So Tali's Face, what do you think of the stock image?

Anthropomorphism will be a problem in any sci-fi or fantasy. It's an issue of being able to relate. They did a good job of involving the elcor, which still is anthropomorphic, and I'll explain, two eyes, two ears, a nose and a mouth, a head that's in general relation to it's body. It's what we're surrounded with on our planet, and so when we make what we consider leaps in creativity, realistically, it's still within the confines of what we know. I could put together a bunch of animals on our earth, and it would look creepily similar to an elcor. Incidentally, the same is true of the hanar, if you look to some of our sea life. And the idea of sentient species that communicate in ways that are outside of our understanding, and pulsate when they talk, and are, for the most part, incorporeal (on in this case, translucent) was an idea that was old before anyone from Bioware was alive. Look to the greats like Heinlein and Asimov. Nothing Bioware (or anyone else for that matter) has "created" wasn't already realized by authors before them. And you can argue that there's nothing left out there to imagine, but that's another cop out. Star Trek has been proving that (albeit poorly) for decades. There's a lot of stupid horsecrap in star trek, but there are some truly inspired ideas, too. If you can get past the wardrobes.

Well, would you want to pursue a LI with a Liara that looked more like Cthulhu or something? I always just checked it off as artistic license to make aliens more palatable.

I like the Elcor. Just imagine playing poker with one.

But yes, aliens we can relate to is easier to empathise with, no doubt, and making Tali too alien would alienate (gnuff, gnuff) most players, I think, so she had to be "mostly humanoid". Kissing a Predator, anyone?

Mass Effect is a SPACE OPERA and that's why I'm totally cool with aliens they gave us. Same goes for simplifications of those races none of them are totally alien and that's fine. It's not HARD SF, theme is not about speculation about unknown.
Mass Effect themes revolve around tolerance, unity, friendship, relationships, loyality, resolving past issues, prejudices towards old enemies or newcomers, finding closures. All those themes would be lost if aliens were really alien.
At same time, they made some races more than Star Trek's diffrent foreheads, and even placed Hanar there I'd say it's a great balance.

Funny thing about last pic from page 2 - for me she's too hot . This face just somehow doesn't fit my impression of girly Tali.

Oh, I didn't mean to imply I had a problem with the anthropomorphism. It is a space opera, as stated, and even if it wasn't, I've spent so long reading sci-fi that I realize you can't latch on to one aspect of the story. The characters are so well written that anyone who -did- have an issue with the anthropomorphism couldn't bring themselves to hate any of the aliens (funny, the humans are the less than epic characters -opinion-) It just goes to show that bioware could, and did, overcome such a small hurdle. Incidentally, that doesn't excuse the copout that was tali's face.

I don't mind how she looks, but it was cheap how they gave it to us.

Exactly my point. Anthropomorphism is nothing to be shunned in a storytelling context. Writers and artists can only write/create what they know, and all we've known is Earth. (However, there are some stories out there about truly "alien" beings who are in no way anthropomorphic and defy human understanding - which was what I used to think about the reapers until Star-child decided to show up and crapped in that cake.)
In regards to Tali's face, though? I don't mind her resembling a human, just put more effort into it than a damned google search. A drunk four year old could have done better.

jup

i freaked out as i heard about an actual photograph of Tali. though i always wondered how QUARIANS in general may look like, the most important thing about tali was that NOT to know how in particular SHE looks like aka "The first rule concerning Tali: NEVER show her face". i just hope that i can forget that badly photoshoped image that btw sucks a** in comparison to fan-made pics ( i also wanna forget those xD )

I know! I was hoping to know what Quarians looked like in general. I was getting excited because I saved both the geth and the quarians, and heard Tali explain how the geth would help the Quarians live on the homeworld without suits in a matter of years. I started to think, "If they have free roam in the end of the game, then I can finally see what Quarians look like!" We all know how that turned out...

When did Tali commit suicide!?

If you side with the Geth, (and don't have enough paragon points) Tali watches her people burn and die on re-entry into the planet, and she spreads her arms and falls off a cliff. YOu can't save her, even with the paragon interrupt

I agree she should have revealed her face in game not in a photo on your desk you can only sort of see. Other wise I had no problem with how she looked.

Initially I was annoyed that we didn't get to see her face when she removes the helmet in Rannoch ( I had a very child-like moment of "But I wanna see her!" ).

Then she says she has a gift, and I got curious. Go up to Shepard's room, and see there's a photo... "Okay, FINALLY I get to know how she looks!"... and it's a weird looking 'photography', instead of something made using the game's engine/graphics. I thought it was weird but hey, stranger things have happened.

And then I found out about it was just a photoshopped stock photo taken from Getty Images.

I... I barely know how to describe how I felt. "Betrayed" I suppose is a good word, even if my feelings of betrayal were paired with quite a bit of anger, disbelief and sadness. A veritable cocktail of not-so-happy feelings, I suppose.

I romanced Tali once during a playthrough of ME2 and i thought i was gonna see her face then but then i didnt so that was the last time i did that romance. I feel sorry for the people who romanced her though not getting to see her face and all during actual conversation but through just a picture that just sucks.

I felt the same way about wanting to see Tali's face, but I didn't mind that the picture of her face isn't quite what we expected it to be.

I wasn't as eager as some to see her face but I must admit that Bioware as truely pushed lazyness a little too far.
Everyone knew that Tali's fan wanted to see her face in the game, everyone! They pretend to be listening to feedback and yet miss one of the highest expectation toward a squad character...

I never had a romance with Tali, because of my love for Liara's story more so -- but I just felt that it was lazy for them to simply dress up a stock photo than put any work into a character that they'd fleshed out in the story for all three games.

I guess that when Bioware wanted to reveal Tali's face, they only thought of it as an afterthought. It's sad that we don't get to see Tali's face in conversations.

Couldn't agree more with this i thought the same thing because i wanted to see it also.

See the thing is that Bioware has been...kind of sloppy lately.

I was disappointed, because it really made me feel like the quality of the franchise was taken down a notch (and this was pre-ending, although I fully enjoyed the rest of the game). Tali is one of those characters that mostly everyone loves. And, you know, it would have been ok if they didn't reveal her face at all. Leave it to our imaginations. In my opinion, it would've been a lot better than using a stock pic. How did they not foresee that it was going to show up everywhere?

I'm glad I never romanced her, or didn't get as attached as some others did. Because I think few things would have broken immersion as seeing that pic.

If they didn't want to design a character, they could have at least taken their own picture and perhaps control it better . =/ Meh. But once again, when you think about the novels and the ending... you can definitely see a pattern of laziness/sloppiness there.