Frequently Given Answers continued
 
Characters:
 
13. What options will be available to players concerning character creation? Will they be able to customize their squads?
 
Casey Hudson: You'll be able to adjust the appearance of your character, right down to facial shapes, skin tones, eye colors, and hair styles. And you'll determine your character class and set up your initial abilities. You can be a standard Soldier class, or an Adept (powerful with dark energy attacks), or an Engineer (able to do deadly tech-based attacks). And there will be other classes that combine the abilities of these three.  
 
You'll also be able to do some things that take customization to a new level, like making choices about the kind of experiences you've had before the game started, like where you were born, and the kind of military service you've performed.  
 
And over the course of the game, you'll continue to develop and improve your character – as well as each of the other characters in your squad – by adding new abilities, armor, and weapons that will make your experience in Mass Effect different from everyone else's.  
 
14. Can you play as a female?
 
Jay Watamaniuk: Yup you can choose to play a female. I haven't had a chance to take a look at how much you can customize your character but I'm willing to bet that choosing gender is one of the first steps.
 
15. Can you give a little bit more information about Commander Shepard? What's his/her story?
 
Casey Hudson: Commander Shepard is a veteran soldier, who's seen a lot of action in many engagements across the galaxy. And Shepard doesn't have it very easy either. Charged with the most important missions in the galaxy, Shepard is therefore authorized to get the job done at all costs – and it's up to you to determine what that cost will be. Often, something must be sacrificed to get further in your mission, and all of Shepard's decisions are important ones, where people's lives hang on the details of each choice.  
 
But that's about all I can say for sure about Shepard, because the rest is up to you. You can create your own Commander Shepard - male or female – and then customize his / her appearance to look the way you want. And even Shepard's back-story is yours to decide, as part of character creation. Ultimately, the way you play Commander Shepard is the final piece of the puzzle, as your choices will define how your character affects the galaxy, and the future of entire civilizations.
 
16. And what about romances?
 
Jay Watamaniuk: I have a good friend who is wild about the romance plots in BioWare games and she has been assured that there will be fine, fine romance plots in Mass Effect. I would find it very surprising if BioWare produced an RPG that did not have a great deal of time spent developing relationships between characters. It seems fundamental to great stories.
 
Mass Effect Universe:
 
17. Will Mass Effect have ship travel?
 
Chris Priestly: We will definately have multiple planets to visit in Mass Effect (I'm not going to name the actual names of the planets yet, but that is the sort of thing to stay tuned for updates in the future).
 
We're even going to have a large number of uncharted, unexplored planets available to be visited that will not be directly tied to the main story. Just cool planets to go visit to try out your cool weaponry or a new tactic you want to try out. Plus we feel being an explorer on uncharted worlds is a key part of cool Sci-Fi.
 
Pretty much at any time during the campaign, the player will be able to choose to head off and visit one of these planets in an All-Terrain Rover to discover what lies of the surface - such as new alien life, resources, ruined civilizations and powerful technology.
 
Overall, exploration and travel will be a cool feature in Mass Effect.  
 
18. How weird will aliens in Mass Effect be? Will we get the typical Star Trek humanoids or will the game go for stranger creatures?
 
Georg Zoeller: Some alien races can be seen in those new E3 screenies but there are quite a few types of aliens (as in 'non human life form') in the game, and some will be alien enough you probably won't talk to them ... or probably shouldn't try at least.
 
19. How big will the planets be? What will they look like?
 
Chris Priestly: I can say, in a general kind of way, that the planets will be different (so not all city planets, or ice planets, or desert planets or whatever the Art and Design departments have in store). They will likely be of different sizes with different terrains. I don't yet know what sort of restrictions they will have, but they will be less restrictive than the ones in KotOR.
 
Bob McCabe: There are millions of areas to explore, each the size of the island of Morrowind. Um, no - not really. But we'll do our best to make sure you have lots of room to roam.  
 
Casey Hudson: The Mass Effect universe is designed to take players to all possible extremes of environments – in fact, the scope of the story spans the entire galaxy. Specifically, some examples of environments you'll see are the sulphur deserts of a mining planet, an ancient lost city overgrown by jungle, and the Citadel: a gigantic floating city many times larger than Manhattan island.  
 
