Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[IHaveHugeNick]

KOTOR2 isn't exactly a pearl of amazing level design. Dxun and Onderon weren't awful but that's about as good as it gets. Really the only thing worth a damn in it was the writing, but that really /is/ far and away the best Star Wars writing anywhere, including the films.

Nigga pls.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Quillon]

Chris clarified what his ideal team structure would be like. It would be something like this:

"Systems trumps the levels, levels trump the story", he says.

Aren't most dev teams in the industry structured this way? Maybe not the designers column exactly tho. Again, I think his main problem is efficiency; not loosing time with design stalemates, too many meetings to solve every decision any leads make. This structure is just his thinking that would minimize the said issues.

The Chain That Binds is the cornerstone of our organization, the rock that supports the great tree of the Brotherhood and its myriad branches. It holds that:

1. Orders are to flow from on high down through the ranks. An order from a superior must always be obeyed, that their wisdom may be carried out without hesitation.

2. Orders are to observe the flow and not skip ranks. A superior may only give orders to his direct subordinates, and not to those beneath them. In this way harmony of intent and cohesion of thought is maintained.

MCA is very critical of leads holding too many titles, and PoE had Sawyer as Project Director, Lead Designer, Lead Systems Designer and Narrative Designer.

This was mostly out of necessity and hardly a good example how Obs run their Projects, everyone wore many hats in Pillars 1's development and because Josh can multitask more efficiently than most developers apparently. He's now Game Director and Narrative Lead & Designer, if Eric didn't quit he'd be wearing 1 less hat, more people = less hats to wear. And I'd argue that Chris wore too many of the same hats, working for other companies' games while they had to make PoE with limited resources. I don't think anyone would have said no if he wanted more responsibilities in PoE's development, he worked for PoE as a contract writer, handed in his work and full time writers fit it in the game.

 

[DragoFireheart]

I think Peragus is quite good. From memory it's better than most of the later KotOR 2 areas.

what the fuck

 

[Sensuki]

Birds of a shitfeather flock together.

 

[Fairfax]

Aren't most dev teams in the industry structured this way? Maybe not the designers column exactly tho. Again, I think his main problem is efficiency; not loosing time with design stalemates, too many meetings to solve every decision any leads make. This structure is just his thinking that would minimize the said issues.

The different designer hierarchy is the whole point, though.

This was mostly out of necessity

The team wasn't particularly large, but they had plenty of designers available, including Bobby Null, who became Lead Designer on PoE2. Sawyer being a Narrative Designer was hardly necessary, and nothing of value would've been lost without Pallegina.

hardly a good example how Obs run their Projects,

He did the same thing on FNV, and probably Aliens as well.

Josh can multitask more efficiently than most developers apparently.

Hard to say without similar games and teams to compare. Sawyer admitted he didn't even know how the Temple of Eothas was balanced, for instance, and he sure as hell didn't notice all the trash mobs. Even if he's a good multitasker, at some point it starts to hurt the game.

And I'd argue that Chris wore too many of the same hats, working for other companies' games while they had to make PoE with limited resources.

MCA left Tyranny because PoE had him too busy, and his other contributions at the time were only minor roles on WL2 and FTL AE. Not the same thing at all.

The only games led by MCA were PS:T and KOTOR2. Both had simple structures without systems designers or area designers, so one can argue he had multiple de facto roles as Lead Designer. Still, even if he's guilty of wearing too many hats in the past, he's the first to criticize his own work, so I don't see the issue there. Also, the FNV DLCs were pretty much in line with his proposal, and those were the last projects with him as Project Director.

 

[Darth Roxor]

peragus is great on first playthrough

after that... its not so great

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

2 years of Avellone hinting in endless tweets and interviews that his beef was with upper management, and Fairfax still keeps pushing his Sawyer vs. Avellone version. Gotta admire the dedication, but I have to ask, at which point will you admit that you've had no idea what the fuck you are talking about this entire time and were just conjuring imaginary narratives out of your bowels?

