I have a favorite Mass Effect 2 story, from the Bioware Blog.
“When Mass Effect 2 shipped, someone got hold of a store copy had broken the street date by a day. He was broadcasting his playthrough online, and a bunch of people were watching him and commenting in a little chat room attached to his video stream. He …
I have a favorite Mass Effect 2 story, from the Bioware Blog.
“When Mass Effect 2 shipped, someone got hold of a store copy had broken the street date by a day. He was broadcasting his playthrough online, and a bunch of people were watching him and commenting in a little chat room attached to his video stream. He was doing a serious Renegade Shepard playthrough — every Renegade option, every time — and people were cheering as he shot half the characters and generally took the most Renegade option on every mission.
And then he got to Tali’s loyalty mission. When the big reveal came, and Tali begged Shepard not to turn over the evidence that would exonerate her but brand her father a war criminal, the chat room went crazy. Everyone started saying, “Wait, dude, don’t do it! Hang on, man, be cool, you can’t do that to her!” The guy gets to the trial, hits the dialog option, and as the chat room goes crazy with people yelling for him not to do it, he pauses and then types: “I don’t know what to do, guys. I don’t want to hurt Tali.”
He was enjoying having his Shepard be the most ruthless Renegade possible, as was everyone watching. At that moment, all of us who had worked on Tali’s loyalty mission — the writers and editors, the cinematic and level designers, the character artists, the VO team and fantastic voice actress Liz Sroka — we created an experience that made this person care about the character enough to modify his playing style. Creating ways for players to maybe be emotionally hooked like that… that’s what gets me out of bed every morning.”
