Interview Chris Avellone interviewed

[Ausir]

WTF? Better than Torment?

He is talking about Van Buren there, not about Bethesda's Fallout 3, in case you didn't notice.

I'm talking about narrative content, for which I don't think that the engine would be a major plan-changer. In any case, reading further I noticed that he isn't involved with the project actually.

He's not, but he'll likely join the NV team once AP is finished, and before that he will probably indirectly influence the game too, by giving the guys on the NV team some ideas. And other NV developers, like JE Sawyer, also worked on Van Buren.

I doubt any of the plot from VB will be reused, though. But I wouldn't be surprised if some factions, characters, places, etc. were at least mentioned.

 

[PlanHex]

I wish I was Ausir too, so I could throw undisputed claims left and right without that bothersome "citation needed" bullshit.

 

[Ausir]

I wish I was Ausir too, so I could throw undisputed claims left and right without that bothersome "citation needed" bullshit.

Isn't it pretty obvious that I'm just speculating here, just like everyone else? Words like "likely", "probably" and "doubt" are a clue.

 

[PlanHex]

I wish I was Ausir, so I could be the real Canon Robot without feelings or humour too.



... And I wouldn't mind those inside sources either...

 

[Ausir]

feelings or humour

Elaborate on these concepts please.

 

[Forest Dweller]

I wish I was PlanHex, then I could act like a dumbfuck all day long with no shame.

 

[tunguska]

I certainly hope they don't make another Star Wars game. Such a bad idea in the first place. As much as I do like Obsidian and even Bioware, I hate Star Wars. Although I admit I did like it when I was like 7 years old and they were playing the damn Star Wars theme on top 40 radio. Along with the Close Encounters theme. Ugh. What a shameful time to have been alive. But when you are 7 years old you at least have an excuse for being an idiot with bad taste. And we didn't really have Scifi movies back in 1977. It was slim pickings. So anything that even tried couldn't help but seem interesting.

As far as MCA's betrayal, he is still a living God. Even if he becomes Todd Howard's buddy and marries his sister I'll still worship him. He planned and wrote (most of) Planescape: Torment. That makes him a creative genius IMHO, regardless of what he later says or does. I will admit that hearing him say nice things about a Bethesda product is depressing however. What I would like to know is: what has he done for us lately. He's been sitting on his ass since MOTB. Get to work! So we can have a decent game to play.

Its like prison sometimes you have to suck a bit of cock to get some extra cigs.

Fixed that for ya.

He mentions that he'd like to work on an Ultima Underworld III. YES! I know that many codexers are not such big fans of the Ultima Underworlds or Arx Fatalis, but they are damn special games. It's nice to hear Avellone giving them some well deserved recognition.

 

[Ausir]

He's been sitting on his ass since MOTB.

He's working on Alpha Protocol.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

JE Sawyer was just as much involved with Van Bauren than MCA, so JE is fully capable of putting some Van Bauren in there maybe. Perhaps we will have the prisoner dilemma?

I wonder if they somewhat regretted leaking all the Van Bauren stuff to NMA.

 

[Forest Dweller]

The idea of another adventuring party is really intriguing. I hope someone, at least sometime, does something with that.

 

[Azrael the cat]

I certainly hope they don't make another Star Wars game. Such a bad idea in the first place. As much as I do like Obsidian and even Bioware, I hate Star Wars. Although I admit I did like it when I was like 7 years old and they were playing the damn Star Wars theme on top 40 radio. Along with the Close Encounters theme. Ugh. What a shameful time to have been alive. But when you are 7 years old you at least have an excuse for being an idiot with bad taste. And we didn't really have Scifi movies back in 1977. It was slim pickings. So anything that even tried couldn't help but seem interesting.

As far as MCA's betrayal, he is still a living God. Even if he becomes Todd Howard's buddy and marries his sister I'll still worship him. He planned and wrote (most of) Planescape: Torment. That makes him a creative genius IMHO, regardless of what he later says or does. I will admit that hearing him say nice things about a Bethesda product is depressing however. What I would like to know is: what has he done for us lately. He's been sitting on his ass since MOTB. Get to work! So we can have a decent game to play.

Its like prison sometimes you have to suck a bit of cock to get some extra cigs.

Fixed that for ya.

He mentions that he'd like to work on an Ultima Underworld III. YES! I know that many codexers are not such big fans of the Ultima Underworlds or Arx Fatalis, but they are damn special games. It's nice to hear Avellone giving them some well deserved recognition.

