Editorial The World of The Collectors Part 2

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: BioWare; Mass Effect 2

GameInformer continues to talk to BioWare art director Derek Watts, this time about the <a href="http://gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2010/02/09/drawing-mass-effect-the-creation-of-thane.aspx">creation of Thane.</a>
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">A lot of the time we will do the head first and then work on the body. I chose Thane because he was the toughest character for us to get. We had a written description of him to start with; we usually get about a paragraph of text to start, and that's all we really need. For us the key words were “career assassin”. The problem was, he was going to be the female love interest. Now that doesn't sound like much if you think about it, but it got us all mixed up a bunch of times, because women were going to have to find this guy attractive. So we asked all the women in the office what they liked in their aliens, and that kind of got us going off a lot of weird directions in the beginning and made it harder than it should have been. As far as men go – like with the Asari – you make her blue and give her the perfect body and you’re good to go. Women are more sophisticated than that.
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Are they? Codex females can confirm?
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;">Overall, we are very happy with Thane. He took a lot of work, but the great thing was we went to show him to a lot of the women in the office, and they actually really started to feel intrigued by this guy. The thing that makes them come to life, of course, is the animation, and the writing, but after they did the acting and added that light filtering to his voice I think he turned out to be a great character in the game.
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Was Thane a great character? I think he was a pretty cool guy because he had a sniper rifle.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.gamebanshee.com/news/96830-drawing-mass-effect-2-the-creation-of-thane.html">GB</A>

 

[Brother None]

I think Thane is a pretty cool guy. eh has sniper rifle and doesn’t afraid of anything…

 

[Konjad]

Who is Thane?

 

[DreadMessiah]

Wow women intrigiued by the the bad boy type. Say it aint so boss.

 

[Nightjed]

i used him once, he didnt prove to be more effective than my regular npcs so i never used him again, his loyalty quest was pretty boring, his loyalty power blows, and his "story" is just an ansty crap about his wife and his kid and that he has alien cancer and some other boring crap

his main quest did have some of the best shooting areas of the game tho (but nothing to do with him)

i didnt care much about any npc, i liked Mordin and Garrus but mainly because they proved to be the most effective npcs (Grunt is ok too) and Mordin was the only one that gave interesting comments on game events

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Thane's like emo Garrus^2.

Yeah, well done Bioware. You managed to use Carth Ohnazi in a way I never could've imagined; As an alien.

:applause:

 

[DreadMessiah]

The scientist salarian was cool. Garrus was okay. The rest were meh.

 

[Stereotypical Villain]

Bioware's solution to shallow characters: Throw in even more shallow characters in an attempt to fill the gap. But like trying to fix a pothole with chewing gun it failed utterly, for once you step in that pothole you are going to sink.

 

[Nightjed]

well, no worries, you can be sure none of these characters will be a usable npc in ME3 since anyone can die at the end and BW wont bother making npcs some players wont be able to use (unless they pull a "they got better" plot device)

 

[DreadMessiah]

They did with shepard. You died yet we brought you back. Starting over at level 1 amnesia mechanic 101 initialized.

 

[Volourn]

" Starting over at level 1 amnesia "

You don't have amnesia. Idiot.

 

[DreadMessiah]

With regards to the once uber skillz. Yes the character does.

Your such a dumbass.

 

[Hoaxmetal]

I think it's more like an effect of being dead for two years - fucked up reflexes and whatnot.

 

[merchant's skeleton]

Are they? Codex females can confirm?

Are there any Codex females?

 

[The_Pope]

He doesn't only have a sniper rifle, he also has some other gun. This is because he has a multifaceted personality.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

He doesn't only have a sniper rifle, he also has some other gun. This is because he has a multifaceted personality.

I couldn't have worded it better, your holiness.

 

[Pablosdog]

Thane was an alright character, I still preferred him over Jacob and Subject Zero. He's actually a pretty decent character to have if you have Grunt in your squad. His storyline was a tad trite, but overall he was a p. cool guy.

