Interview Eurogamer interviews MCA

[VentilatorOfDoom]

Tags: Chris Avellone; Obsidian Entertainment

The guys at eurogamer put up an interview with Chris Avellone. Topics include Planescape: Torment, RPG Codex, Alpha Protocol, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas.
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Here are some excerpts.
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;"><b>Eurogamer: I always felt that, prior to Bethesda's game, Troika's Arcanum was probably the closest thing to a Fallout sequel.</b>
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Chris Avellone: Umm... Well, the weird thing is, of all the games I've ...
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<b>Eurogamer: You've never played Arcanum?!</b>
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Chris Avellone: Well, look, in all the conversations I've had with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, we've never discussed it. It's always been that way.
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What a shocking revelation. MCA never played Arcanum. Can't blame him to be honest.
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;"><b>Eurogamer: The RPGCodex would be pretty cross with you, Chris.</b>
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Chris Avellone: I think they're going to be cross with me no matter what I do, and I've learned to live with it as long as they provide me with detailed critiques, because past all the profanity they'll spit out, they've actually got some good information on why certain systems are broken, and which ones aren't. Those are actually worth paying attention to, so I value those guys.
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<b>Eurogamer: So you read it, then?</b>
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Chris Avellone: Oh, yeah, sure. The two sites I usually follow are RPGWatch and RPGCodex. And there's one other site I follow, but it escapes me right now ...
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<b>Eurogamer: Eurogamer?</b>
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Chris Avellone: [Silence.]
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It's finally official, the love-hate relationship is mutual.
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No MCA interview is complete without asking about what can change the nature of the RPG:
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<p style="margin-left:50px;border-style:solid;border-width:1px;border-top-color:#ffffff;padding:5px;border-right-color:#bbbbbb;border-left-color:#ffffff;border-bottom-color:#bbbbbb;"><b>Eurogamer: Right. Well, anyway, so here's a big one: what defines an RPG these days? It seems to change a lot.</b>
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Chris Avellone: Well, I have a personal definition. Of the RPGs I've played recently, I'll be honest: I've been pretty much immersed in Fallout 3. But it seems to me that the most important parts of an RPG are that, in terms of all the character-building you can do in the opening screens, all those skill choices and background choices need to matter in the gameworld.
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That may sound kind of self-evident, but there's a lot of game balance that needs to go into making sure that each skill, trait, and attribute score is valuable, and an RPG has to deliver on that. If you're going to give the player a chance to specialise in or improve a certain aspect of their character, there needs to be value for that in the gameworld.
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The other thing that's important is that there has to be a lot of reactivity to the player's actions within the environment, either in terms of quests, faction allegiance, even physical changes in the environment. The player making an impact is incredibly important.
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Read the rest of the interview <a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/obsidians-chris-avellone-interview?page=1">over there.</a>
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I don't thank anyone for bringing this interview to my attention, especially not Razz.
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Spotted at: <A HREF="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/obsidians-chris-avellone-interview?page=1">EuroGamer</A>

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Eurogamer: Moving onto Alpha Protocol, do you feel like you're breaking new ground with this one? Beyond the spy setting?

Chris Avellone: Yeah, because we tried something different with it that I'm really happy about: we had less talking characters, which is a huge resource investment, and we just made them more reactive. I think the nice thing is that rather than just try and dump it into hundreds of different voice-acted parts, we chose a small selection of characters that you could more deeply interact with, and I know that from a narrative design standpoint, that ended up being far more satisfying to me.

but now i have to READ

what is this, a book? I like to play my games, not read them!

edit:

Eurogamer: But you do play a specific character in Alpha Protocol.

Chris Avellone: That is correct.

Eurogamer: So...

Chris Avellone: Well, there are advantages. You can give the character a voice. And - how do I put this? - when we choose a specific character like Mike Thorton for Alpha Protocol, we can give him a specific voice in the game, and that was the intent of Alpha Protocol: to provide a cinematic role-playing experience. And, to that extent, Michael Thorton has to interact with people cinematically in the game.

FU-

Decline just after I turn the page

 

[Shannow]

Always interesting how intelligent people can sound when they talk about stuff in general and how full of fail they become when talking about specifics.

*salute*
*coxbrofist*

 

[Darth Roxor]

MCA never played Arcanum.

It's not like he missed a lot.

 

[drunkpriest]

MCA never played Arcanum.

Scandalous Treasonous Heretical Heresy Batman

 

[Droog White Smile]

MCA never played Arcanum.

 

[Erzherzog]

Eurogamer: I always felt that, prior to Bethesda's game, Troika's Arcanum was probably the closest thing to a Fallout sequel.

Chris Avellone: Umm... Well, the weird thing is, of all the games I've ...

Eurogamer: You've never played Arcanum?!

Chris Avellone: Well, look, in all the conversations I've had with Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky, we've never discussed it. It's always been that way.

 

[.Sigurd]

MCA never played Arcanum.

:codexrage:

 

[KalosKagathos]

TAKE MY ANAL VIRGINITY, MCA-SAMA!

 

[Lockkaliber]

We are tsundere for MCA-sama and MCA-sama is tsundere for us. That's not right. One side has to be a bumbling buffoon harem protagonist.

Oh well I always thought he was overraMCA-SAMA I LOVE YOU <3

 

[GarfunkeL]

Gah, stop fooling around in F3 and play Arcanum for crying out loud! There are no excuses!

