BioWare's Lead Writer Resigns

[Vault101]

'Mass Effect' is easily my favourite game, and the writing is a huge part of that, yet the fact that it has the exact same plot as 'KotOR' is pretty shameless. That, combined with the fact that the Revan novel, was blatently bad -- even by tie-in fiction standards -- leads me to not be too concerned about his depature.

Dude wants to spend more time playing golf; can't say I'm sorry to see him go.

Now I just want to know who was responsible for the ridiculous plot of 'Mass Effect 2'. Karpyshyn left part way through production to go work on 'SWTOR'; how much was already set in stone, and how much was changed. Who decided the final boss would be an oversized terminator? Who felt it was okay for the game to not have a proper antagonist?

Maybe Daniel Erickson will get a promotion? That would be a pretty great sign, I think.

Me2 didnt have a rediculpus plot...it was just "shepard running errands" for most of the time...ok go kill the bugs now

anyway the whole "OMG! collectors are protheians!" thing I think was suposed to be some big revelation (like sovergn) except it didnt work because....well its not surprising, and we dont care because the collectors werent really a presance in ME1, it doesnt change anything

 

[SnakeoilSage]

Annnd EA's stock falls on its face so hard it actually winds up on its back.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

I don't necessarily see this as a bad thing, Karpyshyn was far from a flawless writer. A breath of fresh air might be just what the company needs, bring some fresh ideas to the table.

 

[PiercedMonk]

Me2 didnt have a rediculpus plot...it was just "shepard running errands" for most of the time...ok go kill the bugs now

Sure, a lot of the plot was Shepard's ongoing quest to help everyone of his/her band of misfits to deal with their daddy issues, but there's also that whole bit where he/she works with a clandestine, xenophobic terrorist organisation that slaps it's insignia on every available surface and is led by a dude called "Illusive Man." That's plenty of silly nonsense, especially for those Sheperds who choose the background where Cereberus was responsible for wiping out their whole unit.

anyway the whole "OMG! collectors are protheians!" thing I think was suposed to be some big revelation (like sovergn) except it didnt work because....well its not surprising, and we dont care because the collectors werent really a presance in ME1, it doesnt change anything

If the collectors had been more than just cannon fodder drones, perhaps the reveal would have had a bit more impact. Really though, the secret of the collectors' past didn't change anything about their present, so it didn't matter. Interchangeable bug monsters that exist for no reason but to get shot over and over aren't compelling.

Nor was the fact that they were making a new reaper out of human smoothie all that much to get excited over. That's just high school level horror writing played for shock value.

 

[TheAmazingHobo]

but it's their robustly developed stories and characters that seem to define them.

Spoiler: Oh really?

Now, where did I put my Xerox?

A lot of those aren't just limited to Bioware, but any and every form of epic story telling. Also, I'm not entirely sure if the person that wrote that knows what the term "cliché" actually means. They also got a bunch of stuff wrong from the games, making their point even more flimsy.

Is this thing even supposed to be taken seriously ?
I always assumed it was made by someone who realized that Bioware had a certain tendency to utilize certain tropes and themes (just like every author or team of authors in the history of ever) and then whipped up the chart to take the piss.
Yes, as actual literary criticism it's very weak (less because of the inaccuracies, but more because the existence of reoccurring structures of such broad scope in and off itself isn't even a point of criticism. Otherwise Goethe would have to be automatically regarded as shit and Hesse beaten to death with a shovel.), but I refuse to believe it is really meant that way.

Edit: Also, I just noticed your nick.
Combined with your current title, that's fucking awesome ^^

 

[JoelChenFA]

That's a shame. And doesn't bode well to me. Recent Bioware games, apart from The Old Republic, haven't exactly been stellar narrative-wise. But hopefully the current writers improve over time.

Hopefully.

Fingers crossed they keep the Twilight fans exclusive to the Dragon Age team.

/partiallyfacetiouscomment

What was more concerning was the guy who left last year (?) because he felt they had no interest in making the type of games they'd used to anymore.

