Mass Effect's Casey Hudson Will Leave BioWare

[Mithcha]

Everytime I hear of this guy I get the Lucas/Metzen feeling. I.e. he's a guy who was once really, really fucking good but for whatever reason, age, arrogance, sat on his throne too long - he just doesn't have it anymore. That's just an at a glance reaction to him though, not like I study his career in depth or anything.

Good luck to the ol' **** either way.

 

[Lunar Templar]

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.

The longer you all hold on to this non issue and treat it like it matters (hint:it doesn't) the worse you all are going to make your selves and your fanbase look in the long run, and it's not likely to 'improve' anything ether. EA and Bioware will forget about this, assuming they haven't already, and do something to jack those of you who are still buying they're crap up again.

Only way they will ever actually learn anything is by enough people not knuckling under and actually sticking to what they say when they say they 'aren't buying a game from a company ever again'.

 

[TaboriHK]

I was merely outlining why this entire debate is stupid. As I said; nobody lied. To you personally I say this; you?re wrong. The context was acceptable. Think about it for a moment. Forget the colored explosions and cut to black without explicitly explaining everything and think about what those endings depicted. Think about what you were told would happen, and what that would mean long term.

To you I say, as I said before, this is not what this conversation is about. If you want to know what my personal view is on it, I can PM you a piece I wrote on precisely this subject (bear in mind, this was days after I finished it so my level of vitriol was 10,000 times what it is here.)

The longer you all hold on to this non issue and treat it like it matters (hint:it doesn't) the worse you all are going to make your selves and your fanbase look in the long run, and it's not likely to 'improve' anything ether. EA and Bioware will forget about this, assuming they haven't already, and do something to jack those of you who are still buying they're crap up again.

Only way they will ever actually learn anything is by enough people not knuckling under and actually sticking to what they say when they say they 'aren't buying a game from a company ever again'.

I don't care how the fanbase looks, or how EA/Bioware moves forward. They already lost me. My opinion was never about looking cool in front of anonymous people on the internet who agree with me. Bioware/EA made it clear that they see their works as a product first and art a distant second. I agree that anyone who hated ME3 but buys a EA/Bioware product now is foolish. Don't count me among them.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

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.

As Zombie Badger himself said in another post, the existence of the Collectors contradicts the conflict of ME1; if there was a race of Reaper slaves hiding in a convenient mass relay that only they or there masters could go through (hence the IFF you plucked out of a dead Reaper), then why didn't Sovereign go to them instead of fucking around with Saren and the geth? Secondly, it's plot is barely there, consisting mostly of side missions that, as it turns out, have fuck all to do with anything. The characters, while well written dialogue wise, are basically a check list of cliches. And the plot relies on the main characters being idiots; at no point did any of them suggest bringing video or sensor evidence (or hell, a cadaver) to the galactic authorities to prove that Reapers and Collectors exist. And if that doesn't work, give Emily Wong a ring. Nobody ever thought of leaving a nuke like the one they left on Pragia onto the Collector ship to blow the thing to kingdom come. Finally, the end shows that the didn't need the Citadel or the Collectors at, since in less than a year, they reach the galactic rim and begin their invasion in full. So what was the point?

 

[Machine Man 1992]

I was merely outlining why this entire debate is stupid. As I said; nobody lied. To you personally I say this; you?re wrong. The context was acceptable. Think about it for a moment. Forget the colored explosions and cut to black without explicitly explaining everything and think about what those endings depicted. Think about what you were told would happen, and what that would mean long term.

To you I say, as I said before, this is not what this conversation is about. If you want to know what my personal view is on it, I can PM you a piece I wrote on precisely this subject (bear in mind, this was days after I finished it so my level of vitriol was 10,000 times what it is here.)

Could you send me this piece as well?

 

[Atmos Duality]

I'm conflicted. On one hand he is responsible for a lot of good stuff that came out of Bioware and he is clearly talented. On the other hand, fuck this guy, he's a lying son of a *****. Nothing he said about Mass Effect 3 was true. It was, in fact, the exact opposite of what he said.

Aye. Though I suppose his story is just Bioware in a nutshell.

He started off making phenomenal games, but in the end, he became a company tool who gladly sabotaged his work's integrity for the sake of some publicity.

As for what this means for the future: Nothing.
Hudson's departure is utterly meaningless at this point, because Bioware is utterly meaningless.

Bioware is meaningless because it's shackled to EA, and thus have no chance of aspiring to greatness; either due to direct corporate meddling, or the tight development schedules EA mandates for all of its productions.

 

[Ticklefist]

One down, two to go. Walters and Gamble can go too.

Mass Effect series. Like a Nascar race. Nothing that happens before the last lap mattered.

 

[Akisa]

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.

And what if the reapers always have been traveling since the first attempt to phone home? We don't know how long the journey took from the Reaper's resting place.Lets say the journey normally takes about 2 weeks if you open the citadel relay, but 200 years if you can't open the citadel relay.

