381 réponses à ce sujet

[Seb Hanlon]

LPPrince wrote...

Dat wall of text

Edit- Touché...

sorry, the text widget doesn't work right on my ipad...

[Lukas Kristjanson]

I never hear that much about the Bioware editing team. How many do you all have working on one game at a time? Do they migrate between teams when there is less writing going on during one game's creation?

Unsung heroes. The editing team tends to migrate as a whole depending on load. There are 5 on the team at the moment, on DA and *shifty eyes* other stuff. It includes a lot of technical/organizational writing, like Ben Gelinas wrangling our internal IP wiki, which directly led to him working on the World of Thedas book.

I'm curious as to how the development of DAO occurred. Were you guys constantly working on it for all those years? Ultimately what was the reason that it kept getting pushed back? Were ideas just getting scrapped and reworked?

There were several speed bumps due to shifts in engine tech as it was developed, which meant a lot of time without a platform to evaluate the content. The first draft of the writing was prototyped in the Neverwinter Nights editor, which wasn't as much of a help as it should've been. Lots of issues migrating resources across tech streams, and it was simply too different for accurate evaluation. The extended design time resulted in some good iteration, but some naval-gazing too. You can overanalyze and "fix" things because you're too familiar with them, not because they're actually broken. That's a risk with all creative things. I've mentioned the sign on Darrah's bookshelf, but it remains relevant: "Show me a game with infinite resources, I'll show you a game that never ships."

BGs have an impressive amount of highly awesome, memorable NPCs. Was it ever on table to craft some sort of a spin off expansion/game involving some(one) of em in centerpiece of story?

No solid plans. But hey, Interplay's ghost could still bork up Minsc's Big-Head Racing one of these days.

What is it like working in Bioware?

In writing that could mean presenting shorthand pitches to the leads, and then "pod" meetings with various other departments as we plan out the specifics of areas/plots. Meetings on the scope of types of conversation/cine concerns. Writing design docs/narrative overviews of my plots/characters so tech knows how to piece it together, and meetings on that scope. Or reading through other plots to prep for peer reviews. The best is when you get some traction to just write, but then there are passes to add VO comments so actors know what FEELS to feel, or edit because cine/mocap can convey the meaning of a particular line better than words, or adding/removing skills because a new system came online or was scrapped, or rework the whole thing after one of the previously mentioned peer reviews. Near the end of the project I shift to "maintenance," and sometimes there are late fixes while racing final VO and scripting. I've tetris'd fully-recorded conversations apart and back together to change tone/fix bugs/accommodate gameplay, rewriting only the player lines/paraphrases to change context. I like that phase because you know the pieces, you know the deadline, so you make it work to quality or it simply gets cut. And then I do targeted playthroughs, because I can see in my plots where something broken didn't happen, as opposed to where something broken did happen. So it's like that, plus whatever else explodes. It's complicated.

The Hours are normal office hours until they're not. Then it's deadline by deadline, depending on what it takes to unblock others and get the beast shipped. But there's only so long you can work before diminishing returns kick in. Crunch with a goal is bearable and useful. Crunch for crunch's sake is a failure of management and scheduling.

[Fast Jimmy]

Lukas Kristjanson wrote...

I never hear that much about the Bioware editing team. How many do you all have working on one game at a time? Do they migrate between teams when there is less writing going on during one game's creation?

Unsung heroes. The editing team tends to migrate as a whole depending on load. There are 5 on the team at the moment, on DA and *shifty eyes* other stuff. It includes a lot of technical/organizational writing, like Ben Gelinas wrangling our internal IP wiki, which directly led to him working on the World of Thedas book.

List of things to do:

1) Hack Bioware network to gain access to DA IP wiki for DA:I spoilers
2) Hunt down the meaning of Lukas' "shifty eyes"

LOL Seriously, thanks for the response Lukas. I know this is so far beyond your ability to answer, but any hint as to when your eyes won't need to be as shifty when talking about future information, like the new mystery IP Bioware is working on?

