RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

[Grauken]

You two need to get a room

 

[Blaine]

You two need to get an interrogation room

 

[Prime Junta]

You two need to get a room

Us? I barely even reply to his posts. He's the one following me around like a little kitten.

 

[Cnaiur]

The sun is shining, life’s good.

 

[Zed]

So Crooked Bee and others have (mostly) left the Codex. Where did they go? Back to Something Awful? To Resetera, perhaps? Fuck no, because those forums are now unreadable shithole echo chambers full of uninteresting retards. That fate can be the Codex's fate too if it ever goes the politically correct safe space route.

believe it or not: what keeps staff away is mostly real life engagements. work. myself included. we have some real irl go-getters running this heap.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Real talk

The smartest and most relentless troll on the Codex deliberately attempts to derail a great thread for no other reason than his own ego, when some people understandably get pissed, he fits that into his narrative of the persecution of free speech, about which he then pretends to care.

Does that sound about right?

 

[Grauken]

You two need to get an interrogation room

I don't judge taste, if that's your thing

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

Ok serious question ->

MCA, the next big hang up for so many of the drooling troglodytes that seem incapable of discerning your fairly straightfoward tale is the whole de-ownering thing... Can you explain in a more precise manner? By that, you said Feargus was top dog owning the biggest stake in the company. How was this determined when the company was founded(do you recall?) and were there a fixed number of shares and who had what number/percentage (IE Feargus has 51% ownership, next dude 19% -> next dude 15% -> next dude 10% -> final dude 5%)? Also, was there a specific clause that gave Feargus some sort of majority power to buy anyone out at any time for "current" evaluation prices? Finally, do you have any paperwork covering the founding of Obsidian that would possibly shed light into how Fergie and possibly the others muscled you out, say the articles of incorporation or any other documents that provide a paper trail? Sorry if this was already covered but the thread is rather large. If I missed it and anyone else can inform me of the post/page number that would be much appreciated...

Oh I found Obsidian's articles of incorporation and put them on scribd->

https://www.scribd.com/document/378532707/Obsidian-Entertainment-Inc-Articles-of-in-Corp

Not much to go by just that 1000000 shares were originally issued... Also, there are 2 other PDFs that can be pulled off California's SoS Business Search ->

https://businesssearch.sos.ca.gov/

Just search Obsidian Inc entity number C2296665 ; The two remaining pdfs are both statements of information, one from 2009 the other from Jan of this year. The one from 2009 has 2 Officers - Feargus as both CEO and CFO and Chris Parker is listed as the Secretary(VP?). Then there are just 3 directors listed: Feargus, Chris Parker and Darren Monahan. The only other name on the doc, is the person who filled it out, Tina Parker listed as head of HR. Finally, the one from January of this year is marked such that no change has been registered since the last statement of information.

 

[Cross]

I think the last one is the worst

A man's taste in books is a window into his soul.

It's also a window into the creative process of the company he's in charge of. On the two occasions that they were finally given the chance to develop their own IP, Obsidian went with a modern military coover-based shooter and a medieval high-fantasy RPG, the two safest possible bets they could have picked. Even Tyranny, ostensibly an original idea, devolved into a chosen one narrative that railroaded the player into rebelling against the evil Kyros.

 

[Blaine]

The smartest and most relentless troll on the Codex deliberately attempts to derail a great thread for no other reason than his own ego, when some people understandably get pissed, he fits that into his narrative of the persecution of free speech, about which he then pretends to care.

Does that sound about right?

Not quite. You wrote "attempts to derail" when you should have written "successfully derailed."

That is if I were trolling, hypothetically speaking, which of course I'm not.

 

[Jazz_]

Read: 51 books. Currently reading: 34 books.

 

[Blaine]

believe it or not: what keeps staff away is mostly real life engagements. work. myself included. we have some real irl go-getters running this heap.

