People News ObsidiLeaks: The Chris Avellone May of Rage Archive

[Kyl Von Kull]

Off the top of my head, I think the clearest examples of female power fantasies in popular culture, as distinct from male power fantasies, would be something like Julianna Margulies in The Good Wife or, on the more cartoonish end of things, any Shonda Rhimes protagonist: Scandal, How To Get Away With Murder, etc... I don't think it's that different from a male power fantasy, but you end up with more emphasis on having your shit together and the ability to stay calm/composed.

Maybe these characters would be just as poignant (or at least poignant to their particular audience) if they were gender swapped, but I doubt it.

If you think it's social justice agenda-pushing when a piece of fiction is filled to the brim with strong, tough female characters in traditionally male roles (like all of the female warriors in Tyranny or Deadfire), I don't see how you could object to what MRY is saying.

 

[ScrotumBroth]

Male, female, why not both?
The Transitioned One

Updated my Twitter.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Male, female, why not both?
The Transitioned One

Updated my Tumblr.

Fixed

 

[Swampy_Merkin]

The best sitcom of the last 10-15 years: 30 Rock. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey)...has exactly 1 boyfriend whom she eventually rids herself of (season 1 or 2?) because she recognizes he is limiting her.

I mean just...come the fuck on....I'm not propitiating any kind of politics or world-view. It's just fucking obvious that men had the run of things for thousands of years, and that there's simply no reason to limit narrative because of gender at this point. Narrative is entirely up for grabs unless you're just determined to hang onto Male-Superiority because you're a rapist or whatever....

 

[Neanderthal]

Narrative is entirely up for grabs unless you're just determined to hang onto Male-Superiority because you're a rapist or whatever....

Everybodies got to have a hobby, don't judge me.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

The best sitcom of the last 10-15 years: 30 Rock. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey)...has exactly 1 boyfriend whom she eventually rids herself of (season 1 or 2?) because she recognizes he is limiting her.

I mean just...come the fuck on....I'm not propitiating any kind of politics or world-view. It's just fucking obvious that men had the run of things for thousands of years, and that there's simply no reason to limit narrative because of gender at this point. Narrative is entirely up for grabs unless you're just determined to hang onto Male-Superiority because you're a rapist or whatever....

You need to watch more 30 Rock; there are multiple boyfriends.

 

[Swampy_Merkin]

The best sitcom of the last 10-15 years: 30 Rock. Liz Lemon (Tina Fey)...has exactly 1 boyfriend whom she eventually rids herself of (season 1 or 2?) because she recognizes he is limiting her.

I mean just...come the fuck on....I'm not propitiating any kind of politics or world-view. It's just fucking obvious that men had the run of things for thousands of years, and that there's simply no reason to limit narrative because of gender at this point. Narrative is entirely up for grabs unless you're just determined to hang onto Male-Superiority because you're a rapist or whatever....

You need to watch more 30 Rock; there are multiple boyfriends.

I've watched the whole series (granted it's been a few years). There was the guy who went on to do the "i'm Chaos" commercials (was on SVU for awhile) - boyfriend #1. Then she was briefly with a guy who turned out to be her second cousin (or something like that)...didn't last more than one episode. There was always the thought that she and Alec Baldwin's character might be something....but they never did.

What am I missing? Liz was always about her own comedic vision....pretty much just like Tina Fey. (Who has been married for a long time btw....to a really dorky looking dude).

 

[Telengard]

Gender swapping as people are discussing it here is something that a franchise story goes through when it's nearing its last legs in the zeitgeist, but to be sure it's actually one type of twist amongst many that the creatives have used since the beginning in order to keep making a buck on a fading franchise. Let's take but one example that we all know: Sherlock Holmes.

First they do a literal translation of the stories to the screen. Then a few years later they do a remake. And then another remake. And another, but eventually the audiences just don't come to see the same old story retold, at least not in anywhere near the numbers like they used to. So, then the franchise starts doing the twists. Stop me if you've heard these before: Young Sherlock Holmes, Geriatric Sherlock Homes, Modern Day Sherlock Holmes, Watson as the real brains and Sherlock as an actor Sherlock Holmes, Gender Swap Sherlock Holmes or Gender Swap Watson (so you can add a romance), Gender Swap Sherlock Holmes and Watson, the Sherlock Holmes stories from the point of view of a tertiary character (such as Irene Adler), Time Traveling Sherlock Holmes, Steampunk Paranormal Sherlock Holmes. Any little twist to raise the interest of a public bored of the original.

