Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Roguey]

Or, "I really want to do more than one project with the same partners, I feel like we're not developing lasting relationships here.

Well this was mostly out of their hands. LucasArts had already given kotor 3 to one of their studios while kotor 2 was in production then they died, Atari had its problems, they burned bridges with Sega and Bethesda (Avellone's loose lips may have helped with the latter), DS3 didn't perform as well as Square Enix had hoped and the producer who championed the game left the company, and like LucasArts, Ubisoft gave the South Park sequel to one of their own teams.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Unfortunately he doesn't seem to be doing that good of a job as a creative consultant. If you play something like Prey, it's instantly recognizable which parts were written by Avellone, because they're the only parts that don't suck, while everything else is predictably shit. Seems to be the same thing with all of his other freelancing ventures. Personally I think bringing in a celebrity consultant mid-project is just a stupid way to go about it, by that time people are married to their own pet-projects and ideas, and then upper management brings in some outsider dickhead who says they all need to suck a lemon? People would feel uneasy about it even if they are rabid Avellone fanboys and furiously masturbate to pictures of Kreia on daily basis. Not that I never rubbed one off to Kreia, but I digress.

 

[Rev]

If you play something like Prey, it's instantly recognizable which parts were written by Avellone, because they're the only parts that don't suck, while everything else is predictably shit.

There's like nothing in the game that screams Avellone from a mile to me, and everything that makes the game great has nothing to with whatever MCA has written (and has nothing to do with writing, for that matter). It's a great game thanks to its excellent level design, so the credit goes to Colantonio, Bare and the other folks at Arkane.

Also, I wouldn't say Avellone's contributions to other games (I'm talking about his freelancing, ofc) were that impressive, either: AG Center and Highpool weren't the highlight of WL2 (and I didn't like the game at all), Erritis is better than most companions but it's nothing really great by itself, he just has an easy task defeating the likes of Tybyr and Calistege. I guess we'll see with the undead origin in D:OS2, but I don't expect anything major after seeing the kind of contributions he made in the past.

 

[pomenitul]

 

[DragoFireheart]

Yeah, it seems that the real problem he has is with the whole "crunch" workplace culture, where sometines you have to grind 60 hour work weeks to finish off a project.

Except that's unfortunately not unique to Obsidian, and in fact prevalent in entire game industry.

This is probably the sole reason I avoided the game industry like the plague.

 

[Infinitron]

IMO, Ag Center is actually extremely Avellonian. It's just not what most people have in mind when they think "Avellone". A nice way of explaining it is that it's not Kreia Avellone - it's Peragus Avellone.

 

[Freddie]

RPGamer interview, if it hasn't been posted yet: https://www.rpgamer.com/features/2017/interviews/chrisavelloneint2017.html

Here's a snip:

JS: I have read in interviews that it seems one of the reasons you left Obsidian was due to creative differences you had with management. First, is that correct? And if so, has going freelance helped to allowed you the creative freedom you desired?
CA: No, the departure was largely due to organizational and management aspects – not anything to do with the developers and folks who worked on the games. And please don't think this is somehow implying I'm a great manager, I'm not. I don't read tons of management books, I don't hang around with agents and business development reps, and I often feel lost around managers and CEOs because I don’t understand a lot of the jargon. In general, my management approach is more about establishing hierarchy, setting expectations, trusting people with the proper title and roles, giving consistent feedback (esp. positive feedback – which is more important when it isn't accompanied by negative feedback), don't play favorites or hire family/friends, and recognizing that if one doesn't have enough money and one doesn't have enough time to make a good game, figure out (1) how it got to that point so you don't repeat it, and (2) what can be done right now to fix both for the sake of a project – even if it means personal sacrifice of time, and your own funds to make a good game.

People has pointed out humble attitude, but for me the most striking thing is honesty. There were several quite politely formatted comments posted regarding crunch culture in industry. The thing is, nobody is calling out that it happens because someone fucked up. When it keeps happening again and again, it means somebody isn't neither learning or getting the memo.

