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

[Kyl Von Kull]

You don’t have to be a communist to support unions, for fuck’s sake. Do you guys enjoy the weekend? The forty hour work week? Well then say thank you to organized labor.

Sawyer is not a communist and he just gave a big pro union speech.

 

[Blaine]

A lot of fascists went and stayed underground when the Soviets liberated their countries, so I've no doubt that what you're saying is true. You, personally, that is.

Funny thing though, people were only going one way over the Berlin Wall.

You don’t have to be a communist to support unions, for fuck’s sake. Do you guys enjoy the weekend? The forty hour work week? Well then say thank you to organized labor.

Sawyer is not a communist and he just gave a bit pro union speech.

Yeah, but if you start talking about things like unionization, the resident commie LARPers will come crawling out of the woodwork.

 

[Prime Junta]

You don’t have to be a communist to support unions, for fuck’s sake. Do you guys enjoy the weekend? The forty hour work week? Well then say thank you to organized labor.

Indeed, Comrade. Fellow travelers are most welcome to pave the way for the Revolution.

 

[Tom Selleck]

I think it would be super cool to drink a beer on a patio with MCA. Wearing sunglasses, and maybe shorts.

What kind of beer?

If you say IPA ima have to fight you.

*unbuttons top button of pants*

I think I have a couple Granville Island Maple Shack Cream Ales left in the fridge.

Also, I guess I should add that I, too, cancelled my Deadfire preorder, and I don't know if this helps out, but I bought a copy of that pixel robot game you worked on, Chris, so hopefully you get a penny from it somehow, or the company makes more games down the road that give you pennies. I probably won't ever play the little robot game, but I'll buy Kingmaker when it comes out.

 

[Mustawd]

I think I have a couple Granville Island Maple Shack Cream Ales left in the fridge.

How is it? Ales are my fav, but never heard of a "cream" ale.

 

[Imoens pet]

Well for what it's worth I cancelled my preorder too.

 

[AwesomeButton]

Also, the opinions of people who actually lived under communist rule are null and void, because that wasn't REAL communism.

The majority of Eastern Europeans feel they were better off under Communism.

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/2gpfmp/polls_show_eastern_europeans_miss_communism/

Between 50 and 60% of Russians miss the USSR.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...t-union/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.9ead284b6913

Lol, Junta, before you go and post stupidities get at least a minimum of education on a subject. Ofc everyone from the former Eastern Bloc says they felt better in the old days. The reasons are multiple, and have little to do with how free, affluent or secure they were.

Protip: If you want a good marker, look not at what they are reminiscing about but at the direction into which they are massively emigrating That's a marker that doesn't lie.

 

[Glaucon]

But I seriously don't understand how anyone can take seriously Marxist rhetoric in the context of white collar, bourgeois work.

The colour of your collar doesn't matter if you're working 90-hour weeks with no paid overtime and are a slave to the whims of a majority owner who can "de-ownerise" you on a whim. Industrial production is mostly automated so blue-collar workers are a much smaller and less powerful contingent than they used to be, but the economic dynamics of capitalist exploitation haven't changed one whit. The Communist Manifesto is truer now than it was in 1848.

(N.b., just in case you were wondering, my agitation is sometimes a bit on the ironic side but I am being deadly serious now.)

He's not a slave, not even metaphorically and neither are you. None of the concrete issues you're describing can't be resolved in the context of Capitalism, and in fact are routinely resolved.

 

[Glaucon]

"Blacks actually liked Slavery! Look, we even have some old interviews with slaves where they say so!"

 

[Rivmusique]

 

[AwesomeButton]

Hey retards. Take it to politics subforum. FFS.

It's sad when a mexican tells you to stfu. We're trying to siesta here, you morons.

I actually think I should make a thread about totalitarian regimes in the politics subforum. I figure there are enough people here it would trigger.

Returning to topic: I find it amazing that working in software development in California, someone would tolerate delays in payment for a week, much less a month or more. If my salary gets delayed, I can post my notice within days and will have a new job lined up at a better place in the span of a week or two at most, depending on how I can schedule meetings.

