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

[Fenix]

Carrie Patel

Lol, I guest it would be even worse then first game.

 

[Fairfax]

Lead Writer of PoE2 is assumed to be Carrie Patel.

I think she became both. From their AMA:

Carrie Patel, Lead Narrative Designer for Deadfire

 

[The Great ThunThun*]

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.

How is XCOM not mainstream? It has freaking altered how people see Turn based games. Are you high or what?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

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.

Reality check: mainstream is relative. D:OS2 is mainstream compared to most isometric cRPGs, but not in comparison to FPSs like Skyrim.

 

[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.

1. I think the reality behind the scenes suggested by this interview doesn't reflect that. It was obvious that Feargus, Parker and the others only do what Sawyer tells 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 it seems crystal clear to me 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 conjecture.

1. If Sawyer always gotten his way, he'd be developing his FYSMD RPG, even after Deadfire its unlikely he'll make that game.

3. That's a pure bullshit you made based on whatever.

4. Itsyouropinionmaan.jpg They had to cut something obviously so they cut somethings to made them equal with the other things of its type.

5. He doesn't explain it, we don't know what Sawyer's reasons for interfering with Efen's process was/what Sawyer said to him.

6. Look at 4.

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.

FNV was no more buggy than FO3 on release. I think Obs got way more flak/got the buggy rep for it(which Bethesda haven't for some reason) when it combined with their earlier buggy games. Sawyer came in and tried to save NWN2 Aliens Crucible was in better shape than AP but got cancelled...yadda yadda yadda

If AP got cancelled instead of AC, Avellone would have had directed FNV :D

 

[Nazrim Eldrak]

" If people don't use it, then you give them feedback, then adjust their raises next paid period as necessary, either positively or negatively."
I dont think this is a smart move , because of motivation.
I believe that could harm productivity immensly if the wrong people get a raise(positively or negativley).
Also envy....

I also disagree with a too strong hierarchy, because the information the top person receives is always filtered,
that means if the filtering is not done properly the whole project could take a wrong direction.
And the higher the hierarchy the stroger the filtering.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

1. If Sawyer always gotten his way, he'd be developing his FYSMD RPG, even after Deadfire its unlikely he'll make that game.

That assumes that he would want to take risks instead of repeating IE clones and making complains about his target audience. He is doing exactly what he wants, which is playing safe.

3. That's a pure bullshit you made based on whatever.

4. Itsyouropinionmaan.jpg They had to cut something obviously so they cut somethings to made them equal with the other things of its type.

5. He doesn't explain it, we don't know what Sawyer's reasons for interfering with Efen's process was/what Sawyer said to him.

6. Look at 4.

Everyone suspected that Avellone was treated like a dog during PoE—it seems that by the condescending way they treated the narrative lead he wasn’t the only one. This is now confirmed by this interview.

FNV was no more buggy than FO3 on release. I think Obs got way more flak/got the buggy rep for it(which Bethesda haven't for some reason) when it combined with their earlier buggy games.

That’s your fanboy logic speaking. Every game of this size is released with bugs, but there are bugs and there are bugs. F:NV’s bugs were jarring.

 

[Quillon]

That assumes that he would want to take risks instead of repeating IE clones and making complains about his target audience. He is doing exactly what he wants, which is playing safe.

So much good playing safe done to him: 4 cancelled games under his belt.

 

[Prime Junta]

That assumes that he would want to take risks instead of repeating IE clones and making complains about his target audience. He is doing exactly what he wants, which is playing safe.

Sawyer is a wage slave yo. He doesn't get to decide what kind of game to make.

 

[Junmarko]

How is XCOM not mainstream?

Ask Blizzard.

It has freaking altered how people see Turn based games.

Barely. Gaming is just more accessible - in general.

Turn-based is still niche, like a lot of other genres.

Ask Ion Storm Eidos Montreal or Looking Glass, Irrational Games Arkane.

