Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

Meh, maybe, but we are talking about companies relationship, don't think they hold "grudges" or something like that. I mean its business, and Interplay was in a bad situation at the time.
I think the offer made by Fargo was instead too low (like ridiculously low), and that's all, or they would probably have accepted it.

It was more than just a bad situation, specially in the last disputes. And yes, the IE games were successful, but that's the problem. Hasbro (and BioWare) never saw a lot of that money, and post-Fargo Interplay was doing some shady stuff, such as Lionheart's development and stealing Snowblind's engine. There's a good chance Herve fucked Hasbro over, and that's not the sort of thing they'd forget so easily. The thing is that Fargo wasn't even at Interplay during the case they mentioned (BG3 fiasco), which suggests there was poor communication from both sides.

 

[ga♥]

Maybe they got an unfavorable agreemenet the first time they sold their rights not expecting the success of the IE games. So this time, with a new management (due to Hasbro new ownership) their demands were higher and they weren't prepared to sell out cheaply. After all he needed the rights to make a sequel to a classic, for which there was (is) a huge interest (highest kickstarter for a game ever? exept Scam Citizen ofc).
I don't think they simply said "hey it's brian, you remember what he did 10 years ago? screw him", especially when D&D situation is a bit precarious and Hasbro doesn't want to invest very much in it.
I am just speculating btw, but in my experience when we talk about companies all that matters is money.

On BG3 maybe Fargo started the talk before his departure? So that's why they said that?

 

[Fairfax]

Polish website interview:

The Settled Down Gamer: Planescape: Torment remains a cult classic in Poland partially thanks to its great, full Polish localization, including its memorable dubbing and translation of the difficult source material. Not every localization, however, gets it right. Do you catch yourself thinking or worrying about how translators can make or break the reception of your work in different countries? Any advice for translators of your writing?

Chris Avellone: I do worry about it and I think about it quite a bit, even though in the past, it’s often been out of my control, unfortunately. I often find fans to be great translators, and strangely, ones that volunteer can end up really shining, but I suspect that’s because they love the work so much they want to do it justice – and they don’t see it as a job, but a labor of love. I don’t know if I’d have much advice for someone translating my writing, but there are some techniques I’ve used over the years to help the process:

– Be careful of using word puzzles or puns in writing, as it can be a challenge for translators to make that work in other languages.

– It’s sometimes very hard to get the meaning of a line 100% right, but if writers take the time to leave “voice direction” notes in, I feel that helps translators get the line. For example, “Let me help you with that” can have an entirely missed meaning without “{Sarcastic} Let me help you with that.” Even going so far as to make sure scene directions are left in word exports for translators can help quite a bit (as well as including exports that indicate clearly not just who the speaker of a line is but who the listener is as well).

– Carve out time to make yourself available for localization questions. This can be hard around the end of production, but taking the time to sit down and answer localization questions can improve a game’s reception globally.

The Settled Down Gamer: In the Pillars of Eternity Kickstarter campaign, one of its joke stretch goals was a promise that you won’t write any romance subplots. Even Prey’s Morgan Yu gets a very Deionarra-like romance in their backstory, in that it’s not very uplifting. Why do you seem to dislike love stories, or at least those happy ones?

Chris Avellone: Wow… I’ve totally forgotten that aspect of the campaign. Oddly enough, while I don’t like to write romance plots, I do think there was a mistaken notion that somehow I disapproved of them in games, which is untrue – especially in role-playing games. My philosophy has been that I like seeing a spectrum of relationship arcs, from romance to hate-mance to friendships to rivalries (inc. professional to friendly to lethal), and more. Alpha Protocol was probably the best example of this range – we treated the hate-mance (anti-romances) sections of the plot with the equal amount of attention we paid to the romances.

[Spoiler Alert if you haven’t played Prey and are planning to, skip the rest of this answer]
Morgan Yu’s romance was a way of reinforcing one of the frightening things about the game, and it’s something Ricardo Bare and I kicked around as an idea and we both really liked telling it indirectly. I don’t want to give any spoilers, but that relationship was designed to emphasize the danger of certain technologies – and also, in my opinion, the elements I included made that relationship redeemable and even better than it had been before the events of the game, so it all wasn’t intended to be gloomy at all as much as shocking to the player.

