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

[Chris Avellone]

Chris Avellone, another question -- given the apparently strained past relationship between Tim and Feargus (as per the Tim's G@W interview), would you care to estimate, even if vaguely, the prospects of success/failure for Project Indiana?

Maybe you could also tell the story behind this.. apparently unlikely reunion..

If you asked Tim, he could speak to it. I don't think there's anything that would jump out about it.

I have high hopes for Indiana, I trust Tim and Leonard (and Charlie, and Tyson, etc, etc. - they have a great team of folks I've worked with and think are great).

If anything happened with the project, I would be more inclined to suspect it was due to upper management decisions hurting the relationship with Take2 (directly - and indirectly, say by forcing the team to do something they disagree with or put something in a contract they don't feel comfortable delivering on - much like a second city in PoE1).

In the end, I just want to play a new Tim and Leonard game. : ) I respect them both as developers, and I cite many of the design elements they put in Fallout and their other games as great stepping stones for future RPGs (like Indiana itself).

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

I almost feel a strange new respect for Feargus.

I don't, not even in the slightest. He come across as simpleton repeating the kind of platitudes you would expect from a layman that doesn't play cRPGs.

 

[Infinitron]

Chris Avellone Let me push back on this a bit. We could say that there's a glass half-empty or glass half-full way of looking at these things. You see Feargus roping in these big publishers and then alienating them, as with the Stormlands cancellation, and conclude that he's a fuck-up. And that's natural, because you have paid a large personal price for these cancellations.

But other people might say, hey, it's incredible that Feargus managed to get a deal to make an Xbox One exclusive in the first place, because that's something that the notorious "Bugsidian" probably wasn't really up to par for (as I'm sure you'd agree).

But here's my real question: Were you fired/forced to resign/"de-ownered"/etc from Obsidian because you refused to become a project lead?

 

[aweigh]

Taking "itself seriously" != realism. Your entire argument is flawed, Lurker.

 

[Sentinel]

at least it's nice getting confirmation that Tim is alive. After that post on the Codex saying he'd explain his geometrical stats shenanigans after his flight only to never come back, I got kinda worried.

 

[deepfire]

Didn't read all of it (and hope Chris didn't violate NDA), but it seems to confirm my initial suspicion that Avellone left Obsidian not because of Sawyer (as some Codexers thought), but because of Urquhart. Which was more logical - usually you leave your job not because of a colleague you dislike (there are always some jerks around), but because you have problems with you boss (this is what I did several times, before I've found my current job). Feargus being not a very good manager also isn't a big surprise and it explains a lot about Obsidian games being a mess of cool, but poorly implemented, ideas.

What I very much dislike, is that Chris is still dwelling on this. Maybe after he finally talked about it in public, he will feel better and can concentrate on something constructive (like Bao-Dur, who wanted to design planetary shields after working on a bomb). The best way to deal with a big failure in life, is to create something good. If you are a writer, write a book. If you a game developer, make a game.

I believe this is a very misguided position.

Obsidian as a studio, is among the cRPG industry top wrt. Codex-wise hits, if not at the top.
Add here its history of employing rock-star game writers and designers.

What you might naively have, as a result, is an image of a place where cRPG artists achieve Nirvana.

And as ample evidence in the form of Chris' testimony shows, that is instead a place where creative motivation is bled dry -- and worse, since the situations as described, could easily make one hate himself.

Obsidian as it stands, is a trap for talent. And Chris' association with it was reinforcing this trap -- for as long as he kept his silence.

 

[Infinitron]

at least it's nice getting confirmation that Tim is alive. After that post on the Codex saying he'd explain his geometrical stats shenanigans after his flight only to never come back, I got kinda worried.

TimCain was last seen:

Yesterday at 7:01 PM

He lurks on the Codex almost every day.

 

[Blaine]

Are you retarded? Socialist thinking didn't just appear out of nowhere, Marx was influenced by ideas that were already festering before he was born and that includes the ideas that led to the French Revolution.

Regardless, I wasn't referring to the French Revolution but the social and cultural revolution that happened during the 20th century, that changed the still relatively traditional society of the early 20th century into the horrors that are modern societies especially in the West.

It seem you just can't contain yourself with that anti-communistic bullshit. Go find a corner for your shit, and be there complete autist as you are.
As for your supersonic maneuvers, I'm quoting you shithead

cultural and social revolution are products of Marxist thought

while it's clear that French bourgeois revolution is a social revolution.
So all your blames are false as usual - because you are autists of fine quality, because only autists can blame "communists" in anything after they long gone.

Your great communist experiment is dead.

Do the right thing and join it in oblivion.

 

[Nano]

Aliens was a bit more confusing, but one fact there is it's sometimes said the game was close to being done, which wasn't the case: it was at vertical slice stage (and a good one, I thought), then it got cancelled, but much of the full production work had not been done, it wasn't close to shipping or anything as some people assume.

Kinda makes sense, considering a bunch of the budget and focus had to go to the development of the Onyx engine.

Question: you were the lead writer on Aliens for about a year (I think) before leaving to become the lead designer on Alpha Protocol due to its mismanagement. Was it hard for you to leave your work like that?

 

[Alpan]

But other people might say, hey, it's incredible that Feargus managed to get a deal to make an Xbox One exclusive in the first place, because that's something that the notorious "Bugsidian" probably wasn't really up to par for (as I'm sure you'd agree).

This is a bit of a stretch, no? This line of questioning would have more merit had Obsidian been a newfangled start-up at the time of the MSFT negotiations. Instead you've got a studio who's already developed a reputation for quality (if flawed) RPGs and experienced with working with bigger fish such as Sega and Bethesda/Zenimax.