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 12 septembre 2013 - 11:21 .

[Naughty Bear]

Do you get bored replaying the game over and over to hunt for bugs or testing stuff? My patience wears thin when replaying a game for the 2nd or 3rd time.

And how scary is it waiting for reviews? Do you all have a party if it does well? I saw Bioware had a Normandy cake.

What happens after a game is finished, after the dlc too. Do you go straight onto another project?

Is the atmosphere relaxed? Do you have a kitchen and storeroom full of food? I remember watching a Bungie video or perhaps a Valve studio tour, they had a whole storeroom full of sugary goodness.

Modifié par Naughty Bear, 12 septembre 2013 - 06:44 .

[Allan Schumacher]

Do you get bored replaying the game over and over to hunt for bugs or testing stuff? My patience wears thin when replaying a game for the 2nd or 3rd time.

You learn ways to keep it interesting, but what you describe is always a risk. Though depending on the person, most of the time what you're doing is often a lot more focused. So when I am spending more time in game, I'm usually very focused on a particular aspect.

And how scary is it waiting for reviews? Do you all have a party if it does well? I saw Bioware had a Normandy cake.

I don't remember really waiting for reviews, personally. Though we'll have a release party after projects in any case.

What happens after a game is finished, after the dlc too. Do you go straight onto another project?

Depends. At the release of a game there is a bit of a split. I didn't do any work on DLC for DAO, and did about 1 week of work on Awakening, before I was put onto DA2 (and some were already on DA2 for some time before that).

Is the atmosphere relaxed? Do you have a kitchen and storeroom full of food? I remember watching a Bungie video or perhaps a Valve studio tour, they had a whole storeroom full of sugary goodness.

In general I'd say the atmosphere is relaxed. I have worked in more stressful environments, but it depends a lot on the person I find. Getting down towards the push on the PAX demo, some stress level was definitely rising, though for varying effects on the person. Though there's a crescendo and then as it all starts to come together things start going "Oh yeah... this is going to be great" which means that, despite the stress, it's still pretty easy to go on.

As for food, BioWare provides some frozen snacks and whatnot, and also feeds us breakfast and there's some dry goods food like cereal around. When the team at large starts working late they also bring in catered food (which I love 99% of the time!).

[Beerfish]

Do the voice actors ever want to change lines or change a characters intent or give input?

[Fast Jimmy]

Seb Hanlon wrote...

Naughty Bear wrote...
...
So what would you do on a typical day? Same with Priestly and the woman who cosplayed as femshep? Her name escapes me. Jessica?

A day in the Corps is like a day on the farm. Every meal a banquet, every formation a parade, every pay cheque a fortune!
Every day is different. That being said, a selection of things that might happen on any given day:
Daily standup meeting with scrum group to catch up everyone's progress and identify blocking issues
Review e-mail
Weekly combat design meeting
Bug triage to make sure issues are getting distributed to the right people
Sync the latest build and content
Playthrough meeting to go through the most recent build
Gameplay review meeting to most recent work on abilities, creatures, mechanics, etc.
1:1 meetings with the individual combat designers to get their feelings and chat with them directly
Firefighting - answering questions, directing people where to find answers, investigating bug reports, aligning or communicating design decisions with other departments or parts of the team
Planning the next few weeks or months of development
Writing design docs
Revising design docs
Reading design docs
Catching up e-mail
Writing performance reviews for my team
Investigating bugs - digging into content and code to figure out why things aren't right
Working with animators on technical issues in the animation tools
Chatting with programmers about how to implement features for maximum effectiveness and workflow
Design leads meeting with Mike and the other design department leads (writing, cine, levels, systems, etc)
Occasionally making content (design work in the tools) or writing code to make things go

I love you sig, Seb.