Also, while I did write the Abigail-Danielle relationship (which is sad) in Prey, the premise wasn’t mine, I just fleshed it out, so I can’t take credit for that. I will say it was interesting writing about a romance that had ended (and badly) vs. one that was about to occur, which is usually how romances are done in games.

The Settled Down Gamer: Divinity, Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, Shadowrun Returns, Tyranny – cRPGs harkening back to the late ‘90s are coming back in style. Do you think it’s all temporary and that at some point the “classic” cRPG will fizzle out again, or are they back for good like adventure games? Is the classic isometric model viable in your opinion, or is it mostly nostalgia?

Chris Avellone: I think there’ll always be an audience for them – and even if they fizzle out again, it’s only a matter of time before they come back in full force (as has been proven). I do think the isometric model is viable, but I don’t know if it’s a huge moneymaker – at least for larger publishers. It’s definitely not a huge revenue source as many other game genres out there. I do know no matter what, I’ll still keep working on them because I enjoy them – although I’m trying my hand at other game genres as well just to stretch my skills, and because there’s a lot to learn about game writing from other genres.

The Settled Down Gamer: You sometimes get accused of writing “preachy” characters like Kreia or Ulysses, even though you’ve mentioned several times that you write them as if they were wrong; many other fans obsessively look for aspects of Ravel in the games you write (I admit that I’m one of those guys). Are you ever bothered by the audience reading into your work, getting caught up on stuff and perhaps missing the point?

Chris Avellone: I think whatever point players derive from any characters I’ve written is the point, despite whatever intentions I had while writing them – and it likely says a lot about the players themselves (in a good way). I do make an effort to step outside the characters I write, especially if they have markedly different attitudes and perspectives than I do, and try to see how they might view the world. I’ve even chosen in the past to purposely write characters that are 180 degrees of my own beliefs just to try and work through how perspectives like those might arise -and not to be preaching, but to understand. I think it’s a betrayal of a game’s theme to introduce a theme and then (as a developer) choose the answer for the player or dictate that answer to them as the “right” way – you want the player to think about the question, not get lectured.

Neither Kreia or Ulysses are anyone I 100% agree with, but they are intended to ask questions of the player and the universe, yes. I think their superior tone is what comes across as preaching, but for me, it just makes defeating them (especially out-thinking them) even stronger for a protagonist… because you’ve just proven they don’t know as much as they thought they did. I think the only time I ever get bothered (although I’d use the word “embarrassed”) is when people assume a character, world, or piece of writing I did came from a more educated place (philosophical, religious, historical, etc.) than it actually did – I’m not really classically educated, I just like writing about worlds and imagining what a character’s life would be like in that world.

The Settled Down Gamer: The games you work on tend to have a lot of words in them – Tides of Numenera even received some flack for this, something I personally don’t agree with. Are you personally burned out on “wordiness” in cRPGs?

Chris Avellone: I think there’s better ways to communicate a story, yes. Some of the wordiness of past games was effective, but we have so many other tools at our disposal now to communicate a story. I think part of the issue is also how the words are used and the pacing. I don’t mind a lot of text if it’s used effectively, but often, it seems like there’s better ways to convey the same situation (audio, prop arrangement, a vista, music, etc.). It’s one thing to have a bitter noble go on for paragraphs about how he’s the last of his warring bloodline, but you can do the same thing by showing a graveyard of tombstones with his family crest with the right music to accompany it (or no music at all). I still feel one of the best presentations on the somber nature of war in Fallout was encountering the Arlington Cemetery in Fallout 3 and just seeing the row of gravestones stretching out in front of you.

The Settled Down Gamer: You’ve mentioned in a different interview that the ambiguity and hint of an “unreliable narrator” within the Unbroken Circle of Zerthimon was partially the result of giving TSR a window to declare it non-canon if they didn’t like it. Did things like that happen often? Have some technical, time or other outside limitations ended up being very positive influences on your writing and design? Was there any time you wished you had more freedom with a particular idea?

