Mass Effect's Casey Hudson Will Leave BioWare

[Agayek]

Ah yeah, I remember hearing about this ending ^^
The overall plot is really pretty similar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAmVVAjZZeM&list=UUTQnO5AuzTXKjxKMFD9DwZA
Made me got over my initial grief and helped me to built my own canon ending >.<
Some day I'll have to replay all parts with the happy ending mod installed... not that it's only about a happy ending. What I hated most was the starchild and everything it stood for... and the three ridiculous choices.

Eh, the ending we got for ME3 (with the Extended Cut adding proper resolution) was actually perfectly fine, even the three choices. The only real, major problem with the ending was the Catalyst. Its existence was thematically, narratively, and emotionally disruptive, introduced new plot elements at the climax, and presented a motivation for the Reapers that was blatantly contradictory and logically nonsensical.

All Bioware needed to do to salvage the entire situation was to cut out the conversation with the Catalyst entirely. Shepard and Anderson are sitting on the Citadel and Anderson dies, then Hackett calls in about the Catalyst not firing, so Shepard forces themself up and staggers over to the console. Instead of collapsing and a magic elevator taking them into space at that point, what they should have done is have the console activate and a Prothean VI pop out. The VI would then present Shepard with the choice between Destroy or Control, ignoring synthesis entirely because that was just stupid and counter to one of the primary themes of the entire series (read: A "power of diversity!" narrative shouldn't ever end with "And then everyone was the same and so utopia began"). At that point, it works just like when you made the respective choice in the real game, Shepard dies and either the Reapers explode or retreat into darkspace, and everything gets wrapped up in the Extended Cut.

That's my main issue with ME3's ending. It was so close to being good, possibly even great, but they fucked it up by introducing a single character at the absolute worst possible time.

 

[bigfatcarp93]

This thread is proof of one thing. "It takes a lot to build a reputation, but very little to destroy it."

It's the way our world work.
To be honest, ME3 was an average game at best and i don't mind the ending. It's badly written, dialogues too shorts and misrepresented, nothing more to say.

It' more the half truth and blatant lies said BEFORE the game launch (even when he knew he was lying) that i would remember about him. And i don't speak about Bioware's actions AFTER launch ("we don't listen to fans anymore" from a director during a convention and so on).

The past don't really matter, it's always the most terrible part that will be remembered, and it'll always be because our brain is made for.

Speak for yourself, dude I think I'll be doing much more remembering of his more worthwhile contributions. Kindly refrain from acting like your opinion is shared by the entire species under the pretense of "it's how our brains work", as though everyone's brains are identical.

 

[TaboriHK]

Three years too late. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

 

[The Great JT]

"We'll talk later."

That is my response to that.

 

[JediMB]

Unlike some here, I don't hate the guy for ME3. That game was very obviously rushed (the lack of sidequests and how ridiculously straightforward the final levels were) and there's no way the series could ever have ended well. No-one writing the first two Mass Effect games ever planned ahead, which is why the Collectors, the Illusive Man, Crucible etc all pop out of fucking nowhere at the beginning of their respective games. No-one ever came up with a motivation for the Reapers or a way to stop them, so they were working with what they had for most of it. The ending was clearly written in a blind panic too, likely to get it out the door on time.

While Mass Effect 2 certainly had a load of problems both in its writing and game mechanics (and how the two interacted), at least the Illusive Man and the Collectors could fit into the existing lore with relative ease. It was sloppy, but it was manageable.

Meanwhile, the writing in Mass Effect 3 actively contradicted what was in the previous two games. Sovereign and Harbinger did not have a lot of dialogue in ME1 and ME2, yet what little they revealed about their motivations was completely thrown out the window by the end of Mass Effect 3. Hell, the "clarifications" in the extended cut only served to worsen the contradictions.

 

[Zombie Badger]

While Mass Effect 2 certainly had a load of problems both in its writing and game mechanics (and how the two interacted), at least the Illusive Man and the Collectors could fit into the existing lore with relative ease. It was sloppy, but it was manageable.

Meanwhile, the writing in Mass Effect 3 actively contradicted what was in the previous two games. Sovereign and Harbinger did not have a lot of dialogue in ME1 and ME2, yet what little they revealed about their motivations was completely thrown out the window by the end of Mass Effect 3. Hell, the "clarifications" in the extended cut only served to worsen the contradictions.

