In this week's episode of Matt Chat, George Ziets discusses the game considered by many to be the high mark of his career - the Mask of the Betrayer expansion for Neverwinter Nights 2. George and Matt agree that expansions are often better than the original games, both because the developers have more experience by the time they create them and because they're smaller & more focused. According to George, the key to designing great choice & consequence as exemplified in Mask of the Betrayer is to keep the overall number of choices small and make sure each one has drastic and wide-ranging effects. He cites the Okku/One of Many choice as an example. During his time at inXile, George made an effort to design choice & consequence in a similar way.


Near the end of the episode, Matt and George talk a bit about the differences between working at large and small studios. Needless to say, George prefers smaller ones. He also has strong opinions about open office layouts (kill it with fire). According to Matt, there are two more episodes left to go.