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Guardian54 — Bioware's EDI Concept Was Lazy
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Published: 2012-03-10 04:24:22 +0000 UTC; Views: 6789; Favourites: 20; Downloads: 345
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Well, Bioware was incredibly lazy with Tali's photo, which had totally incorrect finger anatomy (in-game render says her fingers are spaced farther apart, more like the index and pinkie, as illustrated in my fanfictions) but was otherwise okay. However, they were also incredibly lazy in the early stages of EDI's body's concept art. They first thought of something like the Adjutant from Starcraft.I suspect that after reading my fanfics where EDI WAS once Adjutant 23-46 (New Gettysburg Defence Initiative one, the one you use in the media campaign in SC 2) they changed their mind... I do not presume to say that one mere writer could change their mind, but it is possible... of course, I think they were more intent on making a sex buddy for Joker...
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Comments: 16
hahaha. what a hilarious little image. thank goodness they made EDI a disembodied voice, as this would be far too stereotypical nowadays.
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...You don't actually think Bioware, a company worth MILLIONS, changed their design for a character based on some random kid's fanfic? You can't. That's just crazy talk.
You ever think that maybe, just maybe, she's actually based after what they wrote she's based after? Metropolis, and her voice actress, Tricia Helfer? Since, you know, she looks just like Tricia.
Just a thought.
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Did I not put a disclaimer saying "this is highly improbable"?
Well they sure changed Tali's anatomy (hand, her fingers are spaced far enough apart to be index and pinky for a human) for a random stock photo on the internet.
I am not stupid enough to presume they changed anything due to reading my fanfiction, however, if they were crazy enough to let TALI'S HANDS be influenced by a random stock photo (lazy bums)... anything is possible. Still, you gotta admit their initial EDI-body concpet looked pretty damned similar to the adjutant from SC 2...
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Try, "impossible," and you'd have the better disclaimer.
And the adjutant is a potential rip off from Ghost in the Shell. Your point? It's a robot. To imagine it having a massive amount of wires hooked up isn't a far out concept, and has been used countless times. And will be used countless more times.
As for the Tali pic, yeah, it was a stock image. Not too surprising, since Bioware has been quite open about using real people to base their characters off of. Now, should they have just manipulated the photo, instead of using the model as a facial ref? Meh, to be perfectly honest, it's actually splitting hairs. Stock photos are there to be manipulated. And many, many companies use them as such, and aren't labeled "lazy" for it. It's only shown for a mere few seconds, and to top it off, not everyone will see it in game, depending on what their Shepard does. Personally, the only thing that bugged me about it was, as you mentioned, the anatomy fail when it came to Tali's hand. It wouldn't have been that difficult to properly render it to how the quarian hands appear.
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Agreed, they could have cropped the middle and ring fingers out and been true to quarian anatomy, but NOOO...
The reason why a lot of us are pissed is because we've been arguing over what the Quarians look like for years and they give our own reference as a modified stock photo of a human. PLEASE. At least I went to greater effort in my fanfiction by giving them pointy ears, skin ranging from pink to purple and hair colours that cover as much of the spectrum as 3800s-human hair does. Yes, I totally ripped off on the night elf stereotype, but I think it probably took more effort than what Bioware did... esepcially when I'm going to have to hook Azeroth fully into my crossover that already has Supreme Commander (with the result that the human/Seraphim Coalition is so absurdly OP they only put up with the other powers because they want competition to keep their alliance together), Mass Effect, Halo (arguably, the Covenant can actually balance the Coalition in terms of sheer firepower, but building rate of ships is still far, FAR behind), Starcraft and in minor roles Harry Turtledove's Worldwar series and Battlestar Galactica (with the Cylons on the run instead) just to show what the Coalition does with what are to it nearly irrelevant groups.
I think sewing five major histories (counting WOW though I only did the history and not much more for that fic. Pokemon, Babylon 5 and maybe Star Wars will be added to make it 8) together in a comprehensible and believable fashion took far more effort than Bioware went to in its Ardat-Yakshi explanation (if they can transmit genetic information, where's the receptor? Other species lack the receptor... so my explanation of it being psionic in nature sounds more plausible with the current evidence) and Tali photo... or its history for that matter.
I realize you are probably laughing and thinking I'm insane to try to make Pokemon fit in a universe full of sci-fis (not sure about SW yet, but that's later anyways and I'll cross that bridge when I get there), but IT CAN BE DONE. Eventually I'll start working on my WOW and Pokemon fics again on FFN (shift over form C&C fics) and if you ever feel like dropping by Guardian54's profile on FFN, you'll see how I'll make it work.
Thank you for commenting!
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Thats what I said, finger placement all wrong. Whose face did they use for Tali though, her VA?
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No, just some random stock photo they found.
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As I haven,t gotten a chance to play is this image motion or still?
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The EDI pictures are from the concept art and their book on the models.
The Adjutant image was from Starcraft Wiki
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I think EDI's body is more a copy of/inspired by the robot in Metropolis rather than some fanfic
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I know, it IS inspired by Metropolis, but the fact of the matter is that the initial concept WAS a Starcraft adjutant. It is marginally possible that reading fanfiction in their down-time had an effect on one of the producers of the game.
I'm not egotistical enough to presume I affected them that much, just maybe a little nudge away from the Adjutant type body...
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maybe, its probably more that they would want her as a squadmate and the whole wires attached thing would limit it a bit, bioware have tended to go for the easier to create option before
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Agreed, but still think they ripped off Blizzard in the initial concept.
Why couldn't they have ripped off Battlestar Galactica (Six, specifically) instead?
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she doesn't exactly look robotic enough, wouldn't fit the setting. also I think Mass Effect has enough Battlestar references, especially with the quarian/geth war and EDI and Bailey's voice actors
speaking of BSG in Mass effect I also ended up modelling my renegade shepard's personality on Admiral Helena Cain haha
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LOL, I was thinking that if they didn't ant to do that they could have made another Matrix reference with many quarians in tanks or something on Rannoch... but no they were incredibly lazy.
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