Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Mass Effect 2: Diary of the New Guy

September 23, 2009

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Part 1 of 2, by Jay Watamaniuk

A few things have changed in the last week that have altered my life at BioWare pretty dramatically. I accepted a position as a writer on Mass Effect 2, which meant that after 8 years I no longer helm the stormy seas of community. I leave that to Mr. Priestly, who has far more aptitude and skill in this; proving his value since his days back in QA when he was basically doing his job now but not getting paid for it. I have no fear for community under his direction. He knows his business and he is passionate about doing right by the fans.

For me… I need to learn a completely new job at a company with which I have grown very comfortable. I need to see up close how games are made. In marketing, we work with the development teams to help tell fans about their work; to spread the message and to show off proudly the work the dev teams do. Marketing BioWare games – though complicated, as the games are complicated – is easy from the perspective that the product is of a world class quality; something that sets a standard. As a marketing guy, you need to ask little more than to feel good about the work you do.

But I never got to peek behind the curtain despite a few family connections. All I knew was that the teams worked incredibly hard, under tremendous pressure, to create these games. Pride in their work keeps them at their desks late into the night and pride in the BioWare legacy of games gets them here early in the morning.

I recall my first few days of being a Community Manager- a job that was very vague and ill-defined at the time- and being somewhat lost among sea of paper and books given to me to help clarify what I should be doing. I feel the same way now. I’m here because somebody in this department gave me a stamp of approval and opened the door despite potentially damaging samples of my writing.

I moved up from the second floor where marketing, the hand held group, administration and HR all make their nests to the mysterious third floor where Mass Effect 2 is being created. Apart from work being done in Montreal, everything Mass Effecty happens on this floor here in Edmonton, Alberta.

Last Friday, I arrived to find my desk, computer and box of office bits had already been moved and, in its place down on the second floor, a dark void. I said my good mornings to my old roommates and walked up the stairs still wearing my coat to see how the new office looked.

I think standing there at the threshold of my new office, with new roommates, it finally hit me: I had made a big career change and there was no turning back to the familiar. No turning back to a job that I had grown into, and helped to shape over nearly a decade.

Nope, I was the new guy and had no idea what I was doing.

Jay Watamaniuk Moves On

September 18, 2009

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Part 1 of 1 by Evil Chris Priestly

Today is Jay Watamaniuk’s last day as BioWare’s Community manager. I’m not going to make a big thing about this, as Jay is not really the sentimental sort, but I didn’t feel right letting this day pass without a few words. Jay answers questions

This is Jay. He likes to LARP (Live Action Roll Play) with friends and he runs in the annual Alberta Death Race. He’s a huge nerd who once set a man’s desk on fire in a fit of pique. He may prefer fruity booze drinks with little umbrellas to beer, but he also owns his own whip ala Indiana Jones.Final Night Party 04 Jay does not like beer

Jay, like me, has been with BioWare for over 8 years now which makes him one of the “old timers” around the office (I am still young and spry, but Jay is very old indeed). For many years Jay WAS the BioWare community team. Sure, he had a bunch of help from the web teams, customer service folks and other staff, not to mention the fact that BioWare has made some great games that have pulled in a great community of fans.

Still, without Jay, the existing BioWare community would not be what it is today. I’ll let him discuss his achievements and accomplishments if he chooses to, but I’m going to call out a few things.

Without Jay, there would have been no BioWare Wednesdays. That was his idea and he worked hard each week to support it.

Without Jay, Community would not be attending conventions like Gen-Con & PAX or holding the builder events we’ve held.

Without Jay, much of the upcoming Social Site would not be nearly as cool as it will be.

Without Jay, I would have had to wear the Shepard armor at PAX this year. And that would have been both dangerous to others and potentially obscene.

ME2 Booth Evil Chris and Jay

Monday, Jay starts a new job here at BioWare. Jay has always wanted to be a writer (if you’ve enjoyed the good writing on the BioWare Blog or laughed at the newsletter you’ll have seen a glimmer of his talent) and he’s moving onto the Mass Effect writing team to help fulfill his dream. He’ll still be stopping by the forums from time to time, twittering, blogging and such, but now Community will have to soldier on without him.

I’ve worked with Jay for over three years now and I’ve always said that he was the brains and I was the mouth. Without Jay, I wouldn’t have this cushy cushy job working on the internet, jet setting around the globe, attending fan events, and really enjoying my life. Community is a great gig and you’ve left some big shoes to fill, but we wouldn’t be here today without you.