20. Is the Citadel really 30 miles long? That's HUGE! I'm not complaining, but will it have grav-trains/transports like Babylon 5 to facilitate rapid transit?
 
Bob McCabe: I'm not sure we'll have 30 playable miles (!), but we'll see? Ha. I'd be a little depressed if we did. That's a lot of content to review!
 
I haven't seen any Babylon 5, but there will be some (realistic) quick transport systems in place for the final game.  
 
21. Gravity - Since no planet can be the same size they all most have different gravitational pulls so will this affect how you move in the game, your vehicle, or will they just totally disregard science?
 
Bob McCabe: We can actually tweak gravity settings with the Unreal engine very easily. I don't know how much we'll use it. It depends on how fun it is, how much it fits, etc. In other words, I can't answer the question yet, but all possibilities are open.
 
Storyline:
 
22. Can you tell us anything about the basic storyline?
 
Casey Hudson: Mass Effect takes place in the year 2183 – a time when humans have recently become a part of the space-faring galactic community. You are Commander Shepard, a tough and experienced soldier who is in line to be the first human Spectre. As a Spectre, you will be charged with the most important and difficult missions in the galaxy: uncovering and terminating the greatest threats to galactic security.  
 
What you discover at the beginning of the game reveals something more terrifying than ever expected, the essence of which we like to describe like this:  
 
Among those who study ancient alien ruins, a horrific legend is told: that every 50,000 years a gate opens in space, and a race of machines pours through—harvesting organic civilizations and all that they have created. It is the year 2183. The gate is about to open …
 
23. Is the story going to be linear? How much freedom will we have?
 
Bob McCabe: There is, of course, a well-developed story that the player will go through. And there will be choices along the way, just like Neverwinter Nights and Knights of the Old Republic.
 
The goal is, as always, to provide some freedom, but really, we want to tell a good story that people can get immersed into - and allow those players to affect the story in their own way, as much as we can.
 
But, even better, there are going to be locations to discover that aren't directly tied in with the story; these will allow you a diversion of sorts, when appropriate. Imagine picking up a strange signal from a nearby planet that was thought to be devoid of life.
 
Personally, I think it may end up playing out something *like* Grand Theft Auto or maybe Baldur's Gate, and what I mean by that is that when you're on a plot you'll be focused on that. But between plots, you can either jump right back to the next part of the story or wander around for a while and see what you can find.
 
24. Is the universe of Mass Effect parallel to our own, or is it seen as our direct future?
 
Chris Priestly: This all relates directly to the story, and telling of story stuff is not something we're going to be doing yet.
 
25. Is Mass Effect going to be the first chapter of a new saga?
 
Bob McCabe: I don't remember us ever really going into a game actually thinking of the story this far in advance. I mean, we're usually saying "We'd like to make a sequel, if someone will let us!" And here we're looking at making a trilogy! It really does open up a lot of potential for, as you put it, subtle suggestions that will take place later in the series. Whee!
 
Gameplay – RPG Elements:
 
26. Will armour in Mass Effect be swappable and will different combinations change a characters appearance?
 
IGN: Before any fighting began, we were shown how each character's in-game appearance was entirely dependent on the gear they wore. No characters in Mass Effect have a stock armor appearance. If you equip a huge, hulking helmet, it'll show up in real time. Same thing with weapons, which appear strapped to characters' backs and legs. This allows for a huge variety of character appearances, reinforcing the game's already impressive customization options.  
 
27. Will Mass Effect have the Good Side/Bad Side concept?
 
Bob McCabe: I said it elsewhere, I think, and I'll say it again. This isn't going to be a generic good & evil system. We're definitely attempting to move further on in the direction we started with Jade Empire. More than that, for now, I will not say...
 
As far as your influence system, a lot of us liked what we saw in KotOR II. We'll see what we can accomplish.
 
28. Many previews have mentioned NPC party members having far more to say about your actions. Is this context sensitive, heavily scripted like Half Life 2, or tied to leveling up?
 
