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felassan · 2 months

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I was sent a link to a ‘chat with Mark Darrah' interview video that I hadn’t seen before. [here is the source] link. the interview took place in 2022, so bear that in mind when listening, but it still has interesting insights and things in there.

the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

this post is just some brief notes and a few transcribed quotes of interest from the video.

Mark ofc was in charge of DA:O, DAII, & DA:I, then, quote, “then a bunch of malarkey happened” and he ended up in charge of Anthem in 2017 in its final ~16 months

In AAA games narrative is a certain thing that was very much defined in a lot of ways by BioWare

There’s a BioWare story in Anthem (though certainly not its best), if you just ignore everything else

The average gamer puts way too much stock into what engine is used to make a game

Mark is pretty sure that the guts of Neverwinter Nights is underneath the Witcher engine

Moving DA from Aurora to Eclipse to Frostbite (engines) opened up more possibility spaces

Frostbite stagnated because it essentially was the engine everyone had to use at EA

Before DA:I, there was a game at BioWare internally codenamed “Blackfoot”. It was going to be a multiplayer DA game and was using Frostbite before DA:O, during the time of DAII’s late development but before DA:I started development. It never shipped as it got eaten by DA:I

For the MET, Casey was originally trying to make a Star Control-type game but cinematic. Echoes of this can be seen in ME1. But ME the IP itself wants to be a space opera. Ultimately the cinematic experience side of it won out

And some specific quotes:

“Something that I noticed is that, sometimes, if your studio is hiring only your biggest fans, which I saw at BioWare sometimes, those people are in some ways, they’re almost more, they have more zealotry towards the ‘old way’ of doing things than – that’s right, that [from a fandom point of view] is all they know. And they don’t necessarily know that this was awful or that ‘there could have been a better way, we just didn’t see it until later’. All they know is, ‘this is what you did, and you made this thing I love, so we have to do that too’, and, so that’s a danger that could happen is, you get the, you know the monkeys and the bananas, like, ‘I don’t even know why we’re doing this anymore, but I know we’ve always done it.’”

“The biggest reason to consolidate on an engine is for the ability to share more work within your studio. In theory.” “The problem that often happens is that you end up with not nearly as much sharing as you would imagine. FIFA doesn’t share anything with DA. And in BioWare’s case it’s even worse than that, there’s very little sharing between DA:I and ME:A, and between ME:A and Anthem. A lot of troubles ME:A and Anthem had is [because of] not building upon the foundations of DA:I.”

“My great frustration of BioWare from around 2013 to basically today [2022], there wasn’t a building upon the past.” “30% of DA:I’s tech budget was spent on tooling. On ME:A they didn’t build upon the tools that were laid by DA:I, partially because they started before DA:I shipped, but also for ‘Not Build Here’ reasons. They spent 10-15% approximately of their budget on tools. Anthem didn’t build on either of these foundations and they spent about less than 10% of their budget on tools. So it was like they were going backwards, respecting the engine less and less as they went forward, resulting in more and more struggles happening.” “I have the most sarcastic PowerPoint presentation ever which compares those two games, which are treated as if they’re widely different things. They’re pretty much exactly the same game, from the perspective of any external observer. ME is more like DA than it is like anything else. So it’s ridiculous. The answer is hubris, is the answer.”

On endings and the future:

“I think you have to do something [about the endings]. ME was always conceived as being a trilogy, but I think what you actually end up with with ME1-3, if you kind’ve just stick them together into one ridiculously big game, that’s why it, in some ways, the complaints about the original ME3 ending are so hilarious because in a way, the game ME3 is the ending for this entire huge game, which isn’t awesome, because you know, the last Hobbit movie is also stupid because it’s all ending. So, that’s not necessarily the best, but that’s essentially what you have. So because it was intended as a trilogy, it, to some kind of degree it kind of takes its ball and goes home at the end, where its like, ‘I’m gonna render the possibility of a direct sequel to this sooo nearly impossible that it’s ludicrous’. It could be that, so we know that the Mass Relays are down, that’s also true, but, like, we have potentially, everyone’s a cyborg, potentially there are no robots, potentially, potentially, potentially, it’s bananas. But interestingly, if you look at ME1, ME2 and ME3 as a single game, and then you look at DA:O, DA:O was always, was originally envisioned as a standalone game. There was never even a consideration for a sequel made for that. If you look at DA:O and then look at what it does at its ending, so the ending of the game itself is fairly tight, it’s like, well you definitely have to kill the Arch Demon, and you’ve ended the Blight, but then you go through the end credits stuff, the epilogue screens. And it’s like, maybe there’s a civil war happening in Orzammar, maybe there are werewolves spreading across this entire part of Ferelden, maybe there are no werewolves at all. Like it’s similar. Now what DA, the way that DA approached the solution to that was to canonize some of those choices, but for the most part just move away, far enough physically, so it’s like, okay, well maybe there are werewolves down south there, that’s not my problem, I got my own problems. Or it moves through time, which is one of the reasons why DA2 moves through so much time is, it gives distance from DA:O. One of the major reasons why ME:A is literally hundreds of years in the future and in another galaxy, it’s like, okay, well, something happened, [shrug], we can react if we want to but we don’t have to worry about the consequences. DA has had the same problem that ME had, just to a lesser degree. DA:O did such a great job of building up the Warden that people are really attached to that and they keep wanting to see the Warden come back. People are never gonna let go of Shepard. DA, new player characters every time because it allows things to be done, but there are costs to that, if you don’t have nearly the [same] attachment. I mean, there’s a reason why every single Zelda game starts with you as Link getting bonked on the head. They’ve essentially solved the problem, reset button, either you have amnesia or you’re like the great-great-great-great-grandson. So it’s like, maybe there’s a way that they can do something like that, but Zelda’s jumped through a lot of hoops that probably a modern game can’t be allowed to do. You’re “Link”, so maybe there’s a way that you can be Shepard but, but Shepard, you can be “Shepard”, maybe there’s a way you can do that, but yeah, it’ll be interesting, it’s definitely a problem that they have. Because certainly, Ryder from ME:A is not the same character, nor could any character from a single game compete with a character from three games. Maybe the approach is, you canonize the choices from MET and you say, ‘and the choice we’re making is, Shepard made it, and you’re Shepard. [shrug]”

