Interview Chris Avellone is still pretty mad about Obsidian

[Mastermind]

Yes, yes, watch your god ravage everything you hold dear, faggots.

CA: That's difficult to say from the internal perspective of then and now - and it depends on what design element you're talking about. Story-wise, I can definitely say Fallout 2 did a worse job on many fronts than Fallout 1, for example, and New Vegas did a lot of things even worse than Fallout 2, but did better on the world exploration front than F2 could hope to do based on tech alone (but which F3 and F4 did better, imo). Bethesda definitely has a better design-exploration-aesthetic than any game I've worked on.

Spot on, I've been saying this for years. I edgy hated avellone because everyone worshipped him, but I gotta admit now that he has a good head on his shoulders. I wish him well in his current endeavors.

 

[Mastermind]

Chris is a casual player. Remember the wolves, men? Of course he would like Bethesda's exploration more.

He probably also likes Bethesda's exploration more because Bethesda, unlike Obshitian, gives you plenty of places to explore. There's simply no contest between the two outside of the delusional codex circle jerk.

 

[Black Angel]

He probably also likes Bethesda's exploration more because Bethesda, unlike Obshitian, gives you plenty of empty places to explore.

FTFY.

 

[Lurker King]

I don’t know what is worse. People defending Avellone from what they perceive as a justified hypocrisy necessary to secure employment, or deluded neckberd anti-sjw grognards who project their tastes and aspirations to Avellone, when he is a causal gamer, SJW white knight, etc. And by the way, Tim Cain enjoy popamole games too - his steam account doesn’t lie. Your heroes are causals, deal with it. FANBOYS CAN'T TELL THEIR HEROES FROM GHOSTS.

 

[commie]

I'll always respect MCA for what he has done, but the point is that it was in the past.He can't keep coasting on past glory. At least now he hasn't got the 'I'm a producer,forced to do other things and besides Obsidian keep rejecting my work' excuse. We'll see soon enough if Chris actually had decent stuff or if it was rightly binned.

 

[Doktor Best]

Did you really expect Avellone to publicly talk shit about his new employer while praising the work of his former employer which he left on bad terms?

Are you delusional or something?

No, but I didn't expect him working alongside Satan either. The only way he could redeem his soul is if he goes kamikaze and blows himself up along with Tod Howard and Bethesda office.

Yeah i get you, but i will wait for PREY2 until i form my opinion about his move. If he manages to turn those Bethestard gazillions into games worthwhile i really dont give a shit.

 

[commie]

Did you really expect Avellone to publicly talk shit about his new employer while praising the work of his former employer which he left on bad terms?

Are you delusional or something?

No, but I didn't expect him working alongside Satan either. The only way he could redeem his soul is if he goes kamikaze and blows himself up along with Tod Howard and Bethesda office.

Yeah i get you, but i will wait for PREY2 until i form my opinion about his move. If he manages to turn those Bethestard gazillions into games worthwhile i really dont give a shit.

In an irony he'll be reduced to penning a few side quests for games already locked into the Howard design school. Difference is this time he'll be crowing about what a great opportunity it is, not like at 'evil Obsidian'.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

I'll always respect MCA for what he has done, but the point is that it was in the past.He can't keep coasting on past glory. At least now he hasn't got the 'I'm a producer,forced to do other things and besides Obsidian keep rejecting my work' excuse. We'll see soon enough if Chris actually had decent stuff or if it was rightly binned.

At this point he can very well be burned out to the core. Working in the hostile environment for... I don't know exactly when Obsi has gone to shit, but at least from Alpha Protocol times I guess, so for 6 years at the very least. So yeah, working at the place which shut down your projects, your initiatives and your input can vary effectively burn out a person.

 

[CyberWhale]

For another similar example look @ Crysis 2 and Richard Morgan writing for it.

 

[Lurker King]

At this point he can very well be burned out to the core. Working in the hostile environment for... I don't know exactly when Obsi has gone to shit, but at least from Alpha Protocol times I guess, so for 6 years at the very least. So yeah, working at the place which shut down your projects, your initiatives and your input can vary effectively burn out a person.

