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

[deepfire]

The thing that me rage hardest in this thread was hearing that Chris and Josh wanted to offer the narrative lead on Eternity to Ziets. For that alone, Feargus can fuck right off.

You (pretend to) ask for an opinion -- one of your best writers and your trusted lead offer the other of your best writers as a narrative lead.

“no, you should have chosen Eric.”

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Whoa, is that dumbass John Walker reviewing this-

Yup. 'tis he.

John Walker is a fucking monster, the perfect example of the enablers within our midst. Fuck him to hell.

Speaking as a former member of the RPS forums banned in the wake of Literally Who I can say with confidence that before all that shit Walker was the red headed step child of RPS. There were many times that frequent RPS contributors would throw shade on him or outright argue in public on the forum. He was always a bit scummy but he was in a higher position than the other writers from what I can remember. I can get over his review if he brought up good points but he never does. He's a narcasist and manchild who bends any game to his own righteous beliefs in order to get intellectual points with the few mewling fleshlings who pretend to like video games in the UK for a living.

Frustratingly, I have a friend who can reveal some juicy shit on Walker. Very juicy things indeed apparently (they never told me what it is though) . But that friend refuses to speak out due to fear of a libel lawsuit.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, the Ziets story made be facepalm hard.

But to be honest, I am kind of glad George ended up getting the stick. Because we now have him as a lead on Wasteland 3, and one of my gaming masturbatory fantasies is to see what Ziets can do if given a full control over the game. Because he has never been in that position before. And post-apo winter is a damn cool setting. So there's that.

 

[agentorange]

yes, rape

Typical edgy tryhard goon.

goon: yes, rape
codexer: rape, please

 

[Alienman]

Only if tasteful.

 

[fantadomat]

yes, rape

Typical edgy tryhard goon.

goon: yes, rape
codexer: rape, please

Address please.

 

[Nihiliste]

Yeah, the Ziets story made be facepalm hard.

But to be honest, I am kind of glad George ended up getting the stick. Because we now have him as a lead on Wasteland 3, and one of my gaming masturbatory fantasies is to see what Ziets can do if given a full control over the game. Because he has never been in that position before. And post-apo winter is a damn cool setting. So there's that.

Ziets wasting away at Ineptile is the opposite of a good outcome

 

[Blaine]

Luckily you were there to lead by example and show how its done to those you criticize.
Shitposting is "objective" increase in entertainment value? Aint you funny.

Might wanna take a step back and think about how you seem to be doing exactly the same as those you criticize, just from a slightly different prismatic angle in which you are correct and "they" are wrong. Not only in this context either. Im only saying this because i think you have brains enough to get it, mind you. Not that there isnt anything to criticize, there is plenty, but maybe one should stop just before falling into that ego trap. Thats one way to change your nature, or let it distort you. (cutting down on transparent butthurt is also very healthy in the long run)

I'll respond to this now that I'm in the mood.

In short, you are wrong. I very purposely didn't pepper MCA with questions throughout the entirety of this thread; I allowed others to ask, made my jokes, posted my shoops, but kept my commentary on the sidelines among other Codexians. This can be confirmed by searching the thread for my username and "Chris Avellone" as a keyword. I addressed him exactly twice. The first time was this:

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.

I wonder what it's like to be the type of people who'll use a good man for the sake of the weight his name carries, throw him away like a piece of trash when it'll save them a buck, and then have the temerity to ask him to return and be name-dropped again?

Chris, I don't really know you outside of your work. I'm not going to pretend to care deeply about you on a personal level, but you're a consummate and talented professional and I am sorry to hear that you were used. "Business is business" is one thing and something that anyone above the age of 19 understands, but this is in a completely different category.

The second time, much later on, I joked that he was being antisemitic by consistently breaking Inifinitron's balls. He chose to take that personally and ignore me. That's fine, and his worshipers are free to jerk each other off about how hard I got told, but at the end of the day it doesn't matter. He won't remember any of your usernames in a month, nor mine for that matter, and it's not important to me (nor to anyone) that he like me or read my posts. It never was.

There is a certain type of person who appreciates Blaineposting, and people who aren't counted among that number can smash the ignore button, become offended, deliver long-winded lectures, try to shame me, or whatever suits their fancy. I've been receiving lectures from tryhards and easily-offended dipshits for almost two decades on this Internet of ours, many of whom were far more capable of getting under my skin back when it was a whole lot thinner than it is now.