For that Jay, much thanks.

The People of Dragon Age: Origins – An Interview with Sten, Wynne and the Tower Guard

September 16, 2009

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Part 1 of 1, by Sheryl Chee and Mary Kirby

Q: Hi there. Thanks for giving this interview.

Wynne: It’s a pleasure.

Sten: Am I to understand that an “interview” is an occasion set aside for the sole purpose of asking questions?

Q: Yes.

Sten: If this turns into another discussion of cat-girls, I’m leaving.

Q: Why don’t you introduce yourselves? For the benefit of the people who haven’t kept up with the website?

Wynne: I am Wynne, a mage of the Circle of Magi.

Sten: I am Sten of the Beresaad.

Tower Guard: My name’s actually Walter. I’m—

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Wynne: You should use a coaster.

Tower Guard: What?

Wynne: A coaster. For your drink. It’s sweating and leaving water rings on the table.

Tower Guard: It’s just water! It’s just—

Sten: Do what she says. She’s a mage. She’s liable to snap and kill us all if you annoy her.

Wynne: Sten, you annoy me frequently, and I haven’t killed you yet.

Sten: Yet.

Q: Let’s move on. Now, Sten, what do you say to the allegations that you are a big softie?

Sten: I am not a “softie”. “Big” is, I suppose, harder to dispute.

Q: Uh-huh. But you like cookies. What do you think that says about you?

Sten: That I have sound culinary judgment.

Q: Does it bother you that your love of cookies seems to be the only thing that interests people?

Sten: There’s little point in being bothered by it. Humans are silly creatures, easily amused by shiny things and quickly moving objects. You might as well ask if it bothers me that dwarves are short.

Q: What makes you an interesting person then?

Sten: To humans? I suppose the fact that I make sudden movements and loud noises helps.

Q: What was your childhood like?

Sten: Brief and easily cured.

Q: Are you reading anything right now?

Sten: In Pursuit of Knowledge: The Travels of a Chantry Scholar by Brother Genitivi. It’s good if you have an uneven table leg to stabilize.

Wynne: Oh, I haven’t read that one yet. His Tales of the Destruction of Thedas wasn’t bad, though.

Q: Tell us your favorite ice-cream flavor?

Sten: Butter brickle. Feel free to obsess over that, too.

Tower Guard: What’s ice-cream?

Wynne: I prefer lavender.

Sten: I thought that was a flower?

Wynne: It is. And it makes a lovely ice-cream.

Q: Wynne, tell us about yourself. What was your childhood like?

Wynne: Filled with wonderful discoveries about magic. And templars. I mean… there were always templars about, not that I made discoveries about them.

Tower Guard: I was dirty a lot—

Sten: What a surprise.

Wynne: Though there was that one man… we discovered that he actually had a peg leg under his armor. It was fun trying to throw him off-balance.

Q: So, about your magical bosom—

Wynne: Maker. Not this again.

Q: Is it really magical? Inquiring minds want to know.

Wynne: And by “inquiring minds” do you mean Zevran? Did he put you up to this? Oh, we are going to have some words, Zevran and I.

Q: What words? Words like “magical” and “bosom”?

Wynne: No. Words like… “I am” and “going to string you up” and perhaps “by your ears”. Next question.

Q: But we’re not done talking about your—

Wynne: Next!

Q: Um… what would you say to the people on the forums who dismiss you as “one-dimensional”?

Wynne: (sighs) What does one say to that? I suppose I could be facetious and point out my “magical bosom”, which is anything but “one-dimensional”.

Q: What are you reading right now?

Wynne: From the Shower to the Battlefield: A History of Bards. Fascinating read, especially the chapter on Orlesian bathroom construction.stenn

Tower Guard: I can write my name! Want to see?

Sten: The Fereldan people continue to astonish with their accomplishments.

Q: This one’s for everyone: Would you rather be a small fish in a big pond, or a big fish in a small pond?

Sten: I would rather not be a fish.

Wynne: Small fish, big pond.

Tower Guard: I fell into a pond once…

Sten: Did the experience rob you of the ability to answer questions with something relevant?

Q: Okay, so Jane Austen and Beatrix Potter are fighting to the death. Who do you think will win?

Sten: Austen. She’s much more cut-throat.

Wynne: I don’t approve of blood sport. In the dwarven lands they have the Provings. The fights are often to the death. It’s rather barbaric, really. Am I to conclude, from your question, that you have a something similar in your culture?

