Talk:Mass Effect (video game)

Dialogue Section

Can someone please correct it? The part about interrupting NPC's lines - it's not in the game. Any dialogue line can be safely skipped to save time and it has absolutely no effect on character's reaction. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.224.209.216 (talk) 23:38, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Plot

OH MY GOD CAN SOMEONE PLEASE PUT A SPOILER ALERT ON THE PLOT DESCRIPTION!!! WHY PLAY THIS GAME WHEN IT'S BIGGEST SURPRISE IS REVEALED IN THE FIRST SENTENCE OF THE PLOT DESCRIPTION!!!!!!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.228.38.130 (talk) 05:53, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Should the current plot be pushed into background and the actual game plot be used? --Carpse (talk) 12:37, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Should be pushed into the background. That, and everything else needs to be filled up more. Like, alot more. I mean, the game's been talked about as much if not more than halo 3, and near everything that was on it now was put on BEFORE the game even came out, including plot 24.222.183.237 (talk) 23:50, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedias do not have spoiler warnings: If you don't want to know the game's plot you really shouldn't look at the article. I mean; you would expect the article on a popular movie or book to include a plot synopsis. If I was reading The Beach by Alex Garland I would avoid looking at it's wikipedia entry because it tells you what happens at the end. It's common sense. If Wikipedia wishes to be taken seriously as a research and reference tool it must exist above this debate about "spoilers." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.90.232.145 (talk) 22:43, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Trimmed it some by about 1/3 down to 1000 words from 1500. looks better hope I didn't miss anything that was already there and really pertenent to storyline, Im only halfway through my first play so much I can't assess as being pertenent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Om dorastrix (talk • contribs) 06:40, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

BTW trying to write from a sexually neutral standpoint is hard. The player can choose a male or female Shepard, but I can go on a write he/she it looks like hell...Om dorastrix (talk) 06:43, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Soldier Classes

With the latest EGM magazine out, I think there are three classes now: Soldier (already mentioned), Biotic (the one who controls dark matter), and Tech (instead of engineer).

Jealousy

I don't know if they will bring this up in the game, but I think that Anderson might be rather jealous that Shepard is given the duty of Spectre. In the novel it was originally considered to Anderson, but Saren badmouthed him. Also I wonder if Anderson will make it a personal vendetta against Saren to payback for the damage he did to his career.64.24.85.114 01:51, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

This was never even implied in the game. Anderson treats Shepard as an equal and respects him thoroughly. He even treats him with a sort of paternal affection. It IS a touchy subject when you bring up his failed specter status, but he doesn't seem to hold any grudge against Shepard. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 131.109.99.2 (talk) 13:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Dialogue Section

Howdy. In regards to the Dialogue section where it states:

"The player can interrupt the speech of another character, and the character will react appropriately to the interruption."

It was to my understanding that this feature has been removed. I believe they may have mentioned it in the newest 1Up Show episode. Anyone have an "official" answer on that? - Louis 167.1.143.100 (talk) 19:49, 19 November 2007 (UTC)

From what I am seeing playing the game at the moment, it no longer interrupts, but rather skips the speech been given at the time of pressing "X". This seems to have no effect on Paragon or Renegade, or the NPC's, but instead just a methed of speeding things, up. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.154.24.147 (talk) 19:59, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Cool, thanks for the clarification there. Can't wait to get out of work to play this! Killing me inside. -Louis 167.1.143.100 (talk) 01:13, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

References

And... What's up with the references? Link 31 and onwards are reduced to lines of HTML source. - Louis 167.1.143.100 (talk) 01:13, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Fixed.. someone left a ref tag open. --guyzero | talk 01:22, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

PC World

I know that many here will quickly call me a fanboy but don't and hear me out. I mostly edit game pages to make the reception section more neutral so I'm by no means trying to prevent cons and lesser reviews from being added but the problem with PC world is 5 fold.

• 1 - Its a PC mag that has reviewed a console game, and it doesn't review PC games alot either.
• 2 - Again, no fanboyism but its less than normal review status and linked with the previous point might lead some to think its biased?
• 3 - It doesn't contribute to Metacritic or Game Rankings.
• 4 - It hasn't ever been mention in any other game articles.
• 5 - We don't know the reasons why it has a 60%.

