Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

Pretty interesting analysis actually, even if that isn't true for Chris himself it can be true in general and that's what art is.

I think it may be true without being completely intentional. As in, it's possible the way he felt at the time influenced the themes and the tone he wanted to use for the character.
I don't think it's a coincidence that Durance and the GM were both grim and Erritis (TTON companion) is a happy adventurous guy. Although, being an MCA character in a Torment spiritual sequel, I suspect we'll learn that Erritis is not just a jolly half-wit in the end.

 

[Roguey]

How do you get all this screenshots? :D It's like you make a billion of them so you have one for every question.

I take a screenshot every time I come across dialogue that seems like it's worth capturing.

 

[Lhynn]

I take a screenshot every time I come across dialogue that seems like it's worth capturing.

Must have collected quite a lot of those over the years.

 

[Fairfax]

http://swedengamearena.com/conference/

CHRIS AVELLONE
Freelance, working on three projects
Track: Design

Talk: “Cautionary Tales and (More) Design Lessons Learned

This presentation outlines a series of design lessons accumulated through mistake and error (and a little success), all with the intention of helping developers and designers avoid the same mistakes and, hopefully, improve the overall quality of one’s games. From early foundations in school to managing scope on company projects, this presentation runs through a series of topics that may help the workflow and quality of a game you’re working on now. And if there’s something you’re curious about, we’ll fight to leave time for questions as well!

Take Aways:

1. Managerial development advice (details on managing upwards and downwards in a dev team).
2. Discussion of good/bad practices for game scoping and how to manage it to improve the quality of the game.
3. What it’s like to apply design methodologies to a game that’s already designed (the System Shock 1 Reboot will be used as an example, along with other games in my career).

Short bio: Chris started his career at Interplay’s Black Isle Studios division and worked on Planescape: Torment, Fallout 2, the Icewind Dale series, Dark Alliance, Knights of the Old Republic II, Neverwinter Nights 2, Mask of the Betrayer, Alpha Protocol, Fallout: New Vegas, FNV DLC: Dead Money, Old World Blues, Lonesome Road, and South Park. His more recent work includes Wasteland 2, FTL: Advanced Edition, Pillars of Eternity, and Torment: Tides of Numenera. He is currently working on Prey with Arkane Studios, Divinity: Original Sin II by Larian Studios, and is part of the successful Kickstarter reboot of System Shock with Night Dive Studios.

TIME: 15.45-16.15
Place: Hall A

Speaker: Chris Avellone, Freelance (Design)

Talk: Cautionary Tales and (More) Design Lessons Learned

His talk is 3 hours later. No livestream or whatsoever. Also it coincide with reveal of Nintendo's new hardware.

Here it is:

 

[Infinitron]

Here it is:

Recorded by some dude in the crowd with his phone. Wait for it to show up here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_7ewxVm7lTBBeza27WFdSQ/videos

 

[Roguey]

Hey Chris, you can thread your tweets by replying to yourself and erasing your name.

Anyway, Black Isle's inept management: https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/791801300732092416 https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/791801605637103616 https://twitter.com/ChrisAvellone/status/791802066154852353

So we talked about how video game companies are manager-less, did you have a manager when you worked for Obsidian?

Can't discuss Obsidian, but Black Isle was "sort of" where sort of was technically "yes," but only 1-3% of the time. It was worse b/c managerial requests were occ. forgotten 1-3 weeks later, and the requestor would get upset when reminded. The response to that was hit/miss, but usually it was, "well, I know what I *said,* but that's not what I want anymore."

 

[Latro]

in that video chris looks like the devil with horns sticking out behind his ears

 

[serch]

Intervew at sugarbombed
http://sugarbombed.com/forums/threads/chris-avellone-interview-part-1.21018/
Wow:

SB: Hypothetically, if Obsidian were to make a hypothetical new Fallout spinoff, would you hypothetically want to go back to obsidian and have some involvement with it being that Fallout is so close to your heart?


CA: No. While I like the developers and wish them all the very best, there's too many other problems at the higher managerial level to ever consider stepping back, especially when you could make a step in a direction that mattered for the franchise. Even leads at Obsidian have said as much (most after departing), and they told me they felt helpless in their roles to do what they felt was the right decision.

SB: You’ve said that you don’t think Fallout will leave Bethesda’s hands again, and likely not go back to Obsidian. Do you think this would have anything to do with the quarrels Bethesda and Obsidian had during and after development (specifically the metacritic thing) and like I said before, they’re worried about being showed up so to speak? Because with Bethesda’s patterns, the next Fallout game by them likely won’t come out for a long time, so they probably want to fill that gap with something, no?