In military situations where squad held bridge against overwhelming odds when enemy tried to take it with company of troops, those soldiers in a squad are applauded as heroes, maybe even decorated. But among officers, the most important discussion is, how did this situation, weakness happened to begin with? Who, how, when? What can be learned from this not to be in this position again?

What I read Avellone's leading style, I think wonder if he considers his management skills not to be that great because he realises, that even with good team it great feature, as a strength, it's situational (he even admits he's not up with the jargon.)

Anyway, Avellone sounds like a guy who may call out this sort of bullshit just because he is that sort of guy and for second reason, he probably likes to work with people whom brains are fit and crunch culture is counter productive to that sort of leadership.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

There is an all-too-tragic human quality of sitting stoically while things you don't like happen around you

okay mom

Spoiler

 

[Fairfax]

Chris clarified what his ideal team structure would be like. It would be something like this:

"Systems trumps the levels, levels trump the story", he says.

EDIT:

Note that the term "Project Director" varies from studio to studio, but in this case it's the chief vision holder who can guide the course of the game (and at times, they may share one of the Lead or other roles). They make all the final calls on the content, although ideally, they will have assembled leads that work with each other and production to settle on the best issues in advance before anyone needs to "intervene" in a stalemate (usually any reasonable conversation between leads will reveal the best course of action, usually when put into context by the producer's metrics - "well, we really only have 2.5 weeks to do this and two animators free, which means we could do X and Y or Y and Z in the time provided, but not X, Y, and Z unless we got more resources or time.")

RPGamer interview, if it hasn't been posted yet: https://www.rpgamer.com/features/2017/interviews/chrisavelloneint2017.html

Here's a snip:

JS: I have read in interviews that it seems one of the reasons you left Obsidian was due to creative differences you had with management. First, is that correct? And if so, has going freelance helped to allowed you the creative freedom you desired?
CA: No, the departure was largely due to organizational and management aspects – not anything to do with the developers and folks who worked on the games. And please don't think this is somehow implying I'm a great manager, I'm not. I don't read tons of management books, I don't hang around with agents and business development reps, and I often feel lost around managers and CEOs because I don’t understand a lot of the jargon. In general, my management approach is more about establishing hierarchy, setting expectations, trusting people with the proper title and roles, giving consistent feedback (esp. positive feedback – which is more important when it isn't accompanied by negative feedback), don't play favorites or hire family/friends, and recognizing that if one doesn't have enough money and one doesn't have enough time to make a good game, figure out (1) how it got to that point so you don't repeat it, and (2) what can be done right now to fix both for the sake of a project – even if it means personal sacrifice of time, and your own funds to make a good game.

People has pointed out humble attitude, but for me the most striking thing is honesty. There were several quite politely formatted comments posted regarding crunch culture in industry. The thing is, nobody is calling out that it happens because someone fucked up. When it keeps happening again and again, it means somebody isn't neither learning or getting the memo.

In military situations where squad held bridge against overwhelming odds when enemy tried to take it with company of troops, those soldiers in a squad are applauded as heroes, maybe even decorated. But among officers, the most important discussion is, how did this situation, weakness happened to begin with? Who, how, when? What can be learned from this not to be in this position again?

What I read Avellone's leading style, I think wonder if he considers his management skills not to be that great because he realises, that even with good team it great feature, as a strength, it's situational (he even admits he's not up with the jargon.)

Anyway, Avellone sounds like a guy who may call out this sort of bullshit just because he is that sort of guy and for second reason, he probably likes to work with people whom brains are fit and crunch culture is counter productive to that sort of leadership.

Crunch culture seems complicated, and it varies with each studio. It could happen for reasons other than management failing to do their job. Here's an interesting article on the subject.
Also Jason Schreier's book, which covers crunch culture in several projects:

Some argue that crunch represents failure of leadership and project management—that for employees to spend months working fourteen-hour days, usually for no extra money, is unconscionable. Others wonder how games can be made without it.