Jay Watamaniuk: I alluded to this with my bit on the bartender dialogue. Your squad and who gets to be in it are a big part of how you play Mass Effect. Certain NPC will have wildly different views on how to accomplish things then you and each other. Playing through different sections with different squad members will quite dramatically change the experience. As this is BioWare game each NPC is created and carefully fleshed out to have his or her (or its) own story and personality. They will comment on your actions, the situations you find yourself in even the settings you find yourself in. It depends on who you take in your squad and what is going on.
 
29. Will you be able to drive NPCs out of your overall party? Is this going to happen often? Imagine if all the Light Side players in KotOR lost HK-47 due to good behaviour. That would have sucked!
 
Bob McCabe: HK never would have left you because you were his owner. We'll see how it plays out in Mass Effect. We'll try to keep it as cool/fun/believable and not annoying as possible.
 
Gameplay – Combat:
 
30. Will there be melee combat in Mass Effect?
 
The game will feature light melee elements, but most arsenals will be consist of high-energy, futuristic weapons  
 
31. Is the combat aspect going to be approachable for the less-than-average action gamer?
 
Bob McCabe: We want combat to have depth and challenge and excitement, of course - but at the root level it has to be approachable. And we're working very hard to make sure combat is as simple to understand and interact with as it can be.
 
32. What will the enemy combat AI be like?
 
Bob McCabe: We want to get much better at creating a realistic AI as we think it's been a weakness of ours in the past. A good AI will definitely be part of the gameplan for ME.  
 
We generally tend to steer toward fun over realism, but sometimes we can achieve both. We'll see?  
 
I can say right now that, even though I can't go into detail on our combat system and such, the AI is a little insane in a good way - which excites me.
 
33. Will this game include blood and be aimed at a mature audience?
 
Bob McCabe: We haven't made a final decision on exactly how the "gore" will play out, but people tend to bleed when shot, grenaded, etc. There will most likely be blood in this game. How realistic? How much? How dramatic? Etc? Can't say just yet. Same thing with the rating. Violence tends to lock you out of the kiddie ratings so I'm sure we'll get teen or mature or something of that nature, as our past games have been rated, but we'll see... I'm not involved in those decision making processes, so I know about as much as anyone else posting here.
 
34. Will there be space battles where we will have to board an unknown ship or repel boarders from our own ship?
 
Casey Hudson: Much like in KOTOR, you'll have one starship, but in Mass Effect it's staffed with a large crew that are at your command. Huge space battles are a part of the story, but in this game you'll leave the piloting to your crew as you and your squad take down the enemy face-to-face. You'll also have your own customizable combat vehicle for lots of exploration and combat fun on Uncharted Worlds, plus there will be a variety of other vehicles you'll discover in the game.  
 
35. How does the combat system work? How are role-playing elements such as leveling going to be integrated into more twitch-based real-time combat?
 
Jay Watamaniuk: The combat we displayed at E3 was a very minor part of the complex system we are implementing. E3 is just not the place to try and show off anything complicated and layered as our system is. In general, you have a target reticule and magnetic targeting to help zero in on a target however your aim and a variety of other factors are determined by a set of skills. The better your skills the better you are and the more options you have. When you pull your trigger to fire you will fire anywhere in that target reticule so you may in fact miss a lot if you reticule is rather large because you do not have very good skill or that you continually fire which increases the size of the reticule. That is one small part of combat, kind of a foundation of how to fire in the game.  
 
There will be a huge amount of military skills to go along with the Biotic powers that will become available in the game and so you aim will improve you ability to fire in different ways and offer different support of primary fire for your squad.
 
I can't speak to the specifics in your question at the moment but since my brother (Preston Watamaniuk, Lead Designer) is leading the charge on what the actual game rules are behind the combat I can assure you it is far more complicated then hit and miss. This is a roleplaying game so your stats have to matter or there is no point in having them and improving them.
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"Genius is always allowed some leeway, once the hammer has been pried from it's hands and the blood has been cleaned up" Terry Pratchett, 1948- , British novelist.