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People News ObsidiLeaks: The Chris Avellone May of Rage Archive

jaydee2k

Savant
Joined
Nov 3, 2016
Messages
449
Hey Chris, how big was your influence on the greatest game of all time: Fallout 1?
 

jaydee2k

Savant
Joined
Nov 3, 2016
Messages
449


8:00 - What was it like working with Chris Avellone?
"You should probably ask how was it working with the entire team" ;)
 
Joined
Jan 26, 2007
Messages
522
Location
Germoney
The reason expansions and DLC (and sequels) using the same engine are wonderful is because you can usually start working in the engine immediately, generating content.

It is curious how engines aren't, well, recycled or iterated upon more oftenly. I'm not going back to Infinity or Gold Box (which at the latter stages were some criticized for having overstayed their welcome as tech). There is another factor beyond tech. Which is the amount of content that goes into making oft one-off games. If you consider the rules, the items, the lore -- a game like Tyranny is almost like setting up a new tabletop every time anew. And that's before there is any game campaign to play.

Obsidian (or Double Fine too really) setting up HQ in what must be perhaps one of the more expensive locations in the world to develop in, let alone fighting to stay afloat -- that sounds a challenge from the business ground up. This is naturally simplifying it, or meant to trigger an emotional rebuttal if you wish: But give a group of enthuasiasts in Europe the money generated by some of the more successful crowdfunding campaigns, an engine ready to roll and a ruleset -- they could probably stay afloat for a few projects to come.

I was gutted when that Aliens game was axed. It looked like it might have taken the license away from the "run and gun" formula you get from Aliens games. Aliens was that movie where the guys with all the guns got their asses kicked, rather than vice versa, after all. Then again, it took until Alien:Isolation for Alien to have its "proper" game. Still some hope for Hadley's. :salute:
 
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Goral

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All these people expect is some good old drama, which is not serving anything else. Absolutely disgusting.
Or maybe they want to learn what other side has to say about it. So far we only have MCA's side (more than plausible, especially when you read bullshit PR talk like Fernstermaker's but still it's only one side).
 

Tacgnol

Shitlord
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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Grab the Codex by the pussy RPG Wokedex Strap Yourselves In Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath I helped put crap in Monomyth
All these people expect is some good old drama, which is not serving anything else. Absolutely disgusting.
Or maybe they want to learn what other side has to say about it. So far we only have MCA's side (more than plausible, especially when you read bullshit PR talk like Fernstermaker's but still it's only one side).

Yep, I want an angry Henkel posting here. Think of the lulz (and dirt on Black Isle/Obsidian).
 

Alienman

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Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire Make the Codex Great Again! Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex Year of the Donut Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
I wouldn't call them lies, but someone from Obsidian would be nice. You know for
rating_sawyer.gif
 

J_C

One Bit Studio
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Developer
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Project: Eternity Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag. Pathfinder: Wrath
All these people expect is some good old drama, which is not serving anything else. Absolutely disgusting.
Or maybe they want to learn what other side has to say about it. So far we only have MCA's side (more than plausible, especially when you read bullshit PR talk like Fernstermaker's but still it's only one side).
In that case posting on twitter is the worst thing you can do. He won't respond on social media, only to make himself (or others) look bad. Asking him in private (in email for example) has a much better chance to him replying. No, that twitter question is just looking to generate drama. I can see the guy who posted in before me, gloating and making a trollface when posting it.
2a4r23.jpg
 

Raghar

Arcane
Vatnik
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
22,505
wages significantly, significantly smaller than you can get working for an average software house doing way way less demanding things
I've often thought this is the biggest problem in the games industry. Rather than hire a competent programmer on a decent wage - someone who can knock out quality code quickly, they hire the bottom of the barrel for peanuts, then wonder why their games are full of bugs, and simple things take so long to actually develop.
There are actually two different eras, but I removed half page long explanation about differences, it's thread about current stuff not about comparison of history and current.



So to sum it up, in current era newly hired expect much larger salaries, less work, self-education and education in work are not main sources of skills, and work with third party tools including ALL limits of these tools. From point of view of these who did stuff in garage game era, they are scripters who lack innovation, and strangely they are less productive than developers from garage game era. Basically millenials.

Or perhaps I should say it more directly, even I can't do reliable code when I have to use scripting tools without compiler that catches typos, and increased number of employees in projects create a mess that's another source of bugs.

Years ago I had theory there is a number of employers in projects where stuff is EXTREMELLY inefficient. Small teams can be run tightly. Large teams can partially duplicate work of other employee, thus they can evade majority of mishaps even when they work less efficiently. It's just the middle, when it's no longer small team where everyone has responsiblity, and it's not yet big moloch at IBM level (or Square-Enix level). The middle sized teams have strange number of post-release patches.

Then again. It can be simply the higher tolerance to bugs. In garage game era, you released and then you had nearly NO WAY to get patch to users. Thus pre release stuff was strictly and rigidly tested, and game was nearly always possible to finish even with mild bugs (and typos). In current era, we have steam that massively simplifies patch delivery, and some companies are using this benefit to turn gamers into lab mice.
 
Self-Ejected

Sacred82

Self-Ejected
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I know you dismiss "ego/personality" as a reason for what happened with him at BIS and what happened to him afterwards in your post, but sometimes that's what it comes down to on collaborative projects.

Actually... I don't. Networking is everything nowadays, and I'm absolutely aware that this could have sunk his ship despite him being a great programmer and all around creative mind. I could actually imagine him wanting to wear too many hats, because that's how it worked at his own little studio, Attic Software. Probably not what you want in a producer and can come across as overbearing/ infringing on people's territory, which is a big no-no, isn't it? Especially in a larger American company I would imagine tbh.
 

l3loodAngel

Proud INTJ
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Edgy
Joined
Nov 19, 2010
Messages
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wages significantly, significantly smaller than you can get working for an average software house doing way way less demanding things
I've often thought this is the biggest problem in the games industry. Rather than hire a competent programmer on a decent wage - someone who can knock out quality code quickly, they hire the bottom of the barrel for peanuts, then wonder why their games are full of bugs, and simple things take so long to actually develop.
Well got to leave the money for dem mortgages. Then you promote those incompetent duds and micromanage them into oblivion by making them do what’s exactly told and take the blame. When was the fucking last time we heard of someone new and competent in gaming?
 

throwaway

Cipher
Joined
Dec 17, 2013
Messages
492
I'm not sure what it says about me that I'm more comfortable trawling through the cesspool that is Codex than reading shit like this. Half a decent point across a dozen paragraphs (the MotB futile revolutions one). Makes me embarrassed to call myself a feminist.

The writer would be lucky to be used as a philosophical prop at some point in her(his? their?) own life.

Why the fuck do videogames attract such shit feminist analysis? Is it that the smarter ones got smarter things to worry about?

On a minor note, the spoilerific nature of that thing got me even more keen on checking Durance/GM out.
 

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