Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Irenaeus II]

He told stories and parables

 

[Lacrymas]

Parables and improvised stories are something different. The whole idea of writing (and everything comparable) something down is that you can logically construct the whole thing, this can't normally be done while improvising. It gives you the freedom for complex forms and actual plots.

 

[Viata]

So Christ is better. He had mad skillz at improvising.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Amen

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

So if Chris is Christ, who is Satan?

 

[Irenaeus II]

The trident is there...

 

[Lacrymas]

Satan has nothing to do with Christ, so that's a nonsensical question :p

 

[Irenaeus II]

https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+4:1-11&version=NKJV

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The trident is there...

 

[Lacrymas]

Right... the Temptation of Christ. Sawyer is too obvious at this point :p

 

[Immortal]

30 pieces of silver... was it worth it judas?

Spoiler

 

[ghostdog]

This is a really shitty thread. I liked much better the ancient thread where some codexer LARPed that he abducted MCA, tied him down, did strange things to him and tried to make him write PST2, or something. It was like a softcore version of Misery. If Infinitron can dig it up, it probably deserves a sticky in retardo.

 

[Azarkon]

I'm honestly pretty surprised to learn that MCA wrote the NWN2OC companions. They don't feel like his writing at all, I guess because he didn't have anything to do with the initial concept. I do like some of them, and I know I'm in the minority because I think the NWN2OC was PRETTY OKAY, but the writing is pretty subpar for an Obsidian game, and especially compared to KOTOR2.

I'm also not really surprised to learn MCA wrote the trial scene. I've read through the dialog for that scene and it's a convoluted mess of branching choices. It's kind of a shame that you end up in a fight with Lorne no matter how well you do, and the rewards for doing well are so trivial.

Is this where we now start praising the NWN 2 OC companions for being hidden diamonds and forgotten masterpieces as opposed to Ferret Baudoin's gastronomic movements...?

On second thought, nah, it's pretty obvious even the best writers, when told to write what they have little passion for, are reduced to being mediocre.

 

[Immortal]

I'm honestly pretty surprised to learn that MCA wrote the NWN2OC companions. They don't feel like his writing at all, I guess because he didn't have anything to do with the initial concept. I do like some of them, and I know I'm in the minority because I think the NWN2OC was PRETTY OKAY, but the writing is pretty subpar for an Obsidian game, and especially compared to KOTOR2.

I'm also not really surprised to learn MCA wrote the trial scene. I've read through the dialog for that scene and it's a convoluted mess of branching choices. It's kind of a shame that you end up in a fight with Lorne no matter how well you do, and the rewards for doing well are so trivial.

Is this where we now start praising the NWN 2 OC companions for being hidden diamonds and forgotten masterpieces as opposed to Ferret Baudoin's gastronomic movements...?

On second thought, nah, it's pretty obvious even the best writers, when told to write what they have little passion for, are reduced to being mediocre.

I think I'm more impressed that it was one person who wrote all the OC companions..They vary so much in quality from Okay... to boring to... down right cringe inducing..

 

[Xor]

Is this where we now start praising the NWN 2 OC companions for being hidden diamonds and forgotten masterpieces as opposed to Ferret Baudoin's gastronomic movements...?

I wouldn't go that far. I liked Sand and Shandra and tolerated Kelghar and Neeshka, but Ammon Jerro is the only character I would actually defend as being legitimately great.

 

[Azarkon]

Is this where we now start praising the NWN 2 OC companions for being hidden diamonds and forgotten masterpieces as opposed to Ferret Baudoin's gastronomic movements...?

I wouldn't go that far. I liked Sand and Shandra and tolerated Kelghar and Neeshka, but Ammon Jerro is the only character I would actually defend as being legitimately great.

I think the main criticism for the NWN 2 OC characters is that any fantasy writer could've written them - ie they were cliche stock characters, with only a few exceptions. But you know what, I'm glad Chris wrote them, because it shows he has versatility, and isn't just limited to weird, off-the-wall themes and NPCs. Very few/none of us could tell that he wrote the NWN 2 OC characters, and that itself is impressive.

