Mass Effect Almost Had a Non-Humanoid Squadmate

Longstreet

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Jun 16, 2012
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was better spent by improving the rest of the game instead
I had to laugh.

But seriously Bioware, enough with the "what could have been" BS. We finally put ME3 behind us and then you come and say oh we could have done this and this. Not the brightest idea.

On a next ME game, it does have to take place AFTER ME3 otherwise it would just be so uninteresting IMO since you already know the final ending (of the universe)
 

Kingjackl

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Well, the multiplayer added playable volus, geth primes, EDIbots & Collectors. The former two are awesome because neither of them have need for cover.

If they ever go ahead with that Mass Effect MMO idea, elcor mounts are a given.
 

chiefohara

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Parakeettheprawn said:
chiefohara said:
Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
Volus, not inherently violent? Have you -seen- the Volus in multiplayer? Those guys can own a battlefield moreso than an Asari Vanguard max rank!
My internet connection is not strong enough for gaming im afraid.

Hence me having my fingers crossed that the next Xbox isnt going to have and always online part to it.
 

Parakeettheprawn

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Beffudled Sheep said:
Parakeettheprawn said:
Beffudled Sheep said:
Parakeettheprawn said:
chiefohara said:
Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
Volus, not inherently violent? Have you -seen- the Volus in multiplayer? Those guys can own a battlefield moreso than an Asari Vanguard max rank!
Thats because a Human is controlling them :p

OT: I'd kill to ride an Elcor into combat as a battlemount. Put some mako cannons on their shoulders and some armor and bam, instant death mount.
That's what you assume, human....
Human? You also assume...
Well obviously you are if you fail at comprehending the magnitude of Volus mercenaries! Even a Turian knows to fear our rounded, pudgy fists!
 
Oct 2, 2012
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Desert Punk said:
That picture is awesome. Thank you for sharing.
Parakeettheprawn said:
You Ammonia breathers are only useful for supporting the real combat races! Your heavy melee is a cowardly cloking field for Goddesses sake!
Now the Vorcha, they wreck stuff. They're a violent race!
 
Oct 2, 2012
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Tara Callie said:
Beffudled Sheep said:
Parakeettheprawn said:
Beffudled Sheep said:
Parakeettheprawn said:
chiefohara said:
Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
Volus, not inherently violent? Have you -seen- the Volus in multiplayer? Those guys can own a battlefield moreso than an Asari Vanguard max rank!
Thats because a Human is controlling them :p

OT: I'd kill to ride an Elcor into combat as a battlemount. Put some mako cannons on their shoulders and some armor and bam, instant death mount.
That's what you assume, human....
Human? You also assume...
I assume... direct control of this form.

...I'm sorry, I'll go now.
Ouch, the joke... This hurts me.
:D
Edit: I messed up the quote derp.
 

PoolCleaningRobot

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I guess I'm over the Mass Effect endings fiasco and would be willing to spend money on another one (the universe of the games is just so fun). Make it so I can fuck romance an elcor and I'll preorder
 

Darren Carrigan

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saintdane05 said:
loa said:
All those "aliens" that barely look like more than cosplaying humans really bored me in mass effect and then they even got rid of the hanar in 2.
They really dropped the ball here, cutting the corners of what made star wars so interesting.
The Hanar sure died out alright...
<youtube=yIlo3s0WOYg>

Prothean NO LIKE YOU!!!!
 

kwagamon

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Beffudled Sheep said:
kwagamon said:
Beffudled Sheep said:
Parakeettheprawn said:
chiefohara said:
Non humanoid squad mate would push beyond the circle of expectation i think

Volus are not inherently violent, hence them being a client race of the turians

Elcor are too slow and cumbersome, Their homeworld high gravity making all their movement slow and deliberate

Hanar... despite appearances would probably be the most likely of the non humanoid races to be a squad mate. Zaeed talks about how underestimating one nearly killed him in ME2
Volus, not inherently violent? Have you -seen- the Volus in multiplayer? Those guys can own a battlefield moreso than an Asari Vanguard max rank!
Thats because a Human is controlling them :p

OT: I'd kill to ride an Elcor into combat as a battlemount. Put some mako cannons on their shoulders and some armor and bam, instant death mount.
Actually, some of the fluff for the Elcor say that that's pretty much what they do in actual wartime. They just get some heavy armor and strap the biggest guns they can to themselves.
Sucks we never get to see it.
Indeed it does.
 