Despite being said I know people will call me biased but I'm far from it if you check my other major contribution in reception sections. Stabby Joe (talk) 15:21, 20 November 2007 (UTC)

Displacement of medical term

The medical term mass effect (the physiological effect of a growing mass such a tumor pushing on nearby tissue) has been displaced by this article. The redirect page does not have a link to that former article. It should be restored. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.35.35.34 (talk) 00:21, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

FWIW, there is a link to the disambiguation page (which includes a link to the medical term you mention) at the top of this article. cheers, --guyzero | talk 01:40, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Dialogue Section

The dialogue section is in dire need of a cleanup, specifically the third paragraph. All of this particular part needs to be removed:

"The player can interrupt the speech of another character, and the character will react appropriately to the interruption (as opposed to a system that simply allows you to skip through dialogue to save time). If the player wants to befriend someone, they must wait until the NPC finishes speaking, deterring the player from constantly interrupting NPCs. The only drawback to the dialogue is that however the character may appear"

For one, as discussed earlier, the characters DO NOT react to you interrupting them. You simply skip the dialogue as in most other RPGs. Secondly, this does not change their disposition towards you, or your renegade / paragon stats. Lastly, the last sentence runs straight into another one. It wasn't that I copied and pasted it wrong as it may seem, but there is actually no end to the sentence.

Don't have an account, so I can't edit it (sorry... I'm a Wiki-at-work kinda guy ☺). -Louis 167.1.143.100 (talk) 16:26, 21 November 2007 (UTC)

Articel errors

"An example of a major moral choice the player must make is to kill or set free a Queen Rachni (found on an icy research world). There are arguments for and against letting the Rachni queen live; in the game's back-story, the Alliance fought a huge war against the Rachni 2,000 years before the start of the game. The Rachni were only defeated by the Alliance with the aid of the Korgan. The Rachni war ended with the extermination of all the Rachni (genocide) as no peace was possible between the Alliance and the Rachni of that time"

It was the Citadel races, not the Alliance, that defeated the Rachni, 2000 years ago. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 147.29.31.5 (talk) 10:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

This article is the worst yet

This arcitle is a mess the plot is less that basic and inacruite the plot does not follow a prophey insted a hunt for a rouge spector. it falies to metion any points in the story and ingnors the ending. but thats just to start the whole this is rilled with inacroute facts and missing items of large importantce, Has this arcitle even been updated post realse? I can see all the proplems with facts in this article but as you can tell my skill with gramor means i am unable to correct the proplems with this .....well its not a arcitle about mass effect because there is too much wrong with it plese fix this junk article —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ralon silver (talk • contribs) 08:51, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

If you can't even articulate your own thoughts with a modicum of clarity (or at the very least, use proper spelling/spellcheck), I'm not sure that you've earned the right to complain about anyone else's quality of writing. (144.92.85.41 (talk) 21:23, 7 December 2007 (UTC))

I had looked at the article when that was posted, it was a mess. Perhaps because of the article being written before the games release. Now that should never be done, these articles should be fact not speculation.(220.236.161.70 (talk) 07:49, 16 December 2007 (UTC))

Shepard or Shepherd

In the begining of the text it says Shepard, later (Character background part) it says Shepherd Someone sould change that...

//S990WE —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.217.42.64 (talk) 13:33, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! Fixed. Why is this article still semiprotected? --guyzero | talk 18:05, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Removal of the Wikia link

In the interests of our own guidelines I have removed the Wikia Mass Effect link. The Complete Mass Effect Wiki and Mass Effect Planet are good enough fan sites and wikis, as well as all the official links. Please see Wikipedia:External_links#Advertising_and_conflicts_of_interest for further reasons of the Wikia removal. JayKeaton (talk) 12:27, 5 December 2007 (UTC)

Conflict of interest has nothing to do with this, and Wikia's wiki is far larger than The Complete Mass Effect Wiki (379 to 73 articles). Kirkburn (talk) 23:17, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

It seems that neither The Complete Mass Effect Wiki nor the Mass Effect Planet are non-profit. In which case, I would ask a neutral party (who has no intrinsic stand for or against the fansite's hosting service, Wikia) to objectively evaluate the content and quality of the three fansites, to decide whether the Wikia fansite can be added back. -Pan Sola (talk) 23:24, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