Random coporate level question for you - what program do you all track project, design and workflow tasks through? Is it something like TeamTrack? Oracle Workflow? Is it tracked by shared network folders and reports? Or is it something completely separate that is EA's or BIoware's own design?

[In Exile]

EntropicAngel wrote...

Beerfish wrote...

Do the voice actors ever want to change lines or change a characters intent or give input?

This is a great question. I know this happens in other games somewhat, but I'm curious how this works in Bioware games--whether the VAs are allowed to deviate from the script (and how much).

I recall there was a story that this happened with the VA for the Arishok. 

[Fast Jimmy]

EntropicAngel wrote...

In Exile wrote...

I recall there was a story that this happened with the VA for the Arishok. 

...you're right. I think someone mentioned that there was a mistake in one of the script lines, and when he went to change it he found the actor arguing with someone about how a follower of the Qun  wouldn't say that.


Still, what about ad-libbing. That's a whole 'nother step.

Woah, that's the first I've heard that story. That is awesome. The fact that the VA was either A) a hardcore fan that would know what the Qun truly meant or did enough preparation that they would be able to say with authority what the philosophy would result in a character saying, is quite impressive. I'm going to go look up that VA actor's name for future reference.  

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 15 novembre 2013 - 12:56 .

[Fast Jimmy]

^

And I've always been of the mind that the VA had little impact on my enjoyment of a story. I really liked the Arishok in DA2, but never attributed it to the specific actor involved.

Good stuff.

[Beerfish]

Rick D. Wasserman was the Arishok.

[In Exile]

Beerfish wrote...

Rick D. Wasserman was the Arishok.

... And we should all be grateful. 

Modifié par In Exile, 13 septembre 2013 - 02:54 .

[Lukas Kristjanson]

I know this is so far beyond your ability to answer, but any hint as to when your eyes won't need to be as shifty when talking about future information, like the new mystery IP Bioware is working on?

Nope. *even shiftier eyes*

Do you get bored replaying the game over and over to hunt for bugs or testing stuff? My patience wears thin when replaying a game for the 2nd or 3rd time.

There are very few games I replay for fun, and testing is nothing like playing. So picture this. BG1, three start-to-finish coop critical-path-stability speed-runs a day behind the monster of Quality Assurance that was Scott Horner. It was like being dragged behind Lococycle.

And how scary is it waiting for reviews? Do you all have a party if it does well? I saw Bioware had a Normandy cake.
What happens after a game is finished, after the dlc too. Do you go straight onto another project?

By the time you have it in-hand/downloaded, I'm already in design-doc hell or early prototyping for the next one. We'll adjust because of long term plans for a franchise, so that's indirectly about reviews, but there's no waiting around. If there was, that would mean a whole lot of people idle. Can't justify that.

The cake was likely from the release party. That's more about marking the end of one hell of a milestone. Remember, for as long as you've heard about Mass Effect, or any of our games, some of us have lived knee-deep in them for 8+ hours every workday for possibly years. It's a hell of a thing to finally see them launch.

Is the atmosphere relaxed? Do you have a kitchen and storeroom full of food? I remember watching a Bungie video or perhaps a Valve studio tour, they had a whole storeroom full of sugary goodness.

The atmosphere is typical office geek. Normal core hours so people know where you are, but there's leeway so long as you get the job done. Action figures and nerf are optional, but somewhat inevitable. We have a couple kitchen areas, but not the complex of some companies.

Do the voice actors ever want to change lines or change a characters intent or give input?

We don't do a lot of riffing in the studio, because improvising within a branching dialogue would get dangerous real fast, if the actor even understands the structure to begin with (and who can blame them if they don't). Mostly we just clarify motivations and whatever small corner of the setting the actor needs to understand. On Rick Wasserman, he owned the Arishok after barely a couple days with the script. That story seems to have grown. I was in the session because I wrote him. It was a misplaced comma that would reverse the meaning of the sentence and Wasserman called it correctly based on the context of the Qun that he'd gleaned from just his script. No Dave required.