As you can see, these are all increasingly desperate maneuvers in order to keep the punters in the seats. And these twists can work to a degree, but none of them are ever as poignant as the original, since the original used its various elements together to build something that had meaning to people, and thus changing the elements discolors the intrinsic power of the original - like a puzzle with one piece missing but somebody shoves a piece from a different puzzle into the empty space. Still, if you're the owner holding onto the franchise in order to milk it, then money's money, quality be damned. Of course, even the twists will only hold the public's interest for so long, and then you'll have to put the franchise to rest at last, but hoping that the next generation will pick it back up again or old fans will get nostalgic in their old age, and then you can start the milking process all over from the beginning. See Hollywood since the days of silent film.

As for the PST version, it would have nothing to do with the above, since in this alternate timeline of which we speak, the Nameless One would have been a character originally written as a standard crpg choice-of hero, and we would never have known him as an exclusively male character. Now, less individuality in character makes for a much less compelling character, but choice-of characters is exactly the sort of thing what keeps the crpg punters in their seats, and money's money.

 

[Swampy_Merkin]

C. Auguste Dupin was the original Sherlock....Ahem created by Edgar Allen Poe. But that has nothing to do with anything regarding storytelling for the last 50 years or so.

Pretty much any original story telling done since the dawn of gaming could be gender-reversed, or gender neutral, without anyone thinking twice except the professional MRAers and rapists that like to haunt the far corners of the Internet.

(Ms Pac-Man earned more coin than her boyfriend).

Tell me one good reason DOOM's protagonist couldn't have been a woman. Tell me one good reason why any GTA protagonist couldn't have been a woman (other than those git's lack of imagination). Tell me one good rpg story that necessarily had to star a man rather than a woman.

Tradition is inherently shit unless there's some inherent reason to abide by it.

 

[Grauken]

Doom is a male power fantasy, can't switch him with a woman, because then it would be something completely different according to some here (same as with PST), probably called Demon Breeding and a mobile game

 

[Swampy_Merkin]

Doom is a male power fantasy, can't switch him with a woman, because then it would be something completely different according to some here (same as with PST), probably called Demon Breeding and a mobile game

How in the fucking Hell is Doom an inherently male power fantasy? It's a space-marine blasting demons....that's it. That's all it is.
Duke Nukem?...sure. No...I take that back. It could also be a total dyke power fantasy.

So many slavs.....

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Pretty much any original story telling done since the dawn of gaming could be gender-reversed, or gender neutral, without anyone thinking twice except the professional MRAers and rapists that like to haunt the far corners of the Internet.

Oh? The Witcher games would be very different if they were about Geraldine of Rivia. Alpha Protocol would be very different if it was about Michaela Thorton (actually playing as a female spy might be really awesome, but in many ways it would not be the same story). No one is saying they would be worse with a gender swapped protagonist, but there would need to be significant changes.

This is going to be true of any game that contains much social interaction, as long as it’s not set in some utopian society that has achieved true gender equality. Again, I can’t imagine why anyone would consider the idea that a character’s sex has major narrative significance to be at all controversial. It definitely falls under the category of trite but true.

Gender doesn’t define a good character, but it certainly is going to have an impact on how a well fleshed out setting treats that character, to say nothing of how the audience relates to him/her. Let me put it this way: if a developer released an RPG that hardly reacted at all to your choice of gender, that game would be rightly pilloried for its lack of reactivity. Would it truly be realistic for NPCs to treat a character the same way regardless of their genitals?

From where I’m standing, denying that these social distinctions exist is the creepy MRA style position. It’s like how when someone says, “I don’t see race,” you can bet that they will immediately follow that up by saying something racist.

 

[Grauken]

You're so damn sexist

It’s like how when someone says, “I don’t see race,” you can bet that they will immediately follow that up by saying something racist.

And ableist as well. Just because they're blind doesn't mean they're racist.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Gender doesn’t define a good character, but it certainly is going to have an impact on how a well fleshed out setting treats that character, to say nothing of how the audience relates to him/her. Let me put it this way: if a developer released an RPG that hardly reacted at all to your choice of gender, that game would be rightly pilloried for its lack of reactivity. Would it truly be realistic for NPCs to treat a character the same way regardless of their genitals?

From where I’m standing, denying that these social distinctions exist is the creepy MRA style position. It’s like how when someone says, “I don’t see race,” you can bet that they will immediately follow that up by saying something racist.

