Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Hmm. I genuinely forgot there is a PST EE.

I'd like to forget Beamdog exist. But my brain remembers. My brain torments me.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Imagine being so caught up in a crusade to bitch about Feargus, that you manage to forget that Planescape Torment exists while posting in Chris Avellone Appreciation Station.

Not at all. However, Planescape: Torment wouldn't exist if not for Bioware's Infinity Engine, and Chris said as much back in May.

And Bioware might not have existed today if they didn't land a lucrative contract with Interplay just before the time when 2D was starting to become increasingly obsolete.

All of these alternative universe scenarios serve no purpose other than to move the goalposts.

 

[ga♥]

Feargus got extremely lucky with Bioware. If not for them, Black Isle's output would consist of Fallout, a Fallout slamdunk, Lionheart, and a bunch of canceled games.

FO1 is pre-BIS, so not even that.

They surely didn't seem complete separate entities, despite studio locations.

That was on purpose. Interplay/BIS wanted people to associate them with BG and BioWare as much as possible. Boxes, ads, and trailers for all the other IE games had the BioWare logo, and most mentioned BG. Even IWD2, which came out 2 years after BioWare severed ties with Interplay:

I doubt that's the (only) reason. BIS folks are even on BG1/2 credits (I am sure of Bg2).
And don't forget all the shared assets between IWD and BG (and even the Bhaal symbol popping out from nowhere in PST).
Feargus always claimed to have worked on BG. So far, noone ever contracticted him.

 

[Luckmann]

Hmm. I genuinely forgot there is a PST EE.

How'd you do it? Asking for a friend.

 

[Wunderbar]

PST EE is actually decent. Beamdog's best outing.

 

[Latelistener]

And Bioware might not have existed today if they didn't land a lucrative contract with Interplay just before the time when 2D was starting to become increasingly obsolete.

It kinda doesn't.

 

[Chris Avellone]

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

You're right, it’s not the same thing - "shameful" refers to bugs on release.

In both FNV and PoE2, all parties were aware enough bugs were present to compromise the quality of the game (same with KOTOR2, but the internal mandate was "ship it anyway" - the owners didn't want to lose royalties from missing the target date and they figured we'd "get it right next time").

Over time, whatever royalties came in from KOTOR2 didn't make up for the quality of release (which I've taken responsibility for on the design side). I'd rather we suffered some financial hardship (within reason) and released something better for the studio's first product. Because we didn't, I think that became a habit over time.

A PD can have some control over a game’s release (and delays, say, by adding features), but rarely 100%.

As you go farther down the hierarchy ladder, that control over release quickly becomes non-existent unless you find a crash bug or cannot-progress A bug (which will stop a game's release, if only for a day or two until fixed).

 

[Chris Avellone]

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.

SEGA did sit on it to try and raise marketing awareness during the delay.

It didn't seem like they were doing much for a while, though, so I got confused why they were waiting but no marketing was happening (it did eventually pick up, though).

Unfortunately, the delay meant it came out around the same time as Splinter Cell and ME2.

Even if it hadn't, it wouldn't have been well-received, but compared against two examples of a studio that's got stealth and encounter mechanics refined and a company that's got an established cinematic RPG pipeline, I'd argue AP looked even shabbier by comparison.

 

[Cael]

Hmm. I genuinely forgot there is a PST EE.

How'd you do it? Asking for a friend.

Full frontal lobotomy...

 

[Nano]

Oh, I didn't know Obsidian got royalties with KOTOR2. I thought that before PoE, they only got royalties from NWN2.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Huh, yeah you are right. Actually someone should ask Feargus or any Black Isle veteran what was their relationship with Bioware at the time.
They surely didn't seem complete separate entities, despite studio locations.

They were pretty separate - BioWare interfaced with Interplay for QA, audio, marketing, and Black Isle production, but BioWare had their own approach to making games and it didn't always intersect well with BIS's way.

Some ways were good, some ways bad, but I think the good far outweighed the bad - BioWare worked hard to make sure their releases were as solid as possible, and that got ingrained into their company culture from the outset, even if it made their games late at times.

Without BioWare, Fallout would have been the only other claim to fame in the first few years (Black Isle couldn't make engines to save our lives, frankly, and we spent a lot of money and time trying to no effect: Stonekeep 2, for example, or trying to license other engines like Lithtech for TORN).

Even though the Infinity Engine games made money, Lionheart, Planescape: Doomguard, TORN, BG3, Van Buren, and Stonekeep 2 didn't (if they shipped at all). While some of these didn't have a high cost, some did (esp. TORN and SK2).

EDIT: Also Planescape: Torment didn't do bad, but it didn't do great, either, I wouldn't necessarily count that as a financial win for the studio as much as "well, it helped us tread water for a while."

