Talk:Mass Effect (video game)

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).

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))

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))

Weaponry

There should be more about how the weapons in the game work, especially the small arms. The in game explanation of why the small arms don't need to be reloaded by the player is very interesting. I'll try to get around to adding it if i can, though i do not object to others having a go at it. Mullhawk (talk) 02:07, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

if it gets too large it may need its own site to avoid the article getting too clutterd(211.31.189.93 (talk) 01:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC))

Awards?

Is it of value to the article to continue to retain information about ME's E3-2006 awards and also information about the various award nominations (vs. wins)? cheers, --guyzero | talk 18:27, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Take pages like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and Shadow of the Colossus, they don't list every win and nomination, just the wins and the most important ones because along with the page theres a citation for a complete list of awards EG in Oblivion's in the intro it says it won numberous awards followed by a refference to the whole list. Stabby Joe (talk) 18:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I've made an edit [2] to remove most E3-2006 awards (with the exception of the Game Critics Award) and all of the nominations in an effort to tighten up the article. Please feel free to revert if you feel that the article is better with this information intact. cheers, --guyzero | talk 06:39, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

specialization classes

And may I please ask where specialization classes??? This article is not very well put together. —Preceding unsigned comment added by LaBarge (talk • contribs) 00:58, January 9, 2008

As someone else would have eventually pointed out, this isn't a game guide and information like that was included in the early days of the article, but was subsequently removed due to Wiki policy violation (or the anal retentive interpretation thereof). This article, overpoliced or not, is put together well by any standard. It may not be the way you way you want it to be put together and therein lies the rub. There is a difference between your aesthetic opinion and actual fact. (144.92.84.206 (talk) 20:09, 9 January 2008 (UTC))

i've had thoughts of the like, not so far as bad just could be better. specialization classes are part of the game its not a gmae gide to say "at this point the players defoult class (vangard adept ect.) is changed to one of two choises depending on the orignal class. its not being a gide just being a complete article. we cant wittle down all the infomation here, saying its giving a gide of how to play the game. i have never seen it reach this point, so putting in that the players class can change is ok, just don't say where and what unless giving examples. (58.109.62.151 (talk) 23:37, 10 January 2008 (UTC))

PC Version

I don't think this belongs in the article at all - one retailer claiming a release date for a PC version falls far short of conclusive proof it's on the way or even exists at all. Unless it's directly stated by Bioware, Microsoft or EA I feel it should be removed. Any thoughts? (Petrarch 13:37 10 January 2008 (GMT)

Yes it would be an inclusion of undue weight. It's a speck of speculation at best, for the moment. Chensiyuan (talk) 15:34, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

I removed it, the link was in Czech (I assume, it wasn't english) and therefore non-verifiable, and even if it was in English its still not reliable at this point.Mad031683 (talk) 06:59, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Development section missing

It's early days yet (in terms of distance to GA), but a good gaming article should have a development section. Chensiyuan (talk) 02:53, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Merge Citadel Station

Citadel Station (Mass Effect) should be merged here. It's not notable enough for a separate article, per Wikipedia:Notability and Wikipedia:Notability (fiction), and mainly rehashes the plot, which could be covered here instead. Pagrashtak 18:48, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

The page just redirects to here now, so I'm going to remove the template. --Asclepius ^{Dices mihi} 20:53, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Sex

Found this on Penny Arcade - http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/KevinMcCullough/2008/01/13/the_sex-box_race_for_president?page=full&comments=true 67.81.60.34 (talk) 03:54, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Just to be clear, there is no controversy, it's just one misinformed hack on one site that has mistaken Mass Effect for Second Life (probably would have helped if either he or one of his aides had bothered to play the game but I digress). Everything he describes is Second Life and none of it is even remotely close to Mass Effect's gameplay. He and his people should read the Wiki article on "defamation" and the sub-section on libel. Mr. McCullough is attempting to use a video game to generate controversy (and more to the point, transparently promote himself AND his book) for his own financial gain. Someone should tell him that Hillary has already been there, done that with the "Hot Coffee" ridiculousness (which is funny/ironic given his particular ideology). (76.201.154.234 (talk) 04:13, 15 January 2008 (UTC))

