RPG Codex Interview: Chris Avellone on Pillars Cut Content, Game Development Hierarchies and More

[Imoens pet]

Guys I need help!

Which game to buy Deadfire or Pathfinder?

 

[Infinitron]

Wait, what? THIS Black Isle Studios? http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=8689

Tell us your opinion of Herve Caen, Chris. Did he ever manage to successfully offload those Interplay IPs? http://www.rpgcodex.net/article.php?id=10399

When I talked to Herve, he was strangely... pleasant. I was expecting something else based on everything others had said, but he simply tried to be making the best of a bad situation.

He's running his own chain of pasta bars now: https://www.zpastabar.com/

 

[Chris Avellone]

So Chris Avellone , what is the true story behind FNV? I keep hearing how bathesda farked o*sidian with the metacritic score?

I don't believe they did at all - it was our responsibility to do more to make the game better, but the people making the decisions on game quality kept getting distracted by shiny objects.

It was Obsidian's fault, and as Ferg said, Bethesda didn't even have to offer that in the contract at all - it was up to us to manage it to a successful quality completion, and we didn't succeed at that. Good people lost their jobs because of that.

I gave a lot of thought as to why, and some of it came out in my Hierarchy presentations - don't let the person who can enact change be distracted. Let them use their powers for good to fix the title, because they have the authority to ensure quality is achieved.

 

[Jaedar]

Chris Avellone was there anyone in Obs' upper management/owners you actually liked and thought competent?

The fact that the company still exists is starting to sound more and more like a miracle for every post you make.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Chris Avellone I know you can't talk about Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but is it any good so far?

I think it is a lot of fun to play. I do enjoy Pathfinder, so I'm biased, obviously.

 

[Monkey Baron]

Meetings with Todd Howard, confirmed. Oh my droogs, could there be an MCA driven Fallout in the works? First time I've been excited about a possible Bethesda release in, well, ever.

I didn't say meetings, I should clarify - I would occasionally run into Todd at functions (ex: Prey announcement event) and he was very pleasant. He also had a cool jacket I kinda wanted to try and snatch and run.

Could someone ID the jacket for us? Like how Sawyer's specific watch was ID'd. Thanks.

 

[J_C]

- My wife

When, How, Why, Whom???!!!

And if you knew how beautiful she is.

 

[Imoens pet]

Chris Avellone I know you can't talk about Pathfinder: Kingmaker, but is it any good so far?

I think it is a lot of fun to play. I do enjoy Pathfinder, so I'm biased, obviously.

Nice! I now know what I must do. I'm going to go buy the game, and maybe Deadfire.

 

[StrongBelwas]

Why aren't there more independent RPG studios of Obsidian's scale around if a mismanaged circus like them can stay alive?

 

[PrettyDeadman]

It feels like a viral marketing campaign.
I won't surprise me if they are going to announce Avellone return to Obsidian or some new videogame soon (maybe upper level video game management rpg?)
Troika revival maybe?

 

[Kingston]

Chris, which game was the biggest clusterfuck? AP?

 

[Imoens pet]

It feels like a viral marketing campaign.
I won't surprise me if they are going to announce Avellone return to Obsidian or some new videogame soon (maybe upper level video game management rpg?)

Makes you think. ;thinking emote activate;

 

[SausageInYourFace]

Chris Avellone Could you tell us what the specific reason was for making Fenstermaker narrative lead instead of Ziets? Didn't Ziets have more experience and would've been the more logical pick?

 

[Big Wrangle]

Chris Avellone I read somehwere that LucasArts actually liked Obsidian, but due to contract amendment issues they had their hands tied and could not delay it. Is that true?

 

[Jasede]

chris make your own company, and poach ziets from the toilet that is inxile. then hire euros who would work for peanuts just to be involved in an avellone game :russiastronk:

Oh man he could pay me minimum wage and make me work 100 hours a week and no medical and I'd do that. I'm an experienced software developer and would like to break into narrative design.