I'm not counting the legacy products BIS inherited, though, like Descent to Undermountain and Dragon Dice, but I'm also being kind and removing Fallout from that category, even though "Fallout wasn't BIS" was a contentious thing even on RPG Codex way back when, since this was around the time when Troika was being formed, and the Codex was very much in Troika's court, and with good reason.*

Dark Alliance did well, I believe, but then again, that was an outside studio (Snowblind) with their own engine for the first game, and that engine was borrowed for DA2 (which I think also did well).

While I think BIS deserves credit for some of the Infinity Engine games, without BioWare's engine, I don't think it would have lasted as long or gained the reputation it did (and Fargo is to be thanked for securing the D&D license, not Black Isle, since Black Isle didn't exist back then - it was Dragonplay).

* My opinion was Fallout 1 arguably wasn't BIS, it had been its own thing for a while, and even at the start of Fallout 2, they were considering branching Leonard, Jason, and Tim into their own sub-division within BIS so Tim could work more freely, but that didn't happen.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Oh, I didn't know Obsidian got royalties with KOTOR2. I thought that before PoE, they only got royalties from NWN2.

Most people didn't, Feargus mandated that royalties (from any game) would only be dispersed amongst upper management, in %s according to ownership in company (which meant Chris Jones and I didn't see much, but the other three did).

As a result, not many people knew we were getting royalties at all because they'd never see any sign of it.

In the initial projections for PoE1, they were planning the same %s when royalties came in as well. This may have changed since, but that was the pattern for the years I was there.

 

[Latelistener]

Unfortunately, the delay meant it came out around the same time as Splinter Cell and ME2.

Even if it hadn't, it wouldn't have been well-received, but compared against two examples of a studio that's got stealth and encounter mechanics refined and a company that's got an established cinematic RPG pipeline, I'd argue AP looked even shabbier by comparison.

I can agree that comparisons with ME2 didn't help, but Splinter Cell: Conviction was so horrible it practically killed the series. I also remember that it too had troubled development.

 

[Chris Avellone]

He said Josh shouldn't have gone on vacation after being made executive producer on a game and got gloriously raked over the coals by the development team for phoning it in his first week. He definitely wasn't Josh's biggest fan for that bit of gossip

I think Josh deserved a vacation for sure, that's not my point.

I do think whoever's brilliant decision it was to create a questionable production role at an already-production-heavy company and then put your Design Director on it (who's supposed to be overseeing all games at the studio, not being an EP on one) is likely thinking about something other than what's best for the role and might also be overdoing it when it comes to production (for the cost of an EP, most projects would gladly take more QA, 1-2 more programmers, etc.)

An EP feels redundant compared to a Lead Producer, if the two exist (last I checked, they do).

What happened to Josh, though, happened to me: Feargus assigns Directors (Technical, Design, etc.) to projects so he can bill the publishers for the Director’s time vs. pay for it himself. However, half that Directors time is likely spent in non-project meetings, if they're not already on other projects and being billed there as well. :/

Now, that’s not bad business, but again, when your role is Design Director of the company, you’re supposed to be overseeing all the projects at the company, not just one.

When it happened to me, it definitely created challenges to being able to spend time on other projects (but at the same time, at least having a title gave work some definition, so it wasn't all bad).

Anyway, the EP position just feels like production bullshit to me and an excuse to draw more blood from the publisher.

 

[Cross]

Without BioWare, Fallout would have been the only other claim to fame in the first few years (Black Isle couldn't make engines to save our lives, frankly, and we spent a lot of money and time trying to no effect: Stonekeep 2, for example, or trying to license other engines like Lithtech for TORN).

In this alternate timeline, couldn't you have used Fallout's engine to make party-based turn-based RPGs?

 

[Luckmann]

Most people didn't, Feargus mandated that royalties (from any game) would only be dispersed amongst upper management, in %s according to ownership in company (which meant Chris Jones and I didn't see much, but the other three did).

What fucking shitwaffling.


We now know why KotOR2 was unfinished; it was so they could line their pockets with the royalties! Feargus, fear us!

Hmm. I genuinely forgot there is a PST EE.

How'd you do it? Asking for a friend.

Full frontal lobotomy...

Might still be worth it...

 

[Chris Avellone]

In this alternate timeline, couldn't you have used Fallout's engine to make party-based turn-based RPGs?

I think the Fallout engine was already close to collapse when Fallout 2 was released, and no one seemed to think it was a good idea to use that codebase again - but I wasn't privy to those decisions.

 

[Wunderbar]

Isn't Arcanum was based on Fallout engine?

 

[Chris Avellone]

Isn't Arcanum was based on Fallout engine?

Based perhaps, but no actual Fallout code was ever used (that would have been illegal if Troika had tried to take the code from Fallout and repurpose it for Arcanum).

They could still write an engine with the same principles from scratch, though.

It's good they didn't try (although Tim's too ethical for that to ever have been a question, imo), because Fargo actually sent programmers to Troika to examine their code to make sure they hadn't stolen anything when they left (they didn't find anything, but if they had, it would have been Bad Times for Troika).

