BioWare Blog

Part 2 of 2, by Cori Nicole May

I’ve made cutscenes, too. I discovered, in so doing, that I also have a terrible cinematic eye, and dramatic effect is not my forte. Fortunately, by some grace, in the meantime an entire department of cinematic designers has been created, and no one will ever be forced to watch my amateurish efforts again. I marvel at those who can do it, though; I love playing through the game and seeing the new cutscenes and staging that have been put in, the close-ups and pull-backs for special effects. I try to remember to tell the cinematics people how wonderful their work is, because I know how mediocre my previous attempts had been, in comparison. And the level artist and character artists too, for that matter. I just hope that makes up for the many times I have to go and whine about bugs and different interpretations of how something should look.

I occasionally get to have some input into voice acting as well, even if my pleas to have Russell Wong in the game fell on deaf ears. Well, ears who couldn’t afford Russell Wong, at any rate. And some times I pay for that. It took me a few weeks, but I eventually began to realize that my officemate was actually turning up the volume on his computer whenever Nathan Fillion was speaking, just to watch me swoon all over again. (Yes, I was the only female technical designer for a very long time. Yes, this did occasionally result in hijinx of this sort. But it also meant I got to read the Dragon Age novel before almost anyone else, as Mr. Gaider wanted to know if it was swoon-worthy.)

Swooning is my forte, actually. We have a particular voice actor on Dragon Age, whom I suppose must go unnamed, who makes me melt every time. Even though the character is a crazy psychopath who kidnaps you and all your friends in an attempt to… well, I won’t go on. This is a PG blog, after all, and Dragon Age is a mature game.

“Oh V******, take me, don’t take the others,” I’ll plead with the computer, “let it be just you and me.”

And he never does. This is my tragedy. I do, however, save his life at the end, just in hopes that some day we can live together forever and ever. Somehow this never happens, either. But in my version of the game, it does.

I script a lot of followers, too; romance followers are the best. Because then you get to scream at the computer, “Why won’t you have sex with me!” when a particular line refuses to show up in game. (One can get a little wiggy during the late-night hours.) And then everyone stares. I once found a bug in follower code, only through my determination to watch the sex scenes one night. Another evening, I found a similar bug, just because I wanted to make a … Um, maybe I shouldn’t talk about that? This is a PG blog, after all. I certainly shouldn’t talk about the … Nope, not going to talk about it. Have I mentioned that Dragon Age is the best game ever?

But the best part of being a technical designer is getting to watch all the pieces come together, into the amazing, beautiful final creature it comes to be. From blank walls and T-poses, you get gorgeous, soaring worlds and creatures both lovely and grotesque (just wait ‘til you get slimed by the B*********, blech), and a story that will make you weep and laugh, and weep until you laugh. I wouldn’t trade my job for anyone’s in the world.

Except occasionally a florist, on those days when the tools won’t run, or the build is broken, or you’re on your 80th hour of work that week and it’s 1 am on a Friday night, and you have no clean clothes, a filthy house and an empty fridge. But mostly, it’s the best job anyone could ever have.

Try it some day. You’ll like it.

Cori Nicole May sometimes feels barely qualified for the work she loves to do, but they keep letting her do it anyways. Perhaps because she goes ‘squee’ a lot, and the only videogames she likes to play anymore are Bioware’s. Also, they had to make a special cheat code on KOTOR, just for her, so she could get through the space fighting part, and she had to get a friend to come over to kill thresher maws in Mass Effect. In what remains of her spare time, she plays Dragon Age, just because she can.

Part 1 of 2, by Cori Nicole May

For one, it’s nearly impossible to explain to people outside the business, including my friends and family, what it is exactly that I do. When I say ‘I make video-games’, I mean that quite literally, but no one seems to believe me.

“But what do you do?” they will inevitably ask.
“I’m a level designer.”
“So you’re an artist?’
*deep sigh* “No, I’m a technical designer – we take the writer’s story and implement it, using the art and programming code. So, in short, I make video games.”
“Oh,” they’ll usually say, pretending they understand. “So it’s like programming?”
Defeated, I’ll say, “Yeah, it’s like that.” (Sorry, programmers; I don’t mean to claim your title because providence knows I don’t deserve it, but there’s no other way.)

There are other trials – the tools not working or slow, the builds that break everything, the oxen that refuse, no matter what you do, to walk across the damnable swamp. (It turned out – EVENTUALLY – that the particular ox in question did not actually HAVE the walking animation I was trying to script. But how’s a poor girl to know that oxen only walk in a particular manner? No trotting for oxen, it seems.)

But the real joy of my job is that, if I wait long enough, I get to do everything, at least a little bit. Level designers are at the hub of every part of the game, and thus they get feedback on all those parts, and sometimes even get to dig in and get their hands dirty in them.

Don’t like the way a particular character looks? Back in the old days, it was just a matter of pleading with an artist until they changed it. (When I tried to get C**** to be a little prettier, the artist looked so hurt I thought perhaps he’d modeled the character on himself). But now, I can go in and make my own head to show them what I was thinking of. Sometimes they’ll even accept it! (And then make it much, much better. It has become very clear that while I may have far-too pronounced opinions on art, I sure am not an artist.) And I swear, I did not go in and change any heads when the last call for lockdown came in, not even to fix a certain henchman’s skin problems. Honest. But I was very, very tempted. I love creating the way a creature looks, actually; head passes and clothing passes are very fun, changing little things here and there just to achieve a certain nuance. It’s probably lost on most people, but I know it’s there, and I can point it out to my friends later.

I’ve also made areas – infinite areas, actually, as the dungeons in Infinite Dungeons were under my purview. By the end of my time on ID, I knew every tile in Neverwinter Nights in painfully intimate detail. And I had completely forgotten how to script. Thankfully, it comes back quickly.

One of the pitfalls of this job, and I fall into it every time, is that occasionally you get giant tasks that have nothing to do with scripting – treasure passes, head passes, clothing passes, encounter passes – and by the end of it you’re trying to remember how ‘if’ statements work. And then there’s the end-run before release, where only a chosen few are even allowed access to the toolset, and all you can do is playtest for weeks on end, sending bugs and, if you’re lucky, finding bugs that only you can fix. Actually, that’s a lot of fun – you get to play with the near-completed version of the game. I think I played Jade Empire more than anyone who wasn’t QA.

(Apparently I’ve talked too long already. Stay tuned next week for the juicy finale.)

Cori Nicole May sometimes feels barely qualified for the work she loves to do, but they keep letting her do it anyways. Perhaps because she goes ‘squee’ a lot, and the only videogames she likes to play anymore are BioWare’s. Also, they had to make a special cheat code on KOTOR, just for her, so she could get through the space fighting part, and she had to get a friend to come over to kill thresher maws in Mass Effect. In what remains of her spare time, she plays Dragon Age, just because she can.