Lead BioWare Writer Departs

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exar333

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2004
8,518
8
91
Before Bioware joined EA, I was excited for every Bioware game before release. Not lately, though. Now the games seemed incomplete, and watered down.

Thats true for almost every studio now. I really do miss the old days of smaller, more development-focused studios. I would even go back 10-15 years in graphics to get better games. Unfortunately, thats not possible...
 

exar333

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2004
8,518
8
91
Drew is a great writer.

As a side note there's something interesting I think some people should know concerning ME2's story (saying this because lots of people do know that many things in ME2 are just not clear or well explained in the game, in relation to ME1). There's a good number of posts over at the BioWare Social forums where you can hear so called "unused" dialog by the developers, but recorded nonetheless and at some point in time was considered to be implemented in the game, but was for some reason(s) cut out eventually.

A lot of that unused dialog ends up often explaining in greater details (and by different characters when compared to what we have in the final game) many aspects of the ME2 "links" to ME1 such as in relation to the Reapers, the Collectors and why they do what they do (getting samples from various races, making a "Terminator" Human-Reaper hybrid, etc). I've heard a lot of such unused dialog myself and I must say that whatever anyone may think regarding the actual writer(s) of ME2 (be it Drew, Walters or anyone else whom might have been providing assistance) that if they do listen to that dialog then they'll soon realize that the responsible people for mixing up the story are the ones editing the game and making the final decisions over at BioWare, as to what stays in and what gets cut out of it, or what gets replaced or changed. The actual writers, I'm sure, knew what they were writing and they surely had a clear, detailed picture of the whole ME franchise in their mind from the start.

At some point as far as ME2's story-telling is concerned (and most likely to follow suit with ME3, unfortunately), the actual existing useful and detailed explanations were cut, shrunk, and/or modified in preference for... let's say a more "subtle" approach, one that in the end only left many of us scratching our heads and slowing stepping backwards away from the game's credits thinking "ok, what the hell did just happened?". Those responsible for that were not the writers (which I do honestly believe), contrarily to what many may still think to this day. But that's normal, because out of the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of fans of the ME franchise I doubt that even a tenth of them actually known about any of that unused dialog, and what it implies for story-telling (and the quality of it) for the games (in general) that are being affected by cut out/replaced/diminished dialog later on.

It's a bit of a story-telling tragedy, in my opinion. If I was a writer myself I'd make sure not to work for a company that knowingly cuts away the stuff that I would have written for the readers and players alike, with enough details for them to actually be able to understand what the hell I was trying to explain in the story in the first place.

Thats a great post. Maybe some day they will re-release the game with the leaked extra dialogue? Kind of like the KOTOR2 project a while back. :)
 

Red Storm

Lifer
Oct 2, 2005
14,233
234
106
As a side note there's something interesting I think some people should know concerning ME2's story.

Interesting. However, that doesn't excuse Bioware because anyone with half a brain knows what EA likes to do to studios/games. They traded in their creative freedom for lots and lots of $$$ (and I don't blame them, but I don't like it either).
 

exar333

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2004
8,518
8
91
Interesting. However, that doesn't excuse Bioware because anyone with half a brain knows what EA likes to do to studios/games. They traded in their creative freedom for lots and lots of $$$ (and I don't blame them, but I don't like it either).

I would love to see some indie devs or smaller studios raise money from prospective buys to help fund these games.

I would gladly invest $100 to see another BG game. If you had 500k people invest $50, that would cover 50-75% of development costs for most cross-platform AAA titles. Sure, some games cost a lot more, but I would love to see some of these titles get made for a decent budget and the dev actually see much more of the actual 'pie'. Digitial distribution FTW.

Its a great way to guage interest as well. If a studio says we have XX dollars and we need XX more to make this project happen, you can see if the interest is there. If the game does fantastic, the investors have the opportunity to reap the rewards. If the game tanks, or doesn't get made, you re-coup what you can. For $50, I would gladly risk a little money to get a great IP moving. It could be a lot of fun to tie the fan community (investors) into the dev team as well.

I know it sounds crazy, but it could be a lot of fun and a great way to cut-out the 'evil empire' types like AV and EA.
 
Aug 11, 2008
10,451
642
126
Interesting. However, that doesn't excuse Bioware because anyone with half a brain knows what EA likes to do to studios/games. They traded in their creative freedom for lots and lots of $$$ (and I don't blame them, but I don't like it either).

I agree that Bioware "sold out" to EA in every sense of the term. Does anybody know what kind of financial situation they were in before they sold out? Were they in danger of going out of business or did they just want to get the big bucks?
 

exar333

Diamond Member
Feb 7, 2004
8,518
8
91
I agree that Bioware "sold out" to EA in every sense of the term. Does anybody know what kind of financial situation they were in before they sold out? Were they in danger of going out of business or did they just want to get the big bucks?

