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

[agris]

Chris Avellone I remember you wanting to make The Wire RPG. How were you imagining it would pan out in terms of gameplay? Since there should be little combat in it.

I've always imagined it to be like No Truce With the Furies, +25 years, - 3 blots of LSD.

 

[Kasparov]

I've always imagined it to be like No Truce With the Furies, +25 years, - 3 blots of LSD.

*cough* Disco Elysium *cough*

 

[ColonelTeacup]

This thread is still going? What more could there possibly be to ask about?

 

[Mikeal]

This thread is still going? What more could there possibly be to ask about?

How long is his dick.

 

[set]

Knowing what you know, what would you have done differently about financially unimpactful games like Alpha Protocol or KOTOR2 - that are actually pretty solid in some respects? Or were those games just destined for having the level of success that they did.

I recently started replaying AP again and...I actually find some parts of the writing to be a little odder than I remember. Steven Heck is one - you just kind of randomly meet him in HK and while a "crazy conspiracy nut" is a welcome addition to any spy game, he just feels totally out of place and I think overall hurts the game's narrative. If you let him, he'll just run around invincibly murdering people in your HK missions without any honest reprocussions besides Mina quirking an eyebrow at you for letting a maniac run loose.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I recently started replaying AP again and...I actually find some parts of the writing to be a little odder than I remember. Steven Heck is one - you just kind of randomly meet him in HK and while a "crazy conspiracy nut" is a welcome addition to any spy game, he just feels totally out of place and I think overall hurts the game's narrative. If you let him, he'll just run around invincibly murdering people in your HK missions without any honest reprocussions besides Mina quirking an eyebrow at you for letting a maniac run loose.

Alpha Protocol's tone, in terms of plot and characterization, is inconsistent between regions, with Taipei and Moscow being ludicrously over-the-top while Rome and Saudi Arabia are relatively restrained and down-to-earth. Not sure if that was simply the result of having different writers on different sections of the game, or if there was another cause.

 

[J_C]

Knowing what you know, what would you have done differently about financially unimpactful games like Alpha Protocol or KOTOR2 - that are actually pretty solid in some respects? Or were those games just destined for having the level of success that they did.

I recently started replaying AP again and...I actually find some parts of the writing to be a little odder than I remember. Steven Heck is one - you just kind of randomly meet him in HK and while a "crazy conspiracy nut" is a welcome addition to any spy game, he just feels totally out of place and I think overall hurts the game's narrative. If you let him, he'll just run around invincibly murdering people in your HK missions without any honest reprocussions besides Mina quirking an eyebrow at you for letting a maniac run loose.

Blasphemy! Steven Heck is blood. Steven Heck is life!

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

It literally looks like they took the male face, added lipstick, make-up and gigantic tits and that's how God created German females.

 

[Roguey]

Alpha Protocol's tone, in terms of plot and characterization, is inconsistent between regions, with Taipei and Moscow being ludicrously over-the-top while Rome and Saudi Arabia are relatively restrained and down-to-earth. Not sure if that was simply the result of having different writers on different sections of the game, or if there was another cause.

Taipei was the only area not written by Avellone. Everything else was his.

I wouldn't really call anything in AP "restrained" and "down-to-Earth" though sure, those two hubs don't have characters as goofy as Heck, Brayko, and SIE. There's still the gelato man, SIE humming Ride of the Valkyries if you choose her as a handler for Marburg's mansion, and Thorton blowing up a tank.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

I wouldn't really call anything in AP "restrained" and "down-to-Earth" though sure, those two hubs don't have characters as goofy as Heck, Brayko, and SIE. There's still the gelato man, SIE humming Ride of the Valkyries if you choose her as a handler for Marburg's mansion, and Thorton blowing up a tank.