The people who are actually butthurt in this scenario are the many dozens of people who spammed Chris with inane questions, never received answers, and then carpet-bombed me with negative ratings when their hero became upset about one perfectly Codexian joke. My smug factor is as high as it ever was, if not more so.

 

[fantadomat]

The installation is really,now i will go and search the golden egg in the pile of shit called dumbsterfire. See you tomorrow if i am still alive!

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

I'm installing now. I look forward to playing Colonialism Simulator 2018: with Added Sailors Editon. Wasn't really a fan of the original PoE for it's prose and essays. Heard they fixed that this time. Good.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Yeah, the Ziets story made be facepalm hard.

But to be honest, I am kind of glad George ended up getting the stick. Because we now have him as a lead on Wasteland 3, and one of my gaming masturbatory fantasies is to see what Ziets can do if given a full control over the game. Because he has never been in that position before. And post-apo winter is a damn cool setting. So there's that.

Ziets wasting away at Ineptile is the opposite of a good outcome

It is a good outcome though. Where else would George get an opportunity to be project lead on a $4 milllion RPG. At Obsidian? Not a chance, too far in the pecking order. Now, Torment was a complete brainfart, but Wasteland 2 was good for what it was , and clearly Fargo saw through all the bullshit and made a genuinely great designer lead the work on the WL2 sequel.

 

[Puteo]

Speaking as a former member of the RPS forums banned in the wake of Literally Who I can say with confidence that before all that shit Walker was the red headed step child of RPS. There were many times that frequent RPS contributors would throw shade on him or outright argue in public on the forum. He was always a bit scummy but he was in a higher position than the other writers from what I can remember. I can get over his review if he brought up good points but he never does. He's a narcasist and manchild who bends any game to his own righteous beliefs in order to get intellectual points with the few mewling fleshlings who pretend to like video games in the UK for a living.

Frustratingly, I have a friend who can reveal some juicy shit on Walker. Very juicy things indeed apparently (they never told me what it is though) . But that friend refuses to speak out due to fear of a libel lawsuit.

I remember back in the good old days when RPS was first founded, I stalked the 4 founders on steam to see what games they were playing to get an idea of what to buy next. They all mostly had a good spread, the Orange Box had just come out so there was a lot of TF2, Portal, and HL2: Episode 2 in their recent histories, except for Walker.

The only thing John Walker had in his recently played list was Peggle.

68 hours of Peggle in the last 2 weeks.

Every game on Steam available to him for free and that's what he chose to play.

Good fucking lord.

 

[Alexios]

It's more extreme in PS:T because the whole thing revolves around the PC. Like most of the game's design pillars, it's an approach that came from MCA's desire to invert or avoid tropes he hated in the genre. He felt most RPGs didn't make players care about dialogue or what was going on, and he was tired of clichés like saving a kingdom or a princess, so he made everything about the player:

On my long list of hates about RPGs, one of them was, I always felt it was an unnecessary chore to make you care about a world when in fact what most players care about is their own personal experience. So in Planescape, we [decided], “We’re just going to make everything about you. This is your journey, the planes aren’t going to explode—it’s all about your personal journey, and about everything that took place that you did beforehand that’s caused this situation.” And that’s how we wanted to keep it. You want to have a totally selfish adventure? I’m right there with you. That’s fantastic. I don’t want you to save a nation or go rescue the princess or kill the evil wizard, I want you to save yourself, and you figure out how to do it. It’s all about you, so enjoy it. Because that’s the kind of game that I want to play.

KotOR 2 also had this going on. The entire story focused on the Exile; there really is no mission to save the galaxy (in fact, the antagonist's mission is to do just that). Although Nihilus is an apocalyptic threat, he isn't the final boss, and the fight with him is a pushover and somewhat of an aside in the endgame. People complained about this but I think it was a deliberate design decision, as the main focus in the endgame is facing Sion and Kreia, both of whom directly concerned the Exile. It was pretty damn brilliant how the final showdown between Sion and the Exile was a kind of ego contest with Sion just wanting to win back his master's affection.

On a related note, I just pulled up KotOR 2 in my Steam library and saw a news story in the feed about how James Ohlen at Bioware was planning to make KotOR 2 about a dark-side Yoda who manipulates the player into conquering the galaxy (which Eurogamer calls a "really cool" idea). Let's all be thankful Chris Avellone ended up making the game instead of that guy.

 

[Latro]

magazine/site reviews are only good for pissing off devs, the only reviews that matter now are Steam ratings

 

[Phanax]

So everyone's moved onto Deadfire it seems.

Does that mean Chris is done? Is this thread done?

 

[Blaine]

Does that mean Chris is done? Is this thread done?

