People News ObsidiLeaks: The Chris Avellone May of Rage Archive

[Roguey]

To be honest, they improved quite a bit with Mask of the Betrayer, which didn't have these issues.

In the interview I linked above, Feargus said the experience with NWN2 as well as the fact that MOTB was smaller in general did help with making it more polished. It makes sense, considering that the first game you need to create a lot of new tech and are probably rushing to create the game with tools you've never used before. Probably a shitshow and tons of growing pains in the process of making that game.

It was an utter mess. I put a lot of blame on Ferret in the past, but Feargus probably did his fair share to make it worse (e.g. likely encouraging/enforcing a bog-standard save the world story, demanding they create a new renderer so they could make an xbox port they didn't actually have money to make). ~Josh Sawyer~ said that if he had been in charge of the project from the start, he would have kept the renderer the same (and taken the hit from graphics-whores) and focused on making the toolset more convenient and user-friendly.

I am not so sure that MoTB had improved encouter design. The encounter design was simply pushed back due to the story aspect of the expansion.

It was (particularly since there was so much less of it; pacing is important), but it's extremely difficult to provide difficult encounters in an 18+ campaign that the average player can beat. Josh Sawyer gave 'em feedback and they took his advice where they felt it was appropriate (e.g. optional encounters off the critical path), and ignored it when they felt he was pushing things to be a little too casual-unfriendly.

Moreover, Storm of Zehir was also an improvement combat-wise over the OC, though it also had its fair share of "skeleton crew overextending themselves" problems.

 

[Drax]

If you're gonna update it, at least use the faces of all the key figures at Obsidian.

 

[Invictus]

You know... regardless of “proof” and whatever you might question about Avellone beign butthurt the facts are there; Microsoft, Sega, Activision, Atari, Bethesda all are publishers who worked with Obsidian in the past and either had canceled projects (Stormlands, Aliens RPG) failed franchises (Alpha Protocol) or sequels riddled with technical issues that underwhelmed publishers (NWN 2, KOTOR 2, New Vegas, South Park) regardless of how good the games actually were their development couldnt be called smooth by any stretch of the imagination
It will be interesting to see where they go from there with Paradox after Tyranny sold so poorly
Fergus has played the “oh evil publishers” card way too often but the facts are still there and they speak more as an example of his ineptitude and lack of any managerial skills rather than the capabilities of his staff; all of them were there because he put them there so of they delivered shitty products 90% of the blame lies with him
We ALL knew something bad had gone down when Avellone left Obsidian and goven the recent deflections at InXile seems the talent is not to blame but as the higher ups that put them in the position to fail
As thing stand I think most of use have fond memories of Obsidian products (even banking on Black Isle nostalgia for the creators) but facts are facts you only have to see that their biggest release of the year is crowd funded game

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

If they don't want to cover legal issues, I'm not sure if there's much of a story here. The rest of the stuff is just bad management.

While that's obviously not okay, given the game's industry reputation for horrible working conditions, you have to ask a question if what is going on at Obsidian is really that much below the industry standard.

This is still a story.

FFS, this article doesn't even have quotable sources beyond Markland, and it covers bad management just like at Obsidian:

https://www.theverge.com/2017/2/14/14612286/apocalypse-now-video-game-kickstarter-killspace-problems

Of course it is still a story, but here you have Markland going on the record about some anonymous complaints from faceless employees. When two high profile co-owners are butting heads, it's an entirely different bag of dicks. The expected level of due diligence from a journalist goes up, because you'll be dealing with conflicting stories from two people who are loaded and can sue you for fun. And so you want them both on the record before you run with anything.

I'm sure someone will pick it up eventually, even if Obsidian are not willing to comment. But it is early days. Right now it's not some conspiracy that major outlets are sitting on it waiting for more information, it's just common sense.

 

[Whisky]

Chris Avellone

Just read through the doc and it reminded me way too much of my last job. I'm glad you got out of there, I know the circumstances were still shit, but once that weight is off you, it's very freeing.

