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

[fantadomat]

Go back to lurking,in all 175 pages of shit i haven't seen a single good post from you. It is amusing how YOU are talking about derailing and not having enough time to read all. Seeing how you were posting shit every page,good thing that i know how to info read and skip pointless shit.

See, I could understand why you would post like that from your tags. Unfortunately for me, not all posters are correctly tagged like you. The upper management here is just like the guys at Obsidian, probably because the mods were promoted because they were good posters or Dark Underlord cousins, but being a good poster or cousin doesn't make anyone qualified to be a mod.

Has anyone asked DU for his books? I want to see some hidden rows in the payroll spreadsheet!

I have,he said that they are Harry Potter and the Lord of the Flies. Pretty good taste i must say.

 

[Mustawd]

Usually "going off topic" is what is known as a carrying on a natural and organic conversation. Imagine you and some friends are having a discussion about a certain topic, one friend mentions a certain subject that may not be central to the overall topic but is an organic off-shoot, everyone finds it interesting so the course of discussion naturally shifts--then some asshole walks out of nowhere and starts yelling in your faces that you aren't allowed to change the topic, and proceeds to drag away the one friend who made the "off topic" remark.

Seriously. I 100% agree with this. We can be talking about politics or whatever, but changing the subject to some woman we are dating is just a natural conversation flow. Getting worked up would be ridiculous.

Who are you dating these days, btw? Still the same voluptous latina you were head over heels with?

I dumped her. She turned into a bitch. Talking to another one now. Wish me luck.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

being a good poster or cousin doesn't make anyone qualified to be a mod.

And sometimes the person most qualified to be a mod is passed over for the job year after tiresome year...

It can happen to the best of us. Favoritism is a bitch.

 

[santino27]

Dating is overrated. Marriage and the slow, inevitable descent into madness and despair are where it's at.

 

[fantadomat]

IHaveHugeNick is only looking after his job at Obsidian, and raising a fair point that running a business that's making a game is hard, given Chris Avellone's never really been in that position himself (given what he's saying about Obsidian, that can't count). Can't fault a guy for that.

If DU is right and IHaveHugeNick works at Obsidian, he can ask about any of the claims himself - I didn't realize I was speaking to an actual Obsidianite, or I wouldn't have made the shill comment.

99.99% sure that DU was just fucking around with that comment.

Even if it is for real,Nick won't be risking his job by poking some shitlord boss,just for lolz.

 

[santino27]

He is insulting Avellone all the time.

Take note people, this here could be a lovely medical study of how rabid fanboysim and celebrity worship causes damage to the brain. This specimen actually managed to rewrite his synapses and entirely erase from his memory the moment when his holiness Chris Avellone got shitfaced drunk/his meds stop working and he detonated on me and Infinitron for no plausible reason anybody could even comprehend.

And hey, this is the Codex. It's a lazy day of posting if someone doesn't call you a colossal fuck at least once. Part of the charm of the place is that everybody is swinging with no remorse, and the next day you shake hands and continue on as if nothing happened. But Avellone doesn't even have the balls to do that, does he. Not that I expected to find anything resembling testicles in a guy who was so terrifed of big bad Feargus, he literally didn't even ask why is he being robbed of his shares.

And now apparently I'm the mean person for tossing some mild jabs back. Brilliant. Sorry bub, if Chris wants to play without gloves, we can play without gloves. Just make sure he doesn't bring a toothpick to a knife fight.

Stop being a colossal fucks (sic), god damn it!

 

[agentorange]

Go back to lurking,in all 175 pages of shit i haven't seen a single good post from you. It is amusing how YOU are talking about derailing and not having enough time to read all. Seeing how you were posting shit every page,good thing that i know how to info read and skip pointless shit.

See, I could understand why you would post like that from your tags. Unfortunately for me, not all posters are correctly tagged like you. The upper management here is just like the guys at Obsidian, probably because the mods were promoted because they were good posters or Dark Underlord cousins, but being a good poster or cousin doesn't make anyone qualified to be a mod.

