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

[Junmarko]

He's mentioned elsewhere that he didn't really have much power as an owner/creative director. The smallest big fish.

It's common for writers to become alienated by their peers due to the nature of their creative process.

They probably grew to resent his freedom, started stonewalling him out of spite.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

It's common for writers to become alienated by their peers due to the nature of their creative process.

They probably grew to resent his freedom, started stone-walling him out of spite.

It's the other way around. Project lead gets to decide anything he wants, wrote character, had more VO for his character, cut content, humiliated the narrative lead, preventing their best talent to shine, etc. What a mess. This interview is surreal. It's actually worse than I thought.

 

[ga♥]

It seems to me he just didn't want to be a "boss", and the small fish was self-imposed.

It seems to me he regretted this decision once they start ganging up on him out of petty jealousy.

Could be. And I believe he still could have stopped what was going on. Instead he did nothing (for reasons I wish someone would have asked him) and then left the company.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

lophiaspis

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Could be. And I believe he still could have stopped what was going on. Instead he did nothing (for reasons I wish someone would have asked him) and then left the company.

Stopped? How, exactly? This thing was the result of years living together, backstabbing, jealousy and resentment. They were using his name on public, while hating him for the same reason in their daily lives. You know what all mediocre people have in common? They are always eager to organize themselves in order to elliminate the threat of the most talented one. This must be a law of nature, or something. Imagine how many opportunities he lost after all these years working like a horse, trying to fix other people's fuckups and still having to endure this shit. The only surprising thing is that he waited for so long.

 

[ga♥]

Stopped? How, exactly? This thing was the result of years living together, backstabbing, jealousy and resentment. They were using his name on public, while hating him for the same reason in their daily lives. You know what all mediocre people have in common? They are always eager to organize themselves in order to elliminate the threat of the most talented one. This must be a law of nature, or something. Imagine how many opportunities he lost after all these years working like a horse, trying to fix other people's fuckups and still having to endure this shit.

I pretty much agree on this. This happens pretty much in all work environments.
Thing is still can't capacitate myself why would he be doing this while being one of the owners.

The only surprising thing is that he waited for so long.

He alredy said I think he regrets not choosing earlier the freelancing road though.

 

[Infinitron]

Here's my question for Chris Avellone:

Eric Fenstermaker said Durance and the GM had a lot of "creative energy and research" invested in them. You seem to rely on getting approval every step of the way, which makes me wonder how that happened.

Does he? Did he? He didn't actually say.

Regardless of how the cutting of Durance and Grieving Mother was communicated, it remains possible that Avellone had gone out of scope writing them because he was disconnected from what the rest of the team was doing.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Can Chris tell us what his story pitch for PoE was?

Good question. Here is another one: if he were the design lead, what would he do differently? JarlFrank can steal use his answers for his game project.

 

[Fenix]

but no one was articulating what the problems were

Looks like SJW-related stuff and stuff "that you can't speak about" in general.

 

[JarlFrank]

Can Chris tell us what his story pitch for PoE was?

Good question. Here is another one: if he were the design lead, what would he do differently? JarlFrank can steal use his answers for his game project.

Chris Avellone for Realms Beyond Kickstarter stretch goal?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Chris Avellone for Realms Beyond Kickstarter stretch goal?

Nah, lead designer.

 

[Ocelot570]

Does Obsidian just not know what to do anymore? It seems that they have fallen to the curse of mainstream and only make games that will fit the mainstream. PoE II now seems mainstream with all VO when that could have gone into improving the game so much. MCA did say how VO costs so much. The systems or maybe even the story could have been greatly improved if they didn't do as much VO. It sucks to see a once great developer just fall of the ledge into temptation for greater profits when their base so desperately is not the mainstream. They are trying to make a mainstream game for not the mainstream. Does not make any sense.

 

[Iskramor]

Does Obsidian just not know what to do anymore? It seems that they have fallen to the curse of mainstream and only make games that will fit the mainstream. PoE II now seems mainstream with all VO when that could have gone into improving the game so much. MCA did say how VO costs so much. The systems or maybe even the story could have been greatly improved if they didn't do as much VO. It sucks to see a once great developer just fall of the ledge into temptation for greater profits when their base so desperately is not the mainstream. They are trying to make a mainstream game for not the mainstream. Does not make any sense.

Again this old argument against VO. Money could not go into improving game since all talented people left obsidian .So whos gonna improve it??

 

[Infinitron]

Reality check: No isometric/non-action RPG in 2018 is "mainstream". Divinity Original Sin 2 isn't mainstream either. Even NuXCOM isn't really mainstream. They're all highly successful niche games.

