Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

 

[Name]

So MCA is "working" with different studios to steal their talents for his future magnum opus?

 

[Drax]

 

[Roguey]

15:10 He says the Project director is the top with the power to decide what stays and goes when there is creative differences.

Hmm I wonder why Pillars has infodumps in dialogue then.

 

[Athelas]

So he's assembling a superteam of RPG developers?

Obligatory:

Spoiler

 

[Infinitron]

Hmm I wonder why Pillars has infodumps in dialogue then.

Have you played Mass Effect 1? You remember that optional dialogue you can have at the beginning with the Elcor and the Volus in their embassy, where you can learn more about the politics of the Citadel? It's a pretty cool, memorable little scene. And it's not considered "infodumps", it's standard practice for RPGs introducing a new setting for the first time.

What people call "infodumps" in PoE is basically the ability to ask one of the merchants in Baldur's Gate who says "I've got the best prices this side of Cormyr!" the question "Tell me about Cormyr." This triggers people for some reason even though they should be used to it by now, I guess because it's in text. Personally I wouldn't have noticed it if they hadn't complained.

 

[Fairfax]

He's probably talking to the people who aren't full-time InXile employees working on TTON, maybe some at the studios which he always shares job offerings, to join him in the Van Buren KS. If that's the case, the train should definitely stop before it crashes.

Hmm I wonder why Pillars has infodumps in dialogue then.

Have you played Mass Effect 1? You remember that optional dialogue you can have at the beginning with the Elcor and the Volus in their embassy, where you can learn more about the politics of the Citadel? That's not considered "infodumps", it's standard practice for RPGs introducing a new setting for the first time.

What people call "infodumps" in PoE is basically the ability to ask one of the merchants in Baldur's Gate who says "I've got the best prices this side of Cormyr!" the question "Tell me about Cormyr." This triggers people for some reason even though they should be used to it by now, I guess because it's in text. Personally I wouldn't have noticed it if they hadn't complained.

That's not just it, there's a lot of wikipedia stuff being said in the middle of what should've been normal conversations.

 

[Irenaeus II]

15:10 He says the Project director is the top with the power to decide what stays and goes when there is creative differences.

Hmm I wonder why Pillars has infodumps in dialogue then.

What do you mean?

Hmm I wonder why Pillars has infodumps in dialogue then.

Have you played Mass Effect 1? You remember that optional dialogue you can have at the beginning with the Elcor and the Volus in their embassy, where you can learn more about the politics of the Citadel? It's a pretty cool, memorable little scene. And it's not considered "infodumps", it's standard practice for RPGs introducing a new setting for the first time.

What people call "infodumps" in PoE is basically the ability to ask one of the merchants in Baldur's Gate who says "I've got the best prices this side of Cormyr!" the question "Tell me about Cormyr." This triggers people for some reason even though they should be used to it by now, I guess because it's in text. Personally I wouldn't have noticed it if they hadn't complained.

Exactly, anyone who complains about "infodumps" in PoE paints himself as a retard in my book.

 

[Infinitron]

I know how dry, encyclopedic, jargon-filled infodumps look like. Check out some Seven Dragon Saga lore updates, including a paragraph from the most recent one, for an example. PoE didn't have stuff like that.

Further muddling this debate is that people seem to conflate "encyclopedic infodumps" with "walls of text", and complain about both as if they're the same thing. Yet the walls of text emitted by PoE's much-hated backer NPCs are distinctly non-encyclopedic; they're context-free little stories that typically have nothing to do with the game's lore. And the other major source of walls of text in the game is Durance and Grieving Mother who people love, so go figure.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Yet the walls of text emitted by PoE's much-hated backer NPCs are distinctly non-encyclopedic; they're context-free little stories that typically have nothing to do with the game's lore.

Agree, I think the fact that they are context-free and having nothing to do with the game's lore is the main reason the NPC backers were literally the worst thing in PoE, whatever the quality of the short stories (most sucked, I read about 40 before giving up).

 

[Beastro]

It rose again while playing KOTOR1, which I thought was an amazing game. So amazing, in fact, I became frustrated at the idea of working on the sequel because the first game seemed to have already done everything cool in the Old Republic. I almost threw down my controller when I got to the part of the game when you're walking on the ocean floor of Manaan, and I was like, "$!@# this game." Hello, Dark Side. Of myself.

Ummm, I thought they weren't allow to look at anything of the original due to contract BS and had to intuit what the first game was about in the dark?

Van Buren plot: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Van_Buren#Presper.27s_plan

It was a Wasteland-ish mad scientist story, very different from FO:NV's topical political setting. Van Buren's version of Caesar's Legion wasn't important enough to merit a mention in its description.

