by Author -BioWare Community TeamPosted onApril 16, 2020
Each year, we are amazed by the incredible pieces of BioWare-inspired artwork from artists in our community. In the spirit of sharing beautiful artwork with the world right now, here are a few pieces that were created last summer on the show floor of 2019 San Diego Comic-Con. BioWare was excited to participate in the fun at the Dark Horse booth and, with San Diego Comic-Con being a creative hub, we were especially excited to feature five amazing artists who created original works based on characters in Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Anthem. As the artists created, booth visitors could watch the works in progress and chat with the artists in person. It was fascinating and educational to get the artists’ thoughts and perspectives as they brought characters and stories to life throughout the weekend.
Thanks to the incredible talent of the artists and on behalf of this artwork, a $10,000 donation was made to the Canadian Red Cross’ Australia Wildfire Relief Fund in early February, 2020! These unique and beautiful pieces are now a wonderful addition to BioWare Edmonton’s new downtown office space.
Casey Hudson @caseydhudson Just wrapped up a BioWare All-Hands meeting. Over 300 people on a video conference. Reviewed truly incredible work done by all of our teams - much of it done over the last month of work-from-home. So proud to work with these amazing people!
Michael Gamble @gamblemike This was so fun. Presenting into the void is always a bit odd, but wearing no pants made it easier.
JP Karliak @jpkarliak Visit @nerdsvote on Instagram Live today at 2pm PST (5pm EST) for our first weekly show “Between Two Nerds” with me and @courtenaytaylor! This week’s special guest is @blumspew! We’ll kibitz, answer fan questions, and talk voting from home. 👓🇺🇸
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard Prime Posts: 3,912 Prime Likes: 9733 Posts: 2,894 Likes: 12,961
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard
BioWare @bioware "Have made impact on galaxy. Genophage modification, Genophage cure, work against Collectors. Decisions, mistakes. Might go somewhere sunny." #BioWare25 🎨 @charlestan
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard Posts: 12,998 Likes: 21,032
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Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition, Dragon Age The Veilguard
BioWare @bioware "Have made impact on galaxy. Genophage modification, Genophage cure, work against Collectors. Decisions, mistakes. Might go somewhere sunny." #BioWare25 🎨 @charlestan
BioWare @bioware "Have made impact on galaxy. Genophage modification, Genophage cure, work against Collectors. Decisions, mistakes. Might go somewhere sunny." #BioWare25 🎨 @charlestan
Elizabeth Nancy Shepard - Earthborn/soldier/ruthless Humanity #1 I'm Commander Shepard, and this is my favorite playthrough in ME Carolina Panthers(3-8) vs Tampa Bay Buccaneers(5-6) Dec 1 405PM FOX #13Alabama Crimson Tide(8-3) vs Auburn Tigers(5-6)Nov 30 330PM ABC If you see a soldier or veteran, shake their hand and thank them for their service
Courtenay Taylor 💋 @courtenaytaylor Wheeeeeee look who our guest is tomorrow! (Today!) The one, the only! @jhaletweets JENNIFER HALE 💗 • • • • • masseffect #n7 #femshep #voiceacting #actor #bossbabe
BioWare @bioware Hope drives us to our future and strengthens our bonds along the way. Enjoy the next song in our Mass Effect music series. #MassRelays
Dark Horse Comics @darkhorsecomics At SDCC2019, we partnered with @bioware on a live drawing stage at our booth. Art by @cattifer @benjamindewey @toddnauck @phillipsevy @tonyparkerart resulted in a $10,000 donation to the Canadian Red Cross’ Australia Wildfire Relief Fund earlier this year! bit.ly/2KnSXPi
Electronic Arts #stayandplay @ea EA Play Live goes digital in 2020! See you on June 11th at 4pm PST... World premieres, news and more! www.ea.com/eaplay
Hrungr Everytime I see a notification "hrungr has posted in ME Twitter thread" my hopes go up only to be mostly crushed (as it hasn't been a new Mass Effect game announcement ) I really hope it will change within the near future. Thanks for your long standing service to this community!
Hrungr Everytime I see a notification "hrungr has posted in ME Twitter thread" my hopes go up only to be mostly crushed (as it hasn't been a new Mass Effect game announcement ) I really hope it will change within the near future. Thanks for your long standing service to this community!
Thanks!
Well, it might not be much of a consolation now, but at least we know something is in the works.
Hopefully we'll get an update on what's going on at BW at EAPlay.
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR, Anthem, Mass Effect Legendary Edition
Hrungr Everytime I see a notification "hrungr has posted in ME Twitter thread" my hopes go up only to be mostly crushed (as it hasn't been a new Mass Effect game announcement ) I really hope it will change within the near future. Thanks for your long standing service to this community!
Thanks!
Well, it might not be much of a consolation now, but at least we know something is in the works.
Hopefully we'll get an update on what's going on at BW at EAPlay.