Thanks for clearing that up. I read the article and I knew it didn't sound like Mass Effect. Him mistaking it for SL makes sense. Thanks. 67.81.60.34 (talk) 04:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Maybe we should add this note into the article? The McCullough article has gotten pretty widespread links, and I imagine lots of people (like me) will want to read about Mass Effect on wikipedia -- and then they will be (like me) confused by the lack of sex. (Not that I'm not often confused by the lack of -- oh, nevermind...) I don't want to add it without getting some consensus, though... Deltopia (talk) 11:37, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

And give this guy even more free publicity? I don't think so. If his "review" (and I use that word in the loosest sense possible) had even been in the slightest bit about Mass Effect, it might have warranted mention but his description is clearly Second Life and not Mass Effect. Yes, there has been discussion about it (that's how the internet works and more to the point, why this page exists) but it's still one minor, politically biased webpage with a erroneous "review" that was clearly about a different game and not really even about the game so much as a chance to rant about values in America. Till we see it on major media outlets and/or websites, I say it's no different than any other random guy who puts up a completely wrong "review" on his personal blog. (144.92.84.206 (talk) 13:53, 15 January 2008 (UTC))

I say leave it out. The game he's describing clearly isn't Mass Effect and if he'd played it at all he'd know that. He's just another random yahoo getting on his soapbox for 5 minutes of fame. Petrarch 20:50, 15 January 2008 (GMT)

Seconding both Petrarch's and 144.92.84.206's opinions on this. Barely relevant to Mass Effect in the first place. Peptuck (talk) 21:23, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Fourthing that opinion, I already removed this from the article when somebody added it. If this becomes a bigger deal then I would support adding a section explaining his mistake if sources could be found. Mad031683 (talk) 23:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

McCullough added a follow-up piece defending himself yesterday, which was later edited earlier today, presumably to add a link to another follow up from today. He confirms that it is Mass Effect he's seen (including providing links to YouTube search results, rather than specific videos), but to me, most of the things he says are still clearly false, and have been rebutted by multiple sources. He also goes out of his way to insult the videogame community at large on multiple occasions.
As it happens, this does appear to be getting quite a bit of coverage from the specialist games press... is there any coverage from the mainstream media? Dreaded Walrus ^{t c} 16:07, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Not that I've seen but then again, the only thing anyone is reporting is that he is completely incorrect in his description of the gameplay, that he admitted his review is based solely on a couple of minutes of YouTube video and that he has a politically (and probably financially) motivated axe to grind. Not really a legitimate story when the facts at the heart of it are flat out wrong because no one involved with the review actually played the game. For the more, "major" media outlets, there might also be a small concern about libel and the lawsuit that could follow. More likely, it's simply not on par with Iraq and the primaries. 144.92.84.206 (talk) 20:55, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

put in in or give him crediblity. if it isn't in here we are not giving infomation to people, and thats the point right? just say somthing along the like of: there was confustion and contreversy raised over the minimal nudity in the sex related segments of the game. this was due to >insert name or alias to avoid giving him waht he wants<"s msataking ms=asss effect for the poular MMORPG seccond life. Well you get the idear, it is a question that needs answers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.236.249.164 (talk) 11:03, 19 January 2008 (UTC)

First, not sure how much credibility he has and not really interested in having a protracted discussion about what the difference is between a "real" journalist and a political hack with a blog. When we are talking about people who write articles about video games, it's murky enough as it is.

Second, people are getting the information on the Mass Effect forums and other places, including this page right here and will be just as informed. If we put in every thing said by anyone on the internet that even remotely relates to Mass Effect, the article would become insanely large and wouldn't benefit in the slightest. The article is fine the way it stands and doesn't need an addition about how some guy wrote a "review" about a game based on a YouTube clip and was subsequently wrong in all the essential details about the game. He apologized for not doing his homework, his article was poorly sourced (to say the least), and it's now a moot point.

Third, the major media never picked it up (with good reason) and it was never a controversy except to the people that would have benefited from it being a controversy. Why do you think they start these kinds of things to begin with? They aren't protecting anyone, they are trying to get their name in the press and sell something (either getting elected or selling books or generating hits on their website). It's all about the publicity and money, nothing more, and both "sides" do it.