Hence my use of the word relatively as no section attempts complete realism, and Thornton is still a super-spy who mows down dozens of enemies backed up only by a mission controller and a safehouse. However, Alpha Protocol begins with the Saudia Arabia missions aimed at taking down a jihadist leader and financier, with the non-realistic elements confined to Thornton being a Bond-esque superspy (which is necessary for the gameplay) and the eventual, obligatory revelations about a conspiracy involving a massive arms manufacturer (Halbech). Rome has brief comic relief provided by the gelato man, with the non-realistic elements confined to the shooter gameplay (as always) and Halbech operative Marburg being a bit like a supervillain (complete with moral dilemma about saving random civilians versus saving Madison). By contrast, Taipei has Steven Heck involved in most missions, plus a Chinese super-spy who turns out to be a Taiwanese double-agent and a photojournalist who assists Thornton but is secretly a super-assassin hired by Halbech. Moscow has SIE (female, flirtatious, ex-Stasi killer employed by super-mercenary group), Sis (female, mute, orphaned, underage killer employed by the other super-mercenary group), and Brayko (Russian mobster who adorns his villa with Western '80s pop culture and snorts cocaine to gain super-combat prowess). I also recall the contents of the missions being generally more over-the-top in Moscow and Taipei than in Saudi Arabia and Rome, though it's been a long time since I played AP so I can't remember the details.

 

[Nutria]

There is some dissonance between the different cities, but I'd say the worst parts of Alpha Protocol are wherever it takes itself seriously. Brayko being obsessed with the '80s is dumb, but it's not as dumb as Marburg trying to make money through terrorism. The guy has got a legitimate mercenary business going on, so he could make a fortune for himself guarding pipelines in Angola or something. He has no need to take the risk of blowing up a bunch of Europeans. And how is Halbech going to pay him? How do they hide their massive slush fund for payments to terrorists from their own shareholders? How is Marburg going to launder so much money while the economy is tanking and there's a wave of terrorist attacks drawing extreme scrutiny of any suspicious financial dealings? How does Marburg trust that everyone else involved in this operation, from his foot soldiers to his bankers, will keep quiet when it turns to mass murder?

I'd never even ask those questions about Brayko because he's not played straight as a character you're supposed to take seriously.

 

[Darth Roxor]

And how is Halbech going to pay him?

They will send missiles filled with money his way.

 

[Roguey]

Brayko being obsessed with the '80s is dumb

Strong disagreement, the in-game dossier gives a plausible explanation.

Brayko's taste in clothing and decorum is undisputedly tacky... the result of a flood of American culture hitting Moscow after the wall fell. While others immersed themselves in Western culture classics, Brayko fed on the sights and sounds of the 80s. Unlike other mobsters in Moscow who took their cue from the Francis Ford Coppola movie -The Godfather - Brayko found more empathy with The Outsiders, and the gang he controls is nicknamed after it.

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

There is some dissonance between the different cities, but I'd say the worst parts of Alpha Protocol are wherever it takes itself seriously. Brayko being obsessed with the '80s is dumb, but it's not as dumb as Marburg trying to make money through terrorism. The guy has got a legitimate mercenary business going on, so he could make a fortune for himself guarding pipelines in Angola or something. He has no need to take the risk of blowing up a bunch of Europeans. And how is Halbech going to pay him? How do they hide their massive slush fund for payments to terrorists from their own shareholders? How is Marburg going to launder so much money while the economy is tanking and there's a wave of terrorist attacks drawing extreme scrutiny of any suspicious financial dealings? How does Marburg trust that everyone else involved in this operation, from his foot soldiers to his bankers, will keep quiet when it turns to mass murder?

I'd never even ask those questions about Brayko because he's not played straight as a character you're supposed to take seriously.

Marburg's situation is character sketch and criticism of the Private military and Mainstream Journalism: how the former can easily provide skills for terrorism and how the latter can be tricked/paid to misreport the situation without any real "journalism".

 

[Drax]

So I'm guessing MCA finally talked to a lawyer who told him to GTFO THAT NAZI SCUM DEN and that's why he stopped posting.

 

[PorkBarrellGuy]

So I'm guessing MCA finally talked to a lawyer who told him to GTFO THAT NAZI SCUM DEN and that's why he stopped posting.

Well that's no fucking fun at all. Shakespeare was right about killing all the lawyers, he was.

