD

"So in general, women like the sleek designs more" - I know that, but c'mon! I mean, really! Armor is for protection, not for looks. The heavier, the better! Same with guns. Well, unless you're not a ME Adept or Infiltrator. Everyone else should get really armoured!:)

"I think it's better, because at least the breasts have a place, and you don't have to use a tight sports bra for them. Comfort in combat is a good thing" - sure! I mean even if it wasn't for shields, medieval armor was designed to deflect blows and make them glance off the armor itself, so you can't afford convex. ME armor is made of thin layers, that chip away, absorbing the force of impact, so it could be any form.

But those comics... I really don't care about them either, until they start to get all pretentious and try to become canon, while going out of already established canon. I didn't even read The Silent Grove until I heard, that this comic features some Yavana, who is... it is terrible to think... Flemeth's daughter! I was, like, GTFO, you pathetic Morrigan copycat! Morrigan is unique! But then BW declares it's canon, people start referring to comics in discussions... I just hope Tali, Liara and Garrus will be safe! And BW won't f*ck up the lore even further. The Indoctrination Theory can explain the starchild, but it won't explain Garrus suddenly going on adventure with elcor ambassador or whatever.

"hot lesbomancy" - what spells does this school of magic has? XD -Algol- 00:57, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

"I have very vague memories about some Council decision that wasn't really harsh punishment, yet was somehow not good for humanity...or something..." - there was only one: not including Anderson into Spectres. And that's all. Just to compare: the quarians were booted from the Citadel for AI research, while it wasn't even an AI research. That's why I don't expect asari to be punished for anything. Finger-wagging at best.

"As for everyone being desperate the game implies that Shepard isn't actually that desperate but rather hopeful after Tuchanka up until Thessia" - I was mostly referring about betting on the Crucible. Nobody in their right mind would bet on it, because nobody knew, what it actually does, and what the Catalyst, a vital component, is. The asari weren't counting on the Crucible right until the last moment, but so did Shepard. If Shepard got hopeful after Tuchanka, it's only because s/he managed to kill a Reaper even without concentrated dreadnought fire.

"Once again, how do you know that? Just because they don't tell Shepard about it, doesn't mean he didn't" - very true, maybe he did, maybe he didn't. Currently I'm using "if it was important, but we didn't hear about it, then it didn't happen" logic.

Using similar logic, knowledge of what exactly was in the baecon is vital for determining whether they are responsible for anything. Maybe technology wasn't even involved. Maybe all the knowledge was tailored to asari and impossible to use by everyone else (because protheans might as well placed similar beacons on each "primitive" homeworld). And again, they didn't have the Cypher to interpret anything complex.

But yeah, the whole asari argument with you as a prosecutor and me as a defender gets a bit out of hand now. Let's just say, that you like them dirty, and I like them bright and shiny:)

"I nearly have enough creds to buy a second Secptre weapon in ME3, should it be the Black Widow?" - actually, I wouldn't recommend that. Since sqaddies reload much faster, then the PC, you really don't need those two extra shots, while the original Widow has more damage. Just put a concentration mode and enhanced scope, while having Garrus' a-p ammo on, and he'll be fine. Too bad, that Garrus only scores headshots in cutscenes:) But hey, if you don't have anything else to spend credits on, you might as well check it out yourself on a couple of side missions and make Garrus a huge present.

"Yeah, I have no knowledge at all about the Warhammer universe...really, absolutely nothing :D" - That's a good thing! Seriously!:) Some things are better left... unknown:)

"Actually one of the reasons why I liked James is the nicknames" - hmmm, funny, that's one of the reasons I do not like him. There is a difference between people knowing each other for three years, and using nicknames, but James? The newbie just got on the team and doesn't know sh*t, so it's "Commander" for him.

"Would have liked to see that :D Too bad Jack only kicks ass in cut scenes" - well, "the Destroyer's destruction" was happening exactly in cutscene, so Jack qualifies! I can imagine the battle-cry: "I will destroy... the Destroyer!!!":)

About the armor... Shields don't help against melee attacks. And not that I'm arguing preferences, no, but agility doesn't help much against automatic fire. That's why Kai Leng wears a suit (and looks like an idiot in it, can't help to bash Kai Leng one more time:D), but has the toughest armor in the game: plot armor. I was puzzled, when on Thessia I brought down his shields completely with an Overload from me and an Energy Drain from Tali (on Hardcore), and when I riddle his sorry ass with bullets, while he's running away, the health bar just doesn't deplete. But I digress, by no means I am arguing preferences, just reflecting on practicality... For the record, cerberus Assault armor in ME2-3 looked rather sleek too (well, for my taste anyway :D). It even had decent stats! Too bad I'm not wearing anything with a Cerberus logo on it:) I can imagine someone mistaking me for a Cerberus trooper and shooting... I won't even hold a grudge:)