On a more serious note, he's indicated that he's waiting for revelations from others before he goes any further with his own spiel.

 

[L'Montes]

So everyone's moved onto Deadfire it seems.

I'm waiting for my physical copy, not booting up some digital copy like some kind of mobile phone gaming peasant.

Surely there are revelations yet to come. Like Alan Parker being a thinly veiled dig at the other owners or something.

 

[Phanax]

Well if it isn't over, then it is for me.

/suicide

 

[Azarkon]

Imagine a forum in which a close knit group of racist regulars talked shit about X people all day long.

I don't know what kind of forum are you on, but suggesting that Codex is purely KKK forum (and looking at your post, you're implying that) is beyond retarded. I haven't seen any directly "racist" opinions, but to the contrary, SJW apologists are rather common and even receive acclaim looking at the ratings. The "politics" that pops up occasionally out of GD are minor remarks about obvious agendas that appear in modern gaming, and sometimes these are things that have to be addressed and pointed out for the sake of clarity. We can't pretend that it's raining when they spit in our faces.

I was obviously not referring to the Codex, once you read the comment in context. But stating the Codex has no racist opinions? You must be joking.

First page thread in General Discussions: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/we-wuz-kangs-n-shiet.117521/

"I think it would be appropriate to have a proper nigger thread."

It's not a paradox, it's a logical fallacy. "Free speech creates censorship because people who can't take the heat and are afraid of getting questioned and scrutinied for their beliefs will avoid the place".

That's not what I argued at all. What I argued is that a blind, ideological dedication to free speech creates environments in which a small group of trolls - or actual Nazis, which ever you prefer - can take over the board and drive away people who are not interested in being insulted and verbally abused day in, day out. It is well known that threads can be easily derailed by a committed troll who understands what sort of content is most likely to bring out the worst in people, the consequence of which is that rational discussion becomes impossible, as long as the troll is present.

Imagine I made a hundred posts in this thread posting pictures of terrorist victims, appending to each the need for Americans to rise up and ethnically cleanse America of Muslims. That would almost certainly derail the thread, and while this behavior could be punished by putting me on ignore, I could easily create another account and do the same. Without moderation, the quality of posts on the Codex would descend rapidly, and soon enough people looking for intelligent discussions of CRPGs would begin to look else where.

It isn't in human nature to actively seek out hostile environments. Just the opposite - humans actively avoid environments they perceive to be hostile to themselves. The vast majority of people in the world seek positive reinforcement, and so in the end, a complete absence of moderation simply ensures an echo chamber for whoever is the loudest and most committed to pushing their agenda.

 

[Grauken]

Having been on the receiving end of an unflattering RPS review, I have developed the psychological coping mechanism of treating their analysis more as a literary exercise and less as purchasing guidance. But since I don't have time to play games, anyway, I fortunately don't need much guidance on that score anyway.

They did seem to enjoy the CYOA segments ("splendid Twine-like sections"), and indicate that "for those who enjoy the minutiae of such [RTWP] combat, it’s here that the min-maxing complexity that’s available will shine." They like the deep setting lore and lengthy, fully voiced dialogue: "The depth and wealth of effort that’s gone into its world building does have an impact on me. The sense of a place is unquestionably wonderful, and goodness me, there’s so much writing and voice acting in here (gone are PoE1’s awkward half-voiced conversations, with every NPC line spoken aloud)." Sounds like a game that should check every box for Darth Roxor!

RPS has long joined the likes of Kotaku/Polygon whatever in writing utterly useless reviews that look at everyhing but good gameplay, for fucks sake they rated Hollow Knight, the best metroidvania coming out in a long time as unoriginal, when lots of other good but really unoriginal metroidvanias went unmentioned, and went so far as saying to rather go for Ori, which is nice but nut even close in content and competency, they're bunch of clickbait sjw hacks

 

[Ezeekiel]

That's not what I argued at all. What I argued is that a blind, ideological dedication to free speech creates environments in which a small group of trolls - or actual Nazis, which ever you prefer - can take over the board and drive away people who are not interested in being insulted and verbally abused day in, day out. It is well known that threads can be easily derailed by a committed troll who understands what sort of content is most likely to bring out the worst in people, the consequence of which is that rational discussion becomes impossible, as long as the troll is present.

Imagine I made a hundred posts in this thread posting pictures of terrorist victims, appending to each the need for Americans to rise up and ethnically cleanse America of Muslims. That would almost certainly derail the thread, and while this behavior could be punished by putting me on ignore, I could easily create another account and do the same. Without moderation, the quality of posts on the Codex would descend rapidly, and soon enough people looking for intelligent discussions of CRPGs would begin to look else where.

