Schmooples' Den! The DA News Discussion Thread

Damn, that's sad. For the staff, first and foremost. I was also looking forward to playing another Casey Hudson scifi game.

While this is sad, the new Mass Effect type game from ex Bioware devs that looks like it will take off is Exodus. It boasts Ohlen, ex founding dev and designer of Bioware (BG games, DAO, KOTOR etc etc), Drew Karypshyn, great ex writer from Bioware and legendary science fiction writer Peter Hamilton to not only help with the writing but will be writing a book based off the game. Games get cancelled all the time and we never really saw too much of Casey's work. Exodus though looks amazing



EDIT: Founding dev not founder

Another thing Bio copied, eh?

David Gaider @davidgaider.bsky.social
CHARACTERS - Day Seven: Shale

Oops! I realized I'd moved on from DAO but missed one of the companions I'd written. Which checks out, honestly, because I almost didn't write Shale and, even after I'd written her, she almost didn't happen anyhow. Then she did. Prepare yourself for... PIGEON QUEST. 🦤

So... I'm wracking my brain, but I don't recall how Shale began. I have this vague memory of us wanting a "weird" party member who didn't conform to the normal classes (this was back when Dog didn't need to be in the party), and I think my mind drifted to an old indie comic character named Concrete.

Now, your reaction to that is probably "who?" That's OK. When I explain that HK-47 in KotOR was inspired by an old Canadian TV show called the Littlest Hobo I get the same perplexed response. 😅

In short: Concrete was just a regular dude. Who happened to also be a walking hulk of rock. Cue hi-jinx.

The problem here is I don't remember whether the Concrete thing was part of the original inspiration or something I thought of at the point when I started writing the character.

Because I didn't, at first. That was later. Shale was initially taken on by Jay Turner, then one of our junior writers.

Jay had an idea to make Shale more of a robot, an emotionless automoton killer... think HK-47, but without the layer of sarcasm. I was leery, and told Jay he'd have to be very careful. "Emotionless" can very quickly turn into "boring", after all, unless you're VERY careful. But Jay was determined.

Sigh. This was a fail on my part, as his lead. There's been a couple of times in my career when I've let a junior convince me with their enthusiasm to take on something my experience said they shouldn't. And then watch their confidence crumble despite every effort I made to reassure them it was OK.

This was one of those times. Jay, no idea if you'll read this but: I'm sorry. Even an experienced writer would have found that a daunting challenge.

Tonia, my other Big Fail on a similar situation in DAI: I'm sorry.

Both times, I should have known. You did your best, but I set you up to fail. 😔

Jay did his best, and this version of Shale was certainly interesting... but, when he was done, it was one of those peer reviews where every writer had that look of "I'm REALLY sorry to say this..."

It felt flat. Jay tried numerous revisions, but the issue wasn't his ability - it was the concept.

I only allowed my writers a certain number of tries before I take it away. This hearkens back to an earlier time at Bio when writers would hack away at something that wasn't working 6, 7, 8 times or more until finally their soul was dust. Mike Laidlaw can attest. Revision isn't always the answer.

So I moved (a much relieved, I think) Jay onto something else, and the question arose: what do we do with Shale? Do we cut it? It was already very late.

Then Shale dropped in my lap. I don't remember if it was me refusing to let it go or maybe Brent (Knowles, Creative Director) giving it to me.

I suspect it was the latter, because I recall being a bit bitter about the whole thing. WHAT am I going to do with this character? At the time, they'd moved me out of the writers pit to instead be in a big office with the other leads. I had this corner desk by a window (yay) with an awful view (ugh)

What was so awful about it? It looked out onto the neighbouring roof, where there was only an HVAC unit to see. In the winter, pigeons would gather around it. They pooped all over everything - there was this alcove around the access door, right? The pigeons roosted there and it was POOP FAUCET city.

Not only that, the pigeons used the HVAC like some kind of sex den. Angry, ugly pigeon sex. The only respite was when a hawk would appear and the pigeons scattered. Then I'd get maybe a day when there was a single pigeon corpse, like an exploded ball of down, to act as a scarecrow. Good days, those.

What does any of this have to do with Shale?

Well, there's me, staring out the window trying desperately to think what I'm going to do. But I CAN'T stare out the window because, gross. But what else am I going to stare at while I think? It was making me furious. I hated those pigeons SO SO MUCH.

And then it hit me: Shale is basically an animated statue, right? Something that pigeons are rather notorious for also gathering on?

And so I wrote. I wrote like the angry, angry wind. I had zero time to do this so it was basically me vomiting all my annoyance at everything into a single character.

Not that it helped much. There was a battle going on over Shale - first, as I recall, it was the art team. They were going to make every doorway in the game EXTRA HUGE because they were worried that Shale was too large and might clip. So, yes, let's alter the whole world to fix that. Good idea. 🙃

Eventually, they compromised by making Shale smaller. Sten-sized. Or Brent went Akira mode, but I don't really know. This was a battle happening above my level.

Yet Shale got cut anyhow. There wasn't time to do her abilities and we were short on cinematics time. There was never enough time on DAO.

"Oh well," I thought. "That's that." I did what I could, but cut content is almost never resurrected. The idea was floated of making Shale into a DLC but I scoffed. Yeah, right!

But... it happened. That's why the "almost" is there. Enough of the team liked Shale they made it happen this one time.

This meant I could finish up the writing once we'd more or less wrapped DAO, and the rest of the team (cinematics, in particular, who were pressed the hardest for time) could move onto the Shale DLC once they were ready.

It was supposed to come out well after release, but you know. Shenanigans.

This particular shenanigan was EA deciding to sit on the finished DAO a few months in order to delay the release. Why? Again, not my level. To get closer to Christmas, maybe, or maybe for sim ship.

It did mean Shale ended up being ready for release day. Unexpected confluence of events, honestly.

Cue some fans getting upset that "cut content" was sold to them separately, which... fair, I guess? The alternative would have been that Shale was simply cut, period, and it just worked out this way but... yes, fair. This was back when DLC was the main beef of hardcore gamers. Oh, the good old days.
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Overall? I have a soft spot for Shale. She has no soft spot for anyone, being... you know... made of rock. It's why I put her in Asunder, and why she was also going to be in the - apparently now notorious for its Fenris murder - cancelled fourth DA novel.

Also, if you're a pigeon fan: not sorry. 😇