Mass Effect - Interview @ RPG Codex
 

RPG Codex has departed from their usual coverage to bring an interview with BioWare's Casey Hudson on Mass Effect. Here's one of the questions, delivered with some tongue-in-cheek parody:
More information.

Let's use the example I gave in the previous interview: you're running through an open area but up ahead you can see a character that looks like their purpose in life is that they will stop you and talk to you when you get close.

This bit is funny, but the whole fake interview is idiotic and pathetic.

100% seconded.

I chuckled at the screenshot "Nobody gives ORDERS to Commander Shepherd!", mainly due to how extreme and awesome it is to refer to yourself in the third person. Capitalisation helps too.

Makes a change from my usual Codex experience - developing a desire to hang myself due to all the negativity over there :)

Excuse me, am I interrupting a holier-than-thou anonymous meeting?

Oooohh… Mr. i-r-the-funniehh!!! Himself… shouldn't you be busy dealing with BioWare's legal dep't or something? Well, anyway, if you're looking for applause, look at your own forums maybe? There's plenty of lol-ing asskissers just waiting for you to tell them how you pwned Bio's legal dep't and how you totally deleted the mail asking for withdrawal of the fake Q&A. Respect. u r teh man!!11

My legal team will handle it:
http://www.somethingawful.com/legal/

What's with the assumptions?

My, my. Quite an imagination.

You know, it's not like VD's charging people for it, unlike Mass Effect. Tell me, if it was all so "idiotic", then why did the moderator over at the developer boards even fall for it? :rolleyes:

The interview is a commentary on how the game has been portrayed so far and if you've read what is on IGN and elsewhere you'd have seen that it was not far off the truth in spirit and that is why there were/are fans falling for it.

But why does the Codex care about ME at all ? It's a console action game with some rpg elements. Everybody already knows that Bio are masters of bullshit PR, from the good doctors themselves to the developers, and who takes IGN and similar sites seriously, anyway ? Why give a fuck ? Just post that ME is coming out in 2007 or 2008 (for the closet console codexers who'll actually run out and buy it) and move on. It just astonishes me that the Codex and VD spend so much time and energy 'covering' the game, especially since you all pretend so forcefully that such products are the exact examples of what you think is wrong about gaming. It strikes me therefore as pathetic and idiotic. Some at the codex have also expressed negative views and yes, I know your answer: there's no real rpg coming out anymore, so what's left to post about ? Well that's not entirely true, and if you do believe it why dont you just call it quits ?

I thought it was a cute read - nice to break up all of the oh-so-serious stuff streaming out lately.

Between that and the stuff coming out of Sony I've been red-faced from laughing all day!

The same argument could be made about other titles that were eventually released for the PC and covered across several gaming sites.

Why care about the dichotomies between the perception a high-profile CRPG developer creates and the final result? I don't know. I thought it may have some relevance to those interested in the CRPG industry, but maybe I'm looking too much into it.

I hardly think one parody and a handful of news items about design elements which may be seen as an improvement to the genre took that much time and energy.

I always thought I had legitimate concerns about mainstream CRPGs and how they may affect several aspects of gaming - turns out I was faking it all the time! Why thank you random internet poster with a Simpsons avatar!

Thanks for sharing. You'll find we welcome all opinions - including Chris Prestly, who found it amusing.

You tell me, since you seem to be able to divine everything we're thinking and are an authority on everything we say over there.

^Exactly, just take it as a bit of light-hearted fun in an editorial, folks. You'd only complain anyway if we took it all too seriously and just made grumpy complaints!

