People News Chris Avellone Interview @ PC Authority

[Roguey]

What the hell was wrong with the mortuary ?

Avellone claims a lot of people dropped the thing entirely before leaving the place. Notable names I know for certain include game critic Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw and our very own DU.

 

[Infinitron]

Doesn't Yahtzee play fucking interactive fiction? What's his problem with the mortuary? It's classic adventure game stuff in there.

 

[Roguey]

Doesn't Yahtzee play fucking interactive fiction? What's his problem with the mortuary? It's classic adventure game stuff in there.

Too many wordz
http://www.fullyramblomatic.com/archive/20070814-1220.htm

This week: Mass Effect. In summary: too much text.

I did my usual cursory glance over notable forum threads to get my feedback and it seems some people on one forum that shall remain nameless have been calling me a hypocrite for apparently liking Planescape Torment despite it, too, being a monstrously wordy game. My response: where the hell did you get the impression that I liked Planescape Torment? That, too, I found boring and couldn't get further than the first world. I'm not angry, I'm just confused as to how you made this leap of logic. Admittedly I did show the box art for, like, one second to illustrate a point but I don't remember drawing a big sign over it saying THIS GAME IS AWESOME MMM I WANT IT TO SPUNK IN MY FACE

His reviews of Twitcherz 1 and 2 are also pretty funny, especially with his positive-by-comparison reception of DA:O/2.

 

[Infinitron]

But...interactive fiction...words...dasdadjasuhayhfsd

 

[Alex]

Sometimes, I wonder why MCA must have this fixation with visual story telling. I would much rather have him give up graphics and write text adventures, to be frank. So, why, MCA? Why? Why?

 

[Viperswhip]

Well the Mortuary part was very adventure game and thus many people probably didn't love it, particularly the hack and slash crowd. There was plenty of story in there though and that's why I play Torment. As soon as you step outside you end up getting chased by low level thieves every time you enter a zone. Can't believe those guys didn't want to read the great story there.

Whatever.

 

[Surf Solar]

Who is Yahtzee and why should I care? Some random guy/girl says "tis be bad" and this makes the mortuary automatically bad?

 

[FeelTheRads]

Some random guy/girl says "tis be bad" and this makes the mortuary automatically bad?

Dude... Roguey. When asked why she/it says something is bad/good she/it answers with quotes from other people. Trolling, stupidity, no personal opinion whatsoever, you decide.

 

[Harg Harfardarssen]

Doesn't Yahtzee play fucking interactive fiction? What's his problem with the mortuary? It's classic adventure game stuff in there.

I think Yahtzee actually writes interactive fiction. He's also wicked overrated. Its not that he's bad; he's fairly witty, but not witty enough to totally overcome his mediocre delivery. His commentary can be intelligent, but so dominated by its "evocative" phrasing that it ends up being not particularly insightful.

Also, I realized he's terrible at videogames when he panned Demons' Souls because it was too hard. Plenty of legitimate reasons to not like it, but too hard=total scrub. So him quitting a game early isn't particularly persuasive to me.

 

[almondblight]

He's kind of right, though. Something about a picture and a thousand words. Games are a visual media, but very few games actually make a good use of it. Visuality allows a more subtle way to convey information compared to plain text where everything that matters has to be spelled out for you. Then again, many of the subtle things you can see in, say, Kubrick's movies probably wouldn't work out at all in a game since you expect a certain amount of "imperfection" in games, so small details are usually lost in the process.

Well, just like games aren't books, games also aren't movies. They should make use of the medium to tell a good story. Out of this World used visual storytelling pretty well, I thought. Clocktower too. I agree with Avellone that it's good to use visual and not just text methods of storytelling. Of course, it's often (though not always) best to use the gameplay it'self to tell the story.

 

[SCO]

It's like we were drowning in literate games instead of being in a fucking analphabet wasteland hobby.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

Well, I don't think he ever had it save for his "stroke of genius" in Torment. What the fuck did he do besides that that's worthy of any attention?

inb4 Gannfags.

KOTOR fucking 2. The writing in that game, particularly Kreia's, is phenomenal.

 

[CappenVarra]

My response: where the hell did you get the impression that I liked Planescape Torment? That, too, I found boring and couldn't get further than the first world

I found boring and couldn't get further than the first world

further than the first world

Super Mario called,

 

[Roguey]

Who is Yahtzee and why should I care? Some random guy/girl says "tis be bad" and this makes the mortuary automatically bad?