Explaining the collectors could be a lot more difficult though. I have a couple of theories could be that could explain why the Collectors were never used in ME1. First Collectors were always examining the races and only focused on humans until the fall of Sovereign, so originally they weren't needed for a combat. So the Reapers never bothered to engineer a combat ship for the collectors until Sovereign goes down as at this point this was their only fallback plan.

Another possibility the collectors were used for some other project like preparing the harvesting of the current races. It's like using your scientist and engineers to go into combat when you can get troops easily elsewhere. Another analogy would be like sending a supply ship into battle when you could be using it supply your units elsewhere. After your battleship gets sunk you are than forced to convert your supply ship into a battleship as its the only ship the area now.

 

[Ishigami]

I kind of feel sorry for the guy that his legacy might only be remembered as fucking up the Ending to Mass Effect 3 when he also worked on so many other good BioWare games.
Then again he lied to our faces?

As for Mass Effect. I still think the first game could have been the end of it. If you cut the dialog at the end with Udina then it would have turned out that disabling the Mass Relay of the Citadel would have kept the Reapers in dark space in hibernation and thus quelled the threat basically permanently.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

Ehem...
Now, I will try not to sound superior and condescending, but there are answers to every one of these issues. Some are, admittedly, not spelled out in the games themselves, but if you can take the liberty of questioning everything the characters in a fictional world do, then it's just as valid to take some time to figure out how they might actually make sense.

1: the existence of the Collectors contradicts the conflict of ME1; if there was a race of Reaper slaves hiding in a convenient mass relay that only they or there masters could go through (hence the IFF you plucked out of a dead Reaper), then why didn't Sovereign go to them instead of fucking around with Saren and the geth?
2: it's plot is barely there, consisting mostly of side missions that, as it turns out, have fuck all to do with anything. The characters, while well written dialogue wise, are basically a check list of cliches.
3: the plot relies on the main characters being idiots; at no point did any of them suggest bringing video or sensor evidence (or hell, a cadaver) to the galactic authorities to prove that Reapers and Collectors exist. And if that doesn't work, give Emily Wong a ring. Nobody ever thought of leaving a nuke like the one they left on Pragia onto the Collector ship to blow the thing to kingdom come.
4: Finally, the end shows that the didn't need the Citadel or the Collectors at, since in less than a year, they reach the galactic rim and begin their invasion in full. So what was the point?

1: The Collectors don't contradict anything. They may have been a resource Sovereign should have used, but in all of ME2 you only ever see one Collector ship. The one at the beginning is the same one you encounter twice more, and once you blow it up, the collectors don't send any more at you. Clearly, they weren't built to stage a full-scale assault on anything. They work on the fringes, with just one ship powerful enough to subdue a single undefended colony. Sovereign used the geth because they had thousands of ships at least on par with the Council races, and were willing to follow him. The geth made for a much stronger force than the Collectors, who were designed to be more of a black-ops organization.
2: I never grasped the school of thought that says everything in the plot must directly contribute to furthering the action. I completely disagree. This may be a simple debate about story structure and mechanics, but I don't see why you can't have an interlude in the main plot to tell a tangentially related side story, one which builds toward your final chapter by introducing tons of characters and a great deal of relevant information about the galaxy Shepard is saving. What's wrong with fleshing out your setting? Why does everything Shepard does have to be directly against the reapers? The options for this middle chapter were 1: Giving Shepard something to do while waiting for the reapers, or 2: Starting the galactic war one third of the way into the story, which would make less sense, since Shepard literally just stopped the invasion. I think they did the best they could considering the limitations.
And if the characters being rather cliche bothers you, that's your preference. I don't see the problem. For the most part, they started with an archetypal character and built on that to create an actual person with dimensions.
3: This is a non-issue. The characters not doing what you think would be a smart thing to do does not make it badly written. If there had been a solution to these problems previously mentioned in the game, then it would be bad writing. But since there was not, we have to assume that they did what they could in that situation with the available information.
Where exactly were they going to get video evidence of the reapers? The Council already heard Saren and Benezia talking about them and dismissed that claim. There was no proof of their existence until Virmire, which was vaporized. The Council says that they went to Ilos, and the prothean VI defunct. There is no proof of the reapers beyond bringing one to the Citadel, and... Wait, they did exactly that. And the Council still denied it.
4: And finally, the point of the Citadel being a relay to dark space is that way, the reapers can start the war by exterminating the leaders of the galactic government and controlling the relay network. Yes, they can just travel to the edge of the galaxy and invade from the outside, but it is much more efficient to start with the center of galactic power. The reapers have been doing this for a billion years. They have refined it to consume the least amount of resources possible.

 

[Ishal]

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?

KOTOR was just another bog standard Bioware story. The only interesting character in that was one side character, and maybe a few others. The best thing that game did was create a fantastic setting to let real storytellers like Obsidian go to work and create KOTOR II. Then Bioware got to make their MMO and took away all that potential Obsidian was building.

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?

