Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Quillon]

Deadfire were a complete mess on launch

I don't get how Deadfire was a "complete mess", I played the fucking thing on launch and don't remember any gamebreaking stuff, no progression bugs, really I don't remember any particular bug other then save import bugs that I worked around with console commands, which was very annoying for me cos I prepared saves beforehand etc bla bla but still how was it a "complete mess"?

My PoE1 launch playthrough was also pretty clean; lucky sidestep of the doubleclick inventory bug>>>bug free till act three>>>1 or 2 quests on Northweald map were buggy>>>rest of it bugless.

Maybe its cos that I'm not minding minor spell/ability bugs that I don't see the games as complete messes on their release :/

 

[Butter]

Deadfire were a complete mess on launch

I don't get how Deadfire was a "complete mess", I played the fucking thing on launch and don't remember any gamebreaking stuff, no progression bugs, really I don't remember any particular bug other then save import bugs that I worked around with console commands, which was very annoying for me cos I prepared saves beforehand etc bla bla but still how was it a "complete mess"?

My PoE1 launch playthrough was also pretty clean; lucky sidestep of the doubleclick inventory bug>>>bug free till act three>>>1 or 2 quests on Northweald map were buggy>>>rest of it bugless.

Maybe its cos that I'm not minding minor spell/ability bugs that I don't see the games as complete messes on their release :/

There were a fair number of people who couldn't even get past character creation due to constant crashes or 1-2 FPS.

 

[Chris Avellone]

There were a fair number of people who couldn't even get past character creation due to constant crashes or 1-2 FPS.

Really? (I missed that.) Character creation seems it would have been the safest place.

 

[Quillon]

There were a fair number of people who couldn't even get past character creation due to constant crashes or 1-2 FPS.

Sounds more like compatibility issues than bugs(if there is a difference), still very bad for those who experienced them. I'm not saying the game was bugfree, my problem is with the exaggeration; if you call Deadfire a complete mess on release, what do you/did you call P:K?

 

[Kruno]

I wait a year to finish an RPG because a few hundred bugs end up breaking the game for me. Just don't bother buying them on release when the games themselves are a ton better after a year of patching.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

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

Nobody enjoys it, but hey, I've been finding workarounds to bugs in RPGs since I was 12. At this point I'm simply doing it on autopilot trying the usual solutions (re-enter location, look for a different route etc.) It's barely a nuisance to me. I'd imagine that newer audiences might have a bigger problem with it.

I don't get how Deadfire was a "complete mess", I played the fucking thing on launch and don't remember any gamebreaking stuff, no progression bugs, really I don't remember any particular bug other then save import bugs that I worked around with console commands, which was very annoying for me cos I prepared saves beforehand etc bla bla but still how was it a "complete mess"?

I've had a huge amount of broken quest chains in Deadfire, many of which would be gamebreaking for some newcomers to the genre who don't have the troubleshooting skills of us old farts. Some could be simply fixed by re-entering the conversation, but others required quite a bit of diddling. For example to fix the quest chain in Sayuka you had to clear the fog of war of the level with the druids.

 

[Chris Avellone]

I've had a huge amount of broken quest chains in Deadfire, many of which would be gamebreaking...

What would you define as "huge"?

Sorry, here's the thing - it's also in your profile name, so I have to ask to check metrics here vs. hyperbole.

 

[Cael]

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

... So... Chris Avellone looks like this under all that make-up?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

*scratches head*. I would say at least 15, probably more. In relation to the total number of quests I would say that counts as huge by any definition.

As for my profile name, let's just say I've long suspected that my grandma might have cheated on grandpa with Ron Jeremy.

 

[Quillon]

*scratches head*. I would say at least 15, probably more. In relation to the total number of quests I would say that counts as huge by any definition.

As for my profile name, let's just say I've long suspected that my grandma might have cheated on grandpa with Ron Jeremy.