 

[Quillon]

In this alternate timeline, couldn't you have used Fallout's engine to make party-based turn-based RPGs?

I think the Fallout engine was already close to collapse when Fallout 2 was released, and no one seemed to think it was a good idea to use that codebase again - but I wasn't privy to those decisions.

I bet they chose convenience over making/repurposing their own engine like they did with PoE, choosing Unity over Onyx. We'll see there'll be no PoE3 or there'll be 3rd action PoE and all that Unity experience will go to waste

 

[Nano]

Isn't Arcanum was based on Fallout engine?

Based perhaps, but no actual Fallout code was ever used (that would have been illegal if Troika had tried to take the code from Fallout and repurpose it for Arcanum).

They could still write an engine with the same principles from scratch, though.

It's good they didn't try (although Tim's too ethical for that to ever have been a question, imo), because Fargo actually sent programmers to Troika to examine their code to make sure they hadn't stolen anything when they left (they didn't find anything, but if they had, it would have been Bad Times for Troika).

Yay, more reasons to hate Fargo.

 

[Chris Avellone]

I bet they chose convenience over making/repurposing their own engine like they did with PoE, choosing Unity over Onyx. We'll see there'll be no PoE3 or there'll be 3rd action PoE and all that Unity experience will go to waste

The studio (unfortunately) felt like it had given up on Onyx beyond South Park (our Tech Director had also fired the principal architect of Onyx [sigh] without having anyone at the studio with the same skill, himself included, so the ability to modify the engine was somewhat limited).

And I believe Onyx wasn't a good fit for PoE b/c of the "middleware" attachments it needed (licensing other programs) to make it fully functional, and those middleware costs were so expensive they couldn't have been covered by the Kickstarter funds.

I do think Swen made the right decision (although he worked to make sure he could afford to) by ditching Unity entirely and doing a new engine - it was a setback initially, but in the end, seemed to work out for them (and now it's set for anything else they do with it). We had the same experience with Onyx while we supported it: While it took time at the outset with Aliens, in the end, because we understood how it was put together, it definitely saved us more time in the content phase vs. learning all the trapdoors and workarounds of someone else's engine... but before then, we didn't really have a choice.

Swen also has more programmers than Obsidian (and engine-level programmers), so there's that.

 

[Quillon]

Seems to me the independent studios who make their own engines are thriving; CDPR, Techland, some other polish studios, Pre-EA Bioware, Larian, Taleworlds etc.

If you don't have programmers, just outsource engine programming to some polish studio, they'll make you one in no time

 

[zapotec]

This Fargo sounds like a villain

 

[Jarpie]

He said Josh shouldn't have gone on vacation after being made executive producer on a game and got gloriously raked over the coals by the development team for phoning it in his first week. He definitely wasn't Josh's biggest fan for that bit of gossip

I think Josh deserved a vacation for sure, that's not my point.

I do think whoever's brilliant decision it was to create a questionable production role at an already-production-heavy company and then put your Design Director on it (who's supposed to be overseeing all games at the studio, not being an EP on one) is likely thinking about something other than what's best for the role and might also be overdoing it when it comes to production (for the cost of an EP, most projects would gladly take more QA, 1-2 more programmers, etc.)

An EP feels redundant compared to a Lead Producer, if the two exist (last I checked, they do).

What happened to Josh, though, happened to me: Feargus assigns Directors (Technical, Design, etc.) to projects so he can bill the publishers for the Director’s time vs. pay for it himself. However, half that Directors time is likely spent in non-project meetings, if they're not already on other projects and being billed there as well. :/

Now, that’s not bad business, but again, when your role is Design Director of the company, you’re supposed to be overseeing all the projects at the company, not just one.

When it happened to me, it definitely created challenges to being able to spend time on other projects (but at the same time, at least having a title gave work some definition, so it wasn't all bad).

Anyway, the EP position just feels like production bullshit to me and an excuse to draw more blood from the publisher.

I'd argue that putting (more or less) pointless EP into the project so they can bill the publisher for the salary could be beneficial business decision for a limited time, but it can easily turn into bad one, if it pisses off the publisher or investor. I'm not involved in the gaming business, but I can almost guarantee that the publishers do talk with each other, and ask from the other companies how was it to work with the developer they're considering hiring. Based on what you've talked about in here when it comes to Obsidian, there's very clear reason why they have never worked for the same publisher twice, and that's very telling.

On another note, as I am believer in "leave things to fill in by the player's imagination" or at least leave some things as more or less of a mystery, do you ever take that into consideration when you write or design something for any game you're working on? One of the reasons why I like isometric games over the first- or third-person games (like New Vegas) is that they don't have the "uncanny valley" effect, it's easier to think (or imagine) towns or cities being just an "abstraction". (In before autism ratings).

One of the problems many games have is that they think that the player needs to know everything about the setting. I am not familiar at all with the Pathfinder setting, but even though the game doesn't spend really any time at all telling about the history of the area, nations etc, I get good enough picture from what the game is telling me.