I just love how people immediately break out their conspiracy hats.

"EA did it! BioWare is out of control! I didn't like Dragon Age II and I won't rest until everyone hears about it!"

The guy has been working on what is, in writing terms, an incredibly exhausting medium for over a decade now. I wasn't surprised to hear these news at all.

But I'd have to say, I found Karpyshyn a fairly mediocre writer. Better than Mac Walters, but not very enticing at all.
The real writing talent at BioWare is the core team consisting of David Gaider, Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby, as well as Lukas Kristjanson and Patrick Weekes.

Gaider's the one who went on the forums and said it was fine for them to retcon continuity at the expense of player choice and consequence (ala the Dragon Age 2 ending), so no, not him.

Also the Dragon Age Book he wrote was terrible.

 

[Terrible Opinions]

A much better way of saying: "much of what Bioware did was the same" is to look at their rogue characters in game.

Bg1 - Imoen, a red-headed thief - initially innocent
Bg2 - Nalia, a red-headed thief/mage - initially innocent
(Bg2 - Imoen, a pink-haired thief/mage)
NWN1 - Sharwyn, a red-headed bard - wicked sense of humour, tougher than she looks
NWN2 - Neeshka, a red-headed rogue - more fragile than she looks
PS:T - Annah, a red-headed rogue - wicked sense of humour, tougher than she looks
DA:O - Leliana, a red-headed bard - wicked sense of humour, tougher than she looks

...

The Annah bit is a bit of a... simplification.

But that doesn't matter, because it's not a Bioware game.

Neither was NWN 2.

True, but there's a fair amount of cross-over...

Well, let's see. Dropping the Black Isle and Obsidian games from the list, we have:

BG1 Imoen
BG2 Nalia and Imoen
NWN Sharwyn
DAO Leliana

All female rogue-ish characters with red-ish hair, albeit mostly with different personality notes.

Now look at the many, many other "rogues" that they have made that are not on your list. Safana, Kasumi, Isabella, Varric, Alora, Montaron, Jan, Sky, Mission Vao, Zevran, and a few others. Some backstabbing murderers, some fun-loving adventurers, some hardened idealists, some cautious opportunists...

Now, there's undeniably a majority: female thing going on there. And MAYBE a plurality of them have red/pink hair; I haven't looked into it too closely. Bioware definitely runs hard with some tropes, but "all their rogues are alike" is a big oversimplification.

Anyway. Good luck to Karpyshyn. If ya ever come back home, Drew, I owe you a beer for BG2.

Er. I don't know who Kasumi is. I didn't play DA2, so Varric/Isabella are out. You also missed Yoshimo from BG2. My point was not that all rogues are women with red hair. My point was that when they make a female rogue, its usually very much the same one. And they always make one. Also, Safana's portrait has red hair. I think it was Skye (and she's useless, anyway).

wat

"This is pertinent to the point, but I don't know about it, so it doesn't count" does not work. Confirmation bias is a beast that must be hunted and slain, and four women with similar hair colours and skill-sets and differing personalities (At what point is Sharwyn like Imoen?) are not a proper pattern.

You want to argue that Shale was a retread of HK-47? Go for it. Tali turned in to Liara 2.0? I'm with ya. Bastilla and Aribeth were separated at birth? Of course. But you seem to be arguing that there is some recurring archetypal rogue character without defining any characteristics aside from appearance. That I can not get behind, and that I will argue against if I don't have anything better to do at the particular moment like right now because it's 8:30 on a Sunday and none of my friends are online to play Tribes.

 

[Dhatz]

fuckin yeah! improvement through changes!

 

[Imbechile]

Okay. I will do it:

You are the member of an old and powerfull organization called the: Jedi/Grey Warden/Specters/Spirit Monks. An ancient evil threatens to destroy: the Republic/Ferelden/Known galaxy/Neverwinter. You must gather a band of adventurers(The same 5-6 personalities) and go to a few hubs to: look for the Star Map/Gather allies/thwart Saren/find a cure for the plague/look for the Spirit Monk amulet.

