Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

He told me he checked in a couple hundred lines for a character, and then checked Chris Avellone's character for comparison.

... Over 10,000 lines. Legend status confirmed

Now think about how many of those had to be cut.

I guess he's referring to Ulysses, which had 12,000 lines written, so all of them (until LR).

 

[Nano]

The guy who uploaded that is missing an 'o'. http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/J.R._Vosovic

 

[Beastro]

He told me he checked in a couple hundred lines for a character, and then checked Chris Avellone's character for comparison.

... Over 10,000 lines. Legend status confirmed

Now think about how many of those had to be cut.

Reminds me of doing essays in school and having to battle the teacher over every word I had to cut.

Others may be limited by a 600 word limit, but that doesn't mean any of my 2500 have to go!

 

[Latelistener]

Chris Avellone, will the current top management of Obsidian retire after sealing the deal? Is that their plan?

 

[Urthor]

Chris Avellone, will the current top management of Obsidian retire after sealing the deal? Is that their plan?

He already said they would ages ago. Fergus and a few others might stay

 

[Fairfax]

I wonder if he'd blame FNV's crunch on the deadlines, feature creep, or both.


They've been updating that list every year, and it only gets worse.

Shades of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past reveal themselves in the masterful Shadow of the Betrayer expansion's focus on two halves of the same world, but Obsidian skillfully uses that familiar framework to deliver an unforgettable commentary on religion.

That mistake has been there since 2015. It seems nobody in the comments has called it out, which says a lot about their audience as well.

 

[Roguey]

I wonder if he'd blame FNV's crunch on the deadlines, feature creep, or both.

F:NV doesn't come across to me as a feature creepy game, they just thought they could do more at the start, as they always do. Sawyer kept the scope of new stuff low ("We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here", keeping the UI the same unlike kotor 2)

 

[Butter]

I wonder if he'd blame FNV's crunch on the deadlines, feature creep, or both.

F:NV doesn't come across to me as a feature creepy game, they just thought they could do more at the start, as they always do. Sawyer kept the scope of new stuff low ("We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here", keeping the UI the same unlike kotor 2)

I remember Sawyer saying they spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get looping animations to work for reloading cartridges.

 

[Fairfax]

I wonder if he'd blame FNV's crunch on the deadlines, feature creep, or both.

F:NV doesn't come across to me as a feature creepy game, they just thought they could do more at the start, as they always do. Sawyer kept the scope of new stuff low ("We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here", keeping the UI the same unlike kotor 2)

Yes, I should've included "bad sense of scope" as well (don't think the game had any major last minute changes?).

I remember Sawyer saying they spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get looping animations to work for reloading cartridges.

Interesting. Perhaps that was one of the "shiny objects" Chris mentioned:

So Chris Avellone , what is the true story behind FNV? I keep hearing how bathesda farked o*sidian with the metacritic score?

I don't believe they did at all - it was our responsibility to do more to make the game better, but the people making the decisions on game quality kept getting distracted by shiny objects.

It was Obsidian's fault, and as Ferg said, Bethesda didn't even have to offer that in the contract at all - it was up to us to manage it to a successful quality completion, and we didn't succeed at that. Good people lost their jobs because of that.

I gave a lot of thought as to why, and some of it came out in my Hierarchy presentations - don't let the person who can enact change be distracted. Let them use their powers for good to fix the title, because they have the authority to ensure quality is achieved.

 

[Wunderbar]

I wonder if he'd blame FNV's crunch on the deadlines, feature creep, or both.

F:NV doesn't come across to me as a feature creepy game, they just thought they could do more at the start, as they always do. Sawyer kept the scope of new stuff low ("We're not trying to reinvent the wheel here", keeping the UI the same unlike kotor 2)

I remember Sawyer saying they spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to get looping animations to work for reloading cartridges.

worth it.

 

[2house2fly]

New Vegas is such an un-feature-creepy game that it probably worked against it ("the graphics aren't any better, it looks like a Fallout 3 mod") but it does have a huge amount of content, which was probably a bad idea with an 18-month deadline. You can see Sawyer learning lessons from that in Honest Hearts, which has a handful of quests, all very simple, and maybe half a dozen characters

 

[Zarniwoop]

And is by far the worst, shortest and most forgettable DLC of the lot.

 

[Jarpie]

Well, Honest Heart had the survivalist diary entries, best part of that DLC.