 

[DarkUnderlord]

wages significantly, significantly smaller than you can get working for an average software house doing way way less demanding things

I've often thought this is the biggest problem in the games industry. Rather than hire a competent programmer on a decent wage - someone who can knock out quality code quickly, they hire the bottom of the barrel for peanuts, then wonder why their games are full of bugs, and simple things take so long to actually develop.

 

[Kruno]

Why doesn't everyone in the gaming industry walk off the job tomorrow? See what happens.

 

[Mustawd]

And so you want them both on the record before you run with anything.

Except that's not really true. It's on the onus of Obsidian/Feargus if they want to comment or not. The journalist basically approaches them with the story, says "here are this dude's comments about XYZ, would you like to respond?" If not, then you get "ABC chose not to comment for this story" or "We were unable to reach ABC to comment on this story"

If you're really a journalist, you don't let them dictate when you'll be publishing a piece. Of course the difficulty here is we don't know if these retard journos can even attempt to verify what MCA has said, which would make the story strong overall. But in and of itself? I mean of course this is a story. I just don't think these publications want to ruffle any feathers since PoE2 has come out.

 

[Roguey]

I've often thought this is the biggest problem in the game's industry. Rather than hire a competent programmer on a decent wage - someone who can knock out quality code quickly, they hire the bottom of the barrel for peanuts, then wonder why their games are full of bugs, and simple things take so long to actually develop.

Counterpoint: Paying employees more means the risk goes up, meaning they have to dumb it down even more.

 

[Mustawd]

Counterpoint: Paying employees more means the risk goes up, meaning they have to dumb it down even more.

You're making an assumption here that the risk of paying employees > the risk of hiring incompetent employees resulting in bug ridden and technically flawed products. Without a real comparison that's hard to say. But yes, I think at some point that does become true.

However, considering that many people choose to delay purchases due to bugs in the first month or so, that can have an overall impact on short term profitability.

 

[Maggot]

This statement, along with the interview as a whole, is basically treated as the gospel where Planescape: Torment's development credits are concerned. Over the years, we've seen Colin McComb's stars fade from grace, while the other writers on your list are barely ever mentioned, in relation to the game. I guess what I want to ask is - are there any changes that you'd make today to what you said back in 2007, or any particular writer you'd like to give a shout out to, that you think the industry and the fans haven't appreciated enough for their work on Planescape: Torment?

The list is still the same, from Colin onwards. I do think Jason and John weren't appreciated enough overall (they did solid work, and a lot of our games wouldn't have gotten done without them, but people in the trenches often got overlooked).

The only things I'd add:

- Adam Heine is a great writer, and I think he's better than me - I first saw it in the novella he wrote for Numenera, I was pretty impressed. I wish he'd done writing on the original PST game (although he was invaluable as a coder, so I wouldn't have traded his programming skills, because we really needed them for such a small team).

- People wore a lot of hats - we certainly didn't have the same size and specialized roles BioWare did (California employees are more expensive than Canadian ones, so they could have a much larger staff for an equivalent budget).

- I think John (Deiley) may never forgive me for my counter-arguments to the talking deathclaws. It wasn't personal, I just felt the fact they talked made them less scary than the beasts they were at first, but that's just my opinion, not canon. I'm also biased - I kind of get grumpy in zombie movies/shows when the undead suddenly change from threats to "there's real people inside" because it kind of throws the whole set-up in a messy direction (I don't mind if the show starts that way, but I don't think you should introduce it too late in the process after the protagonists have been bashing in every zombie they see, it messes with the tone). Z-Nation and Living Dead did this, and I felt the same way about talking deathclaws - it suddenly made them potentially sympathetic vs. the terrifying creatures they're supposed to be.

EDIT: I'm only referring to the writing team, but that doesn't mean I didn't appreciate the other departments (I thank a lot of folks in the strategy guide as well).

What about Return of the Living Dead style talking zombies where its mostly just a few lines?
EDIT: Nevermind should have read the whole post

 

[Sacred82]

You're saying Guido didn't have much of an impact, and yet that the product would have been better without his involvement. Which is it?