"Anyway, it's just stupid, but at least they can't make it canon, cos that would mean Alistair being king is canon" - Alistair being king is pretty much canon already. How about our choices, one may ask? Leliana's and Zevran's deaths were our choices too, yet in DA2 it's "I see dead people" O_o. I won't be forgetting this anytime sooner. OGB is pretty much canon, though this I don't mind personally. And now it's "Dawn of the Seeker" too. Hell, why do they take all these efforts with all these comics and stuff, without at least trying to make them coherent. The "broader audience" won't read them anyway, and the geek audience will be infuriated with all the inconsistencies. With all that "We try to make the franchise deeper", all I want is to say: "Please, do not try". Just leave it alone.

Oh, but for a bit of joy and happiness, in case you haven't saw it, that happiness:) -Algol- 10:56, April 23, 2012 (UTC)

Actually donating money to the war effort or to charity for improving lives of refugees would be a great feature in the game. I really liked that quest Chakwas gives you to negotiate a medi-gel trade with the refugee leader. Donating money will surely be great too. And all Paragon Shepards would be running half-naked with shitty guns unupgraded guns X) So... have you bought the Black Widiow or not?

But yeah, that aquarium VI... I think every Shepard does sort of a routine run through the whole ship after each mission, to chat with people, might as well visit the cabin and feed the fish:)

"I actually let the Lola thing and the flirting slide, because I felt that it really wasn't anything serious, and it's only there to ease tension and stuff" - well, he calls my MaleShep "Loco", while I desperately try to stay sane. James, you're not helping...

Speaking of sanity, have you seen this? EA went batshit crazy, like completely, and irredeemably. Really, how far can their greed go? Yes, they were one of the main lobbyists behind SOPA, yes, they hate when people pirate their games, yes, multiplayer and online connection make a game very hard to be pirated, but... REALLY??? Well, at least there's one good thing: a lot of people would stop buying their crap. Hurray to that.

"Thanks god for mods though, I modded that Grey Warden armors from DA2 into the game, which look pretty cool" - you know, one of many things, that made DA:O so good, were mods. I mean, the game didn't even have an official toolkit, like, say, TES games do, but people flocked to it nevertheless, to make their own cool stuff. Mage helmets were stupid? Make a mod. Light armor looked like a bikini? Make a mod. Female characters want to romance Morrigan? You get the idea:)

"Ummm, bit biased Leliana fan here, so um yeah XD" - Just to clarify, I never did kill Leliana in my playthroughs. Neither I killed Zevran. I liked Leliana in DA:O (though I din't like her in DA2), and though I wasn't big on that whole Maker stuff, siding with some crazy cultists was even worse. And if Morrigan herself was in awe with the Ashes, ok, I get the idea, preserve the Ashes. But if a character has a possibility to die, they have to include it! And if they want so much to keep them alive to continue their story, ok, two variants possible: 1) Retcon. It can be done in an intelligent and reasonable way: we know, that Leliana has a possibility to die, but since not many people actually kill her off, we decided to keep her in future games to please the majority, that likes her. Also she is vital to the story and to the gameworld. This would do, but that load of bs Gaider wrote will not do. 2) At least come up with some in-game explanation of how she survived, because all that "It wasn't my time" is just stupid. "As for Zevran, I'm pretty sure that was a bug...dunno if it got fixed though" - it was a bug, yes, but DA2 had FOUR patches, and neither of them fixed it. Lazy Bioware? Listening to fans? "In another time, another life".

"If people find out that she and Anders were both Wardens, then everyone will think that it's a world wide Grey Warden coup attempt, and then they go to war against the Wardens, and everyone will be unprepared for a next Blight... yay!" - I'm entertaining an idea of Grey Wardens siding with mages, and ending the Chantry once and for all. Then everyone can have a moment to breathe and prepare for the next Blight. Because something tells me, that current mage-templar war will last really long and bring a lot of devastation.

"I wonder if we will ever learn what happens to the Warden. I mean, we know that he/she disappeared too, but not much else" - I know what happen to the Warden! My Warden went through the Eluvian to enjoy a happy honeymoon with his beloved! And play with his son, little Urthemiel:) Seriously though, I doubt they will ever decide this. I think the memories about the Warden we read/hear in DA2 are final. There are just too many possibilities BW is too lazy to handle. They said something about finishing Hawke's story (apprently because Hawke is "the most important person in Thedas" to them), but nothing about the Warden. "they can't have him/her just disappear!" - if s/he disappears, s/he will disappear artistically *sarcasm*

"Wanna get diabetes? Check out this pic" - Awww! So cute! She's just adorable!