“I think there is a lot of DNA of its older games still at BioWare, but you’re right. Every game needs to be a game in its moment. It needs to be appropriate to the time and space of what’s going on. So, I get it, you kind of just want to feel the thing you felt when you played ME2 or feel the thing you felt when you played DA:O.” “If suddenly you got an ME2 again magically appearing out of the ether, I don’t think it would be received the same way. The industry isn’t in the same place. BioWare needs to set a new bar.” “The sad truth is, the older you get, the less relevant a part of the buying demographic you are. So the reality is, I mean ME:A had a shaky launch unfortunately, but it’s a lot of peoples’ favorite ME. Mostof those people who it is their favorite ME are younger people because it targets, you know, it’s got a younger PC, it’s got a stronger, more. I mean, the MET is very much, Shepard is a hero from action movies from the 80s and 90s, for millennials. He’s stoic. Whereas Ryder is definitely, he’s much more a protagonist from a CW show. The reality is is that, sorry, but they’re not trying to make it for you anymore.”

[source and full watch link where you can check it out]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #next mass effect #anthem #video games #longpost #long post #(ty for sending the link!)

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kindahoping4forever · 1 year

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📸: Domen & Van De Velde for Tush Magazine

#ty to those that have been sending these in - I've been ill and thus behind on updates/messages #so for the sake of the archive/linking official sources/hq versions - better late than never lol #5sos #5 seconds of summer #luke hemmings #luke #tush magazine #other ig #Instagram #luke magazines 2023 #kh4f post

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onii-onahole · 16 days

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What website are you using to read these? I can only find Chinese translations online :<

If you DM me the series you’re after I’m happy to send you a link to where I have read them~ I’ve learned from others that posting the links can result in troubles for the sourced websites and I’d rather not fuck them up 😵‍💫😭😂

#Answered #Ty 💕#Of course~ any DM’s of this nature are entirely private~!#I will just send you the link~ we don’t need to chat at all

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oathofkaslana · 1 month

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lee oathofkaslana, i was wondering if you have any advice for getting into hi3, especially in regards to digging into the lore. i’ve been following along with your hi3 posts for literal months and i get more intrigued each time you discuss it so i finally decided to just go for it. i know theres the game/webtoon/animated shorts/cooking with valks but i’m not totally sure about how to go about approaching all of it and the more obscure elements (like the other games with the hi3 characters) because i don’t want to miss out on anything. is there a certain order of approach that you suggest? also, are there any resources that may help with taking it all in, like explaining the basics and the timeline or something like that? there’s no pressure to answer right away, i’m sure you might want time to compile your thoughts, i just trust your judgement on how to get into hi3 over trying to figure it out myself based on how knowledgeable you appear to be about everything.

cracks knuckles. anon im being so serious this made my day both bc of your kind words and bc its the perfect opportunity for me to infodump about hi3 resources (<- especially unfortunate part of my current interest on hi3 is that im a lil too deep into things about the game that dont really matter?? thats beside the point)

lee oathofkaslana's hi3 starter guide :) ps: important. please please read my warning in the comics section of other content.

reading lists! ok this is the most important thing so its going first. hi3's comics are a lot more important to the plot than like. genshin's. and its kinda annoying bc in some cases you'll be guided from going between chapters of the game to a comic and vice versa. i highly recommend checking out both of these reading lists: hoyostans reading guide (start from part 1 phase 1) archives wiki hi3 reading list the seconds a lot easier to follow imo! especially with the earlier ones. i personally prefer primarily using the second one and then consulting the first to see if there's any extra content that's missing (since some ggz/retconned hi3 comics are linked there and provide some context! the first one also has some very helpful notes from the OP!) i DO think that reading the comics in the order listed on the archives wiki and then starting chapter one is best. it might feel like a dip in story telling though but i promise it will get a lot btter once theyre a lot more stable w their game development and writing :)

