BioWare Blog: Mass Effect 3 Writer Q&A

Mass Effect 3 senior writer John Dombrow fields a series of personal questions in the latest in-house Q&A to surface on the BioWare Blog. The Q&A follows the traditional blog interview format, in that it offers more of a window into day-to-day game development than anything else:
What does an average day look like for you?

That depends on what stage we're at in the project. Early in Mass Effect 3's development it was all about meetings and brainstorming, trying to hash out the basics of a mission as we gradually worked our way towards a more detailed vision. All of that happened on paper. Then once we had approved mission documents and moved into production, the day was spent writing scenes, revising them, going to review meetings as the mission gradually took shape artwork, level design, combat, cinematics, audio, VO dialogue all of that started to work its way into the mission, getting more and more refined as we went. I'd play my missions constantly, assess what was working and what wasn't, make adjustments, and so on. Then once everything was at a more finalized state, it was all about polish and bug-fixing, ironing out the kinks, trying to make it as perfect an experience as you can. The trick is you could have several missions that were your responsibility, so you're doing all of this across multiple missions which could all be at various stages of the process. Writers at BioWare quickly learn how to juggle!