 

[Squid]

Well, Honest Heart had the survivalist diary entries, best part of that DLC.

Randall Clark's stuff was awesome, doesn't make up for the rest of that DLC. I enjoyed my fair pieces of that DLC but as a whole, it was the weakest one.

What cracks me up about people's favorites in New Vegas DLC is most people hate Dead Money but when I come around to forums and people who are normally more critical of things, Dead Money seems to be a favorite.

 

[Jarpie]

Well, Honest Heart had the survivalist diary entries, best part of that DLC.

Randall Clark's stuff was awesome, doesn't make up for the rest of that DLC. I enjoyed my fair pieces of that DLC but as a whole, it was the weakest one.

What cracks me up about people's favorites in New Vegas DLC is most people hate Dead Money but when I come around to forums and people who are normally more critical of things, Dead Money seems to be a favorite.

Yeah, I think it was the best of the DLCs as well, I have my second playhrough in the works, and first time I played it I fucked up Domino's first dialogue so I got the bad ending with him, this time I'll do it right... talking about New Vegas DLCs...I got a question for Chris Avellone.

Did you write the ending slides for Old World Blues? as the last batch of them, the segment I timestamped on this video:


They have this very nice "light at the end of the tunnel"-tone to them, I think there's a word for it, but I can't think of it, maybe someone who's native english speaker can. One of the things which I like in fiction, especially games would be great for this, is when they try to tackle the question of being obsessive about something, and need to let go of it. I think both Old World Blues and Dead Money do this very well, especially with Dean Domino, who can't (IIRC) let go of the past. I think people generally lives too much in the past, and gets stuck in it, I've always had the philosophy of something shit happens, you deal with it or learn from it, and move on. Is this something you (wanted to) comment on with those two DLCs?

 

[Drax]

Agreed. Both DM and OWB have this somber nightmare -> timid hope transition

 

[Chris Avellone]

Yeah, I think it was the best of the DLCs as well, I have my second playhrough in the works, and first time I played it I fucked up Domino's first dialogue so I got the bad ending with him, this time I'll do it right... talking about New Vegas DLCs...I got a question for Chris Avellone.

Did you write the ending slides for Old World Blues? as the last batch of them, the segment I timestamped on this video:


They have this very nice "light at the end of the tunnel"-tone to them, I think there's a word for it, but I can't think of it, maybe someone who's native english speaker can. One of the things which I like in fiction, especially games would be great for this, is when they try to tackle the question of being obsessive about something, and need to let go of it. I think both Old World Blues and Dead Money do this very well, especially with Dean Domino, who can't (IIRC) let go of the past. I think people generally lives too much in the past, and gets stuck in it, I've always had the philosophy of something shit happens, you deal with it or learn from it, and move on. Is this something you (wanted to) comment on with those two DLCs?

I did write the ending slides for all except Honest Hearts (although I did ask individual designers for each area to propose and then review text related to endings for their areas/characters). I also wrote a lot of the end slides for the FNV core game, too.

I also wrote the "hey, the Think Tank wins!" sequence, which was fun, but Bethesda didn't want to include (I think the Dead Money failed ending had been problematic to test).

http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Old_World_Blues_endings#Cut_ending (John Lewis did the end slides for it, too, which I think are listed in the entry).

The OWB The-Think-Tank-Wins end slides were supposed to explain exactly what would happen if the Think Tank got free from Big MT and why it wouldn't be a great outcome for the Mojave.

The term "Old World Blues" and its definition was part of the theme of a chunk of the DLC content - yes, and it seemed appropriate for almost all the characters in the DLCs. It was intended to be a hopeful message on how to move forward, despite tragedies and dwelling on losses in the past (kind of like rediscovering the 1950s-style optimism in a post-apocalyptic world).

 

[Black Angel]

Just wanted to drop by and mention that this line, which you get when you achieve Dog/God best ending:

The new voice did not think of the Courier again until the battle at the Divide reached his ears. The battle between the two couriers, beneath the torn skies and the Old World flag... each bearing a message for the other.

always sends chill down my spine. The endings of Dead Money, coupled with how it completely changes your pace of gameplay, arguably made it THE best DLC of New Vegas.