 

[Quillon]

1. Project lead gets to decide anything he wants, 2. wrote character, 3. had more VO for his character, 4. cut content, 5. humiliated the narrative lead, 6. preventing their best talent to shine, etc.

1. Yeah but he has to answer to the owners.
2. Yeah.
3. Citation needed. Does Pallegina have more voiced lines than the others?
4. It's his job.
5. Conjecture.
6. Conjecture.

Anyway I think this is related:

 

[Fairfax]

How does he not know how hard T:ToN bombed? Or was this part of the interview done before it came out?

No, that part is recent. I believe he was only referring to the Kickstarter and the opportunity for InXile.

He's mentioned elsewhere that he didn't really have much power as an owner/creative director. The smallest big fish.

It seems to me he just didn't want to be a "boss", and the small fish was self-imposed. He could probably "force" his vision... but he decided not to because he's too nice.
Thats why the appeal for someone to write down a clear hierarchy (someone ELSE, not him).
I am speculating ofcourse.

I think he genuinely values a team's hierarchy, and it's clear Obsidian had issues with owners pulling rank and hurting the process and/or the game. It makes sense that he wouldn't do the same.

 

[Quillon]

How does he not know how hard T:ToN bombed? Or was this part of the interview done before it came out?

No, that part is recent. I believe he was only referring to the Kickstarter and the opportunity for InXile.

He nobly leaves himself out of the list of who benefited from PST. Being associated with PST all these years must have damaged his rep quite badly, prolly he's having a hard time freelancing cos nobody wants to work with the guy who wrote that game which usually sits on top of all time rpg lists.

 

[Neanderthal]

How does he not know how hard T:ToN bombed? Or was this part of the interview done before it came out?

No, that part is recent. I believe he was only referring to the Kickstarter and the opportunity for InXile.

He nobly leaves himself out of the list of who benefited from PST. Being associated with PST all these years must have damaged his rep quite badly, prolly he's having a hard time freelancing cos nobody wants to work with the guy who wrote that game which usually sits on top of all time rpg lists.

Yeah but it almost killed him apparently so two steps forward, two steps back.

 

[SausageInYourFace]

How is it that Sawyer became Narrative Lead even though he isn't exactly known as a writer and his companion for PoE was lacklustre?

 

[Sentinel]

Because he did an outstanding job in structuring the narrative around the faction system in FNV.

 

[Infinitron]

Narrative Lead != Writer. The Lead Narrative Designer is (in theory at least) the guy who determines the broad strokes of the game's story. In PoE1, Eric Fenstermaker was both Lead Narrative Designer and Lead Writer. Lead Writer of PoE2 is assumed to be Carrie Patel.

 

[Junmarko]

Good question. Here is another one: if he were the design lead, what would he do differently?

Design the ideal hierarchy.

(Get Sicilian famiglia to help propose offer to Project Director (one he/she (they+) can't refuse.))

Spoiler

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

1. Project lead gets to decide anything he wants, 2. wrote character, 3. had more VO for his character, 4. cut content, 5. humiliated the narrative lead, 6. preventing their best talent to shine, etc.

1. Yeah but he has to answer to the owners.
2. Yeah.
3. Citation needed. Does Pallegina have more voiced lines than the others?
4. It's his job.
5. Conjecture.
6. Conjecture.

1. This interview suggested a different picture. It was obvious that Feargus, Parker and the others only did what Sawyer told them. They treated Avellone like a juniour design with no experience and he was "an owner".

3. This is an inference I made based on the interview. He suggested that some NPCs had more VO than others, and it was implicit that his characters suffered more cuts.

4. Done poorly, because he cuted the wrong content. In any scenario you can think of, the game would be much better with one of these Avellone NPC quets, which was exactly what this game lacked.

5. This was suggested by Avellone in the interview. If by this evidentiary standards this is a conjecture, we can't take any of Sawyer's tweets for granted, because it will be all conjecture by this point. The words of one guy against the other. What breaks the tie in this discussion is that they would never choose such small role for Avellone if weren't for petty jealousy. That's obvious.

6. Only if you considered the difference in talent between Avellone and the rest of the team a conjecture.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Anyway I think this is related

Bragging about his role "model" in F:NV, that game that had all the development tools at their disposition from the conception and yet was released with tons of bugs. I guess all that time wasted taking pictures of the desert and recording western songs could be better implemented fixing the bugs that gave them a bad rep and made them lose a significant bonus, but maybe that's conjecture. Here is another conjecture: most of them were happy in New Vegas was Avellone was trying to save Alpha Protocol because someone else had to fix their fuck ups.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

lophiaspis, did you remove the picture? WTF?