Sometimes there will be a rewrite on-the-fly if a line is difficult for the actor to say, or if, hypothetically, John Cleese corrects your grammar. Gosh, wouldn't that be embarrassing?

[Beerfish]

"Sometimes there will be a rewrite on-the-fly if a line is difficult for the actor to say, or if, hypothetically, John Cleese corrects your grammar. Gosh, wouldn't that be embarrassing?"

Hopefully he at least took you to task in a Monty Python or Fawlty Towers fashion.

[Fast Jimmy]

Lukas Kristjanson wrote...

I know this is so far beyond your ability to answer, but any hint as to when your eyes won't need to be as shifty when talking about future information, like the new mystery IP Bioware is working on?

Nope. *even shiftier eyes*

Good... good... <shiftiest eyes>

You have given me everything I need to know... 

Beerfish wrote...

"Sometimes there will be a rewrite on-the-fly if a line is difficult for the actor to say, or if, hypothetically, John Cleese corrects your grammar. Gosh, wouldn't that be embarrassing?"

Hopefully he at least took you to task in a Monty Python or Fawlty Towers fashion.

Now leave! Or I shall have to taunt you a second time!

[Allan Schumacher]

Sometimes there will be a rewrite on-the-fly if a line is difficult for the actor to say, or if, hypothetically, John Cleese corrects your grammar. Gosh, wouldn't that be embarrassing?

I would have loved to have been present during that recording session

[Blastback]

Can't let this thread die, to awesome.

I remember at one point you were supposed to be able to import your Baldur's Gate character into Neverwinter Nights. How would this have worked story wise? would it have been brought up, or sort of a the player knows, but it never gets mentioned? Or was the story at one point just really diffrent?

Modifié par Blastback, 15 novembre 2013 - 12:41 .

[Fast Jimmy]

Thanks for keeping this thread going, Blastback.

Also, I'd ask what it was like for Origins, to create the various intro stories and then tie them back together for the main narrative section of the story. Was it like a giant ball of yarn had gotten mobbed by drunk kittens keeping all of the plot threads and needed nods straight, or was it a little more structured?

I know many people say "I wish the Origins had more of an impact on the main game" but I always felt the ways it did come up were pretty impressive, given that they needed to be spread out across the entire game of five origins.

[Lukas Kristjanson]

Zombie thread. Rise from your grave!

I remember at one point you were supposed to be able to import your Baldur's Gate character into Neverwinter Nights. How would this have worked story wise? would it have been brought up, or sort of a the player knows, but it never gets mentioned? Or was the story at one point just really diffrent?

Pretty sure we never intended BG characters would carry over to Neverwinter. There's a tease in the BG games about traveling to Neverwinter, and Imoen's epilogue has her starting a thieves' guild there, but transplanting the Bhaalspawn wouldn't be viable without making the story about them as a bhaalspawn. Plus completely different engine/mechanics/everything, and probably some legal bull about character use. We could have easily "imported" base stats and name and handwaved the rest, but really, players could do that just fine themselves if they really wanted to.

Also, I'd ask what it was like for Origins, to create the various intro stories and then tie them back together for the main narrative section of the story. Was it like a giant ball of yarn had gotten mobbed by drunk kittens keeping all of the plot threads and needed nods straight, or was it a little more structured?

I was on other projects while the Origins were being worked out, but it's my understanding that the origins were culled down to the ones that could support the theme, which would generally also mean reactivity. Others such as the Barbarian were reasonable ideas/content, but ended up not having much relevance. We did the same with Shepard's backgrounds, although you don't experience them firsthand.

When it comes to the impact of the origins, they're kind of like the classes. The game must be baseline playable by all of them, but have individual moments that are tailored for each. That's why you have a common title/power, "Warden," that the player could rely on, and why the origins were deliberately isolated before a bottleneck event (Ostagar) so everyone has a common "clean slate".