OT: Good. Now they only need to fire Helper and Gaider and then maybe they will start writing good stories and dialog

the grey wardens and spectres are NOT an old powerful Organization.

The grey wardens are, but they, like the Jedi are Special individuals and more powerfull than other people(Jedi and Wardens because they Have the force/are killing machines, Specters because they are above the Law). So it still stands.

The characters have more depth to them than just 5-6 personalities.

What depth? You mean Emo-boys Carth Onasi and Kaidan Alenko. Alistairs and Morringans "were fighting and arguing over stupid things like we're children" personality. To avoid confusion: There are some nicely written characters, but they still feel too similar to companions in other games. Also, the cringe inducing romance don't help. I will give you the characters, but what about the same old "The chosen one saves the world from the big evil" bullshit that they always write in desperate attempt to make the game epic.

and that last point has you doing COMPLETELY SEPERATE THINGS, even generalizing it becomes stupid and you see how it all comes apart. How is looking for a map the same thing as stopping a villain?

The still go to four or five hubs(there's nothing wrong with that type of design, but when you constantly do it then it becomes repetitive).

Incidentally, they made other games like Baldurs Gate 1+2 (and that sonic game that nobody remembers) that don't fit what you're trying to point out.

And those games are good(A bit overrated, but still good).I don't know about sonic though.

By your logic every single final fantasy game is the same because the have the same classes, a villain, and you explore an overworld.

I think you can easilly see that games whose story is "The chosen one saves the world from the big evil" are more similar to each other, than games where you have a villain and you explore a world. For instance: Jon Irenicus is a diffrent villain than, say Malak or the Reapers.

Why not compare Monkey Island and kings quest

I haven't played king's quest.

every FPS is a ripoff of DOOM.

But... ,but Doom is a ripoff of Wolfenstein. /sarcasm

 

[wetfart]

So is he the one responsible for butchering Revan's character in the old republic?

 

[bobisimo]

Reading through some of these comments, you'd forget that hundreds of people work on these projects. I don't say that to minimize Drew (or Brent, or Kevin Martens, or any of the other known-to-the-community talents who have left) and his accomplishments, he certainly put a lot of himself into his work and helped shape their successes, but when hundreds of people work on projects, it's easy to continue on when a handful of them leave. If you're looking for the glue that holds BioWare together, as well as the source of BioWare's continued evolution, I'd be more inclined to look to guys like James Ohlen, as well as the other core staff like Ray & Greg, etc. They're making the games they want to make and the games that they enjoy playing. This really doesn't have much to do with EA or anything else.

 

[Worr Monger]

I'm just glad that Mass Effect is finished. That's all I really care about. This doesn't exactly spell doom for Bioware, but possibly a change... which could be a good thing.

You really think Mass effect is finished? Ahaahahahaha Mass effect is finished like call of duty is finished

I'm not talking about all the future spin-offs within the same universe... that's inevitable of course... and I'm fine with that because Mass Effect has an awesome universe.

I'm talking about the main trilogy involving Shepard.... Call of Duty doesn't have a story.

It's more like Halo 4 (though I don't care much for Halo's universe)... The main games are done. Now come the spin-offs by different writers.. etc.

If they take a bad direction with Mass Effect after ME3.... I'll be ok with that, because the trilogy that matters would have been finished.. I can ignore anything else if need be.

 

[darth gditch]

Awww.I rather liked his work.


He wasn't Tolkein or Asimov or anything like that, but he did write entertaining novels and scripts. And damnit if Mass Effect isn't my favorite sci-fi universe, so kudos to you, Drew.

 

[draythefingerless]

1) DLC. Now Im fine with good, well though out DLC like the way Rockstar does DLC. I however despise the way EA has gone about it, Day one DLC, DLC already on the disc you need to "unlock", and just take a look at this; http://www.gameinformer.com/b/news/archive/2012/01/23/mass-effect-figures-include-mass-effect-3-dlc.aspx

That is MF action figure DLC. And the DLC rewards are randomized at that . . . so real collection obsessed fans can buy multiple sets of the same action figure, or so Ive heard.