I'm sure there's a lot of us...

 

[Chris Avellone]

Chris Avellone Could you tell us what the specific reason was for making Fenstermaker narrative lead instead of Ziets? Didn't Ziets have more experience and would've been the more logical pick?

The reason wasn't explained to me (even though we were asked to make a decision between Josh, Adam, and I as to who the Lead Narrative Designer should be) beyond Feargus said, "George? Well, you didn't choose what I wanted, so Eric is the lead."

Again - and don't think less of me for this - I just would have wanted to know that in advance, since we weren't actually choosing the narrative lead as we were "allowed" to and could have gone back to work. We obviously didn't agree to the decision or else we wouldn't have chosen George. But that's upper management for you.

 

[Alienman]

Chris Avellone Did you work on that canceled Alien game? And if so, what did you think about the project?

 

[Surf Solar]

Christ, this killed any excitment for POE2 for me..

Atleast it's good to hear you are doing better Chris. Was there ever a time or event where you wanted to throw the towel earlier at Obsidian?

 

[J_C]

This is feeling less and less like the basis for a nice revenge story and more like a pure tragedy. That one of the last great RPG studios has been so heinously mismanaged is such a fucking shame for the whole genre and all of us who love it. Presumably KOTOR 2 could’ve been released in a finished state if not for Parker, which means we wouldn’t have had to wait years for the restored content mod to transform it from a flawed gem into a masterpiece. Who knows, we might have gotten Stormlands or a truly completed Tyranny or, waaay back in the day, the very cool looking Torn.

Edit—mods, admins, oldfags: do Brian Mitsoda or George Zeits have accounts here? They might have a lot to add to the discussion.

Chris Avellone I feel like you’re on a roll here with these Obsidian management failures, so how about the last two owners, Chris Jones and Darren? Were they particularly egregious or just too spineless to stand up for competence? Or, as some of have speculated, did FU and Parker have enough shares or board seats between them to dictate policy when they were in agreement? I imagine it would be very helpful to many of your former colleagues to know exactly where the rot is spreading from.

By the same token, if Feargus and Parker were somehow forced out, would you be willing to work with Obsidian again assuming they paid you standard human stretch goal rates? Like let’s say Strauss Zelnick loves Indiana, buys the studio, and forces these douchebags into retirement?

Quick response: Darren and Jones are waiting for their payouts. Darren has said as much to me. Jones has said as much to me with his lack of action on anything.

Longer response: While Darren at least cares about games on some level, Jones doesn’t at all and has mastered the art of saying “no” to just about everything – he’d make a great technical director at a company that doesn’t make games, because he could find a way to say “no” to everything and dismiss it out of hand.

I was very surprised to see him as a lead programmer on Indiana, but not surprised to see that vanish, as Jones doesn’t tend to last long when there’s actual work to be done – he often can’t be bothered. (This was a problem as far back as KOTOR2, which I did confront him on – he also did it on Alpha Protocol before he lost interest in a few months because it was too much work.)

Jones is also one of the ones I point to in Fallout 2’s troubled development = Feargus kept trying to cater to to make sure he was all right, to make sure he was happy, to make sure he was pampered – but Jones was only biding his time so he could ditch Black Isle and switch over to Troika for more money and get a bigger payout. Meanwhile, his officemate (doing actual programming) was suffering like hell with no programming relief despite an experienced programmer sitting 5 feet away who could have helped with the Studio's workload at a time where many people were in danger of getting laid off. Jones first is the Jones' rule. He was also threatened with being de-ownered, but the difficult issue here is that I think Feargus was right to do so - he just consumes resources with no benefit to a project (at least he was for ALL the years I was working there).

Darren’s a frustrating case b/c he’s very smart, he’s more knowledgable about game best practices than most of the owners, and has empathy, but he’s so focused on getting his cash and such an abject coward and afraid of rocking the boat, that his opinions are useless because there’s no strength behind them – he caves at the first sign of resistance. He used to try and tell me what a valiant employee fighter he was. Through email. How tough he was for employee rights. Through email. I told him to his face I thought he was too afraid to raise anything that might get him in trouble.

