according to a modder much more knowledgeable on this than i am:
2/3 uses the Wwise audio engine which is standard for games but 1 uses an ancient audio engine ISACT which has basically zero documentation online or other resources,
Edit 3/9/2023: I am currently working on adding audio now that its possible.
This is only for the English voiced Localization and only has english subtitles. I hope to have translated subtitles with the next update, however I am not sure when that will be since I am still tweaking some of the dialogue.
I assume this mod also omits Shepard's statement to the Council that "50,000 years ago the Reapers wiped out all advanced life in the galaxy and if Saren finds the Conduit it WILL happen again!" ?
Hi, very cool mod and it's making for a completely unique playthrough for me, much more in line with how my Shepard would respond to the "Reapers" with so little proof at first. I do have a question about a possible bug or feature.
I did make myself a skeptical Shepard and then I did my mission order as Noveria --> Therum --> (Haven't done Feros yet). After saving Liara, the debrief on the Normandy played out with no mind meld discussion at all. I didn't refuse or anything because the whole segment didn't even play out. Liara talked about her Prothean research and a possible Cycle, she then "said" a silent line about how she doesn't think she will be much help against Saren and the camera got super wonky (I know this part is a known bug) and then she said how tired she was and all I could do was dismiss the crew and talk to the council.
I didn't see this as a documented change, so I'm wondering if this is the intended process or if something is bugged for me. It didn't seem *overly* odd storywise, maybe just a tad bit rushed in that conversation though. Thanks for your time
(EDIT: On reflection and after talking to Liara again on the Normandy, I did realize that the previous scene completely skipped over the part where I would inform Liara that we already killed Benezia so it does appear that I encountered a bug here. Benezia was never discussed during the debriefing, but in the crew conversation afterward Liara is already aware of Benezia's death)
I'm glad you like the mod and this seems to be normal behavior.
A good portion of the dialogue in that scene is dependent on Shepard believing in the Reapers being connected to their visions, including the original voiced version of the line where Liara says she is unable to help you find Saren or the conduit, that's why it gets skipped over for a Skeptical Shepard and feels rushed. I'll update the description/articles page to mention this.
The mind meld isn't brought up in this conversation unless Feros is completed [this is even without mods].
Even without mods, there isn't any mention of Benezia's death in that conversation so this is just another plot hole that Bioware left.
Thanks for the response. That makes a lot of sense! It seems as though it's just an odd pacing flaw in the originally written storyline then. I didn't realize just how much of that conversation was focused on Shepard believing in the Reapers.
I mentioned before how much this mod changes a playthrough, but it's actually astonishing how different this run feels for me! My Shepard is on a *completely* different mission here. I am so solely focused on hunting Saren as some deranged terrorist instead of me chasing down an ancienct myth without a shred of real evidence. I have a more reasonable relationship with the council, I talk to my crew with a different sense of urgency, and the story in general feels "smaller" in scale which I think really works for the setting and build up across the trilogy. I can't wait to discover the truth soon in my playthrough!
Thanks so much for this mod and I highly recommend it for anyone who doesn't feel that their Shepard would so flippantly go along with believing in an absurd theory from a few nightmares after a traumatic mission and injury. Especially with how the original story doesn't actually give us intelligble scenes of *why* Shepard believes in the Reapers, it's just random flashes of imagery that us, as the player, have no way of understanding as the Reapers but Shepard interprets it and believes it for some reason. I always felt a disconnect there and this mod 100% solves it for me.
Is it possible, while waiting for a more complete version, to have the mod for the other languages ??of the game (French for me) by leaving the sentences / additions in English by copying them to the translated versions (prefer to have a few English words in my game, only to deprive me of many mods not available in our languages ??and which could bug the game).
First: Would this work with other language versions? I don't care if the text isn't translated. I just want to know if it could technically work.
Second: Woah. Absolutely essential. I agree with the previous posters that a more subdued Shepherd was desperately missing. Even the "neutral" response doesn't cut it. Often times all the responses are basically the same. Then there is their blue poster girl they can't stop shoving down everyone's throat. I don't even hate Liara. I was pleasantly surprised by her growth during the trilogy. She's a good one, but I'm a straight women who doesn't care for romance with women with my characters. Especially not if so many games write their female main char as totally bi, coz' wahmen. Coz that's HOt!!!!! It's not even that hard to write dialogue that allows the player to guide their char's reactions and what/whom they are attracted to. In fact it's smart and it's more inclusive of all kinds of people. It's also more organic. because it also s#*! writing to have a char who is attracted to every "romanceable person". What if I don't like that one mofo, despite me putting the "hetero" flag on my female char and that mofo happens to be a male love interest.
