Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

This is not true. I am no Avellone fanboy and yet i don't think he has "lost his edge". I think you are confusing your opinion of the games he worked on, with your opinion on the writing he personally contributed to these games. Happens all the time...

 

Honestly, if it's not written by MCA it's probably trash dialog/story

 

Can't blame the new(er) guy there. I'm playing Prey right now and had forgotten entirely that MCA had worked on it, and nothing I've played so far has evoked any sort of trace or memory of his work.

 

What did you expect?

 

Hey quill, awesome video!!! Did you also listen to all of it just before the chris talk at the end (around 40-50? minutes into the youtube video)? According to his insider info Outer Worlds is maybe going to take place all on a giant space ship, be what fallout did to the 1950s but instead its the 1910s-20s (he said steampunk but more advanced) and be maybe the biggest announcement of the games awards (unless something called border lands? is revealed instead)!

He also said Obsidian was given "a lot of money and a legit awesome deal by Microsoft", told they have as much time and resources to make games and if there are any problems during development to contact Microsoft and legit experts will be available to help them make the best games ever (I'm so close to being an xbox girl next gen I can't even)

He also mentioned they've been stiffed on payments by loads of companies (not just the publicly known ones) and gives insight on some of the sad stuff they had to do during the struggle

sorry for any left out info listened to some of it before field hockey practice so can't remember everything!

 

Don't think he has insider info, he was just speculating/educated guessing.

That "MS gave acquired studios unlimited budget" thing is from some other speculation from last week.

 

He said he was pretty close to Obsidian and used a lot of 'what I heard/hearing', 'what I can confirm' throughout it tho?

 

He wrote Igwe, Mikhaila, "the Cook", Sarah, Danielle, and Abigail. He also wrote some of the lore and other minor characters, but AFAIK he hasn't named them.

 

I got it as he's following Obs & Bioware closely and he interpreted the news from his view, prolly with exaggeration, cos he said nothing I didn't know about from the interwebz.

https://segmentnext.com/2018/11/26/newly-acquired-studios-for-xbox-exclusives/

 

ah ok, still learned a lot of cool stuff so thanks for posting it anyway!

 

Oh yeah, he's awesome in combat. Little green killing machine.

I loved the bits about he and other goblins creating shrines of Lamashtu, and then the statue of him and the king. That was really cute. I like how he's kind of scared at times but also accomplishes things, and then gets proud and thinks he's the best all of a sudden. Really fun character in a game full of them. I wish you could have written more characters in the game, maybe for the sequel?

 

It's basically Charisma. He has none. He's a cunt.

But yeah, fine, dump all his points into Res. Fucking useless stat for nearly every character. Bah.

 

I found Into the breach writing very good. Even if there's not much of it, the pilots shortlines do wonder for the immersion. And If I am not wrong he did all of them.

 

If it was charisma, they would have called it charisma.

 

Resolve does what charisma does in the same way might does what strength does. Retarded concepts for a retarded system from an autistic guy and his bikes.

He should have gone with geometrical shapes instead.

 

you can be a cunt and still be charismatic

Resolve isn't charisma though, and Durance isn't charismatic. The problem is that they put too many things into one attribute.
Durance has high resolve because him having high mental resistances fits his character.

 

Alright. But what kind of hero has low mental resistances? Do any of the Pillars 1 companions have low mental resilience? Even Aloth, who is the wimpiest of the bunch possibly, is having to deal with an arsehole living inside his head. You could argue that not going insane from that requires very high mental resilience, and you could also argue that having that arsehole in his head makes him quite mentally resilient. Of course, you can also argue the opposite.

'Mental resilience' as an attribute in a role-playing system ends up being retarded, because what kind of hero has shit mental resilience? A character that keels over at the first sign of trouble, can never make up his mind, is easily persuaded by others, this is not a heroic character.

If you look at the companions in Pillars 1, you could make the argument for every single one of them that they should have high or very high Resolve, because Resolve as a concept is pretty much required for a heroic character. A character with shitty Resolve isn't going to be an adventurer in the first place, they'd just stay at home and work all day on a farm, or tend a bar, or be a homeless beggar.

How can you role-play a Watcher with 5 Resolve? He would fail at every step of the quest, because he'd just give up, maybe go get drunk in the tavern instead.

Anyway look at what Resolve actually does in Pillars 1, nobody gives a fuck about Deflection unless you're building an ultra tank, the other attributes are far more useful. Aside from that, Resolve is useful in conversations, as a 'persuade' attribute.

That's why I said Resolve is effectively Charisma, from a gameplay perspective, if you put the Deflection mechanic aside, which most players do. Except, you can easily imagine a hero who has low Charisma, as someone who either can't talk his way out of a paper bag, or is just unpleasant to be around. Whereas Resolve is basically un-dumpable from a role-playing perspective, unless you want to role-play a librarian.

 

The part about maybe taking place on a space ship but being 1920's advanced steampunk got me more excited for this game.

 

Courage the Cowardly Dog, among other cowardly heroes in fiction.

 

Ok but is that a d&d character

 

Khalid and Xan.

 

Ok but Khalid is barely an adventurer really, he's more like Jaheira's footstool.

I must admit I haven't ever used Xan; although you might have a point there, I'm still not convinced overall. I think an adventurer without resolve would quickly fall out of such a lifestyle.

 

Chris Avellone

May I ask you a question?

What would be stopping you from developing a modest scale game independently?
You've stated in the past that you're financially independent, and you've been in drivers seat on multiple, large(ish) scale projects. It seems to me that you're in a good position to work the indie route.

 

You are thinking with a modern day mindset, that's why...

It is not like most adventurers had a choice.

They don't live in modern western world, were they can apply for an cubicle office job in front of a computer and pretend to work while playing farmville.

In Faerun, it is either this, or diging dirt all day in the fields. The choice is simple if you have any talent for fighting...

 

Dude, are you crazy!? He's freelancing it out, yo! He gets to work on multiple vastly different cool franchises from home and he's getting to know new minds & learning new things every day! He's improving himself constantly. Why would he want the pressure of expectations from us or risk failure when he can just slowly cruise through the industry until he retires?