Mass Effect 3 - Interview @ Game Informer

You mentioned that mission structure of Mass Effect 2 – you’re collecting these crew members by going around and recruiting. Does Mass Effect 3 have an identifiable mission structure like that? The feeling that I started getting from the bit of the story that I got to play was that you’ll be recruiting the different races in this one and getting them to come help you, but does it play out in that identifiable way?
No, it’s different, because it’s unclear to Shepard and the player what you have to do to win the war against the Reapers. Part of what you’re trying to do is to explore the story and the galaxy and the experience so that you can understand what has to be done. Some missions start to shed light on what you need to do. As things progress in the high-level storyline, we’re constantly trying to do redirects. You think you win the war by doing one thing, and then you realize it’s something else.

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Yeah, when we got to the Citadel during my demo just now, we loaded up a different save. I was a little bit disappointed. I kind of just wanted to walk around the Citadel and talk to people and see what was going on there.
The Citadel is really big in this game. It’s bigger than it’s ever been, in terms of stuff to do. But yeah, it’s those moments where there’s fun and silly, neat stuff to explore. Once you get out into the missions, it returns to seeing the face of the galactic war. What we’re doing with Mass Effect 3 that’s a little bit different than what we’ve done before is exploring the idea of getting the player to understand and feel what Commander Shepard is experiencing versus just reacting to other characters.

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When you start Mass Effect 3, you have to choose between three new game modes – action, roleplaying, and story. How early into development did you come up with the idea of splitting it up into the different types of players who are likely to be checking this game out?
That’s actually another thing that we wanted to do in previous games. It’s simpler than it seems. It looks like we’ve done something really crazy, but all it’s doing is – first of all, we realized that it’s not ideal that when someone starts the game, they don’t know that much about it and we dump a huge options screen on them. Automatic squad powers and this and that – you’re asking them to make too many decisions about stuff they haven’t even played yet. That wasn’t ideal. We also have a lot of feedback from people who say, "Your games look really cool, and I love the idea of the story and the characters. It looks awesome when I watch it on YouTube, but I’m just not that coordinated with a shooter. I would play it if I could figure out how to do combat." So we always thought we should have a mode where combat isn’t going to kill you. You still go around and fight, but you’re playing it for the story experience. We thought we should be able to do that relatively easy, but there’s still work involved in that.

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So if you’re playing in story mode, you actually don’t die at all?

It’s not that you don’t die at all.

It’s just really difficult to lose?

Yeah, it’s easy enough that combat happens a lot faster. You get through it faster. You can mow through enemies. Generally, if you’re trying, you’re not going to die.

For the action mode, do you have it set up so that it’s choosing specifically a paragon or a renegade path, or is it a mix of the two?

It’s a mix. It’s not canon. We have a rule in our franchise that there is no canon. You as a player decide what your story is. But we choose a default path that gives you access to a lot of cool things. It’s like how a character like Jack Bauer has to make some decisions where he feels empathy in one moment or feels particularly brutal in another moment. We weave you through a default path that switches between those.

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by Actino Tuesday, January 10, 2012 at 05:46 PM
My essay:

When I read the comments on mass effect 3 articles, I get so frustrated by people complaining about issues which don't exist because the commentor hasn't read fully into it.

I have literally looked at every video and every article I can about mass effect and they have adressed everthing fans want. RPG features back- YES! yet people still complain. good ending without doing multiplayer? - YES! yet people still complain. Will there be places to explore? YES! It sounds perfect to me.

And all the other complaints I read are just minorities who think their word is final and bioware should cater specifically to them. NO!

It's like the other games, with some added multiplayer(for those who want it), refined RPG features, extremely polished gameplay, all your decisions making their huge final impacts, what looks to be an amazing story and way more customisation = Perfect game.

Stop worrying people, every worry I heard on the hundreds of articles I have read has been unjustifyable. They have taken all the right risks with ME3, and learnt from DAII

I guess people are worried because this game needs to be so good to meet the anticipation of major fans (like me), but the people who say they aren't going to buy the game due to false information on some timid issue pisses me off so much. Especially after the amount of work Casey Hudson and his team have seemed to put into the series.

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by Actino Wednesday, January 11, 2012 at 07:48 PM
Massive rant from fanboy (Me):

I want to clear up any false speculation, and I want this ‘ME3 internet complaining trend’ to end. Here are virtually all the complaints and speculation I have heard and my response to them all:

- "EA have ruined Bioware" (easily the most popular complaint) Most people seemed to love Mass Effect 2, yet everyone seems to be echoing this complaint all over the internet. ME3 is not even out yet and people are blaming EA for problems that people don't even know exist. All evidence suggests is that Bioware is very confident and know exactly what the fans want. (Read the developers tweets).

- "Noooo! Multiplayer will take away from single player experience" - they've got a seperate team for multiplayer. - payed for by EA, no doubt. + You don't have to play it + it could be fun! (new features are a good thing). Since the announcement of this new additional feature, I think it's become a natural instinct to complain about ME3 and conform to bashing EA and Bioware for no good reason. – I hope people can get over this before the game comes out: I can see the metacritic scores now: Average Critic Score: 98, Average User Score: 68. But who knows, maybe the game will have the pleasant surprise effect.

- "Where are the RPG features? I'm not getting this game if they dumb it down." They are doing much more customisation, character development, way more weapons/powers, huge consequences for previous choices. They have stated they are making it as RPG-esque as mass effect 1, but without *** menus. - Since when is over-complexity good?

- "All they're showing is action and gameplay" Of course they are! Conversations don't translate well into trailers and they don't want to ruin parts of the story. (They have to appeal to mainstream audiences as well). Action is also an important part of Mass Effect. Improved combat is a necessity for ME3 and from what I've seen, it looks very satisfying.

- “DA2 was ***, ME3 better not do the same.” There are about 6 different Bioware teams now and Casey Hudson’s team, who made ME1 + ME2, didn’t make DA2. The Mass Effect team has never let down their fans and I’d bet they won’t in march.

- "I can't get the good ending without multiplayer!? ME3 is gonna be ***." You can still get the good ending without playing multiplayer; it's just one way of getting it!!!!!

- "Online pass? Pre order bonuses? *** you EA!" This kind of marketing strategy is used all the time now in video games, but the amount of complaints, for ME3's use of these strategies, has been so over-excessive. Pre order bonuses are nothing new, yet the negativity was astounding, probably because it's become natural to hate on mass effect 3.

- "If it's not on steam, then I'm not getting it" - Your loss! But if you are really willing to sacrifice potentially the best game of this generation and an end to an epic story, then why are you commenting, because clearly your not a major fan of the series.

From things like twitter, Bioware is evidently very confident stating it's "the best game we've ever made", "far better than we originally thought", "so pleased with what we've done, the fans won't be disappointed." and I don't see any reason to doubt them.

I appreciate the need for scepticism, but to me all the issues people are worrying about are either, not actual issues (mere speculation), silly EA marketing things or minority complaints which most people don't agree with.

To me Mass Effect 3 is looking to be a near perfect if not perfect game, which perfectly blends the best from mass effect 1 + 2 and improving every aspect. This is coming from a long term fan that has literally read and watched everything they have released.

Agree or disagree, just understand all the facts I've clarified about the game.

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Zloth said:

So I guess "RPG mode" is just the normal game?

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