When people like internet-famous game critic and the admin of this site think the opening of a game is too fucking boring along with a bunch of other people, perhaps the opening is too fucking boring. I think perhaps he should have cut down on all the unnecessary longwinded exposition.

 

[Carrion]

When people like internet-famous game critic and the admin of this site think the opening of a game is too fucking boring along with a bunch of other people, perhaps the opening is too fucking boring. I think perhaps he should have cut down on all the unnecessary longwinded exposition.

Wow, those are some serious authorities you're referring to there. What next? Quoting IGN reviews?

Torment's beginning is the least boring part of a game that I can think of. It immediately gets you hooked, gives you just the right amount of information and sets the mood for the rest of the game. The actual tutorial lasts for less than five minutes, and then the actual game already starts. You get a long-term goal and a number of short-term ones, and you're free to do whatever the hell you want to. Sure, you need to get out of the Mortuary first, but there are multiple ways of doing that, and there's a ton of interesting stuff to be found there that is in no way forced on you. A lot of the exposition at the beginning is actually non-verbal or can be skipped if you happen to be an AD/HD retard. At no point did I ever feel I was given unnecessary or uninteresting information either. Instead, I clicked on everything I could in the game world and talked to every single zombie I saw, wanting to find out more about everything. I can't think of any other game that had the same kind of effect on me right from the start.

 

[Surf Solar]

Ah I forgot, Internet authorities now dictate how good or bad a game is.

 

[Roguey]

Wow, those are some serious authorities you're referring to there. What next? Quoting IGN reviews?

Avellone took them seriously enough that it changed the way he approaches games. It's about numbers: do you want to make a game that satisfies hundreds but turns off thousands or do you want to satisfy thousands and maybe slightly disappoint hundreds?

A lot of the exposition at the beginning is actually non-verbal or can be skipped if you happen to be an AD/HD retard. At no point did I ever feel I was given unnecessary or uninteresting information either. Instead, I clicked on everything I could in the game world and talked to every single zombie I saw, wanting to find out more about everything. I can't think of any other game that had the same kind of effect on me right from the start.

The conversations with Dhall and Deionarra are too long. First-time players are going to click all those dialogue options even if they don't want to, because there might be vital information they need (and in Deionarra's case this is the raise dead ability that's hidden in one of those dialogue trees).

 

[Black_Willow]

It's about numbers: do you want to make a game that satisfies hundreds but turns off thousands or do you want to satisfy thousands and maybe slightly disappoint hundreds?

Does that mean MCA is going to make a Call of Duty/Mass Effect clone?

 

[Roguey]

There is a point where a line has to be drawn. A Torment-budget game doesn't need to sell millions, but it does need to sell hundreds of thousands and ideally most of them would enjoy it.

 

[Carrion]

Does that mean MCA is going to make a Call of Duty/Mass Effect clone?

He already did the latter. People liked it
THIS MUCH!

 

[Haba]

When people like internet-famous game critic and the admin of this site think the opening of a game is too fucking boring along with a bunch of other people, perhaps the opening is too fucking boring. I think perhaps he should have cut down on all the unnecessary longwinded exposition.

When a certified dumbfuck dumbfucks, he is still a dumbfuck and his opinion has no worth. Unless you are a dumbfuck yourself.

 

[Surf Solar]

So do you have an opinion on your own, Roguey , or do you just keep repeating random internets persons sayings and present them as facts?

 

[Kz3r0]

Avellone claims a lot of people dropped the thing entirely before leaving the place. Notable names I know for certain include game critic Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw .

 

[Kz3r0]

Avellone took them seriously enough that it changed the way he approaches games. It's about numbers: do you want to make a game that satisfies hundreds but turns off thousands or do you want to satisfy thousands and maybe slightly disappoint hundreds?

MCA just developed the dreaded Hollywood Writer Syndrome, and thinks that only people writing for movies or TV shows are serious writers.

 

[Kalin]

I for one really enjoyed the Mortuary the first time I played the game (not to mention during each and every successive session) and the notion that any of the dialogues in Planescape: Torment are "too long" is beyond absurd. Plenty of folks probably cannot into reading but that does not make the game defective. Sub-optimal from the approach that it ought to entertain the unwashed masses, certainly, but that is in itself synonymous with being of poor quality.