 

[Infinitron]

I think you're being unfair to Fairfax there. From what I've seen he's not a big "Sawyer vs Avellone" believer.

 

[Quillon]

MCA left Tyranny because PoE had him too busy, and his other contributions at the time were only minor roles on WL2 and FTL AE. Not the same thing at all.

Designing/writing for 4 completely different games is not the same with wearing too many hats for 1 game, yeah. Again it was mostly out of necessity(can't say the same for MCA), you can hear the same arguments from other devs who worked on PoE1 and how different it is to them working on Deadfire. I don't know why he didn't give the lead designer position to BN or wrote Pallegina or why he took on the narrative lead role for Deadfire in addition to directing it and working on P&P game alongside; maybe its just cos he believes he can do a good job with all of that and others in the studio also believe that he can or at least they don't object, apparently.

 

[Starwars]

peragus is great on first playthrough

after that... its not so great

It's not great on the first playthrough either. It's a piece of shit that drags on for too long, has boring enemies and choices that amount to shit. It's terrible.

I get what they were trying to do with it but just... no. It's bad.

 

[DragoFireheart]

peragus is great on first playthrough

after that... its not so great

It's not great on the first playthrough either. It's a piece of shit that drags on for too long, has boring enemies and choices that amount to shit. It's terrible.

I get what they were trying to do with it but just... no. It's bad.

Which is worse: Fallout 2 intro dungeon or Kotor2 intro dungeon?

 

[undecaf]

The latter.

 

[StrongBelwas]

It isn't that hard to speed through F2's dungeon and get to the nonlinear part of the game. Peragus will take a lot more simply because of all the mandatory combat and then you have the early sections of Citadel Station.

 

[Freddie]

Chris clarified what his ideal team structure would be like. It would be something like this:

"Systems trumps the levels, levels trump the story", he says.

EDIT:

Note that the term "Project Director" varies from studio to studio, but in this case it's the chief vision holder who can guide the course of the game (and at times, they may share one of the Lead or other roles). They make all the final calls on the content, although ideally, they will have assembled leads that work with each other and production to settle on the best issues in advance before anyone needs to "intervene" in a stalemate (usually any reasonable conversation between leads will reveal the best course of action, usually when put into context by the producer's metrics - "well, we really only have 2.5 weeks to do this and two animators free, which means we could do X and Y or Y and Z in the time provided, but not X, Y, and Z unless we got more resources or time.")

RPGamer interview, if it hasn't been posted yet: https://www.rpgamer.com/features/2017/interviews/chrisavelloneint2017.html

Here's a snip:

JS: I have read in interviews that it seems one of the reasons you left Obsidian was due to creative differences you had with management. First, is that correct? And if so, has going freelance helped to allowed you the creative freedom you desired?
CA: No, the departure was largely due to organizational and management aspects – not anything to do with the developers and folks who worked on the games. And please don't think this is somehow implying I'm a great manager, I'm not. I don't read tons of management books, I don't hang around with agents and business development reps, and I often feel lost around managers and CEOs because I don’t understand a lot of the jargon. In general, my management approach is more about establishing hierarchy, setting expectations, trusting people with the proper title and roles, giving consistent feedback (esp. positive feedback – which is more important when it isn't accompanied by negative feedback), don't play favorites or hire family/friends, and recognizing that if one doesn't have enough money and one doesn't have enough time to make a good game, figure out (1) how it got to that point so you don't repeat it, and (2) what can be done right now to fix both for the sake of a project – even if it means personal sacrifice of time, and your own funds to make a good game.

People has pointed out humble attitude, but for me the most striking thing is honesty. There were several quite politely formatted comments posted regarding crunch culture in industry. The thing is, nobody is calling out that it happens because someone fucked up. When it keeps happening again and again, it means somebody isn't neither learning or getting the memo.

In military situations where squad held bridge against overwhelming odds when enemy tried to take it with company of troops, those soldiers in a squad are applauded as heroes, maybe even decorated. But among officers, the most important discussion is, how did this situation, weakness happened to begin with? Who, how, when? What can be learned from this not to be in this position again?