Here's the thing about a free and open forum.

Fantadomat is a retard and rarely has anything of insight to say, but if it is between a forum where I feel like I can say what I please without a constant fear of being banned that happens to also be home to people like fantadomat, and a forum that cleanses posters like fantadomat to make it a more appealing space for developers and other "insiders," I will take the former every time.

You, and many other posters, make a choice to generally not shitpost and instead generally post insightful or at least well thought out comments, so I read your posts, whereas fantadomat chooses to be a dumbass and so I freely choose to neither read nor respond to his posts. I would much rather that choice to read or not read certain posts be left up to the individual rather than some petty, power hungry moderator.

 

[fantadomat]

Fuck,it is 7 in the morning and i am tired of all the retards here. I will be going to bed and hope that the thread doesn't pull with 20 pages. Good night to all the cool guys.


PS:agentorange,i love you too and agree with you. May the shitposting be strong in you!

 

[Blaine]

It's been eight hours since I last looked in on this thread, surely the chain of shitposting has concluded—

Oh. I... is that a feeling? Am I having a feeling? I think I almost feel remorseful. Nah, must've been the wind.

This is a complete nonissue. Anyone who doesn't want to read the shitposting/politics/[insert thing you don't like] doesn't have to in the first place. People learn how to skim for the useful info and relevant discussions.

It's pretty easy itt, since you just need to search for the last avellone post.

What's really funny about all this is that you-know-whos will be (and already are) the ones to turn against MCA and drag his name through the mud for letting the cat out of the bag.

...but if it is between a forum where I feel like I can say what I please without a constant fear of being banned that happens to also be home to people like fantadomat, and a forum that cleanses posters like fantadomat to make it a more appealing space for developers and other "insiders," I will take the former every time.

Not entirely sold on the "Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss doesn't often shitpost" bit, or even the bit where you don't respond to shitposters since you break my balls on a regular basis and I'm definitely a shitposter, but this is p. gud so I'll allow it.

 

[Mustawd]

Dating is overrated. Marriage and the slow, inevitable descent into madness and despair are where it's at.

Been there done that. Why do you think Apocalypse Now Rant happened?

Here's the thing about a free and open forum.

Fantadomat is a retard and rarely has anything of insight to say, but if it is between a forum where I feel like I can say what I please without a constant fear of being banned that happens to also be home to people like fantadomat, and a forum that cleanses posters like fantadomat to make it a more appealing space for developers and other "insiders," I will take the former every time.

You, and many other posters, make a choice to generally not shitpost and generally post insightful or at least well thought out comments, so I read your posts, whereas fantadomat chooses to be a dumbass and so I freely choose to neither read nor respond to his posts. I would much rather that choice to read or not read certain posts be left up to the individual rather than some petty, power hungry moderator.

AO, you're 100% right of course. It does get annoying sometimes though. Shitposters flock to a popular thread. I shitpost myself, so it's not like Im 100% innocent. Regardless, sometimes if feels like every large thread devolves into this:

Spoiler

Poster 1: What's your definition of RPG? What features are important to you and why?

Poster 2: The quick answer is that the core role-playing game formula must be present and be balanced. Nice and vague, there you go. What the hell is the "core role-playing game formula?" Here's my take on it:

Shitposter 1: Heh you fucking cucks

Poster 2: You role-play. You are given the choice of putting yourself into a role and the game allows you to act out that role, and ideally, gives you the means and game mechanics to do so - if you want to be evil, you can, and it has repercussions. If you want to Mr. Stealthy, there is a stealth skill, and it allows you to do cool things.

Shitposter 1: What? that's fucking retarded. Fucking Cuck

Shitposter 2: Nigger. NIgger nigger.