Cry me a river. The whole society is a hostile environment. People suck, have unconfessed interests. No wonder “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” are so popular. Everywhere you look, you will find petty jealousy, backstabbing and laziness. If you didn’t have to deal with it in your personal life, you are fortunate. No wonder they had ugly fights behind the scenes. I don’t care if he is speaking about these things in public out of resentment. The only thing that interests me in this drama is that this shows how these people we tend to put in a pedestal are just like us.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

At this point he can very well be burned out to the core. Working in the hostile environment for... I don't know exactly when Obsi has gone to shit, but at least from Alpha Protocol times I guess, so for 6 years at the very least. So yeah, working at the place which shut down your projects, your initiatives and your input can vary effectively burn out a person.

Cry me a river. The whole society is a hostile environment. People suck, have unconfessed interests. No wonder “The Walking Dead” and “Game of Thrones” are so popular. Everywhere you look, you will find petty jealousy, backstabbing and laziness. If you didn’t have to deal with it in your personal life, you are fortunate. No wonder they had ugly fights behind the scenes. I don’t care if he is speaking about these things in public out of resentment. The only thing that interests me in this drama is that this shows how these people we tend to put in a pedestal are just like us.

 

[Drax]

We need this one:russia: with MCA's face on it.

Beautiful.

 

[Kane]

We need this one:russia: with MCA's face on it.

Beautiful.

Slightly above average.

 

[mutonizer]

Bethesda-style exploration appeals to tens of millions of people at this point.

Yea, that's a fact.
They are more of a drug pushers company than a game studio now though.

 

[Fenix]

Avellone, when he is a causal gamer, SJW white knight, etc. And by the way, Tim Cain enjoy popamole games too - his steam account doesn’t lie.

Never understood claim that "your genius is imperfect" - yeah, he can wear tastless clothes, love tasteless music so what?
It even don't matter if that person is a game-something and love to play simple games, because you know - while that person engaged in complex intellectual activity in game-industry, he can enjoy the very simple things and pleasures, and only such things can relax him.
These claims are a little absurdic to me.
I fear to imagine what would you say if he didn't played games at all, and visit bowling instead.

Also, this thing "let's see whether he still had powder in the flasks" - I reject it.
No matter in what shape he is now or will be in future, this doen't matter at ll - this does not cancel his contribution to a cRPG genre and games as a whole, that's why I honor and respect him, he is one of those symbolic titans on which shoulders we stand now.

 

[Wizfall]

Bethesda definitely has a better design-exploration-aesthetic than any game I've worked on.

What does this mean?

That means that Fallout 3 has better, more interesting locations design/graphics wise.
Megatown, tenpenny tower, rivet city are quite memorable/original/surprising and i was quite excited to explore them.
The Washington city overall and the subway (even if they clearly overused this last one and it becoming a chore very quickly, the first time is great) in a lesser degree too.
I'm not talking about the crappy contents these locations had unfortunately but from aesthetic point of view.

Surprising locations were also a very strong points of F1/2.
The glow, necropolis, the vaults, the brotherhood headquarters...everything was new and surprising/original in F1
Sierra Army depot, the ship and the Enclave, Vault City with his walls and turrets, NCR with "energy field" doors, Gecko, New Reno (even if a bit overboard) very original/surprising locations that i was eager to explore in F2.

The only FNV location i feel a bit excited discovering was the Brotherhood secret base, everything else i found quite dull/unoriginal (especially Vegas and the hoover dam were a disappointment).
If the F3 maps had the FNV writing/content qualities, it would have been the better game.

 

[Monocause]

Some of you guys are trying to find the weirdest things in this interview. He's simply a mature guy who's well established enough that he can afford a (quite mild at that) mention of his displeasure with his former employer, and he's openly sharing what he appreciates in games that he's being asked about. And the fact that he doesn't bash Bethesda for anything - professionalism aside, as much as I'm sure he could point out a fair few things he thinks Beth could've done better in private, he's been on the receiving end of gratuitous shitflinging from random sources numerous times so I can't see why would he start criticising someone else's work in an interview for a random forum, where whoever he'd criticise (as yes, there's always an actual person behind that feature you're taking a dump on) couldn't debate his points.

Why would he even do that, what's the point? What's there to gain? "Fighting the good fight"?

