23 bugs about eyelids: office quotes from BioWare during Mass Effect's development

Back in February, former BioWare writer Chris L'Etoile posted part of their office 'quotes file': a log of entertainingly out of context quotes from the developers as they worked on Mass Effect 1 and 2. I just stumbled on it over at the Broken Forum, and it's a funny and very human glimpse of life at a major game developer.

According to his page on the Mass Effect wiki , Chris wrote the dialogue for Ashley Williams, Thane, and Legion, amongst much else. He says he's left out anything non-development related or under NDA, and BioWare couldn't exactly fire him anyway: he's since left to work at Zenimax Online. That leaves 42 quotes - here are some of our favourites.

"Wow. There are 23 bugs about eyelids."

- Patrick

Preston: "Geopolitics wants us to change the name of the ship from 'Normandy.'"

Georg: "Why? Are they afraid Germans will be offended by the loss of France?"

"You don't need to call him a prick or a dick when you can call him an ass."

- Drew, on language standards

"It's like being hit by a truck. Well, a small truck. Driven by a circus clown."

- Preston, describing Telekinetic Throw

"How does any writing come out of this buffoon factory?"

- Preston

"Is your X-Box on fire? No? Build passed!"

- Mac

"You want a painting that says, "Wow! Look! It's SCIENCE!"

- Drew

Patrick: "I'll only be paying attention for the first 15 minutes. I'll spend the rest of the time playing rock, paper, scissors with myself."

Drew: "Is that a euphemism for masturbating?"

Patrick: "Only if I always choose rock."

"If we could give people a magic hat that would create for them the exact RPG experience they'd always dreamed of, they'd complain about the color of the hat."

- [Name Redacted]

"You didn't give life to any of the words in Mass Effect; you just killed the ones that didn't deserve to live."

- Drew, to Cookie the editor

"Cookie's making audio porn with the VO clips. She's turned Tali into the dirtiest cybernetic girl in the galaxy."

- JasonA

"Mac's in my office. He's holding a ping-pong paddle, so I figured he was ready for a meeting."

- Preston

"My youngest - he only sees me in the morning before I leave. So he now thinks 'da-da' means 'bye.' He'll wave to people leaving and say, 'Da-da!'"

- Mac, working crunch

Preston: "If your light content plot involves you killing ten panthers..."

ChrisL: "You're fired?"

JamesH: "No, you're going to Austin!"

* Note: James later went to Austin

** PCG note: BioWare Austin developed Star Wars MMO The Old Republic. Relatedly:

"The best jokes are the ones you need to patiently explain."

- ChrisP

See the full list here .