“We crunch on all of our games for sure,” said Naughty Dog’s copresident Evan Wells. “It’s never mandated. We never say, ‘OK, it’s six days a week, OK, it’s sixty hours a week.’ We never [change] our forty-hour expectation or our core hours, which are ten thirty a.m. to six thirty p.m. . . . People put in a lot more hours, but it’s based on their own fuel, how much they have in their tank.” Of course, there was always a cascading effect: when one designer stayed late to finish a level, others would feel pressured to stay late, too. Every Naughty Dog employee knew that the company had certain standards of quality, and that hitting those standards would always mean putting in overtime. Besides, what self-respecting artist wouldn’t want to milk every hour to make his or her work as good as possible?

This left Darrah and his team with two options. Option one was to settle for an incomplete game, full of rough drafts and untested ideas. In a post-DA2 world, that wasn’t an appealing thought—they couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of Inquisition. “I think Dragon Age: Inquisition is a direct response to Dragon Age 2,” said Cameron Lee. “Inquisition was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point where we went too far. . . . I think that having to deal with Dragon Age 2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

The other option was to crunch. The Dragon Age team had gone through various periods of extended overtime during Inquisition’s development, but this would be the worst yet. It would mean months of never-ending late nights and weekends in the office. It would lead to, as Shane Hawco, put it, “a lot of lost family time.” “I would love to have no crunch ever,” said Aaryn Flynn. “I think it remains to be seen whether crunching actually works. Obviously a ton of literature says it doesn’t. [But] I think everybody finds a time in their development careers where you’re going, ‘I don’t see what options we have.’”

 

[MRY]

"Systems trumps the levels, levels trump the story", he says.

As someone who rails against the anti-gameplay mentality in adventure games, I don't disagree with this sentiment, but in many ways it seems pretty fishy to me. Of course, how you read the diagram is anyone's guess, but I don't think that most cRPG projects start from systems and then get a story -- they typically start with a setting and a rough plot, conceived within the broad parameters of cRPG gameplay, and then the systems and story are in a kind of dialogue. Same with story and levels. I can think of a few games with plots that were actually built around systems and had no influence on those systems (Portal seems like an example?), but not RPGs, really.

But I guess if you think of the narrative lead as just the guy or gal responsible for implementing the Project Director and Lead Designer's story ideas, it has a kind of logic to it -- the way a screenwriter is trumped by the director, the lead actor, the cinematographer, etc., except in rare instances.

 

[Fairfax]

"Systems trumps the levels, levels trump the story", he says.

As someone who rails against the anti-gameplay mentality in adventure games, I don't disagree with this sentiment, but in many ways it seems pretty fishy to me. Of course, how you read the diagram is anyone's guess, but I don't think that most cRPG projects start from systems and then get a story -- they typically start with a setting and a rough plot, conceived within the broad parameters of cRPG gameplay, and then the systems and story are in a kind of dialogue. Same with story and levels. I can think of a few games with plots that were actually built around systems and had no influence on those systems (Portal seems like an example?), but not RPGs, really.

But I guess if you think of the narrative lead as just the guy or gal responsible for implementing the Project Director and Lead Designer's story ideas, it has a kind of logic to it -- the way a screenwriter is trumped by the director, the lead actor, the cinematographer, etc., except in rare instances.

He explained it in a couple of interviews:

In my personal feeling on the hierarchy of design, the systems designer is top of the chain because they are the ones who make sure all the moment-to-moment gameplay is fun – the player needs to be having fun every second, and that includes movement, jumping, firing their weapon, casting a spell, etc. in addition to the long range goals of those systems: level advancement, loot gains, monster challenges, and so on.

Level designers are the next stage as they provide the “backdrop” on which the systems play out… and at the lowest rung (probably shooting myself and my career in the foot here) the narrative designer comes in and gives the systems and levels a context and a reason for the player to experience the ambiance of the world. Whenever possible, the narrative designer is responsible for also tying the story into the game’s system pillars (reputation gain, timed events, espionage missions with multiple non-judgmental reactivity, etc.).

A programmer makes all these ideas a reality. Without them, we are all useless hunks of meat. Designers provide programmers with a design to implement, it is discussed and iterated on, and then the fun is slowly constructed and shaped in the game with programmer hands. We don’t hug programmers enough, but we should.

How do you resolve creative disputes during the game development process? Please provide an example scenario.