other content: comics: ok first i have to put a warning. escape from nagazora is from ggz iirc and like. early ggz and early hi3 humor kinda sucks ass. there's awful sexualization of underaged girls and its weird about women and this is where a lot of the fetishization comes in. they're also not normal about consent here. also another warning about azure waters. it heavily references CSA and has an almost rape scene and i completely hated the way it was all visually portrayed. if needed I will gladly summarize these comics for you without any of those details. this aside, the comics are included in the reading guides! there are also non-canonical ones though! (4komas featured on the manga site and 4komas from the jp twitter! theres a google drive linked in the other post w fan translations. they're comedic and not at all canonical but they may spoil things since its run coincides with the game's progress so i dont really recommend reading them until you're farther along. atm i am just starting part 1.5 and ive read most of it, but i am intentionally avoiding newer ones just by looking at what design is in the thumbnail. they're very quick to read though dw!) animated shorts -> they are included in the game :) if you would prefer watching them in chinese, i'm afraid you'll have to look at it on youtube though :' for some reason on the western servers all the CG's in the first part are in japanese even if you switch your language to chinese. chronicles -> they're included in both the reading guides! theres some that aren't very lore relevant (dreams of gemima and kallen chronicles) but they're a fine source of weapons and crystals (hi3 equiv of primos) part 2 -> i haven't started it yet but from what i've seen, it's recommended that you finish part 1 before this. open-world -> again, follow the reading order for these :) the only exception is APHO because that takes place in the future (after part 1.5). i haven't finished it and i personally don’t plan to until after i do 1.5 in case there's any important spoilers! there are major hints that kinda spoil the end of part 1 though. <- same with the alien space comic. it takes place. sometime after APHO i think. other universe events -> primarily captainverse. obv these take place in a different universe! these characters are not the same as the main characters. iirc the only one that's really lore-relevant is honkai salvation log (it comes later in the game and later in the hoyostans reading guide!!) donghua: cooking with valks: not canonical content. season 1 is pretty safe but it is best watched after chapter 12 to get full context for some references! honestly you could probably get by with watching the rest of the series after imo but if you'd prefer to play it safe, the hoyostans guide includes it :) golden courtyard: do not watch this one until you finish chapter 31. journey crisis: do not watch this until you finish part 1.5 ggz/hg2: honestly. you don't need to know ggz for hi3. you would benefit from knowing the retrospective timeline's history for the main trio but from there on, ggz and hi3 follow completely different stories with different characters. honestly you could go by without knowing the main trio's history in retro i think its already explained enough in the main story and other media.

links. youtube: homulabs -> has cohesive lore videos that help a lot (esp later on)! also has some hsr stuff if you're interested :) hide's honkai archives -> playthroughs of all of part 1 completely in chinese (including cut scenes). also fixes up some of the translations since i believe the eng translations are translated from the jp dub! i mostly use this to both rewatch chapters when i need background noise and look at cutscenes with OP's translations. i find it interesting.. official hi3 youtube visual novels: again, look at the reading guides. im pretty sure think some of those links on both guides are wonky though so ill provide them here. ae visual novel (eng) shattered swords/7 swords visual novel (eng) durandal visual novel (eng) i also have a larger post with various links here build/combat: ok this is my weakspot. marisa honkai -> kind of unfortunate backbone of the hi3 community. allegedly kicked someone from his discord server for saying kiana is a lesbian. but his infographics are useful! he also has a youtube but i can't vet how his videos are o7 <- lore player and very obvious about it elysian realm shallow sequence -> in case you're ever struggling w this part. dont worry about it early game though you'll get to it in time. honestly its optional though so.

quick tips/loose info:

the wikis will be your best friend.

do the character trials!! they teach you how to use any of the characters and you can open them whenever you want! if the battlesuit is new, you will also get rewards if you do the trial in time :)

honkai has an absurd amount of currencies for some fucking reason. this is more of a warning than a tip.

ok imo hi3 combat is super super fun but my god the powercreep sucks asssssssss. i hate the process of building characters because you have to pull for characters signature gear and that equipment banner's pity doesnt carry over it fucking sucks.

BUT don't worry too much honestly if you are just playing for the story like i am it doesn't matter too much since you don't need to use your own valkyries for much (story wise). do at least build some though even to a minor degree (you will need them for chronicles)

speaking of gacha though! there's no 50/50 to worry about in honkai!

don't go into the chat for room 1 its fucking scary and full of weirdos (derogatory) and assholes. first and last time i went there i saw homophobes.

remember this is all for fun :) sorry if this seems long or wayyyy too serious i meant it when i say im awfully fixated on this fuckass game! i hope you enjoy it if you continue to play it :DD <3

#hnk3 #asks #links #<- in case you wanna save this but are too shy to rb! lmk if you'd like me to tag this with anything else :D #this was really really fun to type up ty anon! sending you love n luck :)#feel free to send any thoughts or reactions :) im obv not normal abt this game and rereading each part of the story is vv fun for me #also feel free to send me any more questions you may have!!!#and i think that is. all i have for now :)

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decaydanceredacted · 14 days

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weird question: can I screenshot some of these posts and put them on insta for a meme post? I'll def credit you. I run a partial bandom meme page (it's mostly gob and some other stuff I like)

yeah sure, go ahead!

#just send the link to me when ur done #now im curious LOL #ty for asking ^_^#not a redacted

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the-genius-az · 1 month

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You're welcome!

It can have lots of drama before the little pack has their happy ending. I think part of Azula's redemption + healing arc would involve her eventually understanding that they didn't think they had an option + didn't know it could hurt so much. (Original!Azula herself only realized what was happening in the night before she passed away). With the bond still there, Azula tends to be protective, and a little more forgiving once she sees Ty Lee and Mai do love and need her.

I already am thinking about a "Izumi is Maizula's baby" tbh, now that the A/B/O obsession has infiltrated the Azula-centric part of my brain.

Ty Lee needs more fics where she's not the silly, stupid little girl. In the KS AU, I'm making Azula much worse than in canon to make it work with the plot, considering how canon!Azula is a jerk but definitely not a psychopath or anything of the sort. I really don't like the way fandom demonizes her, for a few reasons, and it also makes me feel weird for writing AUs where she is, indeed, a monster.

Yes. Here's the thing, I like the parallel of Oh Sangwoo, a straight man, being SA'd by his mother & Azula, a lesbian woman, being SA'd by her mother (+ I think Oh Sangwoo hallucinates her at some point? So that's a good parallel). Like, something that works into this specific character hating women so much they abuse and kill them in horrific ways.