What I read Avellone's leading style, I think wonder if he considers his management skills not to be that great because he realises, that even with good team it great feature, as a strength, it's situational (he even admits he's not up with the jargon.)

Anyway, Avellone sounds like a guy who may call out this sort of bullshit just because he is that sort of guy and for second reason, he probably likes to work with people whom brains are fit and crunch culture is counter productive to that sort of leadership.

Crunch culture seems complicated, and it varies with each studio. It could happen for reasons other than management failing to do their job. Here's an interesting article on the subject.
Also Jason Schreier's book, which covers crunch culture in several projects:

Some argue that crunch represents failure of leadership and project management—that for employees to spend months working fourteen-hour days, usually for no extra money, is unconscionable. Others wonder how games can be made without it.

“We crunch on all of our games for sure,” said Naughty Dog’s copresident Evan Wells. “It’s never mandated. We never say, ‘OK, it’s six days a week, OK, it’s sixty hours a week.’ We never [change] our forty-hour expectation or our core hours, which are ten thirty a.m. to six thirty p.m. . . . People put in a lot more hours, but it’s based on their own fuel, how much they have in their tank.” Of course, there was always a cascading effect: when one designer stayed late to finish a level, others would feel pressured to stay late, too. Every Naughty Dog employee knew that the company had certain standards of quality, and that hitting those standards would always mean putting in overtime. Besides, what self-respecting artist wouldn’t want to milk every hour to make his or her work as good as possible?

This left Darrah and his team with two options. Option one was to settle for an incomplete game, full of rough drafts and untested ideas. In a post-DA2 world, that wasn’t an appealing thought—they couldn’t disappoint fans again. They needed to take the time to revise and polish every aspect of Inquisition. “I think Dragon Age: Inquisition is a direct response to Dragon Age 2,” said Cameron Lee. “Inquisition was bigger than it needed to be. It had everything but the kitchen sink in it, to the point where we went too far. . . . I think that having to deal with Dragon Age 2 and the negative feedback we got on some parts of that was driving the team to want to put everything in and try to address every little problem or perceived problem.”

The other option was to crunch. The Dragon Age team had gone through various periods of extended overtime during Inquisition’s development, but this would be the worst yet. It would mean months of never-ending late nights and weekends in the office. It would lead to, as Shane Hawco, put it, “a lot of lost family time.” “I would love to have no crunch ever,” said Aaryn Flynn. “I think it remains to be seen whether crunching actually works. Obviously a ton of literature says it doesn’t. [But] I think everybody finds a time in their development careers where you’re going, ‘I don’t see what options we have.’”

Thank you for this. Very interesting read, linked material included. To cut this short, adding new features and keeping polishing the knobs is a failure, even though people don't like to call it that. Especially article you linked points out some obvious things and has some good questions in it. What can be read between the lines is important too.

What comes to Avellone, for me it looks like he likes to define borders of the box first. Leads have quite a lot of responsibility but box is supposed to keep it together. I think they did wonders with KotOR 2 with everything being against them, communication, schedule. New Vegas too was something else compared to FO3. I think I should find Alpha Protocol Post Mortem somewhere and read it too. What sort of decisions were behind that game, game so many wanted to like.

Wearing too many hats so to say, can definitely be problematic in any project. Feature bloat etc. it all comes from somewhere.

 

[Prime Junta]

Where I'm from, overtime is expensive, and weekend or night overtime is stupid expensive. Surprise surprise, crunch is rare. When workers have rights, things change.

 

[santino27]

Where I'm from, overtime is expensive, and weekend or night overtime is stupid expensive. Surprise surprise, crunch is rare. When workers have rights, things change.

Here, salary = no overtime. It's not a great tradeoff, especially in at-will employment states where you can still be terminated at any time, for largely any reason.

 

[Fairfax]

Thank you for this. Very interesting read, linked material included. To cut this short, adding new features and keeping polishing the knobs is a failure, even though people don't like to call it that. Especially article you linked points out some obvious things and has some good questions in it. What can be read between the lines is important too.

