Sanunes said:
I was arguing that using the word majority probably is an exaggeration on how many people want the ability to play another race in a single player game. I used the only example I had that shows minority of players played something other then a human player in a single player BioWare game.
I was perhaps a bit aggressive in phrasing myself, but my point was that it's comparing the figurative apples and oranges. DA:O had
three playable races and IMO there wasn't a whole lot to really set them apart visually - Humans, Pretty Humans with Pointy Ears, and Short Stocky Humans. You can argue gameplay stats and racial bonuses, I suppose, but appearance-wise, there's only a minor amount of difference. Mass Effect on the other paw, there's a
lot of visual difference, and significantly more races to choose from. It'd be like studying housecats to learn about lions - about the only relevant comparison is they're both feline (/single-player RPGs).
We really don't know how many people really played the multiplayer game that also played the singleplayer campaign so even if I could find the numbers saying that Turian class was the most played in the game how representative of it if only a third of the people that bought the game played multiplayer?
I see what you're getting at there, and I do agree to some extent. Of all the people who played singleplayer only, how many would hypothetically pick a different race if they could? And the way multiplayer is structured by class presents its own wrinkle - who would play a Vorcha Infiltrator, if they could? Or a biotic Geth? There's a lot of variables that make it tough to paint a whole picture, of which only Bioware has access to. Personally, I think this [http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Mass_Effect_3_Multiplayer/Character_Customization] the most telling evidence that Mass Effect players
do want other playable races. They gave us Turian, Salarian, Asari, Quarian, and Drell with initial release - and then went on to add Batarians, Krogans, Vorcha, Volus, Geth, and even an "Awakened Collector" (plus more humans in different armor styles). Hell, the only ones I think missing from that list are the Hanar and Elcor.
Sadly, I also realize that Bioware's narrative-driven structure just isn't conductive to the same racial freedom games like the Elder Scrolls series can enjoy - at minimum, it would mean new voice actors, models / animations, and armor customizations for most races (Turian and Krogan come to mind, in particular). Given all the dialogue and scenes that go into their games, it would create a very substantial resource sink trying to clone every narrative path from Human into Turian / Salarian / etc. Resources that would be much better spent on expanding and fleshing out what's already there.
So yeah, even if all the statistics did align and say "Players want option X as a single-player character," I don't think we'd get it, simply because of the way Bioware's RPGs are structured. But hey, a cat can dream.
Laggyteabag said:
It doesn't even look like the Mako anymore. Sure this is a prototype build, and everything is subject to change, but aside from the colour of the chassis, and the amount of wheels, this:
looks nothing like this:
I mean c'mon! It doesn't even have that cannon!
Yeah... that was my first thought seeing it as well. "IDK what that is, but it sure ain't a Mako!" Although if I can still bunny-hop it onto a Geth Colossus at 100mph, I won't complain too much.
EDIT:
immortalfrieza said:
Kieve said:
Personally, I'd love the chance to be a Geth again, but I understand there's only so much you can do with customization when your character is a flashlight under metal plating.
Or how they could possibly build a story around being a Geth player character when AIs are widely hated and feared throughout the entire Mass Effect universe, Geth in particular. In fact, that's probably the real reason they're sticking with human protagonists. Humans can go just about everywhere and do just about anything in the Mass Effect universe with little impediment involved, so they're just much easier to make a plot for. Not to mention the clusterf*** the inevitable romance options would be with having to take a nonhuman protagonist options into account.
That said, Hanar and Geth player characters would still be incredibly awesome regardless.
This makes me think I would love to see a "Mass Effect Chronicles" game, in the vein of Sin City or Pulp Fiction - a bunch of shorter single-player campaigns with different characters that all kind of intertwine to form a more complete narrative.
