Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Excidium II]

it's funny because both are gone from Obsidian so what does it matter anyway.

 

[Bleed the Man]

Well, his tweet clearly suggests he's talking about PoE1 to me.

And who knows how the edits or whatever influenced the character after he handed it over:

Two different ideas keep getting passed around. The first is that Avellone was responsible for writing Durance but much of it ended up being cut; the other is that Fenstermaker was responsible for actually writing Durance and Avellone only came up with the idea. Which is it?

I don't know how this is still in question. From the Codex interview with Fenstermaker:

I can tell you the extent of my work on Durance. I wrote (if I'm remembering right) some of his environmental reactivity (like, for example, what does he say when he sees a dragon or the Grieving Mother drowning in a pool of blood), and then all of his banter with other companions, and his interjections into other conversations. I also gave the player an opportunity to call him out on his self-deception and hypocrisy, because it seemed to me that some players would want to, and that they might be more inclined to keep him in their party if they could, despite him being not the nicest guy. I had to make some minor edits to get everything to line up and make sense when his dialogue was pared down for length, but not a whole lot. Chris chose what to cut, and it was fairly clean - there was a layer that could be removed without losing the base of the character. Carrie's work on the Grieving Mother would've been similar, though I'm not sure the specifics.

Basically, Eric made an editing pass and wrote banter for it. Most of it is Avellone's.

 

[Azarkon]

Well, his tweet clearly suggests he's talking about PoE1 to me.

And who knows how the edits or whatever influenced the character after he handed it over:

Two different ideas keep getting passed around. The first is that Avellone was responsible for writing Durance but much of it ended up being cut; the other is that Fenstermaker was responsible for actually writing Durance and Avellone only came up with the idea. Which is it?

I don't know how this is still in question. From the Codex interview with Fenstermaker:

I can tell you the extent of my work on Durance. I wrote (if I'm remembering right) some of his environmental reactivity (like, for example, what does he say when he sees a dragon or the Grieving Mother drowning in a pool of blood), and then all of his banter with other companions, and his interjections into other conversations. I also gave the player an opportunity to call him out on his self-deception and hypocrisy, because it seemed to me that some players would want to, and that they might be more inclined to keep him in their party if they could, despite him being not the nicest guy. I had to make some minor edits to get everything to line up and make sense when his dialogue was pared down for length, but not a whole lot. Chris chose what to cut, and it was fairly clean - there was a layer that could be removed without losing the base of the character. Carrie's work on the Grieving Mother would've been similar, though I'm not sure the specifics.

Basically, Eric made an editing pass and wrote banter for it. Most of it is Avellone's.

But interactions with the world & other characters outside of the player is a significant side of the character. I can't understand why they'd divide the work this way back when Avellone was still with the company. From the discussion earlier it sounded as though Durance was supposed to have been much more evil than he ended up being; my feeling is that while Avellone might have made the changes, much of the character actually was removed.

 

[Infinitron]

I would guess that interactions with the world and other characters are typically written later in a game's development cycle, when Chris no longer had time or no longer wanted to work on the game.

 

[Fairfax]

New interview:

 

[Infinitron]

'Fallout: New Vegas' Writer Chris Avellone: "Fantasy is Not My Happy Place"
Credited with some of the best-written games ever, he's branching out into new genres, and the wild west of VR

Chris Avellone's credits read like a recitation of the computer RPG canon: Fallout 2, Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale. But talking to him, you get the feeling that the veteran writer and designer has only recently begun to reap the benefits of his profile. In the middle of 2015, Avellone left Obsidian Entertainment, the studio he co-founded in 2003 – and where he helped make widely-admired games like Fallout: New Vegas and Knights of the Old Republic 2 – to go freelance. Few people can earn a living writing games; fewer still have the juice to make it work as free agent. "I decided that after about 20 years of doing full-time work across a limited set of genres, I wanted to go see what else was out there," he says during our interview.

