Equipping Your Squad

Posted on January 15, 2010 by bioware_community

by Christina Norman

With up to 10 squad members, equipping your team in Mass Effect 2 could have been a daunting task. To make this task manageable we’ve made two inventory advancements: squad inventory, and auto-upgrades.

Squad Inventory
Whenever Shepard finds an upgraded weapon he scans it with his omni-tool, uploading detailed data to his ship. Using that data, this ship’s armory can replicate the weapon, making it available to any squad member trained to use that weapon type. For example, if you find a superior shotgun, your armory will fabricate copies, making that shotgun model available to any squad member with shotgun training. This gets rid of tedious inventory management tasks, like unequipping and transferring items between squad members.

Auto-Upgrades
Squad members will automatically start using upgraded weapons when they become available. Combined with squad based inventory, this makes managing your squad’s loadout very easy.

Let’s say you find an upgraded sniper rifle. You scan it and upload the data to your ship’s armory. The armory immediately starts fabricating copies. Thane, back on your ship, grabs one from the armory and starts using it. All this is accomplished without any manual inventory management.

Customizing Your Team’s Loadout
You can customize your team’s loadout. At the start of every mission you’ll be given a chance to set weapons for your squad. At this point you can override any choices the auto-upgrade system has made. This is also your chance to customize Shepard’s weapons, including his heavy weapon.

Unique Weapons
While most weapons are shared, some are so advanced or so personalized to an individual that they can’t be easily replicated or transferred. These unique weapons will automatically be received by a specific squad member. This approach helps differentiate your squad members, and creates opportunities for individual progression. Since these weapons are tied to a specific squad member, they work with our auto- upgrade system. Your squad member will start using their new weapon immediately once you obtain it.

This is the second in a series of blog posts by Lead Gameplay Designer Christina Norman on the RPG systems of Mass Effect 2.

Enemy Defenses in Mass Effect 2

Posted on January 6, 2010 by bioware_community

by Christina Norman

One area we wanted to improve in Mass Effect 2 was enemy power resists. In ME1 enemies would sometimes resist your powers, but it wasn’t clear when they would, or why. More importantly, if your enemy was resisting your powers, there was nothing you could do about it.

For Mass Effect 2 we’ve combined enemy resists with defensive shields, armor, and barriers. These defenses are displayed in a bar over the enemy’s health bar. As long as the bar is visible, your target is resistant to powers, but all powers deplete his defense bar. Once the defense bar is gone, he is vulnerable to all your powers. Only powerful enemies have a defense bar, weaker enemies are always vulnerable.

Shields: The most common enemy defense is the kinetic barrier, or shield. Shields are effective at blocking most powers, but are vulnerable to rapid-fire weapons like submachine guns and assault rifles. Shotguns are also effective as they launch many projectiles with each blast. The best way of getting rid of shields is using disruptor ammo, or the engineer’s overload power.

Armor: While most enemies will wear light tactical armor, only enemies wearing the heaviest or most technologically advanced armor will have an armor defense. Armor is effective at blocking most powers, but is vulnerable to hard-hitting weapons like sniper rifles and heavy pistols. The best way of breaking through enemy armor is using incendiary ammo, incinerate, or warp.

Barrier: Only biotic enemies like vanguards can generate defensive biotic barriers. Like shields, barriers block most powers, but are vulnerable to rapid-fire weapons. The best way of getting rid of a defensive barrier is the warp power, but the soldier’s concussive shot is also quite effective.

Defenses add significant tactical depth to combat. While weaker enemies can be defeated with powers alone, strong enemies require teamwork to drop their defenses so they can be finished with powers. This adds depth to character progression for you and your squad: It’s important to invest in both finishing-move powers like throw and cryo-freeze, and defense-killers like warp and overload.

Christina Norman is the Lead Gameplay Designer for Mass Effect 2. This is the first in a series of blog posts Christina on the RPG systems of Mass Effect 2.

