Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Goral]

The only reason Josh is off the hook is because he knows that picking fight with Sawyer wouldn't go down well on the Codex Roguey.

FTFY.

 

[Roguey]

Josh wrote Cook-Cook? That's pretty big accusation saying that its his character :D Note that he doesn't say who is the writer/designer nor does he say who specifically is responsible above it.

Sawyer conceived the character and wrote his description in the design document, but as for who wrote the lines that were recorded but ultimately cut is a mystery. One would have to ask Josh.

 

[Fowyr]

I'm on Resetera, guys!

I mean this is pretty soft stuff compared to some of the actual posters (I still remember the dude with the enthusiastic black lynching signature)

 

[Grauken]

Not for long, can't hide your nature

 

[Lhynn]

Imagine losing your wife over fucking IWD2. Just when you thought the game couldnt be any shittier.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

*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.

That's what you get with your favorite mongoloid sandbox design. Broken quests and unplayable mess upon release. Enjoy it, sucker!

 

[2house2fly]

My impression is that Chris doesn't call people out unless they've fucked him over (the owners) or tried to call him out first (Fenstermaker). That's not the case with Sawyer:

I don’t have any issues with Josh, he’s not part of the upper management I mention here (he wasn’t even Design Director until a while after I left, I believe), and I think he’s a good Project Director.

I don't get that. How can he be a "good project director" when two projects he's directed were "shameful"?

 

[2house2fly]

It's like saying "Obama was a good president" while simultaneously acknowledging that his milquetoast end-of-history centrist bland uninspiring empty-suit presidency, not least the worthless half-measure that was the affordable care act, paved the way for the GOP to take over the entire government and gut what semblance of democracy still remained in the United States. You can surely only believe one thing or the other

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

My impression is that Chris doesn't call people out unless they've fucked him over (the owners) or tried to call him out first (Fenstermaker). That's not the case with Sawyer:

I don’t have any issues with Josh, he’s not part of the upper management I mention here (he wasn’t even Design Director until a while after I left, I believe), and I think he’s a good Project Director.

I don't get that. How can he be a "good project director" when two projects he's directed were "shameful"?

I think that projects like these probably had a lot of cooks making changes to the broth. Josh being one of those cooks. On paper you can have a clear hierarchical structure but in practice the head guy needs to capitulate to that whiny douche who's programming the AI, because otherwise he's not gunna work and might bitch to everyone thus destabilising the project. But now Greg in the design department is moaning because some idiot decided the AI needed to do this specific thing that requires a whole re-work of a level and it goes on and on. Josh may well be part of the problem but to say that he was the sole reason IWD2 was a pile of Beholder manure is hard for me to believe.

 

[Puteo]

It's like saying "Obama was a good president" while simultaneously acknowledging that his milquetoast end-of-history centrist bland uninspiring empty-suit presidency, not least the worthless half-measure that was the affordable care act, paved the way for the GOP to take over the entire government and gut what semblance of democracy still remained in the United States. You can surely only believe one thing or the other

Or it just depends on what scale you are measuring him on. Eg: Obama was a good president when evaluated against American presidents, when evaluated against other world leaders he was pretty poor.

Perhaps Josh was just a good project director by Obsidian's standards

 

[Cael]

It's like saying "Obama was a good president" while simultaneously acknowledging that his milquetoast end-of-history centrist bland uninspiring empty-suit presidency, not least the worthless half-measure that was the affordable care act, paved the way for the GOP to take over the entire government and gut what semblance of democracy still remained in the United States. You can surely only believe one thing or the other

That is because Obama isn't a good president. Under him, US international power eroded and we end up with people like Iran, China, North Korea and Russia flexing their muscles and upsetting the status quo. Those that consider him a good president do it based on his race and his Hollywood cheer squad, which is a perfect description of their mental processes (i.e., shallow, fake and full of signalling but no real action).

 

[Roguey]

It's all relative. There are those who are worse than Josh (see Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol).

 

[agris]

AP is the best Obsidian game that I’ve played.

 

[Quillon]

It's all relative. There are those who are worse than Josh (see Neverwinter Nights 2, Alpha Protocol).