It's worked out for Avellone, especially the latter part. For most of his career, he's worked on the sort of isometric, prose-heavy RPGs we immediately think of whenever his name comes up – games with dialogue trees, speech checks, morality meters. Nowadays, for every game he works on that fits that mold – like Divinity: Original Sin 2 – there's another that doesn't. He recently wrapped writing duties on Arkane's sci-fi adventure Prey, for example, and the gig he's most excited about right now is Nightdive Studios' System Shock reboot.

For now, though, Avellone seems to be enjoying some downtime. At this year's Game Developers Conference, he cops to being involved in five games, most of them no longer requiring his immediate attention (he won't talk about the unannounced stuff). In our chat, he goes into his motivations to pursue the freelance life, what he's learned writing stories for VR, and why he wants to make an RPG based on The Wire.

What were your prospects like as an aspiring game maker growing in in Arlington, VA? Did it seem possible?
It actually looked pretty impossible. It was pretty much guaranteed that I would have to find some 40-hour a week job that I probably wouldn't like as much as making games. It was always going to be a sideline. The only contract work I could pick up was writing for pen-and-paper games, like Hero Games and Champions, and, occasionally, a Dungeons & Dragons article. It wasn't a lot of money at all, so I was like, "Okay, well, I'm going to have to have a full-time job and then do this as a hobby on the side." Then suddenly it changed.

Experience in pen and paper role-playing games seems to be a common thread among developers of a certain generation. Do you think that experience is valuable?
Yeah. I value it very much. There were so many mistakes I made as a game master. The players around the table give you immediate feedback when they're not having fun. That allows you to edit yourself later and go, "You know what? I probably shouldn't use that dungeon technique again because that was obviously not well received." Players don't like having their items stolen. Superhero characters don't like having their identities revealed. That accumulation of mistakes and that sense of how to entertain them better, no matter what the group is – that definitely was great training for "computer game mastering."

How does that experience practically apply to making computer games? It's one thing when you see people around a table who are clearly not engaged.
The best technique I ever learned was to try and figure out what each character's power fantasy is. Do they want to be the strongest hero? Do they want to be the cleverest guy? Do they want to be like John Constantine? Do they want to be like the Gray Mouser? You figure out what their power fantasy is, and you design the adventure so there's always an element where they can shine, and then they walk away from that event going, "You know what? I contributed. I felt awesome, and I helped the whole group achieve their objective."

'Fallout: New Vegas' (2010) Bethesda

We used to do that when play testing the Fallout "Van Buren" game back at Interplay. We had like 12 different types of characters, like "speech guy," or "thief guy," or "Nightkin stealth guy." I was like, "Oh my god, how will I do this?" But it was a good exercise – how can I make all these quests so everyone feels like they're doing something cool? That was a good proving ground for that.

How do you adapt learnings like this to a game that isn't an old-school, prose-heavy RPG?
Interestingly, I found a Dr. Who method of storytelling that actually works pretty well. You throw the players into an environment with a lot of visual mysteries, where they're like, "I'm not sure what's going on here." Then you let them explore the environment, and try and solve those mysteries. That curiosity leads them on. I found some of the best adventures, either pen and paper or computer games, involved presenting that question to players. They're so curious about it that it actually motivates them to go and find the answer. I think that ends up being better than, "You must go to point B, and then go to point C. Then at point D, you'll achieve your resolution."

I still play pen and paper RPGs, and what you're describing – this more "sandboxy," less rigid approach, encouraging of improvisation – feels very old school.
Yeah. I think part of the draw of the pen and paper games is the sandbox element. It allows you as a player to express yourself more in that environment versus, "Here's the book end, you can express yourself that way as long as you're still going to point B." I don't think that gives you the same narrative experience. You don't feel like you're contributing as much.

That was actually driven home in New Vegas. It often wasn't the actual storyline of the game [that stayed with people], it was things they were sharing online that they thought were cool, that their characters had done. That was their story and that's what they were excited about. The more opportunities you give a player to express themselves like that, the more engaged they get.

