Saturday, 26 June 2010
Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Mass Effect Short Story
Mass Effect fans have had a very, very good year. Starting with the release of the second part of Bioware's epic galactic trilogy and moving to expanded stories courtesy of Dark Horse comics, fans of Commander Shepard have had no shortage of material.
But what comes next? With the game out and the comic book, Mass Effect: Redemption, in stores and collected, would fans of Bioware's galactic epic be left sitting in the cold? Not quite. Dark Horse has teamed with Mass Effect game writer Mac Walters to craft another entry in the ME universe, this time in the form of an eight-page story. The best part about said story? IGN has it, in its entirety, for you - today.
"Dark Horse and the Bioware team are always looking for new ways to explore the Mass Effect universe, and an opportunity came up to do a smaller, 8-page story on their MySpace page," said writer Mac Walters. "We wanted to continue to explore the original comic book, Redemption, and find a snippet in there. The idea I had was that I had a moment [in Redemption] where Liara meets Aria on Omega, and Aria has a very negative reaction to a mention of the Collectors. And I thought that I didn't really mention why that is. It makes sense if you think about it, but maybe there's a story behind it. So that's the genesis of these 8 pages."
We asked Walters about the challenge of bringing Mass Effect's branching, expansive, contextual narrative to life in the pages of a comic book, a format that is decidedly less prone to user input.
"In this case what I'm doing is focusing on characters who Shepard, who you do control in the game, that he would run into and meet. Their reactions are usually along a certain path, so this allows us to take those characters and show the universe through their eyes. It's actually a lot of fun to walk about in this massive universe and spectacle that we've created through the eyes of someone other than Shepard."
This 8-page story marks Walters' first solo comic book writing credit. (The Redemption mini-series was co-written by John Jackson Miller.) Have these experiences collaborating with Dark Horse comics changed the way Walters approaches looking at crafting the game? Does he now see comic book possibilities as he works on the Mass Effect universe?
"I wouldn't say it changes my approach - we still make games the way we make games - but there are moments where I wish I had a little more space to tell a story. Or sometimes I have to pull back a little for whatever reason, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking this piece would make for a great comic book. Sometimes what happens is you create a character who's meant to just have a bit part, but once you get the visuals in and hear his voice, you think the character is a lot of fun. You'd like to see more of him. And where can you do that? I always think of the comic books when that happens."
No doubt the question on every Mass Effect fan's mind - are there more comic books on the horizon? Is Walters already talking with Dark Horse about what's next?
"Fans can definitely expect that should the opportunity arise, I'd be all over it. I've really enjoyed my time with Dark Horse. I've loved doing the comic book and I've learned a lot. I'd love to explore it a little more, learn a little more and provide an even better product the next time around."
But what comes next? With the game out and the comic book, Mass Effect: Redemption, in stores and collected, would fans of Bioware's galactic epic be left sitting in the cold? Not quite. Dark Horse has teamed with Mass Effect game writer Mac Walters to craft another entry in the ME universe, this time in the form of an eight-page story. The best part about said story? IGN has it, in its entirety, for you - today.
"Dark Horse and the Bioware team are always looking for new ways to explore the Mass Effect universe, and an opportunity came up to do a smaller, 8-page story on their MySpace page," said writer Mac Walters. "We wanted to continue to explore the original comic book, Redemption, and find a snippet in there. The idea I had was that I had a moment [in Redemption] where Liara meets Aria on Omega, and Aria has a very negative reaction to a mention of the Collectors. And I thought that I didn't really mention why that is. It makes sense if you think about it, but maybe there's a story behind it. So that's the genesis of these 8 pages."
We asked Walters about the challenge of bringing Mass Effect's branching, expansive, contextual narrative to life in the pages of a comic book, a format that is decidedly less prone to user input.
"In this case what I'm doing is focusing on characters who Shepard, who you do control in the game, that he would run into and meet. Their reactions are usually along a certain path, so this allows us to take those characters and show the universe through their eyes. It's actually a lot of fun to walk about in this massive universe and spectacle that we've created through the eyes of someone other than Shepard."
