
'Expanse' Co-Creator on Writing, Star Citizen, and Why He Hated Mass Effect 3 - photon-torpedo
http://www.glixel.com/interviews/expanse-writer-franck-on-star-citizen-mass-effect-3-w464385
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caconym_
The thing I most hated about ME3 was the fact that the "galactic readiness
score" depended not just on achievements in the single player mode, but also
on time spent in multiplayer.

It totally wasn't clear in (earlier release builds of) the game, and I didn't
want to Google it because I was afraid of spoiling the ending. I felt like I
had done a pretty good job getting the whole galaxy together under my banner,
and my readiness score was quantified by the game in a way that made it seem
decent, so I initiated the final sequence and found that I'd been denied the
best outcome simply because I had never played multiplayer.

Whatever I thought about the actual ending, the fact that EA and Bioware
decided to pull the rug out from under me at the last second after I'd spent
something like a decade really invested in their story and universe was a real
blow. To me, it demonstrated an astonishing lack of integrity as storytellers.
I was so upset that I just couldn't get myself to go back in and replay the
re-done ending or any of the DLC.

~~~
onli
That was what irritated you most? Granted, that sucked, and I'm happy I played
it when multiplayer was not necessary. But it is just exactly like said in the
interview: The ending voided all the promises the games made before. Mass
Effect 1 and 2 set up such a big universe, so many decisions you could do, and
then came the third game and it all came crushing down. The spider-aliens you
freed? Just a few points in a score. Killing the kronyan leader? Another will
take its place. Siding with humanity over aliens? Get the same points in red
instead of blue. And that for every decision, nothing had any meaning. That
killed the whole series' purpose, and that irked me most.

And it was not only that the game promised it, the developers promised it.
They literally said "There will be no ending where you choose between button
1, 2 and 3. All you decisions will influence the final outcome". And what had
the game? Button 1, 2 and 3, and your decisions had no influence whatsoever.
Liars.

I'm not at all interested in ME: Andromeda. I'll never play another Bioware
game again, till they deliver a proper ending for ME3. And no, the extended
video they delivered later on is not enough. Not even close.

~~~
Latty
With the new free ending DLC, I think the endings had enough difference and
meaning with your past decisions that the issue with "ending 1, 2 or 3" is
solved. I really disagree that the extended cut ending wasn't enough - I
thought it really delivered.

The issue with the "it's all points" thing is indeed an issue, and it's so
silly, since to me it was so obvious what they needed to do in the end.

ME2 was a template. Once again, you go into a suicide mission, except this
time instead of your team being people, it's fleets, troops, etc... You have
to commit your resources to objectives during the battle until you run out. If
you don't get enough, you run out too early and can't win (or lose more in the
battle in other ways).

Suddenly all those 'collected points' would matter so much. They all had
backstory of who/what they were, and if you had to commit them (with
appropriate troops/fleets/whatever getting bonuses in the right roles/nerfs in
the wrong roles) it would have made it feel worthwhile.

It's a realy shame, because if that had been the ending of the game, I think
ME as a series would have been as close to perfect as it gets. As it is,
people seem to forget the fact that the series was amazing otherwise, and that
the third game was seriously great apart from those flaws.

It's clear to me that, like most studios bought by EA, Bioware has slowly gone
downhill as they were subject to more and more pressure by EA to speed up
development and to focus on things like the money-making multiplayer. EA have
consistently been anti-consumer in a ton of ways, and they also have a real
knack at ruining and eventually closing good studios.

If you want a story-heavy game with decisions that matter, I highly suggest
you look at the Banner Saga, an indie series made by ex-bioware staff that is
great. The first two are out and the third just hit it's KickStarter funding
goal. Hopefully they close that one off well.

~~~
Vaskivo
The problem with the ending wasn't only the outcome (which, IMO, the DCL
ending still wasn't enough). It was mainly the the execution. The "press the
button" ending was a travesty to what was advertised by the three games.

You can really notice that lack of thematic coherence and good writing when
Drew Karpyshyn left the project.

I really liked ME2. The gameplay was the best, had really good quest lines and
some ideas were really interesting (working for terrorists, the suicide
mission). And it had Mordrin!

On the third game it goes all downhill.

Earth is, apparently, the most important planet on the galaxy. To the point
that someone thought that it was a good idea to diverge troops that were
defending the planet with the biggest and best fleet of the galaxy to defend
the Earth.

ME2 and Mordrin spent a lot of time convincing me that, while the xenophage
was something horrible, curing it would have unforeseen consequences and was a
bad idea too. But now we're going to cure it, no choice in the matter.

Cerebrus turned from "amoral pragmatists" to "james bond villain".

My best bro Wrex still didn't return to the party.

And the dreadful awe of the reapers was simply squashed.

ME3 was a massive dissapointment. I don't see myself playing a multigame
Bioware series ever again.

Two links: A massive Mass Effect Retrospective, which cemented some of my
feelings on the series:
[http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792](http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=27792)
Anon is still mad about ME3:
[https://i.imgur.com/5naFPuS.png](https://i.imgur.com/5naFPuS.png) (Strong
language)

