Is it about the story or is it about the characters?

It's about the characters first and foremost. There is a reason ME3's ending caught so much flak... and it really isn't because the story went off the rails for 10 minutes, but because you spend three games building the character relationships and you got 10 minutes of "that didn't matter, make this arbitrary choice, and we won't tell you shit about what happened to the characters in the long term".

The reason Bioware games are so beloved is because they provided an experience that almost no other game had... and really most games still don't give: you get to react and grow and build relationships with characters. It's the selling point for their games.

I think it's just hard to contextualize for a lot of people, so they focus on how the story affected the characters they tend to bring up. So maybe, at face value, it's oh, so and so is cool, but without the story itself to react to, these personalities are ultimately meaningless.

It's coming off wrong on the fan side; whether or not that influenced the writing of Andromeda remains to be seen, but as of now, I think Bioware's side is only talking about it the way they are because it's how they were talked to about it and they're poorly articulating it themselves rather than them shoving a bunch of character moments in the forefront at the expense of the context that makes those character moments important to begin with.

Well, I can enjoy a mediocre story with fun and compelling characters, but it's a real challenge to enjoy a good story with mediocre characters. Also a challenge to even make a good story with mediocre characters. So...

Personally I disagree a little, teensy tiny bit. I for one was most angry at first because I thought they dropped the entire reaper concept on the floor. To me that was always the biggest "statement" of them all, aside from alien relationships and organics vs synthetics. It not only asks "what is life" but it contained potentially pondering themes about "what is existence?" an answer that can't be answered but it surely could've been dissected more. Reapers were literally gods that were so far above us, they were a sign that no matter how far into space you get, there'll always be something out there that's larger than we can comprehend, but it's true that by ME2 the concept had much more started to focus on relationships and characters.

I'd still argue though that those things were strongly reinforced by the turmoil. I can't imagine caring for Mordin if all he had was his funny personality. He was great because of his belief in redoing the genophage until he course-corrected and found redemption in curing it when the world needed that cure and when the entire galaxy needed the Krogan to have optimism and support in fighting for everybody's lives.

I think you lose incentive to make me care about a story if you're designing it under the pretense that it's not as important as relationships. Mordin's relationships to his friends in ME2 and ME3, in my eyes, are only as strong as their relation to his belief about issues that are 100% tied to the plot and lore; the context, of the story. That context isn't just a bunch of vague stuff. It's not "There was a people that I sterilized. I don't regret it. But we may need their help, so now I'll cure them". It's "I sterilized the Krogan, and we need them now, so I'll cure them", and there's a whole other backstory to the Krogan, reinforced by Wrex which is reinforced by Saren because Saren built a clone-army of Krogan that made us realize what the Krogan viability meant to Wrex.

You see what I mean? The plot keeps the wheel turning. You need it to make the relationships more than just fluff. There's plenty of context in Andromeda. There's some kind of plot too, but I worry about the fact that they've started by creating characters and then making the plot secondarily because you can't be sure they all tie together in the way ME123 did. You can't start out by making a Citadel DLC. You need to build everything up with a great plot before the relationships by themselves feel important.

Let me use halo 4 as an example.

The plot was decent, it brought forth lore from the books with everyone wanted (in the form of the didact) it was not as large scale as halo 1 to 3 but it was certainly much more in depth and well written than them........but it was all pushed in the background by what mattered and that was the personal story and growth between John and Cortana


Characters make the story memorable, not the events themselves or how far reaching it all is

I think we're utilizing the words in the wrong way. We talk like they can be evaluated separately.

That's not how it happens.

The story can't be at the center of attention because without good characters or at least one good main character, there's no real good story. You wouldn't relate to it.
What if the Reapers invaded the Milky Way and there wasn't anyone in the spotlight trying to defeat them? Would that motivate you?
Imagine if instead, we got a look on the fleets fighting, resistance organizing, without focusing on any single character. Would you care at all?

Now, imagine the opposite. What if you put Garrus, Tali, Liara, Wrex and Legion into a room and all they did was crack jokes at you, drinking, playing cards, but without any background? Would you care about them at all, without knowing where Garrus came from, his past, his vigilante personality, his motivations? Or Tali, without knowing anything about her story with the fleet? About Wrex, without knowing about his views on the genophage, his leadership to his people? Why would you care about this character that you've never met or heard about before? You need context, you need their story.