Anyway it just sucks when a game that has multiple romance options and has an emphasis on choice or at least letting the player customize the journey as a major drawing point of their game series, pushing a "canon" love option. No, I'm not talking about her cabin visits in ME2 or 3. Friend Liara is wonderful... if they actually filter out the romantic lines instead of leaving the ambiguous one coming from our Shepard out. But they don't. Because "lazy". Tali and our toothbrush fairy had similar issues in ME3. Bioware was particularly aggressive with the female on male shep romance to the point were Fem!Shep was just an afterthought. What am I talking about she totally was. Points at Thane and Jacob in ME3 or the fact that as fem shep it's you who has to initiate any interest in the MALE ME2 love interests. This can be a good thing but it is such a stark contrast to her male counterpart in ME2.
I'm psyched for this. The skepticism really was a missing component of ME1. I wonder if, had this been included from the start, the Council wouldn't have been more willing to believe.
The lack of audio kills it for me but if you can figure out how to add lines, you could use that AI-learning program on the nexus to replicate shepard's voice!
Now here's something you don't see everyday. A mod to actually give one's Shepard a different dimension as a character. Very interesting. I'll be watching this closely.
thank you SO much for making this mod. i hate that bioware gives a dialogue option to refuse the mind melding and then forces shep to do it anyway. looking forward to using it!
Aside from whatever obsession they had with Liara, the way they set it up, Shepard wouldn't know to go to Ilos otherwise. Feros gave Shepard the ability to 'understand' the Prothean message, Noveria gave Shepard the coordinates to the relay needed, and Virmire just gave the complete vision from Eden Prime. If it weren't so urgent, I feel like a Renegade Shepard (or at least one that wasn't so willing to let their personal boundaries be crossed) wouldn't have allowed Liara do it at all
I suppose a way to get around needing Liara to mind-meld with Shepard would've been to have a way to get Benezia or Shiala to mention something about Ilos during your interactions with them post-boss fight. Either that, or having Shepard describe notable landmarks from the completed vision from the get-go as a Renegade option
i would be more okay with it if they had not given the player a dialogue choice to refuse. if they had just made shep agree to do it without player input it would still be annoying but less shitty. it might take away some characterization the player can give to shep but i can see renegade or paragon shep doing it out of absolute necessity. mind melding is almost always framed sexually by the game and to give the player an option to have the PC consent or refuse and then force them into it anyway is just not right. both of those options would have been much better, there are surely many ways to get the player to that destination without the liara pushing.
My thinking exactly. It's why i don't have as much of an issue with the Shiala mind meld. at least with that its not overly sexualized and the player doesn't have the facade to refuse it if they don't want to [which is made even worse if you consider how much bioware tries to push her as the "canon" romance].
As for how they figure out Ilos is where they need to go: there are other ways to find out about Ilos. and for the paragon option Liara gives Shepard her notes and Shepard recognizes the landmarks. [how else the player was going to discover it was Ilos was the first part of this mod I brainstormed and that took no time at all]
Even for a paragon Shepard [and first-time players], Personal boundaries aside, they have no real reason to trust anything Liara says. Sure she says she hasn't talked to Benezia but it wouldn't be the first time someone in the game lies. Yeah, we know on our second playthrough that she's telling the truth but Shepard doesn't have the benefit of that knowledge. Liara herself even lampshades in several instances that Shepard has very good reason to be suspicious of her, but the game doesn't let Shepard do that.
Bioware just wanted to pretend that Liara was the only repository of Prothean knowledge because otherwise there would be no logical reason to go to therum other than to make sure Saren can't use her to find the conduit.
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![Liara can help find the conduit without doing the mind meld [Paragon option]](https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/3712/images/thumbnails/1465/1465-1667328349-2141705510.jpeg "Liara can help find the conduit without doing the mind meld [Paragon option]")
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The author has locked this comment topic for the time being2/3 uses the Wwise audio engine which is standard for games but 1 uses an ancient audio engine ISACT which has basically zero documentation online or other resources,
Edit 3/9/2023: I am currently working on adding audio now that its possible.
Anyway, cool mod idea and I'm gonna try it.
I did make myself a skeptical Shepard and then I did my mission order as Noveria --> Therum --> (Haven't done Feros yet). After saving Liara, the debrief on the Normandy played out with no mind meld discussion at all. I didn't refuse or anything because the whole segment didn't even play out. Liara talked about her Prothean research and a possible Cycle, she then "said" a silent line about how she doesn't think she will be much help against Saren and the camera got super wonky (I know this part is a known bug) and then she said how tired she was and all I could do was dismiss the crew and talk to the council.
