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

[Edmund Spenser]

this thread is unironically the best rpg dialogue to come out in years

 

[Prime Junta]

Man it must feel good to be able to say what you really think, after holding it in for so many years.

 

[Belegarsson]

Never underestimate the codex's ability to change the nature of a man.

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

Never underestimate the codex's ability to change the nature of a man.

Strangely, it did change mine. Towards the opposite direction: from angry, rude man to a polite, considerate one.

 

[Maculo]

And that wouldn't be much of a problem, since in relation to Project Indiana, Chris is not much of an insider. He left the company years before Boyarsky joined and he is basically repeating watercooler gossip. Some of it is bound to be inaccurate, and that's assuming Feargus doesn't go all Tyrion Lannister and start leaking fake shit.

Really? You chose not to answer anything I brought up, even the owners reaping rewards Indiana deserved and you being okay with that? C'mon, tinynickinyourmouth, you're better than that.

EDIT: Ah, fuck it, you're a shill. Done with you - keep supporting Feargus and shitting over the Indiana team, that's exactly the support they need to make a great RPG, you colossal fuck.

I think prolonged exposure to the Codex is beginning to take its toll.

After this thread, we just need to define what an RPG is.

Edit: Kit Walker, every time I read your post, I momentarily think it is Avellone and question why his writing style drastically changed.

 

[2house2fly]

Chris Avellone

Is josh's "FORM A UNION!!" stance recently have something to do to the general unpleasant work environment in obsidian.

Will unionization really help the generally industry-wide problems?

I'm not sure, and I don't know the reason for Josh's advocacy of a union on a personal level. What did surprise me, is aside from the other issues I raised, overworking and crunch time at Obsidian didn't seem to be a problem when I departed - if it is now, something must have changed for the worse, because overtime was never mandated (although people did work long hours).

My hunch is that Josh Sawyer's interest in unionization and related topics is a consequence of his increasing political engagement following the 2016 US elections, and not related to Obsidian specifically.

Has he been more politically engaged? I didn't pay enough attention before the elections to know if there's been much of a change

 

[Edmund Spenser]

After this thread, we just need to define what an RPG is.

Hack and slash dungeon diving. It's right in the name: DUNGEONS and DRAGONS

not STORIES and BUNNIES

 

[ColonelTeacup]

So you're trying to save Project Indiana, by alienating Obsidian with people who are paying for Project Indiana? Do you realize how absurd that sounds?



Oh, I would love if Tim and Leonard were directly financed and had no oversight from anybody. But that's not what will happen if you're successful in damaging Take 2's relationship with Obsidian owners. How do you imagine that working? Take 2 people show up, slam the conference table, and say, Jones, Parker and Urquhart, you are useless parasites, get out, we're now working directly with the team?

No, if there's an erosion of trust between the client and the company, that erosion of trust impacts entire organization from top to bottom. All that happens is the client pulls out. So if you're actually successful in "saving Indiana", what happens is Indiana gets cancelled and people get sacked, including the friend of yours who is feeding you information.

And in the aftermath, in all likelihood you get to deal with a libel lawsuit which would be pretty hard to dismiss.



Yep, you're probably right. The game will most likely come out, it will most likely be great, and owners will most likely have nothing to do with its success. And that's a preferable outcome to leaking some internal development drama, getting the whole thing in trouble and making everybody involved miserable.

So Nick, I’m starting to get a bit suspicious, but I’ll answer your questions, because you are arguing for Obsidian, and not the game itself. Bear with me, though.

First off, I don’t believe Indiana needs “saving.” I’m going to guess (based on the developers I know and respect because I've worked with them and know they do quality work) that it’s being done well. Do I have proof of this? No. Do I think it’s likely? Sure. Do I think you know jackshit? Nope, but you’re welcome to say otherwise.

I am also glad you agree with me that if Tim and Leonard were directly financed we would all love it. I do feel, strongly, that if it came down to it, Take2 would grab that team if they suspected serious Obsidian misfeasance, and then support them to get the game done. Do I genuinely believe someone like Feargus is making the game better, day by day? Fuck no, but admittedly, based on my own experience. Shit, Feargus used to hide bugs he didn't want fixed from me, I have no respect for the man.

I don’t “imagine” anything working. I do imagine what life would be like if the tumor(s) were excised, which is something every game dev in a bad situation wonders about. What if I was free to make the game I wanted? We (devs) all wonder it.

