This Mass is Effecting My Writing

This new story is really being uncooperative these last few days. Yeesh. Back to games and another blog post I guess. This time I’ll tackle Mass Effect.

I’ve played Mass Effect before, and I got part way through Mass Effect 2. For those who aren’t aware, Mass Effect is a series of science fiction role playing games for the PC and consoles put out by Bioware, the creators of Star Wars: The Old Republic.

Mass Effect 3 came out, and so it’s time for me to finish the other two. Or to replay them as the case may be. I lost my original game data for them.

While playing through the original Mass Effect I was reminded of just how good these games are. Of course for me “good” means strong story, and that has caused me to sink large amounts of the last 3 days into playing.

The stories are rich and peppered with minor stories for variety. The characters are fleshed out and convincing, and the amount of thought that’s gone into the themes and background information on the world of Mass Effect is nothing short of remarkable.

There are flaws, of course, but those mostly have to do with the game mechanics and level design. Since I’m writing about story, I’ll ignore those. They’re minor quibbles anyway.

A part of me had hoped that immersing myself in this great story would give me some insight into getting past this part of the story I’m writing. So far that hasn’t happened, but there’s always tomorrow; who knows. I am coming up on a part of the game that I remember only vaguely from my first play through, and it does contain a situation similar to the corner I’ve written myself into. I won’t be able to copy anything from the game—the scenarios are far too different—but maybe it’ll give me an idea.

It is also striking all kinds of chords for stories I could consider later in the series, though I didn’t really need to play Mass Effect for more ideas like that. I’m planning another post some time on how the act of writing will, itself, generate more ideas than you could possibly need.

The takeaway I intended for this piece is one I’ve expressed before; don’t be afraid to look outside of the traditional world of books for examples of fantastic storytelling. Film, theatre, even television and video games can all provide fantastic examples. Mass Effect certainly does.

A Diversion - Steam and EA's Origin

I’m going to step out of the writer’s corner to address video games again. As long-time readers and those who know me personally may be aware, I’m a big fan of Bioware’s Star Wars: The Old Republic massively multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG.) When I got it, the only option open to me to get it digitally was through Electronic Arts’ Origin service, which didn’t make me happy. I’ve been a fan of Valve’s Steam service for many years.

I’ve been going through my Steam game library and looking at Origin over the last few days and I’ve noticed there’s an odd relationship between them. I bought a game from EA’s popular Sims series, and I did so through Steam. The next time I opened up Origin, I found that same game had been added to my collection and was ready to download.

It makes sense in a way I suppose. It’s an EA game; EA obviously gets their cut of every sale of their games on Steam.

It even makes a certain amount of sense that they would allow registrations like this through a competitive service to be used on their Origin service. It makes it easier for people to use Origin more if they don’t have to rebuy content they’ve already paid for, and all of their stuff (at least stuff from EA) is there waiting for them.

The thing that I find odd is that it also constitutes a disincentive on the customer’s part to buy anything from Origin itself. I’m very interested in getting EA’s Mass Effect 3, for instance, and I was thinking of getting it via Origin, since it’s not currently available on Steam. Now though I’m wondering if it’d be better to wait until it is available on Steam.

Any game of EA’s that I buy on Steam is available to me via both Steam and Origin. But since Steam doesn’t get a cut of EA games I buy from Origin, stuff I buy on Origin stays on Origin only. (Yeah, my head is hurting now too. Sorry!)

Just another facet of the complexities of life in the digital age I guess. But it’s that same digital age that has had such a great effect on self-publishing opportunities for writers, so it’s hard to complain.

Star Wars: The Old Republic is a Writing Inspiration

I’ve done many types of writing over the course of my life including many types of fiction and non-fiction. Some of the most fascinating writing I’ve ever had to do was in video games.

I’ve written before about how oddly liberating writing under constraints can be, and game writing is some of the most restrained writing you’ll ever have to do.

Lately I’ve been playing Bioware’s new Star Wars: The Old Republic game. It’s an MMO (Massively Multiplayer Online game) similar to World of Warcraft in many respects, which I was never really a big fan of.

Bioware, however, is well known among gamers for the incredible quality of the storytelling in their games. The problem was that they weren’t known for multi-player games; mostly they created epic-scale games with incredible stories that you play through on your own.

It’s long been hoped that they would be able to bring a richness of story to MMOs that has so far been lacking. They met my hopes, and then exceeded them. Not only did they craft stories (multiple, yes) that are as good as those found in their other games, they’ve done unique story lines for different types of characters you might play, different decision paths you as the player may head down, and most impressively at all, they’ve included some stories called Flashpoints that accommodate several players at once.

The general complexity of these multi-player conversations is nothing I’d think of as out of the ordinary. During the course of a conversation, the character your group of friends is talking to will speak. (And in The Old Republic, they really do speak. The amount of voice acting in the game is astounding, and of incredibly high quality.)

Mass Effect, another Bioware game featuring fantastic voice acting.

After they’ve said their piece though, you’ll inevitably come to a decision point. This is where in a typical solo game you’d choose what your character says, and the game goes on from there, telling you what the reaction is depending on how you act. Generally you have several possible ways to react to any decision point - a “good” option and a “bad” option, and sometimes a middle-of-the-road option.

That’s exactly what happens here too, in multi-player flashpoints, with several big differences I’ve never encountered before.

If you are playing along with 2 other people and they’re both part of the conversation, all of you decide what you want your individual character to say. All 3 characters are present as a group talking to the game character.

Once you’ve all picked your dialogue option, the game “rolls the dice” for you and assigns you a number.

Once ALL of you have picked your dialogue options and have your numbers, the game decides which character speaks. The rule seems to be highest number gets to speak, and in the case of a tie, the one who chose their option fastest speaks.

Game dialogue has come a LONG way from these days.

I can’t express well enough just how unique and exhilarating it was to have conversations like this in a game where I wasn’t in complete control over what happened. It lead to me seeing dialogue options I wouldn’t otherwise have seen, which was fantastic; it felt like a much more living, breathing conversation where you’re not just talking to a computer. It felt much more alive. It was hard to believe such a simple mechanic could provide such a huge benefit.

Context is everything when writing dialogue, whether it’s in a book or a video game. I often find myself falling into the habit of just writing dialogue lines straight out, with little or no context. So far everything I’ve got up in the other sections are first drafts, so that’s okay. Star Wars: The Old Republic has reminded me to make sure I have good context for any conversation.