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[HK-47]

They're not generic character designs, is my point. That's what they actually look like.

You can't call real people generic, that's just fucked up.

They look like generic space marines. There.

 

[Mindlog]

I wanted my Shepard to be a pragmatist as intended.
The single biggest pragmatic move was blowing up the Batarians, but for my Shepard that too was win/win and not really open to any choice.

Runner-up: Bring Down the Sky (Had the outcome remained unclear.)
Second Runner-up: Operation Overlord (Had the outcome been less predictably tied to Good/Bad.)

 

[SargerusBR]

Deafult Male Shepard is the best.

Spoiler

Only because i suck at the character creator

 

[Sou Da]

I like when dialogue is an OPTION, but not the only factor.

ME2 would have been better if you in those sequences where you had to choose between squadmates if you had the opportunity to earn their loyalty back by maybe doing a mini-sidequest or something.

Thats what I liked about Fallout New Vegas so much is that the dialogue (Speech) was merely an additional tool, not something that could screw you.

Wasn't Speech an I win button in most cases there?

 

[Poodlestrike]

They look like generic space marines. There.

That's pretty fucked up, man.

 

[Ganzlinger]

They're not generic character designs, is my point. That's what they actually look like.

You can't call real people generic, that's just fucked up.

It's generic because they could have used an alternate look (example):

The same Mark Vanderloo

That's not the Vanderloo Shepard though, it's the earlier one before ME came out and it still doesn't change the fact that all custom Shepards are ugly, just because they have a different haircut doesn't make them special.

I don't think my character is uglier than default Shepard. It looks fine so I'm satisfied. If you guys prefer Vanderloo's face that's okay. You guys seems to be too invested in proving a point that is just a matter of personal taste. lol

 

[Shredderi]

They look like generic space marines. There.

 

[Daemul]

They look like generic space marines. There.

Vanderloo is a God not a space marine.

Look at this handsome man

 

[The Artisan]

Some of those are PC players who were able to get in the back end and mod the game. That's where those Elcor/Miranda love scene videos come from.

huh?? I would not know about that either!

 

[wolfhowwl]

I disagree. It gave the system significance. It made you have to work for the best possible,option in all cases.

The conclusion of Tali's loyalty mission gave you two choices.

1. Cover up for a criminal, keep Tali loyal, but she is exiled.
2. Expose a criminal, anger Tali, but she keep her standing with her people.

Instead of having to make a choice, the game gives the player an instant win option that lets them bypass the actual Paragon/Renegade system. Why would you choose the P/R options at all when they're so markedly inferior to the Persuasion? It doesn't seem particularly interesting when the game lets you out of dilemmas it creates simply by completing the content you paid for (really all the "work" that is involved here).

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Wasn't Speech an I win button in most cases there?

Yep. That's what was great about it. If you dont like it, dont use it. In the case of Fallout New Vegas, you could choose speech to avoid a fight OR you could fight if you wished.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

The conclusion of Tali's loyalty mission gave you two choices.

1. Cover up for a criminal, keep Tali loyal, but she is exiled.
2. Expose a criminal, anger Tali, but she keep her standing with her people.

Instead of having to make a choice, the game gives the player an instant win option that lets them bypass the actual Paragon/Renegade system. Why would you choose the P/R options at all when they're so markedly inferior to the Persuasion? It doesn't seem particularly interesting when the game lets you out of dilemmas it creates simply by completing the content you paid for (really all the "work" that is involved here).

You have it wrong. If you have enough P/R points you can keep Tali loyal and not get her exiled. If you don't have enough of either you have to choose 1 or 2.

Which means YOU STILL HAVE THE OPTION TO MAKE A HARD CHOICE. You can still choose the non-P/R dialogue IF YOU CHOOSE.

People want choices in their games and then complain when they get them...good god.

 

[Florida_Man_5000]

you guys really think my shepard is ugly?

It falls in the middle of not sexy enough and not funny ugly, so where's the appeal?

 

[i-Lo]

Can anyone compile the best looking custom male and female Shepard?

