Interview Matt Chat 446: Kevin Saunders on Mask of the Betrayer and Storm of Zehir

[Infinitron]

Tags: Alpha Protocol; Dwarfs; Kevin Saunders; Matt Barton; Neverwinter Nights 2; Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer; Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir; Obsidian Entertainment

The latest episode of Matt Barton's interview with Kevin Saunders finally leaves Torment behind and works its way back to Kevin's years at Obsidian. Kevin was the lead designer on Dwarfs and afters its cancellation was briefly involved with Alpha Protocol, so he only arrived on Neverwinter Nights 2 near the end of its development. His next major role was as lead designer on the Mask of the Betrayer expansion, which is the main topic of the first half of the episode. Did you know that George Ziets wanted to resign from Obsidian because he was dissatisfied with how the story was turning out and Kevin persuaded him to stay? Also, apparently it was Feargus Urquhart who pushed for the implementation of the expansion's new camera options and for the addition of the Genasi races.

The second half of the episode is about Storm of Zehir, though it quickly turns into a series of digressions about the proper taxonomical classification of RPGs with full party character creation and the idea of using procedural generation to create dialogue. In practice, Kevin only had a minor oversight role on Storm of Zehir as he was simultaneously working on the cancelled Aliens: Crucible. He credits Tony Evans as the primary lead on the expansion and Nathaniel Chapman for coming up with the concept of the world map layer.

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Matt says there are two more episodes left to go. If he is working his way backwards that means the next one might be about Knights of the Old Republic II, though I wouldn't mind hearing more about Aliens: Crucible first.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

what was Dwarfs?

 

[Dorateen]

what was Dwarfs?

I recall Obsidian was going to try a darker take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

what was Dwarfs?

I recall Obsidian was going to try a darker take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

that's right, I remember now

 

[ksaun]

I'd like to clarify a couple things about some things relevant to this segment:

1. When talking about the experienced and talented Mask of the Betrayer designers, I believe I forgot to credit Jeff Husges. And (though many here would already know this) Chris Avellone writing Gann and Kaelyn.

2. It's been noted (and maybe I even said this, too) that Mask of the Betrayer benefited from being "under the radar." This doesn't mean that we didn't have oversight. I submitted weekly (and sometimes lengthy) reports to Obsidian's owners about the status of the project, risks, major decisions, etc. These reports were freeform and I used them to also organize my thoughts and evolve the plan forward. We also had project review meetings roughly monthly, which included Obsidian's owners.

To the extent that the MotB team felt that entirely independent, that means I did a good job in addressing any concerns and feedback from the owners without the team feeling disrupted. From what I recall, everyone was overall pleased/happy with MotB's progress and there was also much trust in our capabilities and efforts. Atari's production group and the team at WotC were also largely agreeable in trusting us to do our work.

That is, MotB team wasn't a rogue operation doing crazy things because no one was paying attention to us (which is what the phrase "under the radar" might imply). It was actually a rather transparent project that was simply well-managed by the executives involved. It was a smaller, and far less risky project (compared to something like Alpha Protocol or Aliens: Crucible), and we were deliberately trusted with considerable latitude to execute as we felt best.

 

[ksaun]

what was Dwarfs?

I recall Obsidian was going to try a darker take on Snow White and the Seven Dwarves.

Yes. It was a prequel, taking place in the same world as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was to be an action RPG. It was story/character-driven and quite dark. I had the great pleasure of defining the world history and devising and writing the initial story concept. And then the honor of hiring Brian Mitsoda as the lead writer and area designer. Brian designed the characters (from a narrative perspective, but also gameplay) and fleshed out and iterated on the fledgling story. I really liked where he took it all. Brian Menze (the artist behind creations such as Fallout's Vault Boy and KotOR 2's Darth Nihilus) was our concept artist (and the Dwarf ancestors were TERRIFIC). Josh Sawyer joined Obsidian sometime along the way and was leading combat design. Chris Parker led the project and the team's morale was very high -- we were very excited about what we were building toward.

We worked on Dwarfs for roughly a year. I do not know why it was canceled. An influential and strong advocate of the project (at Buena Vista Games, owned by Disney) shifted into another role, which (and this is speculation on my part) may have reduced our support at the publisher. We had some proof of concept gameplay implemented and such, but we hadn't yet entered production. From what I recall, we were hitting all of our milestones well, though (of course) much work remained and the team was still ramping up.

 

[The_Mask]

Thanks for your work on these games, Kevin. They were awesome. Especially MotB.

 

[Goldschmidt]

Going to watch after breakfast. Got nothing to do in this shithole anyway.

I already like Matt showing off that boxed version of M&M 6. Credit points for him.