BioWare: Writing for Digital Actors

A previous newsbit touched on this BioWare presentation at the Austin Game Writers Conference but this report at Gamasutra titled BioWare on 'Writing for Digital Actors' goes into more depth. Here's part of the intro:

Walters started out by explaining their problem. In the old days, RPGs involved lengthy conversations with characters mostly seen at a distance, where facial expressions didn't matter and everything had to be conveyed in words displayed on the screen. But in Mass Effect, they have changed both the graphics and the dialog engine to the point where they're achieving nearly television-quality close-ups on characters in conversations. Now facial expressions and body language have to be put into use, or the game looks stiff and unreal. Bioware has started talking about their characters as "digital actors" and writing in a new way.