Well....many here would consider Fallout: New Vegas one of the best RPGs of all time....especially in regards to C&C. Should the Nuclear Apocalypse have treated my beautiful, female read-head's radioactive pussy differently from a radioactive set of dick and balls? That game is very definitely a gender-neutral game. In the Mass Effect games I could fuck either female or male characters...regardless of my gender....same as in the real world. I suppose you consider that simply degenerate...care to explain why?

I've never met anyone that says that they don't see race. That observation is the definition of a conservative red-herring. I've met many people that say that they don't believe the concept of race has any modern validity. Those people are correct. The very concept of "race" has absolutely no scientific credibility at all. The only people that cling to it are, by definition, racists.

New Vegas does have some gender based reactivity, though. It even can change the story—there’s a separate ending if your female PC sleeps with Benny and convinces him to ride off into the sunset with you. Your premise is incorrect.

In Mass Effect most of your romance options are in fact limited by your choice of sex. Reactivity!

Also, I don’t know why think I’m any kind of conservative, but if you assume everyone here is a culturally regressive national socialist you’re going to make an ass out of yourself. To make my point more clearly: just as racism is real, sexism is also real. Trying pretend these things don’t exist is ethically dubious, but more important for this discussion, it’s bad storytelling. Yes, most people consider their sex an important part of their identity. A good RPG should acknowledge that.

Like it or not, when it comes to gender we have thousands of years of cultural baggage (this is true even if you believe gender is 100% socially constructed). You can’t just will that out of existence. There’s a reason it’s considered groundbreaking when an author like Ann Leckie creates a setting where gender has very little salience. You may think that’s the world we should be aiming for, but it’s rarely the world video games are trying to portray.

 

[Swampy_Merkin]

New Vegas does have some gender based reactivity, though. It even can change the story—there’s a separate ending if your female PC sleeps with Benny and convinces him to ride off into the sunset with you. Your premise is incorrect.

In Mass Effect most of your romance options are in fact limited by your choice of sex. Reactivity!

Also, I don’t know why think I’m any kind of conservative, but if you assume everyone here is a culturally regressive national socialist you’re going to make an ass out of yourself. To make my point more clearly: just as racism is real, sexism is also real. Trying pretend these things don’t exist is ethically dubious, but more important for this discussion, it’s bad storytelling. Yes, most people consider their sex an important part of their identity. A good RPG should acknowledge that.

Like it or not, when it comes to gender we have thousands of years of cultural baggage (this is true even if you believe gender is 100% socially constructed). You can’t just will that out of existence. There’s a reason it’s considered groundbreaking when an author like Ann Leckie creates a setting where gender has very little salience. You may think that’s the world we should be aiming for, but it’s rarely the world video games are trying to portray.

1. I RPed my lady New Vegas wanderer as if she were MY lady.....so of course she couldn't fuck that skeezy Benny.

2. I suppose my Cpt. Shep did the same....she's mine after all.

3. I'm not sure if I responded to your post specifically as though I assumed you were a conservative....but I do assume most here are....so it stands to reason that I did. (Honestly, I don't remember that far back....tired....been drinking for hours).

4. I'm not at all opposed to games specifying a gender role if it makes sense. I find that most games that assign a gender role (male) have no reason to do so. Specifically....TNO has no real reason at all to be male other than one asshole's fear that PS:T wouldn't sell if they couldn't put a male warrior-face on the cover.

 

[Mr. Hiver]

Nobody is arguing that such a character option should be badly written, or that it should have no consequences and appropriate reactivity.
Those are just dumb ideas from some posters who are trying to force it, ... because they cant think of anything better and because of the influence of all the bad, lousy sjw-ism in the recent years.

Remember this is Chris Avellone we are talking about. Someone would need to tie one hand behind his back and still he would write so much there would be a problem of what to cut out.

There is no sense in adding a character option like that without adjusting and adding specific reactivity, because if there is no difference there is no reason to chose such an option and play with it. Duh.

But, as i said already several times, adding such an option isnt automatically a good thing. Numenera had it and it was pointless.
Quality of writing is the most important thing here. And that also includes appropriate reactivity. Which brings us back to Chris Avellone, who i bet could deliver.

- Actually, i think MRY could do it too. What i see from his writing for Fallen gods is really good, but he has that switch in his head so that would prevent him. And thats fine. Writing good stuff is not easy and if a writer cant do write something with sufficient quality he should stick to what he can. - because its quality thats actually important.