Q: Well, there’s hockey…

Wynne: Hockey?

Q: It involves men with large beards and sticks fighting over a cup.

Wynne: Ah, I see. It sounds very dwarven, doesn’t it?

Q: That was fun, but we’re almost out of time.

Tower Guard: Oy! What about me? I paid three sovereigns for this interview. They said if I got my name out there, I could maybe get promoted to Castle Guard, or… or something!

Sten: Are you even in this game? I don’t remember you.

Wynne: Oh, he is, but he doesn’t make it out of the Prelude, poor thing.

Tower Guard: WHAT?!

Wynne: It’s best if you don’t dwell on it.

Q: Before we go, is there anything you want to say to the fans?

Sten: Are we done yet?

Wynne: “Get off my lawn!” (whispers) I’ve always wanted to say that.

Tower Guard: (sobs) I don’t want to die…

-END-

Sheryl Chee is a professional Minion of David Gaider, and came to BioWare from a faraway land, packed in a small styrofoam crate marked “Perishable”. She has a philosophy degree, which trained her for a career of making things up. In her spare time, Sheryl enjoys killing zombies, and knitting. She is often mistaken for a random number generator.

Mary Kirby possesses a degree in Creative Writing and the nigh-superhuman ability to make a turkey sandwich on sourdough in under thirty seconds. She came to Bioware hoping to get one of those awesome steel travel mugs. After working as a writer and professional Minion of David Gaider on Dragon Age: Origins, she still doesn’t have a coffee mug.

Badassery at PAX

September 10, 2009

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Part 3 of 3, by Jay Watamaniuk

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That would be Dragon Age Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw on the left, myself as the space bellhop and Dragon Age Brand Manager David Silverman on the right.

BioWare at PAX, p2

September 9, 2009

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Part 2 of 3, by Jay Watamaniuk

Yeeowsa was it busy on Saturday for day 2 at PAX. I am still waiting on the official numbers but the crowd was huge. I was very fortunate to have some time before the public arrived to see some of the show floor because all is fire and chaos once the fans arrive.

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I got a chance to check out that little up-and-comer Diablo III as well as play around with the new goblin and worgen races in the upcoming World of Warcraft expansion.

gw1The wait for these games was pretty astronomical when the fans had arrived, but I think the wait for Dragon Age: Origins was even longer. We had taken the approach of providing a closed, personal environment to show off Dragon Age properly. It is always a difficult thing to explain a BioWare game in two minutes or less, let alone provide a show floor demonstration that encompasses the complexity. The cost of providing this 25 to 30 minute personal time with Dragon Age was a very short list of people who could get in to play. This made for line-ups of several hours. I salute the hardcore resilience and dedication of everyone who waited it out for a chance to play.
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To add a little spice to the booth visit we encircled the whole experience as a challenge. Mike Laidlaw, dressed in full chainmail, welcomed the fans and spoke for a short time about Dragon Age in a closed off room when fans had finally got inside the booth. He introduced the game and showed off a video of some of the key ideas. Mike then detailed how the fans had less then 30 minutes to complete the joining and become a Grey Warden in the game. This involved sitting down to learn how to play the game, venturing into the untamed Korcari wilds, dealing with Morrigan and returning to base to perform the joining ceremony.

If you were successful, then not only did you get a fine Dragon Age t-shirt that was better than anything your friend ever got for Christmas, but you also got yourself a picture geared up in front of the Archdemon statue out front announcing you are now a Grey Warden with blood smeared across your forehead. Here at BioWare we don’t just make games, we make awesome.

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Mass Effect 2 had a far more open booth with 12 stations that were packed to the space-gills with fans waiting to play through the run and gun battle to acquire the galaxy’s most dangerous assassin: Thane. They were also treated to a surprise visit by some crazy in his space pajamas.

The day continued with Mass Effect 2 Lead Writer, Mac Walters and Dragon Age Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw (I’ll let you decide who is who- note some suitable clues in the pictures) both doing on-camera interviews with G4 T.V.mike

And finally, Mac signed many, many covers of the comic series he is creating with Dark Horse comics. Is it just me or is that the most epic-looking Salarian you have ever seen?

An Interview with Penny-Arcade’s Tycho

September 4, 2009

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Even with his crazy PAX schedule looming we managed to spend time with Penny-Arcade’s Tycho to get his first impressions on our latest game Dragon Age: Origins. We are still swooning from the timbre of his voice and perfect diction.

