There are times when you get both paragon and renegade points for your actions. It’s fairly impossible to go through the game as a paragon and not have any renegade points.
Late to the party here but I frakkin love this game.
And yeah, I don’t think you can get through the game as a pure Paragon or Renegade. At least getting one doesn’t subtract from the other.
Actually if you tell her the wrong Shadow Broker Agent she’s going to kill the wrong person. I’ve yet to see anyone say that she died because you chose the wrong one. All choosing the wrong means is the real Observer is still there spying on her for the Shadow Broker. In fact choosing the right one puts Liara in more immediate danger than choosing the wrong one as Liara will confront the Observer. Bioware isn’t killing her off any time soon. She’s too important to the overall plot of the trilogy for that.
It’s possible that choosing the wrong one will set Liara up for being in a bad situation down the line but the choice doesn’t actually get her killed. Liara is a love interest from ME1 (and obviously in love with Shepard even if Shepard doesn’t love her) and they made the LI’s unable to die in ME2 so they can be in ME3 which is why no matter what you say Liara, Ash or Kaidan will not join your mission. They might kill everyone in ME3 but until that happens Liara is the only character guaranteed to be alive at the start of ME3.
It is an interesting idea that Liara might be truly be the Observer but I don’t really see it. Liara may be acting all tough when you show up but it’s all a front. And after her little confession I can’t buy her working with the Shadow Broker. Liara clearly can’t lie because that tough act is so obviously an act that I have trouble believing anyone actually buys it. Although I guess they don’t really know Liara so they don’t have the socially inept archeologist side to compare it to.
The Illusive Man is lying to Shepard. Liara is the only one from ME1 that you can’t recruit but doesn’t actually have an obvious reason as to why. Ash/Kaidan are still serving in the Alliance and Shepard isn’t Alliance anymore, Wrex is trying to unite his people on Tuchanka but Liara doesn’t have any outward ties to speak of. TIM knows what Liara did while Shepard was dead and he knows that she would never work for the Shadow Broker, I think he’s afraid to have Liara too close to Cerberus for some other reason. Knowing how aggressive she’s gotten in the comics I don’t blame him. She’s already bound and determined to take out the Shadow Broker, it wouldn’t take much for her to want to take out TIM.
No, I’m saying Nyxeris is gonna cap Liara if you screw up the observer mission
Maybe, she did say that Nyxeris could have taken her out if she didn’t see her coming.
At least she has got more bad ars rather then a whinny little Alliance sympathizer. 
There has to be much more to Liara’s story. Would losing some guy make her invest two years + in searching. Also, if she was still feeling guilty about giving Shepard to Cerberus then what was so important that she would stay rather then going with Shepard.
I was complaining more that I couldn’t figure out why or how I was getting renegade points more so that I am getting them. Both are an issue to, but the former is moreso.
Last night, I saved over my Jack loyalty mission because I didn’t have enough Paragon points to amicably resolve the standoff between Miranda and Jack. sigh And, I wanted that biotic upgrade too.
I did Grunts loyalty mission and got 5 Renegade points again. I have no clue why. I killed that frakkin’ thresher maw 3 times before giving up. And, I cannot not kill it because Grunt and Mordin are too powerful. And, I’m not going to do the whole thing over again with a weaker team member to find out if the thresher maw’s death is what’s giving me the points.
So, what I’m confused about so far are can you recruit Samara, investigate the Collector’s ship, and do Grunt’s loyalty quests without getting renegade points. If so, how? My shiny Collector’s edition Prima Guide is woefully inadequate in those instances.
You can’t do those missions without earning Renegade points. It’s impossible to play this game and not earn Renegade points. I haven’t tried to not earn Paragon points but I know you can’t make it through the game without earning Renegade points. Some actions, while being the Paragon action because of their nature will earn you Renegade points. If you think about it Shepard is essentially a Renegade during ME2. Yes you can get the Council to reinstate your Spectre status but you are no longer part of the Alliance, you are doing your current mission without the support of the Council for that mission and you are working for Cerberus.
Bah!! ):
What happened to the good ole days when games ignored shades of grey?
+5 Renegade without an accompanying higher Paragon score means you chose an exclusively Renegade convo option. For +5/+2 or +2/+5 type outcomes, try replacing some of the dialog choices with the neutral conversation option using trial and error. By sacrificing the higher score you want, you’ll get rid of the opposite lesser unwanted score. Solving the civilian side quests on Citadel/Omega/Illium usually rewards 50 XP and +5 a pop. More if the quest features the interrupt option.
It’s early yet, but 100% Paragon on my third play through thus far. Frak, looks like I’ll be hugging everybody. 