 

[Lahey]

Some youtuber with a sizeable audience did a really bad video.



Correct me if I'm wrong bros, but MCA never said this attempted non-compete was indefinite, right? Youtuber cites the resetera thread as his primary source (of course), which has the same title as this video, so that appears to be the origin of this misconception. He goes on to repeatedly mispronounce Feargus' name (Fear-gus ), refers to MCA as just an employee and not co-founder/co-owner, and most importantly fumbles the timeline by saying Fenstermaker was responding to MCA's first comment in the thread when the opposite is what happened - Fenstermaker replied to the interview via Infinitron on page 5, prompting MCA's page 8 post heard 'round the Codex. Youtuber then says – after having barely described Eric's rebuttal and not mentioning Anthony Davis or MCA's further posts at all – that "a lot of what this issue ends up being is a million-and-one perspectives and everyone pointing a gun at one another", which is more hyperbole than even Inflamatron would be comfortable with.

Youtuber states that he "trusts MCA as a friend, personally", implying some form of acquaintance. Chris Avellone whether you know this guy or not it may be prudent to contact him for corrections. This video has accumulated over 33k views as of this post since having been uploaded yesterday, and we all know how much you hate misinformation. Maybe this was his master plan to secure an interview.

EDIT: This is apparently a co-creator of sugarbombed according to his twitter.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I've long suspected that the whole "We are finally free from those big mean publishers to do what we want!" narrative was actually sour grapes. Guess this conforms it for Obsidian.

Now we just need someone from inXile to crack...

 

[Chris Avellone]

I'm pleased to have contributed a brick to your fortress of regrets in my own small way. In all seriousness, I'm sorry, too, particularly because I can estimate some of what I lost by knowing what I gained from working with Colin, Kevin, Adam, George, Brian, Gavin, and the rest of the crew. I'm not sure our work ever crossed at all, actually, though I vaguely recall seeing the Erritis doc at one point. It would've been fun to be able to do something other than guess at your methodology by the end product. And since I haven't played (and may never play) TTON, I can't even do the latter here. So it goes. Maybe we can cross paths as imp and angel on Vault Dweller's shoulders.

I would like that. The New World designs being shared are very cool (I've told Vault Dweller as much).

Some youtuber with a sizeable audience did a really bad video.



Youtuber states that he "trusts MCA as a friend, personally", implying some form of acquaintance. Chris Avellone whether you know this guy or not it may be prudent to contact him for corrections. This video has accumulated over 33k views as of this post since having been uploaded yesterday, and we all know how much you hate misinformation. Maybe this was his master plan to secure an interview.

EDIT: This is apparently a co-creator of sugarbombed according to his twitter.

He did do the sugarbombed interview, yes. I'll check out the video and let you know - thanks for the heads-up.

I have chatted with him over the years, and I did a critique of some design docs he's done (I do this for a number of people who ask, especially students or those new to the industry), but I wasn't aware of any video content.

(If he's doing it to generate attention from other media, he doesn't need to, the interviews have been coming in this week, regardless.)

I've long suspected that the whole "We are finally free from those big mean publishers to do what we want!" narrative was actually sour grapes. Guess this conforms it for Obsidian.

I don't even know if it's sour grapes vs. having no other choice.

Even when the Stormlands layoffs happened, there was definitely disappointment in the halls vs. anger/sour grapes at Microsoft, it was more "what do we do now?" - except upper management should have added the question "what should we have done before this?"

To his half-credit, when Stormlands got canceled (which again, wasn't what the company wanted at all - upper management fought to keep it) we got a very long, angry email from Feargus blaming the other owners for letting this happen (it went much darker than this) and then demanded vague "things are going to change" changes - even though Feargus and Parker were in charge of Stormlands and overseeing it - they had even encouraged efforts toward its cancellation by how they managed it and the leads. To be clear, I do share responsibility as an owner. At the time, I was full on the New Vegas DLCs and the range of issues with Stormlands weren't communicated to me until the layoffs happened - I did review the creative content and reviewed direct MS-to-team emails that I thought might be part of the problem or indicative of a cancellation threat, however, based on the language in those team emails as well as noticing most of the requests for changes in the game from both the owners and the publisher hadn't ever occurred on the team side (it may have been mostly on the creative side, but when this lack of movement was shown to all the owners, they agreed and said they had noticed it, too).

Strangely, in response to Feargus's email, most of us agreed that there needed to be changes and even gave suggestions for changes. These changes were all discounted/ignored - which in itself, indicates where the problem may lie.