This 8-page story marks Walters' first solo comic book writing credit. (The Redemption mini-series was co-written by John Jackson Miller.) Have these experiences collaborating with Dark Horse comics changed the way Walters approaches looking at crafting the game? Does he now see comic book possibilities as he works on the Mass Effect universe?
"I wouldn't say it changes my approach - we still make games the way we make games - but there are moments where I wish I had a little more space to tell a story. Or sometimes I have to pull back a little for whatever reason, but in the back of my mind I'm thinking this piece would make for a great comic book. Sometimes what happens is you create a character who's meant to just have a bit part, but once you get the visuals in and hear his voice, you think the character is a lot of fun. You'd like to see more of him. And where can you do that? I always think of the comic books when that happens."
No doubt the question on every Mass Effect fan's mind - are there more comic books on the horizon? Is Walters already talking with Dark Horse about what's next?
"Fans can definitely expect that should the opportunity arise, I'd be all over it. I've really enjoyed my time with Dark Horse. I've loved doing the comic book and I've learned a lot. I'd love to explore it a little more, learn a little more and provide an even better product the next time around."
Source.
Monday, 21 June 2010
Friday, 11 June 2010
Mass Effect 3 @ E3 2010?
GameSpot has posted a big interactive floor plan, showing what's going to be on the showroom floor at E3 next week. Curiously, there are at least three new games on there.
If you hover over the EA booth, you'll see that both Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 are listed as games that'll be there to check out.
Now, none of these games will come as a surprise to anyone. They're sequels to big franchises, and expected ones at that. But I doubt many of you will have expected a new Mass Effect or Dragon Age to make a public appearance so soon, particularly since this time last year Mass Effect 2 and the first Dragon Age weren't even out.
These could be typos, they could be database errors; then again, they could be a slip on the part of GameSpot. Guess we'll find out next week!
Source.
My personal opinion is that it's unlikely that we'll see anything from Mass Effect 3 until at least GDC 2011 (muchlike the first glimses of Mass effect 2 at GDC 09), with a release expected first half of 2012. Given the rumours of a possible expansion pack for Mass effect 2, plus hvaing teams still on DLC, this would be curiously early for ME3 - how big is Bioware Edmonton these days, anyway?
If you hover over the EA booth, you'll see that both Mass Effect 3 and Dragon Age 2 are listed as games that'll be there to check out.
Now, none of these games will come as a surprise to anyone. They're sequels to big franchises, and expected ones at that. But I doubt many of you will have expected a new Mass Effect or Dragon Age to make a public appearance so soon, particularly since this time last year Mass Effect 2 and the first Dragon Age weren't even out.
These could be typos, they could be database errors; then again, they could be a slip on the part of GameSpot. Guess we'll find out next week!
Source.
My personal opinion is that it's unlikely that we'll see anything from Mass Effect 3 until at least GDC 2011 (muchlike the first glimses of Mass effect 2 at GDC 09), with a release expected first half of 2012. Given the rumours of a possible expansion pack for Mass effect 2, plus hvaing teams still on DLC, this would be curiously early for ME3 - how big is Bioware Edmonton these days, anyway?
Mass Effect 2: 'Overlord' DLC arrives June 15
Major Nelson's latest "Coming Soon" post lists Mass Effect 2's Overlord DLC with a June 15 upload date. Apparently the VI overlord is ready to go online and observe all the E3 festivities next week.
The Overlord DLC was revealed last month and will feature Cmdr. Shepard battling through "five levels set across one story on one planet" - with a jaunty drive around in the Hammerhead tank. Entering into battle against the virtual intelligence will cost 560 MS Points ($7).
Update: June 15 date also confirmed by EA.
The Overlord DLC was revealed last month and will feature Cmdr. Shepard battling through "five levels set across one story on one planet" - with a jaunty drive around in the Hammerhead tank. Entering into battle against the virtual intelligence will cost 560 MS Points ($7).