 

[KalosKagathos]

Eurogamer: One of the criticisms levelled at Mass Effect was that you could have different, inconsistent extremes of dialogue - you know, come on all Rush Limbaugh in one conversation, and Ralph Nader in the next, and you could use that to your game-breaking advantage. Is that something you've addressed for Alpha Protocol?

Chris Avellone: Well, there's two things we're doing. One, because of how the dialogue system was designed, because there's only one path through the conversation and no leaping back and forth, it's very easy to tell what the antecedent line is, and therefore govern the NPC's responses accordingly.

Also, there's a tracker in Alpha Protocol - as much as you can do research on the various NPCs in the game, they'll also do a lot of research on you. They do their homework. So when they meet you, they're already going to know about the choices you've made and the attitude you've taken when making those choices. So if you've been an aggressive American asshole, when you're in the international arena, that does not go over well.

We're able to predict that stuff - it's easier to do that in this game than one where you can double-back in the conversation.

On a more serious note, this sounds great.

 

[Lockkaliber]

Also I am reminded about the people that said that Avellone could say what he wanted during interviews, back when he dissed Poopers interview. Notice that he actually says that he can't talk about some things, so I guess that puts an end to that discussion once and for all.

 

[Black]

He never played Arcanum?
What else, world? Maybe next you'll reveal that Peter Cullen can't really transform into Optimus Prime?

 

[hoochimama]

Questions about rpgs and game design with no implied threats to his physical well-being nor any questioning of his sexual orientation? How passé.

Nothing new there aside from the fact that he never played arcanum, but does anyone think playing it would give him some new design insight or inspiration for the games he works on? Moreso than games that are substantially different from the ones he's already worked on?

 

[Shannow]

Nothing new there aside from the fact that he never played arcanum, but does anyone think playing it would give him some new design insight or inspiration for the games he works on?

Sure. It'd drive home the fact that bugs need to be crushed better than almost any other game there is. A lesson that is supremely important to any and every game-developer.

 

[serch]

Codex should send him a copy with Drog's patch after masturbating furiously on it. I don't know if the old boxes can be found anywhere, though.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

For some reason I think MCA would find Arcanum boring. Dunno why.

 

[crakkie]

In other news:

Eurogamer: What happened with that cancelled Aliens game you guys were doing?

Chris Avellone: I can't say much - you should ask SEGA about it - but I will say this: I think it ended up being a good thing, overall. And I will take that opinion with me to my grave.

Interesting. Product not worth releasing somehow?


edit: also this

Eurogamer: New Vegas, then. What's your role in the team?

Chris Avellone: I can't say.

Eurogamer: Not your job title?

Chris Avellone: I can't say!

Eurogamer: Okay. But so, like, if I, for example, were making a game called Fallout: New Vegas, and I was using the Fallout 3 engine, and I had my own development studio, and I was just going around asking people for advice, what would you tell me?

Chris Avellone: I could not even speculate on that. I would be shot in the head.

Eurogamer: It was worth a try. Okay, so, how has working with Bethesda been - in general, I mean?

Chris Avellone: I probably can't speak about that either.

Eurogamer: You're kidding!

Chris Avellone: Dude, you know what, if you could be a fly on the wall for some of these conversations...

Pete keeps their balls in a mighty tight vice grip.

 

[hoochimama]

For some reason I think MCA would find Arcanum boring. Dunno why.

Fallout 2 gone steampunk fantasy comes to mind.

 

[denizsi]

Pete keeps their balls in a mighty tight vice grip.

:facepalm:

Why would he listen to some PR guy? Because the PR guy took some PR course? Because after at least a decade of working in the industry Chris doesn't know how to handle interviews and write acceptable answers? Seriously.

Avellone is a co-founder. Do you not understand what this word means? If there is a guy in Obsidian who doesn't need to ask for anyone's permission, that would be MCA.

 

[Lockkaliber]

:VD:

 

[Ausir]

Why would he listen to some PR guy? Because the PR guy took some PR course? Because after at least a decade of working in the industry Chris doesn't know how to handle interviews and write acceptable answers? Seriously.

Avellone is a co-founder. Do you not understand what this word means? If there is a guy in Obsidian who doesn't need to ask for anyone's permission, that would be MCA.

He (and his company) is currently dependant financially on Bethesda. And everything he says about Fallout now has to go through Bethesda's PR first.

 

[DriacKin]

Avellone is a co-founder. Do you not understand what this word means? If there is a guy in Obsidian who doesn't need to ask for anyone's permission, that would be MCA.

Exactly. Avellone is a co-founder and a top-ranking employee of Obsidian. Everything he says reflects heavily on Obsidian's public image. He can't afford to say anything negative that may potentially hurt his company.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Pete keeps their balls in a mighty tight vice grip.

:facepalm:

Why would he listen to some PR guy? Because the PR guy took some PR course? Because after at least a decade of working in the industry Chris doesn't know how to handle interviews and write acceptable answers? Seriously.

Avellone is a co-founder. Do you not understand what this word means? If there is a guy in Obsidian who doesn't need to ask for anyone's permission, that would be MCA.

Yeah, let's pretend that there is no difference between some unknown internal PR clerk and a high profile VP of Marketing from a company that pays Obsidian's bills.