Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Starwars]

I couldn't imagine myself working at the same place for 15 years (obviously it'd be different for Chris seeing as he was an owner). I've lasted 5 years tops at one workplace and by then I was pretty much ready to kill some of the people there. Especially with the thing Chris talks about where people will expect certain things of you because... that's what you do and always have done.

 

[Prime Junta]

He's clearly ripe for the picking. Somebody sit him down with a big jug of cheap Chianti and he will spill. Get on the case Codex.

 

[DosBuster]

You guys are really obsessed with this, then again, celebrity gossip is a highly profitable industry.

I'm guessing Chris just felt better being able to contribute his creative talents to a wide variety of project across a series of genres without sticking by to experience the hells of game development. His mother, from what we know, is sick so it's understandable he'd want to take care of her. (I may be mis-remembering but I do recall something about family issues.)

It is also a common understanding that the hours you work in the game industry often don't allow many to see their families or even have a separate life until after the game has shipped, and even then that only persists for a short while before you're swept onto the next project.

 

[Infinitron]

Interesting that you expect him to have done that, but was skeptical about Sawyer throwing a tantrum demanding the Kickstarter.

Was I? I only remember being skeptical of him threatening to quit.

But the reason I say that is because Avellone seems to be on mysterious non-speaking terms with people.

 

[Walden]

"Two things that concern me from a role-playing perspective is...I've always been against players choosing a class [...] I worry that sometimes developers include more classes like that to make the systems more comfortable", "what I've always liked about Fallout was...even though there were suggested archetypes, the way they set up the skill system, you could be a hybrid of any of these things";

 

[Athelas]

New interview (I think?) - scroll to the bottom: http://blog.retrokompott.de/interviews-english/

I skimmed through it and it goes into some detail about why he left Obsidian at around the 45 minute mark (yes, more detail ). Also, some interesting talk about the Troika trio.

 

[Infinitron]

New interview (I think?) - scroll to the bottom: http://blog.retrokompott.de/interviews-english/

I skimmed through it and it goes into some detail about why he left Obsidian at around the 45 minute mark (yes, more detail ). Also, some interesting talk about the Troika trio.

All these tell-all podcasts all of a sudden makes you think some NDA ran out. Or maybe he just met a bunch of people who wanted to interview him at these European conventions.

Choice quote: "Swen Vincke is a lot like Brian Fargo."

 

[Crooked Bee]

He talks explicitly about "personal issues going on [at Obsidian] at the time" of his leaving in this interview; has he done that before?
False alarm, see Inf's post below.

Also, "They did offer to keep me on for some other future projects, but that just didn't work out. And to be honest, I didn't really want to work on these projects anyway. So I think it all worked out best for everybody."

 

[Sensuki]

Even though the interviewer is kinda asking different questions, the answers have all been basically exactly the same, in exactly the same order as the Digital Dragons talk hahah (at least in the first 10 minutes).

 

[Infinitron]

He talks explicitly about "personal issues going on [at Obsidian] at the time" of his leaving in this interview; has he done that before?

What he says directly after that suggests that he's talking about his own personal home issues, not a "personal conflict" at Obsidian.

 

[Crooked Bee]

He talks explicitly about "personal issues going on [at Obsidian] at the time" of his leaving in this interview; has he done that before?

What he says directly after that suggests that he's talking about his own personal home issues, not a "personal conflict".

I see, wasn't paying enough attention.

 

[Fairfax]

Was I? I only remember being skeptical of him threatening to quit.

That's what I was referring to.

But the reason I say that is because Avellone seems to be on mysterious non-speaking terms with people.

And it was a silly theory when I said that a year ago...

All these tell-all podcasts all of a sudden makes you think some NDA ran out. Or maybe he just met a bunch of people who wanted to interview him at these European conventions.

Choice quote: "Swen Vincke is a lot like Brian Fargo."

Probably the latter. The last conventions he attended barely had any interviews (can't remember one, actually).

 

[Sensuki]

I wonder if Jedi Master Radek manned up and asked about it

 

[Infinitron]

So here's a bit of Wasteland-related trivia from that podcast. According to Chris, Michael Stackpole did most of his work on the second half of the game. And what do you know, that's exactly the portion of the game that he decided to novelize for his Wasteland 2 novella.

 

[Fairfax]

Polish Eurogamer wrote a piece about his panel at Digital Dragons. Anyone willing to translate the interesting bits?
I think google translates this part well enough?

At a certain stage they started to joke that Avellone became a professional additional objective, which is used to help the Thunder stand out. This kind of popularity not really enjoys it.

- Frankly, I'm tired of it - he says. - Bard's Tale IV is probably the last project, to which I joined in this way. Unless there is something special, I've had enough. I prefer to create a game than to promote them.

Cooperation with Avellone can make the project more prestigious, but there's something that bothers creator.

- My presence on a project where I am treated as a prestigious addition, it can obscure the hard work of people who engage even eighty hours a week to their game really shone. I do not work as much as they, and everyone looks at me. It's not fair.

The human stretch goal is leaving his stretch goal days behind, it would seem.

 

[Abu Antar]

Polish Eurogamer wrote a piece about his panel at Digital Dragons. Anyone willing to translate the interesting bits?
I think google translates this part well enough?