 

[Deleted member 7219]

He does sound incredibly bitter about Fallout: New Vegas. I can understand his attitude towards the other Obsidian owners - it is weird that the creative director of a company never had much involvement with the games made at said company (other than KOTOR 2 of course) but what he said about New Vegas doesn't make sense. He just outright trashes it.

 

[an Administrator]

"Fighting the good fight"?

Common sense

 

[Lurker King]

Never understood claim that "your genius is imperfect" - yeah, he can weartastless wear, love tasteless music so what?
It even don't matter if that person is a game-something and love to play simple games, because you know - while that person engaged in complex intellectual activity in game-industry, he can enjoy the very simple things and pleasures, and only such things can relax him.

That depends. I think it is obvious that being a causal gamer will not affect his writing. You could have thought that being a SJW would affect his writing, but his characters in PoE doesn’t come across as forced political propaganda. He is intelligent enough to avoid falling in this trap. However, if we are evaluating whether this will affect his capabilities as a lead designer, then the answer is a big yes. You see, if Avellone were a cRPG mechanics savvy that played all the classics and is just too tired after a day of work to play another one (because they are too time consuming, demanding, etc.) then it won’t make a bit of difference. However, he is not knowledgeable about things such as character creation, combat systems, etc. Therefore, you can be pretty sure that he will design games with trash combat such as PS:T or Alpha Protocol. And don’t get me started with his beliefs about the importance of minigames. I could spent a whole day criticizing this thing.

 

[an Administrator]

How is MCA a "SJW"?!?

 

[Lurker King]

I remember him supporting someone (“I think it was Zoe Quinn?”) in anti-gamergate campaign on twitter. There are other incidents too, but I don’t remember.

 

[Monocause]

He does sound incredibly bitter about Fallout: New Vegas. I can understand his attitude towards the other Obsidian owners - it is weird that the creative director of a company never had much involvement with the games made at said company (other than KOTOR 2 of course) but what he said about New Vegas doesn't make sense. He just outright trashes it.

Not sure man. I've reread the bits when he refers to Vegas and this is what we get:

CA: That's difficult to say from the internal perspective of then and now - and it depends on what design element you're talking about. Story-wise, I can definitely say Fallout 2 did a worse job on many fronts than Fallout 1, for example, and New Vegas did a lot of things even worse than Fallout 2, but did better on the world exploration front than F2 could hope to do based on tech alone (but which F3 and F4 did better, imo). Bethesda definitely has a better design-exploration-aesthetic than any game I've worked on.

He doesn't say that NV was rubbish. All he says is he thinks that story-wise it was worse than FO2 in many aspects - but that's all there is. That's quite faraways from trashing it. Also note that the major undertone here is that he sees room for improvement in his own work.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

He does sound incredibly bitter about Fallout: New Vegas. I can understand his attitude towards the other Obsidian owners - it is weird that the creative director of a company never had much involvement with the games made at said company (other than KOTOR 2 of course) but what he said about New Vegas doesn't make sense. He just outright trashes it.

Not sure man. I've reread the bits when he refers to Vegas and this is what we get:

CA: That's difficult to say from the internal perspective of then and now - and it depends on what design element you're talking about. Story-wise, I can definitely say Fallout 2 did a worse job on many fronts than Fallout 1, for example, and New Vegas did a lot of things even worse than Fallout 2, but did better on the world exploration front than F2 could hope to do based on tech alone (but which F3 and F4 did better, imo). Bethesda definitely has a better design-exploration-aesthetic than any game I've worked on.

He doesn't say that NV was rubbish. All he says is he thinks that story-wise it was worse than FO2 in many aspects - but that's all there is. That's quite faraways from trashing it. Also note that the major undertone here is that he sees room for improvement in his own work.

He says it was worse than F2 in story, better in world exploration, but F3 and F4 did that even better, which is such an obvious kick in the balls I really don't think I need to say anything else.

 

[Excidium II]

He does sound incredibly bitter about Fallout: New Vegas. I can understand his attitude towards the other Obsidian owners - it is weird that the creative director of a company never had much involvement with the games made at said company - but what he said about New Vegas doesn't make sense. He just outright trashes it.

Fuck his opinions about FO2 and FNV.