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

[Azalin]

Wait why did this thread grow 170 pages in the last week?What happened since last time I checked this?




So MCA finally got past is passive/aggressive face with Obsidian and went full Allahu Akbar Monty Markland on them?



The Codex always delivers

P.S. Posting in an epic thread,better late than never right?

P.S. 2 Hey CrustyBot is back?Haven't seen around these parts in like 2 years bro

 

[JarlFrank]

As Lion el Johnson has said, loyalty is its own reward . Serve the Emperor, citizen, and venerate the Primarchs. As I said, if there would be same amount of content, then the Legion would not be so unknowable, isnt it?

Depends on the kind of content, doesn't it? There can be content that doesn't reveal anything about the faction.

 

[jfreund]

One advantage in the last few years at Obsidian - is by asking for confirmation/clarification through email (after we discovered details would get fuzzy and forgotten if solely discussed), it's also there on the servers and the back-ups. And if it's not, it's legal troubles galore.

Please don't rely on a potential adversary in a legal matter providing evidence you may need to cover your ass. If we've learned anything over the last 2 years, we know emails can conveniently disappear from a server. I have no doubt you're shooting straight, but if you have to prove the truth of your statements, you are best served with the proof in your possession.

Thanks for all the candid answers here.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Blaine

I disagree. Is there racism on the codex? Most certainly.

Yeah, and they by and large aren't hiding (see directly above this post), so there's no need for social justice inquisitors to hound-dog it out.

Not that that stops them, mind you.

We have the opening cutscene for Command and Conquer: Retadred Alert

Scene 1:

UC Berkeley, November, 2020
In the aftermath of Trump's successful, shitposter-fueled reelection campaign, heroic liberal scientists build a time machine to prevent the spread of global shitposting and avert the rise of Trumpism. They travel to 2007 and remove all RPG Codex admins who oppose Vault Dweller's new regime. The bans fly like bullets and the shitposters fall silent as the last bastion of free speech on the interwebs dies in its cradle.

Scene 2:
UC Berkeley (new capital of the United States), January, 2021
As battalions of Social Justice Warriors march into Washington, putting all of its white cis inhabitants to the gender-reassignment scalpel, patriotic Americans weep for the future. The danger-hairs celebrate on the streets of Berkeley while Judith Butler is sworn into office as the first President of the Gender-Fluid States of America. All hope seems lost. Rainbow flags wave in the breeze.

The screen fills with static. A new image cuts in, a neckbeard in a surplus military uniform that's two sizes too small for his bulky frame, broadcasting from his mother's basement.

Neckbeard: "so, you're the new addition to the Brotherhood? I'm Seth, just Seth. From god, to Blaine, to Seth. I am his right hand and I have a task for you. Stop the danger-hairs at any cost."

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

But he seemed like a genuinely nice person.

He tricked MCA into thinking he was supportive of him for 15 years. Most of these sociopaths can swindle naive, gullible, good-hearted goyim ezmode.

 

[Infinitron]

I think Feargus Urquhart is an out-of-his-depth middlebrow who makes mistakes and struggles to maintain relationships under stress, not a narcissistic supervillain.

 

[Prime Junta]

I think Feargus Urquhart is just an out-of-his-depth schmoe who makes mistakes and struggles to maintain relationships under stress, not a narcissistic supervillain.

Dude.

Putting his family on the payroll, trying to weasel out of paying back employees who agreed to skip paychecks because the company was going under, and summarily de-ownerising a founder goes way, way beyond schmoe. At least where I'm from.

 

[agentorange]

Yeah but the thing is, joining Legion feels less rewarding than the other factions due to it having less content than the other factions.

That's the kind of "symmetry" people care about.

I don't care about what bullshit rewards the game throws at me to reassure me that I've made the right choice. That's just ego masturbation (a term that pops up in Avellone's own design documents). I'd rather the faction in itself, as a narrative entity in the game, feel distinct and novel enough that I will side with them for the sake of learning more about them or seeing their side of the story.

Edit: That's one of the highest praises I can give AoD. I was willing to play through the game many, many times (around 20), going through all the factions that are all very divergent in playthrough length (for example Merchant Guild playthroughs are far shorter on average because they are majority dialogue based, whereas Imperial Guard playthroughs take more time because of the many combat encounters), rewards (on some characters you hardly get to use one artifact item, with others you end up with an abundance of them), quest amount and structure, etc, just because I was so wrapped up in the world of that game and wanted to see every possible perspective of it.

 

[JarlFrank]

Yeah but the thing is, joining Legion feels less rewarding than the other factions due to it having less content than the other factions.

That's the kind of "symmetry" people care about.

I don't care about what bullshit rewards the game throws at me to reassure me that I've made the right choice. That's just ego masturbation (a term that pops up in Avellone's own design documents). I'd rather the faction in itself, as a narrative entity in the game, feel distinct and novel enough that I will side with them for the sake of learning more about them or seeing their side of the story.

There was also less of that compared to the other factions, which is why the Legion felt kinda unfinished.

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

Yeah but the thing is, joining Legion feels less rewarding than the other factions due to it having less content than the other factions.