I don't know either, but I was not aware of them being in fiscal trouble. I doubt a game like TOR would have been made without the deep pockets of EA, so I could see that as a driving force.
 

Glitchny

Diamond Member
Sep 4, 2002
5,679
1
0
Drew is a great writer.

As a side note there's something interesting I think some people should know concerning ME2's story (saying this because lots of people do know that many things in ME2 are just not clear or well explained in the game, in relation to ME1). There's a good number of posts over at the BioWare Social forums where you can hear so called "unused" dialog by the developers, but recorded nonetheless and at some point in time was considered to be implemented in the game, but was for some reason(s) cut out eventually.

A lot of that unused dialog ends up often explaining in greater details (and by different characters when compared to what we have in the final game) many aspects of the ME2 "links" to ME1 such as in relation to the Reapers, the Collectors and why they do what they do (getting samples from various races, making a "Terminator" Human-Reaper hybrid, etc). I've heard a lot of such unused dialog myself and I must say that whatever anyone may think regarding the actual writer(s) of ME2 (be it Drew, Walters or anyone else whom might have been providing assistance) that if they do listen to that dialog then they'll soon realize that the responsible people for mixing up the story are the ones editing the game and making the final decisions over at BioWare, as to what stays in and what gets cut out of it, or what gets replaced or changed. The actual writers, I'm sure, knew what they were writing and they surely had a clear, detailed picture of the whole ME franchise in their mind from the start.

At some point as far as ME2's story-telling is concerned (and most likely to follow suit with ME3, unfortunately), the actual existing useful and detailed explanations were cut, shrunk, and/or modified in preference for... let's say a more "subtle" approach, one that in the end only left many of us scratching our heads and slowing stepping backwards away from the game's credits thinking "ok, what the hell did just happened?". Those responsible for that were not the writers (which I do honestly believe), contrarily to what many may still think to this day. But that's normal, because out of the hundreds of thousands (if not millions) of fans of the ME franchise I doubt that even a tenth of them actually known about any of that unused dialog, and what it implies for story-telling (and the quality of it) for the games (in general) that are being affected by cut out/replaced/diminished dialog later on.

It's a bit of a story-telling tragedy, in my opinion. If I was a writer myself I'd make sure not to work for a company that knowingly cuts away the stuff that I would have written for the readers and players alike, with enough details for them to actually be able to understand what the hell I was trying to explain in the story in the first place.

These "people" who make cuts to the dialog and story are called editors. They are an essential part of any form of writing, and often make writers change and cut things that were in the original story. It's also a collaborative process, I really doubt that they made these cuts to the story without talking to the writers.

Conversation was probably "we need to remove/change some lines to make it faster/impactful/less info dump/more dramatic etc" and the writer responded with "Ok i think we can change these things here, and take out these pieces etc"

Every game company does this, so refusing to work for a company that changes your writing or cuts it, is only possible if you are self employed.

Also it's not as though 1 person writes the entire game. There are usually many staff writers who all contribute with one or two leads controlling the overall flow and course of the game. The whole process of what gets in and what gets cut is collaborative.
 

Zenoth

Diamond Member
Jan 29, 2005
5,189
184
106
These "people" who make cuts to the dialog and story are called editors. They are an essential part of any form of writing, and often make writers change and cut things that were in the original story. It's also a collaborative process, I really doubt that they made these cuts to the story without talking to the writers.

Conversation was probably "we need to remove/change some lines to make it faster/impactful/less info dump/more dramatic etc" and the writer responded with "Ok i think we can change these things here, and take out these pieces etc"

Every game company does this, so refusing to work for a company that changes your writing or cuts it, is only possible if you are self employed.

Also it's not as though 1 person writes the entire game. There are usually many staff writers who all contribute with one or two leads controlling the overall flow and course of the game. The whole process of what gets in and what gets cut is collaborative.

I see.

Well I can understand that it's just a normal professional procedure for games (editing scripts, etc.), but regardless of that part of the development being "normal" or even being something that the author(s)/writer(s) agree with... doesn't necessarily mean that the end result actually makes sense for the players, even if it made sense for the writer. In fact (or... rather in my opinion) it's easy for the writer to just agree to this or that cut, since he/she knows the whole story in details, when the players don't.

And the goal is to tell a story to the gamers, a story that they can understand without too many story holes or lack of details. I would like to know why that specific thing happened, do I have the answer? No, does the answer actually exist? Yes, but it was cut out, why? Because of the editing... ok... but... I still don't understand this and that part of the game (figure of speech, but the point is that even though editing is part of development, professionally speaking, the end result isn't always necessarily good, or "good enough" for the players).

Ultimately, I shouldn't have to wait for gamers to go dig in archived game files for "possibly cut out content" such as dialog to finally hear cut out dialog that in fact clearly explains things that happened in the game (it's not like the explained events themselves were also cut out of the game, they remained, but were briefly or barely explained in the final version).
 
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