Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Infinitron]

I could be completely off-base with this, but how does one interpret the fact that the game that finally convinced Avellone to jump ship was the one that had a lower budget than he was used to? Or in other words, a game that likely had a more indie-like, less AAA-like development process and design hierarchy than he's used to?

On the other hand, he professes his love of indies and clearly seems to think inXile do a much better job of it. But then, I don't think he's spent as much time working day-to-day with inXile. I do wonder if Avellone isn't inevitably going to find himself disappointed again in the future if he ever takes a full-time role again.

 

[Sensuki]

Why's that? Then he can set the management structure he likes right ?

 

[Infinitron]

My mistake, I really meant to say "full time role"

 

[Sizzle]

Nothing to do with money, he just reached a tipping point when he realized that his opinions, in a company he helped co-found and was Creative Director at, weren't being listened to. He was one of the top brass there, and was constantly getting his ideas and contributions scrapped, even though, as Creative Director, he should have been able to overturn those decisions.

He said it himself - all they wanted from him was to write. And if Dead Money and Old World Blues showed us anything, it's that he's got some nifty ideas on how to merge good writing with environmental storytelling and systems design.

 

[Infinitron]

Nothing to do with money, he just reached a tipping point when he realized that his opinions, in a company he helped co-found and was Creative Director at, weren't being listened to. He was one of the top brass there, and was constantly getting his ideas and contributions scrapped, even though, as Creative Director, he should have been able to overturn those decisions.

From what he says in his talk and in our interview, he didn't want to overturn those decisions. He wanted to be given enough information ahead of time so those decisions wouldn't have to be made in the first place.

JMR: What part of your work that was cut was the most difficult to let go of?

MCA: None of it. Part of a narrative designer's job is that you don't really get attached to anything and you're supposed to make sure that the content fits with the direction for the title. The most difficult part was how it was handled.

 

[Sizzle]

Nothing to do with money, he just reached a tipping point when he realized that his opinions, in a company he helped co-found and was Creative Director at, weren't being listened to. He was one of the top brass there, and was constantly getting his ideas and contributions scrapped, even though, as Creative Director, he should have been able to overturn those decisions.

From what he says in his talk and in our interview, he didn't want to overturn those decisions. He wanted to be given enough information ahead of time so those decisions wouldn't have to be made in the first place.

JMR: What part of your work that was cut was the most difficult to let go of?

MCA: None of it. Part of a narrative designer's job is that you don't really get attached to anything and you're supposed to make sure that the content fits with the direction for the title. The most difficult part was how it was handled.

He also said people were doing it behind his back. So what we have here is a case of poor management - he was too nice of a guy to step up when it was really needed, and as a result, his work (and, arguably, Obsidian's work) suffered for it and he lost his position in all but name. Unfortunately, being the boss, sometimes you gotta exert your power, especially if you feel you are in the right, no matter how nice of a guy you are.

Just take Ulysses. There was a character that would have been so, so much better as an NPC - he would've remedied some sorely missing F:NV holes: the lack of an evil NPC, and as someone who would have better fleshed out the Legion and given you an actual reason to join them. And what did they do? Cut him out. Seeing as that was Sawyer's first (well - first from start to finish) game where he was lead designer, this was probably the beginning of Chris's loss of control.

 

[Infinitron]

this was probably the beginning of Chris's loss of control.

I'd say the beginning of Chris's loss of control was when, for whatever reason, he stopped taking lead roles on major projects.

You're basically saying he should have subverted the hierarchy - used his "Creative Director" title to occasionally pull rank and override the decisions of those above him. However, it looks like Chris doesn't want to have to do that. He wants better hierarchies that would work without him having to do that.

 

[Sizzle]

this was probably the beginning of Chris's loss of control.

I'd say the beginning of Chris's loss of control was when, for whatever reason, he stopped taking lead roles on major projects.

That, too. I wonder if all of this could have turned out different if he agreed on that proposed Avellone Kickstarter that Urquhart had in mind.

You're basically saying he should have subverted the hierarchy - used his "Creative Director" title to occasionally pull rank and override the decisions of those above him. However, it looks like Chris doesn't want to have to do that. He wants better hierarchies that would work without him having to do that.

