Mass Effect Series

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Mmmm red head femshep.

 

[Hisako]

Fairy nuff, but everything looks better from a distance.

Fact.

 

[ForceStealer]

My femshep has red hair, I have a different hairstyle than that though.

 

[Hisako]

Also prior to playing Manshep I didn't know Gianna Parasinni had a thing for him

Hrngh damn heterosexual attractions

 

[Alessa Gillespie]

i find it odd there are random npc crushes for manshep but i dont recall any ones for femshep

MUST BE TOO BUTCH

 

[Joe]

I think that Green Asari can give femshep a kiss. Not sure though.

 

[Joe]

Also this. Just because.

 

[Hisako]

Nah just having done that side-quest recently the outcome is the same for both Mshep and FShep

which is fair I guess because y'know
Asari

 

[Hisako]

Bit of a double post but apparently Bioware got hacked a couple days ago or something

So hold on to those credit cards kids we in for a wild ride

 

[Max Payne]

Bioware didn't get hacked. EA's NWNs severs did. Which has EA accounts, which are linked to bioware's shit too.

 

[Hisako]

Yeah I got an email from some Bioware GM which is why I guess I posted it here

Still, I just did a password change. Nothing really drastic.

 

[Max Payne]

Spoiler

In the first part of Xbox World 360's BioWare interview series, Mass Effect 3 exec producer Casey Hudson and art director Derek Watts discussed their surprises, inspirations and the tough decisions behind creating the eagerly anticipated sequel.

In part two of the unabridged interviews with the men and women in charge of production, sound, art, design, and combat, XBW talks to lead sound designer Rob Blake, and senior environment artists Don Arceta and Noel Lukasewich.

What's all new for the sound of Mass Effect 3?

Rob Blake: We're focusing on enhancing a lot of the combat sounds. We've been chatting to the guys over at DICE who did the Battlefield and the Medal of Honor stuff and we've been doing a lot of knowledge sharing and asset sharing with those guys.

We're taking on board some of their environmental changes that they've done really well. The new Assault Rifle has different layers that change depending on what type of environment you're in, for example. There are lots of interactions between sounds - you can hear the different decay as shots echo off walls.

What came up between your team and the guys at DICE?

We're doing a lot of knowledge sharing which has been really useful, and we love the Battlefield games. We're big fans of the audio so we're definitely trying to build on the work that they've done, but at the same time they're very different games.

Their focus is just the guns but we have spaceships, biotics and tech powers and all this extra stuff that we have to deal with. But one of the things I wanted from them was their environmental interactions, so that when you go into different areas things change quite drastically. They also have a sophisticated ducking system - when you fire your gun it will lower the volume of other people's guns.

When a gun's sound differs between indoor and outdoor locations, do you build all-new sounds or simply tweak one existing gunshot effect in-engine?

Both, actually. We do a lot of real-time reverberation effects with convolution reverb - that's samples of interior and exterior spaces and lay that on top of our sounds. But we're actually changing out some of the sounds too, so for example, with the new Assault Rifle effect, you can hear the bullet still disappearing off into the distance. When you're inside a room, you don't hear that because the bullet doesn't go as far. Again, this is something Battlefield did well so we're doing a lot of work like that.

How do you think the music will change with the arrival of your new composer? (Clint Mansell, who worked on Black Swan and movies like Requiem for a Dream)

We work with a lot of composers. Over the whole Mass Effect franchise we've worked with about eight different composers. It's always outsourced but we work very closely with them and they're always following our original vision - that retro futurism style we've built for Mass Effect.

Mass Effect is this mix of old and new in a lot of ways so we spend a lot of time with new, cutting edge synthesis mixed with old, modular analogue synthesis, trying to create really unusual and interesting sounds. Our big thing has always been an orchestral sort of feel but with some elements replaced with 70s and 80s synths.

So there are those two very specific technical things but composers often think more emotively so we work very closely with the writers to find out what the feel for each level and each narrative moment is; and how the player is supposed to be feeling when experiencing things.


What's the best location you've built for the game?

Noel Lukasewich: I'd have to say Don's Earth is pretty awesome. It showed us a lot of what we wanted to do, sort of paved the way for a lot of our new stuff.