In case you haven't seen this:) -Algol- 19:27, April 24, 2012 (UTC)

" For the record neither of us speaks Spanish, and we don't like Twilight, but can laugh so hard at the movies, that it's worth at least one download :D" - you sure know how to have a good time! XD I'm totally doing just that, because I don't like Twilight too! Maybe... Try something more exotic? Is there a Twilight in Chinese?:)

"After a mission I first talk to Joker, EDI and Traynor, then I go up to the cabin, feed the fish, check my emails, then down to the armory, and work my way back up to CIC while talking to everyone :D" - yep, that's the way it's done!:) Talkative Shepards are the best! I just wish there were less "calibrations", and squad members always had "standard" topics, like in ME1. Oh, and on my last Infiltrator playthrough, I changed armor camouflage before the start of each mission, trying to tailor it to usual surroundings in that mission. Desert camo for Rannoch, urban for the Citadel and arctic for fighter base and ex-Cerberus scientists' hideout were quite nice, actually.

"you can not defeat piracy completely ever" - a rare few of companies understood the simple truth: people won't turn to piracy if you provide better service, then the pirates do. EA does not understand it, and makes an ass of themselves, getting responses like this one. But now it's totally over the edge. They expect people to maintain constant internet connection? And what if there isn't one? Then people are unable to play the game, they already paid for? I look forward to seeing them lose more and more money by alienating their own customers and finally collapsing. That would be the happiest day for gamers everywhere! Very likely, during that day gloating will not be considered a bad thing:)

"Well thank you, but I rather read on the bus, and talk with others during lunch break, then play some shitty tie-in iOS game" - so would I. Except for I listen to music instead of reading, while in the bus:) But a lot of people actually do as they are suggesting, but those people will soon find out, that this idea is only good on paper.

"actually I wouldn't even call it a tent XD" - my logic: if Morrigan calls it a tent, then a tent it is!

"Bioware shouldn't allow Gaider and Helper near fans or let them do interviews alone, because they are just embarrassing the studio" - I heard that! I think it is worth adding, that Gaider shouldn't be let near to BSN. They guy is a living flamewar!

"I wonder how many people actually defiled the Ashes though..." - from what I read and heard, not many. Oh, and also many people can just overlook the option of siding with Kolgrim, because it is not very clear:) Well, maybe only to unlock the Reaver spec, which is not bad at all. Then again, you could talk Leliana out of attacking you, if the skill is high enough. "so I really doubted, they could offer anything of value to me" - the Reaver spec. That's about it.

"I hope DA3 will be on the same engine as DA2, with some improvements, cos then it could be modded to an extend without toolset" - well... If DA3 falls under EA's new policy... You get the idea, mods will be doubtful. EA psychos may even start banning people for using mods.

About Wardens remaining neutral in the M-T War... I dunno. As are things going now, this war ends only with annihilation of one of the sides. I bet the Wardens couldn't do with Tevinter-only recruits, so off with the Templars. Yet, we will see. As you have rightly pointed out, BW and logic are incompatible these days. Maybe the griffons will return and save all the civilians O_o

"Aww, that's cute...and extremely lucky" - well, tbh, with all love and due respect to little Urthemiel, can my Warden also have... ermmm... normal children? Like little Morrigans prancing around, casting little spells, and little Wardens prancing around, I dunno... killing little darkspawn!

"Maybe I spend too much time imagining things :D" - maybe, maybe not, but imagining things is someting I admire:) Maybe that secret society was working for Flemeth? She surely would be the one interested in Morrigan and the OGB.

What I loved in the beach pic was a Cerberus logo on Miranda's bikini. I mean, she seems to really like Cerberus in ME2! XD Also I can imagine a Cerberus factory, producing bikinis... And conducting crazy experiments on them O_o

A theoretical question about Miranda BTW... Does she need a BioAmp to use biotics? I mean, the genetic engineering and stuff... Gillian Grayson doesn't need one, Jack most likely doesn't need one, but does Miranda?

