Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Major_Blackhart]

Chris Avellone

I have a couple of questions for you. I remember you stating that one of the big turning points in your relationship with Fergus was when you found out that he never actually backed you up at Black Isle, or protected you in anyway but rather the opposite (I think).

How the hell did this come up? Was it him confessing to you in a moment of guilt, something he blurted out during a heated argument, or did he just say it matter of factly/braggingly like he's that good of a manipulator and how he got you in his pocket?

What was he actually saying? Was he downplaying your ability? Was he taking credit for your work, that he was the master organizer that got things going? That it took his management to make you shine?

Also, did you ever talk to former Interplay execs about it or managers that worked with Fergus?

You're working with Brian Fargo on WL3 I've heard so at one point I think you two would talk about shit that went down at Interplay. Not asking you to divulge some private convos between you two but just work related shit. Do a lot of people know that Fergus is a shitty person and a snake?

 

[Valtiel]

ObsidianXile agreed to be merged under Microsoft only to make Planescape Torment 2 and piss off Chris

 

[KazikluBey]

Chris Avellone

I have a couple of questions for you. I remember you stating that one of the big turning points in your relationship with Fergus was when you found out that he never actually backed you up at Black Isle, or protected you in anyway but rather the opposite (I think).

How the hell did this come up? Was it him confessing to you in a moment of guilt, something he blurted out during a heated argument, or did he just say it matter of factly/braggingly like he's that good of a manipulator and how he got you in his pocket?

What was he actually saying? Was he downplaying your ability? Was he taking credit for your work, that he was the master organizer that got things going? That it took his management to make you shine?

Also, did you ever talk to former Interplay execs about it or managers that worked with Fergus?

You're working with Brian Fargo on WL3 I've heard so at one point I think you two would talk about shit that went down at Interplay. Not asking you to divulge some private convos between you two but just work related shit. Do a lot of people know that Fergus is a shitty person and a snake?

Maybe if you went back to that post?, it's still here somewhere. As I recall the gist was: Feargus had simply forgotten about having said he had had MCA's back at BIS, and didn't realize it mattered to MCA. As in: MCA brought it up at some point about how he was grateful for the help back then, at which Feargus replied "Huh, what? No, actually I receommended they [something? scrap the project?] instead."

 

[Roguey]

Chris Avellone

I have a couple of questions for you. I remember you stating that one of the big turning points in your relationship with Fergus was when you found out that he never actually backed you up at Black Isle, or protected you in anyway but rather the opposite (I think).

How the hell did this come up? Was it him confessing to you in a moment of guilt, something he blurted out during a heated argument, or did he just say it matter of factly/braggingly like he's that good of a manipulator and how he got you in his pocket?

What was he actually saying? Was he downplaying your ability? Was he taking credit for your work, that he was the master organizer that got things going? That it took his management to make you shine?

Also, did you ever talk to former Interplay execs about it or managers that worked with Fergus?

You're working with Brian Fargo on WL3 I've heard so at one point I think you two would talk about shit that went down at Interplay. Not asking you to divulge some private convos between you two but just work related shit. Do a lot of people know that Fergus is a shitty person and a snake?

Maybe if you went back to that post?, it's still here somewhere. As I recall the gist was: Feargus had simply forgotten about having said he had had MCA's back at BIS, and didn't realize it mattered to MCA. As in: MCA brought it up at some point about how he was grateful for the help back then, at which Feargus replied "Huh, what? No, actually I receommended they [something? scrap the project?] instead."

We could always use more details https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...archies-and-more.121588/page-147#post-5601325

Additionally

Fargo had a plan when I talked to him when I started working on WL2 part-time at inXile... he had a five-year plan that was very clear, made a lot of sense, and clicked.

Was getting bought out by Microsoft part of his plan?

 

[Grauken]

I don't think Fargo considered Torment and BT4 would tank

 

[2house2fly]

Was getting bought out by Microsoft part of his plan?

Well congratulations, you got yourself bought out by Microsoft. Now what's the next step of your master plan?

Crashing Gamepass... with no survivors!

 

[Brancaleone]

How the hell did this come up? Was it him confessing to you in a moment of guilt, something he blurted out during a heated argument, or did he just say it matter of factly/braggingly like he's that good of a manipulator and how he got you in his pocket?

 

[Tse Tse Fly]

Hello Chris Avellone, I'm playing PS:T, and having searched for a bit around the web I got a suspicion that you might be the only person who can and would be willing to answer this - who is that woman Prophyra in the marketplace portion of the Hive and how are you supposed to interact with her? Why was she introduced in the game and given a name at all if one can't even talk to her?

 

[jaydee2k]

Yeah enjoy your time with Fallout 76 you fuck.

 

[Wunderbar]

Yeah enjoy your time with Fallout 76 you fuck.

you're that "talking deathclaw" guy?

 

[Fairfax]

Hello Chris Avellone, I'm playing PS:T, and having searched for a bit around the web I got a suspicion that you might be the only person who can and would be willing to answer this - who is that woman Prophyra in the marketplace portion of the Hive and how are you supposed to interact with her? Why was she introduced in the game and given a name at all if one can't even talk to her?

Is that the doomsayer? She's prophesying the Faction War.

 

[FeelTheRads]

I bet the guy thinks he's gonna get to read Fall-From-Grace's journal.

 

[Sigourn]

Chris Avellone We all know Obsidian missed a bonus because they didn't reach an 85 score in Metacritic. The earliest reports I could find about this were on May 15, 2012.

My question is: do you know/remember what was the deadline for said bonus?

 

[Nano]

My question is: do you know/remember what was the deadline for said bonus?