I'm saying that, as Creative Director, he was in charge of the Lead Designer as well, so he sometimes should have intervened.

"You want to cut Ulysses? No, nuh-uh, fuck that shit, that guy enforces the themes much better than Lily, if you want to get rid of an NPC, cut her. Yeah, you betcha I'm pulling rank, I worked on FO2 AND wrote the Fallout Bible, I know what's a good Fallout theme."

 

[Infinitron]

I'm saying that, as Creative Director, he was in charge of the Lead Designer as well

Do you not realize how problematic this could be? In an alternate reality, there was somebody else talking at Digital Dragons, complaining about how an unnamed company owner kept overriding his decisions as project director, despite not having his understanding and oversight of the entire project. Similar things have happened at other companies.

Chris has enough awareness to understand that, which is why this isn't the simple "he quit because they kept cutting his content!" narrative that some people would like it to be.

 

[Sizzle]

I'm saying that, as Creative Director, he was in charge of the Lead Designer as well

Do you realize how problematic this could be? In an alternate reality, there was somebody else talking at Digital Dragons, complaining about how an unnamed company owner kept overriding his decisions as project director, despite not having his understanding and oversight of the entire project. Similar things have happened at other companies.

Which would be true in a project where the Creative Director is someone who isn't very familiar with Fallout, but this is Avellone, one of the guys who made the biggest and longest-lasting influence on it.

Chris has enough awareness to understand that, which is why this isn't the simple "he quit because they kept cutting his content!" narrative that some people would like it to be.

I'm not arguing it is as simple as that, it obviously isn't, but when you are someone who's at the very top of a company, and someone way below you, who shouldn't work behind your back, but, in fact, should deffer to you, starts overriding your decisions - worse, your good decisions - that's when you know that something is terribly wrong.

And it would be a different story if all he had to contribute (and was subsequently cut) to it was some nondescript , run of the mill NPC, but he made someone who would have made the entire game better. Without Durance, mangled as he is, PoE wouldn't be nearly as good okay.

 

[Infinitron]

Which would be true in a project where the Creative Director is someone who isn't very familiar with Fallout, but this is Avellone, one of the guys who made the biggest and longest-lasting influence on it.

Heh, if familiarity with Fallout is a good enough reason to be able to override a project director's decisions, then maybe your average RPG Codex poster should be able to hand down orders to Josh Sawyer as well.

All hail Creative Dictator Chris Avellone

 

[Sizzle]

Which would be true in a project where the Creative Director is someone who isn't very familiar with Fallout, but this is Avellone, one of the guys who made the biggest and longest-lasting influence on it.

Heh, if familiarity with Fallout is a good enough reason to be able to override a project director's decisions, then maybe your average RPG Codex poster should be able to hand down orders to Josh Sawyer as well.

Oh, come on, you know what I meant. He knows Fallout, he understands Fallout. He seems like the sort of person who would read, watch and play through everything pertaining to the project his company was working on to get a better feel for it.

Besides, as far as I understand it, his cuts were always made in the name of budget. He should have been able to step in and say - no, my work here is better/more important/better suited to the game than the work of some junior designer, so we will keep it. This may sound harsh, but it's true - I'd wager that in the vast majority of cases, it would have been superior than what was left instead of it.

All hail Creative Dictator Chris Avellone

Here, here!

 

[Roguey]

Just take Ulysses. There was a character that would have been so, so much better as an NPC - he would've remedied some sorely missing F:NV holes: the lack of an evil NPC, and as someone who would have better fleshed out the Legion and given you an actual reason to join them. And what did they do? Cut him out.

Perhaps he shouldn't have written so damn much then.

You remember how buggy New Vegas shipped? It would have been worse with Avellone's content uncut.

 

[Sizzle]

Just take Ulysses. There was a character that would have been so, so much better as an NPC - he would've remedied some sorely missing F:NV holes: the lack of an evil NPC, and as someone who would have better fleshed out the Legion and given you an actual reason to join them. And what did they do? Cut him out.

Perhaps he shouldn't have written so damn much then.

And they couldn't have talked to him about editing out a bit of it, but had to cut him completely? In one of his newer interviews (maybe even the Codex one, I get them mixed up) Avellone himself told that he learned about one of his (I presume) NPCs being cut behind his back.