Update: June 15 date also confirmed by EA.
Source. and here.
Wednesday, 2 June 2010
Mass Effect 2 - Casey Hudson Interview (OXM)
Director Casey Hudson talks adult themes, the suicide mission and Mass Effect 3...
With the Mass Effect 2 dust now well and truly settled, we can look back on the game and see it in a new light. What of the romance, the adult themes, the suicide mission and - more importantly - Mass Effect 3? OXM chats to Mass Effect Director Casey Hudson to get the lowdown...
There's a scene at the very beginning where your Commander Shepherd is interviewed by Miranda and Jacob that's clearly there to determine what happened in everyone's Mass Effect 1 game, but it feels like it got cut short. What happened?
Well, in Mass Effect we track literally hundreds of decisions, and most of them wouldn't make for a very interesting conversation, especially for a new player. A new player wouldn't know Conrad Verner or Gianna Parasini [two incidental characters that feature in both games], so it wouldn't make sense for a new player to be answering questions on events they've never experienced before.
A little known thing about Mass Effect 2 is that while everyone knows about the save game connectivity and how well that works, I think that overshadows the fact that we really designed Mass Effect 2 to be a good entry point for new players. So that's why we don't give all these choices about what's happened before.
Is that something you're planning for Mass Effect 3 as well? You want it to be another smooth entry point?
Absolutely. We like to have this continuity and its payoff, but we also want each game to allow people to enter into the series at that point. If you haven't played either game we still want you to be able to play Mass Effect 3.
It's a tricky balancing act. So, Mass Effect 2 was obviously much darker than Mass Effect 1, with not only the combined angst of your crew but the extra emphasis on romance and the emotional consequence of your suicide mission. With gamers getting older, do you think adult themes need to feature in RPGs more prominently?
Well, I think that as well is also a tricky balance. Ultimately our highest level goal is to make a game that's really fun, both to people who have and haven't played our games before. It's something we're always trying to figure out.
But Mass Effect 2 got such an incredibly positive response. I don't remember reading anyone saying that Mass Effect 2 got too heavy at any point- gamers respond well when they're treated as adults. Doesn't "figuring out" come to an end here?
I think there's a difference between a game feeling grown-up and it having to go to a dark place, because you can go too far with the darkness and troubles in your subject matter. But there is a certain amount of fun that comes from the realism of a story, if it resembles a mature movie or TV show and resembles real adults interacting.
That's part of what we're always trying to pursue - how do we bring on the realism and the humanity of the experience? Because it makes you care more. Having a realistic reason to upgrading a weapon can put the entire game in the right context and make it seem more real.
The argument could be put forward that RPGs are all about escaping into their worlds. The more believable those worlds are, the better the RPG.
Right.
So should we be expecting something even more mature for Mass Effect 3?
[Laughs] Well, we're not talking too much about Mass Effect 3 right now, but the second story in a trilogy is where you traditionally end up in a fairly dark place. The third story is where you try and bring some fun and lightness back into it. One thing we tried to do with Mass Effect 2 was as well as bringing in the more mature stuff, we also tried to bring in a lot more humour so that we can go to these places without making it an overbearing experience. I think we have a lot more fun this time through characters like Joker and EDI. Mass Effect 3 is going to be the epic conclusion... so, a lot more darkness but also a lot more humour.
So, throughout Mass Effect 1 and 2 I was wondering the same thing - why no love for the crew? One of the most appealing features of Mass Effect is you have a ship and all these people underneath you, but at times ME1 and 2 made you feel like not a captain but an intergalactic SWAT-team leader.
Are you talking about your team?
No, they've obviously received all the love and attention in the world. I mean the dozens of people who take care of the day-to-day running of the Normandy. They're a strange dead-zone in a game which otherwise is so detailed.