It’s not libel if you can prove it, and unfortunately, according to what I have (and I don't even need to examine things from Obsidian's side), Feargus made a mistake and didn’t hide his (own) cost padding. If he doesn’t own up to this, I’m happy to keep bringing it up, but it wasn’t Tim and Leonard’s doing – it was, unsurprisingly, Feargus, who gets greedy and entitled from time to time. To time. To time and again. If you want to defend Feargus or want to inform where the problem lies, please go ahead, I’ll listen to you... as long as you provide facts.

The only other thing I have to say is that while you agree the owners will likely have no part in the game’s success, what genuinely bothers me is the fact, they will, absolutely, be able to divert the reward to their own financial success, regardless of what the team did. Let me know (only hypothetically, since the game isn’t released), if you would agree that's fair. I don't. I’d be mad as all hell, just as I thought it was unfair the owners got the majority of Pillars 1 royalty profits vs. the people who made the game happen, especially since some of the owners were barely involved in PoE1, but still got most of the money when the royalties rolled in.

- Signed, ihaveatinynick

Wait, why would Feargus HIDE bugs, or even want them existing? I don't understand the logic behind this action.

 

[MajorMace]

Dayum, Chris in the last few pages reminds me of a dude I saw on the big screen yesterday. He had a motherfucking gauntlet and was punching queer-looking and faggot-sounding fellows left and right without breaking a sweat.

 

[Prime Junta]

Strangely, it did change mine. Towards the opposite direction: from angry, rude man to a polite, considerate one.

That's the next level. The Codex will first release anger, spite, and hate. Once it's all burned through, a Zen-like equanimity emerges. This place is like Purgatory for nerds.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Chris Avellone

Speaking of politics, did you ever feel, while at Obsidian, that political views ever got involved in game design? Have you ever felt tempted yourself to do so?

I'm asking this because a lot of developers are openly liberal on their social media, and that can have a translation to what they write or design into their games.

 

[Zed]

Wait, why would Feargus HIDE bugs, or even want them existing? I don't understand the logic behind this action.

bug cost resources to fix and may not always be "review score detrimental"

 

[J_C]

Really? You chose not to answer anything I brought up, even the owners reaping rewards Indiana deserved and you being okay with that? C'mon, tinynickinyourmouth, you're better than that.

EDIT: Ah, fuck it, you're a shill. Done with you - keep supporting Feargus and shitting over the Indiana team, that's exactly the support they need to make a great RPG, you colossal fuck.

Is this some gigantic belated April fool's joke? Chris Avellone I know was never this rude! It was part of the charm.

It's obvious that you are new here. Prolonged exposure to the Codex destroys, transforms and rebuilds you. I'm a genuinly nice guy IRL, but I've been transformed into a complete idiot, thanks to the Codex. Unfortunately Chris got a massive dosage of the Codex in the last few days, and it shows. He is starting to have enough of some of the bullshit in this thread. For this reason, please Chris Avellone leave this place while you can. I don't want to see you turned into a typical Codexian.

 

[Prime Junta]

The only other thing I have to say is that while you agree the owners will likely have no part in the game’s success, what genuinely bothers me is the fact, they will, absolutely, be able to divert the reward to their own financial success, regardless of what the team did. Let me know (only hypothetically, since the game isn’t released), if you would agree that's fair. I don't. I’d be mad as all hell, just as I thought it was unfair the owners got the majority of Pillars 1 royalty profits vs. the people who made the game happen, especially since some of the owners were barely involved in PoE1, but still got most of the money when the royalties rolled in.

Oh fuck, this is just too glorious -- the great Chris Avellone himself demonstrating how the parasitic capitalist class lines its nests with gold taken off the blood and sweat of the toiling masses. Is this what pure happiness feels like?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Unionize

That has been brought up quite a bit, and with some of the working conditions in the industry, it definitely bears examination.

Why not consider being a founding influence for a Game Dev union? It's probably very far from what you'd actually like to do, but you'd make a good spokesman.

I was remembering those glassdoor reviews with retarded complaints. Do you guys have any idea the power this would give to spoiled developers that can't take criticism?

 

[MajorMace]

Were you there for macron's party PJ ?

