People News Chris Avellone tells the Codex about his current work on Pillars of Eternity

[Bleed the Man]

The more likely explanation for scrapping the mental dungeon(s) is probably that the art and design budget didn't allow for making a bunch of areas with unique art and mechanics.

As i said, i understand that for the mental dungeons. Was the dungeon 3/4 of the characters' content though? Or Obsidian toned them down for another reason?

i think the impossibilty to do the mental dungeon thing ment a change in their character development quite a bit, and when that happens, it's likely that the change is even bigger than what originally intended, especially if where other writers that did the writing and not Avellone, the original writer for the characters.

Of course, I'm pulling this thing out of my ass, I don't know anything about the process of writing videogame characters.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

So he basically didnt do anything and the two ideas he had were scrubbed from the game? MASTER OF RPG DESIGN! GENIOUS! MESSIAH!



Thats how many years that he didnt do anything in game design? And he doesnt know how to play RPGs either?
Isnt that... suspicious to anyone?

The fact that he doesn't know how to play RPGs is why I like him, because I don't really know how to play them.

I get the impression that his dream game is very close to my dream game, and that's why I want to see him create more.

 

[Tigranes]

The more likely explanation for scrapping the mental dungeon(s) is probably that the art and design budget didn't allow for making a bunch of areas with unique art and mechanics.

As i said, i understand that for the mental dungeons. Was the dungeon 3/4 of the characters' content though? Or Obsidian toned them down for another reason?

i think the impossibilty to do the mental dungeon thing ment a change in their character development quite a bit, and when that happens, it's likely that the change is even bigger than what originally intended, especially if where other writers that did the writing and not Avellone, the original writer for the characters.

Of course, I'm pulling this thing out of my ass, I don't know anything about the process of writing videogame characters.

Mental dungeons were meant to be a kind of minigame with some kind of gameplay modification, rather than just another cave you walk around in. This, predictably, was ultimately seen as too resource-intensive for something that wouldn't then be used elsewhere.

GM in particular should have been just cut, really. We ended up with a terribly executed, annoying character, where in the original format it would probably have been excellent writing.

 

[Delterius]

GM in particular should have been just cut, really. We ended up with a terribly executed, annoying character, where in the original format it would probably have been excellent writing.

Oh God no, just no. I do concede that GM is hilarious in her underdevelopment but without her the story would have been 50% more boring.

 

[jaybirdy]

Here, let's have our best writer fix bugs and proofread the work of others, that oughta make him happy

 

[Rostere]

GM in particular should have been just cut, really. We ended up with a terribly executed, annoying character, where in the original format it would probably have been excellent writing.

No.

 

[Tigranes]

'k.

 

[Drowed]

Durance and the Grieving Mother were, by far, the most interesting companions. Durance, especially. He's a character with a story and personality that I don't really remember seeing something similar in any other game. GM, at times, ended with descriptions rather long, unnecessarily long, I'd say. But other than that, the concept was interesting as well. I liked her story.

 

[Shevek]

Here, let's have our best writer fix bugs and proofread the work of others, that oughta make him happy

In theory, I kinda get putting a man with MCA's talent in more of a leadership role rather than an active writing role but only if he was there to truly mentor and develop other writing staff. I can see him being very adroit at walking a lesser writer through a process to more fully develop a narrative or dialogue. Somehow, it doesn't seem like that was his role at OE.

Then again, I really dont know what professional development looks like in the game dev world, so, whatever.

 

[Rake]

Durance and the Grieving Mother were, by far, the most interesting companions. Durance, especially. He's a character with a story and personality that I don't really remember seeing something similar in any other game. GM, at times, ended with descriptions rather long, unnecessarily long, I'd say. But other than that, the concept was interesting as well. I liked her story.

More importantly, the rest of the companions were meh.

 

[Bonerbill]

GM in particular should have been just cut, really. We ended up with a terribly executed, annoying character, where in the original format it would probably have been excellent writing.

Get aids and die. Losing oen of the few interesting characters in PoE would have sucked. D:

 

[Tigranes]

You guys don't seem to understand the point. The problem with GM is that you had what was clearly the most interesting concept by far, and then it was butchered into an experience which feels like you're reading a combination of a plan for a companion & a stream of consciousness set of notes by Avellone. If the minidungeon thing had to go, OK, that's not a surprise. But then the character should have been rewritten and redesigned in a way that makes it work for its final form. Maybe there wasn't enough time? But the whole "did you read this dialogue closely" test structure is terrible, combined by stony voice acting and excessive verbosity (which is less a problem with Durance, because his remarks tend to be more entertaining and he is meant to be a more bombastic character), results in terrible delivery.

The fact that GM still manages to be interesting is credit to the concept, which is fantastic. But I'd have preferred to see GM cut in favour of something else (we know some companions were cut), and then revived in an expansion pack where she is done justice - or a GM which is more properly adapted to the form in which she appears in POE.