My view on anything shit that avellone does post-PS:T (and I did actually like the restoration-modded version of KoToR2): you know all that really shithouse stuff that Shakespeare wrote after he went through his 'dark realism' phase of MacBeth/Hamlet, and 'symbolic/romantic' stage of Othello/Tempest/Winter's Tale/Cymbellene? That stuff which tanked because he tried too hard to appeal to the lowest demoninator and was just really generic and shit?

Yeah, I don't know about that stuff either - it isn't recorded. Long term, people are judged by the best of what they do/fluke - the rest doesn't matter.

Hell, even out of the published stuff, no-one seems to care that 'Timon of Athens' is an almost unperformably shit Shakespeare

 

[Xor]

Fallout 3, because that game felt like it had the potential to be better than Torment

FUCK. FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!


FUCK!

 

[Jaime Lannister]

It's probable that MCA did like Fallout 3, he doesn't seem like the angry cunt type you'd find here. And I suspect Todd Howard did like Fallout 1 personally, even if it was only for the gore and the setting.

Chris Avellone was an English major and Todd Howard was a Business major. This explains everything.

 

[tunguska]

He's working on Alpha Protocol.

I was talking about a game in the same league as PS:T or maybe Fallout. A solid RPG with story. A project where Avellone is up to his old tricks again. My hopes for Alpha Protocol are not so high, despite MCA's involvement. It is sounding a bit too action gamey. Maybe it will have a good story though. Weren't people here preaching doom about MOTB pre-release as well? And many were surprised (myself included) when it turned out to be so damn good. Hopefully something like that will happen with Alpha Protocol, but my hopes are not high.

BTW, I didn't mean to imply with my last comment that I think KOTOR1 or 2 is a bad game. I haven't played either yet actually. Maybe due to my bias against the setting. I am actually going to force myself to play it at some point in the near future. I'm currently replaying BG2 for the millionth time. Now there's an example of a game with a shitty, cliched story, but with such fun gameplay. Obsidian is lucky enough to have a damn good storyteller. It's so much easier to make a fun game if you have an involving story. Most developers are not so lucky. Take Dragon Age for a perfect example. What a pathetic excuse for a story. Worse even than Baldurs Gate. I also think Feargus deserves some credit for actually valuing story over dumb action. I don't know if he can write himself, but he seems to be able to recognize the difference between good writing and bad. Something I wish our doctor friends over at Bioware were a bit better at.

 

[Secretninja]

I wish I was Dicksmoker, then I could smoke dicks all day.

Also, Ultima Underworld 3 would be awesomesauce. UU was one of the earliest games I have memory of for computer, and it would be great to take a crack at one now that I have a slightly more developed brain.

 

[bozia2012]

Fallout 3, because that game felt like it had the potential to be better than Torment

 

[Wyrmlord]

It's probable that MCA did like Fallout 3, he doesn't seem like the angry cunt type you'd find here. And I suspect Todd Howard did like Fallout 1 personally, even if it was only for the gore and the setting.

Chris Avellone was an English major and Todd Howard was a Business major. This explains everything.

You misunderstand what Avellone said.

He was talking about HIS OWN Fallout 3, not Bethesda's.

 

[Hümmelgümpf]

then I could act like a dumbfuck all day long with no shame.

You mean you don't?

 

[Forest Dweller]

I wish I could be like Hümmelgümpf, then I could make unwitty one-liners all day long, in order to distract attention from my inane posts.

 

[Ogg]

I wish I... hadn't read this thread.

 

[Vibalist]

Lets face it Obsidian needs MONEY and becaus Chris is a pretty important person at Obsidian he cant say any thing that would HURT there relations with a major Money hat.

Or maybe he really likes Fallout3. It's not nearly as bad as some people here make it out to be.

 

[Micmu]

OMG MCA LIEKS THAT FUCKOUT 3 IS OBLIVIONZ

MCA speaks highly of his newest, rich business partner, whop-tee-doo. Logic 101

 

[Letum Fol]

You know, I've always wondered what the plan for Van Buren was. Have they released any in depth design docs or anything?

 

[Helton]

http://www.nma-fallout.com/content.php?page=vanburen

 

[Ausir]

Have they released any in depth design docs or anything?

Almost all of the design docs (700 pages in total) are available for download at NMA.