Okay, but what flippypeepy said or implied was that Crooked Bee and others left to form their own Discords and so forth, and that's what I was working with in my response.

 

[JarlFrank]

This thread is why I love the Codex.

Just keep on delivering, my dudes

 

[abnaxus]

 

[Chris Avellone]

Hey, all, wanted to warn you I’m waiting for two things that are in the hands of other parties before I can advance the clock, and I also have some writing I need to wrap up that might require my time, so my responses might slow down over the next few days - I did try to answer and clarify what I could, and thanks for being willing to ask. (Also, I have interviews concerning this to answer as well, so I’m going to put some time into those, since they asked some very specific - but good - questions.)

If a public response happens (there hasn’t been one to me yet, even privately, although I’ve gotten a number of private messages from ex-employees, some confirming similar management practices, others expressing sympathy for the family situation, and a number of others concerning harassment/hostile workplace issues, from both men and women - if those go public, they have my support and my perspective as well), I’ll likely be back on faster.

In addition, stepping away from the upper management issue, I’m genuinely curious how PoE2’s release will go and reactions to it (I don’t mean that as a slam, again, I have no issues with the developers or the actual games), and anything that happens around that point will be lost in the noise anyway, so this is a good time to get ahead on things when I can’t do much but wait for other people's actions and future developments. If I can pop on to answer a question, I will.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Can you start to make hard questions instead of shitposting? I need chaos, blood, tears and drama.

So, Chris Avellone lets say that Obsidian is planning an orgy and they invited you. Who would you like to be there?

Well, maybe one more.

The corpses of all our canceled projects and failed pitches, animated and made to dance at the whim of an insane, fiddler-playing necromancer.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

If you're ever in need of a basement apartment over in Manhattan, I got your back Lord Avellone.

Keep in mind, you will have to share the living space with centipedes.

 

[CreamyBlood]

Chris Avellone

It's kind of sad when you realize that everything you've worked towards and put your blood sweat and tears into is run by incompetent, selfish fools. The worst is the lives they affect, not only the those of yourself and your peers but people that they've never met they've never met, wives, friends even children. I'm still not sure if they don't know how many people that they've never met despise them or they do and just don't care. Some people just have no honour or integrity. It's too bad much of the world is run this way, anyways...

Someone else asked about what tools and/or workflow you use for writing games. I'm thinking of starting small and adding little self contained bits for flavour just to get the hang of it, maybe similar to FTL. I'm sure you use whatever tool that your current engine might use like the dialogue editor for NWN2 or whatever the current project requires.

I find I mostly just use Notepad to jot down a few lines about a character or small plot lines and sometimes expand upon it as ideas occur to me. But I've also been playing around with programs like articy draft:3 and a few others that let you visually see how the dialogue or overarching story interconnects and organize all of the elements. Some of them you can even walk through it to see how it flows and if it makes sense.

You've explained you start with a quick summary, get it approved and eventually expand it out into bigger drafts over time. Do you sometimes use some kind of visual software to show others, or yourself, the main gist of how a story or dialogue will play out? I understand that the process, tools and approach probably vary wildly depending on what project you're working on at the time. What types of software do you prefer to use at different stages from your first pitch up to getting it implemented into a game?

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I think the last one is the worst

A man's taste in books is a window into his soul.

It's also a window into the creative process of the company he's in charge of. On the two occasions that they were finally given the chance to develop their own IP, Obsidian went with a modern military coover-based shooter and a medieval high-fantasy RPG, the two safest possible bets they could have picked. Even Tyranny, ostensibly an original idea, devolved into a chosen one narrative that railroaded the player into rebelling against the evil Kyros.