Your avatar is bizarrely appropriate. Am I missing that you post as a/in character? If VD was kicking your door down and writing this on your bedroom wall with magic markers I'd agree with all the hate, but come on, that's a bit of a grudge you're harboring there. They cover the game for many reasons. One of those is to comment on the state of the industry and what titles there are out there in release state or development. There are loads of places that do a great job of getting news links and keeping it straight - the old Dot (RIP) and this shiny new place for instance - and there's no reason to make a plain copy of that if it works so well. The Codex was always more about putting commentary and a personal spin on things and having fun along the way instead, rather than just getting news when someone else is already doing that job. You might not like it, others do. The main thing to realise is that they do it and keep going there because they do like games, especially RPGs and many have liked them before a lot of the kiddies playing them now were even born. They are passionate about games and the medium (or art form if you like). Passions are strong feelings that can sway one way or the other. If they didn't care about the games, they wouldn't be there. We all express our love and passion in different ways and the internet lets us all do that in our own ways. ;)

It's worth remembering that Fable and KotOR were also announced as "Xbox exclusive" games, but were later released for the PC anyway. I wouldn't totally dismiss it just yet.

About from the fact that Bioware's copyright and trademark clearly is being violated, the rpg codex has (yet) again proven (to me…) that most of the
codex is just - shall we say —- some guys who long to the play the games of
yesteryear such as ultima 5 or the original bard's tale or some of the older games form their youths in the 1980's.

Of course, not all codexers are like that, but most of the codex seems to favour
—- shall we say ——- the more traditional approach to rpgs….

and so they do not like amost actions rpgs such as Bioware's Mass Effect…

Roleplayer and Fez:
You're being disingenuous. Light hearted fun ? You guys not taking it seriously ? That's exactly what's wrong about the thing: you are very serious. The codex's concern about ME, a console game, is beyond me. You're telling me that your concern about the future of gaming (and the place ME will have in it — as an influence to the countless CRPGs being developed) — is not serious at all ? What are you saying ?

And what do you guys have against Comic Book Guy ? He's funny shit. He takes important things seriously.

The few times that Mass Effect has made it to the Codex's news pages were due to gameplay aspects that in general seemed to be generally well accepted by the various gaming sites that got any hands-on experience with the title, gameplay aspects which were being considered superior and preferable to what had been previously established in the genre. We don't cover console games but cover everything we can regarding roleplaying games, and the kind of embracing these features were getting - in this case, the dialogue system - was deemed important enough to report and to (hopefully) generate discussion on the boards.

We didn't cover Mass Effect because we suddenly started doing console games or because of some fixation with Bioware; we covered some design aspects of Mass Effect that may have an impact on how CRPGs will be developed in the future, if they become widely accepted.

And no, the parody was meant as a lighthearted look at the whole hype and spin doctoring usually surrounding Bioware, even if you prefer to think otherwise. We could have written any other such article about any other company. We could've tackled Bethesda for instance, were it not the fact we recently had an Oblivion review, covered several other Oblivion reviews in our news, and were pretty much burned out on the game after countless debates on the site. We could have done something in this vein with Obsidian but we're working on some other (serious) content with them.

By contrast, Bioware was "available".

Cormac use to much energy to discuss about what other people are discussing about, and that he says he don't want to be part of. Therefore I found Cormac posts pathetic and idiotic.

I found it a very funny parody, sort of poking a stick at the soft belly of a giant console box. :)

Clearly PC gamers have a bone to pick with the m$ console subsidizing machina as it destroys one (our) industry to create another for a few extra bucks in their accounts.
Not to mention m$'s own projections failed beyond the original 4(?) year money dump, to more than 6 years now of grinding the PC industry into the dust.

None of us like seeing great devs getting pulled into this nonsense, but in the end of the day it defiantly made me laugh. :)

"Available" in this case meaning "not giving you money".

Yes, you sure burnt out on Oblivion, but you still have the Knights of the Nine stuff which has just been released, and there's the expansion coming out this year. So it's not over for you guys, take heart. The codex still has meaning.

I think the only money Bioware would ever pay us would be to leave them alone ;)

By the way, how are things going with your project? I have your blog on my Bookmarks folder but don't always have the time to check it out.