CA: I doubt Bethesda worries much about what Obsidian is doing (Bethesda's likely way too busy on multiple fronts), but only they could speak to that, I have no idea.
From an outside perspective, however, it appears when Bethesda likes working with a studio or see their potential, they seem to buy them (Arkane). They didn't buy Obsidian, though, even though Obsidian is eager to be bought based on recent interviews. It might be for the best - I don't know what would happen to the devs if Obsidian was bought, but the upper management would likely come out okay with that exit strategy.

SB: Let’s say Bethesda goes and tries to fill the wait for Fallout 5 with a Fallout MMO by The Elder Scrolls Online developer Zenimax Online Studios. Do you see any potential in this idea?

CA: I think a Fallout MMO would do well. Yes, RPG Codex, light your torches, I'll send you a map to my house.

 

[Drax]

Fucking boss.

 

[Latro]

I already have google maps to his house though

 

[Alienman]

Is he for real? MMO? All MMOs since 1986 have failed, why would Fallout be any different? Even Bethesdas own baby Elder Scroll MMO failed and is now in free to play.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Is he for real? MMO? All MMOs since 1986 have failed, why would Fallout be any different? Even Bethesdas own baby Elder Scroll MMO failed and is now in free to play.

World of Warcraft was released in 2004, and it's had ridiculous success, at least financially.

 

[Alienman]

Is he for real? MMO? All MMOs since 1986 have failed, why would Fallout be any different? Even Bethesdas own baby Elder Scroll MMO failed and is now in free to play.

World of Warcraft was released in 2004, and it's had ridiculous success, at least financially.

I know, the 1986 was a joke. Everything after WoW has been a failure, but still these companies keep making them only for them to fail after a year. So I don't see how a Fallout MMO would be any different.

 

[Infinitron]

Cross-posting to Obsidian forums with inflammatory thread title.

 

[PulsatingBrain]

Is he for real? MMO? All MMOs since 1986 have failed, why would Fallout be any different? Even Bethesdas own baby Elder Scroll MMO failed and is now in free to play.

World of Warcraft was released in 2004, and it's had ridiculous success, at least financially.

I know, the 1986 was a joke. Everything after WoW has been a failure, but still these companies keep making them only for them to fail after a year. So I don't see how a Fallout MMO would be any different.

Yea, it would likelygo free-to-play after about a year and eventually claw it's money back that way. Maybe MCA was just fucking around and not taking the interview very seriously

 

[Doma]

Is he for real? MMO? All MMOs since 1986 have failed, why would Fallout be any different? Even Bethesdas own baby Elder Scroll MMO failed and is now in free to play.

World of Warcraft was released in 2004, and it's had ridiculous success, at least financially.

I know, the 1986 was a joke. Everything after WoW has been a failure, but still these companies keep making them only for them to fail after a year. So I don't see how a Fallout MMO would be any different.

Can I move to the alternate universe where Ultima Online (Pre-Trammel) and Star Wars Galaxies (Pre-NGE) are the templates for MMOs?

 

[Infinitron]

What's amazing about that interview is that the interviewer is very obviously trying to get MCA to talk shit about Bethesda, but he'd rather talk shit about Obsidian (and make excuses for Beth).

 

[mitochondritom]

I like Chris Avellone's work as much as the next guy, but its a bit crass to go out and not so subtly smear your former employers in an interview. Dude is better to just keep quiet about it all. It comes across like he really wants in at Bethesda, but I doubt even he could fix their shit to be honest.

 

[Lacrymas]

Why would showing dissatisfaction with former employers be crass? He isn't going on a slandering campaign against Obsidian, although he can. It's obvious that he didn't leave on good terms and he has shown restraint when talking about the issue, so I don't see a problem. Keeping cancerous business practices under wraps is much more crass.

In any case, I don't see why people still care about Fallout, especially an MMO. Bethesda isn't going to give up that cash cow, so whatever is put out in FO's name is going to be shit.

 

[hoverdog]

Intervew at sugarbombed
http://sugarbombed.com/forums/threads/chris-avellone-interview-part-1.21018/
Wow:

SB: Hypothetically, if Obsidian were to make a hypothetical new Fallout spinoff, would you hypothetically want to go back to obsidian and have some involvement with it being that Fallout is so close to your heart?