It's stuff for the multiplayer. Even better it's stuff you could unlock from just playing the multiplayer. It's not on-disc DLC. Everyone gets access to all the stuff you get from the action figure stuff.

2)The auxiliary characters are pathetically badly designed. Chobot? Freddie prinze? The fuck outta here. Rasta Prothean? Theyre 0 for 3 right out of the gate, and I have no faith in EA (yes it is EA wearing Bioware's skin) to make the others any better. This would be great if I wanted to play Mass Effect the comedy special, but to me that not the appeal. Fuck freddie prinze jr. poser *****.

considering you have absolutely no idea how any of those characters are implemented, I think you're jumping the gun here a bit. Right now you sound like the people who found out about legion being in ME2 before they played the game.

"WHAT?!?!? WHY WOULD SHEPARD WORK WITH THE GETH!? THAT MAKES NO SENSE!" Oh wait it's explained really well within the game.

3)forced emotional manipulation. The human kid getting blown up in the demo? what the hell was the point of that? Are we supposed to feel bad about some dumbass kid we see for 5 seconds, that runs away from us like a retard? Just ham fisted drama, and I dont see it getting less hamfisted

It's called context. It's there for a very specific reason; to give emotional weight to what's currently happening to Earth. It seems really fast now, but I mostly think that is due to the poor pacing of the first part of the demo. Bioware said they had to cut loads of stuff from the demo because of 2 gig download limit imposed by XBL.

I could literally go on and on about every single thing that sets off alarm bells . . . Horde mode, create your own single player mode, the obvious laziness from what ive seen in the demo (shit textures for one, and the uncanny valley problems), male shephard running like he has a perpetually dirty ass, the lead writer leaving the company for MAC FUCKING WALTERS to take over is enough evidence alone to make me avoid this game.

I think when fans play this game, well, im hoping they look back at ME2 and realize that that game isnt all that.

Dude, it's a demo. It's based a 3-4 month old build of the game (which just went gold like a week and a half ago). Things like textures and animations get refined right up until it goes gold.

Drew left about halfway through Mass Effect 2 to work on SW:TOR by the way, he turned it over to Mac Walters then.

Also, the multiplayer is probably the best horde mode I've ever played. It actually takes teamwork and skill to beat a game, which is not something you see with a lot of multiplayer modes lately. Constantly changing objectives and brutal difficulty make the game a real challenge.

There's also a really cool progression system with interesting character development choices.

that kid thing btw? brilliant. if it is what i think it is, its brilliant. at first you think oh its just a kid, and he dies to show that earth is really getting fucked, but then i remember something they ask you in the character creator that got me thinking. plus how the kid comes n goes. if, IF bioware does this, itll show people they can still make good stuff. and btw, if that stuff didnt blwo up, you wouldnt take the invasion seriously. it serves to establish, emotionally, that the planet is literally being raped in the ass.

and lol emotional manipulation...do yu even know what you meant to say with that? pretty much anything you read see or play that causes an intentional emotion on you is manipulation.

 

[Animyr]

I thought this guy had already resigned. As in, several months ago.

Also, yeah, Karpyshyn's prose is not exactly the greatest thing around. He should stick to games if you ask me.

 

[Imbechile]

So, I take it you've played only one Bioware game then?

If by only one Bioware game you mean "every bioware game is the same due to the things I listed" then yeah. I've played only one Bioware game.

Not Dragon Age or Mass Effect 2?

Dragon age 2 could have been a step in the right direction story-wise, but it was rushed, so the story is disjointed.

Or haven't just read any epic fantasy in the first place.

I think we can agreen that if a lot of people do the same thing, that thing doesn't become good all of the suddenly. It might be influental, but it still remains shit.