D.A. fan is back for an ME1 Text Only 'Let's Play' (page 51)

The first set of Dossier's you're given (The Convict, The Warlord, The Professor, and Archangel) are mandatory recruits;' and, of course, Miranda and Jacob have already been recruited for you.  The two DLC recruits (The Bounty Hunter and The Master Thief) can be avoid by just not triggering the conversations with them that recruit them.  Once you trigger the conversation, there is no way to turn them down.  Similarly, you can avoid recruiting 3 others that come later (The Assassin, The Justicar, and Tali) by simply not doing their recruitment missions... but once you do the mission, you will ultimately recruit them.  The mission that results in your possible 12th squad mate is a mandatory mission, but you will have an option that can avoid accepting that individual for your team.

Also, you can possibly do loyalty missions for all of them that will change their character somewhat.  You don't have to do any of those.  Some of those can be failed and some can result in situations that will lose loyalty after the fact.  What you do can have a significant impact on the final mission depending on the choices you make during that mission.

As for the dialogue wheel - Mass Effect is essentially all about being either a Paragon or a Renegade (and keep in mind the actual dictionary definitions of those two terms - hint, it's not nice and nasty, its about being an exemplar or someone who is willing to discard principles and even change allegiance, if necessary, to get the job done).  The dialogue wheel reflects that somewhat "binary" characterization.  I don't play DA, so I can't comment on how much that differs from that game; but I suspect it's a lot.

So, I was looking at Miranda and the woman NPCs and I think I didn't make my Shepherd have enough fat on her face so now she looks a bit like an underfed model. The forehead seems a bit big with this hairstyle but I wanted the bun to be high and visible. The lack of how strong I could make the make up was also a sad loss- I would generally not have such strong makeup at all. I'm playing my third attempt. I was going for a Captain Janeway-esque with green eyes.



I recruit everyone and say yes to everything on a first play through. If initial impressions are correct, then I would skip Mr. Thug on a 2nd PT.

I just don't understand why Aria talked to Shepherd at all. She controls everything, but ignores the criminals around her killing each other = contradictory. She also looks pretty easy to kill, security wise.

I've been picking a LOT of middle right options. And been treating the left side of the wheel as information gathering, although it seems to spur conversation forward sometimes too.

I'm getting a sense that Shepherd is NOT very... role playing-ing. This reminds me of playing Geralt. This person I'm playing is a fully formed person with memories I don't remember, Training in Army Stuff I have no personal experience in, and opinions I can only half of the time share. I ended up enjoying TW3 not for playing Geralt, but for loving the characters and story around him, because I couldn't shape him as a person pretty much at all.

But it's early yet. PErhaps I will feel more in line with Shepherd later.

Yea. I actually cheat in ME2 and give myself a lot of paragon/renegade points with the savegame editor because I want to role play Shep, without having to meta-play that stupid system. It's good that they fixed that aspect in ME3 though.

As for Shep being a fully formed character: Well, yes, Shepard is definitely more defined than a DA character but I don't think s/he's quite as defined as Geralt. One reason why you might get this impression phorey is because you did not play ME1, which already gives you the chance to form Shepard quite a bit as a character as well.
But it's true, you do have less freedom than in Dragon Age (at least less than in Origins or Inquisition, Hawke IMO was very much like Shepard in terms of how defined the character was).

Choosing all neutral dialogue? excellent. I did a playthrough like that. I believe everyone survived. Cap and gown made a thread about that on the old forum. Even posted videos of what happens. Too bad the forum is no more.

As I said earlier... paragon does not necessarily equal "nice" nor does renegade necessarily equal "rude" or "nasty."

In the case of Harrot, you're standing up for the Quarian, whom Harrot has been bullying and, without revealing the renegade choice, you'll just have to trust me that standing up to a bully is totally the "paragon" thing to do... even if it involves a little bluff threat.

Kelly is totally your newspaper.

I would love it if they had of actually allowed us to play cards.

A good trick here is to just walk up and stand behind Joker for awhile before triggering the conversations with him.  He has lots of funny stuff to stay even when you're just eavesdropping on him.

The squad does only have a certain number of conversations and those will trigger at different intervals.  Unfortunately, you will get all too used to hearing whatever their individual line that means "The writers didin't give me anything to say here."

I once did an all neutral Shep who had everyone survive in ME2 as well. ME3 was a total disaster with this guy though.

I gotta ask... was this an import from ME1 into ME2?  With ME1 neutral choices, what were the P/R import bonuses like? 
)
I'm also still trying to figure out how you get the 7 loyal squad mates (with the 3 of 3 big guns needed - Grunt, Zaeed, and Garrus and 3 of the 4 weakest ones) without needing to use a single paragon or renegade dialogue option (i.e. one that isn't in the middle right-hand position.  Since some of those in that position on the wheel do generate paragon points... how do avoid this... or do you?

... or am I really misunderstanding things here?

Don't want to derail the thread, so spoiler. Happy to discuss further, but maybe via PM/in another thread.

I explored all the solar systems 100% and landed at least a probe on all of them before realizing all my missions required I use the Mass Effect Relay. good news, I have like 500,000 of everything even if I don't know what to do with it now that I have it.

Off to Zorya.

Palm trees. We're in Florida.

Is that a monkey with hands? @_@

Whoa. You can kill them.

It kinda feels more like stealing when I'm hacking electronics. "Your pocket cash isn't enough, gonna have to go empty your bank account."

So I chose to save the nameless workers rather than chase after Vido. So, Zaeed probably going to backstab me at some point. He's an intense guy, Ahab? Was the one chasing the White whale right?

I feel no urge to probe all the minerals off, but I do like seeing the 100% discovered planets.

Off to do a Firewalker mission.