The Collectors actively contradict ME1, because Sovereign's reason for assaulting the Citadel was that he had no other way of contacting the Reapers. In ME2 Harbinger talks directly to Shepard through them and the Collector relay is activated by a Reaper IFF, so Sovereign could have just asked to use their phone.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Plus, with the benefit of hindsight, ME2 was completely pointless; Nothing you did in ME2 amounted to shit. Mass Effect as a series should forever be held up as an example of how not to write a trilogy with an interconnected storyline.

The funny thing is, ME1 is a self-contained story that precludes the possibility of a sequel. The entire reason for Sovereign's attack on the Citadel is that he has no other way of contacting the other Reapers, so they wrote themselves into a corner that they could only get out of by introducing other Reaper agents like the Collectors, whose phone Sovereign could have just asked to use.

I never really got this complaint. ME2 may have been less consequential to the plot of the trilogy than the other 2 games. But I don't understand why this makes it bad. The middle chapter of a trilogy is almost always the weakest on plot, because it can't pad things out introducing the story and main characters, but can't have any huge final conflicts either. ME2 took what ME1 established and expanded everything, developing characters and the Mass Effect world, and told a well-contained story that fit just fine into the canon.

ME2 is the best-written of the three games in regards to dialogue and character development, which is what it primarily focuses on. It is a side story, but many things that happened and decisions Shepard made do influence the rest of the story.

Besides... Casey Hudson is not the war criminal people make him out to be. He is responsible for a great deal of Mass Effect, the good and the bad. I say he was a positive influence overall.

 

[JediMB]

While Mass Effect 2 certainly had a load of problems both in its writing and game mechanics (and how the two interacted), at least the Illusive Man and the Collectors could fit into the existing lore with relative ease. It was sloppy, but it was manageable.

Meanwhile, the writing in Mass Effect 3 actively contradicted what was in the previous two games. Sovereign and Harbinger did not have a lot of dialogue in ME1 and ME2, yet what little they revealed about their motivations was completely thrown out the window by the end of Mass Effect 3. Hell, the "clarifications" in the extended cut only served to worsen the contradictions.

The Collectors actively contradict ME1, because Sovereign's reason for assaulting the Citadel was that he had no other way of contacting the Reapers. In ME2 Harbinger talks directly to Shepard through them and the Collector relay is activated by a Reaper IFF, so Sovereign could have just asked to use their phone.

Sovereign's problem was never that it couldn't contact the Reapers in dark space. At least not from any dialogue I can remember. It was all about activating the Citadel's mass relay and gaining control over the relay network to make the invasion work as planned.

But I do suppose it doesn't make sense that Sovereign didn't ask Harbinger for help with the attack against the Citadel. Certainly wouldn't hurt to have both the Geth Heretics and the Collectors on your side. (Unless the Collectors were somehow too valuable to risk losing them in battle unnecessarily, but that really should have been at least acknowledged in ME2.)

 

[Zombie Badger]

Sovereign's problem was never that it couldn't contact the Reapers in dark space. At least not from any dialogue I can remember. It was all about activating the Citadel's mass relay and gaining control over the relay network to make the invasion work as planned.

Vigil: But this time, the signal failed. The keepers did not respond. Sovereign's allies were trapped in the void. Alone, it was forced to try and discover what had gone wrong.

Shepard: [Why didn't Sovereign attack the Citadel?]

V: ...Even a Reaper couldn't survive such odds... Sovereign could have been planning this for centuries, moving deliberately, gathering allies.

The Reapers take six months to arrive at Earth after setting off at the end of ME2. If Sovereign had just called them they would have exterminated everyone centuries before Shepard was even born.

 

[JediMB]

Besides... Casey Hudson is not the war criminal people make him out to be. He is responsible for a great deal of Mass Effect, the good and the bad. I say he was a positive influence overall.

Really, the details like dialogue and the various story/character arcs that make up the games were crafted by the various writers on the team. Hudson would be primarily responsible for the "bigger picture" things, and if I'm being perfectly honest the main arcs of all three Mass Effect games have been less than stellar.

In the original Mass Effect, there's the roundabout plan to discover the secrets of Ilos and the Conduit when Saren could have simply ignored the beacon on Eden Prime and used his privileges and contacts as a Spectre to get to the Citadel's controls. The Citadel would have been defenseless when Sovereign arrived to hijack their systems, since no one would know that there was any reason to worry.

Mass Effect 2 was thankfully a step up, despite how the transition from ME1's lore and mechanics wasn't entirely smooth, but the humanoid Reaper at the end? So very dumb.

Finally, Mass Effect 3 had the Crucible arc. 'nuff said there.

 

[JediMB]

Sovereign's problem was never that it couldn't contact the Reapers in dark space. At least not from any dialogue I can remember. It was all about activating the Citadel's mass relay and gaining control over the relay network to make the invasion work as planned.