Cheers Chris Avellone, and also the voice actor who pulled it off flawlessly

 

[Chris Avellone]

Just wanted to drop by and mention that this line, which you get when you achieve Dog/God best ending:

always sends chill down my spine. The endings of Dead Money, coupled with how it completely changes your pace of gameplay, arguably made it THE best DLC of New Vegas.

Cheers Chris Avellone, and also the voice actor who pulled it off flawlessly

I enjoyed writing those very much (even if the payoff wasn't great), and I liked having a chance to foreshadow future content.

Dave B. Mitchell (God/Dog's voice, also Shocker in the new Spider-Man PS4 game) is to thank, he did a great job. Often, I find actors can make even weak lines sing (Sara Kestelman).

Developer note: Being able to leverage foreshadowing is a rare thing, as you can't always count on the fact it'll be the same team, the same writer, or even that you'll get to do 4 DLCs/games in a row (which is why so many KOTOR 3 references ended up being wasted in KOTOR2).

After a number of failed attempts at hoping foreshadowing would pay off across titles, it's been my experience it's more polite to let future developers have a chance to start with a clean slate rather than setting up expectations that may be dashed if you're not involved (ex: NWN2, Dark Alliance 1, etc. - I look back on those terrible endings and also realize it was made worse by the fact someone had to inherit those endings and explain them rather than tying them off cleanly and giving future installments room to build on it).

It's also the reason I included the Tunnelers in Lonesome Road, which is largely a hated decision, and while this wouldn't help perceptions, I don't think anyone fully realized why I put them there (I wanted freedom to change the map in dramatic ways if we did New Vegas 2, which never happened, but having the Tunnelers were a clear answer that would explain why these changes happened over a short period of time).

 

[Fairfax]

It's also the reason I included the Tunnelers in Lonesome Road, which is largely a hated decision, and while this wouldn't help perceptions, I don't think anyone fully realized why I put them there (I wanted freedom to change the map in dramatic ways if we did New Vegas 2, which never happened, but having the Tunnelers were a clear answer that would explain why these changes happened over a short period of time).

The hate seems to come from fans who are extremely passionate about the setting becoming more civilised. Even if you explained your reasons, I'm not sure it'd change how they feel about Lonesome Road's direction. I doubt it's "largely hated", though. More people seem to like a post-post-apocalyptic setting, but that doesn't mean they'd necessarily hate the tunnelers shaking things up. A lot of people like DUST, for instance, and LR itself is very popular.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

which is why so many KOTOR 3 references ended up being wasted in KOTOR2).

Eh... I'd say that they just were wasted in TOR/associated media, not KOTOR2 itself; it is the potential that can be wasted, not the thing that creates said potential.

BTW, can you expand on this at all? How much work were you involved in on a KOTOR3 story treatment?

 

[2house2fly]

I always figured the idea of the tunnelers coming to the Mojave was wrapped up when you killed their queen and they kept out of your way from then on. Like the ending of OWB said, they don't get the Mojave because the Courier called dibs.

The Pillars Of Eternity 2 DLC team seems to have taken a similar attitude foreshadowing/intertextual references that the NV DLCs did. The stories aren't connected but each DLC involves a relic which turns out to be a shard of the Crown Of Woedica. With all 3 DLCs the crown can be reforged and... probably give you +2 damage with spells or something

 

[HoboForEternity]

He told me he checked in a couple hundred lines for a character, and then checked Chris Avellone's character for comparison.

... Over 10,000 lines. Legend status confirmed

Now think about how many of those had to be cut.

I guess he's referring to Ulysses, which had 12,000 lines written, so all of them (until LR).

thats the same amount of words in my graduate thesis. Nice.

 

[Black Angel]

I always figured the idea of the tunnelers coming to the Mojave was wrapped up when you killed their queen and they kept out of your way from then on. Like the ending of OWB said, they don't get the Mojave because the Courier called dibs.

Pretty much this. In fact, if you keep Ulysses alive until the end, I think he will be guarding the entrance to Mojave, keeping not only Tunnelers but also Marked Men away from there. Also, no matter what major faction you chose to get a hold on Hoover Dam, once the conflict is resolved I'd assume they will be able to keep the Tunnelers in check.

Still, if what MCA wanted is simply for Tunnelers to 'change the landscape', I think that's fine. It's sort of like how Super Mutants scattered after the Master's death, the same can be said when Tunneler's queen is killed.

 

[aweigh]

i don't even remember the tunnelers and i probably finished FNV+DLCs about 20 times.