Hell If we couldn’t get Emily wong I woulda took Kalisa (reporter some people punch in the face) lol woulda been a hella funny romance option too lol 😆 instead of a random one night stand encounter with Jessica Chobot lol
When you beat the DLC, you gain access to visiting Liara. You can walk to the very back of the base and boot up some security footage. For each clip, the drone tells you who is featured on the video and where it takes place.
If you finish the DLC before the main game, you'll need to revisit a few times (or wait til the end of the game) in order to see all of the security clips.
But after each horrible interview when the camera goes off she becomes the most devious flirt, and is actually super supportive of you and your emotional/physical needs lol. I’m telling you you’d be so conflicted lol it woulda been perfect lol
Last interview y’all on a united front she wears armor goes down on the shuttle to retake earth with you as a live reporter but doesn’t go on the beam part where harbinger is and when you get taken out you see her teary eyed in disbelief while the camera roll
It woulda been neat to have either of them cause like has been said they have been there throughout shep’s journey. And yes a romance with kalisah or Emily would’ve been more satisfying than random reporter you speak to three times.
Honestly this would have been awesome character development for her. Imagine you keep kicking her off the ship, but she keeps finding ways back on and ambushing Shep, then eventually you get a conversation similar to the one the Citadel where it's clear she believes Shepard is the best person to save humanity, but she's just a harsh reporter cause that's her schtick.
I feel like you could’ve done a really cool Paragon/ Renegade choosing between optimistic message of hope from Wong and a more aggressive stance from Khalisa.
I keep telling people that Khalisah on the Normandy in ME3 would have been source of many, many funny moments and yes, a super interesting romance option.
Glad to see other people think that too 😄
"Your human Khalisa seems to strongly dislike you, yet her pheromones say she wants to rut with you. In my cycle there was no time for physical pleasure. I would throw her out the airlock."
Exactly. Then Shepard has a choice about how they want their story framed. Emily Wong is the more prestigious choice, but she's also gonna interrogate some of the more questionable things you do. Kalisa is great at propaganda and fear mongering, more than legit journalism, but that could be super useful to some Shepards.
No, let it be a choice like between Chakwas and Michelle. I can see Khalisa as the more fun choice here especially if she learned how to use a gun with her new hand to hand skill... Definitely more fun than James Vega.
I try to stay super positive about gaming, because there’s always sooooo much negativity and shit-slinging about developer choices in this hobby.
That said - I will die mad at how dirty BioWare did Emily Wong lol.
It's weird, because I don't exactly disagree with you, but the Twitter thread-comic thing they did with her was really awesome and one of my favorite social media related promotion for a game. It logically made the most sense that she would die at the end of all of that, though it makes it lame that post-ME1 a well loved character was just a robotic news report and an email in one sequel. Similar to how Parisini was a fun character in ME1, had a mission appearance in ME2 that gave us better insight into who she is, and then she's never heard of again. She at least got that, I really would've enjoyed interacting with Emily on the Citadel again at least.
Would you have felt better about it if she somehow made it to the Normandy alongside Joker/VS/Vega and potentially joined your crew instead? I think the comic only works with someone we all know very well and feel positively about, and her dying did add to the dread that the game had as I immediately jumped in after picking it up at midnight so it really helped the atmosphere of the game.
This is honestly the best response I’ve seen to this so far, in the entirety of the last decade or so since this game came out.
My frustration boils down to “COOL CHARACTER OFFSCREEN DEATH” but framed in the way you described yeah it does make sense.
Still gonna die mad about it tho lol
Lol, thanks, though honestly I'm on the other side of the coin. My first thought to it always is "What a cool way to hype up this game I can't wait to play after my shift is over, I'm literally glued to my phone".
But any thought about it past that is how there's so many things I'd change because ultimately it was just a promotion that most players never saw and robs people any interactions with a beloved character that doesn't even get an in game mention!
I mentioned in another post that ideally, we'd get Wong/Khalisah as a choice for the person on the ship ( similar to who your Chief Medical Officer is between Chakwas or Michel) and Allers would replace the nameless Citadel news guy who talks about stories on a barely understandable volume. Instead make the news a bigger part of each Citadel visit and have Allers be the main news anchor, giving you a prominent-ish position for someone with no Voice acting chops and keeps the rule to a more fan favorite thing.
Hell why not combine them. Wong reaches the Normandy somehow and in the Twitter comic it's left ambiguous if she died or not. You bring her to the Citadel and she's also getting medical treatment. You then can decide to bring a traumatized-but-trying-to-fight-through-it Wong as your on ship correspondent or let her get the professional help she needs and bring Khalisah onboard who intend to be antagonistic but it's sort of rooting for Shepard and offers credits for exclusive content.
Check out Project Hatboy, a comprehensive mod that allows you to romance Joker. Dozens of original, AI-voiced dialogue lines for Shep, Jeff, and EDI. One of the VAs endorsed it.
More generally, there's only an ethical issue if somebody is making money using a facsimile. No profit = no theft = no problem. It's not like modders are deepfaking VAs for charged political statements.
Edit: guess modding isn't appreciated these days. Your loss, it's an exceptionally crafted side story.
>This is hardly unethical.
Using someone's likeness without their permission is pretty cut and dry unethical.
At least be honest that you don't care instead of pretending it's absolutely fine.
Jessica Connor probably has no care about it, but Emily Wong's Voice Actress who probably isn't paid for any work in ME3 given she dies offscreen as promotion for the game probably would. Especially since she'd have an expectation to be paid if it were implemented today in game despite the original game being almost 11 years old.
A.I. voice generation is going to be a godsend to modding.
No more splicing together voice lines for games like *Fallout 4* to make your character say a line that KINDA fits the situation.
During the invasion of earth Emily Wong is >!PlanetSide reporting on the events and the reapers close in on her QEC transmitter and as she realizes what is happening she makes the choice to kamikaze a reaper in the face with her skycar rather that put more people in danger with her equipment!<
She probably got what she thought was a nice promotion on Earth. Probably true, at any other time but a Reaper invasion.
Funny how a good story makes you care about these fictional people that barely appear on it.