Vigil: But this time, the signal failed. The keepers did not respond. Sovereign's allies were trapped in the void. Alone, it was forced to try and discover what had gone wrong.

Shepard: [Why didn't Sovereign attack the Citadel?]

V: ...Even a Reaper couldn't survive such odds... Sovereign could have been planning this for centuries, moving deliberately, gathering allies.

The Reapers take six months to arrive at Earth after setting off at the end of ME2. If Sovereign had just called them they would have exterminated everyone centuries before Shepard was even born.

That's more of an issue with Mass Effect 3, I would think. And the Arrival DLC for ME2, I guess, but I'm not sure if that should be considered a part of ME2 or a lead-in to ME3. Mass Effect 1 made it seem like it was of utmost importance that the Reapers came in through the Citadel mass relay, but ME3 (and Arrival) reduced the lack of direct transportation to little more than a minor inconvenience. (That said, was it specifically said that they set off at the end of ME2 proper, or is it possible that they had been on the move since Sovereign died at the end of ME1?)

Of course, it's also possible that the Reapers didn't want to deviate from their standard plan unless it was absolutely necessary. That they'd rather wait a few centuries for Sovereign to attempt to regain control over the Citadel than to take the "risk" of trying something different.

 

[Alpha Maeko]

I loved ME3. I didn't love the ending.

He's responsible for both. Therefore, I give up and just hope mistakes aren't repeated in ME4.

 

[Lunar Templar]

This thread is proof of one thing. "It takes a lot to build a reputation, but very little to destroy it."

Been there practically since the beginning, starting with Neverwinter Nights? Has been a part of the entire Mass Effect Trilogy, along with the RPG sacred cow called KOTOR?

None of that matters, because of the ending of Mass Effect 3. Not that I'm defending the ending as written (I didn't mind the EC, but the original ending was bollocks). But seriously, people are celebrating, saying good riddance to someone who has been with Bioware since MDK 2, back in 2000. You say you want the old Bioware back? Well, one of old guard just left. But hey, he helped make a shitty ending, so who cares what else he contributed, right?

Oh, and what's this? "Having led the team through 4 major titles..." 4 major titles? It almost sounds like he did a lot more than "the Mass Effect 3 ending", doesn't it? Oh, wait, he was ALSO project director for KOTOR and the entire trilogy. Guess that explains why those games were so shit, right? No...wait...those are some of the best received Western RPGs, if the ending is not taken into account.

But because of that ending, he is now one of the most vilified people in the RPG business today. It's a damn shame.

This.

all day long.

The petulant but hurt over that ending needs to fucking stop. It was stupid back when it was the 'hot issue' and its triply so now.

Get over it and move on. It wasn't worth the time and energy back then, and it sure as hell isn't now.

 

[ecoho]

Was this the guy who decided to write the ending to mass effect 3 by himself

Pretty sure that was Mac Walters who is still there.

No he left before the end.

Mac Walters wrote the gurren lagann ending that got scrapped.

Hack Walters is still with Bioware, as evidenced by his presence in the "ME4 HYPEHYPEHYPE" vid from E3. According to the intenet he and Hudson shut themselves in a room after the leak and wrote the ending we got pre Extended Cut.

You may be thinking of Drew Karpyshyn, the lead writer on KoToR, Jade Empire and ME1/ME2, who left before ME3 to write The Old Republic and then bailed alltogether after penning a dreadful resolution to Revan's saga.

um just want to point out revans not dead he stays just above 0 health when you beat him in the foundry then completely disappears.

OT: well sorry to see him go but it was time for him to leave.

 

[Amaror]

This thread is proof of one thing. "It takes a lot to build a reputation, but very little to destroy it."

Been there practically since the beginning, starting with Neverwinter Nights? Has been a part of the entire Mass Effect Trilogy, along with the RPG sacred cow called KOTOR?

None of that matters, because of the ending of Mass Effect 3. Not that I'm defending the ending as written (I didn't mind the EC, but the original ending was bollocks). But seriously, people are celebrating, saying good riddance to someone who has been with Bioware since MDK 2, back in 2000. You say you want the old Bioware back? Well, one of old guard just left. But hey, he helped make a shitty ending, so who cares what else he contributed, right?

Oh, and what's this? "Having led the team through 4 major titles..." 4 major titles? It almost sounds like he did a lot more than "the Mass Effect 3 ending", doesn't it? Oh, wait, he was ALSO project director for KOTOR and the entire trilogy. Guess that explains why those games were so shit, right? No...wait...those are some of the best received Western RPGs, if the ending is not taken into account.

