BioWare - Interview @ Ripten

Ripten has an interview with the Biodocs, presumably from GDC.  It's a lengthy piece that starts with an overview of their current projects before settling on discussing different forms of game narrative:

JZ: What narrative are you guys most passionate about? Are you most passionate about the main story line or the different quests, trying to direct the narrative? Or are you more passionate about letting the player almost create their own based upon where they go or how they explore?

RM: The last thing you said feels to me like the most–

GZ: Yeah, the non-linear storytelling.

RM: Because the story is certainly part of that, but even that’s not linear. Then of course bigger narrative is moment to moment like Greg said, you can kinda weave your way through the world and do some combat, go back to that area that you couldn’t get past before and keep butting your head against it until you finally break through or go to progress your character for a bit first and then go back and take on that tough enemy. Or explore the world and see if you can find some items to give you more capabilities, or try to drive the story forward a bit more and get some more quests so you can find more stuff to do that’s cool.

We call these things activity chains, going back and forth between different activity types, but that’s the meta-narrative that really is the essence of our game. Even if story and character interaction is one of the parts we’re known best for — it’s the easiest one probably, just to see, “Oh, BioWare makes games with characters that we find compelling, emotionally engaging, who you want to travel the world with,” but our games are more than that. They’re the story of the explorer, the story of combatants, or conflict, and the story of progression and customization of your character, too — making the character that you want to actually have with you on your journey.

Source: GameBanshee