 

[Bladeract]

There is some dissonance between the different cities, but I'd say the worst parts of Alpha Protocol are wherever it takes itself seriously. Brayko being obsessed with the '80s is dumb, but it's not as dumb as Marburg trying to make money through terrorism. The guy has got a legitimate mercenary business going on, so he could make a fortune for himself guarding pipelines in Angola or something. He has no need to take the risk of blowing up a bunch of Europeans. And how is Halbech going to pay him? How do they hide their massive slush fund for payments to terrorists from their own shareholders? How is Marburg going to launder so much money while the economy is tanking and there's a wave of terrorist attacks drawing extreme scrutiny of any suspicious financial dealings? How does Marburg trust that everyone else involved in this operation, from his foot soldiers to his bankers, will keep quiet when it turns to mass murder?

I'd never even ask those questions about Brayko because he's not played straight as a character you're supposed to take seriously.

It's like the antivirus industry/scam. The ones who benefit from terrorism is the ones paid to fight it and they can be the same people.

 

[Chris Avellone]

Well that's no fucking fun at all. Shakespeare was right about killing all the lawyers, he was.

It's not that, it's just that it's close to E3, so developers (including me) tend to be a lot busier preparing for the expo/rehearsing for the expo.

Also, have a major writing deadline this month, so it's been consuming most of my time.

Although, unless someone else comes forward, I don't have much more to add to the original part of the thread (but there's a list of questions I missed in my inbox I need to get to, since one of the Codex was kind enough to compile the ones I missed and send them to me). If someone else does step up to speak about their Obsidian experience (either within the company or from a publisher perspective), however, I'm happy to lend my knowledge of events to back them. Again, what I posted is about 30% of the Obsidian story.

That said, I guess I could pass along some other tidbits:

One, when J.R. Vosovic criticized New Vegas' crunch time development, the person who chose to respond (anonymously) was one of the owners: Darren. But he unfortunately, phrased his response in such a way it made it seem like it was Josh who was responding to JR's blog (although Josh was upset by JR's comments, too, I believe he brought it up with JR directly vs. Darren's response, which just confused the issue - and JR's response to Darren's anonymous comment wasn't positive).

Two, when the Stormlands layoffs happened, that was only the first wave - not long after, we lost a second round of employees who then left because the company situation was clearly unstable. (While this is a naive scenario, I do wish we could have anticipated that if only to keep some of the others we let go if we'd known others would move on - we lost a lot of the people we wanted to retain, so the layoffs and Stormlands cancellation shot us in the foot, not once, but twice.)

Three, we never did find out who made the AP-critical comment about Chris Parker, but we suspected it was one of the gameplay programmers on Alpha Protocol (and whether it was or not, his experience was by no means unique) - but looking at the list, very few of them would have ever made a comment on a forum like that, since that wasn't what most of them were like (Michael, Nicolas, etc. weren't the type of people to do a comment like that, ever).

Back to writing and expo preparing.

 

[Drax]

 

[conan_edw]

What type of preparation do you need for the E3, will you be on stage?

 

[J_C]

What type of preparation do you need for the E3, will you be on stage?

Maybe he is arranging interviews and connects with other developers who he will meet there.

 

[The_Mask]

Back to writing

Possibly one of the last few people in video game development to type out those words, and get me emotionally involved/interested or excited.

 

[commie]

Brayko being obsessed with the '80s is dumb

Strong disagreement, the in-game dossier gives a plausible explanation.

Brayko's taste in clothing and decorum is undisputedly tacky... the result of a flood of American culture hitting Moscow after the wall fell. While others immersed themselves in Western culture classics, Brayko fed on the sights and sounds of the 80s. Unlike other mobsters in Moscow who took their cue from the Francis Ford Coppola movie -The Godfather - Brayko found more empathy with The Outsiders, and the gang he controls is nicknamed after it.

If you actually are lucky enough to live in Eastern Europe you will find that Brayko was actually quite a common archetype of gangster/chad here(at least in the 90's to the earlier 2000's. Not so much now as Russia and the east in general have moved past that era) but at the time of AP, mullets and tight tees were still popular-ish.

80's are still present among the nerds though.

 

[Immortal]

ITT: felipepepe derails a thread complaining about thread derailment.

Also ITT: wtf I love Chris Avellone now..
How refreshing to hear your real opinion on these topics instead of the happy go-lucky feel good stuff.

Fantastic read.

 

[Neanderthal]

What type of preparation do you need for the E3, will you be on stage?

Drugs and hookers don't just buy emsens you know.