Given the character creation tool in ME (esp. ME1) wasn't as advanced as DAI, I am curious to see what results decent efforts resulted.

 

[Sou Da]

Yep. That's what was great about it. If you dont like it, dont use it. In the case of Fallout New Vegas, you could choose speech to avoid a fight OR you could fight if you wished.

Why do you want an "I win" button?

 

[Fimbulvetr]

People want choices in their games and then complain when they get them...good god.

But their point was that your choices are somewhat invalidated by allowing options that let your to have your cake and eat it too; both systemically(you are no longer choosing between two viable, though flawed, options, but rather between a win condition and two minor fail conditions) and dramatically(the conflict of choosing between Tali's loyalty and her place in Quarian society stops mattering).

 

[DOWN]

Can anyone compile the best looking custom male and female Shepard?

Given the character creation tool in ME (esp. ME1) wasn't as advanced as DAI, I am curious to see what results decent efforts resulted.

Consensus is no custom characters look good when Vanderloo's scan is available

 

[prag16]

Consensus is no custom characters look good when Vanderloo's scan is available

He is indeed a good looking dude. People of any persuasion would pretty much have to agree.

 

[Ganzlinger]

You guys are indoctrinated by Vanderloo.

 

[The Artisan]

It falls in the middle of not sexy enough and not funny ugly, so where's the appeal?

"not sexy enough" so are you saying that my shepard is still somewhat sexy?

and I don't see what makes him completely unattractive. I sure as hell wasn't setting out to make a "funny ugly" dude.

Can anyone compile the best looking custom male and female Shepard?

Given the character creation tool in ME (esp. ME1) wasn't as advanced as DAI, I am curious to see what results decent efforts resulted.

found this on the bioware forums.

He is indeed a good looking dude. People of any persuasion would pretty much have to agree.

of course default shep is good looking, no doubt about that, but I didn't think most people who played this game and made their own shepard would be generally disappointed with their face. I wasn't.

But their point was that your choices are somewhat invalidated by allowing options that let your to have your cake and eat it too; both systemically(you are no longer choosing between two viable, though flawed, options, but rather between a win condition and two minor fail conditions) and dramatically(the conflict of choosing between Tali's loyalty and her place in Quarian society stops mattering).

I think I get what you're saying. Are you saying it would've made more sense (if, given you had enough paragon/renegade points to unlock the special dialogue options by that point) to just have "I don't need proof"/"You're wasting time" as the 2 options and essentially have them there in place of the standard ones?

 

[diaspora]

Can anyone compile the best looking custom male and female Shepard?

Given the character creation tool in ME (esp. ME1) wasn't as advanced as DAI, I am curious to see what results decent efforts resulted.

Are any of bioware's character creation tools as sophisticated as DA:I? The only thing it was lacking was body tweaks but that's tricky when each race has its quirks.

 

[Vashetti]

^ goddamn that Shep above is a QT

 

[Agremont]

I can't be the only one who thinks sexappeal isn't the only valid character trait, right?

Both my Sheps were designed without it in mind. The second, my renegade was purposely design to look unpleasant and it's probably the best face I've made by far in any game.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Why do you want an "I win" button?

Because its NOT a damn "I win" button. You have to work and do things to have those scenario's enabled such that you can talk your way outta difficult things. They don't just appear out of thin air. They appear because you did the necessary busy work to build up those points needed.

Again, YOU DONT HAVE TO CHOOSE THE PARAGON/RENEGADE options.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

But their point was that your choices are somewhat invalidated by allowing options that let your to have your cake and eat it too; both systemically(you are no longer choosing between two viable, though flawed, options, but rather between a win condition and two minor fail conditions) and dramatically(the conflict of choosing between Tali's loyalty and her place in Quarian society stops mattering).

You have to work for those options.

 

[Sou Da]

I can't be the only one who thinks sexappeal isn't the only valid character trait, right?

Both my Sheps were designed without it in mind. The second, my renegade was purposely design to look unpleasant and it's probably the best face I've made by far in any game.

Did you do the scars?

 

[Fimbulvetr]

You have to work for those options.