(I don't like it either, which sounds almost like a hypocrite with the way I have multiple OCs that have SA in their backstory and I do write fucked up content. And because I also have read a lot of fics that have it in them – thankfully they do tend to work it so, so well. Like, not as a torture porn kind of thing, but another layer of her character. Azula x Ozai CSA seems to be almost a must for Maizula fics, and I eat it up every time.)

When I say "everything possible", I do mean it. It's a dragon AU and when Azulon asks for Azula's life instead of Zuko's (because she's Ozai's favorite), Ursa kills Azulon + takes Azula out of the palace (and Azula's hatred comes from how they abandon Zuko in the palace). Like, Ursa up until that point gave Zuko lots of attention, but there's a silent agreement between mother and daughter that goes like "this boy is ours" because they're dragons and all of that. I can talk for days about this AU too.

- Ash 🔥🍌

Thank you for this, Ash!

Original! Azula herself only realized what was happening in the night before she passed away.

I wonder how sad Azula was at that moment, she must have been screwed.

I already am thinking about a "Izumi is Maizula's baby" tbh, now that the A/B/O obsession has infiltrated the Azula-centric part of my brain.

I have an idea about a baby Maizula, maybe I'll post it later!

Ty Lee needs more fics where she's not the silly, stupid little girl.

I needed to bookmark this...

I really don't like the way fandom demonizes her, for a few reasons, and it also makes me feel weird for writing AUs where she is, indeed, a monster.

I know, sometimes the Aus completely change the characters, that makes them interesting or worse.

I like the parallel of Oh Sangwoo, a straight man, being SA'd by his mother & Azula, a lesbian woman, being SA'd by her mother (+ I think Oh Sangwoo hallucinates her at some point? So that's a good parallel).

I see the potential! I still don't like the SA though, but it's because of the plot.

(Honestly, I'm glad that we agree that it is Ursa who commits the act, sometimes everyone ignores that she is not a saint)

I don't like it either, which sounds almost like a hypocrite with the way I have multiple OCs that have SA in their backstory and I do write fucked up content.

Oh, I actually hate that kind of stuff, any fics, novels, manga and more, I'll leave it quick and fly away! I can't stand him, that's why I don't like Bl very much, he always has those things and the fans normalize him.

Seems to be almost a must for Maizula fics.

They are the only Fics that keep me on a leash, there is little content and I am hungry for Maizula.

It's a dragon AU and when Azulon asks for Azula's life instead of Zuko's (because she's Ozai's favorite), Ursa kills Azulon + takes Azula out of the palace (and Azula's hatred comes from how they abandon Zuko in the palace).

You are a bomb from Au's Azula!

(Sometimes my mind spins because of so much information in English, please have mercy next time).

Azula is a VERY loyal girl, it makes sense that she would be a little confused and angry about abandoning one of her own.

Actually, I think I talked something about Azula/Dragon, and her possessions that are people.

Like, Ursa up until that point gave Zuko lots of attention.

What did Ursa change to leave everything for Azula? I'm not saying she doesn't love her, I just don't think she would leave Zuko for Azula.

#Azula #Mai #Ty Lee #Katara #Ursa #Zuko #Ozai #atla #avatar the last airbender #killing stalking #Maizula with a baby.#Au Dragons #Your ideas are great...but have mercy on me and write one at a time in a different message #my translator is going to explode! 😭#I almost forgot #send me the link when you finish Tyzula/Ks.

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dtdrawz · 2 months

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i am disrespectfully slamming into your door demanding entrance into your drawpile sessions (only if you're comfy. im exaggerating)

they’re all done on @/dustsansm1’s whiteboards!! I think I’ve seen you on there before so I can dm you the next link once it opens :^)

#tbh I usually get on the boards hours after everyone’s gone so #I’ll send you the links when I get them but I might not be actually on there #cuz literally my last post was all doodled 7 hours after the board opened SDGHDS #ty tho <3 #dtdrawz speaks #chasmbreach

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tmmyhug · 1 year

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VEE TMMY HUG HI. I dont know if you're already aware, but you were in a Pm seymore video. lo! The yous!

Your silliness is on the YouTubes! Do with this info what you will.

YES I KNOW ME AND @yellowsomethings GOT A DOUBLE FEATURE ITS VERY FUNNY

#ty for sending though i really appreciate it <3 #ask #sunlitmcgee #links

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shortsighted-owl · 1 year

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Seven Sentence Sunday

Tagged by the amazing @homerforsure @rogerzsteven @alyxmastershipper and @spotsandsocks - thank you all, you wonderful lots

I’m so damn close to finishing off chapter 1 of the 6b!Lightning strike spec fic - Titled: Charge Seperation (because im a damn science nerd...)

Its not like it hasn't rained in LA since the tunnel collapse, not by a long shot, what with global warming and all - a voice that sounds suspiciously like Buck supplies sagely in his mind even as the man stands beside him, quiet and still cowed.

The sudden tightness of his lungs surprises Eddie. He brings a hand to his chest, closes his eyes, and tries to breathe.

There's no tunnel, no loose earth and hard-rock pelting his shoulders. He’s not racing against time to save a child. Water isn't rising around him, enveloping him in shockingly cold darkness, trying to slip up his nose and down his throat. There's no blinking red light or last ditch hail mary on a single breath.

No moment of weightless fear.

Except here, the driving rain and the storm seem to snare him.

