Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

FNV DLCs suggest otherwise.

..? I'm saying it's better to have interesting sidequests in the initial thing you buy instead of having to pay extra for them.

These aren't mutually exclusive. His point was about experimentation. I mentioned the FNV DLCs because that was MCA's approach to them.

We've yet to see what he'd do leading a project today, though.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Oh god, if we're getting into the Josh vs Chris thing again than I'll just say this.

I didn't like Pillars of Eternity because it focused too much on "interesting" (autistic) systems. Especially if those systems were related to combat. That's fine if we're talking about a successor to ToEE or IWD. But the game was supposed to be the BG successor that people like me wanted. I felt like so much of PoE's writing was just crammed in essay style as an afterthought. Using Combat is a core part of the experience" as an excuse to not focus on writing interesting characters isn't really part of RPG's in my mind. Meaningful choices and consequences are. Avellone is pretty good at writing characters and writing their reactions to the stuff you do. Avellone is a much better writer than a designer for sure. But I'll take his stuff and balance him out with someone like Tim Cain who can design properly.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

This guy is such a letdown compared to Cain and Boyarski.

 

[Roguey]

This guy is such a letdown compared to Cain and Boyarski.

We won't know for sure until the shapes-based Outer Rim-inspired RPG comes out.

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

This guy is such a letdown compared to Cain and Boyarski.

Can't say I disagree to be honest. But it kind of makes me worried for the project Obsidian are working on with (acording to rumours) the New Vegas team including Cain. Hopefully it's not as bad as Torment: Tides of Numenera.

 

[Jedi Exile]

Why Chris is a bad designer? Games he worked on had interesting systems. Remember how he handled in Planescape: Torment the save/load problem after your character dies, which is a bore in most RPGs? Cain, on the other hand, didn't show us very much with the infamous stronghold in PoE.

 

[Roguey]

Remember how he handled in Planescape: Torment the save/load problem after your character dies, which is a bore in most RPGs?

One can argue he's dumbing it down by removing the consequences of failure.

Cain, on the other hand, didn't show us very much with the infamous stronghold in PoE.

The truth about PoE's systems is that Sawyer did everything and only had Cain program them and introduce the controversial stuff in Kickstarter updates.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Why Chris is a bad designer? Games he worked on had interesting systems. Remember how he handled in Planescape: Torment the save/load problem after your character dies, which is a bore in most RPGs? Cain, on the other hand, didn't show us very much with the infamous stronghold in PoE.

It's not that he's a bad designer. It's kind of like despite what happened to Cain and Boyarski, they seem to still have kept their class, not become jaded and miserable, etc.

I'll be honest, the stuff Avellone continues to dish out on occasion, it's juicy stuff, but at the same time, it's becoming a little repugnant.

 

[Fairfax]

Why Chris is a bad designer? Games he worked on had interesting systems. Remember how he handled in Planescape: Torment the save/load problem after your character dies, which is a bore in most RPGs? Cain, on the other hand, didn't show us very much with the infamous stronghold in PoE.

Chris designed a ton of stuff (quests, areas, systems, NPCs, items, etc) in all projects he directed, especially PS:T. However, the writing stands out more compared to other games, and most people don't know what else he did, so he became known as a writer.

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

Why Chris is a bad designer? Games he worked on had interesting systems. Remember how he handled in Planescape: Torment the save/load problem after your character dies, which is a bore in most RPGs? Cain, on the other hand, didn't show us very much with the infamous stronghold in PoE.

It's not that he's a bad designer. It's kind of like despite what happened to Cain and Boyarski, they seem to still have kept their class, not become jaded and miserable, etc.

I'll be honest, the stuff Avellone continues to dish out on occasion, it's juicy stuff, but at the same time, it's becoming a little repugnant.

Like most great writers, he has a sensitive soul. And like most great artists, he’s a whiny lil’ bitch. Hazards of the profession.

Anyway, I don’t know if the downfall of Troika is comparable to the slow grinding down of MCA’s spirit at Obsidian. Troika going under sucked but it was just a business failure, it’s not like they all turned on each other in an orgy of emotional rape and destruction. Whereas it sounds like MCA wouldn’t piss out Chris and Tina Parker if they were on fire.

MCA’s situation isn’t even comparable to the way Tim and Leonard left Interplay—they got out of there and started their own studio right quick after they stopped being happy. Whereas it seems like MCA let himself gradually fizzle out.

Anyway, to be fair to Chris, it’s not like Tim and Leonard jumped right back in the saddle either. They spent most of a decade in boring jobs doing nothing interesting (loremaster for Diablo 3—WTF?). I just hope Chris gets his act together sooner, or stops fucking dabbling and figures out what he actually wants to do with himself.

Presumably the new wife will browbeat him into being more ambitious.

***

He’s the best writer in the business. Who else comes close? I don’t know why he hates being pigeonholed so much. Woe is me, people only appreciate me for my greatest talent and not my less spectacular talents!

 

[imweasel]

Cain, on the other hand, didn't show us very much with the infamous stronghold in PoE.

The truth about PoE's systems is that Sawyer did everything and only had Cain program them and introduce the controversial stuff in Kickstarter updates.

The Church of Sawyer™ finds your diminishing faith disturbing.

 

[Roguey]

The Church of Sawyer™ finds your diminishing faith disturbing.

..? I'm stating a truth that Josh himself has confirmed.

 

[Zed]

this retard drinks soylent
(nothing personal again avellone I'd call anyone drinking soylent a tard)

 

[Lhynn]

The Church of Sawyer™ finds your diminishing faith disturbing.

..? I'm stating a truth that Josh himself has confirmed.