We simply discuss it. When a conflict arises between two people of the same level, then their superior breaks the tie. It rarely comes to this as long as the hierarchy is well-established and everyone is aware of who has the final say. For example, if a conflict arises with a mission in a game, and the Systems Designer, Level Designer, and Narrative Designer disagree, the systems designer is the one who can make the call over the others because they are in charge of moment-to-moment gameplay. After that, the level designer is the next highest because they take the systems and put them in the context of a level – last on the totem pole is the narrative designer, whose job it is to give context to the level in the larger world.

 

[MRY]

Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not aware of any RPG in the past many years where a level was designed without first having a narrative context. I mean, I'm sure it has happened, and that it happened a lot more in traditional crawl-y type RPGs, but it doesn't seem to describe how any of the RPGs that are top-rated on the Codex were made. That said, as genres go, RPGs rate pretty low on the "every second is fun" scale, so maybe that's Chris's point.

It is sort of interesting to me that he set forth this hierarchy in early 2012 (the second quote) and 2014, so I gather he's describing the method by which PoE was developed -- these aren't descriptions of idealized game development, but actually how he says that things were being run at OE (at least in the 2012 interview). From the Codexian coverage of PoE, I don't get the sense that the changed approach resulted in story being less intrusive; the opposite if anything?

 

[Nutria]

I find it weird for Avellone to be saying this when you look at Planescape: Torment. There was bad moment-to-moment gameplay in some parts (combat) and bad levels (Curst) but the story made it a classic. Then look at KOTOR 2. There was bad moment-to-moment gameplay (combat again) and bad levels (Peragus & the ending), but it was redeemed by the story. And that story didn't even include an actual ending that made any sense.

 

[Sensuki]

so I gather he's describing the method by which PoE was developed

He is. I *think* he may have re-iterated the hierarchy post-Obsidian, but Fairfax would have a better idea if he did than I would. If he didn't it could be something that could use clarification, post-OE.

 

[Infinitron]

It is sort of interesting to me that he set forth this hierarchy in early 2012 (the second quote) and 2014, so I gather he's describing the method by which PoE was developed

Given his eventual fate, more likely the way in which he would have liked it to be developed, no?

I like to read Chris' design hierarchy as a way of telling people to stop assuming he does everything...or to stop making him do everything.

I find it weird for Avellone to be saying this when you look at Planescape: Torment.

Shouldn't it be clear by now that he's disillusioned with the way he's been expected to do things in the past?

In reality though, the gameplay-centric Chris Avellone has already been showing his face since the FO:NV DLCs at least. Dead Money was a marriage of great story with unique environmental interaction mechanics and resource scarcity.

 

[Fairfax]

but actually how he says that things were being run at OE (at least in the 2012 interview)

The 2012 interview is from before Project Eternity, so perhaps he was thinking of his most recent projects at the time, which were the FNV DLCs.

Yeah, I guess what I'm saying is, I'm not aware of any RPG in the past many years where a level was designed without first having a narrative context. I mean, I'm sure it has happened, and that it happened a lot more in traditional crawl-y type RPGs, but it doesn't seem to describe how any of the RPGs that are top-rated on the Codex were made. That said, as genres go, RPGs rate pretty low on the "every second is fun" scale, so maybe that's Chris's point.

I think his main concern is preventing blocking due to disputes between leads rather than how concepts are created. A lot of (or most?) levels come from a narrative and/or aesthetic starting point, but then the systems and level design would be a priority in the actual implementation. He's not against content driven purely by writing, as many of his companions show.

so I gather he's describing the method by which PoE was developed

He is. I *think* he may have re-iterated the hierarchy post-Obsidian, but Fairfax would have a better idea if he did than I would. If he didn't it could be something that could use clarification, post-OE.

It's possible it had a hierarchy close to what he likes, but I doubt he was describing PoE when talking about his ideal team structure. MCA is very critical of leads holding too many titles, and PoE had Sawyer as Project Director, Lead Designer, Lead Systems Designer and Narrative Designer.

 

[Sensuki]

Yes, I remember that part too.

 

[Luckmann]

IMO, Ag Center is actually extremely Avellonian. It's just not what most people have in mind when they think "Avellone". A nice way of explaining it is that it's not Kreia Avellone - it's Peragus Avellone.