~~~
Latty
Sure, I see your points, but I just didn't agree with the end dislike. Sure,
Mordin was mixed about the genophage, but in ME3 he makes up his mind and sees
it as something that needs to be cured 100%. They don't force you to choose
it, but he does. I think that's powerful - he strongly believes something and
you literally have to kill him to stop him doing it. That's heartbreaking and
an amazing moment. It's a 'bad end' \- but I dislike the idea you have to
provide good ends no matter someone's choices.

Earth being the most important isn't quite how it's shown - rather, it's
turned into a point of last stand because Shepard rallies his allies around
it.

Cerberus, yeah, they went a bit too far and deeply of the deep end. In
general, I think that you are treating it too harshly, and probably the
original ending embittered you towards the whole game, which in my eyes, was
still really good.

Or maybe you just dislike where they went with it where I liked it, it's hard
to say. I, at least, find it acceptable with the new ending.

If you are prepared to commit the time, I'd suggest
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hct5WeBmsUM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hct5WeBmsUM)
\- a look at the whole series that matches my viewpoint pretty well. It's an
interesting watch in it's own right, although long and a bit lacking in
production quality (towards the end, I'm pretty sure some of the commentary
got repeating during cutting).

------
TillE
Mass Effect 1 is one of my favorite game stories; it's like a pretty good
light sci-fi novel, which puts it head and shoulders above the vast majority
of videogames. The reveal towards the end is beautifully creepy.

Mass Effect 2 forces the player to join a racist terrorist group and does
nothing interesting, and then Mass Effect 3 is pure anticlimax. As Franck
says, it just seems like they had no idea where to go after the first one.

~~~
douche
Mass Effect 1 was also more fun to play. The weird retcon to justify
introducing boring regular ammo mechanics was dumb. Also, people love to hate
on cruising around in the Mako, but I loved it. ME1 was so much more sandboxy
than the sequel - I probably played it more to see what kind of crazy jumps I
could make, or just how far away I could snipe someone from.

~~~
sgift
For me it was the exact opposite with ME1 to ME2. Sure, ME1 was more sandboxy,
but it was an empty sandbox. 90% of ME1 simply was empty, so all you did was
drive around, drive around, drive around and find nothing. ME2 was far more
focused with the sandbox parts (planet scanning + finding anomalies) leading
at least to something with a certain regularity.

Exploring a sandbox is only interesting when it's actually filled with
something to find. Still, I think the game play of both ME1 and ME2 (and ME3)
actually fit their respective points in the story line.

ME1: You don't really know what's going on, you have a vague feeling, but it's
mostly "let's stumble around and see what we can find"

ME2: Okay, you know what will happen, but almost everyone else is in denial
and doesn't want to help you, so you have to be laser-focused to fix the
immediate problem with whatever you have at hand.

ME3: Denial is over, the problem is squarely in everyone's face and even if
some people still want to ignore it your focus is more on showing people that
your way to deal with the problem is in their best interest as much as in
yours.

------
kchoudhu
So glad The Expanse is back on. Last night's episode was amazing; I'm
surprised there hasn't been more coverage of the show in the press.

A fine return to form for SyFy.

~~~
enraged_camel
Ars Technica is what got me into it.

[https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/02/the-
expanse-i...](https://arstechnica.com/the-multiverse/2017/02/the-expanse-is-
the-badass-epic-space-opera-you-need-right-now/)

------
shmerl
Interesting read. Looking forward to Star Citizen and Squadron 42 releases for
Linux.

~~~
zyxzkz
2037 will be a great year for games for sure.

~~~
flukus
2016 was a great year. There are more steam games in my library that run on
linux than I have time for and that includes most of my favorites.

If the drivers would just catch up...

~~~
Neeek
I was pleasantly surprised at this the other day. I was about to jump in to
some Friday night games with some buddies when my tower died, dusted off a
gen2 i5 laptop running ubuntu and I was playing Payday2 with them within an
hour; that Linux filter on my steam library returned a shockingly large list.

~~~
ekianjo
Yup, apparently 42 of the 100 most played games run on Linux now. I didn't say
they all run well, but they run.

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baq
in case you haven't seen it, The Expanse is the best space opera sci-fi TV
since firefly and/or bsg and arguably the best ever.

the books are very good, too.

~~~
Vaskivo
Is it more like Firefly or BSG?