You remember how buggy New Vegas shipped? It would have been worse with Avellone's content uncut.

Nah, sorry, don't buy that. A single optional NPC would not have made the overall game significantly buggier.

 

[Metal Hurlant]

I don't see a problem with MCA's presentation or hierarchy, or how things are laid out and solved. I can empathise with what a lot of what he says. I've worked for a few companies and it makes perfect sense with what he says. I've experienced similar things with working for smaller companies to multinationals with incredibly large teams and now I would never work for a multinational again. Money is not a motivator for me anymore.

I work in a small company (25 people) and the team I'm in only has 6 people. I'm the manager managing 5 others. There are 4 levels. Basically, myself (Manager) > 2 x Team Leaders > Trainee Leader > 2 x others. The two team leaders look after their own work (and subordinates) and don't cross over into each other. A point that MCA said in his presentation when you have two project leads. There are two lower employees reporting to one Team Leader and the other lower employee reports to the other Team Leader.

There are people who like to see things laid out and structured. A person to go to if they run into a problem or ask for clarification or guidance. When you have 6 or 10 people all equal, then who do you report to? Who has the final say? Unless it involves everyone involved and all team members are required which has never been the case in my working career, then resolving problems by everyone in the team or by 'committee' when it's not required is a waste of time for people who don't need to be there and muddies the waters. And I've found in previous companies, I've seen so many disinterested people in meetings including myself. As MCA says, you need someone at the top to steer the ship. I don't need to be looking over everybody's shoulder or jump in and do some of their work. I expect people to come to me with (potential) problems when they (or if they could) happen and not later when it's much worse. If the work is too much, they will tell me and I'll jump in and help but that is incredibly rare.

While I can wear many hats, it isn't my job to do their work. It's to be the Captain, give directions (if asked) and make sure the employees are getting the work done and find better ways to get things done. It's also for me to do other manager stuff. Employees also have a responsibility to say something and give feedback up the chain as MCA pointed out. As an employee myself, it's also my responsibility to manage upwards to my Boss as well.

Also, I make it a point for me not to have negative reinforcement on others as this can scare employees from speaking up and being open. While you can show employees their mistakes, I always show the correct way to do things in an interesting or positive way. Also, I might see something and think, why are we doing it this way? There's a better way to do it. I'll step in and show both Team Leaders and they'll be like, Yeah that's a better way to do it. But I only step in to show a better/efficient way to do things and the Team Leaders appreciate that. If it means less effort and hours to do the same productivity output, they're all for it. It's easier for them and I nor my employees have never work any overtime and never missed a deadline for the last few years.

Everything MCA said is pretty basic stuff in management, unfortunately there's a lot of management in companies who don't follow these basic principles.

 

[Roguey]

And they couldn't have talked to him about editing out a bit of it, but had to cut him completely?

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...preciation-station.101693/page-4#post-4205570

how far into the development process was Ulysses cut as a companion? He seemed like he would have been pretty cool, and I feel like there was a dearth of pro-Legion companions.

He was cut very late in the development cycle.

i.e. triage time.

also, if not for the deadline for releasing the game, how much longer would it have taken for the game to have post hoover dam, a more fleshed out legion, and more fleshed out secondary locations and ulysses?

For all of that stuff plus more stability/content testing, I'd guess 5-8 months.

Chris Avellone mentioned somewhere that he was sorry Ulysses didn't make it into the game (though we might see him in a DLC it seems). Was there a particular piece of cut or planned content that you especially liked that didn't make it into the game?

I have more regrets about things that remained in than things that were left out.

Nah, sorry, don't buy that. A single optional NPC would not have made the overall game significantly buggier.

The fact that he's optional would have done nothing to make his content less buggier (or content elsewhere, because someone has to be too busy making his content work), if anything, that's a greater incentive to just get rid of him.

 

[Sannom]

"You want to cut Ulysses? No, nuh-uh, fuck that shit, that guy enforces the themes much better than Lily, if you want to get rid of an NPC, cut her. Yeah, you betcha I'm pulling rank, I worked on FO2 AND wrote the Fallout Bible, I know what's a good Fallout theme."

