Incline Chris Avellone Appreciation Station

[Fairfax]

Didn't they reuse a lot of Van Buren designs?

All we really took from Van Buren were some faction ideas (Caesar's Legion), characters, and a variety of plot hooks/setting changes. We used no material resources from VB, no VB documentation, nothing that would actually give us any significant time savings, honestly.

Now that's a really odd comment. The Caesar's Legion alone is a huge part of the game, and having an entire faction, "a variety of plot hooks/setting changes and background for 2 major factions (BOS-NCR conflict) saves a lot of time. I'm no expert on Van Buren stuff, but I'm sure there's a lot more they used that was important to the game and its development as well.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Didn't they reuse a lot of Van Buren designs?

All we really took from Van Buren were some faction ideas (Caesar's Legion), characters, and a variety of plot hooks/setting changes. We used no material resources from VB, no VB documentation, nothing that would actually give us any significant time savings, honestly.

Now that's a really odd comment. The Caesar's Legion alone is a huge part of the game, and having an entire faction, "a variety of plot hooks/setting changes and background for 2 major factions (BOS-NCR conflict) saves a lot of time. I'm no expert on Van Buren stuff, but I'm sure there's a lot more they used that was important to the game and its development as well.

Let me save your time too.

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...reciation-station.101693/page-24#post-4281606

 

[Grimlorn]

It would be natural to downplay it though because of the investors from Van Buren. The game never came out and they never got their money back. If it turned out Obsidian used assets from a failed game and put it into a new game, then the investors would probably be entitled to a share of the profits.

 

[nikolokolus]

Seems like he thinks PoE's companions and villain are not fun. Or great.

I thought Durance and Grieving Mother were pretty good ...

 

[Irenaeus II]

Me too.

 

[Infinitron]

Didn't they reuse a lot of Van Buren designs?

All we really took from Van Buren were some faction ideas (Caesar's Legion), characters, and a variety of plot hooks/setting changes. We used no material resources from VB, no VB documentation, nothing that would actually give us any significant time savings, honestly.

Now that's a really odd comment. The Caesar's Legion alone is a huge part of the game, and having an entire faction, "a variety of plot hooks/setting changes and background for 2 major factions (BOS-NCR conflict) saves a lot of time. I'm no expert on Van Buren stuff, but I'm sure there's a lot more they used that was important to the game and its development as well.

Van Buren plot: http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Van_Buren#Presper.27s_plan

It was a Wasteland-ish mad scientist story, very different from FO:NV's topical political setting. Van Buren's version of Caesar's Legion wasn't important enough to merit a mention in its description.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Clean up that quote tree assholes, this is like 15th ping I get.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Clean up that quote tree assholes, this is like 15th ping I get.

You bother me with silly shit all the time, so I hope you are happy.

 

[Ninjerk]

Clean up that quote tree assholes, this is like 15th ping I get.

You bother me with silly shit all the time, so I hope you are happy.

I don't know what IHaveHugeNick is getting all uppity about.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Reverse psychology, never fails.

 

[LESS T_T]

Hey, it's out earlier than expected.

Here's a recording of MCA's Van Buren p&p prototyping talk (you can skip to 5:20):



EDIT: 9:07

 

[Azarkon]

I got this.

Why the fuck did Sawyer come up with all the companions and their arcs for F:NV but then not write a single line of dialogue for them? What sort of design process forces other people's characters on writers as a matter of course? Sawyer didn't even write the main story/plot/setting of F:NV - that was Gonzalez. So why did they have him design ALL the companion characters...? No wonder Chris left.

 

[Ninjerk]

numerara

 

[Fairfax]

I got this.

Why the fuck did Sawyer come up with all the companions and their arcs for F:NV but then not write a single line of dialogue for them? What sort of design process forces other people's characters on writers as a matter of course? No wonder Chris left.

Well, he didn't do that in PoE. He gave MCA free rein in theory, and only after they'd been written he decided to change them and their arcs as he saw fit. Must've been much worse than a predefined companion, specially after seeing Sawyer say in that panel that the rest of the cut content (rest=the stuff they didn't show there) was "just bad".
Come to think of it, both approaches were bad for him under Sawyer. He "inherited" Cass and Ulysses, and the latter was cut completely because he wrote too much.

Maybe someone should write down a list of cases where MCA got shafted by Sawyer.

 

[Roguey]

It would be natural to downplay it though because of the investors from Van Buren. The game never came out and they never got their money back. If it turned out Obsidian used assets from a failed game and put it into a new game, then the investors would probably be entitled to a share of the profits.

Bethesda owns everything related to Fallout.

It was a Wasteland-ish mad scientist story, very different from FO:NV's topical political setting. Van Buren's version of Caesar's Legion wasn't important enough to merit a mention in its description.

I don't know exactly what differences Chris was thinking of, but in Van Buren, the Legion was not an immediate threat. You encountered some of their dudes and heard rumors about them from the east, but they were a background faction for the most part. I can't remember any of the other details off the top of my head.

Why the fuck did Sawyer come up with all the companions and their arcs for F:NV but then not write a single line of dialogue for them?

That's what a lead does. George Ziets prefers it that way, he hates writing dialogue. I don't doubt Tides of Numenera is the same way, with McComb coming up with all or most of the character concepts, and other writers fleshing out those concepts. Torment with its "one guy comes up with and writes almost all companion dialogue" is an outlier.

Anyway, he did write Arcade.

He gave MCA free rein in theory, and only after they'd been written he decided to change them and their arcs as he saw fit.

What makes you think it wasn't Fenstermaker? You sure are determined to blame Sawyer for everything.

Did you contribute anything to Ulysses while he was still part of the core game, before he was cut?