One caveat though, I guess people whose payments were being delayed were working on "creative", not "software enginеer" positions? Without falling into sterotyping, (there is Blaine to do that ) it seems that one sort of employees are in a much larger supply than the latter? And much more tolerant of being mistreated by management? Why would that be? Could it be that their perceived value is smaller?

 

[Jarpie]

Get the political talk to the politics forum for fucks sake. I rarely care about going off-topic but in this instance, I'd prefer the topic to be clean.

 

[Nutria]

I bought a copy of that pixel robot game

You had better fucking play it too. Seriously, it deserves that.

 

[Alienman]

It's just a sideshow until the next Avellone post.

 

[AN4RCHID]

keep the commie-posts coming, I can do this all day

 

[Mustawd]

Hey retards. Take it to politics subforum. FFS.

It's sad when a mexican tells you to stfu. We're trying to siesta here, you morons.

I actually think I should make a thread about totalitarian regimes in the politics subforum. I figure there are enough people here it would trigger.

Returning to topic: I find it amazing that working in software development in California, someone would tolerate delays in payment for a week, much less a month or more. If my salary gets delayed, I can post my notice within days and will have a new job lined up at a better place in the span of a week or two at most, depending on how I can schedule meetings.

One caveat though, I guess people whose payments were being delayed were working on "creative", not "software enginner" positions? Without falling into sterotyping, (there is Blaine to do that ) it seems that one sort of employees are in a much larger supply than the latter? And much more tolerant of being mistreated by management? Why would that be? Could it be that their perceived value is smaller?

Llama-Yak Hybrid , don't read this post buddy.

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

This post is not sarcastic.

How can I be sure that this wasn't posted sarcastically?

 

[ZagorTeNej]

Did the thread about this get deleted on the official Obsidian forum? Can't seem to find it.

https://forums.obsidian.net/topic/97103-chris-avellone-the-final-frontier/page-14

Wow the discussion on the Obsidian forums has taken a very radical pro-Obsidian turn.

Taken? It has been bootlicking central since page 1. Gotta love the sheer unadulterated sycophancy and rationalizations of unethical behaviour (it's just how business works guise) all the while condemning Avellone for airing dirty laundry.

Well guess what, mismanaging and alienating one of the biggest assets/names in the industry (atleast the RPG niche) to such a degree is bad business. They have no leverage to keep him mum on the topic, he doesn't need their reference or influence to ply his trade. Doors will always be open to him while they're busy doing their usual routine of scrounging for scraps from the publishers in-between routine massive layoffs, it's hardly a stretch to say that they need him (especially given how much they were milking his name while he was still employed there) more than he needs them.

Obsidian is big but not at the level that they're bulletproof from very condemning criticism from someone like Avellone, it is damaging to their reputation. Time will tell how much.

 

[Rivmusique]

This one?

MCA would never use that one, he hates Nihilus with a face:

Don't call Darth Nihilus "the face" of KOTOR2 around Chris Avellone, though. He doesn't like that. "One pet peeve I've always had about the Nihilus [art] that sometimes people use is there was never intended to be any hint of what was beyond the mask, so every time I see the Nihilus picture and there's the outline of his nose behind the mask, I freak out! It's supposed to be a void - that's the metaphor of what he is, so it drives me crazy when they try and imply that he's human."

A small voice, that of lead concept artist Brian Menze, interjects. He drew that nose for a magazine cover way back when. "Chris didn't like it but he went soft on me that day and let it go," he says. "I wish he would have stopped me because we probably wouldn't be in this predicament any more if he had." Nevertheless, Menze earned lasting prestige by creating Nihilus, a concept created and greenlit in all of 15 minutes. "That character has gone on to be bigger than the game we created, and I'm very thankful for that."

Intentional slight imo.

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

Infinitron

Can we please move the communism bs from Prime Junta to GD, where it belongs?

 

[Prime Junta]

One caveat though, I guess people whose payments were being delayed were working on "creative", not "software enginеer" positions? Without falling into sterotyping, (there is Blaine to do that ) it seems that one sort of employees are in a much larger supply than the latter? And much more tolerant of being mistreated by management? Why would that be? Could it be that their perceived value is smaller?