The answer was and still is, "No, we don't need to put this in the main article." Putting in a section about how one minor "journalist" (and I use that term in the most liberal definition, pun intended) had a completely wrong review is not notable (see relevant Wiki policy) nor really even logical. 70.226.175.7 (talk) 16:41, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It doesn't even matter anymore. The original article is gone. --Scorp Stanton (talk) 02:17, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I have to agree. Since major media did not pick it up I don't think it is necessary. Even if they had, I would have recommended waiting several months for things to cool down before putting it in. This would be to temper any benefit that Mr. McCullough might hope to gain from it. Nothing really ever happened, so it is not important. As ScorpsSt said, the article has been pulled, So it was, and still is a non issue.65.165.240.65 (talk) 18:01, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Foxnews picked it up.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YEzRJ5ojtg god I hate them.. 90.148.96.21 (talk) 13:33, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Sex Controversy and Fox News

I know that there's a section for this at the bottom of the page, but this is newish and that's oldish. Anyway, should there be a section about Fox's wildly innacurate report on the sex scene in this game, and EA's letter rebuttal? 67.204.195.235 (talk) 02:14, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

ok screw it. put in a 1-2 line metion but dont go into depth of any one even

I'm on the fence now. The criteria was if major news picked it up, BUT it does seem like the media (especially FOX) are not only late coming to the party (the article was out a week ago, the game has been out for two months) but were just as inaccurate in their discussion of the game. http://kotaku.com/348187/ea-calls-fox-out-on-insulting-mass-effect-inaccuracies is the link to EA's reaction (the Microsoft press release was pretty lame) to this nonsense.

I dunno. The only reason it's become a thing is because the people involved not only don't know what the hell they are talking about, but eagerly admit they haven't even played the game. The FOX news anchor said she just looked at some video clips to prepare for the story, very professional. They certainly didn't just hire her for her looks. I'm glad journalism isn't about "reading the book" or even reading the book's cliffnotes anymore, but reading someone else's review of the book cover and then talking about it as if all the facts are in. That's either lazy or criminal, I'm not sure which.

Were I in charge of the segment I saw on FOX about Mass Effect, I'd be worried that not only were we way deep in the weeds of what borders on slander, I'd be embarassed as a news provider that I couldn't be bothered to ask one 19 year old intern to go play the game over the weekend and bring back some footage and some notes so the lead journalist had the relevant background before going on air and looking like a fool. All they had to do was talk to a handful of gamers that played the game for ten minutes and would have had a much better understanding than reading one blog and watching some YouTube and calling that research. And consider this, if this had been about anything other than a video game, if they had run a story on a person with that much error, there'd be a lawsuit.

Anyway, if we do put in something about all this, it either needs it's own article or there needs to be more than just two lines. IF we write anything about this (IF being the keyword), it should be comprehensive in details but also explain how we got here. The controversy is coming months after release (which is suspect), is largely being created by people with a vested interest (television programming is losing out to video games), AND are either grossly (and some might say negligently and unprofessionally) misinformed/misrepresenting the facts or are deliberately lying about the content of the game. 144.92.84.206 (talk) 14:12, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I just believe that the sex Controversy section needs to be rewritten. It is too opinionated in some parts towards one side as well as there was more than just what was listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.33.220.124 (talk) 22:36, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

"It is noteworthy that the game hardly pushed boundaries with sex in game. A PC game released in the same period The Witcher, contained a multitude greater explicit sexuality, but did not receive nearly as much public backlash. Incidents with Mass Effect are likely just a case of moral panic, due to the high popularity of the game and the fact that layman media pay more attention to console platforms than they do to PC gaming."

who ever put that in is wrong, Mass Effect and The Witcher are both about as popular world wide, Mass Effect was just more popular in a conversative country like the US than The Witcher was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.209.233.100 (talk) 22:57, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Undue weight

