Development Info Chris Avellone's Talk at Digital Dragons 2016

[Infinitron]

Tags: Chris Avellone

The Digital Dragons organizers have uploaded a video of the talk Chris Avellone gave at the conference last month. The topic is "Design Hierarchies", and it's basically a description of what he considers to be the ideal game development team structure. Chris favors a clear, organized hierarchy, with systems designers at the top, level designers in the middle, and narrative designers at the bottom. He emphasizes that it's very important for project leads to clarify their expectations from those beneath them, and that it's a bad thing when the same lead holds many different roles on the team. I'll let you decide for yourselves how relevant all of this is to Chris' experiences at Obsidian during his final years there.

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As Jedi Master Radek posted on our forums on the day of the talk, Chris does indeed state that the unannounced games he's working on will "hopefully" be revealed to the public this year. We know by now that none of them are really his project, though.

 

[Sensuki]

Dee-ee-eecent.

I'll let you decide for yourselves how relevant all of this is to Chris' experiences at Obsidian during his final years there.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

So I was not wrong when I said this will be a goldmine for speculations?

 

[Archibald]

Interesting stuff. What was situation at Obsidian? Multiple people occupying same slots?

 

[Sensuki]

Interesting stuff. What was situation at Obsidian? Multiple people occupying same slots?

I think he was talking about Josh Sawyer

Josh occupied at least four roles on the project - Project Director, Lead Designer, System Designer and he wrote a companion.

Adam Brennecke also had two roles - Executive Producer and Lead Programmer.

 

[Rev]

Didn't Chris himself have more than one single role in his games? He was lead designer and creative lead/lead writer on both Torment and KotOR II, after all. And I'm pretty sure he did a lot of writing even in Alpha Protocol and the NV dlcs, other than being the project(s) lead.

Btw, I do agree that there should be a clear hierarchy (but with some flexibility) and having two or more leads is simply bad as he said, but I think that in relatively small projects it's kind of normal (and probably better) to have people do more than just one task. I also don't think the project lead should only manage the team and do almost no actual work on the game itself (and Torment and KotOR II would be worse if he only showed the rest of the time the right direction, instead of taking care of most of the writing as well), but then again I don't have any experience with game design.

 

[Infinitron]

Didn't Chris himself have more than one single role in his games? He was lead designer and creative lead/lead writer on both Torment and KotOR II, after all. And I'm pretty sure he did a lot of writing even in Alpha Protocol and the NV dlcs, other than being the project(s) lead.

Yeah, he admits that in the talk and says it sucked.

 

[Rev]

Didn't Chris himself have more than one single role in his games? He was lead designer and creative lead/lead writer on both Torment and KotOR II, after all. And I'm pretty sure he did a lot of writing even in Alpha Protocol and the NV dlcs, other than being the project(s) lead.

Yeah, he admits that in the talk and says it sucked.

So, if he could go back in time he would just do the high design on, say, Torment, tell the team what the game is about, set some important themes and let the other designers do the actual creative work, while he just control that they do their job properly (or go the other way around and just writing stories and characters without control on the game and its pillars/themes)? Somehow I don't think that's what his fans or the Codex as a whole would want from him, and I doubt it would make Torment better either, since what made it so good was the fact it had a clear author with his own style and vision that permeates the whole game.

 

[Infinitron]

So, if he could go back in time he would just do the high design on, say, Torment, tell the team what the game is about, set some important themes and let the other designers do the actual creative work, while he just control that they do their job properly (or go the other way around and just writing stories and characters without control on the game and its pillars/themes)? Somehow I don't think that's what his fans or the Codex as a whole would want from him, and I doubt it would make Torment better either, since what made it so good was the fact it had a clear author with his own style and vision that permeates the whole game.

Heh, remember that Avellone wasn't actually the game director on PS:T. That was poor Guido Henkel.

But you're right that there's a bit of a contradiction between his nostalgia for Black Isle and his new interest in proper management.

 

[Fairfax]

So, if he could go back in time he would just do the high design on, say, Torment, tell the team what the game is about, set some important themes and let the other designers do the actual creative work, while he just control that they do their job properly (or go the other way around and just writing stories and characters without control on the game and its pillars/themes)? Somehow I don't think that's what his fans or the Codex as a whole would want from him, and I doubt it would make Torment better either, since what made it so good was the fact it had a clear author with his own style and vision that permeates the whole game.

Heh, remember that Avellone wasn't actually the game director on PS:T. That was poor Guido Henkel.

But you're right that there's a bit of a contradiction between his nostalgia for Black Isle and his new interest in proper management.

Wasn't Guido Henkel just the producer?

Also "poor Guido Henkel"? The guy said he had more influence on the game's quality than anyone else ffs.

 

[Infinitron]

Wasn't Guido Henkel just the producer?

Also "poor Guido Henkel"? The guy said he had more influence on the game's quality than anyone else ffs.

You're right. PS:T didn't actually have a "game director" role. Maybe somebody can tell us how those roles would have been described today.

 

[Fairfax]

Wasn't Guido Henkel just the producer?

Also "poor Guido Henkel"? The guy said he had more influence on the game's quality than anyone else ffs.

You're right. PS:T didn't actually have a "game director" role. Maybe somebody can tell us how those roles would have been described today.