Yeah it would be nice to have at least a sign something is in the works from Casey or someone else.
Bioware announced on their blog today that around 30 people at Austin are involved in the Anthem 2.0 project. They're still in the concept or whatever phase, whereas I thought they'd be already all in with most of their staff.
So is Bioware Edmonton working on the next Dragon Age only or maybe also on Mass Effect (Remaster, if not outsourced or even a brand new game)?
Bioware announced on their blog today that around 30 people at Austin are involved in the Anthem 2.0 project. They're still in the concept or whatever phase, whereas I thought they'd be already all in with most of their staff.
So is Bioware Edmonton working on the next Dragon Age only or maybe also on Mass Effect (Remaster, if not outsourced or even a brand new game)?
I honestly thought Anthem 2.0 would be further along now, but seeing as it's just a small team now in Austin, I wonder what their timetable even is anymore.
Dragon Age should be a ~Fall 2022 (or possibly later, depending on delays), so I wonder when they're planning to slot Anthem in. Earlier? Later?
I had also assumed a MET remaster would've been outsourced, if both DA and Anthem had large teams going. But now I have to wonder if they might have been able to manage that in-house.
We're going to need another Dev Diary here BW - stat!
The next ME would undoubtedly only be in the early concept/prototyping phase. It wouldn't be able to really ramp up until DA4 was done.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Writers talking about paraphrases and icons in conversation wheels, and I brought up one I did due to outside constraints that I KNEW was not great.
@sherylchee : Oh, I remembered that paraphrase. Very awkward.
YES I KNOW IT WAS BAD, WE ARE ALL ON THE SAME PAGE IN RE BADNESS
I have many strengths.
I am DECIDEDLY MEH at paraphrases. Not the worst person in the company, not particularly near the top.
Sheryl Chee (Chaotic Reclusive) @sherylchee Are you sure you know? Maybe I need to submit a write-up about why I thought it was bad, just to make sure my opinion is heard.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes I specifically said, "It gets called out as bad in every Twitchstream I have seen where someone plays that moment," Sheryl.
Since a couple of people have asked, who is interested in a How That Bad Paraphrase Happened story?
Late 2009. I'm on Mass Effect 2. Given that we're only a few months from ship, Mass Effect 2 is also on me.
I'm one of a few writers left on the project, tackling bugs.
Thane is talking about how his wife died. He's never told anyone. A Shepard who wants to romance Thane tells him she's there for Thane to lean on, whatever he needs.
Original paraphase was something like, "I'm here for you."
The writer (Chris L'Etoile) did an amazing job.
But players who wanted to romance Thane didn't understand that this dialogue choice was their one and only chance to get onto a romance path with him.
And players who DIDN'T want to romance Thane didn't like stumbling onto it by accident.
2009 Me: So I have no heart icon, I can't change the dialogue at all. Literally I can do is change the paraphrase, and I have to change it so nobody has any doubt about what this line indicates.
2009 Me: Nailed it.
Did 2009 Me think this was a good paraphrase? WOW NO!
Was it the best 2009 Me could come up with to be 100% clear, with no other changes available and paraphrases limited to 30 characters?
APPARENTLY YES!
Every time I see this play on Twitch, the player makes fun of the paraphrase. "Subtle, Shepard!" And they are totally right! I wish we'd caught this earlier, so I could've changed the lines or done SOMETHING less clunky than this.
But this is what last-minute fixes look like.
Again, no great moral here, except that I'm glad we have better tools now -- icons to indicate you're flirting, hover text to make it clear that you're entering a relationship, that kind of thing.
And also that changing context by only changing paraphrases is real clunky.
Jo Berry @joanna_Berry At the best of times, paraphrases can be fricking HARD. You have 30 characters to give an accurate idea of what the character's going to say, in both tone and content; it's bad form to repeat words from the line; and both paraphrase and line have to feel like a complete thought.
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes They are such a pain to do, and like many invisible parts of game design, the only time people actually notice them is when you do them badly.
Mitch Dyer @mitchyd What would You, 2020 change this paraphrase to now?
Patrick Weekes @patrickweekes Great question. Assuming no new tech solutions, just changing perspective/skill as writer, I would have gone with:
"You matter to me, Thane."
ALMOST as clear, but less of a clunk in transition from talking about dead wife to talking about romance.
"You matter to me, Thane." < 30 characters, about as clear, and much cleaner as a topic transition. (To be fair, 2009 me erred on clarity because it was filed as a bug.)
Who from the MET is still/again at Bioware (potentially working on Mass Effect) what were/are their roles and what are their twitter handles?
Example: Casey Hudson, Patrick Weekes, Mike Gamble?
Just the 3 off the top of my head. Some of the previous devs on ME are on Anthem and DA now. But it's super-early, so I would expect people will move around as it ramps up. Patrick ofc is now the Lead Writer on DA, so I don't expect he'll be on ME again.
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