Chris Avellone: Things like that didn’t happen often, but I like to be respectful of the franchise I’m writing for – and leave the franchise holders a way “out” if they don’t like something. That said, the reverse has definitely happened (one of the Planescape: Torment companions, Fall-From-Grace, became canon, I believe) and it’s a really humbling moment when that occurs. Also, when writing the Unbroken Circle, I was always hoping that we could revisit the point in the Gith history that examines Dak’kon’s doubt as to whether the mind flayers really caused the civil war amongst the Gith in order to save themselves… and if Zerthimon was simply a tool and never stopped being a slave to his former masters, which is a pretty crushing thing for the Githzerai if proven true.

I think time as a limited resource always ends up being a positive influence – you learn to do more with less. Often, doing more or having a limitless budget doesn’t really help your writing or the title. For example, I’m pretty happy that we had a voice-over line count for the Fallout: New Vegas DLC’s because it forced us to simplify the cast, keep the writing in check, and use characters economically, which I think works to a title’s strength. I can’t think of any time when I wish I had more freedom with an idea (either that, or I’ve forgotten) – usually, when presenting a case for an idea, as long as you present that from the point of view where it’s clear you know the franchise you’re writing for, it’s not a hard sell with franchise-holders (or your boss) to be allowed to explore a certain idea. And if there is, introducing the “unreliable narrator” elements into it can give you a way out if there’s concerns about making some elements canon.

The Settled Down Gamer: Hideo Kojima once said that his intention when writing is to fool and betray his audience – ideally in a pleasant way. You do seem to have a thing for guiding the player through the world with wholly unreliable or enigmatic characters. What’s the reason for that? Do you always have in mind to primarily have fun with the player’s trust?

Chris Avellone: I prefer Brian Mitsoda’s “subvert the cliché,” where you seem to set the player up, then use that to give the twist on a seemingly-cliché situation more momentum. I don’t know if all my characters are unreliable or enigmatic, but I do know for companions and antagonists, you do want to give them enough depth and mystery that a player wants to explore their backstory and come to understand how they came to be.

The Settled Down Gamer: You’ve once said that fantasy is not your “happy place.” What is your genre happy place then?

Chris Avellone: I’m okay with fantasy as long as you’re trying something new, either in the world, lore, mechanics, technical / engineering aspects, or even just working with incredibly driven people (Swen Vincke never stops, for example). Over the years, I’ve worked on Numenera, Wasteland 2 and 3, Divinity: Original Sin II, and now Pathfinder: Kingmaker and I’ve found that in all those titles that there’s some element of that to write to – and sometimes even a lot to learn and admire from the people you’re working with that you didn’t think of doing or considering in an RPG before.

The Settled Down Gamer: Prey, Torment, The Sith Lords or Alpha Protocol all have plots that end up intertwining heavily with gameplay mechanics, intentionally or not. What comes to you first – the writing or the design?

Chris Avellone: As a narrative designer, you want to do all you can to reinforce the gameplay mechanics. However, gameplay mechanics often stem from “mood” (ex: Survival Horror), which arguably is a narrative design intention. Overall, I think the best products allow all the design disciplines (system, level, narrative) to work and cooperate together, but giving any one of them too much weight over the other has the potential to hurt a game. I personally believe narrative should never get in the way of the moment-to-moment gameplay, but if you’re smart about it, you make narrative just as much a moment-to-moment gameplay system as everything else.

The Settled Down Gamer: Finally – “Ustatkowany Gracz” roughly translates to “The Settled Down Gamer”. How would you define such a gamer in your own words? Do you think you fit into your definition?

Chris Avellone: A gamer for whom gaming is a lifestyle (not necessarily competitive, but more leisurely) who has time to relax and sit down and enjoy games. I don’t consider myself to be one… mostly because to my shame, I rarely have time to enjoy games – if I’m ever “enjoying” myself and relaxing with a game, I immediately feel guilty and need to start working again. It’s a bad habit that was bred into me in my youth. The last title I played I enjoyed was Oxenfree, and even then, I had to make sure I was so burned out from working I had No temptation to go back and work.

 

[MRY]

"Be careful of using word puzzles or puns in writing, as it can be a challenge for translators to make that work in other languages."

