Mass Effect - X06 Gameplay Video
 

BioWare has released the Mass Effect gameplay video from the X06 event, "featuring planetary exploration, squad-based combat, special abilities and powers, and new examples of the revolutionary dialogue system. Casey Hudson walks us through the amazing highlights."
More information.

Mmmm, mmm. Looking great! Although the dialoge needs to be fleshed out a bit, i think.

Can't wait for this to be ported to the PC, which from Bioware's previous console game history indicates will most probably happen.

If the game world is so massive, as it's reputed to be, this might be the 1st XBOX360 game to span 2 or more DVDs.

Yeah, take any of that dialogue with a big ol' grain of salt. That was largely example dialogue, and it was specifically shortened to show off as much of the combat as possible. (One of the comments from the previous big demo was that we showed off conversation but not enough combat.)

We're not solid on whether that's going to be the case or not, but it's definitely a possibility. I heard that going through the halls a few days ago.

Nice looking shooter, but from that video it certainly aint no RPG.

I especially love the quote about it being a true next gen, (implying spoken dialog) so you don't have to READ through PILES of text… *sigh* If I couldn't already tell that it was shooter, this would certainly tip off that it was, as it indicates their target market, the illiterati.

:lol:
That's just brilliant!

@PatrickWeekes
Thanks for your comments. Is it also true that Mass Effect will be a trilogy? Also do you have any other details to divulge? This site is rife with hardcore RPGers, including some from the ultra-cynical RPGCodex ;) so you'll need a pretty juicy tidbit to sate our appetites. Hehe.

I notice you didn't comment on my remark on the "possible" PC port. Hazardous area, i guess :)

I have no idea whether I'm supposed to comment on that, but I can say quite truthfully that if you look at what Microsoft website, the question is answered when the lads at 'Soft say "First in a trilogy!" :)

Nothing huge at the moment. I will say, though, that the purpose of the X06 demo was to show off combat, not to show off conversation. We showed off conversation in the big demo before that (E3? Can't remember — I wasn't on M.E. at that point), and THAT was the one where we were showing off the conversation system and facial effects and everything.

So those people saying "It looks like another shooter!", well, yeah. In that demo, it did. But saying that it's not an RPG based on that demo would be like watching a demo of NWN2 combat animations and concluding that it was an arena combat game.

I don't know what any individual person uses to define "RPG", and that seems to be a great way to start an argument, but in Mass Effect, you're gonna have:

- Inventory management
- Upgrading of items
- Selectable abilities that make you better at things (ie, character customization)
- Choices that affect the fate of a whole lotta people, in ways that let you see the results, and which aren't obvious "I'm the hero! / I'm psychotic!" choices

I'm still being vague, I know. Partly, that's because I don't know the specifics of how some of that works (like, say, class abilities — I'm playing through the game to test story and crashyness, so I've got bad guys set to "I look hard at them, and they keel over", which means I haven't explored that stuff), and partly that's because, again, I'd get fired. :)

But that demo was, I'd say, the attempt to appeal to the Halo crowd. You'll see the RPG elements in more detail as we get closer.

For me, yeah. :)

I have no idea what the plan is regarding a PC version. We got to work on Jade Empire for the PC as quickly as our contract with Microsoft (which mandated a wait in order to justify calling Jade an Xbox Exclusive) allowed. Just as somebody in the biz, I'd be surprised if we didn't have one someday.

Right now, though, the main concern is getting the darn thing working. :)

As always Patrick, we appreciate your contributions!!

Yes, thanks again. Please enjoy your stay here, the premiere MATURE source for RPG information. ;)

You can't "start" that argument. It's the Blood War of RPGWatch, raging eternally and spilling over into every other conversation on the site.

hmmm… I'm sorry, but to add this comment, more or less as I recall it, "…is a true 'next' gen game, (implying spoken dialog apparently) so you do not have to READ through piles of text…" added to the fact that the demo is that of a shooter with poor dialog at best. Go ahead, tell me that this is not yet another action game that will be mis-labeled an RPG.

…and how do these qualify it as an RPG? Many action games and shooters have had these "features" for years, and are NOT RPGs…

I've tried the demo for Prey (I think). It was a really nice demo and I enjoyed playing it a lot. Untill I realized that it was my player skill that decided how much damage I would do to the monsters in the game, not the character's abilitites & skills which was used to do this.

In Prey, there also were inventory management & journal in the form of a PDA, upgrading of weapons and such. You could also, I think select certain abilities & skills as the start of the game; these abilities you were able to upgrade in the course of the game.

The true test is still this: (imo)

Is it the player's finger twitching skills with the mouse which decides how much & how fast damage you're going to inflict on your enemies, monsters in the game - or is it the
skills & abilities of the character in the game that decides this.

Is it the persuasion skill or the intelligence ability of the character (in game) which determines how much info the characters are given in the game or is it the player's
skills with the mouse & keyboard that give the characters info - in the game.

From what I have seen of the demo, the demo was clearly designed to get the Halo crowd interested in the game, Mass Effect. So that this crowd will buy the game. Nothing wrong with that, imo.

I just think that the Halo Crowd will be disappointed about the choices, they probably have to make in order to get to the good parts (as they see them) - i.e. the shooting parts.

I hope, however that Mass Effect will do very well - and that we get to se more of the
RPG elements as we come closer to the game's release.

I just did. But if your definition of an RPG precludes action elements like the combat interface in Oblivion — if the presence of action elements means that it cannot possibly be an RPG — then yeah, you're gonna be disappointed. No way around that.

I'd say it's a mix. Yeah, you've got to target guys, and you can do that in a real-time arcade manner. But you can also pause the game to select a target, and just because you've targeted somebody doesn't mean you hit them when you shoot. Your shot hits somewhere in a circle, and the size of the circle is based on your skill — the more points you spend on getting accurate with a weapon, the smaller the circle, and the more likely you are to hit your target.

We've got a Persuade talent. People who don't have it are gonna see a much more streamlined story with far fewer choices. That's by design — people who don't put points in Persuade are usually the people who don't CARE about a deep story or complex choices, so those people get to just zoom through and shoot stuff and occasionally go, "Man, it sucks that the bad guy killed those people." The guy with Persuade has a chance to save those people. (That's a massively dumbed-down example.)

This is one of the clearer explications of rpg vs non-rpg that Ive witnessed(—and as mentioned earlier in this thread—it's a perpetual black hole of discourse on any rpg site, so Im sure we've all seen terrabytes of 'em ;) )

In an rpg you are developing a character and in essence, the character is the medium for the game experience. In other genres, to use an analogy, the game is an instrument and you are the musician.

A person who enjoys the first experience may not be willing or able to enjoy the second.

I see the difficulty at the core here as being this "please all of the people all of the time and we'll make more money" bandwagon that seems to be the current trend in the industry.

Nobody is content to build a "smaller" game for a core audience who will appreciate a product designed with them in mind and buy it. Rather, the game must be a platform-swallowing blockbuster designed to attract all groups while repelling none.

It must make the task much harder for the devs.

On the other hand, we occasionally get games from this approach that transcend the limitations of any particular genre and do manage to appeal to opposing variants of the game audience. Bioware is probably the company that has done this the best. While I find games like KOTOR rather flat compared to real rpgs, it wasn't a bad game per se. And the bottom line , is of course the bottom line, where it did very well.
I'm sure Mass Effect will also do this, and wish you guys nothing but the best.
Just keep making Dragon Age ;)

On a lighter note, I guess Bioware is a fan of Prison Break :p