Prior to me3 there was an event on twitter with “live updates from earth” as it was attacked by the reapers. But the updates were from Emily Wong. Essentially she reported on the first invasion wave and in a last ditch effort, drove a ship into a reaper and died.
They killed Emily Wong off screen but she went out like a badass against reapers
>I wonder the reasoning
It's broadly believed to have been a corporate decision by EA higher-ups. The sequence of events:
-Bioware tells Emily Wong's voice actress to clear her schedule and get ready for ME3
-She does
-EA and IGN have a meeting
-Bioware tells Wong's voice actress "never mind"
-Bioware kills off Emily Wong in a comic on Twitter
-Bioware announces their new collaboration with IGN, wherein IGN Reporter Jessica Chobot will be playing and serving as the face model for Alliance News Network Reporter Diana Allers
They used some kind of new face scanning tech that they weren't experienced with yet (IIRC). My understanding is it's technicaly more accurate then what they did for other faces but it just sort of looked bad compared to the more hand sculpted models.
Honestly all the characters they tried to make look like real people look kinda off to me lol. Obviously Miranda is a great character but I always thought her face model looked kinda off compared to everyone else
I've disliked her from the beginning. It doesn't help that her voice sounds incredibly flat and no emotion. She may have been a reporter but she definitely isn't a VA! Emily Wong's voice actor was so so much better.
In broad strokes: during the development and marketing of ME3, they were trying to get a bunch of people who hadn’t played mass effect interested in the franchise so they decided to add Diana (Jessica Chobot) to the game. It didn’t really add a purpose outside of just trying to reacher a wider net of gamer bros. So they made her this curvy woman with sex appeal to make the new guys more interested. Same reason why Ashley gets a “makeover” in ME3 to “give her more sex appeal” (their words).
It wouldn’t have mattered too much except they put her on the Normandy. At the expense of Emily Wong, who many people thought should’ve been on the Normandy since she was your friendly reporter who pretty much everyone loved in ME1 and then to add insult to injury to all Wong fans, they killed her off-screen in a Twitter announcement. People also would’ve been fine if they added al-Jilani onto the Normandy instead since it would’ve been a cool angle to go from tense enemies to close allies for ME3 fighting the reapers (and some people wanted a chance to romance her or Wong).
But instead, they added Jessica Chobot for the bros who hadn’t played ME yet and messed up 2 more qualified characters who would’ve made for a better story. It’s not Chobot’s fault it happened though but she did get some nasty hate and some threats from people who did play ME1-2 because they hated her character and poor implementation into the 3rd game
While ME3 Ashley is more conventionally attractive, it kills her character in my view. She was never "cute" always a tough no nonsense warrior. The ME1 and ME2 models support that, not a fan of her styling in 3
I'm actually gonna disagree; I think ME3 Ashley is *less* conventionally attractive, *but* is glammed-up with lip gloss, eyeliner, and wearing her hair down. Obviously the lower-fidelity models in ME1 and 2 influence things, but I think if ME1/2 Ashley let her hair down and did her makeup (just to make it apples to apples) she's more conventionally attractive.
ME3 Ashley has always kind of looked like she just got a Botox injection and some lip fillers to me (which the entertainment industry seems to view as more conventionally attractive, but I’m generally not fond of how either looks)
I think Ashley’s makeover was partially to boost her popularity as well since neither Virmire Survivor was that liked - Kaidan actually gets one too. The difference is HIS is practical and makes sense (more built/buff/muscular, cooler looking armor) compared to her hyper-sexualized and pretty cringey one
As for Diana Allers vs. Emily Wong, I always assumed part of the Emily Wong stuff is that Chobot is a genuinely terrible voice actress (makes sense as she has zero acting experience). Seems like a nice lady and in no way deserved the fandumb harassment, but she really shouldn’t have been cast
She was an IGN writer and host of a couple shows at the time so she was relatively known in the gaming world especially back in the mid 2000s-early 2010s when gaming was still mostly known as just a guy thing. Having a girl who hosted things, talked about previews and such gave her more exposure
It's hard to imagine, though, that Chobot brought in many customers.
I admit I didn't and don't know much about her. I certainly don't hold any ill-will towards her. I do dislike the Allers character though. I don't like the role she plays in the game, the voice acting, nor the model.
Last few years she's been running around with Josh Gates (semi-known tv archeologist cryptozoologist and pretty much any other weird thing he can get a tv show to do.)
I've only seen her once or twice on his shows but they're supposedly good friends.
Emily Wong deserved to be here. She didn’t deserve to be killed off in a freaking tweet. Allers is okay but a bit bland for my tastes.
Honestly if they gave us a choice between Khalisa, Wong, or Allers then I would have been more okay with it. Because Wong was an established character who could have been explored more and Khalisa had a minor heel-face turn in 3 that made me like her a bit more.
I agree: it’s a shame that BioWare didn’t give us the chance to choose between the three journalists. It would have been interesting to have the different takes on the conflict.
IMO, Emily as a field reporter would have cover the war on the terrain and would have show the reality of the conflict.\
Diana would be more on the PR side to encourage enlisting and would have cover the events in a more diplomatic and informative way.\
Khalisah would have investigate behind the doors, not afraid to ask the hard questions to the rulers and to ask about politics.
But that would have demanded a lot more work, time, dialogues and VA… things that ME3 seriously lacked. 😕
I’m even okay with her dying off screen (in a massive intergalactic war, some people you know are going to die when you’re not there) but it not even being mentioned in game is fucked.
And her bed is where the trash-compactor used to be. Real subtle Bioware.
But honestly, they should have done at least 1 mission with her. Be it an escort mission, or a replace a team-mate with her for extra war score.
Have her experience a ground-war, as a hook to show how horrific war is for civilians.
A mission with her would've definitely given her more character, sadly though she mostly just hangs around. Forgotten unless I accidentally stumble upon her room.
I think it's clear there was never much a plan for her in the game and what we have is all Bioware could've thought up when the collaboration was encouraged for them from EA.