He's the director of fucking New Vegas. There are those who are worse than Josh fo'sho, but its not fo'sho if there are those who are better than him(in directing RPGs). Also no amount of MCA's slamming any individual part of base NV out of bitter jealousy will change the fact that its the greatest RPG of recent memory & Josh being its director. Tho I also want him to slam every bit of base NV, drama is good fun, especially in here. My advice to MCA is to start praising CDPR instead of Bethesda; it will be more effective in terms of relaying the info that Obs is not among the best in the RPG biz anymore & also a lot more convincing for people who roam codex :D

 

[Fairfax]

Josh may well be part of the problem but to say that he was the sole reason IWD2 was a pile of Beholder manure is hard for me to believe.

The IWD2 comment wasn't about the game's quality, it was specifically about the decision to switch from 2E to 3E. The deadline already forced the team to crunch, and the switch made it even worse for the programmers.

 

[Nano]

The switch to 3E was necessary. If it wasn't for that, IWD2 would've been severely outdated on release.

Interplay is the one that should be blamed for those ridiculous deadlines.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Quillon hits the nail on the head. Plenty of folks, including yours truly, have various issues with Josh. But he also lead the effort to create what most people consider to be the last great RPG.

So pick an open fight with him at your own peril.

 

[Flou]

Hmm. I don't think Cook-Cook needed to be fleshed out any more than he was. He is there to show the very dark nature of man and the Wasteland with his raping and abusing. Didn't think it was that shocking to be honest, just what I would expect from mankind (or at least part of mankind) if thrown into chaos. Now if Cook-Cook would rape the player character or one of your companions once you venture to his domain, that would be actually shocking.

 

[ZeniBot]

My advice to MCA is to start praising CDPR instead of Bethesda;

He's only doing this because he wants to work on Fallout again. If they didn't own Fallout I sincerely doubt he'd be sucking Pete's dick but because they've got his baby hostage he tows the line.
My advice to MCA would be, give up on Fallout. Working with Bethesda just isn't worthwhile.

AP is the best Obsidian game that I’ve played.

I rate it second best, I prefer KOTOR2 in all its unfinished glory because I felt that AP whilst a fantastic game suffered from the same fate of being under developed. If Obsidian had just taken more care post-release it could've turned into a game that beat Mass Effect.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Obsidian's best game was stick of truth

 

[Cael]

I rate it second best, I prefer KOTOR2 in all its unfinished glory because I felt that AP whilst a fantastic game suffered from the same fate of being under developed. If Obsidian had just taken more care post-release it could've turned into a game that beat Mass Effect.

Everytime someone talks about KOTOR, my first reaction is "why are they talking about dirt?"

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Hmm. I don't think Cook-Cook needed to be fleshed out any more than he was. He is there to show the very dark nature of man and the Wasteland with his raping and abusing. Didn't think it was that shocking to be honest, just what I would expect from mankind (or at least part of mankind) if thrown into chaos. Now if Cook-Cook would rape the player character or one of your companions once you venture to his domain, that would be actually shocking.

mass murder = ok
depicting a rape of a woman = worst thing ever, equivalent to 10 holocausts

 

[ZeniBot]

Everytime someone talks about KOTOR, my first reaction is "why are they talking about dirt?"

I put a 2 in the name, not sure if that translates to dirt. Maybe I'll just call it Sith Lords then to avoid the mistranslate to dirt.

 

[Flou]

I rate it second best, I prefer KOTOR2 in all its unfinished glory because I felt that AP whilst a fantastic game suffered from the same fate of being under developed. If Obsidian had just taken more care post-release it could've turned into a game that beat Mass Effect.

Sega didn't allow them to work on it after release. Avellone can probably confirm this, but didn't they cease working on it months before release and Sega just sat on the game, thus allowing Mass Effect 2 to launch before AP. Instead of AP being compared to Mass Effect, it was compared to ME2 and media killed the game in NA. European media liked the game.

 

[Funposter]

didn't we already have 10,783 pages of discussion about cook-cook in this very thread, all of which was purged?