meeches must stay extinct

[souled out]

KEEP MEECHES DEAD! i dont give a rip about the "potential" of meeches. and i think they should not be "lost in some wilderness" somewhere. the game needs to keep its touch with reality, and i think extinction is a poetic and sad fate for some of the over hearvested creatures in oddworld. thats part of the reason we like the first game, was because it was a sad place and we want things to improve for abe. moreover we already saved the gabbits, i think the meeches should stay done for.

changing the story line now would be like trying to take one of abes fingers off each hand to save money, or selling out to sobe.

Oddworld is ODD! not happy all the time. i think there should be SAD FMVS (despite sucessfully completeing a level) as well as happy ones to balance the story. Dont belive me? watch a film called Grave of the Fireflies.

thoughts? comments? ideas?

[oddguy]

Keeping Meeches dead shows the consequences of an over-industrialized world. I just love the design of the Meeches, and hope to be able to play as one of them. Maybe as a secret feature?

However, an online daily deception mentioned the South Meech Diet, so I don't know if that means they're alive or dead.

Alcar has mentioned that OWI have hinted the return of the Meeches as well.

-oddguy

[Mac the Janitor]

I wholeheartedly agree with you. They should serve the purpose of teaching us what can happen when the industries, food or not, go too far and when basic values are lost.

[Xavier]

Meeches have to stay dead, that's for sure, or else it would spoil the whole message
anyway, we might be able to see meeches in a game if this one is taking place before the start of the quintology.

[Havoc]

or in one of Abe's many flashbacks...

[Fuzzles!]

I wholeheartedly agree with you. They should serve the purpose of teaching us what can happen when the industries, food or not, go too far and when basic values are lost.

So true. They should stay extinct. I mean once a species is obliterated from our planet, that's it. They're gone. They can't just magically return somehow. I think the message is stronger and more realistic if they don't reappear, unless as it was mentioned, in a flashback or earlier time period.

[drakan90]

Yeah but what about Hand of Odd. Thats supposed to be set BEFORE the quintology. So naah. Meeches for all! ...maybe!

[Jacob]

It could be that Meeches are somehow brought back via Vykker technology. It wouldn't exactly be far fetched, since there have been many-a-rumour about resurrecting the Mammoth and Tazmanian Tiger.

Although, if they did do this as a plot twist thing, they'd have to make it so that the Vykkers are creating them, treating them badly and then hacking them up for meat. Meaning that if Abe and co want to stop this, they would have to stop the creation of the Meeches and "restore natures balance" by actually making them extinct.

However, i hope they stay extinct, unless the reason for their survival is credible.

[Shell Man]

Let us not forget the bit of Vykker's lab concept art depicting various creatures in tubes, including what looked like Meeches.

[Nate]

yes. good memory shell man (heh, that name makes me laugh) and good thinking jacob. That would be a plausible way to get them back but I'm not sure that they would have to re-extinct them. The glukks wiping them out is out of the natural balance so bringing them back would restore the ecosystem on mysterious misty plateaus

[oddguy]

It could be that Meeches are somehow brought back via Vykker technology. It wouldn't exactly be far fetched, since there have been many-a-rumour about resurrecting the Mammoth and Tazmanian Tiger.

Although, if they did do this as a plot twist thing, they'd have to make it so that the Vykkers are creating them, treating them badly and then hacking them up for meat. Meaning that if Abe and co want to stop this, they would have to stop the creation of the Meeches and "restore natures balance" by actually making them extinct.

However, i hope they stay extinct, unless the reason for their survival is credible.

Oooooh, great plot line. That'd be very interesting.

-oddguy

[Jacob]

'The glukks wiping them out is out of the natural balance so bringing them back would restore the ecosystem on mysterious misty plateaus'

True, but i think it'd be a good "Doing something good, that has bad consequences" sorta moral...thing. Where the heroes could either let the Meeches carry on being bred, poorly treated and hacked up/experimented on. Or, they could stop the animal cruelty, but evidently cause the extinction.

And just so you don't have the whole "Let two go and make them breed" or something, you could just say that the clones are infertile [which i think is true anyway].

[Xavier]

Jacob, this is an excellent idea, it is quite complex and I like it, not one of the lots of moments where everything is 100% bad or 100% good.

subtility, that's the word

[Software Bug]

I agree with xavier

[Oddipus]

I say; keep em dead, but give us another creative way to enjoy the creatures. (Burial grounds, ghost, pictures, posters, stuffed animals as collective item off rich glukkon,...)

[Wil]

I essentially agree with everything that's been said. Keep Meeches extinct, definitely. However, that's not to say we can't observe them in a flashback. Spotting a mounted Meech head in the corner of some Glukkon office would also be a nice easter egg, provided it wasn't too obvious.

EDIT: Well spotted, Nate. *thumbs up*

[Nate]

you mean "not too obvious" don't you?

that would be a freaky memento. Meeches are one of the wierdest-looking oddworld creatures

[Seargentbig]

Anyone who has seen a picture of a meech cant have missed the fact that they have three jaws... weird...

[Xavier]

this is for the ones who don't know how a meeche look like...

and indeed 3 jaws

[Nate]

I hadn't noticed the 3 jaws before. Do we know anything about their behaviour? My guess is that they are quite aggressive. I think Alf once said that they ran in packs. What else do we know?

[Dipstikk]

Actually, it should have four (unless it has an empty space on the right side of it's jaw.

Symmetry, people! Symmetry!

[Nate]

Hang on a minute - are those three jaws as in jaws on top of each other (so kinda two seperate chewing gaps) or three jaws as in two normal jaws and another coming from the side (looking a bit like a slig mouth in a way)

[WiLL the Wander]

Anybody seens the Tremors 2? They have three jaws, too... Like the meeches... and i read it before in the forums, the meeches hunting for elums in packs in desert or they was cave dwellers...

[Xavier]

they have 3 jaws...
for all the known info about that dreature you should ask a pro, like Max the Mug

[Seargentbig]

No, it's two mouths devided by a third jaw.
I put forward a suggestion that it may be a scavenger- two mouths mean that it can eat more faster, possibly before something more dangerous got to it.

[WiLL the Wander]

No, it's two mouths devided by a third jaw.

Yes, you right.

[Nate]

What do you think those hands are for? They are so small and claw-like that they look like they are just vestigial appendages. They're like T-rex arms. Do you think they can use them for anything?

Also, it looks like there are hard plates on the back similar to armadillos. Do you think they can curl into a ball in order to protect themselves?

[Xavier]

seems higly possible to me...

and true, the 4 arms/fingers are not realy usefull, maybe to cary litle and light objects

[Wil]

According to Lorne, Meeches have four jaws. This interview is from way back in the day, before people knew there were other Elums, so forgive the question-asker (whose identity I know not).

Q: What is a meech and what does it look like, is it actually the lone Elum?
Lorne: You can see a cartoony illustration of a Meech in the first Abe's Oddysee games
opening movie. They had two legs and a move with four jaws. They are quite cool looking. So far, everyone believes that Meeches are extinct. But later on, we will be visiting Meeches and trying to bring them back from extinction. They are quite nasty
little buggers that like to run in packs. Think Hyenas that like eating Elums.

[Xavier]

Max, aow that's quite a scoop!
I can't see the four jaws, only 3.
"trying to bring them back" but maybe not succeed, sounds like Jacob's theory could make sence