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

[Sentinel]

Conflict strengthens friendships after all.
Right?

 

[Iskramor]

So you call SJWs retarded for boycotting Vavra’s KCD, because they interpret his edgy tweets as sign of being a Nazi. Urqhart being a cutthroat corporate a—hole is a legit reason though. Talk about hypocris.

what
one is purely politics the other is a company being absolute piles of shit with one of the longest, most respected employees they have while knowing he's in a very tough personal situation. Not only that, knowing a very close relative was in a bad situation, they try to leverage that to their advantage.

Do you not see the difference?

Yes, of course. In the case of Obsidian, you object to a private company treating their employee in the way they feel will best protect their financial investment within the law. I don't disagree with communism per se, but if you're bent on attacking capitalism in this way may I suggest that a forum about video games isn't the best place to do it?

There's such a thing as ethical capitalism. Also if they are perfectly free to be assholes in how they practice their business then we are perfectly free to call them assholes and, most importantly in a capitalist structure, not buy their stupid shit. There's absolutely nothing anti-capitalist about protesting against a company by not buying what they produce, in fact that is one of the foundations of capitalism.

Oxymoron

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

This is like a depressing real-life performance of Njal's Saga, complete with everyone claiming to know the law.

Give us some legal advice then.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Mark Richard]

Sorry to hear about your woes, Chris. At least now you're one of the hottest free agents in the industry with a name that has become synonymous with quality.

 

[Mustawd]

Kinda puts those glassdoor reviews in better context now, huh?

 

[Blaine]

But that suggests that somehow you know better than the rest of us because of your family?

I certainly know better than to make proclamations about legal ramifications when I don't have the knowledge or experience to back it up.

I realize people don't like being told that they're making fools of themselves with their armchair professionalism. There are a lot of things people don't like. It's a tough old world.

 

[Stainless Veteran]

This is like a depressing real-life performance of Njal's Saga, complete with everyone claiming to know the law.

Never claimed to know USA law, much less your civil and employment law. Still, even here, in the land of Romano-Germanic law family, bringing a separate lawyer when drawing a charter for the company is considered a good practice. Also in labor disputes you must get a qualified lawyer or you'll be fucked by company. Not exactly a mystery. And it's here, where contracts can't have more legal power then our Codes, so anything which voilates some article or another of our code makes such contract null and void, after the judge's decision, ofc. Still, I think that most basic principles of the law are similar, so I can give my opinion on them, but not on specifics.

 

[Ninjerk]

If that was incorrect, that’s fine, but that’s what he told me at the time.

Like I said, I'd have liked to just solve it between us but it was well too late for that. I didn't like that it escalated, but looking back, if I thought it was avoidable I was kidding myself. Just being willing to make cuts didn't solve the problem. It was too late. The physical work of cutting the dialogue down in the tool, refactoring all the scripting, and everything else meant that even with the companions brought down to proper length, their implementation time was still far beyond that of any other companions. There was time allocated to implement two companions who were written to spec in the first place, no more. Had to make a lot of sacrifices to the narrative schedule and pull a lot of overtime to get it done, and I was fixing Durance bugs long after all the other companions were set. It cost us up and down the game in terms of polish time at a vital stage.

I would thank you to kindly never speak on my behalf. You do not speak for me. We are miles apart on our perspectives. Some of the events you've discussed here, my recollection differs greatly, and I don't support your accounts.

Did this cost the game an editing pass?

 

[Fry]

But that suggests that somehow you know better than the rest of us because of your family?

I certainly know better than to make proclamations about legal ramifications when I don't have the knowledge or experience to back it up.

Totally. Seems almost as stupid as making broad proclamations about the state of a company and the character of people you don't know based on the story of one bitter individual.

 

[Projas]

Still, I think that most basic principles of the law are similar

Wouldn't be so sure, common law is pure lunacy.

 

[MRY]

To be clear, "everyone claiming to know the law" wasn't meant as a pejorative. It's just a feature of the saga and a feature of the thread that I thought was amusing to point out.

 

[Jezal_k23]

Well, I'm glad to find out that this is not just a forum of passionate oldschool RPG fans, it is in fact much more.

I now know where I can go for trustworthy, current and reliable legal advice, and that place is obviously the Codex!

I'll never have legal bills again (since I assume the Codex will give me legal counsel for free when I need it)!

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I realize people don't like being told that they're making fools of themselves with their armchair professionalism. There are a lot of things people don't like. It's a tough old world.