I always felt the setting of NV was deliberate and allowed VB room to fit into the timeline (I don't the exact dates set in each and if they conflict or not). Looking through the state Caesar's Legion was in in VB and then in NV you kinda get the feeling that VB took place years before NV while the Legion was still crawling west and NV was the outcome of it finally growing large and bumping into the NCR.

About the only thing that doesn't match right, IIRC, is the degree of NCR presence in Colorado, but that could always be explained by activity before the Legion drove the most advanced arms of the Rangers out before taking it over.

It would be ideal if VB could be official worked into the canon because it gives a lot of stuff to flesh that region of the world out with, but I'd never count on Bethesda being that wise.

Pallegina is boring as fuck and Arcade was literally based on himself.

It's funny given the differences and similarities in their personalities. I wonder if you could take much of Arcade as an idealization of his own self-perception. After seeing his Darklands LP I bet he wishes he could be such a cool, self-assured, drool nerd as Arcade is.

Further muddling this debate is that people seem to conflate "encyclopedic infodumps" with "walls of text", and complain about both as if they're the same thing. Yet the walls of text emitted by PoE's much-hated backer NPCs are distinctly non-encyclopedic; they're context-free little stories that typically have nothing to do with the game's lore. And the other major source of walls of text in the game is Durance and Grieving Mother who people love, so go figure.

Walls of text aren't bad so long as they're fitting. Durance is a enraged, bitter nutter who's done a lot of thinking for a long while and is just itching to it vomit all over you. His ranting works because he has a lot of say, the PC needs information on past events he was key to and his conversation style matches his personality. It ties into the character being full of himself and isolated from everyone else, even loathing his deity only tolerating her because he looks on her as strong and a match for himself and views everyone in his faith with contempt for not matching his standards, of which he is on the top.

Right from the start you get the feeling he's like a crazy prospector that's been out on his own for too long with his own thoughts and is insane, yet what he talks about you get an idea that there's something to his insanity. It's one thing to get his barely controlled rants, it's another to have this personality suddenly talk in a draw, matter of fact tone that is what a real info dump is.

He's much the same as Kreia, another smug, bitter old loon who's spent too long thinking alone and loves to lecture her new pupil and teach them the "proper" way with the eagerness like a teacher teaching their first student.

In fact, if there's something of a stereotype to Avellone's writing it would be this archetype of character. I haven't played his older games, but I wouldn't be surprised if there's someone like that in PST.

Now, if the archetype is modelled on Avellone himself, like Arcade to Sawyer, or if it's a bugbear of his based on someone who always pestered him when he was younger, like a parent or mentor?

Agree, I think the fact that they are context-free and having nothing to do with the game's lore is the main reason the NPC backers were literally the worst thing in PoE, whatever the quality of the short stories (most sucked, I read about 40 before giving up).

Half the problem was getting in the RP mood, being told godlike were super special rare and then seeing half backer NPCs be godlike. Had they just placed a ban on the backer npcs being that race and only be region appropriate ones then they'd have blended in perfectly.

Chris seems very agitated about working on Kotor 3 again and that could be very good indeed.

After the way BW handled TOR I bet he's going nuts wanting his chance to save the KOTOR setting with his beloved serious and philisophical KOTOR2ish perspective, and indirectly, save the EU as a whole now that it's rudderless from Disney saying it's not canon anymore.

All the more so now that Lucas is gone and no longer has the final say on such things like about who is allowed to die or not in all Star Wars stories.

I could see much the same from Star Trek lovers now that Abrams Star Trek is leaving the fanbase unsatisfied with his reboot while the original Star Trek post-Dominion War setting has essentially remained untouched and ripe to be returned to after resting for nearly 2 decades.

 

[Azarkon]

I'm saying that it is increasingly obvious that Obsidian does not use its writers well, and one of the practices leading to this is that they don't allow the story writers to actually decide the story & characters.

Was this not the case for Pillars of Eternity? As I recall, there was a competition, and Fenstermaker won somehow.

I'm also pretty sure George Ziets was responsible for conceiving the companions in Dungeon Siege III and not Chapman, and I know Annie then-Carlson conceived at least some of the cohorts from Storm of Zehir. For your claim to make sense, those two titles would have been praised for their writing, while New Vegas would have been derided.

Dungeon Siege III and Storms of Zehir were designed to be story light games, so I imagine they didn't spend a lot of time on the story & characters in the first place. In any case, of course a bad writer is still going to be a bad writer regardless of whether they give him/her control over the story & characters. The benefit is on the other side.

