Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

Self-Ejected

Sacred82

Self-Ejected
Dumbfuck
Joined
Jun 7, 2013
Messages
2,957
Location
Free Village
hobo is the word you're looking for
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,653
Damn, Chris has been chunking out. Time to hit the gym again.
 

SniperHF

Arcane
Joined
Aug 22, 2014
Messages
1,110
I guess it's easier than "freelance game designer and writer". :lol:

Eh, calling yourself a freelancer is mostly an exercise in branding. There's no reason for whoever made the graphic to abide that. Avellone is basically a contractor and in pretty much every other industry a person who is currently on contract still says "I work for X" despite there being an end point of the arrangement.
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
I thought this was going to be 90min talking about his favourite game and then answering silly questions, but it does seem to have interesting parts.

At ~12min he starts to talk about leaving Obsidian (even though the question was just about freelancing). It's interesting because he starts to speak very slowly and carefully chooses his words.
"I wasn't happy any longer ff...uh..on...just....focusing on one thing, day after day, specially if that was...troublesome and I had no control over what was going on".

[still listening to the rest]

No transcription, just basically what he said

Interviewer: "I kind of thought you were a for-lifer at Obsidian"
MCA says he still friends with lots of devs there (mentions Brian Menze).
"It's kind of hard being married for 15 years to four other husbands...[laughs]"

[Ooh. Marriage analogy now. :lol:]

"Your perspectives narrow when you're continually in that same environment";
"As much as you might make assumptions about them, they certainly starts to make assumptions about you";
"You know, Chris could never make interface design, Chris could never explore systems, [deepens voice] what Chris does is...we want Chris to write, and if Chris starts talking, Chris should probably just write some more! [laughs] eventually you kind of just get tired of it, and I just wanted to do new things";

[MCA is not holding back anymore, folks. :lol:]

"There's a range of stuff that I'm working on, these two [TTON, DOS2] are the ones I can talk about";
"My role on TTON was always focused on doing storyline reviews and one of the companions";

Most of the writing in TTON done by Adam Heine, Colin McComb and Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, who MCA calls a "writing powerhouse".

Namedrops RPGCodex and explains how he got to work on D:OS2.

"Any dream projects you'd like to do?"
Chris then talks about how he could pitch this to the people he knows, whether it's something he could fund himself (huh), "isn't necessarily Kickstarter".

[about pitch process] "I don't know whether it just wasn't clicking back at previous companies, but the pitches I've been involved with seem to go really well"; "the success rate for those has upped considerably, so that's been a surprising twist".
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,232
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Most of the writing in TTON done by Adam Heine, Colin McComb and Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, who MCA calls a "writing powerhouse".

As I was saying....

Where's this coming from? If anything, and I'm highly supportive, I've been getting the impression that they let every Tom, Dick and Harry, have a go at producing words for tton. That's how they ended up with 1m words. The already significant number of writers "unlocked" during the KS were compounded on with other people like BN and that indie dev, think they got about a dozen of writers now.

It's bullshit. Kickstarters that hire a horde of writers don't actually end up using most of them to a significant degree. Wasteland 2 theoretically had a bunch of writers but ended up being done, in practice, by one and a half guys. Torment will likely have more than that, but not as much as you think.
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
Significant is entirely subjective. Pat Rothfuss and MCA are writing one companion, but I think that's a significant contribution, and that's what was advertised (unlike PoE).
________________________________________________________________________

"There have been AAA game opportunities, which I have taken, where they isolate a certain section of their game, and they'll either ask me "hey, flesh this out, tackle this", and I enjoy that", and goes on about how it could be something different like science-fiction or an RPG he's used to but with a "different framework".

[They talk about Wasteland 1, I'm skipping that]

He has played a "very small amount" of Fallout 4.

About modern/classic RPGs:
"Two things that concern me from a role-playing perspective is...I've always been against players choosing a class [...] I worry that sometimes developers include more classes like that to make the systems more comfortable", "what I've always liked about Fallout was...even though there were suggested archetypes, the way they set up the skill system, you could be a hybrid of any of these things";

"The other thing is...I've always been divided on the concept of voice acting the player character. From the developer side it's such a huge budget resource...at the same time I also worry that it also puts some distance between you and role-playing your character, because you're not saying things the way you imagine your voice sounds, the game's providing that for you", "I'm not poo-pooing the VA in Mass Effect or Fallout 4, like FO4 specially the female PC actress [says the name, didn't catch it], she's got an amazing voice...and when I'm playing I get into that character, but when I step away from it I'm like...well, I don't know if I would have that same experience if I was imagining my character saying those lines".

"I don't think players would be put off by that [not having these 2 things] as much as publishers worry about".

Says he's guessing, but thinks it's probably a developer bias regarding class systems rather than a requirement by publishers. Believes BioWare adding VA to everyone in KOTOR1 changed the industry and set a new level of expectation. Thinks devs may have struggled with it, including BioWare.
AP was a long learning experience in this regard and opened his eyes about BioWare's "amazing pipeline", then ME2 blew him away around the same time.

For the last year and a half he has mostly played builds of games he's working on, testing games or playing "previous games in a franchise for research purposes".

