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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 9521022" data-attributes="member: 18">Apparently not in this case. The initial concept was originated by the two ex-Bioware guys who started Exodus, and then they got Peter F. Hamilton to really "work up" the setting from that concept, and now they have people work from that, and are adding to it.It's definitely somewhat unusual. The last time I can think of it was with the doomed MMORPG-turned-action-RPG Project Copernicus/Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. In that case studio creatives likewise came up with the initial concept (not really Curt Schilling as I understand it, but he organised the funding etc., and generally wanted to have his own fantasy MMO), then they got in R.A. Salvatore to work up a lot of the game's setting and plot, and Todd MacFarlane (the creator of the Spawn comics etc.) to come up with concept art and ideas. That did not work out well, obviously. It was a scandal even. But this doesn't seem very similar, thankfully.Mass Effect's setting creation is pretty similar to what you describe - Casey Hudson had the initial idea, pitched it to colleagues at BioWare in a pretty vague and unsubstantive form, they loved the concept, and then it changed a lot as production went on and ideas got more and more solid. An awful lot of the setting in the end was actually de facto created by one guy (the name of whom sadly escapes me) who just really loved writing codex entries, and had a great sense for SF explanations of things - he wasn't even a writer by trade. (As an aside, Drew Karpyshyn, who now works at Archetype is often credited with "creating" Mass Effect - this wrong on all levels, as Karpyshyn himself has pointed out - he wasn't even working on Mass Effect at the early stages, and the actual setting ideas were largely from others - what Karpyshyn did a great job with was creating the plot backbone that made ME1's plot so strong, even if it wasn't as good as the later games in terms of characters - ME2 is probably the overall peak writing-wise, but the plot, specifically isn't as strong as ME1.)</blockquote>

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