BioWare Uses Stock Photo for Tali in Mass Effect 3

[Trishbot]

Trust me, when these fans get to the ending of the game, they'll have something WORTHWHILE to rage about. Compared to the endings, the Tali controversy is negligible and will be quickly forgotten.

But those endings.... WOW. I think the official Bioware poll has it at 96% of nearly 3,000 polled hate the endings.

Why do they suck? I've been avoiding them so far, and I would like to get the gist of why people hate them.

Without spoiling too much, I'll just say that NONE of your choices in any of the games matter. No matter what you do, it's all null and void. Did you save the Rachni Queen or kill her? Doesn't matter. Did you romance Liara? Doesn't change the ending. Did you destroy or save the Collector base? Save or sacrifice the Citadel Council? Cure the genophage? Kill Wrex? Survive the Suicide Mission? Were you super Paragon or super Renegade?

Doesn't matter.

You get the same ending (with minor color variations) no matter if you rush through the games, do no sidequests, and make terrible choices as you do if you 100% all games, carefully plan your choices, and do everything you can to get the best endings. Doesn't matter. The ending doesn't change based on your decisions.

And that's why it's so disappointing. The games told us our choices mattered, that we can determine are own fates... but in the very final moments of the game, the choice is stripped from you, your choices no longer matter, and you get one of three marginally different endings, ALL of which are very bitter and very depressing. There are no happy endings, no matter how well you play. You can't earn one.

They provide almost no closure. They're full of plotholes. You don't find out what happens to anybody you care about. The game just screws everyone over and ends, regardless of your choices, regardless of how well you prepare, how good you are, how evil you are, or how close you are to your teammates.

An ending that is nonsensical, meaningless, and violates the theme of the series is grounds for disappointment. It's a shame too, 'cause everything up until those final 10 minutes was amazing. But, yes, the ending is so bad it actually makes playthroughs of ME1 and ME2 almost impossible with the knowledge that your decisions ultimate count for squat.

 

[maxben]

anc[is]

I really, honestly cannot understand what there is to get mad about here? Not trying to be an ass, I just really don't get the reaction. Could someone who is insulted by this please explain it to me?

You have a table reserved at your favorite restaurant, it makes all sorts of delicious meals that you love. You've been waiting all week to go because the workweek was awful and your coworkers can't stop bitching about EA. You finally arrive, sit down and order something delicious. Your cook then completely forgets about your order, and 45 minutes later throws a TV dinner in the microwave, and that is what is served to you. That's why people are upset.

Bold part made me laugh.

Let's imagine that stock photo didn't exist though, but Tali's in-game photo was still the same. Nothing has changed. The experience of playing the game is in no way different, but presumably fans wouldn't get mad.

Or is it just that most people simply don't like the way she looks, and the 'stock photo' aspect has little to do with it?

To be honest it doesn't look anywhere near as good as anything else in the series. The photo LOOKED bad, not because its a bad face for Tali but because it looked like a lazy photoshop. This is merely proof of that. What makes that painful is that they had two choices: 1. Don't show Tali's face. Most players didn't care, and many of those that did would have enjoyed the perma-mask thing. 2. Show Tali's face in a way that satisfies those who care as who else are they showing that face for?
They went with option 3, show her face even though most gamers don't care, and do it in a way that will piss of those who do care.

 

[Grape_Bullion]

If you think this is a question of aesthetics over BioWare's short sightedness in revealing a major character, kindly pull down your pants the next time you're at the mall and start slapping your ass wildly on a table in the food court. If you're going to be retarded on a forum, you may as well be retarded everywhere else.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

They should have had a little trollface.jpg covering up the face when it finally got revealed.

Who really cares? A completely artificial image could have wound up looking almost exactly the same.
Graaah.

 

[Zyphonee]

I think this is just one of the many details that pissed pre EA Bioware fans (Such as meself) are trying to hold down a disappointing game for, and in my opinion, it's perfectly fair for people to be upset. Tali's face was a topic of very fervent discussion amongst a big portion of Mass Effect's fanbase, and although I never cared much for her or what she looked like, pissing on an important concept like that is just downright stupid. Mass Effect 3 took every possible opportunity to take the player out of the experience, from the choice that isn't really choice to the bad pacing of the story and the lazy writing that you can tell didn't have as much thought put into it as the game's predecesor, let alone the first Mass Effect game.