It isn't in human nature to actively seek out hostile environments. Just the opposite - humans actively avoid environments they perceive to be hostile to themselves.

And yet the Codex' population of commies is still here, and lots of less polarized types to boot.
Meanwhile, as brought up before, NeoGaf for example got completely taken over by SJW nutjobs... Who used heavy handed moderation for the purpose. Most forums of note that I can think of that had some kind of connection to culture war topics ended up polarized, most often towards the "left". Comment sections on fucktons of websites are either closed entirely or disallow the opinions of one side.
Youtube comments section may be shit mostly, but all the insults etc don't seem to stop massive amounts of people from commenting there anyway.

The vast majority of people in the world seek positive reinforcement, and so in the end, a complete absence of moderation simply ensures an echo chamber for whoever is the loudest and most committed to pushing their agenda.

And yet moderation very often results in exactly the one-sidedness you think is going to happen here. Or rather, the opposite kind of one-sidedness.

This is easily one of the least one-sided places on the net. That bothers some but draws others, and not just the nazis you're so worried about.

 

[Cael]

This is easily one of the least one-sided places on the net. That bothers some but draws others, and not just the nazis you're so worried about.

Perhaps you should throw shade at VtMB sometime and see how that turns out.

This forum has its own little cliques and gangs who won't hesitate to attack others and bully and harass them. That mods (or a mod) are involved in the cliques only makes it worse. It is not better or worse than any other forum. It is just that the topics that triggers attacks are different. Instead of sjw themes, they go for paid shilling and fanboism instead.

Same shit, different day.

 

[Ezeekiel]

This is easily one of the least one-sided places on the net. That bothers some but draws others, and not just the nazis you're so worried about.

Perhaps you should throw shade at VtMB sometime and see how that turns out.

This forum has its own little cliques and gangs who won't hesitate to attack others and bully and harass them. That mods (or a mod) are involved in the cliques only makes it worse. It is not better or worse than any other forum. It is just that the topics that triggers attacks are different. Instead of sjw themes, they go for paid shilling and fanboism instead.

Same shit, different day.

Not better or worse than any other forum? Feel free to join resetera then...The consequences of triggering a negative response for stating your opinion or even just regular trolling are wildly different.

Of course there are cliques, but so what? 5-10 guys who don't like your opinion and get verbally rough, oh no. If your opinion is really unpopular, it'll be more guys, but again... Big deal.
They don't ban you for saying that VtMB was a buggy mess with janky-ass combat (which is most of the shade I can think of). And what does bully and harass even mean in this context? Some "shit" ratings? A tag? So what. This isn't reddit where downvotes can hide comments or trigger a deletion.
If I accidentally make the wrong kind of joke or whatever I get banned in many other places.

 

[Cael]

The second time, much later on, I joked that he was being antisemitic by consistently breaking Inifinitron's balls.

Son, that is a terrible, HORRIBLE joke. You should be castrated, shot, drawn, quartered, cremated and the ashes scattered fired into the sun for that one.

Breaking Infinitron's balls isn't being antisemetic. It merely means that Chris has more than half a brain cell.

 

[Cael]

Not better or worse than any other forum? Feel free to join resetera then...The consequences of triggering a negative response for stating your opinion or even just regular trolling are wildly different.

Of course there are cliques, but so what? 5-10 guys who don't like your opinion and get verbally rough, oh no. If your opinion is really unpopular, it'll be more guys, but again... Big deal.
They don't ban you for saying that VtMB was a buggy mess with janky-ass combat (which is most of the shade I can think of). And what does bully and harass even mean in this context? Some "shit" ratings? A tag? So what. This isn't reddit where downvotes can hide comments or trigger a deletion.
If I accidentally make the wrong kind of joke or whatever I get banned in many other places.

If you don't know what bully and harass means, then you have no cause to judge other sites and how they run things.

Let us not wax lyrical here. The Codex has the same type of Island Mentality problems that other forums have. The triggers are different, but the aggressive hate and attacks are the same. Just because the mods don't ban people (most of the time) doesn't mean that the posters do not create their own culture that is hostile to others.

To put it simply: The Codex is no more welcoming of new people or ideas than any other forum. In fact, I would venture to say it is LESS welcoming of new people, judging by the way the elitist cliques were circling me when I first turned up and the fact that concerned people are still advising me to not be so outspoken because I am a relatively new poster.