If BioWare feels that the Mass Effect Wiki at Wikia is worthy of being listed on the official Mass Effect site, then there is no reason that it should not be listed at Wikipedia. JoeLay (talk) 03:51, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, including the wikia link is not a WP:COI conflict and that site's quality of content seems to be at least on par with the other fansites listed. A proposal is to just post the single link to Official Mass Effect fan site list and delete all fansite listings. cheers, --guyzero | talk 11:17, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Downloadable content

Should there be mention of it in the article? Chensiyuan (talk) 02:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

There most certainly should be a mention of it in this article. There are meant to be two more Mass Effect games that will complete the story arch, and downloadable content in between each game that will fill in the gaps of the story between each game. The DLC should have been mentioned in the lead, as no other game has ever spread a story arch over three titles in this way and had DLC to continue the main game story. The reason is, and spoiler alert here, but your choices in Mass Effect carry on to the other games and DLC, so all your hard work and unique gameplay will continue on. JayKeaton (talk) 02:59, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Can't wait for the DLC, but it seems the official site doesn't have specific treatment of the topic -- most I've heard was it being mentioned in interviews before the release of the game. Guess it could still take some time. Chensiyuan (talk) 03:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

Interviews with the developers should be a good enough source, in fact it is probably an even better source than the official site as official game sites are often just purely promotional and they are never up to date. They are usually just put up once as general information and then forgotten about by the publisher JayKeaton (talk) 04:02, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

True, but I think in terms of DLC, as and when it is announced, should come from the developers first -- in the interim of course, I don't expect the official site to be constantly updated. Chensiyuan (talk) 04:55, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

This recent interview [1] mentions upcoming DLC (hopefully by year end!) but is too vague in terms of schedule or content to make for any reasonable inclusion into the article. If there is DLC coming soon, I'm sure we'll see better information that we can include soon as well. Is there an RS and good information with regards to the fact that decisions made in part 1 will carry through to parts 2 and 3? That'd be a great addition to the article, if so. cheers, --guyzero | talk 19:15, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

plot 2

should it be noted that the plot can differ depnding on what planet you vist first or 2nd or so on, and that you can visit the planets in a diffrent order than said in the article. This should be included —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.236.185.25 (talk) 01:22, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Isnt the plot the same, no matter which planet order you go in? Kap2319 (talk) 04:31, 10 December 2007 (UTC)

For the most part yes, but small differences are there. aslo the order that the planets are visited can be diffrent isn't included. I went to noveria first so the changeable order should be there.(220.236.161.70 (talk) 07:57, 16 December 2007 (UTC))

I'm confused. Why is there a tag on the plot section complaining about it's length? Given how long plot descriptions run in other game pages (Metal Gear for example), I don't see how this is an actual problem versus a stylistic issue. Also, it says in the tag something about "reiterating the plot"? IT'S THE PLOT SECTION. Where else is the plot going to be written?

On a seperate but related note, it doesn't seem like I can read any article on Wikipedia anymore without tags and complaints from people who are very obviously less about being helpful and more about being retentive rules and regulations wannabe lawyers. Instead of slapping a tag on entries and attacking what dozens of other people have worked on (who actually care about the article and not whether it fits your "legal interpretation" of how an article should look like), maybe you should offer suggestions or God forbid, actually write your own "better" version of whatever put a weed up your ace. Of course, then you would have to face other people's opinions of YOUR work and we can't have that. 144.92.84.206 (talk) 14:00, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

If you'd click on the wikilinks in the tag, it would show you why this is a problem according to the MOS.