Poster 2: You customize your character on some level. This usually involves number allocation to a variety of attributes and name, hair, and skin choices, either at the start or during the game. Paperdolling is a huge plus, and I am reminded of it every day when playing Neverwinter Nights 2 or World of Warcraft.

Poster 3: Ideally? You've gotta be kidding. If a game doesn't give you means & mechanics to act a role, it's not a role-playing game, it's any game where you pretend that you are the main character. Like Quake.

Shitposter 3: Roleplay this: *grabs crotch

Shitposter 2: Haha goddamn magicla jew nigger

Poster 2: Your character takes action in an immersive, adrenaline pumping world. By interacting in this environment in some fashion in this world (and I use "interacting" loosely - it can be dialogue, farming, crafting, whatever), your character becomes stronger and better. This interaction is usually done by killing things that move and taking numbers, objects with numbers, or numbers of objects from them.

Shitposter 4: Actually what you're describing is exactly what SJWs want you to think. You know what I would do? For one you get an attack helicopter....

Shitposter 5: MAAAAAGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAAAAA. MUSTAWD READ THIS!!

Shitposter 6: Reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!

 

[Chris Avellone]

Just wanted to quickly jump in and apologize for some disparaging remarks i made in the past about you mr. Chris Avellone
I dont think you saw any of those, but regardless if you did or not i feel i should say this.

For several recent years ive been running across or reading your various interviews in which you spoke only the best about game design and storytelling, narrative gameplay or any other fundamental RPG system or mechanic, yet... Obsidian kept producing uninspired and broken bug ridden failures, drowning somewhere in a miasma of mediocre lousy attempts to reach the fabled mass market and retain some semblance of an RPG genre, none of it not even close to any of those ideals you were so easily pulling out of a hat... just talking about it (or so i thought).
The searing bitterness i feel when thinking about it has been going for some time, since way back when i was dipped for the first time, playing Fallout 2, the first great RPG game i ever played. I still consider that as one of the best experiences i had in my existence, together with PST of course. Something truly worthy. Which got me to join old BiS interplay boards to seek where that seed will grow. Just in time to see the fall and then follow through all the long years of great decline.

So, considering i thought you were one of the owners, i blamed you for failures of Obsidian, as a part of recent spate of decline of RPGs. Which not even kickstarter seemed to change. You were also named or portrayed as leading developer in so many of those Obsidian games so that fooled me too. Reading those articles and interviews made it worse. I thought you were just fantasizing for a quick and easy clickbait hype, or outright hallucinating, while your studio kept producing ... something that seemed to have some disparate high quality parts that could never come together, as if someone was consciously deciding to fuck it all up. In greed for more money and then failing to get either. Now its clear who that actually was. Its not a surprise as i have experienced plenty of those "managers" throughout my life. And seen/figured out many more in this game business.

So i apologize for any harsh words i wrote. I was completely wrong, fooled by my bitterness and lack of actual facts. If you didnt see any of those posts its all for the better.
Considering the actual situation you were in.


I think its great what you are doing now. Its great you have a safe net and that you are financially cowered, as well as current and future (im sure) prospects for employment. At least that is not the same as in the ages of decline anymore. Although not for many. But you being who you are, one of the most accomplished and known RPG developers, will lend weight to your words and experiences not many ordinary developers enjoy.
(ive just noticed the case of poor Monty... man, after all the years he was involved in attempts to resurrect some part of PST, then somehow getting to work on Torment no less, and then all that. But his case is just one of many, many)

In that sense i hope you succeed in all your aims, shoving a boot up those parasites asses but also, improving the general environment for your former colleagues at Obsidian and devs in the whole business.
Every little bit helps. Every ray of Truth scuttles the decline a bit more. And even if it cannot be all great and dandy, it can be much better.

No apologies needed - but thank you. Certainly, I made owner failures as well, so I'm not blameless in how those products turned out. There wasn't much I could do sometimes, however, and I certainly didn't have any authority to enact change (I could suggest things, but not make things happen unless I took on a specific role on a project). The DLCs were probably the only thing I had freedom at at Obsidian, and they were hit or miss.