As to why New Vegas wasn't trash - I actually think many of the companions in New Vegas were trash. But the narrative didn't need them to succeed, and that I give to Gonzalez.

 

[Fairfax]

I know how dry, encyclopedic, jargon-filled infodumps look like. Check out some Seven Dragon Saga lore updates, including a paragraph from the most recent one, for an example. PoE didn't have stuff like that.

Further muddling this debate is that people seem to conflate "encyclopedic infodumps" with "walls of text", and complain about both as if they're the same thing. Yet the walls of text emitted by PoE's much-hated backer NPCs are distinctly non-encyclopedic; they're context-free little stories that typically have nothing to do with the game's lore. And the other major source of walls of text in the game is Durance and Grieving Mother who people love, so go figure.

Well, because there's a big difference between random wikipedia NPCs and Durance and GM.
Grieving Mother has plenty of walls of text, but zero lore dump. One would learn nothing about PoE's setting from her dialogue alone. Durance slowly reveals what happened in a major event in the setting, but that's because he took part and it was life-changing, not for the sake of exposition.

I'm saying that it is increasingly obvious that Obsidian does not use its writers well, and one of the practices leading to this is that they don't allow the story writers to actually decide the story & characters.

Was this not the case for Pillars of Eternity? As I recall, there was a competition, and Fenstermaker won somehow.

I'm also pretty sure George Ziets was responsible for conceiving the companions in Dungeon Siege III and not Chapman, and I know Annie then-Carlson conceived at least some of the cohorts from Storm of Zehir. For your claim to make sense, those two titles would have been praised for their writing, while New Vegas would have been derided.

Dungeon Siege III and Storms of Zehir were designed to be story light games, so I imagine they didn't spend a lot of time on the story & characters in the first place. In any case, of course a bad writer is still going to be a bad writer regardless of whether they give him/her control over the story & characters. The benefit is on the other side.

As to why New Vegas wasn't trash - I actually think many of the companions in New Vegas were trash. But the narrative didn't need them to succeed, and that I give to Gonzalez.

Arcade and Lily were trash, but I thought the others were pretty good.

 

[Drax]

(...)
Well... we got him a job at Larian. Tim Cain, George ZZietzz, Adam Heine... We have a relative access to them...
Notch is bored and billionaire.
Somewhere there's got to be a link we can exploit...

 

[Sannom]

Ummm, I thought they weren't allow to look at anything of the original due to contract BS and had to intuit what the first game was about in the dark?

They threw away 99% of the stuff they came up with before they could play the game.

 

[Beastro]

Ummm, I thought they weren't allow to look at anything of the original due to contract BS and had to intuit what the first game was about in the dark?

They threw away 99% of the stuff they came up with before they could play the game.

Ahhh, k that makes sense now.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Notch is bored and billionaire.

Isn't Notch a sub100 IQ dull fatass who stole a children's 3D lego game with zombies and sold to Facebook for billions of dollars? I doubt he understands what a cRPG is.

 

[Fairfax]

Yeah, notch struck oil (or stole) and that was it. He even gave up trying to make a new game, and with good reason.

 

[Irenaeus II]

I was kind of kidding with the insults, he obviously has great marketing/commercial and management skills (impossibru to a sub100 IQ) to have become a billionaire instead of the original developers of Minecraft. The rest stands.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

People who whine about infodumps are the same kind of retarded as people who whine about filler combat.

As if almost every beloved classic didn't suffer from the same kind of info dumping and the same kind of filleritits.

 

[Excidium II]

As if almost every beloved classic didn't suffer from the same kind of info dumping and the same kind of filleritits.

So it's the one thing those new CRPGs managed to capture.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

So it's the one thing those new CRPGs managed to capture.

As the old rule goes, you don't want to see how sausage gets made. We've spent all 15 years overanalyzing the classics and wondering why the genre died, and now that its coming back, we can't see the magic anymore. We just see sausage.

 

[Sensuki]

Sawyer didn't create the companions in Pillars either (at least not all of them). They probably would have turned out better if he had.

Oh yeah? Because his own character was one of the worst ones.

 

[Roguey]

As to why New Vegas wasn't trash - I actually think many of the companions in New Vegas were trash. But the narrative didn't need them to succeed, and that I give to Gonzalez.

That would be the responsibility of the people who wrote them. Their concepts are fine.

Oh yeah? Because his own character was one of the worst ones.

She's a good concept. Josh was too busy with systems to actually write a good character though.

 

[Viata]

See, this is why MCA left Obsidian. Even in his own appreciation thread, people talk way too much about Sawyer.