People do not spend every waking second working on Wikipedia. Sometimes, they find a problem with an article's adherence of Wikipedia policy, and they do not have the time to fix that article, or the rest of the community is unaware of the problem with the article. Tags are used to flag these problems so that all editors can be aware of the problem and fix it. Tags are not meant for laziness, they are meant to inform the community as a whole of a problem. Peptuck (talk) 14:25, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Well, it is a fairly long plot section for a video game, but I think it has to be. I've seen alot of plot sections that are pages long because people write every little mundane detail (i.e. Shepard, Kaidan and Jenkins land on Eden Prime, they encounter floating gas-filled aliens but are told that they are not a threat. They round a corner and Jenkins runs ahead and gets killed. They are then attacked by flying robotic drones...) When I first looked at this section I thought that was what was going on here, but when I tried to go through and cut stuff out I didn't find much that wasn't essential to the story. That's the problem with a cinematic game that lasts much longer than a movie, it's gonna have a lot of plot. Mad031683 (talk) 16:45, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree that its hard to really cut back on the plot. Mass Effect is very convoluted, and it is hard to write a decent plot summary without it being long, as there are a lot of small details that are very important to the overall plotline. Any amount of trimming can potentially cut out important details; I just ran through the plot synopsis again, and someone had trimmed out the mention of the Reapers and the Conduit in Tali's recording, which is one of the small but critical parts of the game's plot that reveals the Reapers. Without it, the rest of the article made no sense at all. Peptuck (talk) 17:07, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Oops, that was me, I meant to try and rephrase that from what was originally there but forgot to put it back in. Mad031683 (talk) 21:19, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

this games plot is very important to the game nobody really wants to shorten it and it does fine as it is. But my orignal point was never fixed the misstion crital planets can be viseted i a diffrent order than in this article so this article is wrong untill it is fixed.(58.109.31.47 (talk) 01:17, 19 December 2007 (UTC))

It's so nice to have such bright young minds talking down to other people on the presumption that they need an explanation of this brand new concept of "policy" or how this futuristic "policy" concept works. Must be so hard for the intellectually superior people that spend all their preciously short free time policing almighty policy and educating the lowly masses on what simple concepts are and emphasizing how the world will end if not every article is exactly in line with the boilerplate laws of the mighty Wiki Universe. I fear a tear in the very fabric of space and time if the plot section does not please these noble, selfless martyrs holding Wikipedia back from the brink of policy violation madness. Why they have not been simply anointed as the gods of the Wiki they clearly are, I shall never know.

Put another way, maybe not everything in the world needs to be perfect and the plot section was fine the way it was. The section was not great, not amazing, but fine and screw policy because nothing great or amazing was ever written according to someone else's policy. If policy means that much to you but you can't find the time to fix the article because it's not that important to you, it's hard to take your critique seriously. In point of fact, it is laziness if all you do is complain about a problem but make no effort to fix the so called problem (and really it's cowardice choosing not to risk judgment of others for that matter). It's elitist, self indulgent grandstanding to just pass judgment and then expect others to be grateful for the input while riding off to seek out some other problem you can complain but do nothing about.

At the rate this kind of nonsense is going, there is going to be a Wikipedia policy that forbids article deviation of any kind, that all articles must be approved by hand picked clique committee, and once they are approved, all editing will be locked out (except from the select few). I get that Wikipedia is a camel, but I almost hope that it does get to the point where only a staff of authenticated historian/lawyers decides the fate of every article, no matter how trivial (like video game articles). Then everything will be perfect. 75.42.235.53 (talk) 03:58, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi there. I know what you're saying. There're plenty of counterproductive people around WP. But, one purpose that tag serves is to remind us that there is perhaps larger room for improvement for the plot section than imagined. I would suggest not taking it too hard -- I've been massively hindered by misguided folks on WP on plenty of occasions but that won't stop me from editing. Sometimes, they would also get to see your point of view when they see your contributions record. It is my hope that you would continue improving the plot section and do justice to the game. There *will* always be people in your way, sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong, and in this instance my view is the plot can be a little more concise, let's work on that. Chensiyuan (talk) 04:06, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

58.109.31.47, I tweaked the plot a bit so that now there's nothing that says. This happens then this happens, it just says these things happen, without expressly stating an order.

75.42.235.53, You may not consider the tags useful, but alot of editors do. They allow you to mark a problem you may not be qualified to fix. I don't know who put the tag on, but maybe they haven't played the game. I'd rather have that tag than a bunch of cuts by someone unfamiliar with the game. I've been watching this article for awhile, and would like to see it get to featured article status, so I welcome any constructive criticism. Someone thought the plot section was too long, we discussed it and came to a consensus so the tag was removed. Where's the harm? Mad031683 (talk) 18:30, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

The plot size is not an issue if you play the game you would think stuff has been left ou and if you havent you would think its too long. if everone is just a little unhappy the its as good as it gets(211.31.85.242 (talk) 02:57, 20 December 2007 (UTC))