You do realize Ulysses wasn't cut because they needed to cut a companion and he was randomly chosen, but because he had a ridiculously huge number of lines compared to the other companions and presumably not even a "little editing" could have made it better, right?

 

[Infinitron]

FO:NV had a very noticeable division between the "major companions" and the "minor companions" like Lily and Raul who had very simple quests. I don't think we would have wanted Ulysses as a minor companion.

 

[Sizzle]

Yes. So what?

Virgil had the most to say out of all the companions in Arcanum. The NPCs in BG2 also vary in content and quality. Durance is also miles better than any othe PoE companion, with more things to say, greater integration into the game's themes.

What I'm saying is - if you have arguably the best writer in the gaming industry writing one of your NPCs, you should make the most of him, no matter if he makes the other companions worse in comparison.

 

[Grauken]

Everything MCA said is pretty basic stuff in management, unfortunately there's a lot of management in companies who don't follow these basic principles.

Pretty much this, I work in an utterly different industry, but a lot of what he says is just common sense, sadly not always reality. To me it also seems like that he's coming from hierarchical structures where the basic stuff just wasn't followed, not sure he would disagree that if you have a small team things are more flat and more in flux, but at a certain size of manpower the whole flat org structure thing is just bullshit and from my experience does not work and actually means the hidden hierarchies are more prone to power-games and general abuse, while those who spout the most bullshit about how everyone can talk to everyone and has the same right and how its the ideal way to work are the ones who should be the first to get shot

 

[Sannom]

What I'm saying is - if you have arguably the best writer in the gaming industry writing one of your NPCs, you should make the most of him, no matter if he makes the other companions worse in comparison.

I believe the issue with Ulysses was one of logistics/cost with the voice acting, not something to do with how he compared with the other companions.

 

[Fairfax]

I could be completely off-base with this, but how does one interpret the fact that the game that finally convinced Avellone to jump ship was the one that had a lower budget than he was used to? Or in other words, a game that likely had a more indie-like, less AAA-like development process and design hierarchy than he's used to?

On the other hand, he professes his love of indies and clearly seems to think inXile do a much better job of it. But then, I don't think he's spent as much time working day-to-day with inXile. I do wonder if Avellone isn't inevitably going to find himself disappointed again in the future if he ever takes a full-time role again.

Nobody knows that. Things could've been shitty for years already when PoE started. He definitely had issues with Obsidian's leadership way before PoE, like in AP.

Perhaps he shouldn't have written so damn much then.

You remember how buggy New Vegas shipped? It would have been worse with Avellone's content uncut.

Or he could've cut shitty companions like Lily and Arcade instead...

 

[Rev]

Or he could've cut shitty companions like Lily and Arcade instead...

As Sannom said, it wasn't a matter of cutting one of the companions because they were too many or whatever, it was just difficult to implement Ulysses and his content because it would've required a lot of editing and testing, and that could prevent them from hitting the deadline or having even more bugs and instability at release. Lily and Arcade were probably already implemented in the game at that point, they didn't need more work to be edited or tested and so there was no need to cut them off.

 

[Latro]

As far as I'm aware Avellone doesn't seem to mind things like Ulysses being removed and stored away from DLC, the problem as Grauken stated, is that the flat org "one person doing a ton of things" allows office politics and power-games rule the day, resulting in lost time, hurt feelings, and wasted productivity. Which I'm assuming is why he lectured a bunch of indie devs (who don't work with any of these concerns usually lol) on organizational hierarchy you need to insure everyone's comfy.

 

[Fairfax]

As far as I'm aware Avellone doesn't seem to mind things like Ulysses being removed and stored away from DLC, the problem as Grauken stated, is that the flat org "one person doing a ton of things" allows office politics and power-games rule the day, resulting in lost time, hurt feelings, and wasted productivity. Which I'm assuming is why he lectured a bunch of indie devs (who don't work with any of these concerns usually lol) on organizational hierarchy you need to insure everyone's comfy.

MCA may not mind, but doesn't mean the decision shouldn't be criticized. Ulysses could've had a much more important role in the grand scheme of things, specially with his ties to the Legion.
Instead a shitty companion like Arcade made the cut because Sawyer was Director/Lead Designer/Systems Designer and the character was based on himself (lol).