Those vids... I think I can't be more heartbroken after Extended Cut effectively puttin a final nail in ME3's coffin, but that sure stirred the shards of the broken heart... Jack was so great! And Jacob seemed to be... excited too much:)-Algol- 00:27, April 25, 2012 (UTC)

"I usually just go with black-gray colors, or when I feel like it, I go Alliance, and change it to blue :D" - remembering your opinion on ME1 Phoenix armour, why no "girly colours"? XD Just kidding, no offence:)

"their current core audience is much more informed and demanding than they were before. Which is a good thing for us, bad thing for them" - One one hand, yes, much more informed. On the other hand, their core audience isn't consisted of people, who play RPG's like DA or, to some extent, ME. Their core audience plays Battlefield (which is 99% multiplayer), sports games, NFS and Sims. The last three do not have a serious competitor on the market, and in this case, no matter how demanding the audience can be, they have no choice, no alternative. Thanks to them, EA has a good chance to float for a while without changing their business practices. Then again, Starcraft 2 demanded a constant connection to BattleNet, and what, it was emulated two days after release:) EA just begs their games to be pirated, really:)

"END OF RINE!" - ________ <--- RINE ENDS HERE! Loved it XD

"Also Kolgrim is so totally crazy that he needs to die" - totally. That's why crazy cultists are en worse, then crazy Chantry zealots. Seriously, couldn't they put someone more reasonable, then Kolgrim, to atleast give the player a pause to think? That Nevarran Reaver from "Redemption" was quite normal. Then again, "Redemption" was sort of a burlesque, with everyone acting pretty much the opposite of how they are supposed to:) What's your stance on "Redemption"?:)

"Well there are a lot of mods for DA2 even though it is an EA game, so it's entirely impossible. Dragon Age Nexus is really empty these days though..." - I was primarily referring to EA's new policy of putting everything online for constant monitoring. Because if you can get banned from Origin for editing a game file... Well, mods can get you in similar trouble. Bosh'tets.

"I would so love to see that :D Really, if I can ride a griffon, I would be able to forgive Bioware a lot of things..." - will it be an extra-fluffy griffon? Maybe... named Feathers?:) The only reason I want Hawke's story to be finished, is to see something like "Hawke travelled to Anderfels, found a griffon egg, and presented it to his/her beloved Merrill. When it hatched, the griffon was extra fluffy:)"

"not ME3's ending, but other things" - like what, if I can ask? *trying to estimate your love of griffons*:) Now, if I could ride a dragon, I could forgive them DA2 darkspawn BDSM costumes. But that's it, it was already very generous:)

"If the other Wardens don't get a happy ending neither should you! :P" - but my Warden already has a very happy ending! :P I just want it to be even happier. Oh, and I'm sure Morrigan will find a way to get rid of the taint, so my Warden won't die in 30 years. I'm such a happy Warden! XD

About Hawke's story sort of being finished, at least it was finished in the most "artistic" way possible: no matter what you do in the game, no matter what choices you make, no matter which side you're on, you end up a hunted war criminal. Just because you stood in a close proximity to the real "most important person in Thedas", when he hit the detonator, and sent the Kirkwall Chantry flying straight to their Maker. Oh and most of your companions abandon you, with some thinking you're a real jerk. Very artistic. When BW announced, that DA@ is (finally:D) done for, they promised some non-playable conclusion to Hawke's story. Wonder how it will turn out? A comic, maybe? XD Or an anime, like DotS? Or mentioning Hawke in DA3 in a one-liner? But as of the Warden... Not a peep:(

"One thing I never understood in ME2 was, that Jack is supposed to be a friggin awesome biotic, yet she has really low tier abilities" - well, since in ME2 squadmates (or as a krogan would say: quadmates:D) only have 2-3 active abilities, Jack was humbly limited to cutscenes. Now, if we had a chance to see her as a squadmate in ME3 (yeah, I know, keep dreaming :D), she might have had something much more powerful. A Barrier maybe, since she always drills her students on them:) Or Nova, since she really likes to hit people. I really wouldn't mind a Vanguard-type squadmate in ME3, just to have the vastest array of tactics, because Javik doesn't exactly fit in this role. At least ME2 Jack has warp ammo, the best ammo power in ME2. Not bad in ME3 too, but imo, A-P ammo is the best in ME3.