Tyranny was patched with the option to remain loyal. I’m not sure I’d quite call it a chosen one narrative (and at least it wasn’t a rags to riches story). Usually, the implication is that the chosen one delivers his people from some great evil; at the very least, the chosen one is chosen for something—you have a greater task. In Tyranny, you luck into incredible power, sure, but it’s more of a “right place right time” kind of thing. For most of the game you’re basically the cleanup crew for toxic magical waste. You’re drawn into conflict with powerful figures, not because you’re fated to bring down the evil overlord, but because you become too powerful for the archons to tolerate your continued existence. Like how the Ten Who Were Taken are always trying to undercut or kill each other in the original Black Company trilogy.

I suspect there was supposed to be a twist at the end but they didn’t have the resources to finish act 3 (and now we know why). I think the finale would have been a lot more satisfying if they explained why Kyros turns on you. I like to tell myself that the whole situation was engineered by Kyros: the overlord needs a new war because s/he has too many armies doing nothing now that the whole world’s been conquered. So s/he pits her subordinates against each other to prevent them from conspiring against her rule. This could have teed up an endgame confrontation where you learn that any opposition to Kyros has, in fact, only strengthened her rule (which has the added advantage of being more thematically consistent with the early game). But it’s not the worst thing in the world that Kyros’ motives are left open to interpretation.

Chris Avellone, can you tell us about the original vision for Tyranny’s story? Or is that something you can’t talk about either because you’d need permission or because the story hadn’t gotten that far by the time you left?

Edit: thanks for being so forthcoming!

 

[Chris Avellone]

Of course they do if such emails even exist. Even if Avellone has them, he would be stupid to show them. Accusation like that might lead to a courtcase if Obsidian and their lawyer think that Avellone doesn't have any evidence to back his claim.
So he might be leading them onto a trap here. (If you believe such conversation even went down in the first place)

One advantage in the last few years at Obsidian - is by asking for confirmation/clarification through email (after we discovered details would get fuzzy and forgotten if solely discussed), it's also there on the servers and the back-ups. And if it's not, it's legal troubles galore.

I can say that there's email threads on everything I've brought up, so I'm looking forward to someone to dispute the claims.

Lastly... I guess I do have one more comment... in addition to the resistance to pay employees back, there's actually an email chain where Feargus himself resists paying back employee expense reports because he wants to refinance his house and his own financials have to look good to receive the maximum benefit of the refinance. It is seriously the most amazing shit ever.

 

[Chris Avellone]

If you're ever in need of a basement apartment over in Manhattan, I got your back Lord Avellone.

Keep in mind, you will have to share the living space with centipedes.

I got a hard-on as soon as you said "living space with centipedes."

 

[Lockkaliber]

Hey, all, wanted to warn you I’m waiting for two things that are in the hands of other parties before I can advance the clock, and I also have some writing I need to wrap up that might require my time, so my responses might slow down over the next few days - I did try to answer and clarify what I could, and thanks for being willing to ask. (Also, I have interviews concerning this to answer as well, so I’m going to put some time into those, since they asked some very specific - but good - questions.)

If a public response happens (there hasn’t been one to me yet, even privately, although I’ve gotten a number of private messages from ex-employees, some confirming similar management practices, others expressing sympathy for the family situation, and a number of others concerning harassment/hostile workplace issues, from both men and women - if those go public, they have my support and my perspective as well), I’ll likely be back on faster.

Those interviews are likely to spawn 300 more pages where we can argue about communism in our usual autistic fashion, so no worries.

Thanks for this round, and remember the Codex always got your back bro.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Lastly... I guess I do have one more comment... in addition to the resistance to pay employees back, there's actually an email chain where Feargus himself resists paying back employee expense reports because he wants to refinance his house and his own financials have to look good to receive the maximum benefit of the refinance. It is seriously the most amazing shit ever.

Jesus fucking Christ. Is he totally tone deaf or does he just think he can say whatever he wants with impunity even when there’s a paper trail (seems like he was able to do exactly that for a long time)?

 

[Edmund Spenser]

Even though the terrible posts were the majority of this thread, it was a pleasure Chris. Take care and keep well.

 

[Mustawd]

thanks Chris Avellone . You crazy fuck.