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

[Latro]

the issue seems to be:

team lead: Chris, write all this stuff
MCA: OK
team lead: Augh! Chris! you wrote too much stuff!
MCA: but-
team lead: Chris, all this cut content is your fault!
MCA: ;_;

 

[Father Foreskin]

Im getting a vision here:

In 2020 after a failed game project, Obsidian entertainment us closing down. The AC has shut down and the hot Californian sun has heated the office. No employees remain on the premises except for Josh Sawyer who decides to hit the shower. Josh is scrubbing his vanilla-lavender shampoo into his freshly dyed half-pink hair when Chris Avellone barges in naked.

Chris: " Oh hi Josh i just came for some shit i left here since i knew nobody is in. Jesus its hot"

Josh: "Hi Chris nice to see you, im sorry how this all went down..."

Chris: "Never mind, is all gone anyway... So you been cycling a lot, i can see your ass is a lot juicier?"

Later Josh finds himself on the showerroom floor, his asshole feeling like a playtrough of Fallout 4. If you feel anything, god it hurts.

 

[Sensuki]

Hello, Goon. You must be a Goon, because it's a rare NeoFAG indeed who can browse the Codex without getting triggered and developing terminal PTSD.

He alters his posting style depending on where he's posting, hahah.

 

[Sentinel]

lol he actually paid to register in that site
what a cuck

 

[2house2fly]

How on Earth could he not want to post on a forum where the only person who doesn't vocally hate his guts is a deranged stalker? The man is truly insane.

Hello, Goon. You must be a Goon, because it's a rare NeoFAG indeed who can browse the Codex without getting triggered and developing terminal PTSD.

The great majority of the Codex user base worships Sawyer, or at the very least supports and approves of him. You people used to be a lot better at trolling back in the day when the front page articles were actually funny, but the transition to a SJW safe space and SRS hangout dulled your edge long ago. In other words, you're completely full of shit.

That post wasn't entirely serious, I wouldn't presume to speak for Sawyer but I imagine a general incompatibility with his sense of humour and political beliefs would be more likely to put him off than a general positive or negative opinion of him personally

 

[Roguey]

Instead of making him lead writer, they should have made MCA the Only Writer, and made him still subordinate to Sawyer so he wouldn't have to worry about being in charge

This didn't work out well at all with regard to NWN2 (and even that had additional writers; he was just the companion guy despite what Sawyer's senile memory may let him believe). It works just fine when he only has to write a few characters (Alpha Protocol [with assistance from MacLean and Stout], Dead Money, Old World Blues [with assistance from Stout]) but Pillars of Eternity wasn't pitched as that type of game. This was supposed to be a big, epic Baldur's Gate-alike (i.e. NWN2 but better) and they had to deliver eight companions because of that perhaps-ill-chosen stretch goal.

Yeah. Is there any example of a recent narrative-driven RPG that had multiple writers at the helm and it turned out good? I can't think of any.

All big games have multiple writers. Planescape Torment may have been vast-majority Chris, but it still had McComb and likely others.

A typical big RPG requires several novels worth of text, it's more than any one person can deliver.

 

[2house2fly]

Hello, Goon. You must be a Goon, because it's a rare NeoFAG indeed who can browse the Codex without getting triggered and developing terminal PTSD.

He alters his posting style depending on where he's posting, hahah.

Not particularly; for example characterising a niche site as being full of racist incels is more of a YCS trope than a forumid44 one. I guess you could say I mix and match

 

[Azarkon]

"We'll help your family if you don't work in this industry again" - Obsidian upper MGMT. what other message were they trying to send here?

The motivation isn't hard to understand. Many industries have no competition clauses for the departure of critical individuals, though these are usually limited to a year or less. The idea is that you don't want the former employee to take all the knowledge, experiences, contacts, etc. he's made while in your employment to a direct competitor. This is to protect the company's investments. In exchange, the employee gets money as compensation.

In Chris's case, his legacy is what they're most likely worried about. Obsidian depended on his reputation for years, and especially when they were down and in need of crowd money. They don't want all that to go to a competitor. They don't want to compete with Chris Avellone's Baldur's Gate 3, or Chris Avellone's Planescape: Torment 2, or Chris Avellone's Knights of the Old Republic 3, or whatever else he gets involved in. They know the size of the market and wanted to be able to say - Chris might have retired from the industry, but we're the last company he worked in. We own his artistic legacy and we are his successors.

Most of all, they didn't want him taking his reputation and what he knew to another company and in doing so, possibly take Obsidian's core market with him. Think about how many people supported Obsidian because Chris Avellone was involved. The management isn't stupid. They know people didn't give millions of dollars because of Sawyer's Icewind Dale 2. People gave millions because they were able to claim the narrative of Planescape: Torment, through Chris, and the game play of Baldur's Gate, through their Bioware sequels. Back then they didn't have Tim Cain or Leonard Boyarsky. They needed him, and in case they can't have him, they needed to isolate him, so that a bunch of people doesn't join up with him to create the next Obsidian.