Not really. Chris Avellone conceived and wrote the character. All I did was some minor editing and I talked to Chris about the character's patterns of speech and ways of speaking to the Courier.

 

[Athelas]

Did you contribute anything to Ulysses while he was still part of the core game, before he was cut?

I did (...) some (...) editing

 

[Xeon]

At about 34:20, he said Boulder Dome is Old World Blues and Honest Hearts is from it I think.

At 40:55 he says one of the devs he worked with doesn't take feedback seriously unless they made an engine or something. Who is that? Josh I don't think he ever made an engine, only one I can think of is Tim Cain probably since he said he made the engine of Fallout 1.

44:05 he talks about Baldur's Gate and D&D magic a little bit.

51:25 Poor Avellone, he wanted some water but couldn't open the bottle. Opened the bottle at 53:30.

Pretty good talk, he said he liked using P&P at making RPGs and he used it when was making KOTOR2 I think, IIRC Tim Cain also said the same when he was making Fallout 1.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Clean up that quote tree assholes, this is like 15th ping I get.

It seems January will be alert IHaveHugeNick month

 

[Irenaeus II]

At 40:55 he says one of the devs he worked with doesn't take feedback seriously unless they made an engine or something. Who is that? Josh I don't think he ever made an engine, only one I can think of is Tim Cain probably since he said he made the engine of Fallout 1.

So Tim Cain hated and und3rmined MCA too? Wtf, how did he last so long at Obsidian!?

 

[Xeon]

I didn't say that, I don't know who told him that. But he did say he kinda agree with him since he needs to know the limitation of what he wants to add or something like that with the engine.

 

[Azarkon]

That's what a lead does. George Ziets prefers it that way, he hates writing dialogue. I don't doubt Tides of Numenera is the same way, with McComb coming up with all or most of the character concepts, and other writers fleshing out those concepts. Torment with its "one guy comes up with and writes almost all companion dialogue" is an outlier.

Yeah, and that's why Torment was the best written game out of the group.

Also, Ziets came up with the companions for a story that he wrote. Sawyer came up with the companions for a story that Gonzalez wrote. How is that fine? It's understandable for the story writer to tell his team that he needs the following companions for his plot, but Sawyer was not that guy. There is no logical explanation for why he was given the task of coming up with all the companions.

In fact, this isn't even a first for this company. Didn't Chris just say that he wrote all the companions for NWN 2 but that none of them were his concepts? Why do they keep doing this? Give your best writers creative control.

 

[Roguey]

Sawyer came up with the companions for a story that Gonzalez wrote. How is that fine?

Gonzalez's job was to execute the vision of the project lead and director. Going by his linkedin, he seems quite grateful for the opportunity Additionally

The high-level design of the companions and areas in F:NV (outside of the Strip) was entirely mine, as was the entirety of the system design, but I did not do any of the hands-on design for any quest or location, I didn't design the central plot or conflict (that was John Gonzalez), and I only wrote a small number of dialogues (Arcade, Hanlon, Kimball's speech and a few others).

I dictated the overall tone and direction of the setting, story, and system mechanics, but there was a huge team of people responsible for doing the actual design work and implementation. At times, I demanded specific things, like the ability to kill any non-child NPC in the game and still complete the critical path. In most cases, I let the designers have a lot of freedom within a loose outline of what an area was supposed to be. Sometimes the designers convinced me to change the outline of those areas, so in the end, they had more influence over the high-level design than I did.

Anyway Fallout companions aren't that big of a deal. One can easily complete it without even talking to any of them.

 

[Azarkon]

Sawyer came up with the companions for a story that Gonzalez wrote. How is that fine?

Gonzalez's job was to execute the vision of the project lead and director. Going by his linkedin, he seems quite grateful for the opportunity Additionally

The high-level design of the companions and areas in F:NV (outside of the Strip) was entirely mine, as was the entirety of the system design, but I did not do any of the hands-on design for any quest or location, I didn't design the central plot or conflict (that was John Gonzalez), and I only wrote a small number of dialogues (Arcade, Hanlon, Kimball's speech and a few others).

I dictated the overall tone and direction of the setting, story, and system mechanics, but there was a huge team of people responsible for doing the actual design work and implementation. At times, I demanded specific things, like the ability to kill any non-child NPC in the game and still complete the critical path. In most cases, I let the designers have a lot of freedom within a loose outline of what an area was supposed to be. Sometimes the designers convinced me to change the outline of those areas, so in the end, they had more influence over the high-level design than I did.

Anyway Fallout companions aren't that big of a deal. One can easily complete it without even talking to any of them.

As much as it looks as though I'm taking a shit on Sawyer, what I'm actually taking a shit on is this philosophy of having the lead writer - in this case Gonzalez - not setting the "tone and direction of the setting, story, etc." It's pretty obvious that this ought to be a writer's job and not Sawyer's, unless he thinks of himself as a writer, which he doesn't look to, and in any case he did minimal writing as he himself said.

Such a lead role ought to be earned from years of experience writing video game stories & characters. But in actuality, I'm not able to come up with a single game that Sawyer wrote. Did he write Icewind Dale?

 

[Roguey]

As much as it looks as though I'm taking a shit on Sawyer, what I'm actually taking a shit on is this philosophy of having the lead writer - in this case Gonzalez - not setting the "tone and direction of the setting, story, etc." It's pretty obvious that this ought to be a writer's job and not Sawyer's, unless he thinks of himself as a writer, which he doesn't look to, and in any case he did minimal writing as he himself said.

Well, it worked, so it's not so obvious after all.

It's called Tim Burton's Nightmare Before Christmas but he neither wrote nor even directed it.

 

[Azarkon]

It worked for one game and even then I'd say it was Gonzalez's story who made it work, rather than any of the companions. In NWN 2 and Pillars of Eternity, it obviously did not work.