 

[Darkzone]

Chris Avellone
I really appreciate the many answers that you give about the topic and it is nice to see such an activity of such a renowned person in the Codex. But shouldn't it be around 5.00 AM in Irvine?
Unless you have the Uberman sleep cycle you should be quite tired and exhausted; and if we are tired we tend to commit mistakes.
I don't want to stop the activity in this thread, quite the opposite i would like to see such a thread, like "Ask MC.Avellon questions about RPGs and Development" or "What elememnts likes MCA in a certain RPG?" or "What is the dream RPG of MCA?", every month. But we all should care about your health, because we want you to continue to make RPGs for a very long time.

 

[Don Peste]

Chris Avellone, you were in Croatia at Reboot Develop 2017, but I don't know if you could attend to Tim Cain's talk "Building a Better RPG: Seven Mistakes to Avoid". Youtube video, Infinitron digest and Tim's List of Mistakes here: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...-a-better-rpg-seven-mistakes-to-avoid.114809/

Spoiler

Tim begins the talk with a short overview of his career, leading up to his current mystery project at Obsidian, which he says is a new IP which Fallout fans will enjoy, and which has a lot of "Fallout and Arcanum style and humor". And that sets the tone for the rest of the talk, which in my opinion isn't so much about particular RPG development mistakes as it is a treatise about various aspects of RPG design. It's likely that many of these design philosophies will find their way into Tim's game, so I'll go over them in detail:

• Mistake #1 - Steep Learning Curves: Tim thinks character creation in Fallout, Arcanum and other RPGs was too complex. He's experimenting with creating a completely numberless character system that uses geometric shapes to visualize attributes.
• Mistake #2 - Letting Math Trump Psychology: Revealing the influence of the years he spent developing Wildstar, Tim wants to develop mechanics that are psychologically satisfying and addictive, even at the expense of mathematical elegance. For example, he says the player's first attack against an enemy should always hit even if his overall hit percentage is the same regardless, and that rather than allow players to increase their critical hit chance, they should only be allowed to increase their critical hit damage.
• Mistake #3 - Conflating Player Skill With Character Skill: This one will be familiar if you've watched some of Josh Sawyer's talks. Aiming and hitting in an action-RPG should not be determined by character stats. On the other hand, things like the impact of recoil can be affected by stats, as well as the aforementioned critical hit damage.
• Mistake #4 - Misunderstanding Randomness: Here Tim lays out his frustration with the sorts of people who can't believe they could miss a 95% chance-to-hit attack three times in a row. His conclusion is that when people talk about "randomness", they often mean selecting a token rather than rolling a dice (ie, events can't repeat themselves).
• Mistake #5 - Forcing Linearity: This one is pretty self-explanatory. Tim says games are not movies, using Fallout's Tandi rescue scenario with its multiple solutions as an example of the sort of non-linearity he prizes.
• Mistake #6 - Being Non-Reactive: Tim seems particularly interested in the sort of reactivity where characters in the world have different dispositions based on your character's background, clothing and attributes, as seen in Arcanum. He also loves having different end slides based on the player's choices in the game, using Temple of Elemental Evil's evil ending as an example.
• Mistake #7 - Telling Horrible Stories: Tim uses this to emphasize again that games are not movies. Not every character in a game has to be important or advance the plot. Tropes likes the Chosen One protagonist and amnesiac protagonist are tiresome and should be discarded.

The talk concludes with a Q&A session, where Tim reveals a bit about how publisher meddling caused a large portion of Temple of Elemental Evil (and in particular its second town, Nulb) to be cut. He also expresses his approval of not granting experience points for combat to make alternate playstyles more attractive, as seen in Pillars of Eternity. In summary, I think it's clear that Tim and Leonard's game will very much be a streamlined, "newschool" sort of RPG. Those who want a more classical experience from Obsidian will have to look towards Pillars of Eternity II.

TimCain also posted in the thread: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...mistakes-to-avoid.114809/page-21#post-5078089

Spoiler

Wow, long thread. I will admit I don't have time to read it all, but let me say this. I think there has been a misunderstanding of my talk. I never said I don't like complex systems, just that I don't like the presentation of so much complexity in the first few minutes of the game, like in character creation. We lost a lot of potential players to that. That isn't hypothetical. I have emails and reviews to back me up.

Think of an RPG like a mountain. In my older RPG's, the only way to the top was going up cliffs, but many of you like rock climbing so it didn't matter. But a lot of people never even tried to do it. So I am building a road that lets people drive to the top of the mountain. The mountain is still as high as it used to be and the view is just as spectacular, but now more people can enjoy it.