Don Arceta: Yeah, but eventually they're all going to have that same level of detail as that Earth level. We're still building the game, so there are some awesome environments right now but the scope of the levels is really big. We have this awesome Earth vista and there's just going to be tons of things going on out there. I think the thing that's going to make the levels awesome is just what happens in them.

Mass Effect is basically a world without denim - there are few things recognisable from the present. How do you make Earth feel like Earth?

NL: Well, we've had conversations about what to push and what to keep. We don't want to have the streets paved with plastic and that kind of crazy stuff but do we keep the concrete? Do we keep the road signs?

DA: It's hard finding that balance because Mass Effect is all big curves and arching structures, and you don't want famous landmarks to just stick out like a sore thumb in that sci-fi universe. That's the kind of the balance artists are looking for - making it fit but still feel like Earth. Just putting Venetian blinds on the windows makes it more familiar to the player that this is Earth. You wouldn't ever see that on an Asari planet.

What sort of interaction is there between the gameplay guys and your team?

DA: It's a lot of back and forth. We let the designers know exactly what's important to us on the art side - maybe the way the sun hits inside a room or something that we just don't want to lose - and design will work with us exactly how to keep that.

We have a lot more integrated cover, so you don't walk into a room and immediately know there's going to be a combat there. It's about making these spaces feel natural and not forced. It shouldn't ever feel forced, by gameplay or art - it really should be this perfect marriage.

NL: Yeah, you don't want to walk through a room and go, "okay nothing's going to happen here. There's no cover for me here," and then you walk around the next corner and you just see a sea of these chest-high things - you basically see the fight ahead.

That's something few cover-based shooters get right.

DA: Yeah, you play a game like Gears of War and they just have sandbags everywhere, and we really don't want to do that. We really want to get away from arbitrary things placed just for the sake of gameplay.

BioWare tend to build spaces that often feel like they exist only to have a fight in, not to live and work in. How important is it to fix that?

NL: Absolutely important. All the departments are involved now - we'll have writers and combat designers in and we'll really talk about the history of the places.

DL: We're really pushing the variety within the levels, so you're not walking into the same room just decorated differently. We're really trying to push each room as a functional space. A hallway has a function for people working there, and we're just trying to really make sense of it in the game.

NL: I'm doing something right now where I've built the environment as an undamaged structure, and then I start smashing bits up. We try to design the architecture first before we blow it up, rather than just having a box and cramming destroyed bits in it. We're really thinking about how someone from the future designed this building, and whether it functions well. Then we blow it up!

http://www.computerandvideogames.co...3-bioware-on-art-sound-and-sharing-with-dice/

this game is going to be five kinds of awesome

 

[Madame Mayor]

Did Liara also get bigger boobs?

 

[Alex]

Have the Reapers already attacked our ability to make spoiler tags? Truly the arrival has begun D:

 

[Max Payne]

It's not that big, stop crying nancy

 

[ForceStealer]

It does kinda make the article a pain to read as the text goes off the screen...

 

[Max Payne]

Jesus you people are a bunch of pussies. There, it's tagged. HAPPY?

 

[Joe]

Could I get fries with that?

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

Do you wanna go large with that?

 

[Max Payne]

@CaseyDHudson
Casey Hudson
Lots of questions on the CE appearances image. It's an early mockup for color - faces etc aren't final, in particular James and Liara.

Also lots of questions about Ashley. We've only showed her in a jacket outfit & its CE variant. She will also have full armor and helmet.
5 hours ago via Twitter for iPad

 

[Max Payne]

http://twitter.com/#!/biofeed/status/88343562097393664

I can't believe they're actually asking this.

 

[Madame Mayor]

I can't believe some people are saying no.

 

[Joe]

I can't believe people wanted Carmine dead, but those people DO exist.

Grow some balls Bioware. Make a decision.

 

[Rumpelstiltskin]

It's not a GOW game if Carmine lives to see the credits

Also good news is good!

 

[Madame Mayor]

For people who want to know stuff about the books without reading them.

http://www.newsarama.com/games/10-m...ect-novels-comics-mass-effect-3-110707-1.html