He was at least as bad at communication and follow-up as both Feargus and Parker (probably moreso on the communication side), the biggest problem is he just seemed distracted all the time.

He was, however, approachable by a lot of employees because he came across as friendly, but he often couldn’t do anything to help things except “hey, buddy, how are you?” “Buddy, tell me more.” vs. actually, really helping someone.

Darren also spent forever on the PoE1 Backer Portal, providing further proof you shouldn’t ask an owner to do content work, it slows everything down – that’s not even a criticism, just the truth. No one seemed to absorb this.

Darren also had an amazing talent of both agreeing to Feargus’s requests (sort of) then not following them once he was out of Feargus’s radius… oftentimes when we had decided something at an owner meeting and agreed on a procedure, I noticed Darren would simply ignore it and not follow the procedure - even when someone needed it to be done.

I asked him about it (as a precursor to a larger question as to why he hadn't done something according to procedure).

And when I asked him why, he would simply say, “well, yeah, I haven’t talked to Feargus about that yet.” But we had talked. All of us. And we had agreed. In my mind, all I could think of was this person was being a blocker for no reason that made sense. And now he wasn't doing what we all agreed to until you talk... to Feargus... again?

As he was being "buddy" with me all I could think of (and then said) was: You won’t follow the procedure until you talk to him? After we talked? When is that? And that also means you won’t actually do what was decided until that vague future date? My dinosaur brain would simply say: Do it now, Darren, for fuck's sake, because you're making a mess where we already decided there wasn't one.

It was frustrating, but it was also one of those situations that because Darren was one of those who nodded and said the right things and even though he completely disregarded what Feargus told him to do, he got a pass because he acted like he was falling in line. Frankly, it was garbage. Parker did the same thing - and even said as much to our publishers as early on as KOTOR2 when diminishing Feargus's thoughts on production issues because Feargus was "out of touch and didn't understand producers or production anymore."

Jones at least had the balls to tell Feargus he was full of shit and we shouldn't do what he was saying (which quickly made him one of the most unpopular owners, because he could often argue with facts). It also made him the target of "well, you don't sound like you want to be an owner anymore" discussions, which weren't really discussions.

I will also say because Darren agrees with Feargus when pressured or frightened, that does make him very valuable when voting needs to be done, and it was good of Feargus to choose him to be one of the production triad of owners and give him a large % of shares to make that vote worthwhile.

Darren rarely, if ever, spoke to me (he was afraid to). However, while we didn’t have a good working relationship on Dark Alliance 1 back at Black Isle, I realized later on it was because Feargus never told Darren that he (Feargus) was coming into my office every other day to give advice and continual dumb changes on the story, so it required a lot of iteration, which (to my error) I didn't realize Darren couldn't be aware of because Feargus would tell him (right?), and I'm sure it surprised Darren to find me in a frustrated mood (Feargus' story iterations ranged from a wide variety of crap ideas, where you had to dig deep and wide to find the good in them - his craptastic story skills also caused a lot of problems on Dungeon Siege 3).

This overall lack of communication continued at Obsidian.

You don’t hear much about Darren, and that’s Darren's desire – he wants to stay "off the grid," he doesn’t want to run projects anymore (it's too much pressure), and he wants to be everyone’s friend while helping (almost) no one until he gets his payout, serves his time for a new master for a few years, then vanishes with his gold. I respect him for his insights, but not his character, which is weak and cowardly.

Hey Chris. So you described all of the owners to us, how you have seen them through your eyes. As a fun mental practice, how would you describe yourself at Obsidian? What had you done differently regarding your own work? This could be a good way to show others that you don't see yourself as a perfect Obsidian owner.

 

[Infinitron]

Chris Avellone Could you tell us what the specific reason was for making Fenstermaker narrative lead instead of Ziets? Didn't Ziets have more experience and would've been the more logical pick?