Beware the +35 conversation outcomes, will those decisions either way haunt you in ME3? After doing Tali a solid, giving the Quarian admiralty a little Shepardly advice seems like an afterthought. A later email on the Normandy reveals it to be a flytrap, shameless setup for ME3. Try it both ways and see. Going neutral forces Bioware to decide for you next game. 
I think you get Renegade points simply because you’re helping Grunt.
Consider. Mordin and his team created the Genophage to keep the Krogan under control. Basically before they bred like rabbits on Viagra and threatened to overrun the galaxy, so the Salarians and Turians defeated them then infected them with the Genophage so they would never have the numbers to be dangerous again. It wasn’t designed to kill them off, just to keep their numbers controllable (Mordin says as much).
Okeer decided that instead of trying to defeat the Genophage, he would simply create a better Krogan. He has a line about how Grunt is even more powerful than a normal Krogan would be with a hundred of his phantom brothers beside him. By helping Grunt you are helping create a more powerful Krogan race that could (and in fact probably will) become a danger to the galaxy again someday.
If you don’t do his Loyalty mission and let him die on the Suicide mission all of you are on then, well, no problem. But you gave him the will to survive and so, yeah, Renegade points.
Hmm… I haven’t finished yet, so I feel my opinions don’t have weight yet. That said, I don’t think that’s it. Specifically, I wonder if the 5 renegade points were for killing Worf…I mean Uvenek. (I recognized his voice right off. I keeled a frakkin’ icon!!).
I wonder if I would have gotten fewer points had I convinced Grunt to do what Uvenek wanted and let him live?
I may try to find out later. I’m pretty good at dodging the thresher maw now… Pratorians are another matter… ):
I’d wager they more than likely are. Uvenek is a clan leader, maybe not the head honcho but still a clan leader. You can’t get out of that run in with him without there being a confrontation. Yeah, you might be doing what’s best for Grunt but it’s not necessarily what’s best for the Krogan. That’s why some of the stuff you do will always net you both Paragon and Renegade points.
It isn’t always the case of substituting one for the other. I mean that if a Paragon response gets 4 points that doesn’t guarantee a Renegade response of 4 nor a Neutral 2 of each. Maybe for common dialogue but the big decisions are where the point really are. Also make sure you get the Interrupts because they give you bonus points.
Looks like you aren’t alone in the Jack and Miranda fight. Others say they have really high paragon and can’t get it. I saw both options the first time through but just the renegade this time. The fight triggers after you have completed both of their loyalty missions. It may have to do with the conversations before hand. Here is a thread discussing it but I haven’t seen any definite answer to what triggers the blue and red responses.
I would go with killing Worf as the cause.
Has anyone managed to get through ME2 on Insanity? I’ve started an Insanity playthrough but I had to give it a rest for a while because I died 5 times just trying to finish Mordin’s recruitment mission. All those shields, armor and the bloody Vorcha regenerating give the AI an almost unfair advantage. I was seriously on the verge of throwing my control across the room. Even the awesomeness that is the sniper rifle didn’t help because at that point in the game I only had the one sniper rifle that holds only 10 rounds.
Thanks for the link. Sucks that I may have saved over that mission for nothing. I have the feeling I’ll definitely be one of the people who won’t have the paragon option no matter how high I get it.
Must be Bioware’s way of ensuring replayability. d:
As for Worf, it’s funny how I answered my own question regarding getting renegade points for that mission. Thanks, tanstaafl. I doubt I’ll retry that part without killing Worf because I’ve deleted the relevant saves. Btw, anyone else have a problem with the limited amount of saves this game allows?
all BioWare games have a limited save amount it seems
Yes, but some have ample amounts while others don’t.
Baldur’s Gate 2 and Dragon Age: Origins have unlimited amount. Gets to be a problem when you have so many saves that the game lags when quick saving or viewing saved games in game. Of course, the remedy is just to delete old saves you won’t go back to.
I’ll say one thing. ME2 save files are tiny!
Btw, I recognized the the woman from Flash Forward as Shala’Raan. Admittedly, that was right after I ruled out it wasn’t Kate Mulgrew. They sound sorta similar with the quarian voice modulation.
Lol. Han’Gerrel is Teyrn Loghain. All these recognizable voices got me using IMDB as much as my strategy guide.
Did not recognize Admiral Xen, but something made me look her up.
I LMsbO when Mordin sang.
I haven’t had any problems. There are very few points in the game you may want to keep permanent. ME series only allows a limited amount of save spots per character but I have never reached a limit to how many saves I can do so I just overwrite the old ones. It leaves enough of a buffer and even if I wanted to go back past the last 1 or 2 saves I wouldn’t want to replay anything past 15 min.
I had the opposite thing in Dragon Age. First thought of FF lady then finally placed it as Kate.