Interview Chris Avellone is still pretty mad about Obsidian

[Excidium II]

You can’t expect someone who can't kill wolves in Arcanum to implement a decent combat system

To be fair nobody could kill wolves with that character. He made a character with no combat skills because people convinced him Arcanum is a game you can talky talk through.

A grognard would never drop all the combat skills and lose half the fun.

Implying combat skills are fun in Arcanum

 

[Fenix]

So a little bit of epistemic humility goes a long way.

I heard that SHIT many times, and it doesn't become anything better then SHIT.
Try to use it on yourself plz.

You can’t expect someone who can't kill wolves in Arcanum to implement a decent combat system, solid encounter design, interesting skill combos, etc.

Sorry you are too dumb today.

 

[commie]

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

FTFY.

Nope, it's the other way around. Countless times I've wandered the NV map looking for points of interest only to find out they're a wrecked building (as in, just the corner standing or something) or abandoned shack with nothing interesting there.

Larp a fucking archaeologist then you'll find it interesting.

 

[Sòren]

it's obvious to me that avellone was the only person at obsidian with some real talent. everything he has done - while not entirely perfect gameplay wise - is interesting, from KOTOR2 to the fallout new vegas DLCs (never played alpha protocol though). just compare Dead Money or Old World Blues to that clusterfuck Honest Hearts that this sawyer guy designed. really no reason to give a damn about this company anymore and i can absolutely understand his disappointment when big and important projects like PoE are given into the hands of mediocre people like sawyer.

 

[Mastermind]

i don't get the hate for honest hearts

 

[MRY]

it's obvious to me that avellone was the only person at obsidian with some real talent.

That's absurd. Kevin Saunders and George Ziets are universally beloved.

 

[Sòren]

haven't seen anything remarkable from Ziets beside Mask Of The Betrayer. i am not sure about his involvement in other things though.

 

[Lurker King]

Implying combat skills are fun in Arcanum

Implying that decent players will not avoid combat skills when they are trying to play a cRPG for the first time.

it's obvious to me that avellone was the only person at obsidian with some real talent.

Do you mean that Tim Cain has no talent? And what about everyone that worked there in the past and helped Avellone make his games, they were talentless quacks too?

never played alpha protocol though.

Of course you didn't.

 

[Excidium II]

it's obvious to me that avellone was the only person at obsidian with some real talent.

That's absurd. Kevin Saunders and George Ziets are universally beloved.

Looks like the key to be loved is to have an one-hit wonder

 

[MRY]

haven't seen anything remarkable from Ziets beside Mask Of The Betrayer.

Dayenu.

 

[Deleted member 7219]

haven't seen anything remarkable from Ziets beside Mask Of The Betrayer. i am not sure about his involvement in other things though.

Ziets actually made Dungeon Siege 3 worth playing for the story alone, otherwise it would have been a fairly dull hack 'n slash.

Also, there's plenty of great talent at Obsidian even now a lot of the KOTOR 2, MotB and New Vegas stars have left. I think Fenstermaker and Patel are good writers. Sawyer, although compromised in his pursuit of balance, knows how to be a good game director. And don't forget Cain and Boyarsky are there now.

 

[Excidium II]

it's obvious to me that avellone was the only person at obsidian with some real talent.

That's absurd. Kevin Saunders and George Ziets are universally beloved.

Looks like the key to be loved is to have an one-hit wonder

haven't seen anything remarkable from Ziets beside Mask Of The Betrayer.

Dayenu.

We're reaching levels of basculating parrot never thought possible.

 

[MRY]

If you think it is possible to produce MOTB without "some real talent," I have serious questions about your judgment. If, for the sake of proving a false point in the midst of a tantrum, one feels obliged to trash the developers of one of the best RPGs of all time (edit: the 12th best, per the Codex), I suppose there's no stopping you, but it seems like there are better ways to spend your time, even in the cause of criticizing Obsidian.

 

[Sòren]

Do you mean that Tim Cain has no talent?

yeah okay, might be wrong on this one.

 

[Lurker King]

So a little bit of epistemic humility goes a long way.