 

[Latro]

"We'll help your family if you don't work in this industry again" - Obsidian upper MGMT. what other message were they trying to send here?

Most of all, they didn't want him taking his reputation and what he knew to another company and in doing so, possibly take Obsidian's core market with him. Think about how many people supported Obsidian because Chris Avellone was involved. The management isn't stupid. They know people didn't pledge millions of dollars because of Sawyer's Icewind Dale 2. People pledged millions because they were able to claim the narrative of Planescape: Torment, through Chris, and the game play of Baldur's Gate, through their Bioware sequels. Back then they didn't have Tim Cain or Leonard Boyarsky. They needed him, and in case they can't have him, they needed to isolate him, so that a bunch of people doesn't join up with him to create the next Obsidian.

Makes sense. They're still complete villains for hanging his own family over him though.

 

[2house2fly]

Instead of making him lead writer, they should have made MCA the Only Writer, and made him still subordinate to Sawyer so he wouldn't have to worry about being in charge

This didn't work out well at all with regard to NWN2 (and even that had additional writers; he was just the companion guy despite what Sawyer's senile memory may let him believe). It works just fine when he only has to write a few characters (Alpha Protocol [with assistance from MacLean and Stout], Dead Money, Old World Blues [with assistance from Stout]) but Pillars of Eternity wasn't pitched as that type of game. This was supposed to be a big, epic Baldur's Gate-alike (i.e. NWN2 but better) and they had to deliver eight companions because of that perhaps-ill-chosen stretch goal.

Yeah. Is there any example of a recent narrative-driven RPG that had multiple writers at the helm and it turned out good? I can't think of any.

All big games have multiple writers. Planescape Torment may have been vast-majority Chris, but it still had McComb and likely others.

A typical big RPG requires several novels worth of text, it's more than any one person can deliver.

The beauty of the "Only Writer" scheme is that he wouldn't have to actually be the only writer

 

[Roguey]

Since Sawyer likes halving and doubling so much, and Avellone wrote too much when they gave him two companions for New Vegas, perhaps the best solution would have been to give him four. Live and learn.

 

[Sentinel]

Instead of making him lead writer, they should have made MCA the Only Writer, and made him still subordinate to Sawyer so he wouldn't have to worry about being in charge

This didn't work out well at all with regard to NWN2 (and even that had additional writers; he was just the companion guy despite what Sawyer's senile memory may let him believe). It works just fine when he only has to write a few characters (Alpha Protocol [with assistance from MacLean and Stout], Dead Money, Old World Blues [with assistance from Stout]) but Pillars of Eternity wasn't pitched as that type of game. This was supposed to be a big, epic Baldur's Gate-alike (i.e. NWN2 but better) and they had to deliver eight companions because of that perhaps-ill-chosen stretch goal.

Yeah. Is there any example of a recent narrative-driven RPG that had multiple writers at the helm and it turned out good? I can't think of any.

All big games have multiple writers. Planescape Torment may have been vast-majority Chris, but it still had McComb and likely others.

A typical big RPG requires several novels worth of text, it's more than any one person can deliver.

dunno. KotOR2, PS:T, MotB all had a pretty small team of writers.

 

[Pirata Alma Negra]

So, everybody turned out a communist now?

 

[Azarkon]

It's a waste of time/resources. I think Sawyer mentioned that removing Ulysses from base New Vegas was almost as painful as it would have been to keep him in and complete him. According to Fenstermaker, the same was true for Durance's cut content. These people have other things to do.

Then have Chris do it? It doesn't make sense, this excuse. So Chris put in the content, but he can't remove it? They didn't have version control? I'm not talking about content Chris started but didn't finish - that's his fault - but content he finished but they couldn't implement the voice acting, animations, etc. for because it was too long. Why not just have Chris decide what to put in?

Avellone didn't want and turned down the position of lead writer. A person wants to lead, they have to accept the responsibilities of leadership. Given his desire for ~clear hierarchies~, Chris should agree with this.

That's the story they've been telling us, sure, but do you still believe it, after hearing what Chris has said? It could've all just been public relations talk. His isolation could have began a lot earlier than we thought.

 

[Blaine]

That post wasn't entirely serious, I wouldn't presume to speak for Sawyer but I imagine a general incompatibility with his sense of humour and political beliefs would be more likely to put him off than a general positive or negative opinion of him personally

Uh-huh. I see you've relaxed and dropped the end-of-sentence punctuation now that you're out of the closet. Not to worry, there's a Goon on staff here for some unfathomable reason.

I forgot to mention the other reason I knew you must be a Goon, which is that only Goons don't hate Something Awful.

Kind of strange calling such a newfag a Goon, given my dealings with Goons and GoonFleet in EVE Online in my younger and edgier years, but at this point nuGoons are practically the only Goons and we'll just have to accept it. My only real qualm is that Goons used to be fantastic at trolling the shit out of other discussion boards, but are now terrible at it because SJWs are bad at everything except complaining and excoriating men.

 

[2house2fly]

So, everybody turned out a communist now?