[BW] What attracted you to working with BioWare on Dragon Age: Origins?

[Tycho] I felt certain that, as part of my work on the project, I would be
given a playable copy!

[BW] And what did you think of the Dragon Age setting?

[Tycho] I have to admit that I read The Stolen Throne in advance of playing
it, so between that and the official site I had a pretty strong
primer. The world-building is much stronger than you’d guess from the
existing videos – the Chantry in particular, but also the relationship
between the Templars, the Circle of Magi, and the unauthorized gutter
magic of the wilderfolk. For lore nerds, the game’s Tome of Knowledge
is something you can easily get lost in.

[BW] BioWare has called this a “spiritual successor” to its previous fantasy titles. Do you think Dragon Age lives up to that heritage?

[Tycho] It was clearly designed to evoke that heritage, so if you’re already
weak to those kinds of attacks I’d say you’re in pretty big trouble.

[BW] Who is your favorite party NPC?

[Tycho] I like Sten, for a lot of reasons. He has many virtues, but his
chatter with Morrigan is priceless.

[BW] Do either of you have a favorite origin story?

[Tycho] Not especially, other than to say that playing more than one before
you settle in is a good idea, because they’re not completely inert,
story-wise. I saw people in his origin that popped up in my main
campaign, for example.

[BW] What class did you choose?

[Tycho] I went with a Human Noble Rogue for my “main,” if that terminology
even means anything in a single player game. I’d read the book, and I
figured Rogue would be my path to Bard. I was not wrong!

[BW] Can you give us a favorite moment that doesn’t spoil too much?

[Tycho] Killing my dad was kind of a jerk move, guys. :(

Apparently we forgot to ask “What did you think of the game?” but I think this penny-arcade.com post covers it.

~dlarke

BioWare at PAX!, p1

September 4, 2009

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Part 1 of 3, by Jay Watamaniuk
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I’ll keep this short as I am currently not on the show floor as I should be and am risking getting a spicy face slapping from the lovely and talented PR goddess Heather.

I arrived in town Thursday to a maelstrom of setting up activity. Forklifts, cables, men shouting, computers sparking, babies screaming, monkeys running around- it was all chaos. The work continued long into the night and even early this morning. BioWare staff needed to be on the floor at 8am to get everything ready and switched on for the parade of press that were due to arrive at 8:30am. The press did arrive (having been forced to wait in a looooong line outside the doors until 8:35 if you believe that. ;) me2setup1

I grabbed a bunch of shots that Evil Chris will get up on our community Flickr account when he can be spared from tossing out inflatable swords to the massive throngs that poured in the doors at 10:00am this morning. And throngs they were that came pouring through the doors. In my experience Friday is busy, yes, but Saturday is usually the crazy day. I think that idea has been thrown out the window. I cannot image how you fit any more people in the conference centre show floor. I’ll be sure to post up some great shots I got while standing on atop the two-story tower in the Dragon Age booth.
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The show this year feels bigger. I grabbed a few minutes to walk around and what sort of booths were on display this year. Wow, bigger, better and certainly more money. It really looks like PAX has grown by leaps and bounds even from last year.

BioWare is showing off Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins this year for fans. Both are playable and both will certainly make you a better person all around.

As a side note, the booth gods have blessed us at the Mass Effect 2 booth as we sit right beside a very fine looking dance game on the Wii. This is significant to all of us at the Mass effect 2 booth because the folks over there were thoughtful enough to hire presenters that all can show off the game’s signature dance moves. I suspect that might prove to be a little distracting during the next three days.

Lots more to come folks as BioWare staff report from PAX 2009 showfloor!

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BioWare takes Gold and Silver at the 2009 Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival

September 2, 2009

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Part 1 of 1, by Karin Weekes and Jeff Vanelle

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Back for their third year in the Edmonton Dragon Boat Festival, the medal-winning BioWare BioWarriors are proof that geeks don’t just game—they can paddle, too! The BioWarriors captured a gold medal and the Engineering Challenge category trophy in the festival’s Friday evening sprint races. After four seeding, semi-final, and final races on Saturday and Sunday, the BioWarriors grabbed a silver medal in the 12-boat “Edmonton A and B” racing category. Dragon01_SmallDrummer Theresa Baxter also captured the “Craziest Drummer” award with her voluptuous pink mermaid costume, and the BioWarriors’ fantastic coach of three years, Dennis Lefevbre, not only coached and steered the team to its third and fourth medal wins, but also captured the “Best Dressed Steersperson” award, himself.

