Everything we know about Anthem

Jun 21, 2018 2:59:42 GMT PapaCharlie9 said:

Nuggets from the Game Informer storytelling interview video.

www.gameinformer.com/2018/06/19/the-specifics-on-how-storytelling-works-in-biowares-anthem

2:14 - (paraphrased)

Q: Cyphers/NPCs are influenced by your SP choices, but when playing in the shared world with friends (a mission), will your team hear/get the same reactions from the same NPCs, even if their SP choices were different?

A: No, each player gets customized NPC reactions to their SP choices, even in the shared world. So a reaction player A gets from an NPC might be hostile, but player B gets friendly, in that mission. "The mission is the same structure, but the flavoring around it will be different based on the choices that you made." -- Mike Gamble

Later on Mark Darrah confirms that "radio chatter" may differ for different players in the same moment of the same mission.

3:47 - (paraphrased)

Q: Is it basically impossible to spoil the story for your friends during a mission, because so much of the story juice is back in Tarsis?

A: "Yeah, that's exactly right." -- Mark Darrah


Side note: Mark Darrah said that in other Bioware games, people tended not to share their story experiences with friends because it's personal and they don't want to spoil? BSN must not have gotten the memo! I'm pretty sure I posted about every funny thing Sera did in DAI when it happened.

a minuuuuute!

Does this then mean that missions themselves will be TOTALLY UNAFFECTED by your story choices?

So doesn't that mean that there will be no choices with the gravity the likes of: One player chose to kill this enemy or let that enemy live, and that enemy then features in a future mission? or doesn't appear in a future miision? Or would they do something á la urdnot wreav? If one player killed that particular story adversary, and the other let him live, then a future mission will be the same difficulty enemy, but one player sees him as wrex, and the other as wreav?

That would basically mean that no decisions affect gameplay in any way. Only story. Correct?

I... don't know how to feel about that. I get it on one hand, and if they wrap the story around the mission well enough, this could definitely not matter. But on the other hand, you the gravity of your decisions IS effectively only emotional, story-bound and never has any effect on how different your gameplay is. This could tick off the ol' school fanbase. But then, they're probably already shouting that they won't play this, so that won't matter much maybe?

Jun 21, 2018 15:47:28 GMT PapaCharlie9 said:

Personally, I got more out of the relationships and emotional changes from decisions than the world changing, "chosen one", stuff. Which usually was on rails and my choices didn't really matter anyway. Red/Green/Blue, right? So I'm not too surprised or worried about this design.

Thanks for the clarifications, daddy.

I also enjoy a well-written on rails story more than the madatory clusterf*ck of cause and consequency at a players hand that e.g. the latest ME/DA games have become. Choice has become a little overrated.

Also, they said to no longer have 6 dialogue choices per scene or whatever. That's good. You rarely need more than 2. There's agreeing or disagreeing with what's going on, and sacrificing selecting between 6 options every 10 seconds in a dialogue so that the scene can be more focused and well-directed is an improvement (imo). I understand that the loss of these choices pisses role play people off, though. Can't please everyone.