"The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice."
-Martin Luther King, Jr

 

[2house2fly]

That post wasn't entirely serious, I wouldn't presume to speak for Sawyer but I imagine a general incompatibility with his sense of humour and political beliefs would be more likely to put him off than a general positive or negative opinion of him personally

Uh-huh. I see you've relaxed and dropped the end-of-sentence punctuation now that you're out of the closet. Not to worry, there's a Goon on staff here for some unfathomable reason.

I post without end-of-sentence punctuation like all the time everywhere. In the previous post you quoted I put a full stop at the end because in my mind that denotes irony

 

[Once more unto the Codex]

So, everybody turned out a communist now?

Prime Junta’s has influenced all of us for the better

 

[Glaucon]

So, is everybody suddenly a communist now?

no, crypto-syndico-distributivism is the new thing now

 

[Glaucon]

unironically quoting MLK

 

[Mustawd]

If you want to put a stop to her schemes or join her (Sawyer path) then purchase a copy of Black Geyser on Kickstarter

Agree man, but you gotta link that shit, my brother.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/grapeocean/black-geyser-couriers-of-darkness

 

[Roguey]

KotOR2,

As he's stated on multiple occassions, if he could do it again, he'd have fewer companions and cut another planet or two.

MotB all had a pretty small team of writers.

It was comparable to Pillars of Eternity. You had Ziets as lead writing "parts of Okku and Safiya", Avellone writing Gann and Kaelyn, Tony Evans on One of Many, Fenstermaker writing Ammon Jerro and other things, Matt MacLean writing the parts of Safiya Ziets didn't (which was most of it), Annie Mitsoda and others writing item descriptions, and so on.

Then have Chris do it? It doesn't make sense, this excuse. So Chris put in the content, but he can't remove it?

He'd already moved on. Ulysses was cut late in the process, so Chris was likely already working on pre-production for Dead Money. As mentioned in the interview, Chris went to Tyranny once he was "done" with his Pillars companions because they needed the help.

That's the story they've been telling us, sure, but do you still believe it, after hearing what Chris has said? It could've all just been public relations talk.

It's the story Chris himself tells, see my sig. There's also the Feargus: Hey, want to kickstart a successor to Torment? Chris: I can't handle another death march story that he himself told.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

The motivation isn't hard to understand.

Dude, are you for real. This is some insano cruel shit. I never, ever heard of anything that came close to this kind of shit in the game industry, and I dig up a lot of dirt, this industry is a really toxic place. Granted, I'm not a developer, but an agreement where you can't never work again IN YOUR WHOLE FUCKING LIFE? That is beyond insane. It has nothing to do with business, bra. That's pure evil. Remember the theme of Tyranny is "When Evil Wins". That's fiting for Obsidian. Here is another irony: Avellone's character Erritis in T:ToN, acting in public as adventurous type because he was forced to.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Literally who cares about this shit. It sold tons of copies and is considered by many to be among the best RPGs of all time.

Obsidian cares because they burned their reputation in the process and now they can't get a big contract. You can't act like a player when you run a business. Grow up.

Obsidian burned their relationship? With who, Bethesda/Zenimax? The company that cut their development time out from under Obsidian, forcing them to release the game within 1&1/2 to 2 years? Or how they had their bonus tied to metacritic, which Bethesda most likely had their employees review bomb to try and deny Obsidian their bonus, after making a game that has made Zenimax/Bethesda hundreds of millions of dollars?

The same Zenimax/Bethesda that has a track record of sabotaging smaller dev studios with stretch goals to try a hostile takeover, while having them develop a game for them? All to steal the devs intellectual content for cheap, as well as own them and their employees for a pittance rather than try and buy them out legitimately, instead tricking them and sabotaging them into losing all their money and forcing the devs to submit to them or lose everything like a pimped out street hooker? That burned reputation?

Obsidian burned their relationships with every publisher they’ve ever worked with. It’s practically their trademark. They have a bad track record when it comes to resource management, not to mention releasing buggy/unfinished games.

I think Paradox may be the only publisher that’s put out more than one of their games (correct me if I’m wrong). Seems like Feargus really loves to overpromise and is a piss poor manager.

The fact that Chris was treated like an asshole for wanting a clear hierarchy really says it all. The alternative to a clear hierarchy is not a non-hierarchical environment, it’s an unclear hierarchy. No one benefits from that.

Anarcho-Capitalism is the perfect system.

 

[Azarkon]

He'd already moved on. Ulysses was cut late in the process, so Chris was likely already working on pre-production for Dead Money. As mentioned in the interview, Chris went to Tyranny once he was "done" with his Pillars companions because they needed the help.

Then isn't that Sawyer's fault...? He's the project director. He's responsible for scheduling, as well as the process of figuring out what can be implemented.

It's the story Chris himself tells, see my sig. There's also the Feargus: Hey, want to kickstart a successor to Torment? Chris: I can't handle another death march story that he himself told.

I know what he said. The question is, why he said it - because he personally felt that way, or because this was the story they decided on when he signed his separation contract.

It's also possible he didn't want to be lead writer only because of Obsidian's management process; from what I remember, he recently said he is open to taking on that position again.