Oh. That's an interesting point, but I think what you'll find is if you look at Mass Effect 1 there was much less on the ship and that Mass Effect 2 was a big step forward in terms of how rich the ship was, including in terms of characters. Mass Effect 1 had Presley, and Joker was there, but really not much else. The ship in terms of characters was fairly flat.
In Mass Effect 2 where you have a ship that's been populated with a ton of characters to make it feel fairly busy, obviously it'd be a huge amount of work to have you be able to talk to everybody. But we did add a lot of characters that talk to you over the course of the game. There's the engineers down below, Kelly Chambers, the cook...
...your cabin.
Right. But it's a valid point. It's your ship you spend time there, and it's something we'll probably continue to develop. But it was a step forward from Mass Effect 1.
As a final question, do you have a message for anybody out there who lost a friend or loved one at the hands of your Suicide Mission?
Well! There's always a way to get your squad members to survive. But I think for a lot of people there are characters they become attached to, and are upset they might die in the end, and there are other characters who they think "Oh! Fine, I can do without them." And so they leave their savegame that way. But I know there are people who get upset when they see a character they like get killed.
But there are choices you make that determine who survives that mission. You can always play that final mission again and mix it up to change who dies.
Funny thing is, the only character I lost was my female Shepherd's love interest, which felt like the most unfair thing but also oddly poetic. I wouldn't replay that mission for the world, and it's funny how every gamer seems to get a different result and react differently to it. It's such a great experiment. Are you happy with the response?
I think it worked out as well as we could have hoped. Because it was a bit of an experiment. Every time we talked about Mass Effect 2 we would always telegraph the idea that these characters die a permanent death. Even in the game, in the sub-plots where you rescue a cat or whatever, we would telegraph this idea that it might have something to do with who dies in the end.
That I think is a concept that worked really well. What we were trying to do there is figure out how in an RPG you can take all of these things in a varied plot, because you don't want everything to be "How you complete a military mission", and how do you make all of these small stories tie into the central plot. With this suicide mission, maybe something you do on the side will affect someone's loyalty, and that will cause someone to live or die in the ending. And because people were prepared for that, when they went into the final mission they were not only anxious but prepared for death. They were ready for it.
Source.
With the Mass Effect 2 dust now well and truly settled, we can look back on the game and see it in a new light. What of the romance, the adult themes, the suicide mission and - more importantly - Mass Effect 3? OXM chats to Mass Effect Director Casey Hudson to get the lowdown...
There's a scene at the very beginning where your Commander Shepherd is interviewed by Miranda and Jacob that's clearly there to determine what happened in everyone's Mass Effect 1 game, but it feels like it got cut short. What happened?
Well, in Mass Effect we track literally hundreds of decisions, and most of them wouldn't make for a very interesting conversation, especially for a new player. A new player wouldn't know Conrad Verner or Gianna Parasini [two incidental characters that feature in both games], so it wouldn't make sense for a new player to be answering questions on events they've never experienced before.
A little known thing about Mass Effect 2 is that while everyone knows about the save game connectivity and how well that works, I think that overshadows the fact that we really designed Mass Effect 2 to be a good entry point for new players. So that's why we don't give all these choices about what's happened before.
Is that something you're planning for Mass Effect 3 as well? You want it to be another smooth entry point?
Absolutely. We like to have this continuity and its payoff, but we also want each game to allow people to enter into the series at that point. If you haven't played either game we still want you to be able to play Mass Effect 3.
It's a tricky balancing act. So, Mass Effect 2 was obviously much darker than Mass Effect 1, with not only the combined angst of your crew but the extra emphasis on romance and the emotional consequence of your suicide mission. With gamers getting older, do you think adult themes need to feature in RPGs more prominently?
Well, I think that as well is also a tricky balance. Ultimately our highest level goal is to make a game that's really fun, both to people who have and haven't played our games before. It's something we're always trying to figure out.
But Mass Effect 2 got such an incredibly positive response. I don't remember reading anyone saying that Mass Effect 2 got too heavy at any point- gamers respond well when they're treated as adults. Doesn't "figuring out" come to an end here?