Wasn't Peragus completely hacked to pieces, though, and initially planned to be a lot bigger? I seem to remember something to that effect. Maybe it's an all-too-easy cop-out, but it does seem to be a pattern that Avellone's shit gets hacked to pieces, likely because it's easy to hack into narrative & themes in order to save time & space (and, on the other hand, it is easy for narrative & themes to overextend the realms of what can be considered reasonable). Avellone's best shit (in my own opinion) all seem to be things that are more or less "unhackable" in the grand scheme of things, such as Ravel or Kreia, or similar subtext that are integral to the plot or the themes therein.

 

[Infinitron]

As far as I know, it's KOTOR'2 ending that was hacked to pieces, not its beginning, which was if anything too large (kinda like the Ag Center!)

 

[Sensuki]

I think Peragus is quite good. From memory it's better than most of the later KotOR 2 areas.

 

[Prime Junta]

KOTOR2 isn't exactly a pearl of amazing level design. Dxun and Onderon weren't awful but that's about as good as it gets. Really the only thing worth a damn in it was the writing, but that really /is/ far and away the best Star Wars writing anywhere, including the films.

 

[Infinitron]

I think Peragus is quite good. From memory it's better than most of the later KotOR 2 areas.

Lots of people hated it. Not me though, I'm very indulgent of MCA's need to homage System Shock every chance he gets.

Anyway, if you make an effort look beyond "Avellone = cool characters, awesome stories" you'll start noticing these things. Since the FO:NV DLCs at least, he's always made an effort to include interesting environmental interaction stuff in areas he designs. In the Ag Center, that's stuff like the exploding pods that you need to avoid and can use as a tool in combat, or the poison gas tunnel puzzle in the basement.

There is narrative/writing stuff there as well, though. The companion you get in the Ag Center, Rose, is basically a 2D cutout of the stereotypical Chris Avellone "elderly female mentor with a dark past" archetype. And then there's the humor, like the bunny guy ("No, Flopsy!"), and the badass old man who helps you kill the bunnies in the fields.

 

[Sensuki]

KOTOR2 isn't exactly a pearl of amazing level design. Dxun and Onderon weren't awful but that's about as good as it gets. Really the only thing worth a damn in it was the writing, but that really /is/ far and away the best Star Wars writing anywhere, including the films.

I kind of disagree in the sense that the execution of the design works in pretty much every way, not just the writing. The way the player is introduced to the game mechanics, the characters, and how the story of Peragus is told through POV swapping, interaction with the level, item interaction, exploration and puzzles is fantastic. The writing is the star for sure, but everything else works in tandum to support it.

None of the other areas in the game come off quite the same, IMO.

 

[Fairfax]

None of the other areas in the game come off quite the same, IMO.

I'd say that's due to the BIS approach of assigning major areas to individual developers with greater freedom, which can be inconsistent. The lack of a Lead Area Designer and the short, troubled development cycle made it worse.

IIRC MCA was responsible for Peragus, parts of Nar Shaddaa, the Ravager and Malachor V.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I find it weird for Avellone to be saying this when you look at Planescape: Torment. There was bad moment-to-moment gameplay in some parts (combat) and bad levels (Curst) but the story made it a classic. Then look at KOTOR 2. There was bad moment-to-moment gameplay (combat again) and bad levels (Peragus & the ending), but it was redeemed by the story.

That was decades ago, dawg. It's possible he just changed his mind on how things should work.

Come to think of it, my evolution as a gamer was quite similar. I used to be all about the story and the characters, and everything else could just be barebones for all I cared, it didn't matter one bit.

But as years go by, I've become less and less willing to put up with stupid bullshit just to experience some video game writing. Why slog through hours of shitty gameplay , when I can just pick up an actual novel and experience better writing, better pacing, better coherence without all the nonsense. No, I want to have clean and comfortable UI, I want to have interesting loot, I want to have cool weapons, I want good combat, otherwise, well, fuck you and your pretensious writing.

What makes games as a medium unique is the way in which writing can interact and feed into the gameplay. SImply inserting walls and walls of text over a mediocre gameplay does not make for a good RPG.