To be fair, though, Feargus didn’t interfere with the stories and RPG vision all the time (and Parker mostly brought his touch to UI and game systems, which only usually hurt me resource-wise). Darren and Jones didn't care. You also had to pull teeth from all of them to actually play the games the studio was making.

One unspoken time-consuming part of the story process, however, was that we’d get reading recommendations from Feargus – I won’t name the books, but he’d give us a fantasy or sci-fi book he had read that he really liked, which was universally many hours of your life you wouldn’t get back.

I went through with reading them because I was genuinely trying to figure out what elements of these stories Feargus actually liked, because it confounded me – they were all terrible.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t figure out why he liked this shit, and whenever he’d try and loan me a book, I’d just tell him “no worries, I can get it on my Kindle.”

 

[Grauken]

...

One unspoken time-consuming part of the story process, however, was that we’d get reading recommendations from Feargus – I won’t name the books, but he’d give us a fantasy or sci-fi book he had read that he really liked, which was universally many hours of your life you wouldn’t get back.

I went through with reading them because I was genuinely trying to figure out what elements of these stories Feargus actually liked, because it confounded me – they were all terrible.

Eventually, I realized I couldn’t figure out why he liked this shit, and whenever he’d try and loan me a book, I’d just tell him “no worries, I can get it on my Kindle.”

Can you provide a list, I'm genuinely curious?

 

[agentorange]

One unspoken time-consuming part of the story process, however, was that we’d get reading recommendations from Feargus – I won’t name the books

Give us a hint.

 

[Mustawd]

One unspoken time-consuming part of the story process, however, was that we’d get reading recommendations from Feargus – I won’t name the books

Give us a hint.

Yes please do. Does it rhyme with Cock of the Rings?

 

[Zakhad]

Sorry bub, if Chris wants to play without gloves, we can play without gloves. Just make sure he doesn't bring a toothpick to a knife fight.

All I could think of reading that was:

Spoiler

 

[Neanderthal]

One unspoken time-consuming part of the story process, however, was that we’d get reading recommendations from Feargus – I won’t name the books

Give us a hint.

Elf propoganda no doubt.

 

[agentorange]

Chris Avellone Have you played Age of Decadence?

 

[Johannes]

Chris Avellone a guy in shitbox wondered whether you'd been asked if you have played AoD. I'd like to ask whether you can answer that.

 

[Cael]

Sorry bub, if Chris wants to play without gloves, we can play without gloves. Just make sure he doesn't bring a toothpick to a knife fight.

All I could think of reading that was:

Spoiler

In that one picture, I am seeing all the try-hard "cool" kids of my secondary school days...

 

[aweigh]

Actually that reminds me: Chris Avellone can you rattle off some good books you've read?

They can be of any topic or theme, and they don't have to be recent. Note that while I'm not specifically asking for favorite authors, if you want to name them it would also be welcome.

EDIT: Bonus question: is there an author that you admire, that perhaps you've found yourself emulating?

 

[Jason Liang]

Interestingly, the commie LARPers almost never put me on ignore (communard being the sole exception), even though I'd like to see them all lined up against the wall and shot. Mostly it's progressives who are upset with me naming the SJW once too often or Trumpposting.

I suppose being persecuted adds to the atmosphere and tone of the commie LARPing. How can you be a true commie without capitalist pigs out there waiting to string you up?

I would never ignore you Blaine. You are a genuine American voice. I get homesick when I'm reading your posts:

The Band-Aid quick fix that gun control represents is garbage, gun control fanatics are garbage, and they can have my guns when they pry them from my cold, dead fingers. We aren't a postage-stamp sized little corner of Europe, here. We are the central focus of Western civilization for the moment, in some way or another (depending on context).