I think there's a difference between a game feeling grown-up and it having to go to a dark place, because you can go too far with the darkness and troubles in your subject matter. But there is a certain amount of fun that comes from the realism of a story, if it resembles a mature movie or TV show and resembles real adults interacting.
That's part of what we're always trying to pursue - how do we bring on the realism and the humanity of the experience? Because it makes you care more. Having a realistic reason to upgrading a weapon can put the entire game in the right context and make it seem more real.
The argument could be put forward that RPGs are all about escaping into their worlds. The more believable those worlds are, the better the RPG.
Right.
So should we be expecting something even more mature for Mass Effect 3?
[Laughs] Well, we're not talking too much about Mass Effect 3 right now, but the second story in a trilogy is where you traditionally end up in a fairly dark place. The third story is where you try and bring some fun and lightness back into it. One thing we tried to do with Mass Effect 2 was as well as bringing in the more mature stuff, we also tried to bring in a lot more humour so that we can go to these places without making it an overbearing experience. I think we have a lot more fun this time through characters like Joker and EDI. Mass Effect 3 is going to be the epic conclusion... so, a lot more darkness but also a lot more humour.
So, throughout Mass Effect 1 and 2 I was wondering the same thing - why no love for the crew? One of the most appealing features of Mass Effect is you have a ship and all these people underneath you, but at times ME1 and 2 made you feel like not a captain but an intergalactic SWAT-team leader.
Are you talking about your team?
No, they've obviously received all the love and attention in the world. I mean the dozens of people who take care of the day-to-day running of the Normandy. They're a strange dead-zone in a game which otherwise is so detailed.
Oh. That's an interesting point, but I think what you'll find is if you look at Mass Effect 1 there was much less on the ship and that Mass Effect 2 was a big step forward in terms of how rich the ship was, including in terms of characters. Mass Effect 1 had Presley, and Joker was there, but really not much else. The ship in terms of characters was fairly flat.
In Mass Effect 2 where you have a ship that's been populated with a ton of characters to make it feel fairly busy, obviously it'd be a huge amount of work to have you be able to talk to everybody. But we did add a lot of characters that talk to you over the course of the game. There's the engineers down below, Kelly Chambers, the cook...
...your cabin.
Right. But it's a valid point. It's your ship you spend time there, and it's something we'll probably continue to develop. But it was a step forward from Mass Effect 1.
As a final question, do you have a message for anybody out there who lost a friend or loved one at the hands of your Suicide Mission?
Well! There's always a way to get your squad members to survive. But I think for a lot of people there are characters they become attached to, and are upset they might die in the end, and there are other characters who they think "Oh! Fine, I can do without them." And so they leave their savegame that way. But I know there are people who get upset when they see a character they like get killed.
But there are choices you make that determine who survives that mission. You can always play that final mission again and mix it up to change who dies.
Funny thing is, the only character I lost was my female Shepherd's love interest, which felt like the most unfair thing but also oddly poetic. I wouldn't replay that mission for the world, and it's funny how every gamer seems to get a different result and react differently to it. It's such a great experiment. Are you happy with the response?
I think it worked out as well as we could have hoped. Because it was a bit of an experiment. Every time we talked about Mass Effect 2 we would always telegraph the idea that these characters die a permanent death. Even in the game, in the sub-plots where you rescue a cat or whatever, we would telegraph this idea that it might have something to do with who dies in the end.
That I think is a concept that worked really well. What we were trying to do there is figure out how in an RPG you can take all of these things in a varied plot, because you don't want everything to be "How you complete a military mission", and how do you make all of these small stories tie into the central plot. With this suicide mission, maybe something you do on the side will affect someone's loyalty, and that will cause someone to live or die in the ending. And because people were prepared for that, when they went into the final mission they were not only anxious but prepared for death. They were ready for it.
Source.
Tuesday, 1 June 2010
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