But because of that ending, he is now one of the most vilified people in the RPG business today. It's a damn shame.

I don't mind that he made a bad game, even if it was the final chapter of a great series and had a really shitty ending. Kotor 2 had a really shitty ending and it was rushed like crazy but it was still a fantastic game and incredibly good.

What i do mind are lies. He blatantly lied to his fans before the release of the game and bioware didn't act very well after release of the game either.
I am not demonizing him. He's certainly not the second coming of Hitler or something. But i do think that he's an asshole for treating his fans this way.
Making good games doesn't excuse blatant misconception.

 

[TaboriHK]

This.

all day long.

The petulant but hurt over that ending needs to fucking stop. It was stupid back when it was the 'hot issue' and its triply so now.

Get over it and move on. It wasn't worth the time and energy back then, and it sure as hell isn't now.

You're entitled to your opinion, but no amount of words, snarky or otherwise, are going to remove how embarrassing the ending to that game was for the people who didn't like it.

 

[TaboriHK]

People are conflating Casey Hudson of pre-EA ownership with post-EA ownership Casey Hudson. Why I hate him is not what he did before, it's what he did after. What he did on KOTOR I couldn't say, but that game is roses in my opinion. What he did on ME3, on the other hand, is humiliating. Humiliating. And it really began with ME2.

Go back and replay ME1 and ME2, and you can almost instantly see how different those games are in terms of scope and ideas. One is unpolished and ambitious, and the other is standard EA fare - check out the polish on these shooting boxes you'll be shooting in! When a guy's name gets attached to what essentially amounts to a giant sellout of the original idea, when his name comes up first after Drew Karpyshyn (or however the hell that is spelled) vanishes, guess what? People aren't going to look much further past your name.

Maybe he magically wasn't at fault for all of the things that made ME3 a despicably bad game in my opinion. Maybe it was all Mac Walters, who's co-headlining on my personal shitlist. Maybe it was 100% EA meddling and what they put out is the best they could do. That would mean than rather than be incompetent, as seems to be the case, he was merely completely ineffectual. In either case, I wish him well doing something else, preferably not to do with the few IPs I actually enjoy. Go make alcohol like one of the other of the 900 Bioware castoffs that punched out post-ME3?

I look forward to the tell-all book that will come from one of these people at some point in the indeterminate future.

 

[TaboriHK]

Emphasis on the ?didn?t like it? part. The ending was fine pre-extended cut, and after that bit of free DLC it was literally EXACTLY what Bioware ?promised? fans. All they said was that the game would have multiple endings that would be markedly different, and that your choices would be reflected. That?s it. Period. They didn?t say how many, they didn?t say how explicitly different, and they didn?t say how much your choices would be reflected. The original ending only really failed in that last bit.

Context matters, and you can (and most seem to plan to) ***** forever about how the endings were just color swaps, but the fact is each one had a vastly different context that would inevitably lead to a MASSIVELY different long-term outcome. That is what we were promised. Th extended cut just added a bit of polish and a monolog to make the choices more explicitly different because of players crying foul that everything wasn?t spelled out for them. Then they added the montage at the end highlighting the end results of your most important choices.

Multiple endings. Vastly different outcomes. Choices made throughout the game reflected therein. Check, check, and check.

BIOWARE AND CASEY HUDSON NEVER ACTUALLY LIED TO ANYONE ABOUT THE ENDING TO MASS EFFECT 3.

You lied to yourself and blamed him. The fans lied. They overhyped the ending and expected more than was promised, and more than could be reasonably delivered. Just like the fans are the ones spreading the rumor that Hudson is solely responsible for the ending. Just like the fans are the ones saying the Dark Energy ending was scrapped because of being leaked on Reddit. And just like the fans convinced everyone that the entire ending was nothing but a fever dream as Shepard lay dying in the dirt.

You're confusing my arguments with someone else's. I don't care if they lied about it or were truthful about it. And this thread is not about the context that the endings provide; I absolutely agree that those are important, and absolute disagree that the context they gave was "acceptable."

My beef with ME3 was and is and will forever be that it was an enormously dumb letdown to one of the most promising titles of the previous console generation. I don't care about the politics, I don't care why it happened. It happened, and I hated it, and everyone responsible for it.

I'll talk about it when Bioware comes up, or when ME3 comes up, and even then pretty sparingly, because I've spent my energy on this topic. It was spent two years ago when I lost my mind over how bad it was. You don't see me trolling every thread, or any thread, using the conversation as an excuse to complain about ME3.