Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

Maybe they thought EA would publish it?

 

[Excidium II]

With SWTOR in development? lolz

 

[CrustyBot]

Warband is pretty fun. Closest thing to modern Darklands we have in terms of scope and sandbox design. Have something like 300 hours, though I mostly played with mods instead of vanilla (GoT, L'Aigle, etc).

It definitely has some elements of systemic reactivity with potential, the disposition and politics systems within each faction that determines hierarchy, dibs on settlements, etc. The larger systems too with territorial faction wars is done fairly well too. It also does progression very well for an Action RPG because it's tied to gear and party. Levelling up minion units is very satisfying.

I think it's scope is far too big for a game that MCA would work on as a narrative heavy designer, though.

One thing I think RPGs could do though is take the roaming AI bands concept of a game like Warband as rival adventurer parties and combine it with Mordor's Nemesis System that builds base special casing reactivity through dialog snippets, then systemic reactivity via enemy/encounter statistical changes so you combine the two.

Like say facing off against a party and you nuke them with magic. Maybe the next time you face them, members of the group are different to represent permanent losses and new recruits, but the enemy Mage learns a new Magic Reflect spell.

 

[Roguey]

With SWTOR in development? lolz

Well EA Canada (no relation to Bioware) is working on a Star Wars Skyrim-clone at the moment.

 

[Infinitron]

Repeating what I said earlier about that:

I wouldn't necessarily read that sentence as MCA saying that Obsidian wasted their time pitching games they couldn't make. He might just have said that to emphasize that his options were limited at Obsidian, even more limited than he knew at first. So if he ever wants to work on a new KOTOR game, he has to leave Obsidian.

That said, Brother None tells me that publishers misleading developers into pitching games they'll never actually get to make is apparently not so unusual. >_>

 

[Trashos]

That said, Brother None tells me that publishers misleading developers into pitching games they'll never actually get to make is apparently not so unusual. >_>

Yes, this happens across all industries, I guess. Universities open up fake positions just to hear other scientists' research ideas, companies open up fake positions just to get the chance to interrogate the employees of their competition etc. "Victims" still willingly fall for it, because it is a good opportunity to network with resourceful people.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Significant systemic reactivity? What are you mongrels even talking about.

In entirety of Codex's top 70 list, systemic reactivity is almost completely unnoticeable, unless you're out there actively looking for it.

Its like with people who bitch about animation loops breaking immersion.

- The developer X is so lazy, I noticed animation loop and it broke mah immershiun
- Well how did you notice it?
- I stood near the NPC for 30 minutes waiting for animation loop to happen.

 

[Excidium II]

With SWTOR in development? lolz

Well EA Canada (no relation to Bioware) is working on a Star Wars Skyrim-clone at the moment.

Ah the Star Wars can is open now. But back then and specially Old Republic period, would never happen.

 

[Bester]

EA Canada (no relation to Bioware)

Uh huh. At EA everything is interconnected. Dice writes engines and Bioware writes scenarios. Bioware is certainly related to this project in one form or another.

 

[Roguey]

EA Canada (no relation to Bioware)

Uh huh. At EA everything is interconnected. Dice writes engines and Bioware writes scenarios. Bioware is certainly related to this project in one form or another.

I just meant that EA literally has a studio called EA Canada, it wasn't a cute term for Bioware on my part.

 

[agentorange]

 

[Drax]

No, for some reason it doesn't work on him.

 

[Drudkh]

I love that latest interview he did. He mentioned that "Final Fantasy III" was one of his favorite rpgs when asked about what his favs were, then there was a separate question of "what is your fav final fantasy"....

I'm not a big ff fan but everyone of them i've played since the snes days has been pretty crap, so it's amusing to me that Chris doesn't even know that ff III US is actually ff VI because he's probably never bothered to play all the rubbish released after that. Yet how does one know what their fav ff is if they haven't played them all? :D

 

[Average Manatee]

I'm not a big ff fan but everyone of them i've played since the snes days has been pretty crap, so it's amusing to me that Chris doesn't even know that ff III US is actually ff VI because he's probably never bothered to play all the rubbish released after that. Yet how does one know what their fav ff is if they haven't played them all? :D

How does one know what their favourite Fallout game is if they haven't played them all?

Are we including spin-offs or have I made it bad enough already?

 

[Drudkh]

:D I was just kinda playing devils advocate, thinking of the folks who always argue that people are wrong for saying their fav games of a given year are mostly the games they've played that year, so their opinion is ignorant or something like that.

I've haven't played an ff game after X (which i couldn't bring myself to finish) so maybe i'm wrong for making fun of the folks who love ff X and ff X-2. Just sayin'

The handle Average Manatee is superb, btw

 

[Infinitron]

Chris knows it's actually FF6. He persists in calling it FF3 either because he thinks most people still call it that, or as some kind of strange oldschool American chauvinist gesture ("Huh, you kids. In my day, we called it Final Fantasy III and we didn't care what was going on in Japan.")

 

[J_C]

Chris on his Facebook:

You can tell by reading a contract how much a company has been hurt before.

Hm..hm...who is he signing with? Which company was hurt before?

 

[DosBuster]

Hmm, I wonder if this means he's about to be picked up by another company?

 

[J_C]

Chris joins Bioware - the Codex implodes into itself.

 

[DosBuster]

I think if he were to join Bethesda that'd be even funnier.

 

[Roguey]

Neither of those have been hurt by publishers.

It's probably just some insider-knowledge thing.

 

[Beastro]

Chris knows it's actually FF6. He persists in calling it FF3 either because he thinks most people still call it that, or as some kind of strange oldschool American chauvinist gesture ("Huh, you kids. In my day, we called it Final Fantasy III and we didn't care what was going on in Japan.")

My reason is the latter.

Boils my blood too when people call Dr. Robotnik, "Eggman".

 

[MicoSelva]

I just meant that EA literally has a studio called EA Canada, it wasn't a cute term for Bioware on my part.

I love how that is an actual issue now (no sarcasm).

During the weird interview with the one-subscriber-YouTube-guy (the one mostly about Elementals comic book), Chris said that he is not willing to reveal the future of Nameless One for another five years or so. Knowing a bit how writers think (my experience is limited, but I was an editor for a writing website for a few years) I would speculate, he has not given up the thought of creating some new content featuring Torment's protagonist. My bet is he would like to make a graphic novel, or something in this vein, as a sequel to Torment (game is doubtful). Obviously it has close to zero chance of happening due to lciensing and other issues, but one can dream.

 

[Crooked Bee]

Looks like MCA got himself a new gig:

 

[Fairfax]

It's possible (not that one), with the tweets about contracts and all. Or perhaps it's the undisclosed project entering production.

In other news, I think we'll see MCA's content in the TTON Beta already. He told me he's very busy until the end of month - that's why he's been less talkative on twitter recently. With the TTON beta coming up, I'd guess that's the reason (beta release+patches and feedback).