I heard that SHIT many times, and it doesn't become anything better then SHIT.
Try to use it on yourself plz.

 

[Fenix]

OK, let's stop arguing over this question, alright?

 

[DraQ]

sometimes I, too, take exception to previous decisions as well (talking deathclaws in F2,

Oh, fuck. The talking deathclaw fanboy should appear soon.

Reporting for duty.

Someone wants the job at Bethesda real bad, all the while pretending that he doesn't...

Which would actually be something potentially great assuming Bethesda would know how to handle that.
Bethesda is pretty evidently in dire need of competent writers both on high, questline and quest structure level and low, character one.

TES with MCA put in charge of filling the world with quests and characters (and of keeping MK from achieving escape velocity while in orbit)? Yes fucking please.

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

Casul or not, Bethesda still does exploration better than pretty much anyone else. And original Fallouts didn't even have anything that could meaningfully be called exploration, so even if Bethesda was hopelessly crap at it, it would still win by default (as I'm not sure if negative worth is possible in regards to exploration).

Anyone trying to praise "exploration" in a Bethesda game automatically loses points in my book.

So, what's *your* alternative?

Regarding shitty things in NV, I wonder if he might mean the Legion. They aren't really posterboys for moral ambiguity of your in-game factions.

Spoiler

Even Bethesda can do better than that, though in typical Bethesda fashion they will sketch out something mightily interesting, then completely drop the ball at filling it up with details.

Anyway, in the end of day MCA is still one of the best, if not the best computer game writer out there, the guy responsible for some great games and someone with axe to grind against shitty recurring vidyagame cliches. That's still a lot.

 

[Excidium II]

Regarding shitty things in NV, I wonder if he might mean the Legion. They aren't really posterboys for moral ambiguity of your in-game factions.

Legion is just underdeveloped. The basic premise is better and more believable than all other factions in the game.

 

[Roguey]

The Legion aren't supposed to be morally ambiguous, you either believe harsh authoritarianism is worth law and order or you don't.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

You can say what you want about Sawyer, but he took photographs of real locations and studied the terrain of the place, etc.

Because he's dead inside and has no imagination whatsoever. So he has to work that way. That's the reason he "wants" to do a "historical" rpg, too.

 

[LizardWizard]

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.

Cucked out of his own company by a SJW-root-vegetable-eating-hipster and now reduced to workin' on popamole for a declinaliscious corporation that formerly fucked him out of a bonus.

 

[Lurker King]

You can say what you want about Sawyer, but he took photographs of real locations and studied the terrain of the place, etc.

Because he's dead inside and has no imagination whatsoever. So he has to work that way. That's the reason he "wants" to do a "historical" rpg, too.

So let me get this straight: Sawyer only wants realistic settings and thinks about believable game locations because he is dead inside, doesn’t know what fun is, wants to balance everything, etc. Conversely, if you are cool, fun and really alive you are supposed to enjoy retarded settings, enjoy gamey locations and forget about balance. Sorry, guys. This most be the most stupid thing I ever heard. I don’t believe in a word of it. You are making all his virtues sound like vices because you have a unconfessed irrationalist agenda. Sawyer is an arrogant designer who wants fun just like you and me. His talk about balance is pretentious and stupid, but what he means about balance is precisely the opposite of what balance really means, i.e., making games more challenging. Instead, he wants to make them more easy and inclusive, which is traditional popamole thinking with some touches of pseudo technical jargon that give him a false air of sophistication. Let’s not throw the baby out with the bath water. The answer to Sawyer’s popamole doctrine is challenging games, not broken games, which are just another type of popamole. The alternative to a uninspired popamole such as PoE is not a broken superficial game like D:OS, but solid games like AoD and Battle Brothers.

 

[Lurker King]

Legion is just underdeveloped.

True.

The basic premise is better and more believable than all other factions in the game.

What is more plausible? A large militar federation like New California Republic, that has established customs, uniforms and rules, or a group inspired in an acient culture that most people only saw in history books? The first.

 

[Infinitron]

I like how Bester put quotation marks around "wants"

 

[MRY]

I like how Bester put quotation marks around "wants"

A man who's dead inside cannot want; he can only "want."