"Puuuuuuuuuush!!!! XD Maybe that wasn't during the final battle, but after that when Brynn is trying to give birth? :D" - Hahahaha, nice one!!! XD Maybe Brynne had twins? because Jacob also says "Got another one!" XD

BTW One of my players in the tabletop started a new character... She is a liberated Cerberus experiment. A bit classy, but in Liara's words "If a chiled was locked in a wardrobe till sixteen, she will not grow normal". One of her current troubles is, despite being human, identifying which species she belongs to psychologically. That's... sad and funny at the same time.-Algol- 12:01, April 25, 2012 (UTC)

"take Phoenix for example...white and pink, really?" - I always liked the Survivor Armor. Makes you look like a little bumblebee XD Seriously though, I think all those colours, inconvenient for camouflage, can be explained with fundamental changes in tactics. With rapid development of electronics - no matter how hard you try to blend in your surroundings, the computer in a helmet, or visor, or even a weapon scope will still see you. So everyone rather relies on strength of their shields, not camouflage, because everyone uses at least "smart" guns, not to mention enhanced targeting systems. Besides, various species may see colours differently. Only very special systems, like Tactical Cloak, can decieve computers, so no point in camo, free to wear any colours you like.

"most group only release the cracks after street release date, while they most of the time already have cracked it days or even week before that" - I wonder if someone will give, say, EA, a nice surprise in the nearest future. That would be hilarious XD

"but I think it's stupid to release a live series, where elves can't actually look like they look in the game now" - the reverse is also true. One more reason I didn't like MotA, is that Tallis looked like Day, instead of established in-game models. Modeling characters after real people is ok, look at half of ME characters, but again, look at ME characters, i didn't see a salarian or a Krogan modeled after their voice actors.

"I really don't have high hopes for DA3 anymore" - I wonder why there are people, who actually do have high hopes for DA3? You know, this thought is slowly crawling into my mind for a while... I do not want a DA3 to ever happen. Better to remember the great game DA:O was, consider DA2 a mistake, and not fall even further down the slope of that mistake. Consider: it will already have a multiplayer. At recent PAX in some previous interviews, BW entertained the idea of turning DA into MMO. No. Better end the franchise right here, right now, amputate it, so to speak, before it festers futher. But of course, BW wouldn't do it, because in that case, they will admit their impotence as a game developer.

"Told her to get it over with DA2 and never touch it again lol" - that's a sound advice! I just hope she played DA:O before DA2. Oh, and why would one even want to hook up with Fenris? O_o

"And if I can actually fly the griffon in-game and not just in a cutscene, I would even forgive that no choices in DA2 matter at all :D" - *estimation completed* You really do love griffons, don't you?:) because forgiving that is just too generous:)

You know, considering, that no matter what Hawke does, everything is lost is really in-tune with the game's plot overall, a question comes to mind: Who would want to play such game? Even if this inability and hopelesness is logical. Seems to me, that BW was already deep in the "artistic integrity" shit, wanting to tell their own story, and forgetting about the player. And players hate to be railroaded, computer RPG, or tabletop, doesn't matter. With all this talk about "videogames are art" one shouldn't forget, that, say, a movie is a passive experience, while games are interactive.

"vanguard mates sucked in ME2" - I wouldn't exactly call Samara an Adept, because of the assault rifle she carries, and damaging ability, but she kicked ass, even despite having the useless Pull too. I agree though, Jacob is better left fixing weaponry. Why do the most boring characters always fix weaponry?:)

"I realised where Javik's Dark Channel ability is that most useful: during the rachni mission, cos if you use it on one of those little creeper things, it will kill one instantly, and then jump to the next, and effectively kill all of them in seconds :)" - good tactic! Then again, Liara's Singularity will kill them even faster with the right upgrades, it recharges much faster too, and having Javik just for one type of enemy, which is easy to kill in dozens of ways?.. I'm still not persuaded, useless fossil stays on the ship.

"I like Inferno ammo the best...though it's mostly because enemies start to panic, scream, and then burn to death :D And in ME3 you can turn it into exploding rounds <3" - oh, as a mild pyromaniac I totally agree! The sweet warm fiery death! If you'll want to do another playthrough of ME3 sometimes, I'll recommend an Engineer for that: Incinerate + Turret Flamethrower + Inferno Grenades as a bonus power. Kill'em with fire!!!:)

Oh, the pic is so nice! Those little krogan! Adorable! Is it just me, or they have a very serious look, despite the age?:)

"Well if someone can be transsexual, they could also be transspecies... I think :D" - transsexual - check, transorganic - check, transspecies - dunno, we'll see how it turns out. Poor girl just hates Cerberus to an extent, that she doesn't want to be related to humans in any way. Hurray for "guardians of humanity!" *sarcasm*

Just finished replaying ME1... Mixed feelings, you know... Such a good game! But all the lore on the Reapers can be pretty much thrown out of the window. Like that Sovereign's "organic life is an accident, a simple genetic mutation". Sovereign, I'm glad, that I saved you from the endings of ME3. I'm sure you'd be pissed off to find out, that you are actually a mere tool of some crazy kid:)-Algol- 22:15, April 25, 2012 (UTC)