That is a pretty awesome conversation but the conversations on Illium are some of the best in ME2 IMO. The racist Asari on Illium was an odd but awesome conversation (you tend to run into quite a few more racist aliens this time around), especially as I walked around and heard all the anti-pureblood talk going on. It was so bad at times I was getting angry on Liara’s behalf and wanted to smack down a few of them to defend her honor. I was amazed at just how emotional the talk with the racist Asari turned out to be. The bartender on Illium is simply fantastic and probably my favorite random character interaction. She cracks me up with her stories and some of her one liners.
access denied 
Opps…my bad…try again.
“…they laughed the blue off my ass.”
I’ve been meaning to comment about that awesome line. Made me laugh hard being African American.
That line was fantastic. I had to stop playing for a few minutes just to laugh at that line. Or how about what she says if you talk to her again: “What can I get ya babe? Sorry, no sex. I just cleaned the bar.” I died laughing when she said that and I’m now convinced that Shepard is the equivalent of catnip for Asari.
Lol! I need to interact with her some more. I didn’t get that line.
Asari nip? There’s no romance potential with Samara though right?
I think Shepard is just alien nip. Nearly everyone wants to get into his/her pants.
Samara does seem to be immune to Shepard’s charm.
The bartender seriously cracks me up everytime I talk to her. I’m also debating whether or not Bioware purposefully had her mention a pureblood child in order to get us wondering if she might be the “father” that Liara has never met.
Lots of aliens do seem to want Shepard but most of those are in Shepard’s crew. With the Asari it seems that it’s more common. In ME1 you could hook up with both the Consort and Liara, and while ME2 only gives you one Asari option (and not the smartest choice) a lot more random Asari seem to hit on Shepard.
The road to pure Paragon ends if you recruit Samara. There appears to be no way to avoid a mandatory +5 Renegade score once her recruitment becomes final. Changing the interactions for Elnora, Pitne For, solving the Volus murder, only gains other Paragon or Renegade points. Googling around shows no one is claiming they can eliminate that final +5 Renegade score.
I suppose recruiting a judge, jury and executioner in high heels is unavoidably slightly immoral to a squeaky clean Paragon. Why this ethic doesn’t also extend to recruiting Jack, Mordin or Zaeed, I dunno.
Mostly pure Paragon will have to do.
There are miscellaneous niceties to importing a high Paragon Shepard. More hugs from old ME1 acquaintances. Gianna the undercover Noveria cop and the formerly Thorian enslaved Shiala both hit on Shepard each in her own way. Makes you wanna load up one of your renegade characters. 
I think the responses to Joker and Kelly’s queries about Ashley are the triggers. This would allow new ME2 players to voluntarily open up an Ashley ME3 story branch without ever having played ME1. Same gimmick as the memory quiz aboard the shuttle at the beginning of the game.
Best you can do is have her admit they could knock boots together in the next life. On the other hand, should you prove yourself to be an extra ruthless renegade, Samara swears to kill you in this life. She really meant what she said back on Ilium. :eek:
Why would anyone want to be pure Paragon? That takes away the whole point of playing the game. 
Samara totally broke my heart. I would hand Liara over to Morinth myself for the chance to be with her (sorry ol_whatsername :D).
I dunno about everyone else, but that makes no frakkin’ sense to me. I see what you’re saying about judge, jury, and executioner (she is the law!), but is she really worse than those three?
Only way I can see is that she pledged herself which could be seen as enslavement. I can deal with renegade points for that especially after all the preaching I did about slavery on Ilium since I arrived. Though, the problem I have with that is there’s no way to say, “Hey, no need for that. Just use your best judgment.”
I guess she’s the Viconia (BG2) of the game.
Now, I’m kinda torn between finishing my current play through as a Sentinel, and restarting as an adept and maxing out Biotic Mastery ASAP. I’m currently doing the N7 missions and not getting many Paragon points in them. I like Sentinel because of the shield bonus (saved my bacon a lot), but the constant pausing to to aim makes the game slow.
I have Derelict Reaper and Normandy Attacked/Legion before Endgame. My Paragon meter is just more than a sliver into the third bar. I’m not gonna max that before I am unable to finish loyalty missions am I?
Play style choice. (:
I refuse to watch that vid (I think I know what it is), until I finish the game. After Miranda (because I never played ME1), Samara is the only other chick I want my character to hook up with (maybe Kelly too). She and Thane have the best frakkin’ entrances in the game.
Edit: Never mind. I thought that was the Morinth video that’s been going around. My bad.
Edit edit: Holy crap, I just saw the scene with Kelly!
Did you do the Advanced training? You are able to learn a special skill from one of your loyal characters and Jacobs Barrier is always great. Another plus is that when you play through a second time you can have one of those skills from the beginning.
That seems very low. Did you upgrade your Defender skill early on? You get up to 100% more points from it. I have Renegade at 80% and paragon 25% with 2 loyalty missions and several assignments left before I go for the IFF.
My Character is Paragon 5:1 but my point is to just pick paragon for the sake of it is removing the choice and takes away from what makes ME so great.
FYI-I do what i can to prevent anything too spoilery knowing you are still playing through. 
My bad. I was referring from memory. A past a sliver into the fourth segment. Yeah, he got Defender 4 early.