I guess some people want the old Bioware back. I'm not quite sure why, though. Bioware games have been the same clichéd formula since Baldur's Gate. Look at it another way. Did you ever think that because he's a member of the old guard, because he has such a rich history with Bioware, contributes to why people were/are so disappointed and angry? Bioware used to be so much more than it is now. It was all that you said, you're not wrong. It's name alone could be used to move games. They were one of the most beloved names in gaming. The fact that Casey had that good will, and had all the support of the diehard fans, made it so much worse when he wrote that terrible ending, then lied about it. The foundation of Bioware games is arguably two things. 1) Having a colorful cast of characters the players can enjoy with some witty banter and stories. 2) Having your choices matter. Since this was a trilogy, that last one was huge, and they screwed it up. And no, it wasn't just the ending that they screwed up. The whole of ME3 had problems right from the start. Though they are admittedly minor when compared to the ending.

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.

Again, it only makes things worse knowing this. That said, personally, I've got no more anger over this. I think Casey should move on to other projects and learn from his mistakes. He's a talented guy, and I'm sure he'll contribute to other projects very well.

 

[Rodolphe Kourkenko]

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.

I'll bring a fact.
You're thanking Mr Hudson fro bringing us awesome games, like ME, Baldur's Gate 1&2 and so on.

Do you know WHO is the man that funded Bioware to permet them to make this kind of games ?
You know him, everybody here know him...

It's John Riccitiello, the former EA CEO, at this time, it was the co-founder of Elevation Partners. He gave 400 milions of dollars to Bioware and Pandemic to make games !
Did you thanked him for funding this games when he was fired from EA ?

No, all you remember is the fact he was the EA CEO, no more ! It's the same for Casey Hudson. I think he didn't deserve all the attacks on him but what will be remembered of him is like a singer today: the last song. And Mr Hudson last song will depend of ME4, the more the game will be a success, the more he can be forgotten (and when i see the VG world, it's perhaps very good for him).

 

[Pinky's Brain]

BG1&2 are quite a bit older, ME1 was already well into production by that time.

PS. not that I ever really blamed EA for what became of ME ... as I see it EA gave me ME3 multiplayer, McCasey gave me RGB. EA made ME3 worth buying.

 

[Valok]

Good riddance.

Sorry, doesn't really have much else to add.

 

[Machine Man 1992]

4: And finally, the point of the Citadel being a relay to dark space is that way, the reapers can start the war by exterminating the leaders of the galactic government and controlling the relay network. Yes, they can just travel to the edge of the galaxy and invade from the outside, but it is much more efficient to start with the center of galactic power. The reapers have been doing this for a billion years. They have refined it to consume the least amount of resources possible.

But they've been locked in Dark Space (the void beyond the rim of the galaxy, and if I'm eyeballing it correctly, Harbinger is at least several thousand light years away) for the past fifty thousand years, what was stopping them? Sovereign?

"No, no, guys, I got this."

"You sure?"

"Totes; I'll just get these talking toasters to do the heavy lifting and we can get this party started."

I dunno. I'm just gonna stand by my position that it's important to plan your trilogies out before you start writing them.

Edit: Also, when you do write a trilogy with the express intent of making each one interconnected with the same main character, having the middle installment basically be a holding pattern is still a stupid move.

 

[FuzzyRaccoon]

I'm conflicted. On one hand he is responsible for a lot of good stuff that came out of Bioware and he is clearly talented. On the other hand, fuck this guy, he's a lying son of a *****. Nothing he said about Mass Effect 3 was true. It was, in fact, the exact opposite of what he said.

Agreed. But, ultimately, I would suggest handling this like I handle George Lucas. He is the guy that created Star Wars, and for THAT, I will be forever thankful to the man. But I was glad to see Disney take it over, because someone needed to get that mans hands away from the franchise, so he would quit screwing up what was a good thing.

I will be forever thankful to him for Mass Effect, KOTOR, etc. as I adore those games. But yeah, he dropped the ball with the ending of ME 3. Now we will have to wait and see if this helps or hurts the next Mass Effect game.

Yes, agreed. Nothing more needs to be said on the matter.

 

[pearcinator]

Which colour door did he exit the office? XD

I kid, I will always thank him for KOTOR. He did ruin the end of ME3 though but the rest of the game was awesome (and surprisingly the multiplayer too!) that I can forgive him for that.

 

[TheVampwizimp_v1legacy]

But they've been locked in Dark Space (the void beyond the rim of the galaxy, and if I'm eyeballing it correctly, Harbinger is at least several thousand light years away) for the past fifty thousand years, what was stopping them? Sovereign?

"No, no, guys, I got this."

"You sure?"

"Totes; I'll just get these talking toasters to do the heavy lifting and we can get this party started."

I dunno. I'm just gonna stand by my position that it's important to plan your trilogies out before you start writing them.

Edit: Also, when you do write a trilogy with the express intent of making each one interconnected with the same main character, having the middle installment basically be a holding pattern is still a stupid move.

On that last thought we can agree. They really should have had an outline for the whole story before they released anything. I still loved it, but it could have been much better.