Fjallhrafn

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Mar 17, 2010
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Smilomaniac said:
I'm fairly certain that you're led to belive that his condition is primarily in his legs. Either way, it's reasonable to assume that the weapons fire a sort of caseless ammo that doesn't have any significant recoil.
Any recoil you see from animations are just there for effect and gameplay balance. (Sort of like sounds in space, in Star Wars).
Other explanations would be counteracting gravity devices(such as the ones the Hanar use to float) to compensate or something similar.
That's just my theory though. The technology already exists and would likely see further development for space combat and the like. I mean, a weapon such as the AA-12(a fully automatic shotgun) has very little recoil and has an extremely simple and robust design that rivals all of the AK's. It's not farfetched to assume they'd make something better in the future.
I, too, trust that in the future we can do better than a 24-pound select-fire open-bolt weapon with a maximum effective range of 100 meters... because we already have 8-pound select-fire closed-bolt weapons with maximum effective ranges of 400+ meters. The AK-47 springs to mind....

Further explanation for not-gun people:

The AA-12 is not going anywhere. It's not going to be adopted by anyone. It's not even a new design. It has been around for four decades. The ammunition is heavy and of limited range, even with the FRAG-12 (basically a 12-gauge firecracker). The weapon itself weighs in at 24 pounds. It fires from an open-bolt. In effect, it is a paperweight. It does nothing well, except look good in movies. Why does the AA-12 have "light recoil"? Well, it doesn't. It's just so heavy and the cyclic rate is so low that it has low perceived recoil. It will figure prominently in movies and TV shows, like the Pancor "Jackhammer" once did. But that's it: It is a technological dead-end and everyone knows it. The height of military interest in the AA-12 was during the height of the American counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq well before the economy went south.

That being said... the direction of military small arms will be in the "smaller and lighter" direction. The same direction they have been taking since the musket gave way to the rifle. The rifle to the percussion rifle, the percussion rifle to the metallic self-contained cartridge rifle, the bolt action rifle, the short rifle, the semi-automatic battle rifle, the assault rifle, and finally the select-fire carbine (where we are now).

If memory serves, the guns in ME work by accelerating small particles at extremely high velocities, the tracer effect and muzzle flash being results of the air the particle passes through being superheated. Considering this, the weapons themselves need not have much weight to mitigate their recoil combined with the general trend toward lighter weapons means that it would not weigh much at all. In other words, Joker would not have a problem firing a low-recoil weapon system that only weighs a couple of pounds, even if he lacked upper body strength. (That same lack of weight would make it rather difficult to stabilize the weapon, however. Something the cybernetic implants and armor used by the rest of the crew would likely compensate for.) As for why Joker might have had the weapon nearby... well, he was effectively the only person on board the Normandy after Shepherd and his team left to take out the Collector base and the Normandy had already been boarded twice by the Collectors, a third time wouldn't be out of the question.

ETA: Also on the open bolt versus closed bolt in automatic weapons: Open bolt is simpler but causes a drop in accuracy due to the weight of the bolt shifting forward as the trigger is pulled. Commonly used with machine guns because the benes outweight the drawbacks: High precision is not required and the open-bolt allows the barrel and chamber to remain cooler for longer and to cool more quickly than a closed-bolt firearm. And because there is no round in the chamber, it cannot 'cook off'. Closed bolt is preferred for most other weapons. They lock more positively and more consistently, improving precision and accuracy, squeezing the trigger simply drops the hammer onto the firing pin, and the closed bolt operation prevents dirt and debris from entering the weapon's action and barrel. Getting crud in the weapon's action and barrel, especially the chamber, is Not Good - it has a negative impact on the weapon's reliability and can lead to a rather spectacular malfunction... of the sort that involves pressure spikes in the chamber and barrels turning into modern art flower sculptures while handguards splinter into a thousand pieces.
 