Do you realize that 99% of the time you are expressing opinions about topics that are outside of your area of expertise, right? It's mostly guessing and this is a internet game forum, not a court of law. So forgive me for making a guess, like every single human being alive in this planet earth, because that's what you did, do and will do for the rest of your life, like the rest of us. You don't know better because you have a father, a mother, a grandmother that is a lawyer. Expertise is not something you obtain from osmosis on a daily baiss. My father was a lawyer, my brother is a lawyer and I have a bunch of laywers in the family. What difference does it make? None, at all. Stop pretending to be some kind of hot shit because you have lawyers in your family. You are just like the rest of us. I know you have some difficult understanding the concept of falibilism, because you never assume your mistakes. Man up.

 

[Mustawd]

All CEOs are trapped in an evil system, but not all CEOs are evil

Wot? CEOs are just the main decision makers of a company. What’s evil about that?

Should company decisions be made democratically or something?

 

[Delterius]

All CEOs are trapped in an evil system, but not all CEOs are evil

Wot? CEOs are just the main decision makers of a company. What’s evil about that?

Should company decisions be made democratically or something?

Sovereignty is inherently evil.

 

[Roguey]

The physical work of cutting the dialogue down in the tool, refactoring all the scripting, and everything else meant that even with the companions brought down to proper length, their implementation time was still far beyond that of any other companions. There was time allocated to implement two companions who were written to spec in the first place, no more. Had to make a lot of sacrifices to the narrative schedule and pull a lot of overtime to get it done, and I was fixing Durance bugs long after all the other companions were set. It cost us up and down the game in terms of polish time at a vital stage.

Avellone locks himself in his office for a few weeks, writes a tome worth of character dialogue, prints it out and dumps it on Sawyer's desk for implementation. Sawyer sighs and tells him that they can't possibly put all this into the game; Avellone shrugs.

Then it happens again.

I la-la-love when my fantasies are right.

 

[Iskramor]

When they made me an offer to contract me to write for Tyranny (which might seem to be an olive branch, but it turned out to be something they needed for contractual reasons with Paradox, but no one had ever communicated it to me), these were the reasons I refused – I didn’t wish to be part of Obsidian’s upper level development process and their pipelines any longer, as these processes were coming from a bad place, and it showed.

This clarifies MCA's earlier comments from 2016, where he mentioned being "lectured" by Obsidian management after publicly stating that he wasn't in charge in Tyranny, and that this was related to the contract between Obsidian and Paradox, the publisher of Tyranny. Apparently, the contract required for a public fiction to be maintained that Chris Avellone was one of the leading developers of Tyranny, while only actually extending him a minor role on the project. It's still unclear as to whether Obsidian or Paradox was the driving force behind this arrangement.

Again, this is familiar. A senior dev being double-booked.

Where I lol'd was that bit where the Tyranny team was gutted working on PoE.

First, because at the time I was blaming Tyranny for the state of PoE at release. It turns out PoE's development was in firefighting mode until help from the Tyranny project was sent.

Second, because Obsidian's employees who were working on PoE were apparently being billed to Paradox for working on Tyranny, and Paradox had no knowledge that they were in fact working on PoE.

That's absolute project management gold - your developers are earning two salaries, and all you have to pay them is one salary plus overtime for working on the other project where they are full-time engaged in "helping with some tasks"

Plz dont cancel modding tool

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

Having no actual objective knowledge about this situation, my choice of which narrative to believe is:

Chris’ Passive Aggressive Drama Queen Sob Story

Vs.

Eric’s Passive Aggressive Arthur Balled Fist Response

 

[2house2fly]

If that was incorrect, that’s fine, but that’s what he told me at the time.

Like I said, I'd have liked to just solve it between us but it was well too late for that. I didn't like that it escalated, but looking back, if I thought it was avoidable I was kidding myself. Just being willing to make cuts didn't solve the problem. It was too late. The physical work of cutting the dialogue down in the tool, refactoring all the scripting, and everything else meant that even with the companions brought down to proper length, their implementation time was still far beyond that of any other companions. There was time allocated to implement two companions who were written to spec in the first place, no more. Had to make a lot of sacrifices to the narrative schedule and pull a lot of overtime to get it done, and I was fixing Durance bugs long after all the other companions were set. It cost us up and down the game in terms of polish time at a vital stage.

I would thank you to kindly never speak on my behalf. You do not speak for me. We are miles apart on our perspectives. Some of the events you've discussed here, my recollection differs greatly, and I don't support your accounts.

Red alert

 

[2house2fly]

but I like Eric and Chris both
what do I do now



this wasn't supposed to happen

I want an Avellone/Fenstermaker joint and it looks like my dreams are doomed to emptiness.

 

[Iskramor]

We are hitting levels of drama and populism that shouldnt be possible.

 

[Barnabas]

We are all heroes

 

[Jezal_k23]

We can be heroes.

 

[mondblut]

So you call SJWs retarded for boycotting Vavra’s KCD, because they interpret his edgy tweets as sign of being a Nazi.

We call SJWs retarded for being SJWs.

Not giving your money to people you don't like is perfectly reasonable and sound.