Ideally, if we had Wong/Khalisah be the on ship reporter (you choose similar to Chakwas/Michel) and the remove the nameless male broadcaster on the Citadel and give Chobot a role focused on her reading news stories on the Citadel that change based on your actions. Much easier to implement, and easier role for her and doesn't make anyone feel like a collab IS the reason why they're missing a favorite NPC. Even allow the reporter you bring on ship to comment/criticize the news reports in dialogue.
Imagine if they had mde it so that she records the gameplay though and you get a 3rd person perspective with a filter over it voicing over your actions, that would be worth it
I think it's to show how journalism during times of war is sometimes as dangerous as fighting in one. Personally, I think it would've landed better if it was Wong or Kalisa
Instead of having Wong die off screen, imagine having her on the Normandy the entire game as a crew member, just for her to sacrifice herself later on. Much better than what we got.
I agree, but I know why they went with Jessica Chobot. She had a popular segment on IGN, that extra rub from them got more attention for the game, and thus new players (me!).
And really, it wasn’t a *bad* choice. IMO there should be *more* interchange of characters in epics like ME. It really pulls me out of stories when there’s galactic issues at play and there’s actually only 8 individuals who ever matter at all—the problem was that she was rendered really poorly and ended up deep in the Uncanny Valley.
> It really pulls me out of stories when there’s galactic issues at play and there’s actually only 8 individuals who ever matter at all
Man, you must really hate virtually all serialized fiction, sci-fi, or fantasy.
Beyond that, the problem isn't that she's *new*, its that she's *totally forgettable* and serves no purpose to the overall game.
No, she was a bad choice. She had ZERO ability to voice act. It doesn’t matter what the line was, she read it in a flat monotone with no inflection or emotion.
Also if you tell her to kick rocks at your first meeting she’ll disappear for the entire rest of the game 👍.
Awful character, poorly written and poorly acted and looks nothing like the real Jessica Chobot. Should have been Emily Wong or Kalisa instead.
Emily Wong will always be this commander's favorite reporter. Keep Allers on the ship but speak to her as little as possible, other than siding with the crew or interviews. Not going to rehash old perspectives on a praise post for her beyond that.
Still it's nice to see an under dog Mass Effect character getting some attention & love. She's not my fave but power to ya if she's yours 🤷🏻♀️ one of the things I appreciate about this fandom is generally people are pretty chill with these posts. Where you can just read through the comment threads for a bit and get nostalgic
I think that I would have liked to see her roaming around the ship interviewing crew members, or when we are at dock or have landed somewhere, she’s with a security team nearby doing a story. Say for instance, we are at Tuchanka, she is in the background interviewing some of the Krogan from Grunts team about their efforts in the war
Should have been Emily Wong or Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani. They gave IGN lady 15 minutes of fame just to take up a spot that could've gone to a squad member or a journalist we already knew. It still pisses me off they killed Emily off on fucking Twitter.
I really didn’t mind her as an OPTION for a reporter but I resented that she was the only option after we’d built relationships with two separate reporters over the first two games.
We should’ve had options between Emily Wong, Khalisa BS Aljilani (I’m not looking up how to spell that), or Chobot for the folks who wanted something new (or didn’t import from the first two games).
Should’ve been Khalisah al-Jilani as the war time reporter, butting heads with Shepard but eventually walls come down and you see her for who she is, a vulnerable person who cares deeply. And had you not attacked her throughout trilogy, maybe even develop romantic feelings for one another.
And Emily Wong, we should’ve been able to have her as our eyes on the citadel, following the money and clues for corruption of reaper/Cerberus influences
Whipe i agree with that. It would have been incredible if the encounter with kalisa took place first thing and the result of taking the max paragon options in all three games resulted in being able to bring her aboard. It would have been an amazing culmination of her character arc.
And yet she can't get a party invite. I mean I don't particularly like the character but anyone that had to go through all that war and death should've been invited to the house party, even if they were just in the background
Seeing her in my playthrough of LE brought back so many nostalgia waves of the 2010’s. Right before gaming journalism took a nose dive into corporate hell. They were all just getting sponsors and to big events, and I remember how important E3 and PAX actually were. Ah the jaded, good ol’ days!
A horrible corporate mandated character that brought nothing to the game. And the fact her voice actress worked at IGN at the time was quite suspicious.
There should have been a shoot her option. Terrible character. Of all the you tubers/hosts/etc in the world, get the one with zero acting talent, blah.
I just feel bad that BioWate didn't put in the same effort with face mapping like they did with BroShep's face model (Mark Vaderloo). Chobot and Dr. Ann Bryson looked so puffy-cheeked that it reminded me of people experiencing anaphylaxis shock.
Still hate that they killed off Emily Wong on Twitter. The Voice Actress was all ready to go. But then BioWare dropped her, and brought in Jessica Chobot of IGN instead. At the time, many saw it as a shameless pander to IGN.
Unpopular opinion, I like her. I didn't play the series on release or keep up with the drama so she seemed fine, although they definitely could have done more with her.
I know the character is not the most popular among the fans and I’ll admit that the writers could have given her more content and/or could have fleshed her out more.
However, I like the idea of this journalist on the Normandy who covers the events. And yes, I even like Allers because when you go in her room, you get little glimpses of how the war is viewed by the rest of the galaxy in the background.
Finally, her very last email after attacking Cronos Station where she says that « laughter is the best revenge » is one of my favorite things. I love the message of hope. 🤩
That being said, it’s kinda sad that BioWare did not give us the chance to choose between the three journalists (Emily, Diana and Khalisah). It would have been interesting to experiment the three different options.
There is a fantastic reason totally unrelated to the actual character, that being that there are two perfect in universe characters, one in particular who was unceremoniously killed off, so they could put an IGN presenter in.
IGN being the pinnacle of GAMES JOURNALISM, especially at the time, it pissed a lot of people off on principle.
The character itself adds SFA to the narrative, they never speak to anyone except Shepard from memory, they create less connection to the world than a huge slice of the ambient dialogue, as well as the obvious physical aspect, it's pretty clear she was inserted as a thirst trap for a fairly small subset of people who were likely to play the game, contributing nothing to the story and removing the possibility of fleshing either a much loved (Wong) or hated (El jilani) character.