Olas

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Dec 24, 2011
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Not only did they not include any non-humanoid squadmates, but there aren't even any major reoccurring characters who are non-humanoid.

The Elcor are pretty much relegated to running shop kiosks, and the Hannar barely even surface after ME1. The closest thing any of the games have to a significant non-humanoid character is the

Shadow broker

If they really wanted to implement some non-humanoid characters it seems like they had a huge opportunity with ME3s multiplayer.
 

omega 616

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May 1, 2009
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I always thought it was weird that basically every other race was like a human ... they might have scales or an extra set of eyes but for the most part it was 6 foot tall, 2 eyes in the same place, walked on 2 legs with 2 arms in the same places etc etc etc.

I also found it weird that with all the different races roaming about that there are only 2 drell ... Thane and his kid. Why are there no other drell on the citadel, Omega or Illium (is it Illium?). Hannar, volous and Elcor aren't exactly crowding the halls either.

In mass Effect 4 I really want to see more of Jack. I think she is the best character in the series, starts off so angry and untrusting and then falls in love with our hero and while she still has that edge (kicking her kids asses when they mess up but threating to kill anybody who messes with them) she is also nice.
 

ffs-dontcare

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I would've loved to have a Batarian squad-mate, personally.

An Elcor as an important crew member on the Normandy (but not as a squad-mate) would've been good as well.
 

chiefohara

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Sep 4, 2009
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Fjallhrafn said:
chiefohara said:
I'm fairly certain that you're led to belive that his condition is primarily in his legs. Either way, it's reasonable to assume that the weapons fire a sort of caseless ammo that doesn't have any significant recoil.
Any recoil you see from animations are just there for effect and gameplay balance. (Sort of like sounds in space, in Star Wars).
Other explanations would be counteracting gravity devices(such as the ones the Hanar use to float) to compensate or something similar.
That's just my theory though. The technology already exists and would likely see further development for space combat and the like. I mean, a weapon such as the AA-12(a fully automatic shotgun) has very little recoil and has an extremely simple and robust design that rivals all of the AK's. It's not farfetched to assume they'd make something better in the future.
I, too, trust that in the future we can do better than a 24-pound select-fire open-bolt weapon with a maximum effective range of 100 meters... because we already have 8-pound select-fire closed-bolt weapons with maximum effective ranges of 400+ meters. The AK-47 springs to mind....

Further explanation for not-gun people:

The AA-12 is not going anywhere. It's not going to be adopted by anyone. It's not even a new design. It has been around for four decades. The ammunition is heavy and of limited range, even with the FRAG-12 (basically a 12-gauge firecracker). The weapon itself weighs in at 24 pounds. It fires from an open-bolt. In effect, it is a paperweight. It does nothing well, except look good in movies. Why does the AA-12 have "light recoil"? Well, it doesn't. It's just so heavy and the cyclic rate is so low that it has low perceived recoil. It will figure prominently in movies and TV shows, like the Pancor "Jackhammer" once did. But that's it: It is a technological dead-end and everyone knows it. The height of military interest in the AA-12 was during the height of the American counter-insurgency operations in Afghanistan and Iraq well before the economy went south.

That being said... the direction of military small arms will be in the "smaller and lighter" direction. The same direction they have been taking since the musket gave way to the rifle. The rifle to the percussion rifle, the percussion rifle to the metallic self-contained cartridge rifle, the bolt action rifle, the short rifle, the semi-automatic battle rifle, the assault rifle, and finally the select-fire carbine (where we are now).

If memory serves, the guns in ME work by accelerating small particles at extremely high velocities, the tracer effect and muzzle flash being results of the air the particle passes through being superheated. Considering this, the weapons themselves need not have much weight to mitigate their recoil combined with the general trend toward lighter weapons means that it would not weigh much at all. In other words, Joker would not have a problem firing a low-recoil weapon system that only weighs a couple of pounds, even if he lacked upper body strength. (That same lack of weight would make it rather difficult to stabilize the weapon, however. Something the cybernetic implants and armor used by the rest of the crew would likely compensate for.) As for why Joker might have had the weapon nearby... well, he was effectively the only person on board the Normandy after Shepherd and his team left to take out the Collector base and the Normandy had already been boarded twice by the Collectors, a third time wouldn't be out of the question.