CA: No. While I like the developers and wish them all the very best, there's too many other problems at the higher managerial level to ever consider stepping back, especially when you could make a step in a direction that mattered for the franchise. Even leads at Obsidian have said as much (most after departing), and they told me they felt helpless in their roles to do what they felt was the right decision.

SB: You’ve said that you don’t think Fallout will leave Bethesda’s hands again, and likely not go back to Obsidian. Do you think this would have anything to do with the quarrels Bethesda and Obsidian had during and after development (specifically the metacritic thing) and like I said before, they’re worried about being showed up so to speak? Because with Bethesda’s patterns, the next Fallout game by them likely won’t come out for a long time, so they probably want to fill that gap with something, no?

CA: I doubt Bethesda worries much about what Obsidian is doing (Bethesda's likely way too busy on multiple fronts), but only they could speak to that, I have no idea.
From an outside perspective, however, it appears when Bethesda likes working with a studio or see their potential, they seem to buy them (Arkane). They didn't buy Obsidian, though, even though Obsidian is eager to be bought based on recent interviews. It might be for the best - I don't know what would happen to the devs if Obsidian was bought, but the upper management would likely come out okay with that exit strategy.

SB: Let’s say Bethesda goes and tries to fill the wait for Fallout 5 with a Fallout MMO by The Elder Scrolls Online developer Zenimax Online Studios. Do you see any potential in this idea?

CA: I think a Fallout MMO would do well. Yes, RPG Codex, light your torches, I'll send you a map to my house.

wow salty

 

[mitochondritom]

Why would showing dissatisfaction with former employers be crass? He isn't going on a slandering campaign against Obsidian, although he can. It's obvious that he didn't leave on good terms and he has shown restraint when talking about the issue, so I don't see a problem. Keeping cancerous business practices under wraps is much more crass

Well either come out and say it, be a champion of the little guys and give a big interview telling all or keep it zipped. If I were some hiring bod at Bethesda I would read this stuff and run a mile. Especially because of the billion sales Bethesda have of their Fallout games approximately 0.0001 % are by people who would genuinely give a shit to have Chris back on the team. It might bring negative press.. "why are they getting those guys who made those shitty 2D isometric games back to develop for our baby hunting dress up meme simulator". You don't want to employ a bloke who will start coyly spewing shit about you to enthralled nerds months after leaving.

 

[Harold]

MCA sounds more and more like Durance with each new interview.
Inb4 he calls Feargus a fiery whore.

 

[vortex]

http://sugarbombed.com/forums/threads/chris-avellone-interview-part-1.21018/

SB: Hypothetically, if Obsidian were to make a hypothetical new Fallout spinoff, would you hypothetically want to go back to obsidian and have some involvement with it being that Fallout is so close to your heart?


CA: No. While I like the developers and wish them all the very best, there's too many other problems at the higher managerial level to ever consider stepping back, especially when you could make a step in a direction that mattered for the franchise. Even leads at Obsidian have said as much (most after departing), and they told me they felt helpless in their roles to do what they felt was the right decision.

Does he speak of Obs CEO here?
This really bombed but not with sugar.

CA: I doubt Bethesda worries much about what Obsidian is doing (Bethesda's likely way too busy on multiple fronts), but only they could speak to that, I have no idea.
From an outside perspective, however, it appears when Bethesda likes working with a studio or see their potential, they seem to buy them (Arkane). They didn't buy Obsidian, though, even though Obsidian is eager to be bought based on recent interviews. It might be for the best - I don't know what would happen to the devs if Obsidian was bought, but the upper management would likely come out okay with that exit strategy.

By who? Bethesda or EA? Obsidian could come into place of Bioware. It seams to me that Bioware wants to get out.

SB: Let’s say Bethesda goes and tries to fill the wait for Fallout 5 with a Fallout MMO by The Elder Scrolls Online developer Zenimax Online Studios. Do you see any potential in this idea?

CA: I think a Fallout MMO would do well. Yes, RPG Codex, light your torches, I'll send you a map to my house.

Fallout Online is inevitable.

 

[Neanderthal]

Is Obsidian becoming MCAs Sierra Madre? The difficult thing is letting go, never a truer word spoken or written.

 

[Jasede]

* Gather 15 Radscorpion Tails
* Kill 20 Bloodtribe Raiders
* Mine 5 Depleted Uranium Rods

Level up! You gained a new Feat point!