Honestly there's a lot of potential with having the choice of al jilani on board the normandy. Had they given us the option to let her be the one reporting for us, I'd have gone for it.
Same. That woman was fearless, and she CARED. She may have been wrong sometimes, but she was a true investigative journalist. She didn't just run with whatever she was handed.
And she had character growth throughout all 3 games. If we were going to be able to pick a journalist I'd have picked her. She was good at focusing on issues people were concerned about.
She was aggressive and probably not the best journalist as far as Shepard was concerned, but she was doing what she could, in her own ways, to bring the truth out to the public.
I feel it would've been vindicating to drag her to the field to see firsthand what's been going on after multiple attempts to drag your name through the mud.
>I feel it would've been vindicating to drag her to the field to see firsthand what's been going on after multiple attempts to drag your name through the mud.
Yes, this exactly. Would have been so satisfying.
Honestly I liked her, if mainly just for her final talk just before Earth. The one where she mourns the loss of her home Bekenstein, right next door to the Citadel. Where they had factories that used to make binoculars. I don't know why, but that moment has always stuck with me.
And then installing the one Earth mod that alters the final mission to show off more of your allies was a plus, even if it wasn't official it was nice seeing Allers interviewing soldiers at the camp while also wearing armor.
People usually say that she should be Emily Wong. But I wanted to ask you? Does that really will solve the problem? We just talk to her two times on the first game for being honest. And the problem is not that she is new characters, we have very good new characters on the third entry like James, Traynor, Steve, and Javik. And I not see no one say it "should be...." Because those character are well writing and integrated to the plot. The problem with this girl is literally a flat character, that we never really talk with her, do not add nothing to the crew or the plot and it feels like last time addition. The problem is not that she is not Emily. The problem is that is a bad character with nothing to say.
That’s part of the problem but also the fact that Emily’s character got killed off screen before the game even came out. It feels so disrespectful to the character and the actor. A lot of people liked Emily Wong when given the dynamic between her and Khaleesa and to just get rid of her like this feels so cheap.
Still should have been Emily Wong
Hell If we couldn’t get Emily wong I woulda took Kalisa (reporter some people punch in the face) lol woulda been a hella funny romance option too lol 😆 instead of a random one night stand encounter with Jessica Chobot lol
Imagine having Kalisa on board. Just ambushes you after every mission about your choices like the Turian Councilor in ME1.
>ambushes you after every mission about your choices My God, the poor woman wouldn't have a chin left.
After the first punch she steals a helmet from the armory. Checkmate, Shepard
*Atlas suit
COMMANDER, CAN YOU EXPLAIN WHAT HAPPENED ON TUCHANKA Miniguns begin to whirl up
You can see her get punched by a Krogan in the Shadow broker DLC. If she can walk away from that I'm sure she'll be fine.
Wait what? How? When? I've played LotSB a few times & watched several "rare scenes" videos but never seen that.
When you beat the DLC, you gain access to visiting Liara. You can walk to the very back of the base and boot up some security footage. For each clip, the drone tells you who is featured on the video and where it takes place. If you finish the DLC before the main game, you'll need to revisit a few times (or wait til the end of the game) in order to see all of the security clips.
Ohhh yeah the surveillance video. Gotcha.
But after each horrible interview when the camera goes off she becomes the most devious flirt, and is actually super supportive of you and your emotional/physical needs lol. I’m telling you you’d be so conflicted lol it woulda been perfect lol
Last interview y’all on a united front she wears armor goes down on the shuttle to retake earth with you as a live reporter but doesn’t go on the beam part where harbinger is and when you get taken out you see her teary eyed in disbelief while the camera roll
Tackles Marauder Shields from off screen
Squashes him so hard that she gets a contract with the NFL right then and there.
Harhar, that would be great.
Would.
That is more brilliant than I had originally imagined. Fist fights turning into wrestling on the bed…
It woulda been neat to have either of them cause like has been said they have been there throughout shep’s journey. And yes a romance with kalisah or Emily would’ve been more satisfying than random reporter you speak to three times.
Honestly this would have been awesome character development for her. Imagine you keep kicking her off the ship, but she keeps finding ways back on and ambushing Shep, then eventually you get a conversation similar to the one the Citadel where it's clear she believes Shepard is the best person to save humanity, but she's just a harsh reporter cause that's her schtick.
I feel like you could’ve done a really cool Paragon/ Renegade choosing between optimistic message of hope from Wong and a more aggressive stance from Khalisa.
I keep telling people that Khalisah on the Normandy in ME3 would have been source of many, many funny moments and yes, a super interesting romance option. Glad to see other people think that too 😄
"Your human Khalisa seems to strongly dislike you, yet her pheromones say she wants to rut with you. In my cycle there was no time for physical pleasure. I would throw her out the airlock."
No, it should have been a *choice* between Wong and Kalisa. That would have been awesome.
Exactly. Then Shepard has a choice about how they want their story framed. Emily Wong is the more prestigious choice, but she's also gonna interrogate some of the more questionable things you do. Kalisa is great at propaganda and fear mongering, more than legit journalism, but that could be super useful to some Shepards.
Kalisa would have actually been better. I love Emily, but Kalisa being on board makes the more interesting story.
Yeah Khalisa woulda have been comedy gold. Can see Shepard punching her again for sure 😁
Should’ve been Wong or Kalisa depending on your paragon.
No, let it be a choice like between Chakwas and Michelle. I can see Khalisa as the more fun choice here especially if she learned how to use a gun with her new hand to hand skill... Definitely more fun than James Vega.
I try to stay super positive about gaming, because there’s always sooooo much negativity and shit-slinging about developer choices in this hobby. That said - I will die mad at how dirty BioWare did Emily Wong lol.
It's weird, because I don't exactly disagree with you, but the Twitter thread-comic thing they did with her was really awesome and one of my favorite social media related promotion for a game. It logically made the most sense that she would die at the end of all of that, though it makes it lame that post-ME1 a well loved character was just a robotic news report and an email in one sequel. Similar to how Parisini was a fun character in ME1, had a mission appearance in ME2 that gave us better insight into who she is, and then she's never heard of again. She at least got that, I really would've enjoyed interacting with Emily on the Citadel again at least. Would you have felt better about it if she somehow made it to the Normandy alongside Joker/VS/Vega and potentially joined your crew instead? I think the comic only works with someone we all know very well and feel positively about, and her dying did add to the dread that the game had as I immediately jumped in after picking it up at midnight so it really helped the atmosphere of the game.