 

[Zed]

Infinitron can you move the politics discussion and ban everyone involved in it

 

[Darkzone]

In the end, I just want to play a new Tim and Leonard game. : )

Like Arcanum? You can make a youtube career out of it.
Sorry. I'm just a sarcastic asshole... sometimes. Nevertheless it is nice to see you answer so many questions.

 

[Abu Antar]

In the end, I just want to play a new Tim and Leonard game. : )

Like Arcanum? You can make a youtube career out of it.
Sorry. I'm just a sarcastic asshole... sometimes. Nevertheless it is nice to see you answer so many questions.

Not mine.

Chris Avellone

 

[Alpan]

Infinitron can you move the politics discussion and ban everyone involved in it

Moving the discussion and banning the participants would vest the subject of Communism with a gravity its academic status does not deserve.

 

[Don Peste]

Chris Avellone, we got Troika after Interplay, and Obsidian after Black Isle, do you think we will get a new studio in a couple of years after Obsidian, uhm, something something?

I mean, do you have any names in mind that you believe would have the strenght/courage/will/bitcoin money to try that?

 

[Jenkem]

In the end, I just want to play a new Tim and Leonard game. : ) I respect them both as developers, and I cite many of the design elements they put in Fallout and their other games as great stepping stones for future RPGs (like Indiana itself).

I want to play it too, I think most of us here do.. However, the relative silence about the project combined with your recent divulging of Obsidian brass makes me very very worried about the project ever actually finishing, and if it does if it will retain everything they wanted to put in, etc.

I really really wish we would get more information soon, maybe at E3 since it is being published by Take Two Interactive?

 

[Blakemoreland Hybrid Boss]

Taking "itself seriously" != realism. Your entire argument is flawed, Lurker.

Please elaborate.

 

[Jinn]

As icing on an otherwise dismal layoff day, after I had had to go through letting people go (who were not on Stormlands and had done nothing to contribute to its failure), I came back to report to the other owners, only to hear from Feargus that one employee he was going to let go was retained - our front desk receptionist, Feargus's sister. I still wonder to this day if that had meant I could have kept one of the employees we had who had an equivalent salary and was actually contributing to our projects, but I was too furious at the news to speak.

Just when I think it can't get worse, Chris drops another detail like this on us. Absolutely heinous. I can't imagine how demoralizing this must have been to deal with, Chris.

 

[Chris Avellone]

I want to play it too, I think most of us here do.. However, the relative silence about the project combined with your recent divulging of Obsidian brass makes me very very worried about the project ever actually finishing, and if it does if it will retain everything they wanted to put in, etc.

I really really wish we would get more information soon, maybe at E3 since it is being published by Take Two Interactive?

It's not uncommon for a game to be on silent running until a chosen moment for reveal, so I wouldn't be too worried (imo). I've worked on similar projects in the past and still do - the fact the project is quiet doesn't mean it's in trouble.

 

[2house2fly]

Are you retarded? Socialist thinking didn't just appear out of nowhere, Marx was influenced by ideas that were already festering before he was born and that includes the ideas that led to the French Revolution.

Regardless, I wasn't referring to the French Revolution but the social and cultural revolution that happened during the 20th century, that changed the still relatively traditional society of the early 20th century into the horrors that are modern societies especially in the West.

It seem you just can't contain yourself with that anti-communistic bullshit. Go find a corner for your shit, and be there complete autist as you are.
As for your supersonic maneuvers, I'm quoting you shithead

cultural and social revolution are products of Marxist thought

while it's clear that French bourgeois revolution is a social revolution.
So all your blames are false as usual - because you are autists of fine quality, because only autists can blame "communists" in anything after they long gone.

Your great communist experiment is dead.

Do the right thing and join it in oblivion.

I don't think it's cool to wish for the death of people who disagree with you

 

[deepfire]

In the end, I just want to play a new Tim and Leonard game. : ) I respect them both as developers, and I cite many of the design elements they put in Fallout and their other games as great stepping stones for future RPGs (like Indiana itself).

I want to play it too, I think most of us here do.. However, the relative silence about the project combined with your recent divulging of Obsidian brass makes me very very worried about the project ever actually finishing, and if it does if it will retain everything they wanted to put in, etc.

This, a thousand times..

 

[Infinitron]

Chris Avellone Are the Obsidian owners forcing Tim to use geometrical shapes instead of stats? :agenda:

 

[Jenkem]

first Infinitron rated my post YES and then removed it
then I get an alert that he quoted my post and he actually didn't...



I SEE YOU

 

[Blaine]

I don't think it's cool to wish for the death of people who disagree with you

That's pretty funny coming from a nuGoon, especially when it's rather obvious that I'm at least 25% joking... probably. Let's say ±25%. Yeah, in theory it could go either way.

 

[Lahey]

Chris Avellone, the gaming press has largely ignored this thread thus far, with only TechRaptor reporting in the anglosphere. A few foreign sites have reported on it, notably GameStar. It has, however, been discussed at varying lengths on the obsidian forums, /v/, something awful, resetera, and several other smaller sites and subreddits. In the resetera thread Jason Schreier said he was looking into it but not necessarily writing an article. Some codexians have speculated that this hesitation from the press stems from journalistic integrity in not wanting to report unverified allegations, which frankly is inconsistent given their track record regarding not only allegations of impropriety within workplaces but also when it comes to leaks, or rumours, or rumours of leaks. Others here have suggested a fear of legal action or other pressure is causing the silence. Perhaps they're waiting for the resignations or Paradox response you mentioned earlier before running with it, or some form of legal action on your part.

Why do you think this is being ignored, and what message would you send to members of the media who're undoubtedly monitoring this thread?