It's very telling that you seem to be perfectly cool with this.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-2/mswv2_03.htm

Infinitron

Can we please move the communism bs from Prime Junta to GD, where it belongs?

When people call for this kind of thing, it's a sure sign they feel they're on the winning side of an argument.

 

[Mustawd]

Infinitron

Can we please move the communism bs from Prime Junta to GD, where it belongs?

Infinitron!

 

[Prime Junta]

Okay, I'll stop. Those desperate cries to Mom for help are delicious enough.

edit: for now, if Chris creates another teachable moment you bet I'm gonna go agitprop on your asses again

 

[Mustawd]

Okay, I'll stop. Those desperate cries to Mom for help are delicious enough.

No, you're just bad at this. I've heard 100 times better arguments from Orma for communism.

It's like you're bad at explaining concepts. Hmm...like explaining combat in a particular game.

 

[Kleptocratic debt serf]

I usually just lurk, but this thread delivers by the super volcano load... Buddha said it best,

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth."

My hope is that Mr. Avellone with continue to find tremendous RPG design/development opportunities. If he were to be the lead writer for ELEX II...

Oh and while scanning the interwebs for some related news, I stumbled across another forum, resetera. Those guys have a number of the most massive, wrecked, trembling poontangs - I mean they make the RPGwatch look like Malcolm X. Disclaimer, a few of them might be alright. But damn, I had no idea that the Codex's open dialogue and light handed approach to moderation were so fucking offensive to the self-cocooning leftist troglodyte masses.

Be aware, not that im denying anything, but grains of salt might be useful, as the Codex is an Avellone fanboy haven that tends to shit on devs like Obsidian in current times and is full of honestly trash people. I mean, just browse some of the codex threads and you get a sense of the type of folk that hang out there. They have something to gain from dropping this right before Pillars 2 comes out.

For the record I seriously doubt he's lying, I just wish literally any other website got this interview.

Frankly, a bunch of his story makes little sense. Can anyone with any knowledge of business law comment on the "de-owner" thing? Your ownership of part of a company can't just be removed without some form of compensation. The fact that he's airing this stuff to sycophantic white supremacists instead of any actual reporters like Jason Schrier does not increase his credibility.

The site is full of white supremacists and adores Avellone. In the same thread he has also spent a fair amount of times bad-mouthing former co-workers, one of whom has rejected his account. It's entirely possible some shady shit went down, but frankly I don't find Avellone's one-sided accounts to a sycophantic audience of alt-righters a credible basis for any kind of conclusion.

Some of them were very upset that the game portrayed a matriarchal society (I think? haven't played the game yet) and that female companions outnumbered males. It's not realistic, you know.

Larian handles codex the best. They acknowledge their existence and maintain its a very scary place and they dont want to anger them with bad games.

Apparently RPG Codex didn't go full alt-right until gamergate, so a lot of people you might not expect have legacy accounts there (like Eric Fenstermaker and other Obsidian devs) and occasionally they get interesting interviews. But to be choosing their forums as your audience for something like this, in the year of our lord 2018... oy.

The Codex is an alt-right cesspool of misogyny and white supremacy, and Avellone is a disgruntled former employee rehashing office politics to an audience of internet trolls egging him on. That's not cutting through bullshit, that's piling bullshit on top of bullshit until the silo overflows and everyone can smell it. I'm sure there's truth in there, but I don't think any outside observers have any way pulling it out of said bullshit.

What is this a joke? Have you been to the site in the last 10 years?

There is plenty more there to get the blood flowing, but apparently this the_wart guy has some deep closeted RPGcodex envy. He is sporting some massive love/hate wood. Can't blame him, being able to freely express oneself without fear of the ban hammer is a bit much for your typical SJW milk-toast. Egalitarianism and secular humanism are for cucks. I love how he invokes the whole "this in the year 2018" what the fuck kind of appeal to chronological snobbery is that.