I restarted adept 3 hrs ago and got Barrier.
Spoil away. If I didn’t want spoilers, I wouldn’t be reading this thread. d:
My import character was maxed Paragon at about this point. It is good that they give you a little bump from the time invested in ME1.
I am going to finish max my Infiltrator in ME. With that and the bonus from the first completion I should have a buffer for an Insanity play through. That will have to wait till after Bioshock 2.
You started a new character before finishing the first?
Curse your sudden but inevitable betrayal! 
Sometimes you just want to play lawful good.
In ME1 I was pure Paragon. I noticed odd Renegade points popping up here and there in ME2. I could usually replay for pure Paragon, but not always. I think Bioware really changed the purpose of the Paragon/Renegade split when they got rid of charm/intimidate. Perhaps it is a way of ensuring their Universe is a bit more morally ambiguous. I found it a bit freeing, eventually (after finding it really annoying). Still stayed a Paragon, but one with a tiny little chip on her shoulder.
I did not like the fact that when a mission ended, I often did not get an announcement on the Paragon/Renegade points. Minor issue though
As it should be. Life is morally ambiguous which is what makes ME so great. I am more emotionally invested in the game knowing my main character is subject to my decisions. After that first play through it is all fun and games, but having that one pure character where all the decisions are mine is truly special. No take backs or redoes, just my instincts.
I finished my renegade play through this morning and lost Mordin, WTF. :mad:
Somehow I never heard this one until the day I kissed Miranda then told her it was a mistake.
Engineer Daniels: I’ve got green across the board. The forward tanks are buoyant and elevated.
Engineer Donnelly: Are you talking about the Normandy or Miranda?
I’m talking about the one that’s covered and protected, not bouncing in the breeze.
I don’t know. Operative Lawson’s uniform is very official. It always makes me stand at attention.
You’re such a dog.
In ME1 there are definite gameplay advantages when playing a fast powering paragon style of game (or fast renegade). It’s an exploit. Pure Paragon is for material gain besides being confining, laborious and a chore.
Bioware changed their mind for ME2. I guess by forcing “impure” points on your desired alignment in ME2, they’re informing you that playing for total alignment was a play style they never originally intended.
Playing to around 80% in either ME1 and ME2 is just role playing. Trying to be as good or bad as you can. I think Bioware did good to prevent what would basically be a continuing exploit in ME2. That said, they handled the fix very muddily! Even though there is no longer any real advantage to be gained, you can still get 100% alignment by skipping entire sections of the game as opposed to bypassing just a few actions in ME1.
Anyone should still pursue an overall mostly blue or mostly red path. Being too wishy washy and unintentionally getting a roughly 50/50 ratio well into the game will deprive you from experiencing some of the game content. Besides sacrificing some of those blue or red magical conversation options.
In purely terms of game immersion, I prefer playing a renegade female character. Jennifer Hale is the better voice actor when it comes personifying the calculating ruthless bad ass Shepard. Considering that so much bad stuff goes down all around him/her, Shepard as inerrant Dudley Do Right is less plausible. Mass Effect is also at its funniest and faster paced when you’re MEAN.
Many of the interactions are absolutely more interesting when you’re occasionally cruel to be kind and vice versa. Especially in the love interest interactions, you not only get less interesting scenes but less scenes period when responding as all good or bad.
I totally agree. It just sounded to me like it was being played that way for a first run through. On additional characters it is awesome to go down alternate paths seeing what you missed or playing with certain goals. I just think that to go into a conversation, for the first time, knowing what way you want to answer will take some of the enjoyment away. Not to mention the sense of responsibility when those decisions come back around in the next game.
just finished my first play through and well the ending didn’t have quite the punch of the first one. it still was a great game; some of my favorite moments, when you have to sneak around the ship as joker after the collectors board it. and the AI says she likes humans on there knee’s; still not sure if that was a whole Skynet/HAL kind of joke or just plain dirty. but it made me laugh, and when It calls her Jeff in the end… well Bioware can write when they put there mind to it. the Kali loyalty mission made feel good to be a paragon. the pushing the merc out of the window in mission to get Thane. made me feel good to not be a complete Paragon.
some great voice acting suprises
I was like hey its Tigh…
hey its president bartlet…
hey its Aeron
only real complaint was; All my original team wasn’t playable; I mean what the spaghetti; i loved my rag tag team, of space hippies. new characters were fun. I mean Jack was all badass. and for the first time i actually liked the krogan and didn’t want to kill him and drop him off in the swamp. {ahh pour Wrex} but i was looking forward to playing one group of folks all the way through the three games. oh well here’s hoping its just EA wanting us to pay for downloadable content. and they can join in on the fun later.
but really great game as i expected from Bioware; i liked Dragon age a little better. although graphics, gameplay are better in ME i just loved the characters in DA
besides this quote just killed, there were tears…
Shale: I have a question for the painted elf
Zevran: The painted elf? You mean me? I quite like that - go ahead.
Shale: You are a Crow?
Zevran: Well… not exactly… yes i suppose I am, why?
Shale: So you like to defecate on poor unsuspecting statuary.
Zevran: (in best flirty voice) Given the chance, yes.
Shale: Stand far away from me elf, far, far away.
Zevran: Alas, this is not an uncommon reaction to my presance.