The reason wasn't explained to me (even though we were asked to make a decision between Josh, Adam, and I as to who the Lead Narrative Designer should be) beyond Feargus said, "George? Well, you didn't choose what I wanted, so Eric is the lead."

Again - and don't think less of me for this - I just would have wanted to know that in advance, since we weren't actually choosing the narrative lead as we were "allowed" to and could have gone back to work. We obviously didn't agree to the decision or else we wouldn't have chosen George. But that's upper management for you.

Perhaps the reason is that Feargus didn't want a contractor to be his narrative lead, which leads back to my original question of why George wasn't rehired full time, as certain other formerly departed employees were (eg, our own Anthony Davis)

 

[Quillon]

So Chris Avellone , what is the true story behind FNV? I keep hearing how bathesda farked o*sidian with the metacritic score?

I don't believe they did at all - it was our responsibility to do more to make the game better, but the people making the decisions on game quality kept getting distracted by shiny objects.

It was Obsidian's fault, and as Ferg said, Bethesda didn't even have to offer that in the contract at all - it was up to us to manage it to a successful quality completion, and we didn't succeed at that. Good people lost their jobs because of that.

I gave a lot of thought as to why, and some of it came out in my Hierarchy presentations - don't let the person who can enact change be distracted. Let them use their powers for good to fix the title, because they have the authority to ensure quality is achieved.

Its funny the leaker of that info being you and blaming Obs afterwards, also you

 

[Chris Avellone]

Perhaps the reason is that Feargus didn't want a contractor to be his narrative lead, which leads back to my original question of why George wasn't rehired full time, as certain other formerly departed employees were (eg, our own Anthony Davis)

That is a good point, but he should have said as much before he let us loose to have a discussion, because that discussion would then have lasted 1 minute. Maybe you should ask him why he did what he did.

Not enough money, not enough time - but things like this were why.

 

[2house2fly]

Okay, caught up with the state of Chris-tendom again. Woo-whee, what a ride. Reactions:

(1) The spat between EFen and MCA is unfortunate. EFen is among the best game writers currently working, and over the last several years has clearly been a more reliable writer than Chris. Which does not preclude him from having a fragile ego and not working well with other talented writers. Whatever the case may be about that, his writing is still really good.

(2) Unreasonably relieved that Josh is not on Chris's shitlist. He seems like an all-around Mensch, a deeply ethical person, and it would have broken me a little to discover he was a part of the evil stuff that's been going on here. (Also a comrade, since his unionisation speech anyway.)

(3) If even a quarter of what Chris is saying about Feargus is true, and the bombs just keep dropping... oh man.

Carry on men. Thing keeps on going this way, it'll start the Revolution, and the USA is the only place it can succeed since it won't get immediately invaded by the USA.

Ha, I second the relief about Sawyer. I really don't get some of the game design choices he's made with PoE2 but he seems like a good guy and I respect his level of involvement with fan questions. Also second the disappointment about EFens, I'm a fan of his writing and hope to see more of it in the future

 

[AwesomeButton]

We won't see anything until after the Pillars 2 launch, either.

I figure the same, they wouldn't want to elevate him by addressing this publicly. Even after the game is out, I doubt the response will come from any one of the persons mentioned by Chris. They wouldn't want it to look as "an organisation vs an individual" because they will lose whatever they say.

I'm not totally sure how much Chris has planned this, but it does seem like a smart idea to bring this up within a fortnight of the Pillars launch because it gives him a few weeks of news and word of mouth spreading before they can do anything about it without harming the Pillars 2 launch.

This leads to another interesting question - was the interview's release coordinated with Chris in advance? I've thought about this but haven't asked for a number of reasons. There's no way to confirm, and it would give ammo to the other side if the answer is yes.

 

[Jasede]

I would show off a cancelled PoE 2 preorder but I never bought it because I'm not a retard. I feel sorry for the good guys that worked on it but they are truly better off working for another company.