That's the kind of "symmetry" people care about.

I don't care about what bullshit rewards the game throws at me to reassure me that I've made the right choice. That's just ego masturbation (a term that pops up in Avellone's own design documents). I'd rather the faction in itself, as a narrative entity in the game, feel distinct and novel enough that I will side with them for the sake of learning more about them or seeing their side of the story.

Now we are talking. Well written story as a reward.

 

[Darth Roxor]

At least where I'm from.

in israel they call it business as usual

 

[deepfire]

I think Feargus Urquhart is an out-of-his-depth schmoe who makes mistakes and struggles to maintain relationships under stress, not a narcissistic supervillain.

I think there has been sufficient information to support the narcissistic angle -- starting with the:

he’d come brag to us about when he hung up on a studio head or producer

Supervillainy.. well. Only time will tell.

If Feargus crosses into making Chris his enemy for life and will turn to actively hurting him in search for retribution (I would assume Feargus will retain some leverage regardless of how things turn out) -- that would be supervillainy-enough for me.

But as it stands he's simply actively harmful to both the audience and the artistic community.

 

[Jason Liang]

Scene 2:
UC Berkeley (new capital of the United States), January, 2021
As battalions of Social Justice Warriors march into Washington, putting all of its white cis inhabitants to the gender-reassignment scalpel, patriotic Americans weep for the future. The danger-hairs celebrate on the streets of Berkeley while Judith Butler is sworn into office as the first President of the Gender-Fluid States of America. All hope seems lost. Rainbow flags wave in the breeze.

Dumb-ass. You do realize that nearly all the students who take Professor Butler's classes are conservative? She teaches in the Rhetoric department, which when I was an undergrad, was the conservative half of the Rhetoric/ Film Studies program (Film Studies being the liberal half). Basically the students in Rhetoric are Young Republicans who all want to get into law school so they take the easiest classes with Republican professors that they can kiss ass to so they can maintain their precious 3.8 - 4.0 gpa.

I know this because I once took a class on Science Fiction films and none of the students who signed up for that class were the ones normally in my other film studies classes. It turns out they were all Rhetoric students and the Republican professor who taught that class was from the Rhetoric department, and the class was meant to be a joke "easy A" class to bump up the students' gpa.

 

[fantadomat]

Yet some dumbfucks didn't see it coming, wished they were full companions, being surprised by their death

Nevermind those dumbfucks. What I want to know is who decided to kill off Aimee in NWN2? She was actually the nice and competent one and a pretty damned good generalist wizard to boot. Why couldn't they have taken Bevel instead ?

Because having a tank at the start more important than having a wizard in case player's creating a squishy character.

It is level 3! Even 2 mages can take 'em! Well, 2 mages plus 2 familiars plus summons... :D

Yeah,Obsidian love to kill the more interesting characters in the prologue.

 

[The_Time_Master]

Jason Liang
Care to explain your reasoning, or are you just going to drop off a rating and leave?

Sure. The majority of the computer gaming industry is based in Southern California for a reason. Not just for the weather and that Blizzard is also based in Irvine.

...snippped a lot...

Your points makes a lot of sense, but having everything concentrated in one area does turn that into a strategic military target should any state want to disrupt massively the entertainment and media of the US. Imagine how bad the economical impact would be if something happened in Silicon Valley like a dirty bomb - it could easily hurt the US economy 10x to 100x worse than what happened in 9/11 from two planes and WTC7.

/shit we already pulled in GG, SJWs and Trump into this thread, might as well pull 9/11 in as well
//Dank memes Don't Melt Jet Fuel, or something

 

[agentorange]

Yeah but the thing is, joining Legion feels less rewarding than the other factions due to it having less content than the other factions.

That's the kind of "symmetry" people care about.

I don't care about what bullshit rewards the game throws at me to reassure me that I've made the right choice. That's just ego masturbation (a term that pops up in Avellone's own design documents). I'd rather the faction in itself, as a narrative entity in the game, feel distinct and novel enough that I will side with them for the sake of learning more about them or seeing their side of the story.

Now we are talking. Well written story as a reward.

That sums it up. The story, narrative choices and exploration of the game world should be reward enough. Obviously that's an extreme and I'm not saying there shouldn't be items and powers gained through, but often progression mechanics like that in games are used as a crutch to keep players interested in a basically uninteresting narrative. In a PNP RPG you can have a situation where getting just a +1 weapon can be a big deal, because you are so wrapped up in the story of the world and the various characters, your own included, that such a small reward can have a real gravity to it.

This is the Planescape vision document where the term "ego masturbation" was used. I think it's particularly interesting because Planescape: Torment has never struck me as a power fantasy, ego masturbation story. Just the opposite really, since the Nameless One character feels quite vulnerable in the face of his problems, and is often at a loss to understand the world around him. I mean, the very basis of the story is about TNO's ego being effaced. You are hardly a "hero worshipped by the masses," and the various monetary and material rewards throughout the game are hardly the stuff that captured people's attention (the items were interesting but only because they all had a unique narrative quality to them). I don't know if framing the story as a trite power fantasy was an attempt to sell the idea of the game to upper management, or if it really was written with this intention. ("emotional pornography" is another similar term, that shows up in the Van Buren design document).