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In addition to our team t-shirts (designed by Tyler Lee and printed by Celest Morris), paddler Sam Johnson suggested the team wear Dragon Age promotional “tattoo sleeves” on their paddling arms. (Many thanks to Jeanne-Marie Owens for providing these!) The sleeves sparked myriad questions from spectators and other teams alike, ranging from “So, you guys are video game designers – and you’re out here being… athletic?” to “What date is Dragon Age: Origins being released? I CAN’T WAIT!”

The team’s jade dragon trophy is now settled in the BioWare reception area awards display, a majestic companion to the white dragon from last year’s festival. The BioWarriors hope to bring home a third dragon in a new color from the 2010 festival next year!

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Karin Weekes is a Technical Editor and Jeff Vanelle is a Principle Lead Artist. Both are currently hard at work on Mass Effect 2.

BioWare finally visits Canada. Wait… what?

September 1, 2009

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Part 1 of 3, by Evil Chris Priestly

Doorway to Funland BioWare is a proudly Canadian company. Sure, we have a lot of international employees, but we were founded by Canadians in Edmonton Alberta and we remain very proud of being a Canadian game development studio. However, even though we are proud to be Canadian, we’ve never really had a presence at Canadian gaming events. Sure, we always attend E3 and lately we’ve been attending other international shows like GamesCom in Germany or PAX in Seattle (more on PAX later this week), but we’ve never really done much here in our home country. Well, all that changed this past weekend as the BioWare Community Team took Dragon Age Origins to Fan Expo Canada.

Huge CrowdsFan Expo takes place at the Metro Convention Center in Toronto Ontario and is sort of 4 smaller conventions all wrapped up into one big show. In past years, Toronto hosted a comic book show, one dedicated to horror, one on Sci-Fi and one on Anime. They realized that instead of having 4 small shows with only so-so attendance to each, they could combine and have one massive show that would pull in fans from all groups simultaneously. This year, they were hoping to have around 50,000 fans come out, but on Saturday the lines were SO huge, I think they will have easily beat that number this year.

So what goes on at Fan Expo? Well, as I said, it is a combination of Sci-Fi, comic books, anime and horror. There are the usual booths selling their back issue comics or gothic clothes or Pocky or whatever. There were a large number of celebrities attending, like Bruce Campbell, Roger Corman and Leonard Nemoy, signing autographs and taking pictures with fans. There were some big companies like DC Comics, Disney and Warner Brothers present showing off their upcoming projects. And there was a staggering amount of fans in costumes. Don’t get me wrong, there are always fans in costume at conventions, but I say that I saw more fans in costumes at Fan Expo than any other Con I have been to. I saw Leatherfaces chasing after Narutos and Squirrel Girl doing battle with Ghostbusters as a squad of Yeoman Brands watched. We even had a few “famous” characters come by the booth to try out Dragon Age: Origins, but sadly, their superpowers couldn’t prevail over the Darkspawn Blight.

Walloping Websnappers!

I should also call out one more very cool thing. There are always a number of artists at these cons. Sometimes they are famous artists working on comics, movies and TV, other times they are up and coming artists starting up their own projects. Now I have always said that of all the departments at BioWare I am always the most impressed by our artists. It may be because I like to think that I can write a bit and I also like to think that if I went back to school and applied myself, I could learn the basics of programming. However, I know for a fact that I cannot “art”. I have tried to “art” even taking a course at college (where my Prof suggested I transfer to drama), so I am always in awe of the talent that we have at BioWare. Well, this year at Fan Expo, a few BioWare staffers and friends have started up The Anthology Project. If you are looking for the “delirious pursuit of compelling narrative and notable artistic work in the medium of sequential art”, you should really check it out.

The Anthology Project

Well, we have wrapped up another successful convention. We had a great time this year at Fan Expo and I hope to return again next year. Why? Well, because it was a heck of a good time and, frankly, because Canada rocks. This week is the start of our last official Community Convention of the summer as we head to Seattle Washington for PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo. Keep track of us on Twitter at biofeed and check out our convention pictures on the Community Flickr account here: Flickr

BioWare at Koln Gamescom wrap up. Danke Schon und Auf Wiedersehen

August 28, 2009

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Part 1 of 1, by Evil Chris Priestly

There are few gamers (as a culture) more hardcore for role playing than the German gamers. Gamescom Entrance I know I’ll here a “but me and my friends are hardcore” from someone in Canada or Australia or wherever, but in truth, I do not think that as a country there are gamers more interested in RPGs than Germany (although Poland comes pretty close). Don’t get me wrong, North America will always sell more games, but that is in part due to the size of the US and Canada added together. We know we have a great deal of hardcore fans waiting for more BioWare RPGs in Germany, so I was very pleased to learn that we would be heading back to Germany this summer to attend the Koln Games Convention.

