Mass Effect 2 - Interview @ USA Today

I guess I would call that meter either broken or useless … since classifying Bloodlines as anything but RPG heavy pretty much misses the boat IMO.
Waaaah, ok ok, maybe I misspoke, I don't know, I didn't put it to the test, just scratch what I said and replace it with "perfect FPS/RPG hybrid" wherever applicable. ;)

The grading system itself works quite well, HiddenX used it in some "reviews" of his, for example:

- Drakensang CRPG Meter
- CRPG Meter for The Witcher

RPG Factors: Story, Character, NPC-Interaction, Gameworld, Manipulation, Combat

Drakensang: 3, 5, 4, 3.5, 4.5, 5
RPG Score:= 4.17 => CRPG heavy

The Witcher: 5, 3, 5, 3, 4, 3
RPG Score:= 3.83 => CRPG

Geneforge 4: 5, 4, 5, 3.5, 5, 3
RPG Score:= 4.25 => CRPG heavy

Gothic 3: 4, 3.5, 4.5, 5, 4, 2
RPG Score:= 3.8 => CRPG

Those are not game scores in the classical sense, i.e. a bigger number doesn't equal better. But the individual ratings give you a good idea and overview of how strongly each category is pronounced in a game.
 
Last edited:
Joined
Aug 30, 2006
Messages
3,486
ME was the game that immersed me the most in a lot of years.

I agree that it in some ways felt like a movie, but a movie in which I were the main character and could make my touch felt.

As other have stated, we are rather starved for good, epic sci fi.

Its space man!, Space!
:D

(without anything resembling star trek, thank you very very very much)

/C

Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed it.

I think it's a very immersive sci-fi movie and it had a fantastic atmosphere and great music.

But as a game, I didn't particularly enjoy it - much less so as a CRPG.

That said, I'm looking forward to ME2 - and if they can't figure out to combine interesting RPG mechanics with the movie aspects, then I'll take a more streamlined action overlay with pleasure.

I'm expecting to enjoy it more because it doesn't seem as confused about itself as the former game, based on what I've heard.
 
By the way, this is interesting: in the interview he mentions that Mass Effect 2 has about 130,000 lines of dialogue. A bit of searching revealed that the first Mass Effect was supposed to have 20,000 lines of dialogue. Really? Mass Effect 2 has 6.5 times more dialogue? Or are they pulling numbers out of their asses. If true, I'm happy (as long as the writing is good). They did mention choices with consequence and replayability.

Drew Karpyshyn said:
We have 20,000 lines of dialogue," says senior designer Drew Karpyshyn of Edmonton game developer BioWare, describing science-fiction RPG Mass Effect, set for release Nov. 20. That's the equivalent of 15 to 20 movie screenplays, created by Karpyshyn and five other writers, working with the rest of the creative team.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,915
Location
The Netherlands
By the way, this is interesting: in the interview he mentions that Mass Effect 2 has about 130,000 lines of dialogue. A bit of searching revealed that the first Mass Effect was supposed to have 20,000 lines of dialogue. Really? Mass Effect 2 has 6.5 times more dialogue? Or are they pulling numbers out of their asses. If true, I'm happy (as long as the writing is good). They did mention choices with consequence and replayability.

Ugh, if the original had 20k, I hope that 130k is all replayability. Maybe (1st in CRPG history) choices actually have long term consequences rather than neatly packed individual containers. If the original was 20k, let's assume 10-15k of that was heard during any single play through, I don't want to sit through 130k lines of dialog.

If the game is still only 30 hours long, there can't be that much more dialog per playthrough than the last game...right?
 
Joined
Mar 2, 2009
Messages
426
Location
Wisconsin
There… I fixed that for you. ;)

You're right, forgot one of the franchises :p

Star Wars, although enjoyable (do not EVER mention the three rip-off movies that were made because of pure greed, giving mankind such pure, unadultered filth and evil as J..-J.. B...s) are more swashbuckling than classic sci fi.
My opinion, mind you ;)

Ah well, before ME2 I have promised myself to continue my effort in finishing classics.

Last one on that list was DX (took me three years from installing first time to playing it through, but it was worth it) next stop:
Planescape Torment!

Concerning ME2, Ive tried to stay as far away from the hype machine as possible, to get an unbiased experience.

OT, it is very complicatesd tryiin,g00000000000 to write with a 15 month toddlver on you lap

/C
 
Joined
Oct 29, 2009
Messages
439
Location
WGS84 Latitud:59.85 Longitud:17.65
If the game is still only 30 hours long, there can't be that much more dialog per playthrough than the last game…right?

I don't think so. Mass Effect already had a huge amount of dialogue, and at times I spent 2 hours just going through it. So something in me says that it's a mistake, typo or something else, because I also can't imagine that they would spend this much time and money on replaybility compared to the first game. 130,000 is huge, immense, fantastically big, in the first place. But yeah, on second thought, I liked the dialogue, but if they put most of it in *one* single play-through, that would probably be a bit much.
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2006
Messages
2,915
Location
The Netherlands
Back
Top Bottom