Is that a consideration when you're writing? That notion that the these parallel stories that players tell themselves about their in-game experiences are in a way equal to the ones you're writing?
Yeah, absolutely. When doing stories nowadays, I try and get away from "A, B, C, D" quest-lines, and I try and figure out – supposing we let the player do anything they want, is there some way to have a story advance based on that?

When we were originally doing Tyranny at Obsidian, part of the idea was that you could go anywhere, do anything. Because "reputation" was a power mechanic in the world, no matter what you did that involved "RPG-ing" in the world, that would raise your power level and reputation. When that happened, then the story would come to you, so it didn't matter what you did. You can just go have fun anyway you wanted to, and it would actually help the storyline advance. I try and look for mechanics like that, that are clearly reacting to you, but you're still allowed to do anything you want in the world, and you still feel powerful for it.

What do you think of the more linear approaches to game narrative that we see in so-called "walking simulators?"
I played Firewatch, and actually – this is going to sound strange – but I would have enjoyed it without the marketing. The marketing actually made me anticipate a different experience. I actually thought it was going to go deeper into psychological horror, but then it didn't, so I got disappointed. It's this beautiful environment to explore, and there's clearly a mystery going on here, both within the character himself, between the NPC you're talking to, and the other events that are taking place in the park. I still thought it was interesting, but I felt that the marketing had possibly gone too far [to set] my expectations in a different direction.

Weirdly enough, that actually caused me – whenever I'm working on a game, I'm like, "Can I talk to marketing?" I need to make sure that the message is very clear because I know that hurt my experience [with Firewatch].

That brings to mind the sort of misdirection I encountered in Gone Home. The ambiance, especially early on, played with my expectations in a way I thought was pretty cool.
I don't know how this will translate into an article – maybe people should skip the next paragraph if they want to avoid spoilers – but in Gone Home, the thing that bothered me was… so, I loved it, I thought that the father's narrative was carried very clearly through the game and it was actually kind of uplifting at the end where you're like, "Wow. Okay, he finally found his voice, that's awesome." But then there was the weirdness of going behind the walls of the house, where I'm like, "Okay, this is going to turn potentially into horror really fast," but then it didn't. I'm like, "Now I don't know whether to be disappointed or just kind of confused." But overall, I enjoyed the experience.

Are you mainly a freelancer now?
Yeah. I decided that after about 20 years of doing full-time work across a limited set of genres, I wanted to go see what else was out there. Whether it's first-person shooters, whether it's an RTS game, whether it's walking simulators, whether it's VR adventure games... I'd never had a chance to do a dialogue system in a VR game, but it changes everything. Getting to experiment with those tools, I feel like I'm growing in my craft. I didn't feel like I was growing for a while.

The very basics of VR are still being defined – including how we simply move around in those spaces. How are you approaching narrative in VR?
I didn't realize exactly how much you could track [and] detect where the player is looking, and also the player's gestures. I know it seems very obvious, but the degree to which that affects a dialogue interaction is considerable. The fact that you can actually track whether I'm making eye contact with you – you can have the NPC respond, going, "Hey, are you not engaged with me right now?"

It's elements like this – the gestures and even the head directions – that I never would have realized are things you can script to, things you can respond to. It's been pretty fascinating.

Coming from a background where you work heavily in prose, how much of your process have you had to rethink now that you're working in VR?
All of it, actually. I don't usually like approaching things via prose. In the past, I've had to use prose because there was no other way to do it. Whenever possible, I prefer visual or audio [methods of storytelling]. I think that communicates a story 10 times better than long "talking head" conversations, or long prose descriptions. You have to be careful with that.

'Planescape: Torment' (1999) Interplay Entertainment

But when I sit down to play Planescape: Torment, I know I'm going to be reading a ton. I don't think that game is any weaker for it.
Well, Planescape's probably an example I'd point to where we never could have done what we wanted to do – like, showing characters' expressions – with the animation budget that we had. Nor could you actually even see it on the scale those characters were [drawn].

Ultimately, we had to describe a lot [using words], and that was a lot of fun. I think Planescape got a little bit of a pass because every NPC you talked to generally knew something about your character. That ended up motivating you to play through it. You're like, "I'll discover something powerful about myself if I keep talking to this person."