He definitely had an impact on the game's marketing, I won't argue that. As I've said before, I do think that adversely affected the game's reception when a better thing to do was mirror the marketing of the IE games (cover symbols), which were doing very well and both used the same engine, elements of the rule set, same genre, etc.

It was also a little frustrating (and this wasn't on Guido) that when the game was released, one of the immediate reactions from the public was "why did you [Interplay] put the discs in the same sleeves that caused scratching on game discs before in previous projects?" I asked marketing and they said it was an oversight they had forgotten. (On launch day, the last thing you want to hear is that a mistake that was known about was repeated, and it was distracting to the game's reception - the big problem was the fact it could damage the discs, though.)

Guido was producer on the project. You're saying he had no influence on the game other than marketing?

Ok, let's the put it the other way around. What did he do then that pissed you off, I doubt you wanted to be involved in the game's marketing that much?

Something smells fishy here. Whatever ego/ personality Guido may have, he was a top notch programmer, and he has said he contributed his own coding to PS:T. One of the greats of the German gaming industry migrates to the US and never really makes it there, tries to get back into it, and fails repeatedly. He even gave shoutouts to devs on twitter ffs. What kind of beef are we talking about here? What can he have done that basically meant burnt bridges forever?

 

[Chris Avellone]

Guido was producer on the project. You're saying he had no influence on the game other than marketing?

Ok, let's the put it the other way around. What did he do then that pissed you off, I doubt you wanted to be involved in the game's marketing that much?

Something smells fishy here. Whatever ego/ personality Guido may have, he was a top notch programmer, and he has said he contributed his own coding to PS:T. One of the greats of the German gaming industry migrates to the US and never really makes it there, tries to get back into it, and fails repeatedly. He even gave shoutouts to devs on twitter ffs. What kind of beef are we talking about here? What can he have done that basically meant burnt bridges forever?

I would believe the coding part, but I honestly don't know how much of his code was in the game (the Lead Programmer would know and would likely answer a BIS-specific question), but coding shouldn't have even been Guido's job as a producer. Still, if he volunteered to help, that's great. He did help programming on Fallout 2 briefly during the final weeks before ship, if I remember correctly, but it was a long time ago.

EDIT: For those not aware, in the final weeks at Interplay, they recruited many programmers on other projects to help complete the game, and I recall Guido was one of the many they snagged.

I only said he had an impact on the game's marketing, and there was no denying it, it was true (Guido and marketing seemed to get along quite well).

I don't know what the final straw was that forced his resignation - it wasn't me, though. I didn't like working with him, no, and he did make me almost leave the project (I interviewed at Westwood, got the job, then Chad Moore an artist at Black Isle, helped convince me to stay - it's why I still help Chad to this day).

I know you dismiss "ego/personality" as a reason for what happened with him at BIS and what happened to him afterwards in your post, but sometimes that's what it comes down to on collaborative projects.

My thought was even though I didn't hear much beyond it wasn't his choice, it was likely any of three people (or all of them) who made him resign: Trish, Feargus, and Parker. Again, I don't know what the final straw for them was.

 

[Chris Avellone]

In the interview I linked above, Feargus said the experience with NWN2 as well as the fact that MOTB was smaller in general did help with making it more polished. It makes sense, considering that the first game you need to create a lot of new tech and are probably rushing to create the game with tools you've never used before. Probably a shitshow and tons of growing pains in the process of making that game.

The reason expansions and DLC (and sequels) using the same engine are wonderful is because you can usually start working in the engine immediately, generating content.

On NWN2 and Aliens, there was a lot to be done on the toolset and engine side before content could be effectively made. As long as the project plan allows for it, that's an understandable part of the process.

When the two overlap in production or if delays happen on the engine and toolset side - or conversely, design or art or production requests features that further delay the toolset or elements of the engine, implementing the content gets delayed as well, which is a risk you take.

 

[Chris Avellone]

My prediction - at some point there'll be a longform article at Kotaku that takes a "both sides" approach and ends by wistfully remarking on how years-long friendships can fall apart in the cutthroat world of game development.