Tagging: @hippolotamus @elvensorceress @spaceprincessem @mellaithwen @thosetwofirefighters @ajunerose @rewritetheending @the-likesofus @monsterrae1 @bekkachaos @fatedbuck @jobairdxx @thekristen999 @jinxddiaz @mumucow

#Im at 6.6k and finally linking the scenes and strengthing some sections I couldnt wrap my head around #Hoping tonight will get the last parts sorted #6b lightning strike spec fic #TY all for your tags #send writing vibes to you all!#buddie #buddie wip #911 on fox #911 fox #evan buckley #evan buckley#eddie diaz #buck x eddie #seven sentence sunday #owl writes #owl wip #owl hoots

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volfoss · 6 months

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Also wanted to toss a poll up for this at the middle of the night but since I'm nearly done (p much one route left and proofreading stuff and I'm done) and game faqs will more than likely take a while to approve the guide w how long it is:

#twist rambles #♟️#obviously this is like. a person by person thing and once its done ill be doing srbs with the link for a while but like. wanted to kind of #get a good idea of what ppl want and u can dm/send an ask when the time comes and i finally announce hey. im done lol #the 2 files are 1. the guide and 2. the unit guide typed up from the physical unit guide offered w the game disc #also please dont vote if you dont care abt it ty :) just want a general input on this lol

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felassan · 2 months

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I was sent a link to an ‘interview with Mark Darrah about BioWare and games’ video that I hadn’t seen before. it’s called “INTERVIEW | Former BioWare Dev Mark Darrah On Crunch, Electronic Arts, Unionization, & More" and [here is the source] link. the interview took place in 2022, so bear that in mind when listening, but it still has interesting insights and things in there. the video description reads as follows:

"Former BioWare developer Mark Darrah joins us for a talk about crunch, workplace culture, accessibility, Elden Ring, and much more." Timestamps: 1:31- Why did you get into game development? 4:12- Crunch 14:05- On Activision-Blizzard & corporate culture overtaking studio culture 15:50- Crunch continued 21:06- Toxic workplace cultures at game studios & why they’re tough to fix 29:13- Unionization in the games industry 36:36- Rising game budgets and why they’re getting bigger 48:00- Elden Ring and game budgets 52:59- Accessibility in games 1:10:38- Relationship between the creative and business sides of game development & corporate directives 1:14:43- Anthem 1:22:16- EA doesn’t understand what BioWare is 1:28:20- Indie development & being bought out by larger companies [source]

the rest of this post is under a cut due to length.

this post is just some notes and transcribed quotes of interest from the video, in case that’s of any use to anyone, for example for accessibility.

Dragon Age: Dreadwolf / 'current or recent general BioWare’

“The culture around crunch has been changing dramatically at BioWare for the last 7 or 8 years, but I would actually think that it’s maybe not the, I don’t believe that it’s the reporting [increasing reporting on crunch in the industry in recent years] that’s causing the changing culture at the studios. And the change in reporting is caused by something, there’s another cause for both of them. And I think it might be that we just have a development, people are getting more experienced, older, and I think that might be what it is. But I don’t believe that we were trying to improve crunch culture because Kotaku was talking about it or Jason Schreier wrote an article about what happened on Anthem. I don’t believe that’s the cause. I think that those are both symptoms of another cause, which is causing the change. And maybe it’s older people in game development, but actually, now that I say it out loud, maybe it’s actually the opposite. Maybe it’s Gen Z coming into the workforce with very different expectations of what work looks like that are causing the change.”

“I think BioWare may have abandoned it, but something that I was working on in sort’ve, the last couple of years at BioWare was Pile of Sand. And the idea of Pile of Sand is to focus the team on a single point or at least as small of a point as you can, and then use that focus to kind’ve cause things to come into being around that. And I know that there are people at BioWare who hate Pile of Sand, but it definitely causes Completion Urgency. In a way that nothing short of crunch or E3 has done very successfully.”

“I’d like to think that.. well. For sure BioWare’s culture today is way better than BioWare’s culture was in 1997 when I started. Or even see it like, you can even see it in the games. But, I mean, it’s not perfect, and there are people in more senior roles, or there have been people in more senior roles that are problematic, and as someone who worked to remove people who were problematic, it could be incredibly difficult to do, because usually there’s no smoking gun. Usually it’s reports or innuendo, or you know it’s, everyone kinda knows, but to actually have something actionable is really hard. And that sounds so terrible because it is terrible, because it is really hard – I’ve burned massive amounts of political capital in some cases to get rid of people who were toxic, but who were in very senior positions.” “I think what’s happened is [in the industry generally] the level of what’s being treated as acceptable has become way lower. Way less is acceptable, and that, I think, is a net good. Does that, is that how you want improvement to happen? No, this is not, you don’t want it to work this way, you want it to be a constant steady state towards better and better culture. And I think, you know, BioWare’s been trying to do that, but I think when other studios don’t do that and then a giant light gets shone on them it actually helps with other studios to say, you know, we also have to take a look at ourselves and think about what’s going on and look at our processes and our culture and our hiring practices and all of these things.”

The host asked how you go about setting that culture where you say, ‘these kinds of things aren’t okay’. “Are there techniques, rules, seminars?” Mark: “I mean, all of those things exist and, don’t get me wrong, I do think that BioWare, I do think that EA has done a better job of this than some of the other publishers and studios have done. So all of those things I do think help, but I do think that honestly the single thing that you can do that helps the most is to get someone of the group that is under-represented at a high enough position to have a voice be heard.”