I loved Firefly. But I dropped BSG after two seasons.

~~~
dagw
I'd say more like BSG, but also much better. Was never a huge BSG fan, but I'm
loving the Expanse. There is much more focus one the world at large in The
Expanse, compared to Firefly, and the intrigue and diplomacy between the
players in that world. The rag-tag crew of do-gooders thrown together by fate
in the small spaceship which half the show focuses on (and where the firefly
comparison come in) are more shown as a tiny (but important) player, way out
of their depth, in huge expansive conspiracy they can barely comprehend.

~~~
mercer
That sounds awesome. I loved the bit of 'world-building' that Firefly _did_
manage to do and wished there was more of that.

------
LyalinDotCom
I'm so glad he agrees with me and my wife on Mass Effect 3 ending, I don't get
anyone who can play the first two games and then not be totally heart broken
by ME3 ending. What's more disgusting is also how the studio didn't ever
apologize, they totally blew off everything ever said about the direction of
the story and blamed the fans.

~~~
AdeptusAquinas
It seems to have been completely polarizing. I thought the ending was great,
and could not understand at all comments like 'blew off everything ever said
about the direction'.

------
synicalx
I think ME3 did a couple of things very right, most prominently the pacing and
characters. You never feel like you have a moment to relax, and the game
almost forces you to have this huge emotional buy in for the crew of the
Normandy. I mean who can honestly say they didn't have a bit of a cry after
"Had to be me. Someone else might have gotten it wrong."?

Galactic readiness being half tied to multiplayer was a stupid idea, and the
ending, which I thought was good, did feel like it was rushed. I also get the
feeling that they wrote themselves into a corner with the Reapers, I mean how
the hell is one man supposed to kill something that imposing without having to
resort to the old "Destroy the single point of failure"? If they had have
given the Reapers some kind of actual weakness, they could have avoided the
ending they wound up with.

------
ekianjo
> The ending of Mass Effect for me was like the ending of Lost, where [you]
> became aware that they really didn't know where they were going the whole
> time and they'd kind of just been making things up.

Finally someone who says clearly how embarrassingly bad the Lost ending really
was.

~~~
wingerlang
I think this is the general consensus about Lost isn't it? Apart from those
few people here and there saying it was amazing and clicked and whatnot.

~~~
ekianjo
> general consensus about Lost isn't it?

Is it really ? I remember when the last Episode was out, everyone was like
"wow it was awesome" and all, while I seemed to be the only one who did not
like it one bit.

~~~
prawn
No, most things I read pointed towards it being a bit of a dud. After a few
seasons, I got the feeling they didn't know where they were headed and bailed.
Asked myself prior to that point, "Am I going to regret not seeing through the
next 100 hours of this content when I'm 80?" Answer was a quick no. Quit it,
read the spoilers, left it at that and never regretted it.

Did the same with Walking Dead early on. Too much fussing about in that show.

------
masklinn
> Right now, we're playing through a little indie game called Tales of the
> Sword Coast that's kind of a re-envisioning of the Baldur's Gate games from
> back in the day.

"Tales of the Sword Coast" is the Baldur's Gate I expansion[0] so that can't
be it, anyone knows what they're talking about here? Sword Coast Legends
maybe?[1]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate:_Tales_of_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate:_Tales_of_the_Sword_Coast)

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Coast_Legends](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_Coast_Legends)

------
edem
I had no problems with the readiness score in ME3 (I did not play multiplayer)
or the final ending but the way you get there? Absolutely horrible. In my case
I had every fleet (including the geth and the quarian) I had Leviathan, I
basically maxed out the game...and the last mission on Earth still sucks.
Nothing changed. The same struggle with the same outcome. I actually played
through all 3 games last year and despite the fantastic missions and DLCs I
just uninstalled when I reached the Earth mission. This is nowhere near as
satisfying as the suicide mission in ME2.

------
codesnik
"Expanse" is nice, especially setting, but could be so much better with less
talking (which isn't believable anyway) and a faster pace. Comparing it to
Firefly is almost ridiculous.

~~~
dagw
I love the pace of Expanse. It really gave time for the plot and mystery to
grow at what felt like a more natural pace. Any faster and it would just feel
rushed and forced. For me they could have slowed it down even a bit more and
added more scenes of diplomacy and intrigue.

~~~
mercer
Is it perhaps more comparable to (new) Battlestar Galactica? I liked how much
of the show was just politics.

~~~
dagw
Yea, BSG is probably a more apt comparison than Firefly (that being said I
prefer Expanse to BSG). As much as I love Firefly it was essentially a monster
of the week show with only a little in the way of larger scale plot building
going on.

~~~
mercer
Well, that's a hell of a recommendation! I'll check it out.

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major505
I really didn't hate ME3... it was not the best ending.... but I saw worst
before.

~~~
on_and_off
That's not really saying much though.

Sadly game stories are often an afterthought at best.

------
on_and_off
Anybody knows what is the coop focused gaming site he is referring to ?

~~~
veli_joza
Cooptimus, most likely.

www.co-optimus.com

~~~
on_and_off
Thanks !