Loved companion arcs in ME2, and says companion arcs are very tricky. Companions are "like the marketing folk within the game for you", and explains how they're supposed to be a sounding board for your characters, explore themes, immediate reactivity, etc. Companions take at least 1 or 1.5 month of work at least, not counting all the voice acting and reaction to that.

Has been playing games from other genres because he was worried he was too focused on RPGs and wasn't looking for solutions in other games. Mentions Telltale games, Bioshock series and Amnesia series. Starts to praise Amnesia's mechanics and talk about how it has simple mechanics that are much better than some RPG tropes.

Interviewer makes him go back to talking about Wasteland. Zzzz....

Likes the stronghold mechanics in AC games and the "360 degrees of actions" you can take in Far Cry 4. Thought early game over "I'll be right back" thing in FC4 was fantastic.

Back to Wasteland again....I know it's called "My Favourite Game" for a reason, but this is overkill. He breaks the natural flow of the answers to forcefully go back to Wasteland.
Guy asks something about Wasteland, Chris answers and moves on to other topics and games during the answer. He follows up with another Wasteland question that has nothing to do with the previous question or the answer.

Says Fallout resembled Wasteland in some ways, but that it "never got as wacky as Wasteland", though "Fallout 2 got close to that wackiness but in a different direction". Hasn't played Undertale yet, and has heard it might approach it [the wackiness]. (?)

The guy actually ran out of questions about Wasteland, so he basically asked "what topics about Wasteland haven't we covered yet?". For fuck's sake.... :lol:

Dislikes random rolls during character creation and is "glad that archaic RPG mechanic went away".

Believes both WL1 and FO2 had a lack of cohesion. Too many "different voices" and "each area feels different". Says that's why you have a Creative Lead or a Project Director overseeing these things.

Interviewer: "I'm only familiar with Fallout 3, New Vegas and 4".
popamoledex2fcsl2.png



Brian Fargo set up a contract where he paid Obsidian for MCA's work on WL2. "It was good because Obsidian needed the money at the time -and I felt like I was prostituting myself - but at least I enjoyed having sex with Wasteland 2 [laughs]". Although I think most people always assumed this, it's confirmation that he didn't get paid for it. Apparently he didn't get money besides his normal salary, I mean. Considering he signed up for TTON while still working there, I wonder how that contract is working out, because InXile paid Obsidian to have its employee working on the game, but he doesn't work there anymore.

"Honourable mentions" - I don't know what the hell the host meant here. I guess he's talking about other games he loves? I don't know, there's a music break and it comes back with the guy saying "honourable mentions" really fast.
Chris, however, seems to answer the question as if it was about recent games that he enjoyed, as he explains in the middle of it that he didn't have time to play more.

FTL - loved working with Subset Games guys.
"Unfortunately, I've been playing a lot of mobile games"; says he's been enjoying a "cute" game called Dungeon Boss.
System Shock 2 - says it was a toss up between Wasteland and SS2.

Top 3 games:
  1. Wasteland
  2. System Shock 2
  3. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss
_____________________________________________________________________

There's plenty to speculate about, but I suspect these bits will be in the Radek interview already.

Overall the interview becomes a drag after 40min or so. I don't recommend it.
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
Listening to this now myself. I wonder if he ends up working on System Shock 3.
Yes, that's the first game that came to mind once he said he was playing previous games in a franchise for research. They'd be fools not to approach him.
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,232
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Dislikes random rolls during character creation and is "glad that archaic RPG mechanic went away".

:smug:

And the preference for classless as well.

I feel like an old housewife, wanting more gossip about Obsidian and his departure.

Haha, what you really want to know is what things were being shouted at Obsidian on the day he announced that he was leaving. But I doubt we'll ever learn that.
 

Lhynn

Arcane
Joined
Aug 28, 2013
Messages
9,824
Dislikes random rolls during character creation and is "glad that archaic RPG mechanic went away".

:smug:
I really thought someone would get around to tagging Lhynn before I did.
I dont agree with MCAs approach to mechanics. Not the first time i said this, tho its not abject rejection like with sawyer.
Also, i cant stress this enough, i really dont think developers in general know what they are doing, if they did the codex would be a much happier place.

I consider people quoting them like they spoke facts instead of misguided preferences as trolls baiting at best. Appeal to authority is rogueys thing tho.
 

Fairfax

Arcane
Joined
Jun 17, 2015
Messages
3,518
I feel like an old housewife, wanting more gossip about Obsidian and his departure.
:lol:
What's interesting is that he wasn't even asked about his departure directly. Seems like MCA himself wants to talk about it, but the interviewer failed to pick up on that (or perhaps wasn't interested).

Dislikes random rolls during character creation and is "glad that archaic RPG mechanic went away".

:smug:

And the preference for classless as well.

I feel like an old housewife, wanting more gossip about Obsidian and his departure.

Haha, what you really want to know is what things were being shouted at Obsidian on the day he announced that he was leaving. But I doubt we'll ever learn that.
Interesting that you expect him to have done that, but was skeptical about Sawyer throwing a tantrum demanding the Kickstarter. :M
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom