Mass Effect 3 - Interview @ CVG

CVG has an two page interview with Michael Gamble, a producer at Bioware Edmonton. Topics include the introduction of multiplayer in ME3, why they've reduced the RPG elements in the series, how the storyline has evolved across three Mass Effect titles, and much much more.

A sample:

Has the structure of the story changed over the course of the games?
We knew the overall arc, we knew Shepard's story from the beginning. How each story gets developed, the individual missions come out of their specific developments. We also listen to feedback from fans all the time. The audience, when they give us feedback in terms of being inclusive of this element, or combat stuff that doesn't work - we bring all that in. And, to be honest, you're crafting your Mass Effect story as much as we are anyway.
How do you ensure, when there are so many narrative threads and possibilities, that what comes out of every player's choices is a story that's worth telling?
Without sounding facetious, it's just a really talented team. We have an amazing group of writers who have to conceptualise all of the myriad possibilities of relationships and who might still be alive at certain points and come up with amazing story arcs based on these permutations.

Click to expand...

More information.

Question : "The first ME was very much an RPG that looked at its world down the barrel of a gun, and by now it feels like a shooter with the RPG elements receding - the morality and the levelling seems to be in the background. Has it been a battle of genres?"

Answer : "We just want to tell the best story within the context of an amazing shooter."

Urgh.

You do know tjat you can choose three play modes, action, rpg, and story-mode. The action mode will have all your choices in the game played out for you, while the story mode wil tone down combat to the easiest level or make so that you probably can avoid it most of the time. And well, the rpg mode speaks for itself, I think.

The sentence that Alrik Fassbauer quoted also jumped out at me, "We just want to tell the best story within the context of an amazing shooter."

I do understand that MEIII is being billed as having three different modes. Nevertheless the BW producer, Michael Gamble, didn't qualify his game description as applying only to the so called "Action Mode". Thus I understood the comment as being descriptive of all three modes.

As far as I know, the details of the "RPG Mode" aren't yet fully known beyond the description, “For those who want to explore both realms of story and combat. RPG mode will set manually-selectable replies in conversation and a normal combat difficulty.”

Clearly the "RPG Mode" involves both combat and story. Hence the "… story within the context of an amazing shooter" description would fit what we currently know about the "RPG mode".

Guess we'll see soon enough. I'm somewhat leery at this point but am more than willing to be pleasantly surprised. I do plan to let others try out MEIII before I decide whether to buy.

__

They blew it on DA2, so I'm not too anxious to grab me3.

It's a given that I'll get ME3. I enjoyed both games so far, as the dialogue was the main area of fun for me, anyway. I only hope that they will find a better flow for having to run through every room in your ship after each mission to get all the new dialogue.

All I can say good luck everybody. I read the leaked script and its not looking good. The three endings are cheesy and predictable.

Couchpotato said:

All I can say good luck everybody. I read the leaked script and its not looking good. The three endings are cheesy and predictable.

Click to expand...

Have you ever seen a video game without a cheesy and/or predictable ending?

Especially the predictable part...

aries100 said:

You do know tjat you can choose three play modes, action, rpg, and story-mode. The action mode will have all your choices in the game played out for you, while the story mode wil tone down combat to the easiest level or make so that you probably can avoid it most of the time. And well, the rpg mode speaks for itself, I think.

Click to expand...

What about the outcome of playing in each of these modes, is it going to be the same? Playing 'action' mode immediatley implies that there are no choices and consequenses, would this then be the same for the 'rpg' mode?

azarhal said:

Have you ever seen a video game without a cheesy and/or predictable ending?

Especially the predictable part…

Click to expand...

No but wait till everybody plays and see the scenarios the characters are put through. Imagine characters doing things that have you thinking are they stupid.

I thought the overall structure of ME2 was weak but I really enjoyed quite a few of the loyalty missions - enough to make this an automatic purchase.

Gameplaywise Baldur's Gate was an amazing game and system-wise Neverwinter Nights was the RPG-genré in it's peak. Dragon Age 1 was actually quite good for a modern RPG as well.

Mass Effect is a poor shooter. Poor. It's not even lukewarm. It doesn't come close to masters like ID Software, EPIC Software or Valve. The game reminds me about the bad action sequences in the later sierra games. You can't dodge, you can't jump, the cover system was rather bad, the "enter-room-enemies-pour-in" was repetitive, there are no physics, all weapons used the same ammo and most of the time I didn't feel that different weapons made a difference beyond the very obvious rock-paper-scissor health-armor-shield damage. Controls were bad, ragdoll physics were non-existant, it do not really have a Z-axis and you are stuck on the floor like in DOOM rather than free like in quake and later games. It have no gimmicks like Half-Life had it's antigrav gun and DOOM3 had it's darkness. Foes felt mostly the same, moved the same, same poor AI.

Story is good. Bioware have always been good at building stories. But when it comes to gameplay they have moved from the top to the bottom, it shines through and like the adventure-game genré an awesome story can't cover poor gameplay.

I agree with Jemy - though I wouldn't necessarily call ID, Epic, or Valve masters of shooters. They used to be quite good, but they've lost their way.

But Mass Effect is certainly a weak shooter and a strong sci-fi interactive movie.

ME2 was a better shooter, but still VASTLY inferior to a strong shooter. Sadly, it was even more of an interactive movie than the first game. I also thought the writing was rather uninspired.

DArtagnan said:

But Mass Effect is certainly a weak shooter and a strong sci-fi interactive movie.

ME2 was a better shooter, but still VASTLY inferior to a strong shooter. Sadly, it was even more of an interactive movie than the first game. I also thought the writing was rather uninspired.

Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly. SOme of the side quests/loyalty missions were quite good, but overall I was really disappointed in ME2 and especially its main story.

"We just want to tell the best story within the context of an amazing shooter."

Click to expand...

After extrapolating their ideas of what an amazing shooter is and what the best story would entail I don't really know which one I should be more surprised about.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

"We just want to tell the best story within the context of an amazing shooter."

Click to expand...

With all of this recent PR stuff, I think I've found the ideal song title for the marketing of this game :

I've never heard the song before, but this evening I stumbled upon an almost perfect song title for the game :

War Is My Sheppard

Click to expand...

This song is said to come from a band called

Exodus

Click to expand...

Bioware is not much of rpg developer these days, but I'm eager to see ending to shepard's story, so yes i'll get me3 eventually. Likely from the bargain bin. Thats how i got me1 and me2. These interactive films are well worth of ten euros or so

It's rather sad, I have no idea what you people think as good writing? I mean yes I know Gothic is god here, but the writing has never been it's strong point...

I really don't know, but it seems the common theme to bash the writing of any game you don't seem to like. Maybe I'm wrong, but I never thought ME had bad writing...bad writing to me is when you can't really understand what they are trying to get across or if it is overly cheesy.