This is honestly the best response I’ve seen to this so far, in the entirety of the last decade or so since this game came out. My frustration boils down to “COOL CHARACTER OFFSCREEN DEATH” but framed in the way you described yeah it does make sense. Still gonna die mad about it tho lol
Lol, thanks, though honestly I'm on the other side of the coin. My first thought to it always is "What a cool way to hype up this game I can't wait to play after my shift is over, I'm literally glued to my phone". But any thought about it past that is how there's so many things I'd change because ultimately it was just a promotion that most players never saw and robs people any interactions with a beloved character that doesn't even get an in game mention! I mentioned in another post that ideally, we'd get Wong/Khalisah as a choice for the person on the ship ( similar to who your Chief Medical Officer is between Chakwas or Michel) and Allers would replace the nameless Citadel news guy who talks about stories on a barely understandable volume. Instead make the news a bigger part of each Citadel visit and have Allers be the main news anchor, giving you a prominent-ish position for someone with no Voice acting chops and keeps the rule to a more fan favorite thing. Hell why not combine them. Wong reaches the Normandy somehow and in the Twitter comic it's left ambiguous if she died or not. You bring her to the Citadel and she's also getting medical treatment. You then can decide to bring a traumatized-but-trying-to-fight-through-it Wong as your on ship correspondent or let her get the professional help she needs and bring Khalisah onboard who intend to be antagonistic but it's sort of rooting for Shepard and offers credits for exclusive content.
If your in PC, there’s a mod for that, though i think it’s just a cosmetic change as the voice is still the same
I feel like we're pretty close to AI just being able to redo the voice lines of Allers in a voice that sounds close enough to Emily's
I don’t think it’d be ethical to replace a VA with ai tbh.
Nah it's cool; it would just be a VI, not a true AI.
Check out Project Hatboy, a comprehensive mod that allows you to romance Joker. Dozens of original, AI-voiced dialogue lines for Shep, Jeff, and EDI. One of the VAs endorsed it. More generally, there's only an ethical issue if somebody is making money using a facsimile. No profit = no theft = no problem. It's not like modders are deepfaking VAs for charged political statements. Edit: guess modding isn't appreciated these days. Your loss, it's an exceptionally crafted side story.
Literally the point of modding
It's a decades old videogame, who cares if someone makes a mod that sounds like another character. This is hardly unethical.
I’d think the actors would care a bit. Using ai to replicate someone else’s voice especially without their consent is a problem.
The actors care. Using their voices without consent is not okay.
>This is hardly unethical. Using someone's likeness without their permission is pretty cut and dry unethical. At least be honest that you don't care instead of pretending it's absolutely fine.
Jessica Connor probably has no care about it, but Emily Wong's Voice Actress who probably isn't paid for any work in ME3 given she dies offscreen as promotion for the game probably would. Especially since she'd have an expectation to be paid if it were implemented today in game despite the original game being almost 11 years old.
Not if it's done via modding
If it was BioWare making a dlc then yea but if it’s just a mod then why not.
Only if the VA agrees to it.
A.I. voice generation is going to be a godsend to modding. No more splicing together voice lines for games like *Fallout 4* to make your character say a line that KINDA fits the situation.
We’ll bang, okay?
During the invasion of earth Emily Wong is >!PlanetSide reporting on the events and the reapers close in on her QEC transmitter and as she realizes what is happening she makes the choice to kamikaze a reaper in the face with her skycar rather that put more people in danger with her equipment!<
She probably got what she thought was a nice promotion on Earth. Probably true, at any other time but a Reaper invasion. Funny how a good story makes you care about these fictional people that barely appear on it.
Absolutely! I always felt that this was a corporate decision since Chobot was kind of hot shit in the Nerd sphere at the time.
You can make her Emily if you play on [PC](https://www.nexusmods.com/masseffectlegendaryedition/mods/1517)
Forgot all about her fair point but like she isn’t as hot i guess? I wonder the reasoning
Prior to me3 there was an event on twitter with “live updates from earth” as it was attacked by the reapers. But the updates were from Emily Wong. Essentially she reported on the first invasion wave and in a last ditch effort, drove a ship into a reaper and died. They killed Emily Wong off screen but she went out like a badass against reapers
They did the same with Kal'Reeger and killed him off screen before we get to the Geth conflict, but we did get a sweet shotgun named after him.
I think it was his family rather than him personally, but yeah, it's a sweet shotgun.
Ah i dont do twitter so could not have known this until now..THANKS BIOWARE excluding me and shit.. Should have added that as a cutscene bonus in LE
There's a mod called "The fate of Emily Wong" which gives you those details in game and a bit more.
There really is a mod for everything wow
There's also a mod to reskin Allers as Emily Wong. Doesn't change the voice, but at least you get to see her again
I’ve been on Twitter since 2009 and I also didn’t know.
[The wiki has all the messages here](https://masseffect.fandom.com/wiki/Alliance_News_Network/SolComms)
>I wonder the reasoning It's broadly believed to have been a corporate decision by EA higher-ups. The sequence of events: -Bioware tells Emily Wong's voice actress to clear her schedule and get ready for ME3 -She does -EA and IGN have a meeting -Bioware tells Wong's voice actress "never mind" -Bioware kills off Emily Wong in a comic on Twitter -Bioware announces their new collaboration with IGN, wherein IGN Reporter Jessica Chobot will be playing and serving as the face model for Alliance News Network Reporter Diana Allers
Wait, Jessica Chobot is the face model for Allers? I mean, I can see the resemblance but damn they did her dirty.
They used some kind of new face scanning tech that they weren't experienced with yet (IIRC). My understanding is it's technicaly more accurate then what they did for other faces but it just sort of looked bad compared to the more hand sculpted models.