This was a rule on Torment -- actually framed in much broader terms, to avoid "word play" in general -- which I found to be a suggestion that hovered between Newspeak and Hollywood's preference to make every movie palatable to every culture and damn the depth and richness of the culture from which the movie springs. My insurrection against the rule blossomed into Inifere. I was first convinced that he would be rejected (thankfully not, given the hours that went into writing him), then convinced he would be untranslatable, but I have it on good authority his dialogue is no less clear than any other character's in translation!

I do think that translations are a wonderful thing -- I've gotten on my soapbox on this topic several times when other AGS developers crapped on fan translations -- but, man, I can't abide the procrustean absurdity of writing the original text with an eye to how it will work in Magyar, Chinese, and French.

 

[HoboForEternity]

"Be careful of using word puzzles or puns in writing, as it can be a challe

not only that, it should be free of cultural based context and jargon too.

*Nightmare flashback to monkey island's 2 monkey wrench puzzle"

I bet like almost all if not all non americans are stuck on that particular part. Plus it was integrated into gameplay, youc cant really change the monkey sprite so the more you try to translate it into other languages, the less sense it made.

 

[Prime Junta]

This was a rule on Torment -- actually framed in much broader terms, to avoid "word play" in general -- which I found to be a suggestion that hovered between Newspeak and Hollywood's preference to make every movie palatable to every culture and damn the depth and richness of the culture from which the movie springs.

In-teresting.

 

[Quillon]

I think it’s a betrayal of a game’s theme to introduce a theme and then (as a developer) choose the answer for the player or dictate that answer to them as the “right” way – you want the player to think about the question, not get lectured.

Yeah, dictate the right way 99% of the time we converse with those companions and justify it by the last per cent i.e. giving the player an option to prove them wrong at the very last.
Well at least Durance came across dumb enough character so we could easily shrug his "superior" ideas off.

Over the years, I’ve worked on Numenera, Wasteland 2 and 3, Divinity: Original Sin II, and now Pathfinder: Kingmaker and I’ve found that in all those titles that there’s some element of that to write to – and sometimes even a lot to learn and admire from the people you’re working with that you didn’t think of doing or considering in an RPG before.

Again, as indirect as ever. Obs must have kicked MCA's cat hard. Guess whatever they know they learned from MCA since apparently they had nothing to give him in all those 12 years.

 

[MRY]

*Nightmare flashback to monkey island's 2 monkey wrench puzzle"

I bet like almost all if not all non americans are stuck on that particular part. Plus it was integrated into gameplay, youc cant really change the monkey sprite so the more you try to translate it into other languages, the less sense it made.

I think Americans generally missed that puzzle, too -- it's routinely abused in English-language reviews of the game. I guess at least in English it makes sense in retrospect as a joke. Har har.

 

[Cyberarmy]

I bet like almost all if not all non americans are stuck on that particular part.

Eh, if you got that "late game" in MI2 you should've easly solved it with games own logic.
You wanna know which "puzzle" gave me nightmares? Key under the pillow in Sanitarium, Hive cluster area. A whole fucking day passed and I never thought clicking on that pillow, my brother solved that party by brute forcing (he clicked everywhere like mad)
What kind of degenere hides his key under a pillow ?!?!? Was that a cyclops thing?

 

[Goral]

I still feel one of the best presentations on the somber nature of war in Fallout was encountering the Arlington Cemetery in Fallout 3 and just seeing the row of gravestones stretching out in front of you.

He really does want that Bethesda job.

 

[ga♥]

Weren't the CDprojekt guys who made the polish PST translation?
I always read that the PL translators made a good work, while the italian ones (wasn't an official translation btw) result was mediocre at best.

 

[Popiel]

Weren't the CDprojekt guys who made the polish PST translation?
I always read that the PL translators made a good work, while the italian ones (wasn't an official translation btw) result was mediocre at best.

Polish translation is indeed extremely prestigious, on par with English original. That’s about the only such a case that I know of, and yes, game was translated by CD Projekt.

 

[ga♥]

Polish translation is indeed extremely prestigious, on par with English original. That’s about the only such a case that I know of, and yes, game was translated by CD Projekt.

How did they translate the "Hive way of speech" in Polish? In the Italian they simply didn't.