You can't have one without the other.
I personally think that Bioware is making a mistake when they're presenting their case like that. It's not that the characters are more important. It's that the story behind everything, behind them are extremely important, and that is what makes them, and everything in fact, special.

You can only relate to characters because their personalities, issues and reactions can be related. Did you ever stop Reapers in real life? Or fought in a zombie apocalypse? Or dealt with mages and templars, and demons falling from the sky? You will only relate to stories that you've experienced.

You want to be a hero in these games because you know you're going to be hero to your characters. Because you matter to them. And you can only do this with a good story. 

You're going to remember these characters more than the story because the story is the foundation of what make these characters great.

Stories can be plot driven or character driven. Just because it is one form or the other doesn't mean no effort should be put into the other side. For what its worth I consider ME1 and ME3 to be plot driven while ME2 was possibly Biowares only character driven story (you could argue DA2 had aspects of it as well).

I do sort of worry about this quote, simply because a genuine character driven story should still have a great main plot, you simply let the characters and their decisions guide the story rather than fitting them into the story.

I want a clever, original, engaging and emotionally gripping story from ME Andromeda.

Life is about priorities, and so is any constructive or creative endeavor like game development. So a studio decides how much to invest in programming, art, sound, writing, etc. And then they decide how much of their limited art resources go to facial animation or inventory UI. Or in this case, how much of their writing resource goes to "plot" vs. "character". I think the most successful organizations figure out what their own special sauce is. They fill their niche, identify their market, and connect with that market repeatedly and reliably. Bioware's niche in my opinion is definitely characterization. They wrap a lot of other elements with quality ranging from fair to excellent into their product, but the repeated bet you can make is that they'll have compelling three dimensional characters to interact with. If you bought a Bioware game and it had lousy combat mechanics you might bitch about it on the forums, but it probably wouldn't prevent you from buying the next one. If you bought one and it was chock-a-block with utterly dull characters with only a few lines of dialog then you'd be speechless. And you'd feel betrayed. And you'd sure think very carefully before picking up their next title.

So I think Condominas is right to identify character as the most essential ingredient to delivering on their promise to consumers. Its Bioware's special sauce. I can think of few who can do it as well and I can think of no other developer who does it so prolifically. Creating 2-3 characters in a single game that are really compelling, interesting, dynamic characters who respond in nuanced ways to your player choices is rare. Creating a half dozen per game is something only Bioware does (that I'm aware of).

The whole reaper plot is not that new. Darkspawn aren't wildly different than the orcs that Tolkien envisioned almost 100 years ago. And the connections between ME1, 2, and 3 are often tenuous and even nonsensical. The plot is serviceable, maybe hedging into "good" at times, but its never been top class, if you ask me. I hope the plot isn't worse (as in full of inconsistencies or generally thinner) than prior games, but I also don't need it to be better. So yeah, long story short, I side with character.

Agree completely, characters are the life of the story, they should drive it forward and not the opposite. That is why Dragon Age 2 to me was one of the best games bioware made when it comes to a compelling story, despite everything.

You cannot possibly extract the characters from the plot and expect the same results, that's true.

However, when you say that it's the context that affects relationships, you're actually making his point. You don't think of it as the setting. You think of it as how the setting influences the characters. At this point, people don't remember the events at Virmire as much as what came from it. Only the most hardcore people remember the Salarian squad for example, or what the mission involved really. Krogan breeding facility? That's not important.

Most remember the death of Kaidan/Ashley etc and the later conversations about them. There's also Wrex.

In short, the story is important as you said of course, but only as far as providing context for the characters. BioWare has never really been about that main story arc and that's for a good reason. A lot of  the writing budget is devoted to the characters, dialogues with them, and missions that pertain specifically to them. Technically speaking, these stories are all part of the main story arc. We just categorize them differently.

lol exactly. 

That was the first time the "optional" companion quests formed the bulk of the story. They are also a significant part of other games, but ME2 took it to the extreme and people liked it.

Ironically, people disliked DA2 even though it had a similar format, only because the main story had a bit more significance.

Yet we can all agree on Cullen's hotness.