 

[Infinitron]

Lead Writer of PoE2 is assumed to be Carrie Patel.

I think she became both. From their AMA:

Carrie Patel, Lead Narrative Designer for Deadfire

Josh might be the "Creative Lead" now. Titles, meh.

 

[TT1]

I have a question for him: Who would you invite to an orgy?

 

[boobio]

from official obsidian discord;

 

[Kem0sabe]

Bullet point numbered response to a forum post is fucking decline.

 

[Forest Dweller]

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.

I think it's Feargus. He's stated that he wants to do an AAA RPG like Skyrim at some point. I don't remember the exact interview but I remember him saying something to that effect. From various things he's said it seems like he has ambitions that are odds with other members of the studio. He seems to want to turn Obsidian into an AAA RPG developer, but has a lot of employees which are more geared toward the niche thing that the Codex likes. So there's this constant push and pull.

This is conjecture of course. And it may not just be him. Still, since he's "the boss," his desires are going to carry a lot of weight for the direction their games take. For instance, I wouldn't be surprised if the VO requirement came directly from him.

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

Yeah, I gotta admit, whatever else you can say about Sawyer, F:NV was fucking awesome and is easily their best game (bite me). So credit where credit's due.

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.

QA is the responsibility of the publisher.

 

[abnaxus]

official obsidian discord

lel

 

[Nano]

He seems to want to turn Obsidian into an AAA RPG developer, but has a lot of employees which are more geared toward the niche thing that the Codex likes. So there's this constant push and pull.

Not really. Most of Obsidian's employees want to work on big-budget RPGs like the ones they were working on back in 2004-2011. The Tim/Leonard project is going to be a return to that.

 

[Quillon]

But we can be more constructive guys! Hand me that brick.

 

[lukaszek]

deterministic system > RNG

 

[Sentinel]

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.

How is XCOM not mainstream? It has freaking altered how people see Turn based games. Are you high or what?

his concept of mainstream is the console-centric concept. If it's not popular among the console crowds, it's not mainstream.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

QA is the responsibility of the publisher.

Bullshit. That’s a responsibility of the developer. Do you think that the KOTOR team had the luxury of QA? No, they didn’t. They were prudent enough to realize that the game needed to be polished when shipped. Obsidian developers got the sequel of the same title and did what they always did in the past: they invested all their energy implementing content and in the end transferred the responsibility of polishing the game to the publisher, and were ignored. Guess what? The players don’t care, the publisher does not care, and it is your name that is on the line. By the time their name was completely tarnished they finally understood their mistakes and started using softwares to hunt bugs, considering bugs fixing one of their tasks, etc. Better later than never.

 

[Sentinel]

QA is the responsibility of the publisher.

Bullshit. That’s a responsibility of the developer. Do you think that the KOTOR team had the luxury of QA? No, they didn’t. They were prudent enough to realize that the game needed to be polished when shipped. Obsidian developers got the sequel of the same title and did what they always did in the past: they invested all their energy implementing content and in the end transferred the responsibility of polishing the game to the publisher, and were ignored. Guess what? The players don’t care, the publisher does not care, and it is your name that is on the line. By the time their name was completely tarnished they finally understood their mistakes and started using softwares to hunt bugs, considering bugs fixing one of their tasks, etc. Better later than never.

QA was the responsibility of the publisher in F:NV's case.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

QA was the responsibility of the publisher in F:NV's case.

It doesn't matter. They had previous disapointments in that regard and they should have known better. If the publisher is washing his hands you put all your hands on deck. Avellone mentioned in some of his public criticisms that they didn't take this task seriously and he warned. He was right about that too.

 

[Nano]

Literally who cares about this shit. It sold tons of copies and is considered by many to be among the best RPGs of all time.

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Literally who cares about this shit. It sold tons of copies and is considered by many to be among the best RPGs of all time.

Obsidian cares because they burned their reputation in the process and now they can't get a big contract. You can't act like a player when you run a business. Grow up.