 

[LESS T_T]

Legendary Writer & Creative Director Chris Avellone to Keynote XPO Game Festival 2017

TULSA, Okla. – July 27, 2017 – VisitTulsa is thrilled to share that Chris Avellone – best known for his work on Planescape: Torment, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Fallout 2, Fallout: New Vegas, Divinity: Original Sin II, and Prey – will be the keynote speaker at this year’s XPO Game Festival held October 13-15 at the Cox Business Center in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The keynote, entitled “Development & Design,” will focus on development lessons accumulated through trial and error (and a little success). These lessons are intended to help developers and designers avoid the same mistakes and improve the quality of their games. From early foundations in school to managing scope on larger projects, Chris Avellone will run through a variety of topics that can help the workflow of games currently in development.

“I’m really looking forward to XPO,” says Chris Avellone. “I’m happy to have the chance to share what I’ve learned with a new generation of gamers.”

“Having Chris Avellone keynote at this year’s XPO Game Festival is a dream come true for everyone at the show. His unique insights and wealth of experience in both indie and AAA role-playing games will take the event to a whole new level,” adds Matt Stockman, event manager at XPO Game Festival.

Chris joins a distinguished lineup of game industry veterans who will cover an assortment of timely topics ranging from eSports and VR to game development tips and tricks. Featured speakers include Richard James Cook (Game Developer & Filmmaker), Chris Schroyer (Telltale Games), Rey Gutierrez (BlackWhiteBlood), Craig Deskins (Riot Games), Josh Manricks (Secret Location), Jenny Gibbons (Woodsy Studio), Matt Milizia (Frostkeep Studios) – and many more!

XPO Game Festival promises to be bigger and better than ever this year. Following its inaugural event in 2016, XPO boasts a jam-packed weekend where attendees will have opportunities to attend panels, demo games, compete in tournaments, enjoy tabletop games, join cosplay contests, relax in a retro gaming lounge, and more. For more information visit http://xpotulsa.com.

 

[Fairfax]

Stuff from a conversation about another project I'm working on:

Throwback to 2005, Asian Game Developers Summit:

Things kicked off with Chris Avellone from Obsidian Entertainment giving a general guideline for local game developers on how to recognise the aspects of good game designers. They include the willingness to play their games a lot and do research, cross-pollinate between game genres to draw good ideas from them, and not being married to their ideas when they know that an idea is not working. He also talked on what to ask game designer applicants during the hiring process and what to look for in a prospective employee.

Chris Avellone. The slide's text: Game designers play games that are NOT fun.

Designers are the weird ones.

Good designers would design games for free.

Good designers play games.

Good designers watch others play games.

Good designers play games that are fun.

Good designers play games that are not fun.

Good designers are able to give the reasons for why a game is/isn't fun.

Good designers do not like not having fun.

Good designers play their own games a lot.

Good designers do their own research.

Good designers cross-pollinate.

Good designers are selfless.

Good designers fail a lot. (But that doesn't let it stop them).

Good designers are not married to their ideas.

Good designers play well with others.

Good designers communicate well with others.

Good designers know exactly their goal.

Good designers know when to stop.

He talked a bit about that presentation and what he thinks now:

Man, I think that was the first talk I ever gave! Yes, I still believe all the principles (and have a much cleaner version I give today, with some additions). The "when to stop" one might be more recent, for multiple reasons. If I gave that as a premise way back when, then I'm surprised. I think the new ones are:

- Know the audience for your genre (esp. when translating other works - whether books, movies, or comics into games and vice versa)

- Recognize how to introduce "challenge" without it being punishing (time limits - there's good ways and bad ways to do this that accomplish the same thing - F1 was bad, System Shock 2 was good).

He also sent a link to his blog post about challenge and time limits:

So a designer's job is to make jumping through hoops fun, and calibrating the challenge/frustration ratio of jumping through said hoops.

This blog post stems from a question from the AMA Brian Fargo and I did on Reddit (long ago) concerning the issues with this in regards to one infamous piece of game design: time limits, and how two different games dealt with the challenge.

From a gamemaster/game designer perspective, the idea of time limits is appealing. It creates pressure, and it creates an urgency for the player that's hard to beat.