So you think the dialogue kept you going by making you feel grand and important?
Yeah. I think Planescape is perhaps one of the most selfish power fantasies I've ever written. Everything revolves around the player character.

Planescape: Torment is often cited as one of the best-written games ever made. How do you feel about the place it occupies in the canon?
Speaking as someone that thought they were going to get fired over that game, I'm extremely gratified by the reception. QA thought it was a very strange game, which is something you really never want to hear from QA. I wasn't sure what the reception was going to be. It was a lot of long hours with a small team. It's really cool that people responded strongly to it.

When did you realize that you would not, in fact, get fired?
Six months later, I'm like, "Oh wow, now I have some breathing room. It seems like I bought some time."

A lot of the games that you've ended up working on as a freelancer are isometric RPGs in that vein.
Actually, very few of the freelance projects I'm on are isometric RPGs. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is the only one that comes close. I don't know how much more I have to add to the genre right now. I spent the last 10, maybe 15 years working on that style of game. What I'd like to do is see what other genres have done with storytelling and then, when I go back to isometric RPGs – which I eventually will – see how can I take the elements those other genres have figured out about story, and bring that into the isometric RPG, to make the experience even stronger.

So you're certain that you'll go back to isometric RPGs? Is that stuff in your bones?
Yeah. I may just go back to the pen-and-paper route. The idea of gazing down at a battle mat and moving your miniatures around – that's something I've always really enjoyed. As long as that's not the only thing I'm ever doing, as long as I'm trying to learn in other ways. That's what makes me happy.

We as an audience fetishize choice in games – we love being able to choose what our characters are going to say. Do you think that propagating that has come with any negative side effects?

I almost worry it's a technical limitation. Sometimes, it's hard to decide why a player is doing something, and that's why dialogue is important. It gives the player character an opportunity to go, "Here is why I'm doing this." It's otherwise almost impossible to tell.

When we were doing Alpha Protocol, for example – it was an espionage RPG – we didn't focus on a morality meter. We just focused on what the outside world would think of your actions, and then we'd use that as consequences despite why you're really doing it. Because that felt more "secret agent-y." I think that applies to a lot of games. You [as a player] have to make an internal choice. You know why you're doing it. The world may not understand, but that's why you have to make the hard decisions – because you know more than the outside world does.

Speaking of Alpha Protocol, do you wish you had stepped out of fantasy more frequently? Or is fantasy your happy place?
Fantasy is not my happy place. I think the advantage of different genres is that, as a designer, you end up creating mechanics and systems that are designed to enforce that genre. Even with espionage, you do different dialogue mechanics, and different stealth mechanics to reinforce the feeling of being a spy – things you might not necessarily do in a fantasy RPG. That's why I think breaking into different forms of sci-fi, different forms of fantasy – all of that [can inspire] brand new systems.

So the conventions that define a genre play a big role in how you end up shaping the story and systems.
Yeah. When the designers were creating the dialogue system for Alpha Protocol, it was kind of alien to us that there would be a timer involved. But it worked really well with the espionage genre, where you can't hem and haw. You have to be like Jack Bauer and make a decision. There is no time! That actually worked very well. When we were doing the focus tests for the game, they were, like, "Being in dialogue feels a lot like being in combat." And we actually have the brain wave activity to reinforce that.

I reviewed Alpha Protocol. I didn't give it a great review –
I don't blame you.

– but I was nonetheless engrossed by exactly that tension. What turned me off was the fundamental difference between how the game looked, and how the mechanics behind the scenes worked. You could hold a gun directly to someone's head, and yet still miss the shot.
Yeah. That game taught me two things. One is [that you should] always have a clear hierarchy for who says "yes" or "no" in any given decision. The second thing is, whenever possible, if you have a bunch of designers, get the systems nailed down first. Because if you keep iterating on stealth or gunplay, which was done continually towards the end [in Alpha Protocol], then you have to keep changing levels again and again and again to actually fit the mechanics.

