Interview Interview with Chris Avellone at PC Invasion

[Early_Grave]

Academagia is probably one of the best high school RPG/adventures out there, not just for potterfags.

 

[Aenra]

...

Explain to the ignorant peasant how just one more celebrity being added to Fargo's team (on a persistent basis that is, this would not be a one-off) would help the genre ???

Quality? How, when the closer one gets to monopolising a market's "brand" names, the least accountable one tends to become? He is not, you'd say? Does that suffice however, when there's more;
Diversity? No, in fact the opposite. The first step is accumulation. Of assets in this scenario. See above for wet dreams come true.
Opportunities? Under what context? Because if not the financial one, the qualitative one demands competition (to compete you need equals, in terms of potential). It is competition that drives opposing teams/companies into surpassing or at worst improving their portfolio. Here, that would be the gaemz you play.

Can you really be ok with yourselves, pretending you are all so bright, cunning and discerning while you ceaselessly post shallow, unintelligent fanboy comments? A rhetorical question this one, be not confused.

I hope he gets his rest. And moves on to founding his own studio. He has all it takes for that to happen. The one thing missing would be his acknowledging of himself as one in a position of extra responsibilities. Dreamers do not always fare well with those. I really hope he does. Or gets to. It would be beneficial to anyone concerned, us the customers included.
Either way, my very best wishes to him regardless.. /salute

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Explain to the ignorant peasant how just one more celebrity being added to Fargo's team (on a persistent basis that is, this would not be a one-off) would help the genre ???

Well, Maiandros, he hasn't exactly produced much at Obsidian recently has he? It seems much of his work has been cut down (like PoE companions) or cancelled, and looking at what Inxile and Obsidian have in the pipeline it seems there may be more creative opportunities at Inxile. If more of his work sees the light of day then that's good for the genre, surely?

Because if not the financial one, the qualitative one demands competition (to compete you need equals, in terms of potential). It is competition that drives opposing teams/companies into surpassing or at worst improving their portfolio. Here, that would be the gaemz you play.

I think many would argue that your desire for 'competition' is more important when designing a better widget (or iterating on a game engine) than for a creative person who is primarily a writer who does some design. If he does require 'competition' to do his best work then new entrants to the genre will continually provide competition, surely? After all, there is plenty of praise around here for the writing of AoD or the gameplay of Underrail and who knows what the future will bring. But ultimately, I would guess (it's all just speculation at this point after all) that he'll spend some time just working on different projects for different companies, whatever he finds most interesting - surely a nice change for a creative person who's been tied up in one company for years.

 

[Lurker King]

Explain to the ignorant peasant how just one more celebrity being added to Fargo's team (on a persistent basis that is, this would not be a one-off) would help the genre ???

The thing is we have a culture of self-conscious irrational hype and selective idolatry attitude towards developers that is misrepresented as passion for cRPGs. This lead to a divorce from reality and disproportional enthusiasm about different developers and games. Any gossip or irrelevant trite about Obsidian, a studio that time and again has disappointed players with bland games, receives hundreds of comments very fast, but a great review about Neo-Scavenger, which is a really good game, is basically ignored. Is not surprisingly that studios such as Obsidian and InXile ignore important feedback from backers and do almost everything on a corporate fashion. The blind adoration of fanboys and over exaggeration guarantee that developers will feel full of themselves. We can’t blame them. Now ask yourselves, is this emotional and selective attitude towards developers useful to improve the actual quality of RPGs or it just a way to serve our delusions and cognitive dissonant appetites? Zorba mentioned above that AoD and Underrail in some way represents the competition necessary to push Avellone and other developers forward. Do you think they give a damn?

 

[Avantre]

Oh good, he is still working on the Wasteland 2 novel. Was worried that one might never come out.

 

[Crooked Bee]

FYI MCA decided he didn't want to do the Highschool RPG anymore after Rockstar's Bully

 

[Cowboy Moment]

Crooked Bee you can always play Persona as a substitute.

 

[LeStryfe79]

FYI MCA decided he didn't want to do the Highschool RPG anymore after Rockstar's Bully

He just said he was less interested. Infinitron is exaggerating. Don't worry, it will still happen. Trust me.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

Well, it's probably just me, but I really don't get the appeal of high school setting. Basically it's a juvie were you need to survive for 3 years. Why do people ever want to revisit that? At least Japanese have equally horrible corporate culture and still expect men to work insane hours and women to be a housewife. So a high school as a last bastion of freedom kinda makes sense. But not far-eastern societies?

 

[Viata]

FYI MCA decided he didn't want to do the Highschool RPG anymore after Rockstar's Bully

He just said he was less interested. Infinitron is exaggerating. Don't worry, it will still happen. Trust me.

This. What kind of man would MCA be if he had gave up on his dream game because someone else did it first?

 

[Crooked Bee]

Crooked Bee you can always play Persona as a substitute.

I'd play an MCA-written Persona.

As it is, the series mostly bores me, though.