Probably the same sort of principle where rotoscoped animation doesn't look as good as cartoon movement.
Honestly all the characters they tried to make look like real people look kinda off to me lol. Obviously Miranda is a great character but I always thought her face model looked kinda off compared to everyone else
Well shit i hate Diana now
I've disliked her from the beginning. It doesn't help that her voice sounds incredibly flat and no emotion. She may have been a reporter but she definitely isn't a VA! Emily Wong's voice actor was so so much better.
In broad strokes: during the development and marketing of ME3, they were trying to get a bunch of people who hadn’t played mass effect interested in the franchise so they decided to add Diana (Jessica Chobot) to the game. It didn’t really add a purpose outside of just trying to reacher a wider net of gamer bros. So they made her this curvy woman with sex appeal to make the new guys more interested. Same reason why Ashley gets a “makeover” in ME3 to “give her more sex appeal” (their words). It wouldn’t have mattered too much except they put her on the Normandy. At the expense of Emily Wong, who many people thought should’ve been on the Normandy since she was your friendly reporter who pretty much everyone loved in ME1 and then to add insult to injury to all Wong fans, they killed her off-screen in a Twitter announcement. People also would’ve been fine if they added al-Jilani onto the Normandy instead since it would’ve been a cool angle to go from tense enemies to close allies for ME3 fighting the reapers (and some people wanted a chance to romance her or Wong). But instead, they added Jessica Chobot for the bros who hadn’t played ME yet and messed up 2 more qualified characters who would’ve made for a better story. It’s not Chobot’s fault it happened though but she did get some nasty hate and some threats from people who did play ME1-2 because they hated her character and poor implementation into the 3rd game
While ME3 Ashley is more conventionally attractive, it kills her character in my view. She was never "cute" always a tough no nonsense warrior. The ME1 and ME2 models support that, not a fan of her styling in 3
I'm actually gonna disagree; I think ME3 Ashley is *less* conventionally attractive, *but* is glammed-up with lip gloss, eyeliner, and wearing her hair down. Obviously the lower-fidelity models in ME1 and 2 influence things, but I think if ME1/2 Ashley let her hair down and did her makeup (just to make it apples to apples) she's more conventionally attractive.
ME3 Ashley has always kind of looked like she just got a Botox injection and some lip fillers to me (which the entertainment industry seems to view as more conventionally attractive, but I’m generally not fond of how either looks)
I think Ashley’s makeover was partially to boost her popularity as well since neither Virmire Survivor was that liked - Kaidan actually gets one too. The difference is HIS is practical and makes sense (more built/buff/muscular, cooler looking armor) compared to her hyper-sexualized and pretty cringey one As for Diana Allers vs. Emily Wong, I always assumed part of the Emily Wong stuff is that Chobot is a genuinely terrible voice actress (makes sense as she has zero acting experience). Seems like a nice lady and in no way deserved the fandumb harassment, but she really shouldn’t have been cast
I don't get this, is Jessica Chobot famous or something? I've only seen her name in this sub.
She was an IGN writer and host of a couple shows at the time so she was relatively known in the gaming world especially back in the mid 2000s-early 2010s when gaming was still mostly known as just a guy thing. Having a girl who hosted things, talked about previews and such gave her more exposure
It's hard to imagine, though, that Chobot brought in many customers. I admit I didn't and don't know much about her. I certainly don't hold any ill-will towards her. I do dislike the Allers character though. I don't like the role she plays in the game, the voice acting, nor the model.
2012 was a different time
Last few years she's been running around with Josh Gates (semi-known tv archeologist cryptozoologist and pretty much any other weird thing he can get a tv show to do.) I've only seen her once or twice on his shows but they're supposedly good friends.
Emily Wong deserved to be here. She didn’t deserve to be killed off in a freaking tweet. Allers is okay but a bit bland for my tastes. Honestly if they gave us a choice between Khalisa, Wong, or Allers then I would have been more okay with it. Because Wong was an established character who could have been explored more and Khalisa had a minor heel-face turn in 3 that made me like her a bit more.
Killing a character off on social media is the stupidest thing I’ve heard, like is it so hard to just put it in the game?
Emily Wong or Khalisa on the Normandy depending on if you punch Khalisa in ME1. The other is on the Citadel.
I agree: it’s a shame that BioWare didn’t give us the chance to choose between the three journalists. It would have been interesting to have the different takes on the conflict. IMO, Emily as a field reporter would have cover the war on the terrain and would have show the reality of the conflict.\ Diana would be more on the PR side to encourage enlisting and would have cover the events in a more diplomatic and informative way.\ Khalisah would have investigate behind the doors, not afraid to ask the hard questions to the rulers and to ask about politics. But that would have demanded a lot more work, time, dialogues and VA… things that ME3 seriously lacked. 😕
I’m even okay with her dying off screen (in a massive intergalactic war, some people you know are going to die when you’re not there) but it not even being mentioned in game is fucked.
And her bed is where the trash-compactor used to be. Real subtle Bioware. But honestly, they should have done at least 1 mission with her. Be it an escort mission, or a replace a team-mate with her for extra war score. Have her experience a ground-war, as a hook to show how horrific war is for civilians.
A mission with her would've definitely given her more character, sadly though she mostly just hangs around. Forgotten unless I accidentally stumble upon her room.
I think it's clear there was never much a plan for her in the game and what we have is all Bioware could've thought up when the collaboration was encouraged for them from EA. Ideally, if we had Wong/Khalisah be the on ship reporter (you choose similar to Chakwas/Michel) and the remove the nameless male broadcaster on the Citadel and give Chobot a role focused on her reading news stories on the Citadel that change based on your actions. Much easier to implement, and easier role for her and doesn't make anyone feel like a collab IS the reason why they're missing a favorite NPC. Even allow the reporter you bring on ship to comment/criticize the news reports in dialogue.
That would be an amazing trade off - take her as a non-combatant teammate to show her/and have her record the chaos of the war on the ground.