 

[Mangoose]

his loyalty quest was pretty boring

Oh god so boring WHERES DA SHOOTAN I HATE NONCOBMAT QUESTS.

his "story" is just an ansty crap about his wife and his kid and that he has alien cancer and some other boring crap

Lemme guess, you wanted an EXTREMME story about wanting collargrabbing revenge and/or sexxing up blue chicks. A non-cliche story about a father wanting to make amends with his son is OH SO BORING.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Wow women intrigiued by the the bad boy type. Say it aint so boss.

Uhm, no. His character is actually all spirtual and shit. But hey, feel free to talk about shit you have no idea about.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

I'm actually finding the Loyalty quests the best thing about ME2. The black guy's one was kinda cool, with the rounding up of the wimmin for secks.

 

[Rhalle]

Yeah. I went back to ME2 and played it for hours yesterday. Still not finished; still working on loyalties.

Jacob's loyalty quest is not bad; Garrus' isn't either; Jack's is good.

Grunt's-Mordin's (if you let Wrex live in ME1 and you take both of them to Tuchanka) is the strongest part of the game I've seen so far; heck, it's probably the strongest portion of any BW game I've seen in a long, long time-- maybe ever.

 

[Barrow_Bug]

Yeah. I went back to ME2 and played it for hours yesterday. Still not finished; still working on loyalties.

Jacob's loyalty quest is not bad; Garrus' isn't either; Jack's is good.

Grunt's-Mordin's (if you let Wrex live in ME1 and you take both of them to Tuchanka) is the strongest part of the game I've seen so far; heck, it's probably the strongest portion of any BW game I've seen in a long, long time-- maybe ever.

Agreed. I did Jach's loyalty quest last night. I really liked the writing for Mordin's. I thought he was kinda boring (character wise) but all that shit with the genophage and his thoughts on it, were actually really nice. I was surpised at the arguments he put forth and the degree of depth they added to his character.

 

[Lesifoere]

Are they? Codex females can confirm?

Well, I don't know, but some guy at Rock Paaper Shotgun sez:

I finished it in 2 missions and came out with a mancrush on Thane. One of the coolest characters I’ve seen in games, bar none.

So, mancrush. Any of you answers to this description?

 

[Barrow_Bug]

I don't know about man-crush. I haven't done his Loyalty quest yet, it would be nice if it didn't involve KILLING EVERYTHING I SEE. So, if it's a talker, that would be cool. I fucking love his visual design and style though, but then again, I'm gay for Abe-Sapien. :fishmanlove:

 

[Twinkle]

Oh god so boring WHERES DA SHOOTAN I HATE NONCOBMAT QUESTS.

Fuck yeah, it's so fun to walk along linear path and press spacebar from time to time.

A non-cliche story about a father wanting to make amends with his son is OH SO BORING.

Let's see: in ME2 alone we have:

a) Mother - daughter
b) Sister - father - sister
c) Son - father

loyalty quest-related relationships. Dying emo-assassin feeling sorry for his kid feels totally non-cliche in such a company, yeah.

 

[Andyman Messiah]

A mancrush on Thane? How emotionally damaged must you be to see anything remotely interesting about that piece of garbage?

Women may very well be more sophisticated than men but I'm not so sure if BioWare should be the ones to bring this to light. If they've proven anything with their characters, it's that their fans, men and women, are mostly shallow, intellectually barren tweens that gladly accept whatever their masters throw at them. Thus when someone at Bio uses the word "sophisticated" I get the creeps, because I realize that this human being probably doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.

BioWare: Being sophisticated means you accept characters with paper thin personalities! For the rest we just slap a pretty face on a pretty body, give it a random color and a two-dimensional personality that have pleased our fans for at least ten years now. And that's sophisticated too! You never lose your sophisticationizm when you play with us, masters of sophisticatimizationing Mother Gaia's youth.

edit:

So we asked all the women in the office what they liked in their aliens

This cracked me up.