I didn't see this as a documented change, so I'm wondering if this is the intended process or if something is bugged for me. It didn't seem *overly* odd storywise, maybe just a tad bit rushed in that conversation though. Thanks for your time
(EDIT: On reflection and after talking to Liara again on the Normandy, I did realize that the previous scene completely skipped over the part where I would inform Liara that we already killed Benezia so it does appear that I encountered a bug here. Benezia was never discussed during the debriefing, but in the crew conversation afterward Liara is already aware of Benezia's death)
A good portion of the dialogue in that scene is dependent on Shepard believing in the Reapers being connected to their visions, including the original voiced version of the line where Liara says she is unable to help you find Saren or the conduit, that's why it gets skipped over for a Skeptical Shepard and feels rushed. I'll update the description/articles page to mention this.
The mind meld isn't brought up in this conversation unless Feros is completed [this is even without mods].
Even without mods, there isn't any mention of Benezia's death in that conversation so this is just another plot hole that Bioware left.
I mentioned before how much this mod changes a playthrough, but it's actually astonishing how different this run feels for me! My Shepard is on a *completely* different mission here. I am so solely focused on hunting Saren as some deranged terrorist instead of me chasing down an ancienct myth without a shred of real evidence. I have a more reasonable relationship with the council, I talk to my crew with a different sense of urgency, and the story in general feels "smaller" in scale which I think really works for the setting and build up across the trilogy. I can't wait to discover the truth soon in my playthrough!
Thanks so much for this mod and I highly recommend it for anyone who doesn't feel that their Shepard would so flippantly go along with believing in an absurd theory from a few nightmares after a traumatic mission and injury. Especially with how the original story doesn't actually give us intelligble scenes of *why* Shepard believes in the Reapers, it's just random flashes of imagery that us, as the player, have no way of understanding as the Reapers but Shepard interprets it and believes it for some reason. I always felt a disconnect there and this mod 100% solves it for me.
https://github.com/ME3Tweaks/LegendaryExplorer/wiki/Editing-LE1-Audio
It's just that even with all the mindblowing effort that has been put into it, it's still pretty overcomplicated.
Second: Woah. Absolutely essential. I agree with the previous posters that a more subdued Shepherd was desperately missing. Even the "neutral" response doesn't cut it. Often times all the responses are basically the same. Then there is their blue poster girl they can't stop shoving down everyone's throat. I don't even hate Liara. I was pleasantly surprised by her growth during the trilogy. She's a good one, but I'm a straight women who doesn't care for romance with women with my characters. Especially not if so many games write their female main char as totally bi, coz' wahmen. Coz that's HOt!!!!! It's not even that hard to write dialogue that allows the player to guide their char's reactions and what/whom they are attracted to. In fact it's smart and it's more inclusive of all kinds of people. It's also more organic. because it also s#*! writing to have a char who is attracted to every "romanceable person". What if I don't like that one mofo, despite me putting the "hetero" flag on my female char and that mofo happens to be a male love interest.
Anyway it just sucks when a game that has multiple romance options and has an emphasis on choice or at least letting the player customize the journey as a major drawing point of their game series, pushing a "canon" love option. No, I'm not talking about her cabin visits in ME2 or 3. Friend Liara is wonderful... if they actually filter out the romantic lines instead of leaving the ambiguous one coming from our Shepard out. But they don't. Because "lazy". Tali and our toothbrush fairy had similar issues in ME3. Bioware was particularly aggressive with the female on male shep romance to the point were Fem!Shep was just an afterthought. What am I talking about she totally was. Points at Thane and Jacob in ME3 or the fact that as fem shep it's you who has to initiate any interest in the MALE ME2 love interests. This can be a good thing but it is such a stark contrast to her male counterpart in ME2.
Best of luck with your endeavour!
I suppose a way to get around needing Liara to mind-meld with Shepard would've been to have a way to get Benezia or Shiala to mention something about Ilos during your interactions with them post-boss fight. Either that, or having Shepard describe notable landmarks from the completed vision from the get-go as a Renegade option
As for how they figure out Ilos is where they need to go: there are other ways to find out about Ilos. and for the paragon option Liara gives Shepard her notes and Shepard recognizes the landmarks. [how else the player was going to discover it was Ilos was the first part of this mod I brainstormed and that took no time at all]
Even for a paragon Shepard [and first-time players], Personal boundaries aside, they have no real reason to trust anything Liara says. Sure she says she hasn't talked to Benezia but it wouldn't be the first time someone in the game lies. Yeah, we know on our second playthrough that she's telling the truth but Shepard doesn't have the benefit of that knowledge. Liara herself even lampshades in several instances that Shepard has very good reason to be suspicious of her, but the game doesn't let Shepard do that.
Bioware just wanted to pretend that Liara was the only repository of Prothean knowledge because otherwise there would be no logical reason to go to therum other than to make sure Saren can't use her to find the conduit.