If that email ever comes to light, it represents the clear attitude of the dangers of the focus of self, how it can damage the workings of a company, and in the end, contribute directly to employees losing their jobs.

So when the Armored Warfare layoffs happened, I wasn't surprised, my only thought was, "I bet upper management didn't want or plan for this" (Especially since AW was keeping the studio largely afloat during its production, although I don't think the team got much credit for that.) Even though I wasn't at the studio, I did try and help others find jobs (and I'm sure Obsidian did, too, just like Stormlands - I just wish it hadn't happened that way, and I question whether it could have been prevented).

Back to sour grapes and the studio motto ("publishers are unfair/bad/screw us over, now we'll do our own thing!")... when you don't have much decision in the matter, one way to approach it is to say that it was your idea, you were fighting the noble fight against the big publisher (which makes for a great underdog story and is far better than the reality). Except in fact, it's far more complicated than that and what should be being said is, "how did we reach this point," "what should we have done differently," "if we didn't believe in the project, what would have been a better way to handle a transition," etc. instead of always reacting and scrambling when bad decisions catch up with you - and often, end up being much worse for others in the company than yourselves.

I do think the only way Obsidian can work the way upper management publishes titles on their own, but large games in the industry are collaborative efforts, and eventually, you do need to work with someone else in some capacity, as even crowdsourcing has proved. Time will tell. I do wish the devs all the best, and I don't want the games they do impacted by higher decisions in the manner they are.

 

[DosBuster]

Chris Avellone anything you touched being announced at E3?

 

[Chris Avellone]

Chris Avellone anything you touched being announced at E3?

Yep. Possibly more than one.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Chris Avellone

Okay, so this question has been asked before, sorry if it was deliberately ignored (or I just missed ithe answer?) and I am being annoying but on chances it just got lost in all the post, let me try one more time.

In the other thread you said this:

The issue was I felt loyalty and indebted to Feargus.

To explain, for a long time, I thought Feargus had protected me from my early management failures back at Interplay (I definitely made some as a first lead on Torment) and watched out for me when I was under stress and working double-time on Fallout 2/Torment - and he told me as much, which I thought was a noble thing for a manager to do, so I resolved to support him as best I could because he clearly had my back.

During the last year at Obsidian, however, one of the breaking points (and I think he didn't realize how much his Interplay protection had meant to me personally) was he then told me he had actually done the exact opposite of what he said he'd done and that he hadn't done anything at all, and in fact, encouraged some of the troubles I had experienced. Other Obsidian employees have experienced similar revelations of past actions that turned out not to be true by Feargus's own admission.

It was a big shock to me, but I made sure to double-check with him to make sure I'd heard him right, then went back to my office and thought for a while. One big problem with this revelation was it was one of the reasons I'd defended him at Interplay, gone with him to Obsidian, and then defended all he'd done for there for the past 9 years... because I thought he'd stood up for me and made sacrifices for me as an employee. But he hadn't. It was like a chunk of my life had been derailed, and I felt sick about it.

Could you elaborate on this a bit more, specifically what you percieve as your early management failiures, what you think Feargus did for you and in what way specifically he actually encouraged your troubles?

 

[Chris Avellone]

Chris Avellone

Okay, so this question has been asked before, sorry if it was deliberately ignored (or I just missed ithe answer?) and I am being annoying but on chances it just got lost in all the post, let me try one more time.

In the other thread you said this:



Could you elaborate on this a bit more, specifically what you percieve as your early management failiures, what you think Feargus did for you and in what way specifically he actually encouraged your troubles?

Sure. If I miss a question, it's because I don't always have a chance to review each question, so I miss a bunch.

(And it's not being annoying by asking - for anyone feeling similarly, it's not a slight against you, I just don't catch all the questions in this thread and the other thread.)

In this question, it's answered in an interview to be published, and if that answer doesn't work, feel free to remind me, and I'll answer it in more detail.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Yep. Possibly more than one.

Before you get too deep into speculating, neither is an RPG, don't want to set false expectations only to dash them.

(I am working on other RPGs than Pathfinder, though, but I don't think they'll be announced at E3.)

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Yep. Possibly more than one.

Before you get too deep into speculating, neither is an RPG, don't want to set false expectations only to dash them.

(I am working on other RPGs than Pathfinder, though, but I don't think they'll be announced at E3.)

Speaking generally, can you tell us some of the other genres you're working in (in? within?) right now? This question is not at all in reference to E3!