There are logical spots of reactivity and you plan for those, such as a dwarf returning to Orzammar, or the human noble (or really anyone) at the Landsmeet, or key characters returning. Some don't make the cut, some do. But that goes for everything, that's why it's development and not assembly. Anyway, you've got a set amount of resource-intensive reactivity you can do, and then you've got cheaper moments that happen much more often. Things that only become apparent when you're into production. Because sometimes it's not obvious what minor characters will like/hate elves until they're being written. We'll do passes to add race/class/skill "persuades" too, because sometimes the skills simply don't exist at the time of first-pass writing, or they change completely halfway through. Or, I don't know, maybe races don't exist and then, with great fanfare, they suddenly do.

A robust setting can adjust to those sorts of changes, allowing to you plan for big things and I suppose plan for things that won't be planned? I think I've mentioned leaving "hooks" before, that world building is about setting down the rules at the beginning, not every little detail. Some people try and compete with the minutia of established settings, not realizing that they are comparing against decades of gradual development. That's fine if you don't want to be done for 30 years, but maybe play a little looser and see how it goes in the meantime. The background/race is just one hook you can leave, knowing that it's in your toolbox if needed.

[Fast Jimmy]

Or, I don't know, maybe races don't exist and then, with great fanfare, they suddenly do.

I've actually been really curious about this... obviously DA:O had origins as a main theme from pretty early on. And DA2 was about Hawke for fhe majority of its development as well.

For DA:I, what was it like having such a huge feature added in late® in the game, so to speak? Did someone just come in the Writer's Pit and say "okay guys, we're doing multiple races now - let's get to work" or was it a gradual discussion that the team was aware was being discussed and could see the change evolving?

Modifié par Fast Jimmy, 25 novembre 2013 - 07:20 .

[Lukas Kristjanson]

For DA:I, what was it like having such a huge feature added in late® in the game, so to speak? Did someone just come in the Writer's Pit and say "okay guys, we're doing multiple races now - let's get to work" or was it a gradual discussion that the team was aware was being discussed and could see the change evolving?

Off topic for this thread, can't talk about DAI. Suffice to say, the negotiation around that kind of feature happens leagues above my pay grade, but I'm sure it was part of the greater discussion about the benefits/expectations of the extended schedule.

So, speaking in more general terms (because I've seen this many, many times) yes, there's a day when a lead comes back from a meeting and says "Yep, it's happening." More or less. Dave doesn't say "yep". Sometimes I've heard it percolating, and sometimes I'm blindsided. Sometimes it's a feature I want/dread, and sometimes it's a cut I want/dread.

When a major feature/change is approved/cut, everyone takes time to look at the content they own and write up a plan for how much effort the change will need. Is it a blow-up or is it targeted surgery? Also, changes may not be immediately obvious, because I may not be directly hit, but I may still need to react.

Using race as example, at its simplest, animation and cinematics then has to contend with a Player Character who can be different heights. That multiplies the effort to stage scenes. Now hypothetically add horns. Writing may need to change because it's simpler to alter that than it is to get the characters to interact without accidentally ramming a horn through someone's face. Or, as with happened in DAO, maybe horns can't be accommodated because certain systems would have to be unique to only one race. Doable, but maybe not within scope, so concepts are adjusted, and writing adds to the lore to support the change. Or maybe it's an enemy faction cut/added, or skills cut/added, or an entire geographical area cut/added, or a separate plot cut/edited. All of these can require downstream edits.

It happens with every game/movie/piece of media you have ever experienced and 99.9% of the time the audience is oblivious. And should be. Meta information has its place, and for me, that's the second playthrough/DVD extras. Or, I suppose, here.

How much native language programming do you do vs in engine scripting?

I'll defer to someone more knowledgeable. I work with conversation logic, so I only ever touch the barest Scripting for Dummies built for me by our tool wizards.

Modifié par Lukas Kristjanson, 26 novembre 2013 - 07:05 .