I've wondered about that too. Like, what if some site suddenly decides to score FNV with a 10 and bumps the MC score up to 85?

Also, what about the platform? Would an 85 on just one (e.g. PC) be enough, was it for one specific platform, or would it have needed to be 85+ across all of PC/X360/PS3?

 

[ga♥]

Chris Avellone wouldn't this be a good time to open a studio? I am sure a lot of the talented devs at Obsidian and InXile will eventualy leave... because that's what happens usually in this situations.

P.S please not PoE writers though

 

[Latelistener]

Probably nothing is going to happen for a few years, but sooner or later MS will rape Obsidian like they did with Ensemble, so at some point there will be refugees and refugees will have to go somewhere. Ghent, Prague and Warsaw are a bit too far if you know what I mean.

If they're going to do it again I hope this time they'll think carefully about who's going to manage the new studio. The likes of Parker are embarrassment for the industry.

 

[Fairfax]

 

[Chris Avellone]

Chris Avellone We all know Obsidian missed a bonus because they didn't reach an 85 score in Metacritic. The earliest reports I could find about this were on May 15, 2012.

My question is: do you know/remember what was the deadline for said bonus?

I don't, but it's a good thing to mention, and it's a good thing for a developer to ask when doing a contract with a provision like that (I didn't see the Beths. contract).

If I ever was part of a contract like that in the future, I wouldn't accept a score value without putting more stipulations on it within the contract itself:

1. I'd ask (and it would need to be mutually agreed-upon by both parties) that certain review sites with unusual rating systems not be included if they don't follow common industry rating systems (there are some French sites, if I recall, where 5/10 = Good, and even one of those can tank a score).

2. No review on Metacritic that has "review forthcoming" be considered in the value (if you give a score and don't write a review, it shouldn't be there).

3. If someone gives you a low score (say b/c of a bug), then they amend their own score later on (within 2 weeks) based on a fix, then that amended score should be taken into account in some fashion, as Metacritic itself won't change the initial low score once logged.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

According to Feargus he never even asked for any bonuses in a first place, Bethesda just put the Meacritic clause in the contract by themselves. Might be hard if not impossible to negotiate for better terms from a position where they willingly throw you an optional bonus on top of of everything else that's already agreed on

.

 

[Sigourn]

Chris Avellone

The following two quotes, two of my favorites from New Vegas, sound awfully similar.

We shall see how brave you are when nailed to the walls of Hoover Dam, your body facing West so you may watch your world die.

I'll prop your broken body in view of the Sierra Madre so you can see what you came to steal... forever out of reach as you die.

I've just googled it and indeed, you wrote both characters (two great characters in my opinion). When writing the lines, were you aware of their similarity? Was it intended?

 

[Fairfax]

“With tabletop games, the Game Master can react to player actions on the fly, and customise and refocus the adventure quickly, while in a computer role-playing game you have a finite set of actions and results the players can engage in,” Avellone says. “And you have to plan for them all in advance of the game’s release, and ensure you’re giving enough options to the player to make the ‘role’ in ‘role-playing game’ worthwhile.”

Chris Avellone adds: “A lot of the principles D&D established – statistics for characters (Strength, Intelligence, Class Levels, Hit Points), RPG races and classes, and even the creatures you encounter – still find their way into video games today.”

“The Baldur’s Gate series did a great job,” says its designer Chris Avellone, “mostly because I feel BioWare genuinely cared about the licence and genuinely cared about translating it properly.”

“In a computer game with very finite results and outcomes, you need to redefine exactly what that wide-ranging spell can do in the context of the game,” Avellone says. “Furthermore, you’ll discover that many spells meant to aid travel and exploration may not directly translate into a computer game, because they need the fictional game environment a Game Master can narrate.”

The adaptation of tabletop RPGs to video games isn’t necessarily a one-way street. In the 2000s, Chris Avellone was designing Black Isle Studios’ sequel to Fallout 2, code-named Van Buren. For the most part, Avellone was the only developer working on the project, and so he came up with a cunning way of testing its systems out by himself: “I turned Van Buren into a pen-and-paper game that I and the devs who’d eventually move onto the project could play,” Avellone explains. “They could develop characters, explore areas I’d laid out, test certain companions for the game, and see what worked and what didn’t.”

Avellone says he quickly gained useful feedback from this analogue playtesting method. And while Van Buren was later cancelled, Avellone believes it’s a great way of finding out whether a game’s systems will work for players. “I wish more titles had the chance to get such direct, immersive feedback from developers and players ‘adventuring’ through the computer game version on paper,” he says.

“When I was growing up, I wanted to play tabletop games, but trying to gather a group and also trying to find someone willing to put in the work to be a Game Master was difficult,” Avellone tells us. “But the first time I saw The Bard’s Tale II being played on my friend’s Commodore 64, I suddenly realised, maybe I didn’t have to wait for someone willing to take up the reins. I could play against a digital Game Master and still have an enjoyable experience.”

 

[Quillon]

Well, this is a first. Will he go further than their customer support in the future and criticize how they handled his most beloved franchise? :fabulouslyUNoptimistic:

 

[Goral]

I was about to bring it up again: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...eciation-station.101693/page-226#post-5864292

I'm really (pleasantly) surprised about that tweet by Chris Avellone .

 

[Alpan]

He'll find a way to reason that this is actually good for bitcoin Fallout.

 

[FeelTheRads]

He said the customer service is wow. I don't see you think he's unhappy with it.

Edit: Also, worked on Dark Alliance?

...

Interesting. So who's the genius who came up with the jumping on falling platforms bits? Not that the game isn't complete garbage without those. Essentially the Fallout:BOS of the Baldur's Gate franchise.