The host asked about Keywords attempting to unionize recently. Mark: “I’m curious as to some of the details with the Keywords union, because back in 2020, when I was still at BioWare, which, where they’re saying like, they were forced into the office. I wonder if that was a BioWare, I don’t believe that that was actually a BioWare interaction, that it was a BioWare contract. Because at the time, at that time, early Covid days, I was trying to get into the office and it was like locked down, we couldn’t get in to the office, I couldn’t get into the office, I was the Vice President, I couldn’t get into the office. So I’m curious as to the details of that. They are contractors so it’s possible that they were working on something else and they were being forced into an office, I don’t know, it’s possible that something was happening that I’m not aware of. But that specific thing that they were talking about is, just caught me by surprise because we were actually, I was trying to violate the rules and I couldn’t even do it for myself, so.”

On the relationship between the creative and business sides of game development and corporate directives: “[direct orders from corporate], actually, it does happen. There are directive things. I mean, Joplin, the thing that was Dragon Age 4, was cancelled because it was perceived that the next Dragon Age needed to have an online component, it needed to have live service, it needed to have an online component, it needed to be live service, live service. That was, so it was like, there was essentially a decision made at a corporate level about what the game needed to be. And whether that was real or not, I don’t know, but I have my own thoughts on that front, but that’s what was said. And, but sometimes it’s even stupider stuff, like there were people that were like, ‘in DA:I, you NEED to be able to fly a dragon!’ and it was like, this was a dictate, and I judo’d that out of, into us not actually doing it. But that was a dictate that came down. So there are reviews, so with EA there are gates, so you have like numbered gates up to actually, I think there are more gates now. But basically you have a concept gate, a vision gate, a pre-production gate, a production gate, a post-production gate, and like alpha, and things like that. Some of those gates are formal gates, you have executives gather in a room and a presentation is made to them and then they say ‘I don’t like that, do something different’ and that could be anything from ‘I don’t like that your character has a frog for a head’, to ‘this entire-’, especially in the early days, ‘this entire concept is flawed, we shouldn’t make this game at all’. At EA, once things cross a certain threshold they tend to continue, but in the early days games do get cancelled because they don’t get through those gates. So they do have influence because there is, they are seeing the game during development and they are very important people who are expressing their opinions and it’s not entirely clear. I mean, I report to someone who reports to someone who is providing this feedback. So the presumption is they get to say what goes. And I guess they probably do. It’s not actually clear that they do, but the presumption is the reporting line is literally, person reports to person reports to this person who is saying this thing, I suspect they probably get to decide, if they say this needs to be a certain way, it’s gonna be a certain way. Maybe I’m wrong on that but that’s certainly what seems to be the case.”

On Anthem and why it got made: “I wasn’t on Anthem in the early days, but there was a, with some of the executive, EA’s never really understood what the heck BioWare is, but in the early days of Anthem, or let’s say, the days after ME3, there was a sentiment with some of the executives at EA that storytelling games were over. They were done. That we needed something different. So there was a lot of language that was being pushed at Casey, and at Aaryn, that was essentially to that effect, of, ‘don’t you think that the days of storytelling games are over? Maybe it’s time to do something different. And I don’t know, because I wasn’t in the room, I don’t know if that just fed into exactly the kind of game Casey wanted to make anyway, or if they just sort’ve lined up, so yeah. They weren’t, no one at EA was saying ‘Make Anthem’ or ‘Make Dylan’, which is what it was at the time, but there was pressure around, like, ‘probably if you’re making another thing and it’s not another Mass Effect, you shouldn’t just make another story-driven RPG. We don’t want another one of those, we don’t think’. So there was a push towards something different. Some of the early things that Casey was pitching were still, you know, they were multiplayer story-driven things, they were different, but yeah, there was definitely a push from corporate to do something that wasn’t ME, that wasn’t DA, it was something else.”

“It’s definitely frustrating, I did a ‘dear executive, you’re being managed’ video. As an Executive Producer, a big part of your job is managing executives so they feel like you’re listening to them even when what they’re saying is stupid, so it can be incredibly frustrating. I feel like BioWare’s left a lot of money on the table because of the purse strings that are held at the corporate level, like I feel like, porting SW:TOR to the consoles would make a ton of money for not very much investment, and it’s not been, it could’ve been done 3, 4, 5 years ago. The remasters, it’s a frankly, a miracle that they ever got made for ME. The thing that most studios within EA seem to do is they seem to do one thing at a time. Dice makes a Battlefield, then they fix it, then they make a new Battlefield. That makes corporate interaction, I think, a lot more clear [for them]. When Battlefield 4 comes out and it doesn’t do well, they’re given not just the ability, they’re given the mandate to fix it. BioWare’s always had a lot more plates spinning. But I think the consequence of that is, when something goes wrong, it means that there are a lot of potentials that could be spinning, and it means when something goes wrong, it’s less obvious what to do. When ME:A launches and has problems, unlike with Battlefield 4, EA doesn’t say, ‘fix it, I don’t care what you were gonna be doing next, fix it’, what instead happens is the resources get taken away and put onto other things. Anthem fought to have resources to fix itself, but ultimately was always fighting with Dragon Age, to be frank, for those resources, for some of them at least. I mean maybe that’s just an indication that BioWare has stubbornly held on to a structure that is incompatible with EA’s corporate culture, but I do think that having so many plates spinning means that BioWare’s always short of resources. And I think that’s given EA a lot more ability to influence what BioWare’s doing at any moment, because, like, ‘well why don’t you just put those people, we don’t want to keep trying to fix ME:A, why don’t you just put those people onto Dragon Age? Or we’ll take them away and put them onto EA Montreal.’ Whereas if you’re just one studio in Sweden or you’re Sims 4, same thing, is, they got nothing else do, I mean, they do, they absolutely have things to do, but it’s not obvious, there’s not an equal priority, there’s the next thing, which is a lower priority. Whereas at BioWare, there’s always something else they could be doing. And I think it’s been, it’s allowed EA, I think, more control over what BioWare does, maybe, than they’ve had in other studios possibly. I dunno. Probably someone from Dice is gonna angrily tell me I’m an idiot in your comments.”