What comes to Avellone, for me it looks like he likes to define borders of the box first. Leads have quite a lot of responsibility but box is supposed to keep it together. I think they did wonders with KotOR 2 with everything being against them, communication, schedule. New Vegas too was something else compared to FO3. I think I should find Alpha Protocol Post Mortem somewhere and read it too. What sort of decisions were behind that game, game so many wanted to like.

Wearing too many hats so to say, can definitely be problematic in any project. Feature bloat etc. it all comes from somewhere.

Feature bloat is a "failure", sure, but what the developers say in the book is that a lot of the time it starts organically. The developer thinks "if I just work X more hours, I know I can squeeze this feature in". It all adds up, and then the whole team is working insane hours, the game is a mess at launch, etc.

As for MCA, it sounds like his best experience in that regard was with FNV DLCs, but those were much smaller projects, so we'll only know for sure with the next game he leads.

Where I'm from, overtime is expensive, and weekend or night overtime is stupid expensive. Surprise surprise, crunch is rare. When workers have rights, things change.

If crunch becomes unviable, publishers simply outsource part of the work to studios and/or individuals from places where workers have fewer rights and labour is cheaper.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/money/mark...stry-is-powering-down-on-employees/ar-BBzF4sg
https://www.polygon.com/2017/3/31/15125824/games-companies-outsourcing
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2016-12-15-why-outsourcing-doesnt-work (title is clickbait)

Even smaller projects have outsourced work now, including PoE, which had some of the maps and art made by Streamline Studios.

 

[Prime Junta]

If crunch becomes unviable, publishers simply outsource part of the work to studios and/or individuals from places where workers have fewer rights and labour is cheaper.

Isn't happening over here. On the contrary, games have been the fastest-growing industry for a while now. Supercell is in the next building over from where I work. Rovio just went public. Shit games, but they sell.

 

[Haba]

Where I'm from, overtime is expensive, and weekend or night overtime is stupid expensive. Surprise surprise, crunch is rare. When workers have rights, things change.

Yeah sure, "workers" here have rights.

And then you are forced on a contract that that has no concept of overtime anymore (leadership positions)

or alternatively

Your overtime hours are counted, 1:1 ratio, evenings, weekends, still 1:1 ratio. Theoretically you are supposed to spend them later as vacation hours. I had a friend who got 500 hours of "credit" in one year.

Yeah, Finland is such a paradise.

 

[Prime Junta]

Your overtime hours are counted, 1:1 ratio, evenings, weekends, still 1:1 ratio. Theoretically you are supposed to spend them later as vacation hours. I had a friend who got 500 hours of "credit" in one year.

That's entirely illegal -- the maximum amount of credit you're allowed to have is 37.5 hours (one week). Anything over that is paid overtime.

Tell him to contact a union lawyer, he'll be compensated immediately at the proper rate (or his employer risks being fined and his bosses being prosecuted), plus there will be safeguards in place to ensure that he gets paid damages if the employer tries to retaliate. Enough to keep a year's sabbatical before finding a job at a place that doesn't treat him like shit -- if he's in the ICT sector, that should not be hard. We're hiring all the time and qualified people aren't easy to find.

As to leadership positions, nobody's forced into them. You can refuse if offered, or step down if you don't like it. (Speaking from personal experience here.)

There's also a legal definition for leadership position, and it applies to top management only (CEO, CFO, CPO, director-level positions, etc) -- a project manager or mid-level manager isn't one, and if the company tries to define such a position as one, they're breaking the law again.

(Of course, if he wants to be a corporate drone who doesn't stand up for his rights, that's his prerogative, but then he shouldn't be complaining, should he now?)

 

[Rivmusique]

 

[Fairfax]

EDIT:

 

[Prime Junta]

I knew MCA was a comrade at heart.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

If you want to be a leader in your field, there's always price to pay and 40h work weeks just won't cut it. This applies to every field, everywhere, not just games industry. It is what it is.