When you said "quest chains" I thought of chains of quests; that are connected, I was gonna say that "there aren't huge number of quest chains(which are all/mostly MQs) to begin with" but you simply meant "quests" I guess. Still 15 quest bugs seems huge since I haven't experienced any, given game's began to get patched while I was still in Neketaka for the first time. Still you must have been playing differently than my usual goody two-shoes, completionist first time playthrough.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah people who meticulously complete level after level might have been fine. I like to mix it up so I was probably doing a lot of things out of order.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Also no, there are more complex quest chains than just MQ. Neketaka undercity is a huge one that has several steps and in the process it's interconnected to Principi faction quest, a multi-step side quest for the Huana prince and some small side quests in the Gullet. Family Feud is another. Sayuka quest for Rautai that triggers separate side quest with the druids. Arkemyr's mansion. The list goes on.

A lot of that stuff was pretty messed up on launch. And mind you the game is almost completely non-linear so it's a mathematical guarantee there were far more ways to do things in order they didn't predict and have entire quest grind to a halt because update doesn't trigger or you don't receive an item or whatever.

 

[StaticSpine]

Chris Avellone
You are a narrative designer on Dying Light 2 and iirc there is a separate lead writer for the game.

What are your tasks as a narrative designer? Do you design story arcs, c&c etc without writing actual dialogs or what?

 

[aweigh]

is dying light that zombie game where you are dropped into a quarantined city full of zombies in search of a cure but get yourself mixed up in tribal politics as you discover the entire city/area has been divided up between 2 or 3 different "Factions" and they have you doing quests for them by running around the city in assassin's creed-style parkour?

i watched a let's play of it and it looked surprisingly good/fun. had some nice cutscenes. when I heard Chris was going to be writing for Dying Light 2 I thought:

" what the fuck will he be writing about??" so I looked up a let's play of the first game and surprisingly enough there's enough framework there to tell a story and write some fun situations.

Dying light was made by Techland, who made one of my favorite FPS games of all time "Call of Juarez", another themed shooter where on the surface you don't think it could have a story worth bothering about but ended up delivering something above-average. Call of juarez (first game) featured a surprisingly good western tale of dual protagonists, one a law-keeping preacher hunting for a wrongly accused farmhand Indian who has to go on the run, with levels switching play between the two characters.

as an aside for anyone who hasn't played Call of juarez (ignore its sequels) I definitely recommend it. One of the playable characters is a preacher who wears a breastplate made of brass while wielding dual six-shooters, and you can also equip on one hand a Bible and read aloud psalms and verses while you shoot enemies in the head with your other gun!

once you score good points with techland you should lobby them to make a new call of juarez game, Chris Avellone , give yourself the chance to work on a western tale and simultaenously help salvage the good name of the series.

 

[Wunderbar]

help salvage the good name of the series.

Gunslinger was pretty good.

 

[Kev Inkline]

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

SA is worst than cancer.

I blame Infinitron for these emoticons, particularly the two first.

Those people are so extra-sensitive it's unreal.

 

[Flou]

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.

My experience with Deadfire was that it wasn't a complete mess. It was buggier than Pillars for sure (at least for me). But then again the game is more ambitious as well and not as linear. I had one quest that bugged, so I stopped playing for a while to get it fixed. Wasteland 2 was a mess though. I think the later (Hollywood?) part of the game suffered really badly, they got the achievements in later on etc. I think I started playing it after 2 patches and it still had some bugs in it and had to stop playing it for a while to get the rest fixed.

I've gotten used to crpgs being buggy, or well games being buggy at release. I remember when Alpha Protocol was released and it was supposedly riddled with bugs. I encountered, probably 3 bugs during my 2½ playthroughs. At the same time I was playing Red Dead Redemption that game was praised for everything, no mentions of bugs anywhere. Yet, everytime I played the game I encountered bugs. Not the kind that break the game for you, but the kind that remind you that it's a game and it's not working properly.
Hell, even Mass Effect 2 had more bugs in it than Alpha Protocol (for me). I managed to crash the game in the damn tutorial mission so bad that I had to start the game from the beginning.