Speaking of genres outside of fantasy, I read in an interview that you would love to work on an RPG based on the The Wire, the HBO drama.
Oh yeah. Normally, as a designer, when I'm walking by a parking structure, I immediately start imagining how a run and gun battle would play out. Or you're watching Rick and Morty and you're trying to break down all their stats and abilities. With The Wire, it was the same way. It's a slow burning investigation, but here's everything each party member brings to the investigation. McNulty, for example, even brings his disadvantages to the investigation. He's a huge womanizer, but then that allows him to identify with other womanizers they're tracking and go, "I know what that guy's thinking right now. I know what his agenda is. I know what he's probably going to do." That, strangely enough, contributes to the investigation. I'm like, "Wow, that is some good role-playing background information." I love The Wire. It's a fantastic show.

If you could work on anything right now, what would it be?
I'm actually already working on everything that I want to work on. It's System Shock! I'm working on it! I get to write Shodan! I can't really ask for much more than that.

There are a whole lot of franchises who are like, "Hey, would you want to try your hand at X franchise?" I'm like, "Yes I would!" There's really been no boundaries for who I get to work with or what I get to work on anymore. I get very clear in the contract that I'm happy to work for you, but there can't be any boundaries on anything else.

'Prey' (2017) Bethesda

"Boundaries" meaning they can't restrict what other projects you get to work on?
Yeah. I try and be respectful about that, though. I'll try and make a note of when the release dates are and I will be very considerate to let them know, "Hey, by the way, there might be a similar project, but the two of them won't cross." I make sure there's a very clear dividing line in my mind when thinking about this project versus that project.

What do you think of the way the Dark Souls games approach story? The narrative isn't really there –
Oh, but it is!

It is there, but it's presented more sparsely. You have to seek it out.
That's what I love. It's because they don't shove it down your throat. What they're doing is they're presenting it visually. What I love about Dark Souls is they recognize how easy it is to tell a story with inventory items. Even with just the name of an item. Players are going to engage with that because they want that item. That's something we did as far back as Icewind Dale. We thought the inventory should tell a story. They're like, "Well, now I've got Christine's Blade of Wounding... Oh, here's Christine's Plate Armor. Christine must have come this way!" It's such an easy and seamless way to do a story.

Do you have any creative regrets? Do you wish you could have any do-overs?
Yeah, a few things. As far back as Planescape Torment, I wish we'd had more time to do more of the planes versus just Sigil, the city. There are times I wish I'd been more a part of a managerial environment where they were willing to sacrifice more to make a higher quality game. Sometimes you have to sacrifice a lot to make a good game, but I believe a good game is worth more in the long run than a temporary profit. With Alpha Protocol, I wish there'd been stronger vision holders.

There's usually [one] regret per game, but at the same time, there's usually something that I'm proud of about any particular game.

Fallout 2 and Planescape Torment happened simultaneously, right? What was your life like then?
Actually, it was a lot like now, but I went into an office to do it. 160 hour work weeks. I would switch off from doing Planescape and doing story stuff and dialogue to actually designing areas for Fallout 2. Then when Fallout 2 started nearing the end of production, I actually had two computers on my desk so I could test one branch and then the other while the other one was loading, or my character died, or whatever. It was pretty frantic, but it was a good time.

Did one end up influencing the other? Did you learn techniques in Fallout that you could apply to Planescape?
Yeah. It was actually both Fallout 1 and Fallout 2 that taught me what a dialogue system could actually do, to a level I'd never considered before. The idea of "attribute checking" in dialogue never would have occurred to me until Fallout 1 and 2. Then actually writing for that was a tremendous amount of fun. I'm like, "I could probably bring that over to Planescape." I think without Fallout 2, Planescape would have not been as good of a game.

Do you think the industry values writers enough?
Yeah. That's a question I get a lot. I always felt that as soon as it became a money factor – when they realized that review scores would not be as high if the story was bad – that's what changed everything. Half-Life changed everything for me. It was like, "Now they realize that first-person shooters can have a story, and that elevates it." Once it started affecting the bottom line, I believe that people absolutely [started to] value writers.