PS:T had a very odd structure, it doesn't even have writing credits. I asked MCA about it, and he said most people listed as designers were also writers.

 

[Infinitron]

Wasn't Guido Henkel just the producer?

Also "poor Guido Henkel"? The guy said he had more influence on the game's quality than anyone else ffs.

You're right. PS:T didn't actually have a "game director" role. Maybe somebody can tell us how those roles would have been described today.

PS:T had a very odd structure, it doesn't even have writing credits. I asked MCA about it, and he said most people listed as designers were also writers.

Not that unusual for the era I think. If you look at the Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 credits there's a similar thing going on.

 

[Lurker King]

PS:T is proof that in order for a cRPG to work you only need three things: (1) one good writer; (2) a strong narrative concept; (3) the ability to match the writer’s vision with the gameplay, exploration, etc - it helps if the writer is also a designer. If memory serves me right, Avellone had a whole year to write all the dialogues, the story, etc. All this talk about the importance of game development hierarchy sounds ludicrous, to be honest. Any team with a modicum of inteligence will realize this in an informal and instinctively manner. Avellone’s talks shows that he is a guy who can make great things, but has no clear understanding about the nature of what he is doing. I remember he answering a question about how to make good NPCs and his answer was that you could just put a dog there and players would appreciate it.

Those who can’t do, can teach marvelously. Those who can, but teach, are awful teachers.

 

[Infinitron]

lol, you're not that great a teacher, Lurker King.

 

[Lurker King]

I never said I was.

 

[vortex]

What if Chris Avellone signs for narrative designer at Beamdog ? How long does he have contract with the Larian studios?
Can he work at two studios at once ?

 

[Fairfax]

What if Chris Avellone signs for narrative designer at Beamdog ? How long does he have contract with the Larian studios?
Can he work at two studios at once ?

Yeah, he's a freelancer. Larian couldn't even try to demand exclusivity, as he was still working on TTON when he signed up for it.
As for Beamdog, I'd say that's extremely likely.

 

[Excidium II]

He should just start his own damn project.

 

[vortex]

As for Beamdog, I'd say that's extremely likely.

Why did you put in negative way? Plansecape Torment needs to have Enhanced edition. What better person for this than C. Avallone is?

Also, when will Chris Avallone create his own world/universe similar how Monte Cook made Numenera? It's rather strange why didn't he tackle this yet.

 

[Excidium II]

Also, when will Chris Avallone create his own world/universe similar how Monte Cook made Numenera?

Or Josh with Eora.

 

[Chris Avellone]

PS:T is proof that in order for a cRPG to work you only need three things: (1) one good writer; (2) a strong narrative concept; (3) the ability to match the writer’s vision with the gameplay, exploration, etc - it helps if the writer is also a designer. If memory serves me right, Avellone had a whole year to write all the dialogues, the story, etc. All this talk about the importance of game development hierarchy sounds ludicrous, to be honest. Any team with a modicum of inteligence will realize this in an informal and instinctively manner. Avellone’s talks shows that he is a guy who can make great things, but has no clear understanding about the nature of what he is doing. I remember he answering a question about how to make good NPCs and his answer was that you could just put a dog there and players would appreciate it.

Those who can’t do, can teach marvelously. Those who can, but teach, are awful teachers.

That's correct (on the NPC aspect). My apologies, though, I didn't mean to trivialize it - the "dog as an NPC" was one of the most important things I learned from Fallout 1: By far, the most feedback, stories, and positive feelings we got back from Fallout 1 was that people loved Dogmeat, and in my opinion, he's one of the best companions in Fallout history... without a line of text ever needed to convey your relationship and bond with him in the game.

We tried to do something similar with ED-E and T3-M4, but Dogmeat was the most successful rendition of the "loyal animal/robot companion." There's a lot of reasons why that model works with PCs (empathy, combat/system usage, free companion), but it definitely does.

 

[Excidium II]

ED-E is cool too.

 

[Mozg]

Lonesome Road ruined ED-E

Dogmeat never forced me into a dialog tree three steps away from the place where Ulysses forced me into a dialog tree

 

[Lurker King]

That's correct (on the NPC aspect). My apologies, though, I didn't mean to trivialize it - the "dog as an NPC" was one of the most important things I learned from Fallout 1: By far, the most feedback, stories, and positive feelings we got back from Fallout 1 was that people loved Dogmeat, and in my opinion, he's one of the best companions in Fallout history... without a line of text ever needed to convey your relationship and bond with him in the game.

We tried to do something similar with ED-E and T3-M4, but Dogmeat was the most successful rendition of the "loyal animal/robot companion." There's a lot of reasons why that model works with PCs (empathy, combat/system usage, free companion), but it definitely does.

But Dogmeat it’s a bad example because he is a pet and we all have some sympathy towards our pets. He is not a full-fledged NPC because he doesn’t actually do anything besides killing things. If some writer decide to make a full-fledged NPC using Dogmeat as a concept, the result will not be good. Anyways, I was talking about that roundtable with you, a guy from Project Zomboid and two other guys. If memory serves me right, one of them ask you why there is a deep connection with the player in PS:T right from the get go and your answer was something trivial about NPCs. The proper answer is that the player already begin with a past that he can’t remember and your present condition indicates that this past was terrible.