Yep, im glad he can at least own up to that abomination.

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Soft men drink soft drinks. What else can be said?

 

[Sannom]

What else can be said?

Aesop has already taught us that it's better to be soft than to be hard?

 

[Infinitron]

Hmmm: https://forums.somethingawful.com/s...07509&pagenumber=426&perpage=40#post481968847

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Hmmm: https://forums.somethingawful.com/s...07509&pagenumber=426&perpage=40#post481968847

I didn't like NWN 2 main campaign. It was really bland. It actually reminds me of PoE tbh. At least I can't blame Avellone for that.

 

[Infinitron]

No, the thing is Avellone claimed in the past to have written the bulk of NWN2 OC's companion dialogues. (Not designed, though)

 

[Fairfax]

I did write all the companions on NWN2 OC, and Gann and Kaelyn on Mask of the Betrayer. I also did some of the major NPCs and major events as well, including the trial sequence, for example, but I'd have to go back through a fine-tooth-comb to see which ones were actually mine. I admit there may have been instances in a specific area (for some reason, Casavir nags at me) that were done by someone else, so my memory may have missed some elements, and I apologize in advance if that's the case.

In all the instances above, none of the original concepts were mine. It doesn't matter, since execution is the thing, and that's what a writer's supposed to excel at. Your job is to take someone who dresses up as a bat and fights crime and make that shitty (imo) concept work. A more challenging one might be if one of his foes identifies with penguins, but hey, Arkham City made it work, imo (the Penguin's intro and museum collection I thought was great).

Yes, NWN2 OC had a lot of companions, and I do feel I could have done a better job with all of them from minor details to major elements (for example, Grobnar suffered the same problem as Oswald Fiddlebender in Icewind Dale - he was written to be hyperactive, but then that got lost on the way to the VO booth, and had I time to go to the studio in both instances, I could have remedied that at once, and I should have found the time to do so). Their lines are excruciatingly long to be spoken at normal speed, although I still liked Oswald's VO delivery, I believe the actor was Jack Roth.

I also didn't feel that the companions were as tied to events in the game as they should be, and I thought with George Ziets' help (as well as most of the designers on Mask), this was a big difference in Mask. I especially liked how the area designers specifically wove the companions into each area, since I felt like their arcs advanced as you advanced through the game and enjoyed Mask's simple non-linearity as well, which I don't think was a resource drain, but Kevin Saunders and George could probably give a better answer.

Sawyer misremembered (or it's some form of damnatio memoriae ).

 

[Major_Blackhart]

Possibly. Or MCA did what a lot of other bosses did while he was one: took credit for the work of others.

 

[Abu Antar]

I mean, not taking credit for NWN2 OC characters is a good thing.

 

[conan_edw]

and why is everyone trying to take credit for those horrible characters?

 

[Ninjerk]

and why is everyone trying to take credit for those horrible characters?

B/c MCA is lord and savior--he knows taking credit for them won't hurt his career but would hurt any junior writers that may have worked on them.

 

[Chris Avellone]

I believe giving credit where credit is due is important - even when the credit is for something you didn’t feel you did a very good job on.

So to clarify, yes, I didn’t design the original NWN2 OC companion concepts. This was done by the lead designer, who did the design doc for them and their arcs - this is not blame, since the execution of those concepts matter more, imo. I did write the majority of their actual dialogue, it’s what a narrative designer does on a project, whether it’s NWN2, NX1, or FNV. What’s posted above for my answer above is still correct to the best of my ability (although I can’t recall which interview that was or where it was posted, but I do recall writing it).

It is possible other writers wrote specific NWN2 OC companion interjections in specific acts (ex: BioWare interjection style for certain NPCs and quests), but any time someone spoke to the character in-game directly (their core companion dialogue), I did write that and some of the special events (the trial). The only one I’m not 100% sure about is Casavir. I did write Elanee, yes. Again, I don’t think any of them turned out especially well, but I did the best I could in the time provided, and the responsibility was mine to make them of high quality.

Also, I definitely wrote Sand and I wrote Grobnar’s core companion dlg – I recall Grobnar especially b/c I regretted I wasn’t able to make it to the VO session (there was barely time to write the dialogues, let alone go to recording) as the key with Grobnar was he was supposed to be speaking faster/manic, not normal pace. This happened with Oswald Fiddlebender in Icewind, too, although with Oswald, it was worse because he spoke very slowly, which made a lot of his hyperactive jokes even more painful to hear, even though I liked the voice actor.

However, I think events can get confused or misremembered over time and distance – I still get blamed for not supporting an Obsidian KS, for example, even though I was the first to advocate for it, and publicly so (it's still posted on the Obsidian blog). Still, I accept that my recollection of NWN2 companions may not hold much water, but in light of that, you could probably ask Tony, Michael Chu, Eric, John Lee (although he’s no longer at Obsidian, he did a lot of work on NWN2), Constant Gaw, George Ziets, or the NWN2 lead, Ferret, for their perspectives as well.

Also, now that I’ve seen the other posts on Soylent, to let you know - I'm not an advocate, but I’m lactose intolerant, so I have to branch out. : )

EDIT: Tony Evans: "I wasn't responsible for any specific companions in NWN2. I handled a lot of the core progression, the ends of Acts 1 and 2, all of Act 3, and Crossroad Keep. I was involved in Grobnar (Wendersnaven stuff), Shandra (Shandra's Farm), and Ammon Jerro (Ammon Jerro's Haven). I also wrote a lot of companion quest and reactivity text, especially for Crossroad Keep, but I think much of that was edited or replaced by the companion writers."