Other BioWare things

“At least at EA, the executives, the corporate-level executives, the C-suite people, don’t really set culture at the individual studios. But they do control the purse-strings. And because they control the purse-strings they ultimately kind’ve do control everything. So I do think that public companies, or at least, all the public companies that I have worked for, are obsessed with short-term results. You know, ‘your game is supposed to come out in this quarter, and it should’ve come out in this quarter, and if it doesn’t come out in this quarter, it better come out in this fiscal year’. And moving across, so BioWare has a history of sliding games, but the reality is that EA, you can slide from quarter to quarter, but sliding outside of a fiscal year – it’s happened, but it’s really hard, and there are usually really terrible consequences involved in doing so. And I think what is happened to some degree is, corporate culture will eventually infect and take over the cultures of the studios, I believe. So if you look at BioWare in 2008, 2009 and 2010, it was BioWare’s culture with [inaudible] culture kind’ve on top, dictating things at a very macro level. But then if you fast forward ten more years, that EA culture, that sort’ve fiscal, that fiscal culture has sort’ve bled into BioWare’s culture to some degree. So I think actually, to some degree actually I think what EA really wants is they want studios like BioWare to be like, ‘it’s all about the art, man! We don’t care when it ships, we don’t care how many copies it’s gonna sell, we don’t care, we don’t care!’, and they provide the rigor to force that. But instead I think what’s happened, what naturally happens is, you realize ‘that this is a corporation, we need to care about profitability and release dates and all of these things’, but by doing that, that resistance has gone away. And while before, in like DA:O and ME1 [inaudible] the balance was over here, it starts to shift more towards a corporate-focused way, so I think that the thing that probably, the central, the C-suites need to do is, figure out how to give back the studios back that resistance, that willingness to say, ‘you know, the game’s not ready, it’s not gonna hit the fiscal year’. And they say they do, but they really don’t, because it’s, the culture’s just eroded away over time. It’ll be interesting to watch Respawn because it’s EA’s newest acquisition, and right now, just culturally, that resistance just there, just like BioWare in 2008, 2009, but let’s see what’s happened with Respawn in 5 or 6 years. I hope they can keep that up, but I don’t even think it’s, it’s not like ‘Evil EA’ infecting on purpose, I just think, naturally being within a bigger organization, it just happened through osmosis over time.”

“DA:O is about 7000 staff months to make, so it was a huge game at the time. Most of that was done before BioWare was owned by EA. Salaries went up dramatically, way higher than inflation after BioWare was acquired by EA, so that made a big difference. But DA:I was more staff months than DA:O by a fair amount and, so, a couple of things. The entire code base for DA:O was, I think, about two million lines of code. Frostbite is like 20 million lines of code. So that is, there is development cost of just holding that together, but things are just more complicated. As games get bigger, they get expensive.”

“When KOTOR put in voice-acting for all the conversations apart from the player. That changed the industry. At that moment it became no longer acceptable to not have voiced conversations in AAA games.” “DA:I has a horse because at the time it was seen that you had to have a horse in a fantasy RPG. I don’t think that’s true anymore, you’d get away with not having a horse today.”

“I would argue that a consistent problem of a lot of BioWare games is we try so hard to explain to you in the first three hours what’s going on, how everything works, all the mechanics, everything, we’re just dumping so much on the player that they’re overwhelmed and bored, probably bored. But also overwhelmed, if you throw too much at me you’ve actually reduced my ability to learn it, so you’ve actually made the game, in your effort to make me understand, you’ve actually made me understand less, potentially.”

“I think we made the wrong decision on DA:I. I think the crafting system in DA:I is completely inaccessible. It’s a very complicated system, there are no recipes, it’s all based on, like, combinations of different things giving you different materials and then there’s an appearance system layered on top of that which adds an additional layer of complexity. I think as a result, we have a system that is basically not engaged with by most players, by the vast majority of players, do not engage in crafting because it is inaccessible.” “Something that’s come up a couple of times in BioWare’s history is the idea of story-mode difficulty, so the ability to play through the game on essentially, you can’t lose combat. ME3 has such a difficulty, but we didn’t do that in DA:I. And the reason is not because I don’t think, given what BioWare games are, which is a lot about the interaction of different characters and engaging in the story and that, I don’t think that a story-mode difficulty is inappropriate for a BioWare game. But the problem is if you play ME3 on that difficulty, combat’s kind of awful, like it actually kind’ve makes the game, it damages the game in the process because combat is easy but fast, so it’s kind’ve just this weird morass you have to dig through. So I think when you’re thinking about accessibility, something like that, you have to think about, how does the more accessible version still allow the game to be good.” “A common example in a lot of BioWare games is puzzles. So you’d put a puzzle in, and then the game is broken and you’re going along and then the level comes together and it’s weeks or months later and then QA start playing it saying, ‘I can’t figure this puzzle out’. And you’re like, but it’s obvious in my head! Says the puzzle designer. And then you have to decide what you’re gonna do. You can pull the puzzle out completely, which has happened a lot in BioWare games, you just end up pulling it out. Or you put the answer on the wall, which you can see in tons of BioWare games, where it’s like, figure out this puzzle! Oh really? ‘Cause the answer is literally written on a giant poster right beside the puzzle, which I think just undermines the whole puzzle, what’s the point? Or you just say, forget it, we’re just gonna leave it. And the way that we’ve typically made the decision at BioWare for things like that is, if it’s on the critical path, the expectation is it should be accessible to every player, so you should be able to get through the main line of the story even if you can’t figure out any of the puzzles. So we might put a puzzle on the critical path to introduce the concept of puzzles to you, but the answer is on a poster board right beside it. If you’re off the critical path, if you’re on the optional content, then, all bets are off. If you can’t figure it out, then you can’t figure it out. But that comes from a belief that we want most people to finish the story, which I think might actually be a mis-placed belief. Maybe 2008, 2009, I had this feeling that, you know, Bethesda’s got a big problem. People don’t finish their games. You play their games and your last experience of a Bethesda game is always ‘ehh I guess I’m done’. But what I realized more recently is, actually, in a lot of ways, that’s maybe the best experience you can get from a player. Because if you think about how you experience a ME or a DA, your last experience is one of two things. Either it’s, what the fuck was that, I hate that ending, I am angry. Or, it was, that was the greatest ending I ever experienced! Now I’m disappointed that it’s over. And in both cases the actual last emotion is actually negative. It’s either a positive followed by disappointment, or it’s a negative right off the bat. I’m guilty of the obsession of, we want people to finish our games, but actually, maybe we don’t? Maybe we just want people to have their last experience not be negative and lots of positive experiences in the middle. I dunno.”