Barely.

The game wants you to exploit the Paragon/Renegade system, and exploiting it's as easy as pre-emptively deciding whether you want Shepard to be a saint or the biggest asshole in the galaxy.

The Suicide Mission was the only time in ME2 you couldn't coast on your morality meter and always get the best of everything.

 

[ROUGE_BLOCK]

Ugh how could anyone use the Mark Vanderloo default male Shep? The galaxy is not going to be saved by a Dutch model, not on my watch.

It does a disservice to the entire character creator as well. The ability to make whatever style of Shepard you want all at your fingerprints! Infinite ways to make Shep look cool or fucking weird, it doesn't matter because Shep can be ANYTHING and ANYONE you desire.

But they desire Vanderloo saving the galaxy with his chiseled chin and 5'o clock shadow of destiny.

*Sighs in disappointment*

EDIT: The Dutch have been acknowledged!

 

[Hyperzephyrian]

Ugh how could anyone use the Mark Vanderloo default male Shep? The galaxy is not going to be saved by a Swedish model, not on my watch.

He's Dutch.

 

[Hahs]

Ugh how could anyone use the Mark Vanderloo default male Shep? It does a disservice to the entire character creator as well. The ability to make whatever style of Shepard you want all at your fingerprints! Infinite ways to make Shep look cool or fucking weird, it doesn't matter because Shep can be ANYTHING and ANYONE you desire.

*Sighs in disappointment*

The disservice was the entire character creator. Making one in the first place which lacked variety. I'm going to have to quote Daemul on this matter:

Custom Shepards all looked like aborted clones of each other, it didn't matter what their ethnicity was or anything, they all looked the fucking same, with that ugly pasty skin, dead eyes and stupid hair.

 

[ROUGE_BLOCK]

He's Dutch.

It must be edited!

 

[prag16]

The disservice was the entire character creator. Making one in the first place which lacked variety. I'm going to have to quote Daemul on this matter:

I concur. One of the worst character creators I've seen. Hell, EA sports character creators from the early 2000s were better, and possibly by a significant margin even. As a result, I had Vanderloo at the controls for every single male playthrough of every game.

 

[Muscle Wizard]

What I don't get is why they didn't just use Mark Meer as the model. He actually looks pretty good in the N7 armor.

 

[DOWN]

Ugh how could anyone use the Mark Vanderloo default male Shep? The galaxy is not going to be saved by a Dutch model, not on my watch.

It does a disservice to the entire character creator as well. The ability to make whatever style of Shepard you want all at your fingerprints! Infinite ways to make Shep look cool or fucking weird, it doesn't matter because Shep can be ANYTHING and ANYONE you desire.

But they desire Vanderloo saving the galaxy with his chiseled chin and 5'o clock shadow of destiny.

*Sighs in disappointment*

EDIT: The Dutch have been acknowledged!

Are you kidding me? You think playing as deflated balloon animal sculptures made by people with poor taste are more flattering than a hunky galactic supermodel embodiment of sex and power? If you thought ME was any bit more appealing by using someone besides Vanderloo, I'm glad you weren't in charge.

 

[Muscle Wizard]

I just what the men to have hair options other than differing levels of shaved.

 

[DOWN]

I just what the men to have hair options other than differing levels of shaved.

what does this mean?

 

[ROUGE_BLOCK]

Are you kidding me? You think playing as deflated balloon animal sculptures made by people with poor taste are more flattering than a hunky galactic supermodel embodiment of sex and power? If you thought ME was any bit more appealing by using someone besides Vanderloo, I'm glad you weren't in charge.

Yep bud, I rather create my own Shep than have that default male model of the stars (quite literally in this case) save the galaxy with his dashing looks and dead eye in to the soul stare that literally makes 1km tall super death machines obsessed with his every action and looks!

Deflated balloon sculptors? You must have not been bestowed the gentle grace of the facial artist to make a luscious, clean, sexy beast who saves the galaxy by embodying Shakespeare's Polonius of the stars and talking everyone to death.