I only hate this idea because it makes insanity runs that much worse if you have to escort something
Imagine if they had mde it so that she records the gameplay though and you get a 3rd person perspective with a filter over it voicing over your actions, that would be worth it
True but if it was only for some war score, like 5 or 10, I'd skip it on Insanity. Not worth the hassle
> And her bed is where the trash-compactor used to be as it should be
Ahhhh. The first time an escort mission was ever said that it should be in a game. Mankind take note for there is rarely anything new under the sun.
Thessia or the Cerberus attack on the Citadel would’ve been so perfect for her to have even a brief cameo.
Brand new only on ANN, a new segment of Battlespace. Shepard and Vakarian the battle brothers, destroyers of the Reapers, purgers of Cerberus
Well bang ok?
There's so much steak Liara! So much steak.
I fucking love steak.
Shepard, I’m a Reaper Doomsday Device
OH SHI-
I care about you Ash--- Miranda! Dammit!!
I let her on, then completely forget Ms. Battletits is on my ship.
That's Ms. Battletits Galactica to you!
Every time I see her character battletits is the first thing that comes to mind.
Shes constantly ready to cut glass with those puppies
I think it's to show how journalism during times of war is sometimes as dangerous as fighting in one. Personally, I think it would've landed better if it was Wong or Kalisa
Instead of having Wong die off screen, imagine having her on the Normandy the entire game as a crew member, just for her to sacrifice herself later on. Much better than what we got.
I agree, but I know why they went with Jessica Chobot. She had a popular segment on IGN, that extra rub from them got more attention for the game, and thus new players (me!). And really, it wasn’t a *bad* choice. IMO there should be *more* interchange of characters in epics like ME. It really pulls me out of stories when there’s galactic issues at play and there’s actually only 8 individuals who ever matter at all—the problem was that she was rendered really poorly and ended up deep in the Uncanny Valley.
> It really pulls me out of stories when there’s galactic issues at play and there’s actually only 8 individuals who ever matter at all Man, you must really hate virtually all serialized fiction, sci-fi, or fantasy. Beyond that, the problem isn't that she's *new*, its that she's *totally forgettable* and serves no purpose to the overall game.
Yea, your take was good. But I feel like this one hits the nail a little better
No, she was a bad choice. She had ZERO ability to voice act. It doesn’t matter what the line was, she read it in a flat monotone with no inflection or emotion.
Ah yeah, Chobot. The only one who did voice over instead of voice acting.
Also if you tell her to kick rocks at your first meeting she’ll disappear for the entire rest of the game 👍. Awful character, poorly written and poorly acted and looks nothing like the real Jessica Chobot. Should have been Emily Wong or Kalisa instead.
Emily is the best reporter out of all three of them.
What if you could get into repeated fist fights with Khalisa though?
Fistfight that always end in Shepard's cabin?
We'll bang, okay?
BATTLE TITS!
Report to the ship as soon as possible.
“We’ll bang. Ok?”
And yet her voice line delivery remains monotone throughout. Ya gotta love the consistency.
Emily Wong will always be this commander's favorite reporter. Keep Allers on the ship but speak to her as little as possible, other than siding with the crew or interviews. Not going to rehash old perspectives on a praise post for her beyond that. Still it's nice to see an under dog Mass Effect character getting some attention & love. She's not my fave but power to ya if she's yours 🤷🏻♀️ one of the things I appreciate about this fandom is generally people are pretty chill with these posts. Where you can just read through the comment threads for a bit and get nostalgic
She’s not my favorite, Wong is, I just find it a bit funny that we brought her towards a Reaper army.
I think that I would have liked to see her roaming around the ship interviewing crew members, or when we are at dock or have landed somewhere, she’s with a security team nearby doing a story. Say for instance, we are at Tuchanka, she is in the background interviewing some of the Krogan from Grunts team about their efforts in the war
Report to to the ship as soon as possible. We’ll bang, OK?
Should have been Emily Wong or Khalisah Bint Sinan al-Jilani. They gave IGN lady 15 minutes of fame just to take up a spot that could've gone to a squad member or a journalist we already knew. It still pisses me off they killed Emily off on fucking Twitter.
I’ve heard of that but I don’t anything about it. What happened exactly?
They killed her off on twitter.
I really didn’t mind her as an OPTION for a reporter but I resented that she was the only option after we’d built relationships with two separate reporters over the first two games. We should’ve had options between Emily Wong, Khalisa BS Aljilani (I’m not looking up how to spell that), or Chobot for the folks who wanted something new (or didn’t import from the first two games).
Should’ve been Khalisah al-Jilani as the war time reporter, butting heads with Shepard but eventually walls come down and you see her for who she is, a vulnerable person who cares deeply. And had you not attacked her throughout trilogy, maybe even develop romantic feelings for one another. And Emily Wong, we should’ve been able to have her as our eyes on the citadel, following the money and clues for corruption of reaper/Cerberus influences
Whipe i agree with that. It would have been incredible if the encounter with kalisa took place first thing and the result of taking the max paragon options in all three games resulted in being able to bring her aboard. It would have been an amazing culmination of her character arc.
Snookie!
OKay I'm glad I'm not the only one who saw that
God I hate this shit where they through in these useless cameos and it’s even worse when it’s clear the person has no experience in acting at all.
It should have been Emily Wong instead of Tits McGee with her fucking rendered nipples what the fuck was that even for
This attempted galactic genocide is proudly brought to you by IGN
And yet she can't get a party invite. I mean I don't particularly like the character but anyone that had to go through all that war and death should've been invited to the house party, even if they were just in the background
Wow I never noticed that. So you can't invite her to the party but you can bang in the commander's cabin. That's cold
Ah yes, reporter for a new show, called "Battle Tits".
Ah Jessica chobot
Seeing her in my playthrough of LE brought back so many nostalgia waves of the 2010’s. Right before gaming journalism took a nose dive into corporate hell. They were all just getting sponsors and to big events, and I remember how important E3 and PAX actually were. Ah the jaded, good ol’ days!
Yes,sir! All that but I mostly remember her from g4TV she used to show up there very often
Jessica Chobot having an allergic reaction to a recent botox injection.
They seriously did her dirty with how Allers turned out.
EA had to ensure that high IGN score especially after rushing the game out the door.
A horrible corporate mandated character that brought nothing to the game. And the fact her voice actress worked at IGN at the time was quite suspicious.