“Ray Muzyka was always certain that one of BioWare’s competitive advantages was replayability. But actually I would argue – there are people that have played DA:I thirty times, but most people, they don’t do that. Most people go through, you experience the story through a particular viewpoint, and then that’s the viewpoint. You might go and you know, make a Qunari just to see what it’s like, but what you see in the data is, if a person finishes the game, usually they finish the game once and then maybe they might have a few little ‘I played for 45 mins or an hour just to goof around’. But very rarely do you get people that are like, I played through the entire game like 10 times. It happens but it’s not common. I think replayability in these story-driven games is actually kind’ve an illusion.”

On EA not understanding what BioWare is: “I think there’s a lot of things, but I think fundamentally EA is a company that understands sports games. They understand how to make sports games which come out every year at a very high quality, monetize very well, they understand, they know how to market those, they know what production for those looks like, they know how to keep that team moving forward and proving their quality, they know how to do lots of things there. They know how to put processes in place to make the risk go down. I think when you apply those processes to shooters I think they actually work pretty well, though maybe they don’t work anymore. But I think they did work pretty well. You can kind’ve market a shooter like a sports game and it basically works. I think that one of the huge advantages that sports games have is, you already know if you like soccer or not, so I’ve already, so now I’m selling you the product, not the concept of the product. Shooters you can kinda do the same thing. You kinda know if you want a shooter or not, now I’m just selling you on this specific shooter, not the concept of shooters in general. RPGs aren’t like that, you can’t, because RPGs are so different from each other that you can’t sell me on the concept. Like, I don’t know if I just like RPGs, I need more than that to know if I can make a decision, which makes marketing them different. Also, for whatever, for a variety of reasons, RPGs are the most expensive genre you can make because they have, in theory, all the complexities of a shooter plus you have to tell an engaging, interactive story that branches on top of that, plus you need progression systems that are more complicated than your shooter on top of that. And that all needs to work together into some sort’ve combinatorial mass, to be frank. So I think that what EA wants from all their studios is they want things that can sell 10 million copies or 20 million copies, I mean that number changes. And the truth of the matter is, is, that maybe is just never BioWare. I mean, I say that, DA:I sold more than 10 million copies, but I mean, I think that what you have with BioWare is, maybe, you have the Oscar studio. Do the Oscar movies make three billion dollars? No, but they win you the awards. If you want that, do you want the studio that wins you the awards? But maybe, it makes money. I’m not saying that EA should just let BioWare lose money, that’s stupid, but do you want something that’s less profitable, but earns you acclaim? And if you do, then you need to measure in a different way. Do you want something that can build new IP? BioWare can build new IPs, and then maybe you take those IPs and you do other things with them. Not that EA has done that, and maybe EA doesn’t need to because they own like 40, 50 IPs that they’re currently not doing anything with, so. But, I mean, like building an IP is incredibly expensive, and incredibly difficult. Does EA want new IPs? Maybe, but again I don’t know that they, so what they have with BioWare is they have a company that gets into the conversation at award season, that can push culture, that can build new IPs. But, you know, be in the conversation at award season, push culture, and build new IPs, are those characteristics that EA wants or do they want ‘can sell 25 million copies and make a billion dollars’? And probably you can’t have those first three things and get that fourth thing. You can be profitable, but you’re probably not selling 25 million copies and making a billion dollars. I mean Skyrim did, but that’s. But I think honestly Skyrim just proves how hard it is. It’s the one in the RPG space that you talk about, and that’s from 2011. It’s the exception that proves the rule. That’s the RPG that was culturally relevant, relevant at awards season, but also made a ton of money.”

At the end of the interview, they had tech difficulties, so they transcribed the last segments of the audio to post for folks to read. This can be found pinned in the comments of the YouTube video.

[source and watch link]

#dragon age: dreadwolf #da4 #the dread wolf rises #dragon age 4 #bioware #mass effect #mass effect: andromeda #next mass effect #sw:tor #anthem #video games #covid mention #long post #longpost #(ty for sending this link!)

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