At a certain stage they started to joke that Avellone became a professional additional objective, which is used to help the Thunder stand out. This kind of popularity not really enjoys it.

- Frankly, I'm tired of it - he says. - Bard's Tale IV is probably the last project, to which I joined in this way. Unless there is something special, I've had enough. I prefer to create a game than to promote them.

Cooperation with Avellone can make the project more prestigious, but there's something that bothers creator.

- My presence on a project where I am treated as a prestigious addition, it can obscure the hard work of people who engage even eighty hours a week to their game really shone. I do not work as much as they, and everyone looks at me. It's not fair.

The human stretch goal is leaving his stretch goal days behind, it would seem.

It's about time. Such a waste of talent.

 

[Brother None]

Most of the writing in TTON done by Adam Heine, Colin McComb and Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, who MCA calls a "writing powerhouse".

Gavin is awesome and was one of the best additions to the team. He used to work in the Netherlands before moving back to US and joining inXile, coincidentally. I'd say quite a lot (I don't know the percentages) of the writing in the beta (and the game overall) is from Gavin, so I'm glad he's starting to get his due.

Of course there are other writers that contributed a lot - George in particular, obviously, though his focus has been more on area design. But the writing he has done has been consistently nothing short of brilliant.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

It's pretty close Fairfax:

At a certain stage they started to joke that Avellone became a professional additional objective, which is used to help the games stand out. This kind of popularity he not really enjoys.

- Frankly, I'm tired of it - he says. - Bard's Tale IV is probably the last project, to which I joined in this way. Unless something special appears, I've had enough. I prefer to create a game than to promote them.

Cooperation with Avellone can make the project more prestigious, but there's something that bothers creator.

- My presence on a project where I am treated as a prestigious addition, it can obscure the hard work of people who engage even eighty hours a week to their game really shone. I do not work as much as they, and everyone looks at me. It's not fair.

Other interesting things:

I will be available as long as Swen will need me.

There are four major characters in his Wasteland 2 book.

I wonder if Jedi Master Radek manned up and asked about it

I did not. I made my questions under the assumption it's is still too early too ask, and between his speech and my interview I was too tired of excitement to realize I can ask more than I thought previously. BUT! He still gave many interesting things regarding his departure.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Now, when the creative part of TTON has been nailed down, he admits that he didn't have as much creative freedom as he'd hoped for.

"The license forced certain limitations upon us, we had to adhere to a few conventions related to the Numenera setting."

MONTE COOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOK

 

[Athelas]

Looks like the spiritual successor to PS:T is already living up to its namesake by evoking ample amounts of butthurt torment.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't get it - he's always going on about how much he likes adding his touch to other IPs, working within their limitations. Not as much creative freedom compared to Star Wars? Is this a case of misaligned expectations?

 

[Rev]

Polish Eurogamer wrote a piece about his panel at Digital Dragons. Anyone willing to translate the interesting bits?
I think google translates this part well enough?

At a certain stage they started to joke that Avellone became a professional additional objective, which is used to help the Thunder stand out. This kind of popularity not really enjoys it.

- Frankly, I'm tired of it - he says. - Bard's Tale IV is probably the last project, to which I joined in this way. Unless there is something special, I've had enough. I prefer to create a game than to promote them.

Cooperation with Avellone can make the project more prestigious, but there's something that bothers creator.

- My presence on a project where I am treated as a prestigious addition, it can obscure the hard work of people who engage even eighty hours a week to their game really shone. I do not work as much as they, and everyone looks at me. It's not fair.

The human stretch goal is leaving his stretch goal days behind, it would seem.

Finally! He was wasting his talent with all that freelancing, doing just small additions to other people's games that didn't really matter in the end.
He can do a lot more and hopefully he's planning on doing his own new game, creating great characters, worlds and stories as he did in Torment and KotOR II (without a publisher that butchers the second half of the game this time).

 

[Fairfax]

I don't get it - he's always going on about how much he likes adding his touch to other IPs, working within their limitations. Not as much creative freedom compared to Star Wars? Is this a case of misaligned expectations?

He probably expected as much freedom as he had with PS:T. That always seemed unlikely with the Numenera creators involved. WOTC (and even Interplay) never really cared about what he was doing with PS:T back then.

 

[Infinitron]

It's about time. Such a waste of talent.

Finally! He was wasting his talent with all that freelancing, doing just small additions to other people's games that didn't really matter in the end.
He can do a lot more and hopefully he's planning on doing his own new game, creating great characters, worlds and stories as he did in Torment and KotOR II (without a publisher that butchers the second half of the game this time).

I think he's referring strictly to the context of Kickstarter. I'm quite sure that Chris Avellone is doing and will continue to do small things on other people's games. Just not as a human stretch goal on a Kickstarter.

 

[Rev]

I think he's referring strictly to the context of Kickstarter. I'm quite sure that Chris Avellone is and will continue to do small things on other people's games. Just not as a human stretch goal on a Kickstarter.

That would be disappointing. In the part quoted by Fairfax, by the way, he said something about wanting to make a game rather than promoting them, so maybe there's hope



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