 

[Fairfax]

Not gonna lie, this is very disappointing. I assumed he was too busy to do written interviews, which would explain why he was only doing podcasts and such. However, this one is fairly recent, yet he hasn't said a word about the Codex interview since Christmas (and the Sugarbombed one isn't finished either).

 

[stony3k]

If you could work on anything right now, what would it be?
I'm actually already working on everything that I want to work on. It's System Shock! I'm working on it! I get to write Shodan! I can't really ask for much more than that.

 

[Infinitron]

Not gonna lie, this is very disappointing. I assumed he was too busy to do written interviews, which would explain why he was only doing podcasts and such. However, this one is fairly recent, yet he hasn't said a word about the Codex interview since Christmas (and the Sugarbombed one isn't finished either).

Are you sure this one is written?

At this year's Game Developers Conference, he cops to being involved in five games, most of them no longer requiring his immediate attention (he won't talk about the unannounced stuff). In our chat, he goes into his motivations to pursue the freelance life, what he's learned writing stories for VR, and why he wants to make an RPG based on The Wire.

 

[Fairfax]

Not gonna lie, this is very disappointing. I assumed he was too busy to do written interviews, which would explain why he was only doing podcasts and such. However, this one is fairly recent, yet he hasn't said a word about the Codex interview since Christmas (and the Sugarbombed one isn't finished either).

Are you sure this one is written?

At this year's Game Developers Conference, he cops to being involved in five games, most of them no longer requiring his immediate attention (he won't talk about the unannounced stuff). In our chat, he goes into his motivations to pursue the freelance life, what he's learned writing stories for VR, and why he wants to make an RPG based on The Wire.

Guess not. Still, he could've dropped a line saying "hey, I'm very busy right now, should be able to answer more questions in X weeks/months".

 

[Alienman]

Tier one

 

[Fairfax]

 

[Fairfax]

There's a cruel irony in the fact most of his fans have always wanted him to work on Torment again, and what we get is TTON and a Beamdog re-release.

 

[Fairfax]

Details on his role:

What was Chris Avellone's role on PST:EE?

Chris Avellone reprises his role as Lead Designer in PST:EE. He reviewed and approved all UI adjustments and did an editorial pass of all the text in the game. In addition, in the few instances where new text was needed (i.e. additional journal entries and special ability descriptions), Chris wrote the text himself.

What content changed between PST and PST:EE?

Planescape: Torment has a unique tone and it would be impossible to add significant content to the game without changing that voice. Besides Chris Avellone's additions and edits to the text, we haven't changed any of the original Planescape: Torment content. Gameplay aside, we've added significant quality of life improvements to the user interface of this classic game. Scroll to the bottom of this FAQ for a larger list of improvements.

[...]

Will the infamous typo of 'The Brothel of Slating Intellectual Lusts' be fixed?

We asked Chris Avellone about this and decided not to alter the name, as per his request. His reasoning was that it had stood for so long that it had become part of the personality of Torment. He asks for your apologies, he knows it’s a mistake, but it’s burned in his brain.

[...]

What was the inspiration for the new Enhanced Edition interface?

Chris Avellone's opinion was that the user interface of Planescape: Torment was one of the many characterizations that made the game great, and we agreed. We decided to stick closely to the style and tone of the original while updating it only in places where improvements to the user's experience could be added without sacrificing the visual qualities that immersed players in the world of Sigil. We recreated the entire interface in 3D so we could render it at 4k, painstakingly matching the style, colors, and textures of the original. These changes make PST:EE the ideal way to experience the story of The Nameless One.

Chris Avellone editing pass
Chris Avellone requested the chance to review the entire text of Planescape: Torment and made thousands of corrections and improvements.

Option to read descriptions for special abilities
There was no way in the original PST to read character abilities like Morte's Litany of Curses (taunt), so Chris wrote new lines to describe these abilities.

Also:


I guess that profile pic was one of these hints:

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

The game was originally rushed, so a lot of the stuff didn't make it into the game. Take the opportunity and finish it, sort of a director's cut?! No, he only added 10 lines to companion abilities... Sad.

