Mass Effect Interviews
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Takahashi: There is a tension between linear storytelling and having an open world to explore. If there is too much openness, you can go somewhere and screw things up.
Muzyka: Because you are the director and the actor in the experience, you almost have to consider the role you want the player to be playing in that progression. There are pinch points where the story proceeds. At those points, you're more actor than a director, proceeding on a directed path. But at the other points, you are more the director where you have grand choices that lead to different outcomes. The hard part is actually doing both at the same time. That is the difference between this art form and linear media. You get to be the director and you get to make choices. You're watching it, directing it, and you're in it.
Zeschuk: Another unique thing about Mass Effect is that other games say they're linear games or they're open worlds. Mass Effect is both at the same time. You had to discover the difference between the two. You can explore a city. Or you can get in a ship and move on to the next mission. Very few games try to capture that.
Muzyka: The core truth of the perception you get from the press and critics is valuable. Our core value is humility. We try to be ambitious and yet humble. You can listen to hard feedback and get stronger from the process. That's the way we look at it, honestly. We did a detailed analysis of all the reviews, the internal team feedback, and it was really harsh. We're very self-critical. You come through it stronger. We do the best we can. We never compromise on anything that we're aware of. You strive for perfection. But you come up short and try to learn it.
While the other is at The Globe and Mail, where Drew and Casey talk about the game's five wins during the Canadian Awards for Electronic and Animated Arts:
Conversations in Mass Effect, Hudson explained, play out in real time because the player's dialogue choices appear before other characters have finished speaking. That way, conversations in the game can flow more naturally. And by providing players with paraphrased dialogue choices instead of full texts, players can flash read instead of having to read entire lines.
Handling dialogue is only one dimension of telling epic stories. The other is managing a non-linear plot, especially when the choices that players make can have an effect on the storyline.
Trying to document such a large story is difficult, said Hudson. (It is extremely complicated. It involves an ever-growing tree of choices and [consequences to those choices],) he said, pointing out that unless a player's decisions are recorded, they can't be integrated into the story.
What becomes rewarding for the player, said Hudson, is when they are hours into the game and realize that something they did earlier in the game is still influencing events.