If I was in charge, we will all have supermodel space hunks customizable to the capital T, and have no need of this "Vanderloo"

 

[DOWN]

Yep bud, I rather create my own Shep than have that default male model of the stars (quite literally in this case) save the galaxy with his dashing looks and dead eye in to the soul stare that literally makes 1km tall super death machines obsessed with his every action and looks!

Deflated balloon sculptors? You must have not been bestowed the gentle grace of the facial artist to make a luscious, clean, sexy beast who saves the galaxy by embodying Shakespeare's Polonius of the stars and talking everyone to death.

If I was in charge, we will all have supermodel space hunks customizable to the capital T, and have no need of this "Vanderloo"

My custom characters come sexy and dressed to kill

round 2 bitch let's go

Spoiler

thats a reference, playing nice I promise

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

The problem with DAI was that there was only like 1 good male hairstyle, the very one in that picture. 75% of dudes seem to have it as far as custom chars go.

 

[EatChildren]

BioWare Hair TM.

 

[BouncyFrag]

I wonder if Sheploo has run ins with some of the more....um, eccentric/obsessed Mass Effect fans. If I found myself with him in an elevator, I'd need to find the fortitude not to make a joke in regards to the long ass elevator rides in the first Mass Effect. Whatever happens, it'll be awkward as *uck.

 

[wolfhowwl]

I wonder if Sheploo has run ins with some of the more....um, eccentric/obsessed Mass Effect fans. If I found myself with him in an elevator, I'd need to find the fortitude not to make a joke in regards to the long ass elevator rides in the first Mass Effect. Whatever happens, it'll be awkward as *uck.

I think we should be more concerned for Ash Sroka.

 

[Apoptomon]

I think we should be more concerned for Ash Sroka.

Oh god. I hope for sanity's sake she hasn't been approached about

Spoiler

her sweat

.
Apart from the face business, Vanderloo doesn't really have anything to do with the franchise though, unlike the VAs. Then again, doesn't Samara's face actress cosplay her? Or was that her voice actress?

 

[RagingPhoenix]

I think we should be more concerned for Ash Sroka.

Ha! You bet..

Oh god. I hope for sanity's sake she hasn't been approached about

Spoiler

her sweat

.
Apart from the face business, Vanderloo doesn't really have anything to do with the franchise though, unlike the VAs. Then again, doesn't Samara's face actress cosplay her? Or was that her voice actress?

Yup, Rana McAnear. Her VA is a different woman

 

[Agremont]

Did you do the scars?

I left them on on my renegade.

Going to have to take a screenshot if I can find the save file somewhere.

 

[i-Lo]

"not sexy enough" so are you saying that my shepard is still somewhat sexy?

and I don't see what makes him completely unattractive. I sure as hell wasn't setting out to make a "funny ugly" dude.
found this on the bioware forums.

of course default shep is good looking, no doubt about that, but I didn't think most people who played this game and made their own shepard would be generally disappointed with their face. I wasn't.
I think I get what you're saying. Are you saying it would've made more sense (if, given you had enough paragon/renegade points to unlock the special dialogue options by that point) to just have "I don't need proof"/"You're wasting time" as the 2 options and essentially have them there in place of the standard ones?

Now, that's a good looking Shepard and yet somehow it isn't a massive departure from Vanderloo's model.

Also, I really hope they increase the polycount for character model's bodies because it's lacking & an eyesore.

 

[X-Frame]

The problem with DAI was that there was only like 1 good male hairstyle, the very one in that picture. 75% of dudes seem to have it as far as custom chars go.

I can understand from a development standpoint why hair options could be limited, but why does it seem like BioWare is just really bad at hair?

Is it a hardware issue? Because there seems to be a lot more hairstyles available to NPC's that were modded into Shepards on the PC version and seemed to work fine. So I always wondered why they didn't make all hairstyles available then. Or just spend more time after realizing that more than 50% of hairstyles always suck and are rarely used.

Maybe because of clipping with armor or clothes. Still, I want the game to be smart about hair. If I pick a female character with long hair, it could be down when she is in casual clothes but when she has armor on it is tied up and hidden. Basically, if the game senses (if that is possible) clipping then the character's hair automatically changes.

