Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Infinitron]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ch...ely-petty-about-obsidian-entertainment.78211/

Brought to you by games.stormfront.net

 

[Mikeal]

ooh, badgame are talking about us too: https://badgame.net/index.php?topic=53005.msg13404079

Guys, if you're reading this, you've vastly overestimated the amount of attention I pay to your forum. (Can't speak for Roguey though!)

Login required.

 

[hexer]

I started reading his Twitter feed and man, that's twenty pounds of crazy in a catsuit built for ten.

He sounds like a schizophrenic with mania off the meds.
Chris should avoid engaging him in conversation, it will only make things worse.

 

[Roguey]

Guys, if you're reading this, you've vastly overestimated the amount of attention I pay to your forum. (Can't speak for Roguey though!)

I deleted my rope kid post history bookmark quite a while ago.

 

[Butter]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ch...ely-petty-about-obsidian-entertainment.78211/

Brought to you by games.stormfront.net

I had never bothered reading Resetera before. Holy shit is that site gay.

 

[Quillon]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ch...ely-petty-about-obsidian-entertainment.78211/

Brought to you by games.stormfront.net

Same. I still love and respect his games, but his behaviour of late has been extremely unprofessional. I get being mad about getting de-ownered and kicked out, but he's been talking shit about everyone in public and I wonder if his comments put the rank and file Obsidian employees in danger (implying strongly that MS should not purchase Obsidian being one example). Apparently every problem at Obsidian is the fault of others and none of it his - I find it difficult to side with people who think like that.

Lord knows Feargus has made a ton of bone-headed mistakes, but you cant offload 100% of the blame when you're a part-owner.

I used to think like this dude, saying shit like "You were a fucking owner Chris why didn't you do something?" then

 

[2house2fly]

It was buggy. And it's going to keep on like this as long as we give hacks like Obsidian and Owlcat our money on release day for an unfinished product.

Meh... These complex RPGs tend to be buggy at release, I say that is the sign of a rough diamond. Arcanum, Fallout 1-2, Bloodlines, Pathfinder, Morrowind, FalloutNV, Gothic, they were all quite buggy at release, and it didn't hinder my enjoyment. Was there any complex and ambitious RPG which wasn't bug-ridden at release?

(pssst, he's trolling Chris Avellone over what he said about New Vegas)

Meanwhile, on Something Awful: https://forums.somethingawful.com/s...56099&pagenumber=381&perpage=40#post489393881

It's not trolling so much as I'm interested he's describing New Vegas and Pillars Of Eternity 2 as "shameful" because of their bugs while the most recent game he worked on has very widely discussed technical issues. I wonder if statements like "nobody should EVER have to pay for a buggy product" are him trying to imply without outright saying his feelings about PK, or if he's just willing to overlook bugginess in a game he works on if it comes from a company he likes.

 

[TT1]

The guys from SA and resetera hate us, but they keep reading the Codex. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SA is worst than cancer.

 

[hexer]

The guys from SA and resetera hate us, but they keep reading the Codex. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When someone hates you, they're actually interested in whatever it is you're doing.
Real ignorance is when they don't care.

So when someone hates you in-person, know that person actually finds you worthwhile of hate and has a level of respect.
Although they might never admit it.

 

[Efe]

The guys from SA and resetera hate us, but they keep reading the Codex. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

SA is worst than cancer.

sad part is some people in codex (namely: our resident jew) reads those sites and think they matter enough to post here.
too bad i can't send split his posts away from here like he does to any meaningful conversation on game threads

 

[Chris Avellone]

Don't bother, Chris. It's the talking deathclaw furry.

It's the same person? Wow, that's dedication to a cause. Perhaps they are a talking deathclaw.

It's not trolling so much as I'm interested he's describing New Vegas and Pillars Of Eternity 2 as "shameful" because of their bugs while the most recent game he worked on has very widely discussed technical issues. I wonder if statements like "nobody should EVER have to pay for a buggy product" are him trying to imply without outright saying his feelings about PK, or if he's just willing to overlook bugginess in a game he works on if it comes from a company he likes.

I'd say that about any game, whether I worked on it or not and whether I like the company or not. I've said it about KOTOR2, and I was largely to blame for that game's release state.

I've worked on a bunch of games that many bugs on release, FNV included (and FNV's one of the mild ones). If a game needs time to cook, I'm in favor of holding it, even if it causes financial damage (within reason). Part of the returns you get later on in company's lifetime come from consistently releasing solid products... you don't want players to think they're gambling on your release on day 1, or I feel sales over time will slow down and people will be more "cautious", when what you want is for them to trust you.

In short, I don't want anyone to buy a broken product, whether I worked on it or not. I wouldn't want to buy a product like that, either, especially if I'd been waiting for it, had reserved time to play it, etc. and you spend most of your time fighting bugs.

I do get worried the gaming community may start to tolerate releases like that, when it would just be better if companies committed to fixing the problem before release. And I can't defend, "well, RPGs are complicated, so they're bound to have bugs..." because if they're too complicated to test, then you've already overscoped your QA department. People may grumble about character classes getting dropped, or some spells not present, but it's not like that feels much better than "man, this class is broken and this spell is broken." If you really want that additional content in the game, save it for a DLC, or a sequel you're building on top of the first game's framework, and you have more time to handle the new content properly and test it properly.

 

[Sacred82]

Don't bother, Chris. It's the talking deathclaw furry.