Preview the Dark Horse Mass Effect comic

Posted on October 15, 2009 by bioware_community

by Evil Chris Priestly

I am a huge comic book nerd. I have been collecting comics for the past 27 years and have a basement full of long boxes and shelves full of issues I still need to put in bags with boards.Taking up a lot of space in my collection are comics from Dark Horse. Even if you haven’t heard of Dark Horse, I bet you know some of their titles. Those cool Hellboy movies? Based on a Dark Horse comic. Did you watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer? That is now a Dark Horse comic. If you like Aliens, Star Wars, Conan the Barbarian or a TON of other great comics from some of the most talented artists and writers in the industry today they are a part of Dark Horse.

So, as a comic nerd, I was super excited to learn that BioWare would be making a Mass Effect comic book with the excellent people at Dark Horse. Mac Walters, the Lead Writer for Mass Effect2, has taken on the task of also writing the comic. Along with Mac are Artist Omar Francia, Colorist Michael Atiyeh, Scripter John Jackson Miller and Cover Artist: Daryl Mandryk. Together, they are doing some amazing work that I know people who are fans of Mass Effect, or just fans of a great comic will absolutely love.The story (exclusive to these comics) will have the commander’s companion Dr. Liara T’Soni undertake a deadly mission of extraordinary importance in the Milky Way’s lawless Terminus Systems.

As a special treat, the fine folks at Dark Horse have given us a sneak peak at the first 7 pages of issue 1 of the Mass Effect comic. Check out the amazing art and get your first taste of the story that will be the Dark Horse Mass Effect comic.

The Mass Effect comic from Dark Horse will be available January 6 at comic shops near you. Check with your favorite local store and make sure you pick up your copies of Mass Effect.

Mass Effect 2: Diary of New Guy, p2

Posted on September 25, 2009 by bioware_community

Part 2 of 2, by Jay Watamaniuk

“Shake them like Christmas elves until the missing string references fall out”.

And thus, my final day of my first week began. Every morning we have a quick stand up meeting for the design folks working on Mass Effect 2. We assemble in a big meeting room and go around summarizing, in about three words, what we are working on for the day so the Lead Designer gets an overview of what is going on with the team in detail. Once we have gone around the room, he gives some announcements to the entire team or deals with critical issues. When he is done, we scamper back to our offices and begin tapping on our keyboards.

I have spent my first week chiefly doing four things:

1. Trying to get a handle on all the new software on my computer that involved filing bugs, document security and game engine-related things used by developers. This also included the game itself which is more interesting by far then the the other stuff

2. Giving feedback on my first playthrough of Mass Effect 2. Things like loading screen hints, journal entries and general gameplay. This feedback is valuable because it is impossible to reproduce initial impressions from people that been working on the game for years

3. Wrangling something called ‘string reference numbers’ which didn’t involve colored yarn but are codes that are associated with every piece of text in the game. There are many, they hide and come from nearly all disciplines working on the game

4. Working on the wording of the achievement list

Working on a project right at the very end has its advantages for the new guy. I’m not really expected to know much about what is going on and everyone else has been doing this for years and can answer just about every question with absolute certainly. This disadvantage of coming in at the very end is people spend a lot of time running screaming down the hallway only pausing long enough to be set on fire. This leaves little time for showing the new guy the ropes.

I’ve been here a week and it’s overwhelmingly been about the mechanics of getting writing into the game more than the writing itself. I have a clearer understanding that there is a huge technical side of being a writer at a video game company; certainly far more then one would expect. I see no writers with giant quill pens, and sheets of parchment, breathing through a perfumed handkerchief, reclining on overstuffed chairs, while servants bring peeled grapes, and shade them with palm fronds. I’m O.K. with that because that image is pretty creepy in any case.

I hope the technical stuff can be learned so well it effectively disappears from view. I know I have a lot of learn about writing itself from the veterans here and would rather have anything obscuring my view of that goal removed while I still have the luxury of being an amateur. I suspect it will be a few months of a steep learning curve on technical stuff followed by a few rather nerve-wracking months of…y’know…writing.

I will be sure to record my thoughts along the way if you’re interested in reading how it all turns out. But if you’ll excuse me, I have to see a guy about some delinquent elves.

Mass Effect 2: Diary of the New Guy

Posted on September 23, 2009 by bioware_community

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.