 

[Roguey]

The game was originally rushed, so a lot of the stuff didn't make it into the game. Take the opportunity and finish it, sort of a director's cut?! No, he only added 10 lines to companion abilities... Sad.

It's not a good idea to alter a work decades after it's been released. Look at Lucas. And to quote Josh Sawyer

Years ago, Ridley Scott changed Blade Runner. He decided to change an ambiguous aspect of the central character to something not ambiguous at all. The movie that Blade Runner fans fell in love with because of that central uncertainty lost something because the author simply changed his mind years after the fact.

I think that authors of content should leave the interpretive aspects of their narrative work alone once it goes out into the world for consumption. I think we should discuss it, argue about it, but we shouldn't try to re-frame it. It shouldn't really matter whether what's there is intentional or accidental. It's what's in the game and what the player experiences that matter.

Even describing, in broad strokes, what we had intended for Legion content was pretty distasteful, IMO. We had our shot to tell some stories. If I feel the need to scoot additional information at the audience outside of the content they paid money for, I'm just heaping failure upon failure -- made worse by asserting the importance of my opinions as the project director after the fact. My authority ended when the game went out the door. For better or worse, what's there is there.

 

[Fairfax]

The game was originally rushed, so a lot of the stuff didn't make it into the game. Take the opportunity and finish it, sort of a director's cut?! No, he only added 10 lines to companion abilities... Sad.

It's not a good idea to alter a work decades after it's been released. Look at Lucas. And to quote Josh Sawyer

Years ago, Ridley Scott changed Blade Runner. He decided to change an ambiguous aspect of the central character to something not ambiguous at all. The movie that Blade Runner fans fell in love with because of that central uncertainty lost something because the author simply changed his mind years after the fact.

I think that authors of content should leave the interpretive aspects of their narrative work alone once it goes out into the world for consumption. I think we should discuss it, argue about it, but we shouldn't try to re-frame it. It shouldn't really matter whether what's there is intentional or accidental. It's what's in the game and what the player experiences that matter.

Even describing, in broad strokes, what we had intended for Legion content was pretty distasteful, IMO. We had our shot to tell some stories. If I feel the need to scoot additional information at the audience outside of the content they paid money for, I'm just heaping failure upon failure -- made worse by asserting the importance of my opinions as the project director after the fact. My authority ended when the game went out the door. For better or worse, what's there is there.

Lucas is an extreme example, and completely different to Blade Runner. Blade Runner's Director's Cut and Final Cut restored footage and removed changes made by Warner. Lucas had the final cut all along, so a lot of his changes were retconning his own decisions, but Scott didn't get the chance to restore the film he was trying to make until the Final Cut.

And the aspect being less ambiguous is fine, because that's how the creator wanted it to be.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

It's not a good idea to alter

I said complete, not alter.

 

[Roguey]

Lucas is an extreme example, and completely different to Blade Runner. Blade Runner's Director's Cut and Final Cut restored footage and removed changes made by Warner. Lucas had the final cut all along, so a lot of his changes were retconning his own decisions, but Scott didn't get the chance to restore the film he was trying to make until the Final Cut.

And the aspect being less ambiguous is fine, because that's how the creator wanted it to be.

Removing forced changes and fixing mistakes is fine, adding scenes that change the story is not fine.

 

[Fairfax]

Lucas is an extreme example, and completely different to Blade Runner. Blade Runner's Director's Cut and Final Cut restored footage and removed changes made by Warner. Lucas had the final cut all along, so a lot of his changes were retconning his own decisions, but Scott didn't get the chance to restore the film he was trying to make until the Final Cut.

And the aspect being less ambiguous is fine, because that's how the creator wanted it to be.

Removing forced changes and fixing mistakes is fine, adding scenes that change the story is not fine.

That's what he did. And what scenes? If you (and Sawyer) are referring to the unicorn dream, that was a restored scene as well.