And I'm not saying Obsidian's game are not buggy, I'm saying most games are. Games/Companies just get treated differently by the gaming media.

 

[Flou]

Dying light was made by Techland, who made one of my favorite FPS games of all time "Call of Juarez", another themed shooter where on the surface you don't think it could have a story worth bothering about but ended up delivering something above-average. Call of juarez (first game) featured a surprisingly good western tale of dual protagonists, one a law-keeping preacher hunting for a wrongly accused farmhand Indian who has to go on the run, with levels switching play between the two characters.

as an aside for anyone who hasn't played Call of juarez (ignore its sequels) I definitely recommend it. One of the playable characters is a preacher who wears a breastplate made of brass while wielding dual six-shooters, and you can also equip on one hand a Bible and read aloud psalms and verses while you shoot enemies in the head with your other gun!

I disagree. The original Call of Juarez is a horrible game by modern standards. Writing and level design is just plain bad. Voice acting isn't good either. Gunslinger however was actually quite enjoyable. Can't say about the 2nd game since that game is broken for me, it just won't load one level without crashing.

I'm actually interested in Dying Light 2 due to Avellone's participation in it. Techland has probably 1 decent writer and rest are just horrible. Pretty much every game of theirs that I've played has suffered from bad dialogue.
Dying Light was a good game, it just needs some proper writers to write the story and the dialogue.

 

[aweigh]

yes the levels were pretty wonky, especially all of the indian character levels with the sub-par first-person platforming and bad stealth mechanic. the story and characters were what kept me going as i just really enjoyed them, and I found the game quite charming.

if judged solely on gameplay then it is not worth playing however. the sequels had better gameplay and levels but much worse storytelling.

 

[Grauken]

Hell, even Mass Effect 2 had more bugs in it than Alpha Protocol (for me). I managed to crash the game in the damn tutorial mission so bad that I had to start the game from the beginning.

And I'm not saying Obsidian's game are not buggy, I'm saying most games are. Games/Companies just get treated differently by the gaming media.

I think there are classes of bugs that seems to only turn up in certain hardware combinations, which makes it really annoying for developers because some players will have a perfectly smooth experience, while to others that game will feel like a total mess

 

[aweigh]

when i was playing thru Baldur's Gate 2 for the first time, as a teenager back in the day, my game kept crashing "randomly" during area loading. It was especially curious because sometimes it would load fine and sometimes it wouldn't, so I just assumed it was the game bugging out, and I spent WEEKS going back and forth with one of the forum moderators on the bioware forums trying to get this "Fixed" and the guy tried giving me every possible solution he could think of and guess what?

yep, you guessed right: turned out my HDD was failing and that was causing the game to crash during loading (because that was when it would access the HDD). i actually went back to the forum years later to post a thank you to him for being so patient, and to let him know it had been a failing HDD.

point of this anecdote is that bugs are caused by many things and that even someone who "knows" a little bit of computers can still experience bugs from random shit unrelated to the game itself.

 

[Quillon]

point of this anecdote is that bugs are caused by many things

Nope, your hdd's failing isn't a bug and bugs are caused by

.

 

[fantadomat]

Deadfire had a lot of gamebreaking bugs,for example:the wage bug where it burns trough your money and fucks the crew moral if you don't have money,the reloading where it doesn't reset triggers to save state end leaves you with the current state of the quest/environment yet in another part of the map,a lot of broken quests,stats and spell effects being fucked,etc etc.


In some games i would dare argue that bugs a positive experience. Good example for it are Bethesda games,there something very satisfying in to fixing broken quests and spawning quest items with a console. A lot of glitches are also very amusing.

 

[aweigh]

True enough that hardware failure isn't a game bug, however the people who have the failing hardware will report it as such... so semantics is meaningless here.

 

[Luckmann]

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.

Representation matters.