There is so much misunderstanding on this thread, but I know you are smart and RPG-savvy people. That makes me think my first point of the talk is even more relevant: the need to reduce the learning slope to introduce something new. In other words, I think I need to simplify my talk.

Anyway, it took 30 hours on three flights to get back to Los Angeles from Croatia, so I am operating with severe jet lag. I will try to explain this more later.

The talk provoked a 36 pages long thread (a lot of shitposting too, but I believe you beated that tutorial ages ago), would you like to add anything to Tim Cain's insights?

But in any case, to everyone who missed it and is looking forward to Project Please Be Good Indiana, I sincerely recommend you to check it out. Also, Tim Cain's Classic GDC 2012 Fallout post-mortem.

 

[Maculo]

Infinitron, you may know the answer to this question. Have we pestered Chris Avellone about whether he has played/interacted with Warhammer 40k before?

 

[fobia]

Never underestimate the codex's ability to change the nature of a man.

Strangely, it did change mine. Towards the opposite direction: from angry, rude man to a polite, considerate one.

And all that in only two months, you must've had a steadfast personality indeed. :D

With regard to the fear some Codexer are plagued with, that Chris' posting here could seriously affect upcoming games from Obsidian; I very much doubt that.
If this will lead to a public debate about Obsidian's management/owners it'll likely not result to more than some outrage on social media, strong words, but only words.
I doubt Take2 will cease to work with Obsidian because of this and Deadfire releases tomorrow. I've yet to see a boycot because of company policy that does not finacially affect the customers/gamers themselves. Look at Paradox, they're still doing fine despite the controversy around their DLC policy and that does affect their customers. So yeah.

The only danger in a public discours about managment/owner policy at Obs is with regards to future partners for future projects. And imho there isn't a lot of reputation to lose when it comes to working with publishers for Obs.

 

[axedice]

Overall, with Hidden, you weren’t missing anything – Fables comics and the Dresden Files books were better than what was put together

Nice to know you're familiar with Dresden Files. I think it's one of the better Urban Fantasy settings and a CRPG based on Dresdenverse would have great potential.

So are you familiar with it because you've read the books or maybe there was (is) a project concerning the Dresdenverse?

 

[ColonelTeacup]

And that wouldn't be much of a problem, since in relation to Project Indiana, Chris is not much of an insider. He left the company years before Boyarsky joined and he is basically repeating watercooler gossip. Some of it is bound to be inaccurate, and that's assuming Feargus doesn't go all Tyrion Lannister and start leaking fake shit.

Really? You chose not to answer anything I brought up, even the owners reaping rewards Indiana deserved and you being okay with that? C'mon, tinynickinyourmouth, you're better than that.

EDIT: Ah, fuck it, you're a shill. Done with you - keep supporting Feargus and shitting over the Indiana team, that's exactly the support they need to make a great RPG, you colossal fuck.

I approve of this message.

 

[mondblut]

EDIT: Ah, fuck it, you're a shill. Done with you - keep supporting Feargus and shitting over the Indiana team, that's exactly the support they need to make a great RPG, you colossal fuck.

Okay, whose alt it is?

 

[Prime Junta]

I bet it sucks for the higher-ups at Obsidian right now. Josh for example can't be pleased at getting this stuff on top of the usual release pressure, on top of whatever pressure got him to gain 30 pounds, burn out creatively, and turn into a union agitator.

But in the long run it is for the best. Karma is a really tangible and powerful force and the longer you let this kind of situation fester, the higher the price to pay when the shit finally hits the fan -- and the Sith know this has been festering for long enough already.

As for the timing, there is no right time for this kind of thing, or all times are equally wrong.

(Also, to Darkzone and others, Chris is a big boy plus he's married. The only person who gets to tell him to go to bed is his wife.)

Spoiler

...and going by appearances, he would be a fool to refuse.

 

[2house2fly]

Unionize

That has been brought up quite a bit, and with some of the working conditions in the industry, it definitely bears examination.

Why not consider being a founding influence for a Game Dev union? It's probably very far from what you'd actually like to do, but you'd make a good spokesman.

I was remembering those glassdoor reviews with retarded complaints. Do you guys have any idea the power this would give to spoiled developers that can't take criticism?

Agreed. The spoiled owners who can't take criticism should have that power instead.