 

[LetalisK]

Holy shit that picture is creepy. I suddenly want to wipe out the quarians.

 

[Montezuma's Lawyer]

Big fucking deal...

Yea I said it. I know some people are finding reasons to be pants-shittingly mad about this, but really... this is utterly insignificant to anything, EVER.

 

[luckshot]

Big fucking deal...

Yea I said it. I know some people are finding reasons to be pants-shittingly mad about this, but really... this is utterly insignificant to anything, EVER.

yet important enough to make a post cussing out the people that do find it important?

and the hand that has more knuckles than fingers and looks like a butcher shop accident still is what bothers me the most...other than they thought that revealing an entire race and main character of three games with a bad photo shop with an old stock photo would be a good way to do it


also that Mona quarian was hilarious...and better done than the one from the game

 

[UberNoodle]

Wow. I know I cried. Real hard. Hot salty cry-baby tears.

What the hell has happened to our gaming community?

 

[disgruntledgamer]

It's lazy and unprofessional and looks like a 12 year old Photoshopped it. If you say different it's because you're a Bio-Drone, and Yes I'd say it does ruin the game a bit.

This however is peanuts in comparison of how the blatantly ripped off Deus EX's ending except you know Deus EX's endings made sense with the rest of the game and were good.

 

[Karathos]

It's lazy and unprofessional and looks like a 12 year old Photoshopped it. If you say different it's because you're a Bio-Drone, and Yes I'd say it does ruin the game a bit.

This however is peanuts in comparison of how the blatantly ripped off Deus EX's ending except you know Deus EX's endings made sense with the rest of the game and were good.

Ah yes, the old "if you're not Opinion-X, then you are Y". Did you run a PR campaign for the americans during the Iraq war by any chance? Because that sounds like some pretty familiar bullshit.

This does not affect my gameplay experience in the slightest. I romanced Tali in ME2 and thought she was the best damn character in the game alongside Garrus (Mordrin coming up as a close second place) and was really looking forward to the possibility of seeing her face in the third game. So they ended up doing it with a photo like this? Oh well. I wouldn't have recognized the picture as a stock photo anyway if it wasn't for this article.

Lazy? Sure.
Worthy of this shitstorm of a thread? Lolwat.

I'll be over here, enjoying ME3. You folks keep arguing about parts of a FINISHED AND RELEASED GAME. I'm sure there's still time to change them

 

[Detective Prince]

It's not the picture itself that's the issue here for me. It's the lazy design on a loved character. I agree that she should never have had her face shown at all but if she did have to, they should have put more effort into it.

 

[5ilver]

That's not really Tali. It's just one of the other crewmembers playing a practical joke, switching the pictures. Probably Traynor, the jealous ****.

 

[MetalMagpie]

Holy shit that picture is creepy. I suddenly want to wipe out the quarians.

I may be wrong, but I think you get that option!

I know some people are finding reasons to be pants-shittingly mad about this, but really... this is utterly insignificant to anything, EVER.

Exactly. Just enjoy the game, people. You waited long enough for it. Now you get to finally wrap up this story.

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

...So?

I fail to see the big deal here. The only bad thing about this is that the quality of the altered pic is abysmal compared to the original.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I would've laughed this off the fucking stage, as I did almost every piece of "Tali's face" fanart... But then, this isn't fanart. *SIGH*

She just seems a bit way too human. They could've come up with some sort of exquiste looking alien face and fans would still riot, but at least it would've been a bit more interesting than "she's totally human except for her hands and feet".

I find the idea of multiple equal-sized humanoid alien races pretty silly to begin with, but at least the asari, the turians, the krogan, and the salarians had a distinct look. This is so lazy it should get an award.

 

[thelustyargoniandude]

I'm just curious about something. How do we know that it's Tali in the photograph? I haven't seen it in my game and I'm just wondering.

 

[tmande2nd]

I'm just curious about something. How do we know that it's Tali in the photograph? I haven't seen it in my game and I'm just wondering.

Because she tells Shepard she left something in his room.
It also says "Tali's picture" when you highlight it.

 

[Gasaraki]

The best part about this is that it pretty much perfectly exemplifies bioware's alien design, which is pretty much just 'take humans and add some alien-y shit'

 

[luckshot]

The best part about this is that it pretty much perfectly exemplifies bioware's alien design, which is pretty much just 'take humans and add some alien-y shit'

eh they had some inventiveness with salarian/krogan/turian types, dont know what happened to the quarians