It's the same person? Wow, that's dedication to a cause. Perhaps they are a talking deathclaw.

you... you are mean

 

[Chris Avellone]

There's also some other challenges involved here in terms of how QA departments are set up (they don't really get to "play" the game, they often are focused on specific tests vs. the big picture, so there's some bugs only players are likely to see - or bugs only developers would ever notice since the game appears to be working normally).

Part of it, though (which I observed at Black Isle, Obs., etc.) is the mantra "of course, we want quality... well, when it's convenient." And yeah, I thought it was shameful and it wasn't an exaggeration. This was especially true since the people making the call often didn't have the same attachment to the game, so they didn't care what state it was released in... or else consoled themselves with "well, we'll get it right next time" while they counted their temporary dollars from the short-term cash infusion of an early release.

Eventually, you run out of "next times."

 

[Chris Avellone]

you... you are mean

I should have pulled my punches, I know. Or talons. Or whichever.

 

[Beastro]

I do get worried the gaming community may start to tolerate releases like that

You're a good ten years too late with this.

At least.

 

[Chris Avellone]

You're a good ten years too late with this.

At least.

Yeah, probably true.

 

[Grauken]

I do get worried the gaming community may start to tolerate releases like that, when it would just be better if companies committed to fixing the problem before release.

I don't know if tolerate is the right word, I support games like Pathfinder, because I know once its fully patched it will be a game worthy of playing, but I won't touch it until it gets there. Did the same with most of the Kickstarter crowd of games, although from them I learned that I should have waited for the Enhanced Edition, which is probably not a good lesson. And some of them aren't even worth

Its somewhat annoying, as part of the fun of playing games when they are new is that you can experience them together with others as part of a community spectacle, unlike when you play games years later and just read old forum posts about them, but on the other hand I can't be arsed to be a beta-tester for a game I put a lot of money down

 

[fantadomat]

ooh, badgame are talking about us too: https://badgame.net/index.php?topic=53005.msg13404079

Guys, if you're reading this, you've vastly overestimated the amount of attention I pay to your forum. (Can't speak for Roguey though!)

What the fuck is badgame.net,some forum with 20 guys sucking each-others diverse dicks?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

The guys from SA and resetera hate us, but they keep reading the Codex. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

So I was just reading RPG Codex and I realized Chris Avellone is reading the Codex and I'm offended because only bad people read RPG Codex. - ResetEra.

 

[Beastro]

I don't know if tolerate is the right word, I support games like Pathfinder, because I know once its fully patched it will be a game worthy of playing, but I won't touch it until it gets there. Did the same with most of the Kickstarter crowd of games, although from them I learned that I should have waited for the Enhanced Edition, which is probably not a good lesson. And some of them aren't even worth

I have in mind communities like Bethesda's who long stopped caring about Beth fixing things and just look to the modders to catch what they always miss.

 

[2house2fly]

ooh, badgame are talking about us too: https://badgame.net/index.php?topic=53005.msg13404079

Guys, if you're reading this, you've vastly overestimated the amount of attention I pay to your forum. (Can't speak for Roguey though!)

What the fuck is badgame.net,some forum with 20 guys sucking each-others diverse dicks?

It's a gaming forum where people mostly make dumb jokes at each other. Josh Sawyer posts there, which is presumably why infinitron lurks there

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Here's the thing though - bugs are experienced differently depending on the type of the game. Wasteland 2 and Deadfire were a complete mess on launch, but because quests and locations were usually designed to have many solutions, you could almost always find a workaround. The same type of bug in a more linear game can be gamebreaking.

Or take the infamous monastery quest in Kingdom Come. Arguably most ambitious quest I've seen in any RPG in last 20 years, but technical difficulties made it an absolute nightmare. In most of that game's content though, those same difficulties were usually manageable and didn't get in the way.

 

[Grauken]

True, but I don't really enjoy games when I think more about how to get around bugs than deal with the game's content, even if the bugs aren't game breaking. I rather wait a year or so and play when it's a much smoother experience

 

[Chris Avellone]

Here's the thing though - bugs are experienced differently depending on the type of the game. Wasteland 2 and Deadfire were a complete mess on launch, but because quests and locations were usually designed to have many solutions, you could almost always find a workaround. The same type of bug in a more linear game can be gamebreaking.

Understood, but I’m not even talking about just “gamebreaking” bugs, those are by definition bad, and I agree, sometimes games have natural workarounds for it (even if those workarounds may not be your playstyle).

Gamebreakers aside, I'm also referring to the mess of bugs that can make you doubt the experience - or make you concerned you might be missing something (which can ruin a game for completionists or narrative junkies, especially for an RPG).

As an example, if you load of PoE2 and notice it’s not reacting to what Eder did in your party PoE1 (or other choices you made after spending 40-100-200 hrs playing the first game), that may not technically be gamebreaking, but if you care about the narrative, it’s serious, and I wouldn’t play any farther once I noticed that and wait for a fix (or refund, if it's within the Steam refund time frame).

The reason is simple – the game didn’t crash, sure, but I couldn't be sure what content I might be missing based on that early error, even if the game was technically working fine in all other respects.

BTW, that latter example is a perfect thing QA can miss, especially newcomers to the title or ones that didn't have a chance to play PoE1 to notice a disconnect. (Developers are more likely to notice bugs like that, if they have the time or inclination to play the game.)

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

I played Pathfinder round a friends house and thought to myself "Wow, this is quite impressive for early access. I had a lot of fun despite the bugs. I can't wait for the full version"

MFW I found out it was the released game.

Obligatory old fogey GAYMS WUZ BUTTER TAN THIS IN OLDEN TIMES (Despite the bug that deleted my Wizardry 4 data.)