 

[Sordid MCA/Prosper Hybryd]

Chris Avellone, as you know quite often Planescape: Torment gets compared with jRPGs. You have said that now you are trying yourself in new different genres. What do you think about working on a jRPGesque game? On something akin to Anachronox, perhaps.

I also know that you are a fan of Chrono Trigger. And there were some rumors in 2010 that Obsidian was trying to get in touch with Square Enix to discuss a possibility of working on a new Chrono Trigger instalment. Can you tell something about it? Would you like to work on a new Chrono Trigger game?

 

[Chris Avellone]

Which leads us to Fig, A company whose advisory board includes Feargus, Fargo, Schaefer, and Pitchford - all of whom have allegedly engaged in funnelling funds from one project to another behind the backs of publishers and/or backers. It's my understanding that Fig is Feargus' territory and you obviously exited Obsidian before it was announced, but I'm curious about your thoughts on it given these circumstances (and the connection to Robot Cache via Fargo). There has been much skepticism here and around the web regarding both.

I haven't kept up with Fig beyond its track record on Wikipedia, is there anything serious going on with it?

Fig was starting as I departed, and I didn't know much about Feargus's involvement with it in a financial, legal, or promotional sense.

It did worry me in the sense it would distract him, and also I wasn't sure how the payments went to Feargus for being part of it while promoting Obsidian games on there at the same time. If someone does know how these payout breakdowns for the board work, I'd be curious to know. I've avoided Fig (speaking about it or being involved with it) because of Feargus's involvement, and if I've been involved on a title through Fig, I've asked my name never be used on the platform.

The only other thing I know is that the Fig platform doesn't seem to be where the marketing efforts are being focused for some of the games, and it seems to see less traffic than the marketing that the game companies do on their own (looking at both inXile and Obsidian - Obsidian seems to post updates to Fig as an afterthought).

Also, a backer update on Fig vs. a backer update on Kickstarter seems to gain less traction - part of me was wondering if it's just less user-friendly to navigate the site.

Oh, and when Infinitron did "Chris Avellone hates Obsidian" post (I didn't hate Obsidian in the post he was quoting, I was, however, speaking frankly that I thought upper management was disorganized, which I'll stand by - but again, because of the embellishment, it worked out well) the head of Fig did call me b/c he was worried about PoE2, so I told him what he should be concerned about (Tim not on PoE2) and what he shouldn't be (the overall campaign b/c of PoE1). He did ask if I would be working on it, and I told him no (this made me think he and Feargus didn't talk much after what had happened), and he was worried that my lack of involvement would be a problem, and I said (and was right) that it wouldn't matter for the fundraising at all.

I did recommend some changes he might suggest to the PoE2 promotion strategy.

Lastly, I didn't think Feargus did a very good job as the voice on the Fig board during the crowdsourcing campaign - he did a lot of half-answers, poorly-worded answers, and "I'll chat with the team," "I'll get back to you" and then didn't really get back to people as far as I could tell. Also, some general confusion "with" some of the posts:

I think either Adam or Josh end up being better spokespeople to the facts of the campaign - Ferg just seemed one step away from real information, so it felt fuzzy.

 

[Ismaul]

the moment when his holiness Chris Avellone got shitfaced drunk/his meds stop working

You try to push this agenda in everyone of your posts, that only a crazy man would say what Chris has said. That's a pretty shameful way of trying do discredit him. What he said stands no matter what state he said it in, and could've been said sober and might very well have been. If you disagree, no need for the ad hominems, it only makes you looks deranged.

 

[Mustawd]

I haven't kept up with Fig beyond its track record on Wikipedia, is there anything serious going on with it?

Sorta? The idea that it can compete with Kickstarter is mildly successful. However, this whole idea of iii games hasn't really materialized outside a few exceptions like PoE2, WL3 and Psychonaughts 2. They do have a few other wins like that one First Person View RPG I cannot remember, but for the most part a lot of the games raise don that platform are forgettable.