That didn't always happen. If the level was actually playable at the end of this process--and sometimes it wasn't--it often ran into problems like a significant drop in performance (and the company wasn't proud of the frame rate drops in the original game). The team tried to address these issues where they popped up, but since doing so required reworking "entire swaths of content," time and resource constraints meant the designers often had to live with the deficiencies.


In extreme cases, large pieces of content were removed completely. Caleston, a story-related "outland" planet with refineries and industrial cartels that was intended to be a part of the game's core story arc, was deleted from the game outright. We will never get that planet back, people. Shed a tear.


In Mass Effect 2, BioWare is using a linear, phased approach to level design that builds the levels step by step, starting with only the most important parts. This method has a couple of primary requirements: from the very outset, always keep your levels playable, and always keep them at target performance. The designers should only do the minimum of necessary work to answer the important questions about each level, most of which amount to "Can you still see how this will be fun when it's finished?"



Well, this looks pretty cool and all.Each design team starts with the simple narrative overview, then immediately moves to a barebones playable version of that framework with boxy geometry, no texture maps, placeholder set pieces, and fake dialogue. Each successive phase layers in more and more polish, such as final voiceover and surface effects.

The BioWare rep giving the talk commented that he wished he could show footage from a finished section of the game, but the team hasn't reached the final phase of polish on any levels yet.



During the presentation BioWare showed a brief production video from Mass Effect 2, which I would be remiss in failing to describe to you. There was a cutscene which took place inside a flying car traveling in the airborne traffic lanes of the Citadel. The conversation here involved an Asari character named Seryna--whose speech was just a little less formal than Liara's was in the first game--and an unnamed male Spectre wearing the trademark N7 armor. Granted, you could make your character look however you wanted in the original game, but this character looked nothing like the male Shepard with the shaved head from the first game. So maybe he really is dead? I don't know what to believe anymore.


So there's your nugget of new information. There's an Asari named Seryna in Mass Effect 2--or BioWare put a little bait-and-switch in that demo video to make people like me look awfully foolish. Let's look forward to finding out which it is!


Perhaps most importantly, the company mentioned at the end of the talk that this new design process will allow the team to identify problem areas and poor performance earlier on in development, allowing them to smooth out rough frame rates and, yes, speed up those horrendously slow space elevators.

That city scene :)))))

Some very blurry early alpha footage taken from the ME2 GDC level design talk, be quick as this may be taken down soon as this is def not for the public, cant hear much but lots of placeholders and design bable, anything ME2 is good enough for me though. :)

cut-scene:

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/24193

combat:

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/24194

Thanks.

Also there is an off-screen shot of "The Hero" Character and another party member (from the back, it looks like Kaidan" It looks like Kaidan is dual wielding pistols as he uses a biotic power

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x234/starmin76/...

Thanks.

Also there is an off-screen shot of "The Hero" Character and another party member (from the back, it looks like Kaidan" It looks like Kaidan is dual wielding pistols as he uses a biotic power

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x234/starmin76/...

Looks to me as though you're actually playing as Kaiden. When the game's project director said that you'll be playing the game from different perspectives, does he mean that you can switch between party members a la Dragon Age?

Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Who loves ya!! just found a longer clearer version of the GDC cut-scene video is shows the whole car transport scene and you also see some squad mates when they get out the car, it looks so sweet ala Blade Runner sweet!, the site also has the combat video if you click across to it, enjoy.

http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/03/29/kultur/spill/ma...