ETA: Also on the open bolt versus closed bolt in automatic weapons: Open bolt is simpler but causes a drop in accuracy due to the weight of the bolt shifting forward as the trigger is pulled. Commonly used with machine guns because the benes outweight the drawbacks: High precision is not required and the open-bolt allows the barrel and chamber to remain cooler for longer and to cool more quickly than a closed-bolt firearm. And because there is no round in the chamber, it cannot 'cook off'. Closed bolt is preferred for most other weapons. They lock more positively and more consistently, improving precision and accuracy, squeezing the trigger simply drops the hammer onto the firing pin, and the closed bolt operation prevents dirt and debris from entering the weapon's action and barrel. Getting crud in the weapon's action and barrel, especially the chamber, is Not Good - it has a negative impact on the weapon's reliability and can lead to a rather spectacular malfunction... of the sort that involves pressure spikes in the chamber and barrels turning into modern art flower sculptures while handguards splinter into a thousand pieces.
You accidently tagged me to smileomatics quote bud,

So i was notified of the relpy and not him. Just letting you know so ye can continue the conversation
 

Fjallhrafn

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Mar 17, 2010
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chiefohara said:
You accidently tagged me to smileomatics quote bud,

So i was notified of the relpy and not him. Just letting you know so ye can continue the conversation
Gotcha. Sorry. I know what happened, though I don't understand why....

Thanks!
 

redknightalex

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Aug 31, 2012
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omega 616 said:
I always thought it was weird that basically every other race was like a human ... they might have scales or an extra set of eyes but for the most part it was 6 foot tall, 2 eyes in the same place, walked on 2 legs with 2 arms in the same places etc etc etc.
That's pretty much the same in any sci-fi video game/movie/tv. The last two are easy: how are you going to act a non-humanoid creature when you are humanoid? Unless it's through CGI, which costs money, and voice acting most characters that are act-able will be humanoid in nature. One of those things I've noticed recently and thought, "is every species in the galaxy going to look human in the future?"

Back to Mass Effect, while I'm tending to agree with the developers about how ME2 was scripted -- adding in components not seen through Shepard's eyes would have felt out-of-place -- adding more non-humanoid NPCs, or squad-mates, would have payed off in the end. I know that there are always things developers wish they could have added into games after they've been released, but this is huge! Real sadness they didn't do it. At least now I know why we had that strange out-of-body experience when the Collectors attacked Horizon.

Oh well, maybe next Mass Effect? (Come on guys, we all know it's going to happen and that it was probably do well financially. Does that really matter? If you don't want the game, then don't buy it.)
 

bjj hero

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Feb 4, 2009
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Therumancer said:
The ironic thing about this is that how limiting Joker's injury is seems to vary depending on the needs of the plot. I and a few other people had a sort of "WTF" moment when Joker showed up in the hatch of the Normandy firing an assault rifle at the end of Mass Effect 2. One would think that the recoil would shatter is bones if he was as crippled as was previously established, and it did raise some questions as to where he got the rifle from (time to gimp down to the armory, and then gimp up to the door, just as he saw the team running for the hatch?) if he had it handy and could fire it, it makes you wonder why he didn't have it during the invasion scene and... yeah well, it's classic over analyzing. It used to a bit of a joke on gamefaqs forums (I think that was the site) that Joker was obviously faking to avoid doing real work and collect disabillity bonuses, as revealed by that cinematic in ME2. I admit it would have been funny if Bioware ran with that and we had Joker as a squadmate in ME3 with constant dialogue about how his snow job was over with. :)
I absolutely love the idea of Joker as a benefits fraud! Its my favourite sort of story in the news paper. Some scrote claims he cannot walk unaided so cannot work, then they find snaps of him rock climbing.

The Elcor tank may work. My friends always discussed a multiplayer wave where one of you would get an atlas to drive but there would be a huge wave of enemies. If the atlas was destroyed you'd lose. It could work with Elcor.
 

RJ 17

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Nov 27, 2011
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Gotta say...one of my biggest disappointments with ME3 was no rachni squadmate.