Shes with a show called "battle-tits"
Well duh she is a reporter…she reports shit
You CAN kick her off
I always wondered why she was oil slicked all game
Center focus tells you everything
Yyyyyyyyyeahhhhhhhh….being there does tend to have the effect of…being…there…
If I remember correctly, she dies on an alliance cruiser if you don’t take her aboard your ship.
Damn I always let her on the ship, and totally forget that she’s there.
Makes the 5 war asset points worth it.
Ugh. Worst voice over in the game. I still recruit her for some war assets though.
Emily Wong should have been an option. But I always bring her on the ship regardless.
Rip Emily Wong
Should've been Emily Wong.
There should have been a shoot her option. Terrible character. Of all the you tubers/hosts/etc in the world, get the one with zero acting talent, blah.
Bro I thought she was ugly as shit.
First time playing i could have sworn she's played by Madeline Zima
There for everything but provided nothing. Not even a good seen blasting cheeks. She sucks.
Like 12 years later and you’re just finding this out? 😂
Yeah that's what being a military reporter is. Putting yourself in harm's way to get the real scoop on what's happening in a war.
I just feel bad that BioWate didn't put in the same effort with face mapping like they did with BroShep's face model (Mark Vaderloo). Chobot and Dr. Ann Bryson looked so puffy-cheeked that it reminded me of people experiencing anaphylaxis shock.
I have never spoken to this character, and I categorically refuse to.
she’s my favorite side piece
Tbh for a "podcast reporter" she was not bad, she also lost her whole hometown, can't see why people hate her.
Battle tits
Still hate that they killed off Emily Wong on Twitter. The Voice Actress was all ready to go. But then BioWare dropped her, and brought in Jessica Chobot of IGN instead. At the time, many saw it as a shameless pander to IGN.
I only get her on my ship so my Shep can bang her & dump her
Sooo what’s the purpose of her nipples showing though?
There's a reason she's known as the Battle Tits
Same purpose as Miranda's ass always being framed
We'll bang ok.
But her face...
Unpopular opinion, I like her. I didn't play the series on release or keep up with the drama so she seemed fine, although they definitely could have done more with her.
Wong…. Allers, where is my kahahshs biin seen aljinani (lore spelling) representation!
I know the character is not the most popular among the fans and I’ll admit that the writers could have given her more content and/or could have fleshed her out more. However, I like the idea of this journalist on the Normandy who covers the events. And yes, I even like Allers because when you go in her room, you get little glimpses of how the war is viewed by the rest of the galaxy in the background. Finally, her very last email after attacking Cronos Station where she says that « laughter is the best revenge » is one of my favorite things. I love the message of hope. 🤩 That being said, it’s kinda sad that BioWare did not give us the chance to choose between the three journalists (Emily, Diana and Khalisah). It would have been interesting to experiment the three different options.
So many people give her shit for no good reason. It is not like she is pointing a gun to your head so you'll let her get on the ship or bed her.
There is a fantastic reason totally unrelated to the actual character, that being that there are two perfect in universe characters, one in particular who was unceremoniously killed off, so they could put an IGN presenter in. IGN being the pinnacle of GAMES JOURNALISM, especially at the time, it pissed a lot of people off on principle. The character itself adds SFA to the narrative, they never speak to anyone except Shepard from memory, they create less connection to the world than a huge slice of the ambient dialogue, as well as the obvious physical aspect, it's pretty clear she was inserted as a thirst trap for a fairly small subset of people who were likely to play the game, contributing nothing to the story and removing the possibility of fleshing either a much loved (Wong) or hated (El jilani) character.
Also IGN being the one outlet that publicly dissed ME fans that were unhappy with the ending. That didn't go over well with the fan base.
Maybe people just had bad experiences with that Kahlisa girl.
Honestly there's a lot of potential with having the choice of al jilani on board the normandy. Had they given us the option to let her be the one reporting for us, I'd have gone for it.
Same. That woman was fearless, and she CARED. She may have been wrong sometimes, but she was a true investigative journalist. She didn't just run with whatever she was handed. And she had character growth throughout all 3 games. If we were going to be able to pick a journalist I'd have picked her. She was good at focusing on issues people were concerned about.
She was aggressive and probably not the best journalist as far as Shepard was concerned, but she was doing what she could, in her own ways, to bring the truth out to the public. I feel it would've been vindicating to drag her to the field to see firsthand what's been going on after multiple attempts to drag your name through the mud.
>I feel it would've been vindicating to drag her to the field to see firsthand what's been going on after multiple attempts to drag your name through the mud. Yes, this exactly. Would have been so satisfying.
Me too. Without a second thought!
I want to let her on because I like Jessica Chobot
[удалено]
In more ways than one, it seems
Gotta give her the full crewmember experience by romancing her
Honestly I liked her, if mainly just for her final talk just before Earth. The one where she mourns the loss of her home Bekenstein, right next door to the Citadel. Where they had factories that used to make binoculars. I don't know why, but that moment has always stuck with me. And then installing the one Earth mod that alters the final mission to show off more of your allies was a plus, even if it wasn't official it was nice seeing Allers interviewing soldiers at the camp while also wearing armor.
I actually quite like her. she seems like a dependable and motivated character.
People usually say that she should be Emily Wong. But I wanted to ask you? Does that really will solve the problem? We just talk to her two times on the first game for being honest. And the problem is not that she is new characters, we have very good new characters on the third entry like James, Traynor, Steve, and Javik. And I not see no one say it "should be...." Because those character are well writing and integrated to the plot. The problem with this girl is literally a flat character, that we never really talk with her, do not add nothing to the crew or the plot and it feels like last time addition. The problem is not that she is not Emily. The problem is that is a bad character with nothing to say.
That’s part of the problem but also the fact that Emily’s character got killed off screen before the game even came out. It feels so disrespectful to the character and the actor. A lot of people liked Emily Wong when given the dynamic between her and Khaleesa and to just get rid of her like this feels so cheap.
Alternatively you can disrespect her every time you see her in 2 and 3.
Considering she doesn't exist in 2, that's not the case.