Or if a male and I want a beard on my character, to be able to shave it off at some point. And let my hair grow, cut it, etc.

Hopes and dreams!

 

[Patryn]

The biggest reason I can't play with default Shepard is honestly because when I tried, it no longer felt like my Shepard. It felt like I was playing Bioware's Shepard. I'm not the person who makes their Shepard look like them or anything, but I just couldn't really connect to default Shepard. Certainly not in the same way as as I did with a custom face Shep.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

Barely.

The game wants you to exploit the Paragon/Renegade system, and exploiting it's as easy as pre-emptively deciding whether you want Shepard to be a saint or the biggest asshole in the galaxy.

The Suicide Mission was the only time in ME2 you couldn't coast on your morality meter and always get the best of everything.

That is complete bullshit.

Yes, its easy IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO DO. If you want to utilize that system you have to talk to your squadmates after each and every mission, do things at the citadel, Omega. All of that takes time and effort. You could just go from mission to mission and not bother with any of that and you will then get that HARD DECISION that all of you are all craving.

I just think a lot of you saying that the P/R dialogue options make the decisions too easy are forgetting that getting those options actually requires a fair bit of work. They're by no means "just given to you" with minimal effort. For me I love the fact that I can get the "best" option by doing what is required to do so.

 

[The Artisan]

The disservice was the entire character creator. Making one in the first place which lacked variety. I'm going to have to quote Daemul on this matter:

I disagree. I don't see how it "lacks variety" especially if there are shepards created that look totally and completely different from one another.

In fact I think the character creator may've even been one of the selling points of the ME trilogy. Having your one same character being played throughout three games.

I remember back when Me3 launched and there were issues with importing the save face, and it was a legimitae problem pissing people off & rightfully so. & bioware had to work to patch it.

I concur. One of the worst character creators I've seen. Hell, EA sports character creators from the early 2000s were better, and possibly by a significant margin even. As a result, I had Vanderloo at the controls for every single male playthrough of every game.

Again, I don't see what makes the character creator so bad. Not saying the default shepard isn't great, but I agree with patryn in the quote below.

What I don't get is why they didn't just use Mark Meer as the model. He actually looks pretty good in the N7 armor.

try picturing meer with short hair. and that samara is pretty on point.

Are you kidding me? You think playing as deflated balloon animal sculptures made by people with poor taste are more flattering than a hunky galactic supermodel embodiment of sex and power? If you thought ME was any bit more appealing by using someone besides Vanderloo, I'm glad you weren't in charge.

you're going a bit overboard there. you can't just pool all the people who made their own shepards and say they have bad taste.. and maybe it's just the offscreen shots that I posted of mine but I think my shepard is good looking, and playing through the series with him did add to my experience.

Oh god. I hope for sanity's sake she hasn't been approached about

Spoiler

her sweat

.

oh man.. i forgot about that.

Apart from the face business, Vanderloo doesn't really have anything to do with the franchise though, unlike the VAs. Then again, doesn't Samara's face actress cosplay her? Or was that her voice actress?

this goes with a few of the characters. TIM & liara also had separate actor faces, although TIM still did end up kinda resembling martin sheen.

Now, that's a good looking Shepard and yet somehow it isn't a massive departure from Vanderloo's model.

Also, I really hope they increase the polycount for character model's bodies because it's lacking & an eyesore.

i don't really think that looks like default shep. but yeah in regards to polygon count I think they will be doing that for the next game.

The biggest reason I can't play with default Shepard is honestly because when I tried, it no longer felt like my Shepard. It felt like I was playing Bioware's Shepard. I'm not the person who makes their Shepard look like them or anything, but I just couldn't really connect to default Shepard. Certainly not in the same way as as I did with a custom face Shep.

agreed. I didn't set out to make my shepard look like myself either, but creating him did help me feel identifying with him. I think his eyebrows may resemble mine but what's closest is getting his skin tone to be the same as or similar to mine.