 

[Prime Junta]

Blade Runner DC is worse than the original. Sometimes the "editors" (in this case, the producers) do know better. Removing the ambiguity about Deckard and Harrison Ford's VO in the beginning were all .

I admire auteurs as much as the next guy, but very often they need someone to tell them when they're having a shit idea.

 

[Beastro]

The game was originally rushed, so a lot of the stuff didn't make it into the game. Take the opportunity and finish it, sort of a director's cut?! No, he only added 10 lines to companion abilities... Sad.

It's not a good idea to alter a work decades after it's been released. Look at Lucas. And to quote Josh Sawyer

Years ago, Ridley Scott changed Blade Runner. He decided to change an ambiguous aspect of the central character to something not ambiguous at all. The movie that Blade Runner fans fell in love with because of that central uncertainty lost something because the author simply changed his mind years after the fact.

I think that authors of content should leave the interpretive aspects of their narrative work alone once it goes out into the world for consumption. I think we should discuss it, argue about it, but we shouldn't try to re-frame it. It shouldn't really matter whether what's there is intentional or accidental. It's what's in the game and what the player experiences that matter.

Even describing, in broad strokes, what we had intended for Legion content was pretty distasteful, IMO. We had our shot to tell some stories. If I feel the need to scoot additional information at the audience outside of the content they paid money for, I'm just heaping failure upon failure -- made worse by asserting the importance of my opinions as the project director after the fact. My authority ended when the game went out the door. For better or worse, what's there is there.

Lucas is an extreme example, and completely different to Blade Runner. Blade Runner's Director's Cut and Final Cut restored footage and removed changes made by Warner. Lucas had the final cut all along, so a lot of his changes were retconning his own decisions, but Scott didn't get the chance to restore the film he was trying to make until the Final Cut.

And the aspect being less ambiguous is fine, because that's how the creator wanted it to be.

It just shows how shit Scott really is when he's left off the leash. He is a director that needs to work with more fingers in the pie than his own. So much of what made Alien work that came from him was doing a little polishing job here and there, like redesigning the Chestburster.

 

[Jarpie]

Blade Runner DC is worse than the original. Sometimes the "editors" (in this case, the producers) do know better. Removing the ambiguity about Deckard and Harrison Ford's VO in the beginning were all .

I admire auteurs as much as the next guy, but very often they need someone to tell them when they're having a shit idea.

There are two DCs, which one do you mean, the '92 DC or the Final Cut? I hated the VO because it had shit writing.

 

[ArchAngel]

The game was originally rushed, so a lot of the stuff didn't make it into the game. Take the opportunity and finish it, sort of a director's cut?! No, he only added 10 lines to companion abilities... Sad.

It's not a good idea to alter a work decades after it's been released. Look at Lucas. And to quote Josh Sawyer

Years ago, Ridley Scott changed Blade Runner. He decided to change an ambiguous aspect of the central character to something not ambiguous at all. The movie that Blade Runner fans fell in love with because of that central uncertainty lost something because the author simply changed his mind years after the fact.

I think that authors of content should leave the interpretive aspects of their narrative work alone once it goes out into the world for consumption. I think we should discuss it, argue about it, but we shouldn't try to re-frame it. It shouldn't really matter whether what's there is intentional or accidental. It's what's in the game and what the player experiences that matter.

Even describing, in broad strokes, what we had intended for Legion content was pretty distasteful, IMO. We had our shot to tell some stories. If I feel the need to scoot additional information at the audience outside of the content they paid money for, I'm just heaping failure upon failure -- made worse by asserting the importance of my opinions as the project director after the fact. My authority ended when the game went out the door. For better or worse, what's there is there.

I don't think anyone would care for MCA to go and change what is already there, but more like fix some weaker parts of the game (that were mostly filled with combat to give more play time to the game) or finish some content and quests that they didn't get to do originally.

 

[Prime Junta]

There are two DCs, which one do you mean, the '92 DC or the Final Cut? I hated the VO because it had shit writing.

Both.

The DC end sequence VO was shit. The original cut starting VO was not. It helped tons to set the scene.