In Fallout 1, the skill system and the plot was built around the design that you only had a certain number of days to find the water chip for your vault and then defeat the mutant army or game over. If you don't recall that, then chances are you played it with the patch that removed that design element, as the mutant-hunting-your-Vault-down-time-limit was patched out of the game in 1.1 because of the outcry.

So I love time limits. In Fallout 1, it was appropriate because:

- It reinforced the urgency and pressure of saving your Vault.
- It reinforced the brutal nature of the world you were in.
- It made time-usage skills more risky for players to use. Sure, Doctor was helpful, but you had to be careful because it could consume a lot of time if used repeatedly.

Players reacted negatively because:

- The time limit was unforgiving.
- It prevented them from exploring areas at their leisure, which undermined the non-linearity of the game -- suddenly you didn't want to go everywhere and explore everything, because the clock was ticking.
- It couldn't be reset/extended beyond the time limit except in a few places in the game, and only a finite number of times.

So the question becomes - if I, as a game designer, want to introduce the same level of time pressure and instill the player with a sense of urgency, what can I do?

System Shock 2 had an elegant answer to this: It associated all the time limits with your inventory items. If you powered up an implant, it had X amount of time to function before you needed to recharge it. Here's the conditions:

- It was forgiving. When the time limit ran out, you would be inconvenienced, not fail the game.
- It could be reset. The player had some measure of control over resetting this time limit.
- Yet, it STILL created a sense of urgency while exploring the environment - the loss of item functionality was enough of an inconvenience that it made you keep an eye out for recharge stations and keep an eye on the clock for when you needed to start heading back to get recharged.

In any event, this was the answer promised on Reddit, and to @VipulManchala.

Asked him about his role on Into the Breach:

What I'm doing is...

(Matthew and Justin are Matthew Davis and Justin Ma, the Subset Games/FTL duo).

- Into the Breach Lore (world and corporation design, including naming sections of the islands and sometimes suggesting weapon and technology developments). This is done in tandem with Justin and Matthew (they have specifics they like for some of the corporations).
- Writing pilot text and mission text (which is given by the heads of the corporations). The actual missions are designed by Matthew and Justin, however, I just do the writing pass over it using the voice of the corporation leader.
- Suggesting reactivity and voice responses for the pilots (in tandem with Matthew and Justin) - for example, when it's appropriate for a pilot to respond to an event, how they respond to it, and how we script the event reaction and the pacing of it.
- ...and any other way I can.

It's not a lot of work throughout the year (similar to FTL:AE), but it's definitely a lot of fun. I offered to work for free again, but Matthew and Justin offered to compensate me this time around (although to be fair, as thanks for working on FTL:AE, they gave me an iPad mini, which is now in my niece's happy hands).

 

[Lurker47]

I genuinely think Avellone is one of the most imaginative writers in RPG's. He just sometimes needs Sawyer-esque autism to help balance him out.

 

[Roguey]

I had completely forgotten this still hadn't come out yet. It's going to be delayed well past the release of Wasteland 3, isn't it?

 

[Darth Roxor]

Maybe he should just get a ghost writer

 

[Lahey]

 

[Abu Antar]

I had completely forgotten this still hadn't come out yet. It's going to be delayed well past the release of Wasteland 3, isn't it?

The Novellas or the Arcanum playthrough.

 

[Roguey]

The Novellas or the Arcanum playthrough.

That Arcanum playthrough is always going to be right around the corner until he finds out that the hard drive on the rig Obsidian gave him failed and his save is gone forever.

 

[ga♥]

This blog post stems from a question from the AMA Brian Fargo and I did on Reddit (long ago)

Hey, any chance you got this?

 

[Fairfax]

This blog post stems from a question from the AMA Brian Fargo and I did on Reddit (long ago)

Hey, any chance you got this?

Here.

 

[Serious_Business]

Hey fat man when are you doing another video game

Yeah I'm talking to you Chris

Get that goddamn California tan out of my face

Creative output must come from pain and isolation

Alpha Protocol, more like I'm getting laid too much protocol

You lost your status shithead, now get the fuck back to writing that shitty FTL event

Legendary developer Chris Avelone

About that Pathfinder shit, remember that once you wanted to subvert tropes

Now you are the trope

Fuck you

 

[Sannom]

Why does Chris hide like that? I had to proceed by elimination to find him.