I don't think any of the owners were friends even before Obsidian (and certainly not at Obsidian, although they did try and project this), although I doubt anyone disliked each other when the company was formed, even if they might get frustrated from time to time (which is normal).

The only exception to friends might be Darren and Parker, although Darren's friendship with Parker partly felt to be a means to get out of the Tools Department at Interplay and into Black Isle, and that's when they became producer buddies. Ever since, Darren has always acted as if he was subordinate to Parker, whether he realized it or not - and it was an advantage having Darren be part of the producer triad in the Obsidian ownership, because he would largely agree with Feargus and Parker so as not to rock the boat, which is like getting a free vote on anything decided.

This lack of friendship but the ability to ostensibly work together I'd argue was an advantage, though (I'm not a fan of nepotism).

 

[Raghar]

Counterpoint: Paying employees more means the risk goes up, meaning they have to dumb it down even more.

You're making an assumption here that the risk of paying employees > the risk of hiring incompetent employees resulting in bug ridden and technically flawed products. Without a real comparison that's hard to say. But yes, I think at some point that does become true.

However, considering that many people choose to delay purchases due to bugs in the first month or so, that can have an overall impact on short term profitability.

Higher salary doesn't mean more competent employees. Definitely not in game development which differs from normal industry, a bit.

Even in normal industry, when you are not hiring Keller, then more money typically just means someone was able to pay for title and had better connections. These with talent WILL NOT LEAVE THEIRS COMPANIES FOR MONEY. And Keller WANTS to experience different stuff, thus he will not stay in single company for long.

Roguey has partially a point. Look at Ukraine. President Poroshenko tried to solve problem with money and hired FAMOUS figures... Famous figures that destroyed economy of theirs country, or caused war with Russia. Funnily enough he could hire cheaper people who could get Ukraine if not complete out of mess, at least they would allow slow recovery. But that would mean he would need to spend effort to find them, and know what he's doing. SW development and game development are kinda similar. There are expensive people easy available for hire, but often kinda under average. And there are capable cheap programmers which are hard to find, and company that wants them, must spend effort to get them. (and often spend effort to FIND them)

 

[Correct_Carlo]

OK, seriously, has the video game development scene always been like this?

It's way bitchier than I thought. This is some "Real Housewives of Atlanta" level shit. I want to see someone's weave get pulled out.

 

[Mustawd]

Guido

Guido never worked at Obsidian, and Eric shot first.

Good point. Let me just delete that post.

 

[Outlander]

So, did Bester ever manage to send those forms to the IRS?

 

[jaydee2k]

I played Gothic 1 and now stfu you morron!

 

[Mustawd]

So, did Bester ever managed to send those forms to the IRS?

Bester

 

[Calm]

Peterson fanboy detected?

Well I know who he is if that's what you mean, but that's hardly unusual.

 

[aratuk]

Chris Avellone Do you pronounce the last letter of your last name (a-vell-own-eh) traditionally, like an Italian, or leave it silent (a-vell-own) like an American?

Asking as an American who knowingly mispronounces his own name

 

[Mustawd]

The latter IIRC.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Mr. Majestic Chris Avellone, you mentioned earlier that you listened to a lot of loud music when you were younger. So I have to ask some music questions.

• Can you tell us roughly how much money goes into the soundtrack for a typical Obsidian title? How drastic is the difference between the music budget for a AAA game and the music budget for a Pillars or a Tyranny (triple I?, AA?) IMO the soundtracks to the newer more indie titles have their moments, but they really don't come close to the high quality orchestral arrangements in, say, NWN2 and especially its expansions.
• Do your former co-owners have any deeply embarrassing musical preferences? If Feargus loves '80s hair metal, for example, you have a duty to spread that around. Anything that undermines his authority will give Obsidian devs a stronger hand if/when they decide to push back.
• Is there any contemporary (or sort of contemporary) music you'd really like to work into a future project?
• Were you at all into the D.C. area hardcore punk scene in the late '80s (this seems geographically feasible if nothing else and would certainly explain the hearing loss)? You look like you'd do well in a mosh pit.