 

[mondblut]

Blaine

I disagree. Is there racism on the codex? Most certainly.

Yeah, and they by and large aren't hiding (see directly above this post), so there's no need for social justice inquisitors to hound-dog it out.

Not that that stops them, mind you.

We have the opening cutscene for Command and Conquer: Retadred Alert

Scene 1:

UC Berkeley, November, 2020
In the aftermath of Trump's successful, shitposter-fueled reelection campaign, heroic liberal scientists build a time machine to prevent the spread of global shitposting and avert the rise of Trumpism. They travel to 2007 and remove all RPG Codex admins who oppose Vault Dweller's new regime. The bans fly like bullets and the shitposters fall silent as the last bastion of free speech on the interwebs dies in its cradle.

Scene 2:
UC Berkeley (new capital of the United States), January, 2021
As battalions of Social Justice Warriors march into Washington, putting all of its white cis inhabitants to the gender-reassignment scalpel, patriotic Americans weep for the future. The danger-hairs celebrate on the streets of Berkeley while Judith Butler is sworn into office as the first President of the Gender-Fluid States of America. All hope seems lost. Rainbow flags wave in the breeze.

The screen fills with static. A new image cuts in, a neckbeard in a surplus military uniform that's two sizes too small for his bulky frame, broadcasting from his mother's basement.

Neckbeard: "so, you're the new addition to the Brotherhood? I'm Seth, just Seth. From god, to Blaine, to Seth. I am his right hand and I have a task for you. Stop the danger-hairs at any cost."

I rated you fabulously optimistic because IRL there will be no neckbeard. Only a high heel stamping on human face forever.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

You do realize that nearly all the students who take Professor Butler's classes are conservative?

Jesus dude, I just picked the academic who I thought would most likely trigger Blaine. Anyway, who cares about undergrads?

Edit: personally, I'd have no problem voting for Judith Butler.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

What was strike one?

Teleporting hating and caricatures of AoD.

 

[Infinitron]

That sums it up. The story, narrative choices and exploration of the game world should be reward enough. Obviously that's an extreme and I'm not saying there shouldn't be items and powers gained through, but often progression mechanics like that in games are used as a crutch to keep players interested in a basically uninteresting narrative. In a PNP RPG you can have a situation where getting just a +1 weapon can be a big deal, because you are so wrapped up in the story of the world and the various characters, your own included, that such a small reward can have a real gravity to it.

This is the Planescape vision document where the term "ego masturbation" was used. I think it's particularly interesting because Planescape: Torment has never struck me as a power fantasy, ego masturbation story. Just the opposite really, since the Nameless One character feels quite vulnerable in the face of his problems, and is often at a loss to understand the world around him. I mean, the very basis of the story is about TNO's ego being effaced. You are hardly a "hero worshipped by the masses," and the various monetary and material rewards throughout the game are hardly the stuff that captured people's attention (the items were interesting but only because they all had a unique narrative quality to them). I don't know if framing the story as a trite power fantasy was an attempt to sell the idea of the game to upper management, or if it really was written with this intention. ("emotional pornography" is another similar term, that shows up in the Van Buren design document).

I'm not sure about the PS:T vision document in particular, but I think Chris uses "ego stroke" in the more general sense of "content in the game revolves around the player" (not necessarily in a positive, power fantasy way).

 

[mondblut]

change their opinions.

 

[ArchAngel]

At least where I'm from.

in israel they call it business as usual

Nah that is just what they do before lunch. After lunch they go and shoot at some Palestinians to get rid off all that stress.

 

[JarlFrank]

What was strike one?

Teleporting hating and caricatures of AoD.

I will not back away from my opinion that teleporting sucks. As much as I do like AoD, the teleporting was a thing it could really have done without.

Teleporting is just bad design, period.

 

[Cael]

At least where I'm from.

in israel they call it business as usual

Nah that is just what they do before lunch. After lunch they go and shoot at some Palestinians to get rid off all that stress.

Don't be stupid. If they shoot Pallies, we won't see them on TV. No, they just harvest some of the Pally babies to make bread out of their blood.

Spoiler

Yes, blood bread is as stupid and impossible as it sounds.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Feargus never striked me as a narcissist. He strikes me as a guy who became a CEO on no other merit than somebody had to, well above his competence and skillet. Ad who has to navigate an extremely stressful and volatile business that is constantly evolving and changing every minute of every day.

No, a narcissist would be a person who accuses other owners of being cowards, while at the same time forgetting he was also part of the management and didn't have a spine to stand up to Feargus for 15 years.

A narcissist would be a person who runs his mouth about business ethics, while trying to sabotage the launch of a fan funded game, and disrupt the production of another game made by people he claims to respect, all so he can stick it up to Feargus.

A narcissist would be a person who tries to pull Fenstermaker into his crusade against Obsidian, without consideration that Eric might not want to burn any bridges there.

We already have a name for him too - Captain Stretch Goal. His superpowers are self-fellatio, unlimited butthurt and public meltdowns.