At the moment the s controversy is really getting out of hand. How can the section form such a large part of the article? It's becoming a platform to ridicule the already ridiculous "journalists" in question and reads nothing like an encyclopedia. In the scheme of things the whole incident's nothing terribly important insofar as WP is concerned. Chensiyuan (talk) 01:17, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Agreed. It seems contain POV and chunks remain unsourced. --guyzero | talk 02:41, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Cybercast's article did not receive the attention of the Fox news report (beyond Kotaku.) It appears to be included to just add unnecessary additional detail to this section. I have cropped this article from the section. Re-add if there is additional information/sources that suggests cybercast's article on mass effect is noteworthy beyond kotaku/diggs's mention of it. cheers, --guyzero | talk 03:06, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Both contoversy sections should be merged and the sex scene bit needs to be toned down. The Fox News piece should be mentioned, but it should not be so large a part of the article. It should be presented as "This is what happened, how it happened and why." I have a serious problem with those who use wikipedia as a soapbox for voicing their bias. Present the facts, both sides of the story, and let the reader decide what view to take. This is how you disseminate information to the masses. You do it fairly. This is all common sense. I stick with my prior conviction that if it must be added, do so after things blow over. This is all too fresh in peoples hearts and minds, and most are saying ridiculous things by letting their anger get the best of them. -Jacob 65.165.240.65 (talk) 17:44, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

If it were just a controversy that might be true, but this is about deliberately falsifying or at least grossly misrepresenting the truth in a news story. Love them or hate them, FOX is considered a profesional, legitimate source of news and they had an obligation (just like all journalists and news providers do) to present the information impartially and accurately. Right out of the gate, their tag for that segment was Sexbox, Full nudity etc. That outrage isn't just that a game got slandered, but that a major news outlet so badly researched the issue and then allowed discussion of the issue with the same bad information being presented as established fact.

Consider this, if we applied the standards and policies that Wikipedia has for articles against that news segment, what would be the end result? Or put another way, if we took their approach on that segment to an article, would that article stand with only a controversial tag or would it have to be completely rewritten? There would be eight kinds of editor outcry about bias, lack of sources, the real possibility of the article being legally actionable, and so on. Nobody would be saying, it's not that big of a deal.

Watch the video past the interview and you can tell not a single person in that following roundtable discussion had even heard of Mass Effect before that day and most certainly didn't bother to do any real research. The discussion itself was brief to the point of absurdity. Why bother to have a roundtable if the people involved aren't going to have a chance to discuss the issue at length AND clearly don't know what they are debating aside from the old chestnuts of Free Speech, Free Choice, Good of society, moral responsibility, etc.

No one beside Geoff had even bothered to talk to the makers of the game, play the game, talk to people who had played the game, and so on. He was the only informed person on the subject and that's beyond ridiculous to the point of being offensive. At the very, very least, the journalist "moderating" the interview should have done her homework but freely admitted that she had just watched some video.

In my opinion, I think she knew she was discussing an issue she shouldn't without having more background and I could see that she felt she was a little out of her depth or more likely, felt this segment wasn't really worthy of news. FOX was most likely using this as some kind of filler segment but that doesn't justify putting a completely erroneous segment on air and hoping they were right.

If this had been about a person and they had gotten there facts so badly distorted, there would already have been an apology and/or a lawsuit. Instead, it's a video game so no one thinks that's merits importance outside of the gamer community.

Except, truth is not a luxury and we depend on the news media to try and give us the best information possible. I'm not so foolish as to think they won't get things wrong or be biased, but they still have a professional obligation to do the best they can and make sure they have their facts straight. This game hadn't just come out the week before, it wasn't some breaking development, it had been out for a couple of months and no other major media outlet had made so much as a whisper about the sex in the game before their segment aired. Even their own tech review guy who played it back in December gave it a glowing review and never mentioned anything about full frontal nudity or multiple sex scenes.

They could have used their own game review as research or even better, the actual person who wrote the review and played the game could have been in on the roundtable so that at least one person from FOX had the information they needed. Instead, they went with a few video clips as background and proceeded to attack something that they knew almost nothing about. (Don't even get me started on how underqualified Cooper is). There's no excuse for what happened.

FOX was negligent, reckless, and lazy in their coverage of the game and did in fact commit slander against the game, the company, and all the people who put effort into making the game. It wasn't an accident or oversight, it was about being completely, avoidably wrong and then not owning up to it when they found out how off the mark they were. If nothing else, they should have apologized and somebody should have gotten suspended to demonstrate they care about getting the story right and being as fair and honest in conveying the facts as they claim to be.

Truth isn't relative to the importance of the subject matter. We shouldn't dismiss it because it's lie about something we don't care about, coming from people whose central job is about getting the truth to us. That's why this has weight and merit.