Christina Norman leaves BioWare

The tone of Chris Priestly's message sounds really bitter to me for some reason.

It does read bitter until put into context with the devil smilie at the end - missing from the quote above.

Just how much "game design" is left for this game anyway?  It could just be a case of the job she done being finished and time to move on to another project...:-)

Just because the E3 demo may of looked good, it doesn't mean it's final.  Being that there's still 9 months to go until release and deadline, there's plenty that can be changed if need be including "game design".  Nothing drastic obviously.

To further solidify that, I'll just refer to one of Chris Priestly's other quotes which I have posted before on here:

"Keep in mind that nothing "quoted" is 100% guaranteed. We are still developing the game and features change, we adapt, refine and improve. Just because you think it is there now based off an old interview (or even a new one) that doesn't mean it will or will not be in the game.

I only point this out so people don't say "But I saw in a thread that "X" feature was confirmed". NOTHING is confirmed until we ship."

As for the Christina Norman news and Chris Priestly's comment about it.

I don't think Priestly's comment was that bitter, just more or less straight forward with the news of her resignation for reasons we don't know and probably will never know. She said herself on her Twitter afterwards that the reason for her leave wasn't because she got married, so I'm sure Priestly's comment was nothing but trying to keep her resignation on a low key being that ME 3 is still in development.

That's how I see it anyways.

what kinda of downsides from ME3 can we expect from the finished product due to her leaving????

9 months isn't really a whole lotta time, even though for us it's an eternity, but much of the "game design" IS final.  Maybe the "cover design" isn't finalized, but much of the work left is but tweaking, they have a deadline to meet and it's pretty safe to say that the game has all ready been "designed".  Thorough Beta Testing/Fixing Bugs and the manufacturing millions of copies of the finished product for distribution are the primary focus of the home stretch, and 9 months isn't really a whole lotta time for that.  Don't assume that, I think the word mentioned was "bitter", that she departed on a sour note just because the game ain't on the shelves...:-)

[quote user="CrypticZer0"]

I don't think Priestly's comment was that bitter, just more or less straight forward with the news of her resignation for reasons we don't know and probably will never know. She said herself on her Twitter afterwards that the reason for her leave wasn't because she got married, so I'm sure Priestly's comment was nothing but trying to keep her resignation on a low key being that ME 3 is still in development.

[/quote]The taint of EA finally starting to have an effect?

It could very well be.

I don't know how to feel about this. She was a huge part of the gameplay both positive and negative in my opinion for Mass Effect's change into Mass Effect 2. Her leaving Mass Effect 3 may have some hidden meaning behind it that is either positive or negative. We'll never know so know dwelling on it.

this is common when a big project wraps up.  It translates across many industries.  I wouldnt look at it as a bad thing, just that her duties were pretty much wrapped up.