Chris Avellone Interview at Hold The Line
Chris Avellone Interview at Hold The Line
Interview - posted by Infinitron on Fri 20 September 2013, 13:28:25
Tags: Chris Avellone; Fallout: New Vegas; Obsidian Entertainment; Pillars of EternityThere's a short interview with Chris Avellone at HoldTheLine.com, the website that was founded by upset BioWare fans last year in response to the Mass Effect 3 ending fiasco. There's not much here that we don't already know, but we do get a glimpse at the current status of Project Eternity:
Q: Speaking of which, how's it coming along? Have you guys locked down a title yet?
Chris: It’s coming along great, we’re building cities and districts and dungeons for players to explore, and it’s all looking beautiful – we’re currently tackling the first major city in the game, Defiance Bay, and it’s shaping up great. It’s not often that people can come into work and say “well, today I’m building a city,” but that’s the kind of workplace we have here at Obsidian. And that’s just the start – it’s not just the city itself, but the locations throughout the Eternity world (above and below) are shaping up beautifully, and the designers are adding a lot of great quest lines and content to thread them all together.
As for the title of the project: We have not resolved the “lock down a title” quest line yet. So no XP for us.
Q: You guys have stated that Eternity will be a pretty mature and dark-themed game. Slavery, drug use, etc. Are you afraid that might turn off some potential fans, or cause some unintended controversy within the gaming media?
Chris: If it’s true to the story, we’re afraid of nothing. There are a lot of elements we’ve often wanted to explore in previous titles that we haven’t had an opportunity to do, and Eternity gives us free rein to deal with those subjects. We don’t include elements like these for shock value – if they fit in with the game’s themes and if they add weight to the player’s moral choices for the player, then they are absolutely worth adding to the world. Similar themes worked well in interesting ways in Fallout 2, for example, and seeing some of those same evils explored in Eternity from a different perspective is something we’re looking forward to - and that’s only a small part of what we have planned.
Q: Will Eternity allow players to explore companion storyline/quests like they might have experienced in Fallout: New Vegas?
Chris: Each companion is intended to have a storyline, background, and quest that either advances them, ties them to the game story, or ties them to the theme, and preferably, some combination thereof. It may not be exactly like the New Vegas quest structure (we go as far back as Torment internal quests and the KOTOR2 advancement arcs), but companions will have agendas and quests of their own. More on this will likely come out in the coming months (and it may change as the companions are fully fleshed out), although the specifics will likely wait until the players are actually playing the title.
Also, Chris is apparently personally interested in making an Eberron D&D game, which is something I haven't heard him say before. Doesn't Eberron have elves?Chris: It’s coming along great, we’re building cities and districts and dungeons for players to explore, and it’s all looking beautiful – we’re currently tackling the first major city in the game, Defiance Bay, and it’s shaping up great. It’s not often that people can come into work and say “well, today I’m building a city,” but that’s the kind of workplace we have here at Obsidian. And that’s just the start – it’s not just the city itself, but the locations throughout the Eternity world (above and below) are shaping up beautifully, and the designers are adding a lot of great quest lines and content to thread them all together.
As for the title of the project: We have not resolved the “lock down a title” quest line yet. So no XP for us.
Q: You guys have stated that Eternity will be a pretty mature and dark-themed game. Slavery, drug use, etc. Are you afraid that might turn off some potential fans, or cause some unintended controversy within the gaming media?
Chris: If it’s true to the story, we’re afraid of nothing. There are a lot of elements we’ve often wanted to explore in previous titles that we haven’t had an opportunity to do, and Eternity gives us free rein to deal with those subjects. We don’t include elements like these for shock value – if they fit in with the game’s themes and if they add weight to the player’s moral choices for the player, then they are absolutely worth adding to the world. Similar themes worked well in interesting ways in Fallout 2, for example, and seeing some of those same evils explored in Eternity from a different perspective is something we’re looking forward to - and that’s only a small part of what we have planned.
Q: Will Eternity allow players to explore companion storyline/quests like they might have experienced in Fallout: New Vegas?
Chris: Each companion is intended to have a storyline, background, and quest that either advances them, ties them to the game story, or ties them to the theme, and preferably, some combination thereof. It may not be exactly like the New Vegas quest structure (we go as far back as Torment internal quests and the KOTOR2 advancement arcs), but companions will have agendas and quests of their own. More on this will likely come out in the coming months (and it may change as the companions are fully fleshed out), although the specifics will likely wait until the players are actually playing the title.
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