 

[Lacrymas]

The problem here being that art/creativity isn't about normality (you can't build art on normality). That's why being cliche is bad (a cliche is a form of normality). It's either about new things OR recontextualising already existing things (the Force in KotOR2). Writing cliche stuff isn't showing versatility, it's just a bad day :p

 

[Shammy]

Is this where we now start praising the NWN 2 OC companions for being hidden diamonds and forgotten masterpieces as opposed to Ferret Baudoin's gastronomic movements...?

I wouldn't go that far. I liked Sand and Shandra and tolerated Kelghar and Neeshka, but Ammon Jerro is the only character I would actually defend as being legitimately great.

I think the main criticism for the NWN 2 OC characters is that any fantasy writer could've written them - ie they were cliche stock characters, with only a few exceptions. But you know what, I'm glad Chris wrote them, because it shows he has versatility, and isn't just limited to weird, off-the-wall themes and NPCs. Very few/none of us could tell that he wrote the NWN 2 OC characters, and that itself is impressive.

Most probably couldn't tell because they were so cliche, which is outside what we usually expect from him. As mentioned before only a few of them are actually memorable.

I've never heard someone say that 'someone is impressive because they can write bland, unoriginal characters'. The guy's fantastic, but isn't churning out golden NPCs 24/7.

 

[Bigg Boss]

No one is on top of their game 100% of the time.

 

[Lacrymas]

I've never heard someone say that 'someone is impressive because they can write bland, unoriginal characters music'.

Jeremy Soule

The guy's fantastic, but isn't churning out golden NPCs 24/7.

It depends on how you look at it. The chars from the NWN2 OC turned out shit, yes, but they had so much content cut that it's hard to tell. And they weren't his characters. Everyone else he has written has been consistently better than everything else in the gaming industry with a few exceptions that are on his general level. Those being SHODAN and maybe Andrew Ryan (though whether it's him or just good world-building is muddled).

 

[Lhynn]

They are all memorable, just not for the right reasons in most cases.

 

[Average Manatee]

I've never thought the NWN2 OC characters any worse than the Baldur's Gate cast, but full 3d + full voice acting does bring it down quite a bit I think. Similar banters and snarkiness that read charmingly in BG2 sound/feel much more petty in NWN2 and leave me groaning. You could say the NWN2 engine even manages to ruin the writing.

It works in MotB because that story has a more serious and personal tone. Dramatic close ups switching between you and Myrkul god of the dead while discussing the fate of all the souls in the universe is appropriate. Doing the same while cliche dwarf and cliche tiefling have their 7th bout in the last 10 mins is not.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

NWN2 seemed to me to be Obsidian finding their feet. Yes, I know KOTOR2 came first, but with that Obsidian had the benefit of a story and a setting ripe for sequels. They had to approach NWN2 as pretty much an entirely new game, with the only connections to NWN being the title.

There were plenty of great things in NWN2. Crossroad Keep. The Trial. Ammon Jerro (though he was a bit of a cunt), Sand, Khelgar. And we wouldn't have got MotB were it not for NWN2.

Let's get back to KOTOR2 though, what an astonishing game that was in terms of writing, and the companions other than Kreia don't get praised enough. NWN2 has a few weak and uninteresting companions but I can only think of one in KOTOR2 - Mical. Obsidian probably - correctly - assumed most people would go for a male PC and put more time into Brianna instead.

 

[Lacrymas]

I found Brianna, Mira, Bao-Dur and Hanharr to be far more boring than Mical. He was the only one who figured out what Kreia was up to. The problem with Brianna is that the reason for betraying her oath to Atris was "lolol, I love him, lololol' which isn't particularly deep. In terms of plot, Mical, Brianna, G0T0 and HK47 were the most pointless, followed closely by Mira, Hanharr and Mandalore. They were logical characters, just not very interesting or important. G0T0's "revelation" didn't change anything and it felt needlessly complicated, like Eliza Cassan from DEx:HR.

 

[Fairfax]

Had no idea about this. I'll pay close attention when I replay it for felipepe's project.


Very diplomatic response here, but I can't blame him. He obviously wants to work on the franchise again if possible.