As Jay said in his blog entry Koln, or Cologne, Germany hosts a huge event where fans from all around Europe come to learn about their favorite upcoming titles. BioWare had a presence in 4 separate areas of the convention. We were in the EA Business lounge where Ray Muzyka was doing interviews and both Dragon Age: origins and Mass Effect 2 were being shown BCD (Behind Closed Doors) to the European press. We also had 2 huge rooms as part of the EA area on the show floor, one for Dragon Age: origins and one for Mass effect 2. And finally, we had been invited by the EA Germany team to show off both DAO and ME2 in the Community Lounge, which was in a separate part of the complex from the others. As Jay alluded in his blog, we had a little trouble finding the Community room. Despite being given clear instructions, we took a short cut and became hopelessly lost in a deserted kitchen that felt like a scene out of a horror movie. We expected a knife wielding maniac in a leather apron to leap out of an abandoned meat cooler and try to make schnitzel out of us.
Evil Chris, Tony and Jay lost in a haunted Kitchen 2
After scampering out of there with many a backwards glance, we called for assistance and were rescued by the German Community Manager who was stunned by our ability to not follow a simple map.

Both Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age: Origins were a huge hit at Gamescom. This couple met through the BG2 forums and are still together. Awww. To be honest, I think the Dragon Age line was slightly longer than the Mass Effect line, but both lines were huge. For the entire conference, they had almost 300,000 people attend with over 100,000 on Saturday alone. The place was absolutely packed and there was barely any room to swing an inflatable sword or throw out a free t-shirt. The lines were amazing with some folks waiting up to 4 hours for a chance to get their hands on with their favorite games. When we would discover a hardcore BioWare fan, they would get invited up to the Community Lounge so they could have extra time with Dragon Age or Mass effect 2 as well as ask questions to us directly. We had a great time meeting fans from Germany, Holland, the UK, France, and many more countries. We even met up with a couple who, in their opinion, owed their lives to BioWare. He was a web designer who worked on the German BG2 site. He met her on the BG2 message boards and they are still together and still big BioWare fans. I may have to change my job title to “cupid”.

When we weren’t at the Con itself we were having a great time exploring Koln. If you have not had the chance, I really recommend coming to Germany. Jay does not like beer The people are friendly and very understanding of our lack of German language (I took a class in junior high almost 25 years ago and had to act as really bad translator). There is a lot to see and do here from walking along the Rhine River, beer, plenty of museums and art galleries, beer, great shopping, beer, really good food and beer. Did I mention that there is beer? I know there are other beverages, but we spent a lot of our time researching this ‘beer” thing. We even accidentally spent an evening at one of Koln’s gay establishments where we were warmly included in the singing and drinking by the friendly locals. We had a great time. The only drawback at all was Jay “I’ll drink it if it has fruit and umbrellas in it” Watamaniuk who doesn’t like beer.

Likely the most impressive thing in Koln is The Dom Cathedral. This massive structure is over 1000 years old and is incredible to be seen and explored. The church welcomes visitors and allows pictures and tours except during mass. Even though I am not of any faith, I found it very interesting to walk among the icons and architecture and really get a feel for the building. Something that we found especially neat was the Dom at night. There are lights on the nearby buildings that shine out and illuminate the cathedral. These lights also bring out a breed of birds who swoop around eating all of the bugs that the lights attract. In a rather cool Dragon Age cross over, these birds are referred to as the “lightspawn” by the locals. Upon hearing this, Lead Designer Mike Laidlaw began to work the idea into Dragon Age 2.

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So BioWare had a great time at Koln Gamescom. Both our games showed great, the fans really loved getting their hands on the games early and we all had a great deal of fun. Will we be back next year? I sure hope so. We will have shipped Dragon Age: Origins and Mass Effect 2 by next summer, but there is always DLC and a few secret projects up our sleeves. So BioWare fans, Danke Schon for your hospitality this year and keep your eyes out for us again next year.

Now it is on to Toronto for Fan Expo Canada. Keep track of us on Twitter at biofeed and check out our convention pictures on the Community Flickr account here: Flickr